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 book just did not work for me.  I gave it a good whirl and actually finished it but was ultimately very disappointed.  The main premise is that two best friends have a start up company called The Future where they have a device that can pull internet data from one year in the future.  The story is told using emails, texts, articles, and transcripts.

I did like the format.  But I read this book wanting to know how the device was used in a practical sense.  I was not satisfied with how it works or evolves.  I found one of the main characters, Ben, to be beyond horrible as a person and I almost stopped reading half-way through because of it.  Frankly his best friend and wife deserve better.  The subplot involving the two of them was irksome though.  Plus that ending was awful and cheesy.

I do think this book can find a good readership.  I just wasn't in that group.  Arrr!

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

I really do enjoy Aliette de Bodard's writing and was excited to read this novella.  It was a quick read at around 100 pages but the length is its greatest flaw.  The basic story is easy to follow and was compelling but I felt that too much background and emotion happened off the page.  This was particularly true with Giang.  Giang was the most interesting character in the story by far and yet doesn't appear often, wasn't really explored, and thus made the ending rather unbelievable and confusing.  The world building also felt kinda flat.

What I did enjoy was the main character, Thanh.  Her history of having been a hostage to a foreign nation, her forbidden love affair, and her relationship with her mother were very intriguing.  I just think that this novella would have been better off expanded in length so that all of the fascinating elements could have been explored satisfactorily.  Arrrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Tor.com!

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received an eArc of this thriller through NetGalley in exchange for me honest musings.  This be the sixth book of a series.  While I try to post no spoilers, if ye keep reading this log then ye have been forewarned and continue at yer own peril . . .

I love Kelley Armstrong!  I discovered her through her young adult book, sea of shadows, and she became me most read author of 2016. I have really been enjoying this series and I didn't even read the blurb before I requested this one.  While ye can read books 1 - 3 and get the gist, books 4 - 6 build on each other.  I do recommend starting at the beginning.

This novel continues the adventures of Rockton's detective, Casey Duncan.  For those who be adventurous and are readin' this post having not read the previous books, Rockton is an off-the-grid town in the Yukon.  People pay a council to spend time in this town to hide from their pasts.  Some flee domestic abuse.  Some flee other more unsavory problems.  Suffice to say, the town is not an idyllic wonderland.

Casey is always getting pulled into trouble.  This time, an injured hiker is found in the woods.  It seems as though she has been attacked . . . and not by a wild animal.  Where are her companions?  Who tried to kill her?  And how is Rockton supposed to maintain its secrecy now?

I will admit that this plot was way more ridiculous than the previous novels.  I will also admit that I did not care.  This was a quick, fun read that made me happy.  This book solves the major mysteries of the previous books.  I truly did enjoy watching Casey investigate.  I enjoyed getting the watch many of the relationships develop.  I didn't love the big reveals but I do love the world and characters.

Some minor issues:  I would have preferred more Jacob, Sebastian, and Mattias. There was a bit too much repetition of the background of Rockton and residents that ye already know from previous books.  I feel that this impeded the pacing a bit.  And the bear thing was SO silly!

Apparently the author is contractually obligated for a seventh Rockton novel which she is working on now.  I cannot quite imagine where the story is going to go from here. Arrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank ye kindly St. Martin's Press!

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

To those new to the crew, ye should know that horses were me first love before the sea stole me heart.  So obviously I wanted to read this series about magical horses, known as phoenixes.  Basically these horses were gifts from the gods, are powered by the sun, and last a day before bursting into flames and turning into ashes.  The riders save the ashes and when they are set back out in the rising sun, the phoenix horse is reborn.  Of course there be a catch.  If ye mix certain chemicals into the ashes, the phoenix's properties can change.  They can become faster, grow armor, etc.  Cool.

This is the second book of a duology.  War is at hand and the three classes - ruling Ashlords, middle class Longhorns, and Dividians at the bottom wait to see who is going to get the upper hand.  But it seems like the Gods are also at war and the consequences are interesting and unexpected.

This story continues with the three points of view - one from each of the three classes.  One thing to note about the points of view are that they change tenses: third person, first person, second person present tense.  Ashlord Pippa and Longhorn Adrian are at opposite sides of the conflict.  Imelda continues to be the surprising wildcard.  Like in the first book, I liked the two girls but found Adrian to be rather bland.

Unlike the first book, the phoenix horses do not play much of a real part in the plot.  I missed them.  The tone and focus of this book was completely different to book one.  It sometimes felt like another world altogether.  I did think the pacing was a bit off and the book could have had some restructuring or trimming to strength it.  I did, however, enjoy the better understanding of how the gods worked and did not expect the plot to go in the direction it did.  I would have liked more focus on the specifics of each god.  I was glad that the romance aspects were very lightly done.

Though I wasn't thrilled with the rebellion aspect of this book, I am glad I finished the duology.  I just wish the phoenix horses had played as much of a part in this book as they did in the first.  Arrrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Crown Books for Young Readers!

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 always find this author's work to be interesting and thought-provoking even if I haven't loved all of their stuff.  This was a book full of fun concepts that I enjoyed though it did have some problems.

Evelyn is a bit of a selfish jerk but who doesn't feel bad for her when she finds out about her husband's double life with the clone he made of her.  Talk about messy.  She hates the clone her husband made with her research and without her knowledge.  But when the clone calls needing her help, Evelyn has to agree or everything she worked for will be destroyed.

This book is both a character study and a question about the larger consequences of cloning.  I found Evelyn's backstory to be fascinating.  She is morally ambiguous, driven, intelligent, and compelling.  I keep shifting between rooting for her and kinda hating her.  Martine, the clone, has been designed to be perfect replacement for Evelyn.  She is patient, quiet, docile, and wants the child that Evelyn does not.  However she is hidden and not even considered a person.  She is a specimen.  And illegal.

It was fascinating, if somewhat uncomfortable, to watch Evelyn's conflicting emotions around Martine.  This was the highlight of the novel because Evelyn's thoughts felt both logical and illogical at the same time.  And that dichotomy was the focus of the book for me.  That two impossible and opposite things can exist at the same time.  I also rather liked watching Evelyn go from a rational, if cold, person to being one driven by her emotions.  Her spiral down was fierce.

I particularly enjoyed learning more about the husband, Nathan's, past choices and what went into the making of Martine.  This was also a huge part of the problem though because there were many plot holes and inconsistences that bothered me.  Some of the plot twists were there to be shocking and didn't necessarily make sense with the rest of the structure.  Many of the things Evelyn and Martine had to do on the sly happened so easily.  And some of the plot just plain didn't make sense, especially when dealing with time and resources.  While I enjoyed the ending a lot, the journey to get there didn't quite make sense and I felt like I missed some steps.

That said, it was a quick and fun read and I have no regrets and have been thinking about the book a lot since I put it down.  Arrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Macmillian/Tor-Forge!

Ahoy there me mateys! I have enjoyed Greg Bear's work before and the concept of this book sounded so good. I love stories about shipwrecks and survival on weird islands. I did enjoy the beginning but once the boy reached the island it went downhill from there. The plot was nonsensical and actually rather boring. I abandoned ship at 38% and was relieved to do so. Arrr!

Ahoy there mateys!  Adrian Tchaikovsky's work is always enjoyable so when I saw time travel and dinosaur I said Arrrr!  This was exactly as expected.  It was a quick and humorous read where the mechanics of the time travel made me noggin ache a little but I had a lot of fun.

The grumpy ex-soldier standing at the end of the broken world and broken time is a hoot.  How he spends his time (pun intended hardy har har!) is just delightful.  Sure he is crazy but that be part of the fun.  And the dinosaur is just plain awesome.  It's short at 192 pages but it was silly good.  The plot did bog down just a tad.  But that was very, very minor.  Recommended.

So lastly . . .

Thank ye kindly Rebellion / Solaris!

Ahoy there mateys! This debut novel has really fun concepts that weren't developed to their full potential though I would be willing to try another of the author's books in the future.  I think there were too many pathways in this book and so everything got muddled.

This book follows Hetty and her husband Benjy, former slaves who are in a marriage of convenience.  They used to be members of the underground railroad helping others find freedom.  The Civil War is over and the duo help solve crimes in Philadelphia.  With magic.  But one one of their friends is killed, it becomes personal.

The Pros

- The Characters:  Hetty was by far the best character.  She has a hard exterior but still is caring and lovely.  I also loved Benjy and many of the secondary characters as well.  Penelope being one of them.
- The Magic: There is zodiac slave magic that is super cool.  Herbal remedies also play a fun role at times as well.

The Cons

- The Magic:  I loved the Zodiac slave magic but how it works is not described enough.  There is also Sorcery of the white people that really doesn't make sense at all and was a lackluster plot point.
- The Murder Mysteries:  For being such good investigators, the duo goes about solving crimes in a very ill conceived manner.  Plus I found everything around the murders to be rather boring.
- The Love Story:  The marriage of convenience turns into something else.  That was just fine.  The problem was the lack of communication between the two.  So much could have been solved in many ways if the two weren't hiding things from each other and just talked.  I hate that.
- Too Many Plotlines:  The love story.  The murders.  Missing sister one.  Missing sister two.  Grave robbers.  Boxing.  Gambling debts.  Secret societies.  Friendship issues.  A women who is passing.  Grudges.  People peddling snake oil charms.  Underground sorcery training.
- The World Building: This element just felt underdeveloped and flat.  Hetty manages to go all over Philadelphia with no real issues.  There were some interesting looks into the issues of race and privilege but not enough depth.
- The Pace:  Uneven.  With flashbacks and switching plot lines, the overall story was bogged down.  And there were lots of plot holes and unrealistic incidents.

While this was an okay read, I found the characters to be compelling.  I do think the author has talent and I look forward to seeing what else she writes.

So lastly . . .

Thank you John Joseph Adams / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt!

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

A story about a cult in a dystopian future that takes place in a submarine?  Aye!  This debut fit me mood perfectly and I loved it.  Though don't read the blurb if ye don't want spoilers galore.

The highlight of this book for me was the setting and atmosphere.  A doomsday cult hides out in a submarine waiting for the day to release the last nuke on board.  The main character, Remy, holds a special position on the sub but even that doesn't have a ton of perks.  Seriously life onboard is harsh.  I felt that this book captured life on an ancient, failing machine quite well.

Remy was a fun character to follow, if a bit naïve.  I did enjoy the world-building of a religious order on a sub.  It was fun to see the elements of Catholic monastery life mixed in with ship life.  The plot was a little bit unrealistic in terms of probability at times and needs some suspension of disbelief.  But I didn't ultimately care because I enjoyed it so.  Plus it is a super quick read as well.

This novella reminded me a bit of sisters of the vast black and I enjoyed comparing the two takes on religious fervor of the future.  I highly recommend both novellas and I will be checking out more of the author's work in the future.  Arrr!

So lastly . . .

Thank you Tor.com!