roadtripreader's Reviews (357)

 I'm getting closer and closer to my first 5 star read of 2024. This was really close For a novella, the steady progression from joy to tragedy was magnificent. Untethered was beautiful and a welcome SF palate cleanser to 30 scifi books and shorts in 20 days.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
So lush and velvety going through the Roc-Ruhker training process and on the exact opposite of this experience, the closer I got to Ester's childhood memories with Arnan, the deeper my sense of dread and foreboding.

Two Sentences or less - Characters:
Both Roc (Zahra)and Rukher(Ester) were meant for each other:
Ester: Either she would become a ruhker, or she would die trying.
Zahra:Her sister tried to kill her, to push her out of the nest, but she hung on.
Darius: He had his arm broken by a roc while he was tethering it. He fed his Roc with one hand while the other lay limp and probably in excrutiating pain.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Manticore horrorshow of Ester's childhood. This memory coupled with the birth and near death of Zahra solidifies the idea that this Roc and this Ruhker are soulfriends.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “A roc is always a wild thing, always God’s monster alone.” (majestic)
🖤 “A monster can’t love you back, so there’s none of the guilt of a reciprocal relationship. You’re already subjugated.” (Roc and Ruhk love)
🖤 “People have short memories, but nature is patient and implacable” (On false sense of security)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ The Deceiver
■Manticore Frenzy
■Rocs
■Rukhers
■ Sensory Deprivation Training

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

Every couple of years or so, I too desire a "fresh" start - What I'd give for this main characters Fresh Start on Long Reach Station. But his true fresh start is not there. It's somewhere untouchable and unreachable unless...

It is tragic.

Long Reach only looks like a fresh start, only resembles freedom.
It’s an illusion, just like everything else.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
At the heart of it is a broken Father-Son relationship. Or Scientist-Subject relationship. I can't decide.

Character Development/Favorite Character:
Ira, is a conundrum. He has Stockholm syndrom twice over. First as a human amongst Genteel then as the son of a Genteel senator kidnapped by Earthers and geld fkr a year. Poor kid.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Father and Son. Terminal velocity:
“There are things the Senator could say right now that might change the trajectory of our lives. Throw us out of each other’s orbit. But he’s always been the planet, and me the moon. Only one of us is circling the other, and everyone knows moons never escape their gravitational parent without a catastrophic event."

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Nobody likes seeing humans raised by their alien oppressors, unless you are the alien oppressor,” (Ira on his adoption)
🖤 “Nobody can conquer you unless you let them. The real destruction happens inside you.
As long as you’re fighting, you’re free.” (Krux on her unrealistic, idealostic hope in the face of invasion)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Long Reach
■DNA ID Tag
■ Empyrean

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

 I did not know how to review this. Not because it was bad, but because my brain was stunned into silence in the first chapter.

You know that scene in Sherlock (BBC) where cutie-pie Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) is sitting comfortably in his chair, battle armor on in the form of a Vicars collar and some knicks and cuts on his face courtesy of Watson (Martin Freeman) and he is comfortable but ready and confident? And then Irene walks in, in nothing but her battle armor, naked as a summer sky and Sherlock is DISARMED, he can't read her, zipo zilch nada niente? Then Watson walks in, gets flustered, looks everywhere including Irene's boobs then lifts his eyebrows, coughs as if to say "DAMN girl put those weapons away" - you remember that moment? Yeah you do.

That was me, both stunned and speechless and 🤗 in the first chapter like WTF but also....eh okay that's hot.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
So there is actually a plot to this. A planet rejects two species, human and nepenthe. Nepenthe are down to their last males, most of the remaining human survivors happen to be female. Surprise Surprise - you know what's next.

Character Development/Favorite Character:
The uptight Magistrate had the most ... ahem, development.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Yesmin's chapter was a whole scene.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “god.” The words shuddered out of her, and it could only be a good sign, if she was invoking a deity.” (Dae Keth on, Yesmin)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Well, those are 10 arms tooo many
■ Nepenthe taboo: arms again.

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

How to court an alien in 10 Days or something
I've been knee-deep in The Human Division series for this Scifi month and I have loved every short story. This feels like it takes place in the same OMW/Human Division universe so I'm counting it.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
How I met your mother but without the kid. Oh and there's aliens.

Character Development/Favorite Character:
Why are Editors-in-Chief so ... what's the word ... weird? Insane? Colorful? Adept at Moral ambiguity and crossing lines.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :

Charlie attends a Cli Fertilization Party:
That’s why everyone’s put a milt ball on the table.”
“But how does the sperm get distributed from the table to you?”
I asked.
“We just add water,” Ronen said.
“Water?” I asked, alarmed. Ronen looked over at me. “?h dear,” it said. “I may have made a faux pas. We Cli don’t wear clothes. I should have told you it would be advisable to bring a swimsuit.”

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “One of the things I love about you is that you’re smart. But for this whole thing it’s like someone took your brain and hid it in the trash can.” (Claire on Charlies latest ER visit)
🖤 “I’m a dominant, Sefhuan don’t have sexes like humans do. But we have positions.” (Ttan on Sefhuan gender norms)
🖤 “In a week, you’ve been stabbed, covered in goo, baptized and tricked into sex. For what? For a story.” (Claire on Charlie's dating escapades)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
All Charlie's dates with different Aliens
■ Sefhuan game of Jard
■ Cli Fertilization Party
■ Fruden Baptism for Slavering Godhead
■Ambush shenanigans with a Durang

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

 For the Sociology more than any spice (and there was salacious, voyeuristic spice) this book was intense - I might have preferred the scientific cold view from the first installment. It is an uncomfortable book, a study of human nature a century or so after capture and domestication. Is it easier to concede and become pet and if you are born pet would you even be aware of a different kind of existence? I ended up loving it.

What an interesting study of an existential crisis. A what if pets like dogs suddenly gained self-awareness and hated what they were in comparison to their wolf ancestors who would have ripped us to shreds instead of rolling for bellyrubs.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Good lord the humans are literal alien pets descended from that first study group in book 1.
Self-awareness of the descendants of abducted and farmed humans. Would we feel oppressed if we were born into it or would our awareness be restricted to petlike and understanding and subsequently blind loyalty and joy? Would we be the dogs of space?

Character Development/Favorite Character:
Yeah my favorite character was the Whistler aka Keeper actually named Kedeel.
The introduction of the Ornamental/Embellished Human into this herd is so precarious and rife with conflict because he is so acutely self-aware and infinitely pissed off.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
The Whistler Keeper is truly a secret anthropologist at heart: He makes the entire herd of humans work together. The established males Tranq and Avoc see and have to dig and work with the Ornamental/Kory. Also, removing that lush green barrier to take away the division between the established herd and the "outsider" Kory.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “I’ve been studded out since the day I was old enough to ejaculate viable semen. Do you want to know how many children I’ve cursed to being born a freak?” (well, this is Tragic, basically a Human French Bulldog)
🖤 “My line isn’t special because of any certain way our bodies are formed, but because we’re the small remaining line of wild-bred humans.” (Holy cannoli ...WTF)
🖤 “I have to wonder if I’m really the best female to pair him with. I’m too normal to correct the gap in his humanity” (Theresa on Kory)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Whistlers
■Gazebo-like cages/stud
-pens with...water features?
■Human Breeds: Ornamentals, Gentles, Rager etc. Basically Frenchies, Golden Retrievers, Pitbulls

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

Surprisingly sweet. It was fun, it was fast, it was Yellowstone but cozier and in Space .
Well, if anything now I want to read this series of brides for Aliens on Cresca. Alas Sci-fi month is almost over.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
Aliens on ranches on an earthlike planet. Speaking my language.

Character Development/Favorite Character:
I wouldn't be averse to a full length novel on these characters. They're pretty cute together.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
I know I'm supposed to say the spicy scenes but Rosie making grilled cheese sandwiches just made me hungry and now I'm eating grilled cheese and potato chips.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “No one had ever called her pretty, or little for that matter. She had the sturdy body of her pa’s side of the family—good breeding stock, he’d told her once. He might even have meant it as a compliment.” (Poor Rosie, casual misogynoir even on Cresca)
🖤 “Harkan immediately hated the sound of the other male’s voice. It had a slimy quality, as if it were wrapped in rotting jemmon weed.” (Harkan on Matthew Johnson)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Veteran Farm Homestead for Alien Warriors from Vizal

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

In the future everything will be overlays, projections and avatars. - it should be depressing. But in the context of the Xuya Universe, it is somewhat fascinating. A 2.75 rounded up

It was okay. It could have been great or at least my definition of great. But the interaction between Van and Sunless Woods (though obviously meant to be wrought with tension and chemistry) came across more cardboard and pregnant silences that dragged and dragged. I understand in the context infantilizing a grown up in the ElderAunt-BigSis-Child system is a way to drive home the Matriarchal culture but I got tired of the titles. They weren't extensively used in Teamaster and Firestarter, but here "Child this and Child that" got old.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
In an entirely matriarchal Exam-driven intellectual society; with first and second mothers "Big Sis" and "Elder Aunts" - a scholar who doesn't belong (Van+Memimplant), a Mindship (Sunless Woods) and an elite student (Uyen) are saddled with a dead body in a study room - the beginnings of a great space whoddunit sprinkled with theft and skulduggery.

Character Development/Favorite Character:
Van has her own mind and a bastardized Scholar-AI mind nestled right next to it. What could go wrong?

The Wild orchard of Sunless Woods is at once badass, sneaky, haughty, majestic and something I can't put my finger on. Oh yeah and bloody arrogant.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Uyen and Van (with the help of Mem-implant) find literary allusions in paintings
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 "Good steeds don’t always get the proper grooms, or jade the right carver to make it come alive.” (Sunless Woods on the stupidity Class structures)
🖤 “Vân was the kind of person who walked through the world expecting it to kick her” (Sunless reading Van like a script)
🖤 “She was fierce and utterly compelling, the kind of leader people would follow into supernovas or fragmenting orbitals” (Van to Uyen)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Mindships and Mindship names
■Ancestral Mem-implants
■ Bot-wearing like jewellery or a scarf
■The Bare-House tokens
■Death by exile-implants

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

I've had that Talking Heads song playing on a loop in my brain - I don't want this series to end. Jokes on me though because I'm playing catch up. And yet, the feeling stands

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
I had no idea Hart existed outside of the Clarke. Actually, all the members of The B-Team for that matter.

It's a family affair. Hart is on vacation from the cramped space in the new Clarke and is back home for Harvest Day.
Character Development/Favorite Character:
Hart Schmidt gets his own episode and the series is richer for it. He has sinlings and oh yeah, he is a 1 percenter rich kid who chose to slog away at the Colonial Union which pisses his father off to no end. As if Ineedwd another reason so adore my beloved Clarke underdogs, in this case Hart Schmidt.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
✔️Hart and Broussard have a heart-to-heart:
✔️Oh and Hart's Harvest Day Dinner Toast.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “He is almost exactly the same. He’s not old enough yet to age poorly.” (Isabel and Brandt on Hart)
🖤 “They stuck you with a diplomatic team that’s been catching lost-cause missions for years, and assigned you to a CDF grunt who uses you for menial tasks” (How DARE Alastair call Wilson a grunt!)
🖤 “Wes is Wes. One in every family. I love him, but I think of him as a sarcastic pet.” (And just like that, now I want a Wes episode)Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Phoenix
■Massive interstellar Human colonies
■ Planetside Politics without Earth
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2025
Challenge Prompt: 150 Short Stories by 2025

One can't fill the soft spot I have for the B-Team - it's more like a crater in my heart.

Before I rearrange the lyrics to The Real Slim Shady and replace it with The Real B-Team, let me just get on my soapbox and announce that I am once again petitioning for a BrainPal.

My man with the BrainPal, Wilson coming through with the hail mary save. Every.single.time. AND I'm not bored yet.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
The Earthlings are coming! The Earthlings are coming! By god the earthlings are coming!. Lol okay but the Colonial Union and Earth relations are heating up and "The Clarke's" two earthings, CDF Lieutenant Wilson and Ambassador Abumwe have one of those missions.

Character Development/Favorite Character:
My Dream Cast for The B-Team if Hollywood or "Streamingland" deigns to put this on screen
🖤 Ambassador Abumwe - Viola Davis
🖤Hart Schmidt - Alexander Skarsgard, Lee Pace or Adam Driver(for height and weird hotness appeal).
🖤CDF LT Harry Wilson - Joseph Gordon Lewitt or Tom Hiddleston or Tim Tim Chalamet if he grows a bit more then maybe him.
🖤Neva Balla - Lupita Nyongo
🖤Captain Coloma - Salma Hayek or Penelope Cruz or if we go younger Gina Rodriguez or America Ferrera.
🖤Dr Inge Stone - Christina Hendricks or Emily Blunt. Maybe Anne Hathaway.
🖤Basquez The Engineer - Manny Montana (range keeps him typecast so this would be refreshing)

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Wilson and Lowen drinking some potent earth scotch and Lowen drunkenly realizing CDF soldiera can't get drunk.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “You’re engaging in the pathetic fallacy. Just because I look like a human being doesn’t mean I am. This body has more genetic material that’s not strictly human than it does material that is human.” (Wilson on being CDF modified)
🖤 “They’re either going to kill each other or start sleeping together simply as a defensive maneuver.” (Wilson on the new Clarke)
🖤 “Wilson realized his long-held wish that Abumwe would actually relax from time to time was clearly in error. This was a person who operated best and most efficiently when she was truly and genuinely pissed off;” (Wilson on Abumwe)
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Blblllblblb Doodoodo of Burfinor,🤣 maybe Scalzi fell asleep on the keyboard but this name works wonders
■Magnetic Cups
■ The Human-to-CDF transfer process
■SmartBlood - oxygen sequestration

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

Guiseppe! Can you make me a real girl! Pardon, I meant Ursula - the difference between sentient and sapiant. Mech 6.0 is a self aware sentient-sapient android and it's a tragedy.

Plot/Storyline/Themes:
What a sweet little tale of a droid and emotion, love, communication all of it - or the essence of human interaction. And pain. Both kinds of pain.

Character Development/Favorite Character:
Mech 6.0/Hoshi-Star is a curious droid. And even though that killed the cat - Mech 6.0 is becoming Becoming self aware, becoming curious, becoming something more. She feels fear and rage and is overtaken by spontaneity. And then, there's jealousy.

Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Scene: :
Mech 6.0 feeling pure reactionary instinct and then diving into a vat of oil. Her machinery recognizes this act ad "self-destructive" sequence.
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Quotes:
🖤 “Listening to him felt like being plugged into a power dock, feeling the gentle current of electricity warm and enliven her.” (Star on Dataran)
🖤 “She could not stand to be lost to the darkness forever, when there was still a whole universe she’d never seen.” (On being brave. On freedom)
🖤 “All humans were similar, with their two eyes and protruding noses and five-fingered, fleshy hands.” (Mech6.0 summing up human features )
Favorite/Curious/Ludicrous/Unique Concepts:
■ Mechdroids
■Android and Human Character names here are LEVELS
■Dataran's Locket with the universe in it

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