dsvcyber's Reviews (19)

Relic thief teams up with an alien to scour the galaxy, and maybe even the entire universe, for a powerful item that holds the key to the survival of an alien species. Seems like an absurd plot but the author does an excellent job of fleshing out the background to make it seem plausible. The only negative is that the ending felt rushed to get to the conclusion that left some questions unanswered. I no longer expect perfection for a book to get a perfect score but simply ask myself “did I really enjoy reading it?”  and give the score that reflects my answer to the question. Sure there were some imperfections in the story but there was never a point where this felt like a chore to read. Imaginative and thoroughly entertaining.

I may be in the minority but I found the protagonist to be insufferable. Someone who’s trying to be edgy but comes off cringy with the whole hacker-elitism belief that she’s so much smarter than everyone else. At the same time worrying about wearing Elliot Alderson style getup to make sure everyone knows how smart she’s is and that she is not concerned with appearances. Her entire personality is vapid and self centered, the only reason why she cares about anyone is solely based on how good they make her feel and anytime she starts feeling any negative emotion she simply “compartmentalizes” it, a word the author uses over and over. Some of the over the top non-sense coming out of the character is legitimately eye-rolling like this little statement:
“Oh. I tried not to pay much attention to US politics-after all, most of what I hated about present-day America was stuff I helped to invent.” It doesn’t stop there. One moment the character stresses that she “had zero fucks to give about face” because she knows who she is, and not even a page later retelling exaggerated stories of her work that made her sound like superhero to her mother all the while questioning who she was trying to impress. 
In addition the author seems to have a solid grasp on technology but every once in a while sprinkles in stuff that makes you realize he may not know a whole lot after all. He explains MySQL database as “an open-source database used by everyone in the world except greedy contractors who wanted to mark up Oracle licenses…”, which comes off as someone who knows the right jargon, the right words, and tools but doesn’t really use them. The small lapses add up to undermine the credibility of the “elite “infosec” baddass the immature main character is supposed to be.
Even though the author attempts to evolve the main character the effort feels off. I felt that at any moment she would revert back to ethically dubious choices whenever her own own comfort and livelihood were actually threatened.
Part of me hoped that having knowledge of information security would mean I would enjoy this book a bit more that the average person but it actually turned out the opposite in my opinion. While the plot may have some promise when it finally shows up, over all it’s hard for me to recommend this book because of the shallow protagonist and disjointed technical knowledge of the author.

The book is a behind the scenes look of Pegasus Project, an investigative piece of journalism that exposed the prolific use of NSO Group’s cyber surveillance tool Pegasus against independent journalists, activists, dissidents, civil rights attorneys, and political figures.
This is an extensive work with credible sources and provides a peek into dystopian reality that cyber surveillance is shaping. This is not a cautionary tale but the reality that every individual needs to be aware of and not take for granted. As technology becomes central to our lives, the barriers to privacy are lowered. This tool is not an anomaly but the future that awaits us. “…any technology bestowed as a tool of liberation could also be turned into a tool of repression.”
My only disappointment in this book is how little of the technology behind Pegasus is actually explored. I wish the authors had one of the researchers from Security Lab of Amnesty International that created the forensic tool that exposed the presence of Pegasus on iPhone or Android phones write at least a chapter or two on how the zero-click infection was achieved.
This is extremely important book for people to read in order to understand the warning signs of when the government is taking steps to silence or smear the journalists that are exposing their corruption and ineptitude.

Part time period fiction and part story on life and relationships. While most reasonable person would not call a book based in late 1990’s to 2011 as period fiction, this book’s characters are video game designers and by video game standards this most certainly fits the description of period fiction.
There is no central plot except that the story revolves around 2 friends who grow through the years, make video games, and make a mess of their relationships and those around them and create bonds that are unbreakable.
There’s humor, warmth, success, failures, tragedy, and loss woven through the pages just as in real life. There are many big themes present in the book but I personally wouldn’t want to rob someone of uncovering their own by explaining what spoke to me in this book.
For those looking for a plot and a tidy conclusion, you will be disappointed. If you’re wanting a story of life and how we are influenced by our environment and those around us as we grow older, how big and small events, our relationships, our insecurities, our fears, and failures shape us and chip away at us and slowly makes us who we are, well this is the book for you.
The only negative for me was the whiplash in the second half of the book when the author changes to first person narrative and back and then plunges you into a weird perspective of being a character in a game that is aware that they are a character in a game.

There’s nothing terrible about the plot, the writing, or the characters. While the fact that most of the main characters were either queer or trans unique, they somehow felt stereotypical and cliched. Some of the plot points seemed contrived and nonsensical yet completely predictable. Completely average read for me but I can completely understand that it would find a much better reception among LGBTQ+ and Pacific Islander community.

I remember reading this book when I was 11 or 12 years old and absolutely loving it. The epic scope of the story, the adventure, the whimsical tone had me hooked.
Finally decided to reread this a few decades later and to my disappointment this has not aged as well as I had hoped. The language has changed significantly since this was written and found myself struggling with clunky sentences and descriptions. There were moments where Tolkien describes something to only brush it aside as unimportant and parts he hurriedly fast forwards where days and weeks are compressed into a paragraph as if he himself was getting bored writing the story. It reads like a story that should be told by the fire rather than read. My recommendation is for anyone looking to read this to go for an audiobook version as it will be certainly more enjoyable in my opinion.
Surprisingly, I found the star of the book is the world that Tolkien describes. The hills, rivers, mountains, the woods, are all described in a way that makes the world feel real. In contrast the characters are rather dull and uninspired. There’s definitely value in slogging through this to look back on the beginnings of the modern fantasy genre and realize how far it has come.

I’m extremely puzzled at how this title repeatedly makes it on so many lists for must-read fantasy books. I get it that it is whimsical and skewed towards younger audience but many times the descriptions are absolute nonsense and have no meaning. Maybe that was the author’s intention for this to be an odd and outlandish story and maybe it would have worked if the story wasn’t full of mundane tasks like cleaning, cooking, and patching clothes that the main character spends what seems like half the book doing. I kept waiting for something profound or meaningful to appear in the pages so I would have some redemption in not wasting my time reading this. I plodded on determined to see this through and looking back I have regrets. This should have went into DNF (Did Not Finish) pile.
If you happen to read this and find yourself not enjoying it after a few chapters, do yourself a favor and move on to another book, it will not get better.
The setting and the premise of the book is intriguing. However, I found myself disliking every single character in the book. I wish I was joking but every single character introduced was excruciatingly irritating, bland, and vapid. The story is exaggeratingly childish, full of nonsense, and lacks any purpose.
If you’re wondering who hurt me that I can’t find joy in a “feel good” story, there are plenty of excellent “feel good” and whimsical books that I’ve read and joyed. This is just not one of them.

As a follow up to A Little Hatred, there was a lot of high expectations for this novel and Abercrombie doesn’t disappoint. It starts out as a slow burn with the wealthy and those in power scheming and plotting to acquire more power and wealth, manipulate others to their side, and incite war to achieve their desires.
One of the most memorable parts of the book for me was when Abercrombie described a battle from different points of view of regular soldiers, exposing war as a meat grinder where participants in the end do not really care or understand what the conflict is about.
The worst of the human nature is exposed using dark wit in a way that very few authors have ability to accomplish. There are twists and turns in the plot, maturity and growth from some characters, backsliding and acceptance of their own depravity from others, all wrapped up in a package filled with humor, violence, uplifting heroism, catastrophic failures, misery, hope, love, and hate. It is a fantasy world that matches the real life written in a way that makes it hard to pull away from.
I most certainly wouldn’t be surprised if I read through all of Abercrombie’s books before the end of the year.

At least it’s short. Honestly this is a weird book to criticize as it is written from what must be author’s experience with the disability central to the plot. The biggest gripe with this short book is that I felt like the main character IS the disability. The actual characters are flat, bland, and completely forgettable. The fantasy and lurid thoughts are all centered around the things the main character is deprived off because of the disability, the things the able bodied individuals may take for granted or enjoy. Definitely a good reminder to meditate on being grateful for the things we have versus focusing on what we do not. While the lesson hidden in the pages is a noble one, the delivery is just ok, but that may be the fault of translating the work from Japanese, which can be challenging.

A reimagining of the tale of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior that ever lived. Combining history, Greek mythology and legend, told from the perspective of Patroclus, Achilles’ closest friend and lover.
This book has opened my eyes in a way nothing else has been able to in understanding love between two people of the same gender. In my youth I have scorned and revolted at the idea of homosexuality. Over the last decade that has been replaced with my belief that while I don’t understand it, I would not want people to be treated less than human because of who they love. While homosexuality is depicted in television shows and movies frequently now, I’ve never seen it done in a way that moved my understanding of “love between two people.” Until this book.
The first part of the tale is a story of love that exposes the pain felt when society is not accepting of what is the norm. It is told in a dreamy, almost wistful style, as if a tale recited by an innocent child. It is a tale of love that is pure, love that is torn at by society, love that is doomed to end in tragedy and pain. The author succinctly reveals what very well could be the reason why homosexuality is so abhorred in patriarchal society by writing “Our men liked conquest; they did not trust a man who was conquered himself.” There is irony in that Achilles goes to war for the cause of heterosexual relationship that is stale and cold, yet accepted as the ideal, in comparison to what he and Patroclus share but is rejected by the world.
The second part is tale of men choosing glory at a heavy price, glory that echoes through the ages instead of leading an ordinary life. Choosing what is expected of you instead of what you desire. Choosing to spill the blood of your own child to sate desire of power, renown, and wealth. Choosing violence, death, destruction. Those things that are momentary horrific and fleeting in lieu of peace that is long-lasting, to only regret their choices as war stretches out to last years. And then accept and change and seek out things that are opposite of violence and death as war becomes an occupation lasting a decade. And finally, there is no greater enemy to ourselves than our own pride, it destroys everyone that gives it power.