roadtripreader's Reviews (357)

 It's The "Continental" without the hitmen (for now?) but it makes up for it by being a butt-kicking structure with gorgeous guests (looking at you Arland) and a pocket sized devil dog . Yeah, a fast favorite. It's cozy and filled with magic! (Imagine Ms Tilda Swinton in Dr Strange doing that thing with her hands as she says: "magic").

So not what I was expecting at all. See, I was expecting high fantasy. But then again I might have "forgotten" to read past the 1st sentence of the blurb and just gut-added to my cart and here I am LOVING it. Another point to Urban Fantasy , looks like I don't hate this subgenre afterall.

Okay, I might just do this, I might binge-read some more Illona Andrews books later today. 🤔

Plot/Storyline/Themes :
If your story starts out with the Heroine trying to put a stop to doggie killings - she's my hero and I am usually into the antihero but Dina is my hero. All the other stuff was a big bonus.
Also as one who's obsessed with all things Camelot and Arthurian legend, I'm loving that this gated community is Camelotified or Camelotesque?

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Gertrude Hunt B&B: A sentient place with beauty and sharp teeth.
"It was as if a medieval castle and a Southern-belle, antebellum mansion had a baby and it had been delivered into the world by a gothic wedding-cake decorator."

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Every time Beast came around I just cooed and cackled. But honestly there were too many good scenes to pick.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “That's not a dog," Sean said.
Beast let out a tiny snarl, astonished at the insult.
"You're asking me to take a dog with two ponytails seriously.” (Aaaww, Beast ignore the Hot bad werewolf!)

🖤 “For me hotness was a complicated matter involving brains, humor, and some other things, but all that aside, I was willing to admit Sean Evans was nice to look at.” (ah yes, the sapiosexual. Samesies but hot is hot)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ The Innkeeper's Broom
■ Dead-Tree Books: Creature Guide
■ Dahaka and Stalkers
■ Coffee as potent as whiskey
■Supernaturals as Aliens visiting earth

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Romance Books by 2025 

 Aww; I really wanted to love this one. - Started out good and for a second I thought I'd jumped ahead in my nonfiction hard science reading list. That opening had me double checking but the 2010-2073 life and death year settled it.

It had promise and it would nosedive into not my taste and then rise and land firmly in something I enjoyed.
2.75⭐ upgraded for Lena story

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Multiple stories some hits and some misses. I can see what they were going for though. Makes me weary of trying to read the rest of the qntm backlist.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
I cared for no one. I just read and moved on, read and moved on. Very clinical.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
The Difference chapter was interesting but Gorge was the best in my already depleting interest in this collection.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “the longest-lived MMAcevedo underwent brain death due to entropy increase at a subjective age of 145.” (On AI Death due to extreme context drift and workload.)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ MMAcevedo: Living Snapshot of A Brain
■MMAcevedo's Context Drift

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Science Fiction Books by 2025 

 okay but for reals, what made SecUnit disable that governer module in the first place? Cutiosity is gnawing at me. - I know, I know; AI self-awareness stories are a dime a dozen but I love Murderbot so a true deep dive into the place in her psyche that cracked open would be a treat to read. I suppose we're moving in that direction in the series.

Okay back to Exit Strategy after this quick little detour.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
SecUnit being a binge-watching machine. She loves this show "The Rise and Fall of Sanctury Moon"hell anything Sanctury Moon and Murderbot is in the feed. She's a Fanbot.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Murderbort before Aydesh and team: "I can always kill the humans after the next series ends. Even the humans think about killing the humans"

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
SecUnit's process of reasoning before deciding to save Sekai was so typical of early Murderbot processing. It's Scary and adorable. Scadorable

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “likes SecUnits. Even I don’t like us. We’re part human, part-bot constructs, and we make everybody nervous and uncomfortable.” (proving it's possible for a synthetic to feel self-hate)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ SecUnit
■The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon
■ Hacking and Inceptioning The HubSystem

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Short Stories by 2025 

 Is this a new subgenre? Big Department Store eats customers? Retail Horror?
What came first, ORSK or LitenVårld? You know what - I refuse to check between Horrostor and Finna because these books have started a trend and I'm here for it. Both have this way of setting Faux-Ikea so well in all it's eery Get-Out-While-You-Can and Do-You-really-Even-Need-A-Paycheck or Is-That-Minimalist-Desk-Really-Worth-It? Flee for your lives vibes. Thing is, when I read Horrorstor, I was in the middle of redecorating my study and had to go to Ikea anyhow. This time around, I was just peckish for meatballs - must be the fear chemical in my brain over-ridden by craving hunger because guess who's going to Ikea later today? This shopper right here!

Anyway, my take away is this - I need a tracker or I'm bringing one of my dogs with me on my next trip to Scandinavian-Americana Deathtrap Narnia and I need to leave a marker to help navigate the showrooms.

Why does my survival plan sound like the sequel to Finna-Horrorstor? Deeply Concerning.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Rescue mission into the LitenVårld multiverse to save Grandma Nouri! Yee haw! Let's goooo!

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Both Jules and Ava are painfully relatable. I can identify several behaviors and holding patterns even I went through for years. I should be triggered by them but I love them both and wish they'd heal but healing is another set of behaviors that needs to be learnt over all of that.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Ava and Jules on the trail of A Grandma Ursula Nouri:
"We should go before we’re stalked and eaten by a sofa or something. Hopefully the next universe won’t try to kill us.”
After a brief hesitation, Jules stood up as well. “You’ve cursed us now.”
“Probably,” she agreed glumly."

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “The heart was a stupid, hurting animal, and her heart was stupider than most.” (Awww, poor Ava)
🖤 “Even a stupid place like LitenVärld had a fandom.” (I mean I am part of the Ikea subreddit, does that count?)
🖤 ““This is why you should read the instructions!”
“Really, Jules?!” Ava screamed. “Because I might need to escape from a swarm of cannibal drones?”” (The sum of 2 personalities)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Pasta Gift card for going into a Wormhole🤔 I'd take it if it were Olive Garden
■ Multiverse Ikea-style
■Finna
■ Måskhal
■LitenVårld Showroom Names
■An Appropriate Replacement

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Science Fiction Books by 2025 

Book one was the best from the series - book three made up for the utter letdown of book 2. So I guess the sum of it's parts makes Interworld satisfactory in the end.

I noticed the "voice change" in Book 2 and I have a feeling Gaiman wrote less of that than would have us believe. It's pretty obvious in Book 3 but I don't feel "hoodwinked" because it's right there on the front page: Husband and Wife Reeves wrote this. With that in mind, I did have a good time and was rooting for the Joeys, the Harkers, the Jays and the iterations all the way

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Thank You Mr Dimas for asking all the questions so Joey could remind us what had happened in book one. I had almost forgotten. Great refresher. So book 3 is about, well, saving the world from FrostNight and taking down Binary-Hex once and for all. Oh and there a loose end in Acacia that needs to be resolved.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Best Joey: our Joey boy! Usually I don't care for the hero but he is sufficiently flawed and comes back stronger from his mistakes.
Adorable Joey: J’r’ohoho the crntaur
Magnificent Joey: Jo, Jakkon, Josef, Jarl and Jari
Hilarious Joey: Jai and his vocabulary
Tragic Joey: J/O. I miss him.
Worst Joey: Josephine

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Reunited in a cave in a mountain in Interworlds Past in prehistoric Earth. It was soo sweet!

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “I was used to not knowing where I was, but I’d never really had to question when I was. Not until my recent association with a Time Agent, anyway.” (Joey on Time in Interworld)
🖤 “Hue was like the universe’s best looking glass, like the missing element that made everything fall into place. That made everything make sense. Walking was no longer about finding the door, it was about suddenly realizing you were surrounded by doors and you knew exactly where every single one of them went.” (The best thing about Interworld. Hue)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Hue
■Soliton Array Engines
■Interworld Beta
■Kinesthetic telepathy
■Advanced dimensional tracker

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Science Fiction Books by 2025

 Saloninus is such an arse! - I bloody love him.

That's saying a lot. I "met" him in Pulling the Wings of Angels and his genius pissed me off because of the earth shattering affect it had on that world's belief system. But Science must, after all, pull down the curtain of magic and superstition. He was their Newton-Tesla-Heisenberg and so much more.

And yet, starting here at the beginning or some ways to the beginning - I can't help but like this unreliable narrator. His truths are indistinguishable from his lies. I found myself shocked 😮into forced understanding on so many pages.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Saloninus The Philosopher is a lying liar who liars. A liar, an accidental killer, a genius all round - literature, science, art and most importantly, Saloninus the Liar is the Alchemist to beat and blend and change all other metals into something priceless and magnificent.

K.J. Parker built a world from our world that is so rich in things that make worlds well...worlds that I keep forgetting none of them are real. I found myself trying to find the books of these philosophers and alchemists and scientists mentioned and couldn't find them on Goodreads or google. Shot to the heart - they don't exist this side of the dimension.

Two Sentences or less - Characters:
Phocas: Patient murderer or more to the point, a royal serial killer with the facade of being a friend and protector.
Saloninus: Alchemist, Thief, Criminal, Philosopher, Author, Inventor, Magician, Priest, Lying Liar who Lies.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Saloninus holds a Funeral lecture on the elements of the Human Body being burnt at the stake. This is his eulogy and honestly it is romantic in an academic way.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Time melts. In its liquid form (aqua temporis), it seeps and penetrates, like a thin mineral oil, and pools, and floods, under the influence of heat (the agency of fire, passim). Withdraw that influence and it congeals, like hot fat in a pan, and in its solid state undergoes a kind of slow transmutation into a gooey mess, in which you get stuck.” (Saloninus alchemical view of Time)
🖤 “It’s probably a mistake to teach logic to the young. Logic is a weapon as well as a tool. You learn it, you master it, you can’t wait to go out and use it on someone.” (Father Saloninus being wise and spitting facts)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■The Alchemist: Saloninus
■ The Invincible Sun moves in orbit of Earth. Curious indeed.
■Philosophers, Scientists,
■ Ichor Tonans
■A walnut-sized gob of pulveus fulminans

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Speculative Fiction Books by 2025 

Would it be Scifi Month without a cameo by Murderbot? - and thus I find myself back in the dangerous capable energy-blasting arms of everyone's favorite SecUnit.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Its a bunch of chit-chat about a presso to change the way the world sees SecUnit's. Okay its way more serious than that but its 20 pages and I'm not about to drop major spoilers. So let's go with chitty chitty chat chat (🐼 - Po's immortalized words)

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Ayda: PTSD is in her bones. Poor thing can't string a thought together without going back to her imprisonment.
Murderbot: as experienced via Ayda and Bharadwaj and never directly in the narration comes across as equal parts innocent, curious, deadly and human.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Murderbot seems at peace for now:
"SecUnit is tucked into a chair in the corner, probably watching media in its feed. It’s good to have it there, too."
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “In the Corporation Rim, everything has to be owned by someone.” (Capitalism in the future really blows)
🖤 “SecUnit jumped over my head?” (oh man I am in AWE of Murderbots speed)
🖤 “SecUnit is looking down at her. “You can hug me if you need to.” (Pass me a tissue😭 SecUnit has grown)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Alliance
■Corporate Rim
■ Retrieved Client Protocol

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Short Stories by 2025 

 okay okay Lunar Chronicles, you got me just a little curious  - it only took 3 novelettes to convince me but now I'm in this world of New Beijing or Luna and Androids and cyborgs with glitches and so forth.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
The practice of cutting ties with biological family once conscripted is truly cruel and unusual punishment just to be a great thaumaturge soldier or whatever. The soldier pack was uninspired and expected.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Ohbrotherbrother brother. It was one of those stories about opposing brothers.
The Pack: I couldn't help but roll my eyes, of course the Alpha would be someone named Brock. Lol how "unique"🤣

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Z experiencing the worst shadow thoughts in his little 12 year old life. They basically inceptioned him without the sleeping and with instant immediate effect of him leaving that house and his family post haste.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Z cringed, repulsed by the knowledge that she had seen these horrible thoughts. Not only seen them—she had created them. She had been manipulating him, and it had been so seamless, had intertwined with his own emotions so effortlessly” (on the power of the thaumaturges)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Thaumaturges
■shadow Intrusive thoughts

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Short Stories by 2025 

 Glitches is satisfactorily sad - and a short but poignant look at life of a newly "hatched" cyborg. "Little Android" was way better. I do like this world Meyer has created. I might just stick it through and read the series.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Cinder is destined to be hated here. There's a commentary in this, subtle but there. New Beijing is awful for the Cyborg just becayse of Adri but then again Cinders life was ruined in a Hover crash in Europe and they sold her, an 11 year old kid to some stranger so it's lemons on lemons on either side for Cinder🤷🏻‍♀️.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
Adriwas bloody exhausting by page two. Wish there was a special place in hell for people like Adri but alas, there's no hell just here and now.
PearlPearl Pearl. I can't even go there.
Peony was utterly adorable, expected of the younger sibling.
Garan was haunted from the beginning.
And Cinder. Poor Cinder

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
A girl becomes cyborg becomes mechanical engineer all to impress a bigot stepmother who'll probably never love her. But the moment she fixes Iko is bursting with hope.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “If only it worked. If only she could show to Adri, and even Garan, that she wasn’t a useless addition to their family after all. That she was grateful they’d taken her in when no one else would. That she wanted to belong to them.” (This is why I hate Adri)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ letumosis
■Iko's Glitch

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Short Stories by 2025 

Twice is still a coincidence - but if I stumble upon (and enjoy)a 3rd Mafia in Space style book, I'm going to take it to mean I do actually like Mafia Romance - they just need to be in zero gravity or far flung planet.
It caught me and hooked me and as voracious recovering speed reader - that's what gets me staying up all night reading instead of sleeping. Pity it was barely a novella.

After this though, Clean Sweep.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Oh man rejection and revenge make for something that leaves me wanting a whole lot more.

Two Sentences, A Scene or less - Characters:
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“You have my heart. Where would I go without it?”
“Home, Celino.”
“Not without what is mine.”

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
For some reason the two food-related tete-a-tete, mind-tango scenes really got me.
✔️Passion Cones and pink wine in a bakery
Or
✔️Delicious soup out in the garden
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Love was a rebellious emotion, it defied constraints of reason. She no longer cared about the twenty-two year old who, in his rush to freedom, trampled her. She discarded him long ago, except as fuel for revenge. His temple lay in ruin, his statue shattered, his hymnals burned. She would never again worship him or any other.” (Welp. Also 💔)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■Melders
■ The lethal kiss of Ene-Ribbons
■diaphanous indigo veil

StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Short Stories by 2025