Ahoy there me mateys!  This here be the third book in my Scallywagathon 2019 Challenge.  Challenge three was Angle of attack: a book about a problem facing society.  Dry is a book about water shortages in California and the consequences of long term drought.  Water rights issues are very serious and complex and I find them weirdly fascinating.  So I have been meaning to read this one for a while.  Unfortunately I be in the minority with this one.

I listened to the audio book and had some problems with it from the very beginning.  But of course I have a challenge to win (and didn't have anything else to listen to).  I love dad Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe series so far and was expecting to love this too.  But the characters' tone and voices were kinda annoying from the start.  Add in implausibility central and a slow, pointless plot and it gets even more irksome.

So I thought I would share some of the many things I hated (spoilers aboard!):

- The main character, Alyssa, is so naive and stupid even though the beginning talked about her logical powers of deduction and how everyone thinks she should be a lawyer.  Then she never makes a choice that makes sense.  She is constantly putting herself and others in horrible situations.

- The next door neighbor, Kelton, is the son of a prepper.  He talks about guns and relates trying to get a girlfriend with deer hunting.  Of course he has had a crush on Alyssa forever.  He is supposed to be socially awkward and just comes across as annoying and stupid.

Edit: In honor of Sarah @ hamlets&hyperspace (follow her!) who left a comment about the deer hunting, I found the deer quote and thought I would share it.  The first mate thought it was stupid too.  UGH.  It hurts me noggin to read it.

For example, winning the affection of a girl is a lot like shooting a deer. It’s pretty important that you approach slowly and with caution—and preferably from a posterior angle, where they have little to no vision. Women, like deer, can be scared away by a strong musk, which is why it’s important to always wear deodorant. Dressing in camouflage doesn’t hurt either, because in my experience, girl find camouflage really cool. But all of that aside, I think the most important aspect of obtaining a girl of the opposite sex is knowing when to pull the trigger. Metaphorically, that is. You gotta make your move when it feels right, or else you’ll come off as creepy. This I know from experience, too.

- There were two characters randomly tossed into the mix about half-way through the book.  Jackie and Henry are both selfish and obnoxious.  They are added into to make angst and provide plot momentum.  I hated both and thought the book would have been better without them.  Plus the voice actor for Jackie had a voice and speaking style that grated on me nerves.  No offense voice actor.

- All of the major characters are 15 or older.  None act their age.

- All the adults are stupid and make stupid choices.  Especially when it comes to their children.  The prepper accidently kills his older son.  Alyssa's parents leave their children unsupervised in a crisis.  Who knows where the rest of the parents are.  MIA.

- This book's tone was so young at times.  It felt worse than a middle grade book.  The dialogue was cheesy and ridiculous.

- There was no detailed background about how the tap-out got started or "real" statistics about what was going on.  It was just a random mess.

- How was there an entire reservoir that happens to have water in it for the main characters to find at the very end.  Of course they can't actually get to the water.

- A firefighting plane drops water on the burning characters and forest and doesn't kill them.  What??

- The crisis officially ends the VERY next day after the kids are saved.  Bleh.

I could go on but I be tired and it's time for some shut-eye. There were a couple things I liked:

- The whole neighborhood knows the prepper's house.  So a mob comes and breaks in.  This makes logical sense.  I have preppers in the family who think they will survive the zombie apocalypse.  Me thought is that the mob or military will take yer stuff first.

- When the kids get to the bug-out shelter of the prepper family, the older brother had been living in it and ate all the food and drank all the water.  Made me happy.  Plus it was unexpected.

Fun premise.  Bad execution so it walks the plank!

Side note: if ye want a great water crisis book read either the water knife or memory of water.  Arrrr!

Check out me other reviews at https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordpress.com/

Ahoy there me mateys! I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . .

This novella is about two telepaths trying to survive in a prison planet.  One, the protagonist Bee, is determined to escape even though her memory is faulty and she can't even remember why she was sentenced.  The other, Chela, is only focused on day-to-day survival and refuses to discuss much of the past.  The prison that they are in happens to be a cave system inhabited by bug swarms.  The two women rely on each other and their love to keep sane.  Bee suspects a secret behind the prison and is surprised to one day hear the voice of a new telepath.

This was an uneven read for me.  I absolutely loved the entire beginning in the prison and the introduction of the third telepath.  But the book started to break down once Bee learns the truth.  I can't get into the rest of the plot because of major spoilers.  Let's just say that the book took several interesting and unexpected turns.  Which was awesome.  Unfortunately, the world-building wasn't strong enough to support them.

Though I loved Bee, the other characters really felt two-dimensional.  The politics of the world were barely hashed out and slightly nonsensical.  Bee's journey of self-discovery was interesting but the format of the plot made it hard to follow at times.  There were deep themes involved but none seemed to be explored in any meaningful way.  The theme that had the most success was the investigation into love due to the variety of types that were covered and some of the unusual circumstances Bee found herself in.

While I am ultimately glad to have read this one due to the interesting concepts and writing style, I think that overall this story would have been better served in a longer format.

So lastly . . .Thank ye Tor.com!

Check out me other reviews at https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordpress.com/

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

I have been meaning to check out Tomlinson's writing for a while and was glad to get a review copy from the publisher.  This one is a light and fluffy story that follows a repo company in space.  The main character is a human called "Firstname Lastname" due to a clerical error on her refugee status card.  First, as she goes by, is a grifter who uses tricks to con aliens out of their money as she makes her way through the galaxy.  Only she gets caught and is given a choice to join the repo crew or go to jail.  Ye know what she picks.

The plot really feels like a series of vignettes strung together.  The story details the oddball crew and their adventures to reclaim spaceships for creditors.  The highlight of this story is First and the relationships she builds with those around her.  She is the first human this part of the galaxy has seen and so silliness abounds.  Favourite characters included the transgender alien crab, the brain in a jar, the granite roommate, and the Boss who happens to be a communal organism.

There are little cultural illusions sprinkled throughout for fun though a very thinly veiled Donald Trump caricature is found so be forewarned.  It was fast-paced and I enjoyed it.  Many parts made me smile.  Nothing earth-shattering here but a pleasant popcorn book.  Arrrr!

So lastly . . .Thank you Macmillian-Tor/Forge!

Check out me other reviews at https://thecaptainsquartersblog.wordpress.com/

I really love Mira Grant and Subterranean Press but I ended up abandoning ship with this one. I could not get into this story no matter how many times I started the first chapter. I ended up being both bored and confused. Ye can't win them all I guess. Though it was very nice of Subterranean Press to give me a review copy. I hope this one finds its proper audience. Arrrr!

Ahoy there mateys!  I received this sci-fi eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

I have been meaning to try Adrian Tchaikovsky's work for ages now, so when I saw this beautiful cover I took a chance.  Turns out this 140 page story deals with first contact through the dark humor of Gary the astronaut.

An alien rock was discovered out in Oort Cloud and Gary was one of the astronauts sent to explore this amazing find.  Of course disaster strikes and Gary is separated from his team and is lost inside the artifact.  The story is told from alternating sections of Gary's present and Gary's perspective on the discovery of the artifact and how he ended up in his predicament.  The problem?  Gary seems a just a bit insane.

I actually really enjoyed Gary's unreliable narration.  It did take me a minute to get absorbed into the story because Gary's modus operandi is a rather scattered approach of putting his thoughts together.  But I wanted desperately to know more about the artifact and how it works.  So I kept reading and found that I loved following Gary on his rather desperate journey.  I was both entertained and horrified by poor Gary.

Turns out there are way more questions than answers.  Also the physics of place kinda hurt me noggin.  But I very much enjoyed the expedition and the silly ending.  This was fun.  I will certainly be picking up more works by Adrian Tchaikovsky in the future.  Arrrr!

Side note: "Aldebaran" from the title is the fourteenth brightest star in our sky and is known as the "Eye of Taurus."  The name derives from the Arabic for "the follower."  Cool!

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this memoir eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

Okay so I be an introvert from an entire family of very extroverted people.  The ma can meet and talk to anyone and makes life-long friends everywhere she goes.  Me sis loves parties and tons of people hanging out at her house.  I be a tough ol' salt who has a withering glare, a distaste for crowds, and a cutless for prodding if ye get too close.  And yet I be the weird one.  Bah!  As I grown older and even more set in me ways, I like nothing more than long nights at sea with me book and me bunk and the peace of the waves.  So when I saw this title it made me laugh and I had to give it a go.

And the author's journey is hell, pure and simple.  I was impressed.  I can talk to strangers if I must.  Though the sails end up tattered and all hope was nearly lost, I have survived public speaking engagements.  A Captain must do such things or face mutiny.  But doing improv or performing stand-up comedy.  I would rather slit me own throat.  I am an introvert who despises having to force extrovertedness at all costs.  Only for survival mateys!

I ended up having a decent time reading this one.  I certainly found the first half of the book much more to me taste then the second half.  I feel that the latter part of her year seemed to be discussed in less detail.  It was less about the interesting people she met and more about the social situations liking traveling alone or taking magic mushrooms or more comedy nights.  I have no interest in the mushrooms and no problems traveling alone.  So I did get a bit bored.  But ultimately I applaud this kindred introvert and her pluck.  Congrats matey.  I raise me grog in toast.  Arrrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Andrews McMeel Publishing!

Side note: for the large majority of introverts on me crew, if ye haven't read quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking then I suggest giving it a gander!

Ahoy there me mateys!  It be no secret that Sarah @ brainfluff likes to increase me ports for plunder list by exponentially high amounts.  And thank goodness because her awesome review led me to this amazing read.  She said:

This is the overarching theme of this book – what happens to the griefstricken when they can revisit events from their past, still have conversations with their dead partners and interact with them? The answer Sweterlitsch gives, is that there are some who are unable to move on – who spend all their time and resources stuck in the past. And Dominic is one of these lost souls…

In this book, the city of Pittsburgh was pulverized a decade before.  But people can still visit the old city in the form of the Archive, a digital version of the city made up from the camera footage and saved memories of the doomed residents.

Dominic was out of town when he lost his wife and unborn child.  He continuously spends time in the Archive reliving the past with his wife in 3-D.  He works for an insurance company trying to confirm causes of death for claims by using the Archive.  But when he discovers a dead body that someone was trying to hide, he is drawn into a large conspiracy.

One of the hellish highlights of this book is the world building.  It felt so real and yet so alarmingly scary.  I would not want anyone to be able to access me own memories and follow me every move.  I know surveillance is a current thing but the idea of people being able to interact with dead me is unsavoury.  The data is not me.  Creepy!

In this world sex and gratuitous violence to sell everything is the norm.  It is disheartening to say the least.  As Mogsy @ the bibliosanctum puts it:

Thomas Sweterlitsch has created a future where technology runs rampant. Everyone has an adware implant in their head and access to information is near ubiquitous. People have become wholly dependent on the computer chips in their brains, and the result is a dehumanized society with a strong sense of disenchantment and nihilism. Feeds run continuously in an endless stream, with up-to-the-second news updates. Grisly details of accidents or crime scenes are made public at the speed of an eye blink, along with the darker secrets of the victims’ lives. The society eats up their sex tapes as voraciously as they revel in the graphic violence.

Right on.

Also how the author chooses to tell the story is hardly glamorous.  Dominic is no dashing hero.  The resolution of this tale surprised with how realistic it felt.  The author stayed very true to his own world-building and it was both depressing and somehow glorious.  The book is stark and left me feeling both unsettled by a reality I don't want to live in and also engrossed by how well the author plotted the story.  But above all I was very sympathetic to Dominic and truly wished him well.  An odd book that is hard to recommend but that I am so glad I read.  Arrrr!