Barbara Hambly has her own voice, that's for sure. The book is good, not perfect, but certainly feels unique. The characters are flawed, but make the best of what they've got, using cunning and planning, their minds always in conflict with their hearts. The first book in the series was the same, it seemed to be a standard fantasy story, but the characters' depth changed everything.

  Dragonshadow sees the couple of dragonsbane and witch having to battle demons, both outwardly and inwardly. There are some heartbreaking things that are happening, only the characters don't break down into crying and spitting emotional messes, they act the best way they think possible to defeat their enemies and save the people they love. And that includes some dragons.

  Damn it, I might need to read the rest of the series now. 

  Alien: Colony War is a classical Alien story in the "Aliens / Predator / Prometheus Universe": state, corporate and military corruption and greed, individual bravery and struggle, xenomorphs and mothers willing to protect their children, the occasional psychopath. Entertaining. I feel the author understands and respects the Alien universe.

  Alien has a successful recipe, one that unlike other franchises, no one yet tried to deconstruct, reinvent or turn into something else. Yes, I am also talking about Alien: Earth, if you look into it, it's the same story. I am talking about a world filled with despondency: indentured human work, a cold corporate profit driven mentality in the ones holding most resources, a general callousness towards loss of human life, monstrous viscerally terrifying monsters. And in this world, there is the human (and sometime synthetic) individual spirit of survival, decency and bravery. And the feelings evoked by this kind of scenario are also pretty formulaic: a mother protecting her child most of the time, but sometimes just protecting their friends, or the memory of a loved one.

  If you look closer, you will see that any attempt to get rid of this, at least in movie form, has failed. Even when putting a strong women lead like in Prometheus or AVP movies, if all they fought for was mere survival, it didn't count. Brilliant acting by Michael Fassbender, but no one cared about a scientifically curious and totally amoral synth. Predators hunting xenos didn't excite anyone, either.

  I feel like David Barnett understands this deeply. Even if he is writing in an extended universe (see the Black Goo or even the Engineers) he just mentions it in passing and keeps to the tried and true: a colony where stranded people have to survive a xenomorph infestation intentionally started for political and economic reasons.

  It's not like the most brilliant book ever. It's a well written, light, easy to read, formulaic Alien story, but it's entertaining, makes you feel something and in the end forces you to consider if you want to read another in the universe or not.

  I am wondering, is Alien the next Star Trek? If multiple authors are willing (and are allowed) to write in this shared universe, with the understanding that an Alien story has to follow a certain template, thus combining the familiar with the creative, will this (or be allowed to) grow into a rich universe, full of interesting characters and subtle but deeply scouring satire of modern capitalism? When people will just be OK to create an episodic lower budget series focusing on the characters and the world and not on the gimmicks that make certain writers feel smarter than everybody else, will this become the next big scale science fiction franchise?

  Bottom line: entertaining and respectful new addition to the Alien universe. Maybe I will just have to read more in this vast universe that is growing under the floor and above the ceiling tiles of 2020s science-fiction. 

  Wow, I really loved this book! I started reading it because of the title, expecting to read about how technology evolves ever faster and leaves people in the dust. I mean, it's very apropos these days. But then I've read the first chapter and it was a standard biographical analysis of a scientist in the 20th century. And then there was another, then an entire story about another.

  I love science popularizing books, but this one felt vibrant and weird. Also, quite hard to believe real. Not only were the geniuses of the era connected through meaningful and consequential causal anecdotes, but there were depictions of their most personal feelings, sexual fantasies, shameful thoughts. I know people back then were heavy into journaling, but I doubt they would have gone there.

  And then when the book ended, Benjamín Labatut admits that only the first chapter was fully factual and the rest veered into fantasy. Did this anger me? No! It made me want to read stories like that - that would be real. If there is not enough material, sure, fantasize away. Does that make me a bad person, falling into the thing I usually scoff against: entertainment beats reality? I don't think so. Because not only was I enjoying the heck out of the book, I also had the feeling that these stories are ... hyperreal. They went places that most people don't dare go into, especially if they were factually supported by evidence. Also, the stories were uplifting, energizing, adulating the insanity that is also genius, the manic energy to go as far as possible whether it breaks or makes you.

  When We Cease to Understand the World starts with Prussian Blue, discussing cyanide, chemical weapons and the guy that both made them and allowed humanity to grow four times in size without dying of hunger: Fritz Haber. A Jewish German who made the gas that would be used to kill his relatives in the next war. The same process produced the Prussian Blue color used by Adi to paint until he got angry about the terms of Germany's surrender and turned into Adolf.

  Then follows Schwarzschild’s Singularity, about the guy who found solutions to Einstein's equations while on the frontline when even Albert himself struggled for months to do so. He died soon after, not by getting killed in battle, but from a very rare disease that killed him in days.

  The Heart of the Heart discusses both Shinichi Mochizuki and his idol Alexander Grothendieck, both brilliant mathematicians that revolutionized the field in ways that people still struggle to get their minds around

  Finally, the largest and I suspect the most fantastic one, When We Cease to Understand the World, about Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, both discovering or envisioning what lay at the foundation of reality when delirious from disease, manic emotions and overwork.

  Reading the book is like getting dropped in a world of actual giants, as far from what one would call a normal human as we are from ants, then making us feel what they feel and understand their drive and majesty. I guess one has to be grateful to the Chilean Dutch author for daring to stretch the truth into even more truth, to make one feel that individual greatness can still mean something.

Highly recommended book!

There is a video on the internet called "Anything that comes out of a writer is fiction." where the author says "Fiction is a human tool we developed to give reality a human shape to understand what is presented to us, and that goes on at all levels. It is part of perception. There is a large part of fiction in perception itself." This book clearly reflects that belief.

  If you're into heroic space opera, this is pretty fun. The only problem is that it ignores any science and sometimes logic, but if you can get over that, the experience is pretty fun.

  The Last Watch starts with the standard rich rascally aristocrat thrown against his will into military service, where he proceeds to be better than everybody even when doubting his own self worth. Not only is he forced into conscription, but he is sent to a station at the edge of the universe that monitors no one gets in. Yeah, I told you it was stupid. And while everybody is bored out of their skulls watching absolutely nothing doing absolutely nothing, it starts doing something and adventure follows.

  The main character is sympathetic enough, even if a terrible cliché, the tough but fair and ultimately motherly female commander is OK, the science and technology are completely made up, so one can safely consider this fantasy and the finale is pretty epic, even if mostly nonsensical.

  And yes, the author's pen name starts with initials because she's a woman and somehow that became a thing, but the book is not bad. It's just not very good.

  Bottom line: J. S. Dewes presents us with an easy to read and enjoy and then absolutely forget space opera adventure. If you can get around the nonsense, it's enjoyable.

  Our Lady of the Artilects is like a cyber Da Vinci Code: religion, artificial intelligence, demonic possession and villainous plans that threaten the entire world. It's well written, with very intriguing ideas, but ultimately a little pulpy. It also feels a little outdated in relation to what AI means today.

  The time is a few hundred years into the future. The world is divided between a new Roman Empire ruled by Christians and an Islamic Caliphate ruled by Islamists after an event which reconciled the two faiths, making their alliance overwhelmingly powerful. There are hints that other nations with other religions may have been left alone, but that part is not explained. A third party, just as powerful, is China, which after the Uighur "crackdown" went even further and massacred 100 million Chinese Christians that wanted more religious freedom. There are also robots - called artilects - which seem to be powerful and intelligent, yet too expensive to be affordable to the general public and each one kind of custom made. Like Rolls Royce cars, but humanoid.

  The story begins with a Vatican AI specialist who is also an exorcist being sent to investigate the possible demonic possession of an artilect. The Roman Emperor sends an enforcer to help and nefarious third parties are also present. And stuff just gets weirder and more complicated from there.

  I liked how Andrew Gillsmith wrote the book. Even if the plot went a bit weird and a bit holy (not holly :D) I was kept interested enough to read the entire book. If you liked stuff like the Robert Langdon series and cyberpunk, you will probably love this, too. It got a little too ecumenical for me, but still a good read. Apparently the genre is called incensepunk?

  If you liked Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, you're going to like The Forgetting Moon. Complex world building, a lot of characters, a medieval slightly magical world, cruel violence and feudal machinations.

  I only got this book because Brian Lee Durfee also has a YouTube channel where he discusses books and writing. The channel isn't great for me, but the book is really good. The writing is solid, there are clear signs that the author has an outline of the entire story with consistent plot and character behavior. In short, if you want a captivating, terrifying magical war of kingdoms grimdark fantasy, this is for you.

  It's not all great. One of the things I really hate in fantasy is the prophecy angle. People do stuff because of something that was foreseen, and the readers know that it has been foreseen, so it will happen, so the reader knows it will happen. It robs of the agency of the characters. The only good prophecy angle is when they all find out it was all bullshit. This is further confounded by active characters that can see some of the future. It's like the spoilers are published in the book!

  Another thing that bothered me is the weird behavior of the characters, especially the female ones. At one time they are proud, the next they are meekly following instructions. One moment they want to defeat everybody in battle, the next they are scared little children. At times they are proud royalty knowing everything that happens in their realm, and at other times they are OK with their castle being infiltrated by enemy spies they can't control. And it's not often that it happens, but it does happen eventually: the character decides to do something in the heat of the moment that just happens to be what the author needs to happen. Come on, Durfee!

  But the story is vast and quite interesting. I don't intend to read the other books any time soon mostly because it requires that much investment. But who knows, maybe I will get back to it.

  Funny enough, the winning Alien formula: female motherly protagonist fighting for her virtual family's survival, was not present in the original film and the mostly unsuccessful attempts introduced stupid concepts like the black goo. Alien: Inferno's Fall combines both and it's decently done. I think it needs more rating.

  It's not like it's perfect, the title alone is remarkably dumb for example, but it's a typical Alien story, with all the tropes we've learned to love: the motherly figure fighting with all her maternal instincts to protect her family, the indentured service economy run by sociopathic management, the synths that are more than synths, the Colonial Marines, alien ruins, arrogant Engineers, the black goo and, of course, a lot of terrified running from monstruous xenomorphs which usually doesn't really help.

  Phillipa Ballantine's writing is decent, too. It didn't spark joy or anything, but it kept me on the edge of the proverbial seat. So if you're into the Alien universe and lore, this is something you should read. If you have no idea what a xenomorph is or what the black goo is, then you should not read this and instead see the movies.

  This seems to be her first book in the Alien universe and she has written another (Alien: Seventh Circle), so even if this story didn't add much, it could be said that it's the setup for the next book(s). I don't know. And I don't know if I will ever read another Alien book. I am interested in the world building and stories, but it's mostly curiosity, not excitement.

  One of my pet peeves with the Alien franchise is (other than that it's a franchise) is the black goo mutagen lazily introduced in Prometheus. It was a subpar Alien movie, it was mostly stupid and it introduced so many breaking changes in the universe. If you think about it, there is little difference between that substance and the mutagen in TMNT. Maybe Disney and Paramount should pull a Spider Man and join the two franchises together. Who needs Predators when you have teenage ninja turtles? It makes that little sense!

  Bottom line: a decently written but formulaic book in the Alien universe. It plays around with existing concepts, without committing to anything truly unique or novel. Good for a long airplane flight.

  Service Model has an amusing premise: what would robots do in a world that has slowly lost all humans? And in the beginning it's interesting, with a service robot accidentally killing its master during shaving and all the mechanisms of society trying to find out who did it and punish them, going through all of the rituals and all of the rules, regardless of the culprit admitting he did it and a recording of the fact being available.

  Adrian Tchaikovsky has a subtle subversiveness in his writing, usually describing something, but hinting at something else. In this story, the rigid standards of society are examined and found wanting. One can easily imagine the same story, but less extreme, happening in any environment bureaucratic enough.

  Alas, this is about robots, and after about 40 pages (10% of the book), the same amusing premise is still being presented and run with the robots going around in circles of pointless ritual. I am sure the story evolves into something better, but I didn't have the energy to grind to the very bland and boring beginning. I could have skipped ahead, but instead I've decided I would read something else.

  Ogres is another standalone novella by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It can be simply summarized as "capitalist Spartacus". In a world of genetic masters and meek servants, a hero emerges. The point of this is not another YA story about rebellion, but a pretext to dissect the social and economic mechanisms that power our civilization. Spoiler alert: it's not good.

  The biggest problem with this novella is that it's written in second person, which felt rather annoying. You that, you this... maybe it was a writing experiment, but I did not enjoy it. But other than that it was a short "what if" story that hit a lot closer to home than one might think. In a very science fiction way, it may have predicted a near future that is coming our way. Shudder!

  The classic rebellion plot is simple: describe a world with demonstrable injustice, raise the hero among the people, have them win at the end. The trick is to make the world building just close enough to reality to be relatable, but far enough so you don't start thinking too much about the similarities. The point would be an emotional catharsis, not a philosophical awakening. Well, by those terms, Ogres is an extremely transgressive story.

  But enough of that, because I don't want to spoil it. I liked the story, I liked the reason for writing it, the plot was masterfully crafterd, I did not enjoy the second person writing style, but still totally worth reading.

  And Put Away Childish Things has been published in both standalone and part of an anthology of three novellas published as one book. In the story, Adrian Tchaikovsky plays around with Narnia tropes, but sneakily focuses on the internal struggles of the protagonist, thus dissecting our own psychology when getting held captive by stories.

  What if the children books your grandmother wrote were actually about a real place? And what if that place was not as childish and wonderful as described? And what if it would give meaning to your empty life anyway? These are the questions in the story.

  While not perfect, I liked this novella. It's easier to fall in love with a story when it's short and the exploration of this one has not overstayed its welcome, nor did it meander into side quests or redundant characters. Fun! 

  While I enjoyed the Adrian Tchaikovsky novels and series I've read, I think I like this kind of novellas the most. In Elder Race we get a deconstruction of royalty asking help from the powerful wizard against a demonic threat trope. But in fact, this is one of the human diaspora colonies and there is no magic, only science and people who have forgotten it, yet the focus is on the internal perspectives of the characters and how they look at the same event from completely different places.

  I was a little surprised to see that this is part of a series. It felt standalone and, if anything, it should have been considered part of the general universe of the forgotten human colonies (Children of Time) rather than a separate Elder Race series. Anyway, I don't think that it required a continuation. As it is, we see the wizard who is actually an observer from the second wave of human expansion being beseeched by the local princess (of a culture regressed from the first wave) against evil magical forces encroaching on the human settlements. The princess has to prove herself in front of her family and the scientist has his own demons while he is battling clinical depression. Being completely alone on the planet and waking up every couple of centuries certainly doesn't help.

  The things lost in translation between the princess and the scientist is what makes this book shine and to feel different from just another fantasy story told from a modern scientific perspective. It examines the deeper interaction between people, transcending the pure science fiction angle. Now I am reading another novella from the guy and it's similar, but deconstructing Narnia type tropes. While I enjoy following longer narratives, I feel that this kind of short explorations of ideas is where sci-fi really stands out. Good stuff!

  I thought I would try something else. Since I liked Blood Song, the first book in the Raven's Shadow series, I went with another Anthony Ryan book, but from another series (Covenant of Steel). This allows me to understand the writer more and pick and choose which series I want to continue with.

  And the verdict is that I liked the main character in The Pariah more, but I liked the story less. Still a good book which I recommend, but the writing patterns that were merely surprising in Blood Song veered towards annoying when also used in a completely different series. And by that I mean the foreshadowing of things to come - which are slight spoilers most of the time - and the obsession with fate or prophecy, both reducing the agency of the main character tremendously. Add to that the levelling up of the character from uneducated to scribe in a merely four years, while also working in a mine, and it gets old fast.

  The story revolves around this kid who is part of a band of outlaws. He is fiercely loyal to the band leader, infatuated with the leader's girl and, other than happily killing for his guy, a pretty smart and decent human being. Yeah, don't overthink it. Stuff happens and he embarks on a journey of adventures in a medieval world with just the right amount of occult and magic to make it not feel like simple historical fiction.

  I was saying that I liked the character best in this book because he is a little more gray than the absolute moral powerhouse that was the lead in Raven's Shadow. Just slightly so, as most of the book we still get the principled moral choice every damn time, but enough to make him feel more real. Other than that: incredibly beautiful women who don't seem to need any sex, medieval battles and politics, heroes and villains, lots of mud and horses and running and planning and the promise of another epic saga of unbridled heroism.

  Bottom line: Good book, interesting setting, good characters, but a story formula that only feels fresh the first time you consume it. It would have benefited from less fate determinism and more moral gray areas. Even the character admits, in situations of very consequential choices, that he didn't have real options because of who he is. Feels like Ryan should listen more to that complaint from his own character!

  Finally, a great fantasy book! A traditional hero that comes from hardship and overcomes through skill and good reasoning, plus a dash of magic that doesn't overwhelm the overall story. Job well done, Mr. Anthony Ryan!

  The only complaint I have is that Blood Song is long, yet still just a slice of the overall story. People already are accustomed to endless magical worlds extending dozens of books, but sometimes it's just nice to have a standalone once in a while, you know. Yet, at least for this story, I get it. The author was a full time researcher and has a degree in Medieval History. There is much attention to detail in the world building and the way society works, the kingdoms, the characters, so to just waste it all on just one book would have been insane.

  So, on to the story: in a country where "the Faith" is all powerful to the forceful exclusion of any other religion, of which there are many, a young boy whose mother just died is left by his father in the service of "the Order". Well, Ryan is nothing if not a poet... Anyway, it's basically a dad sending his grieving son to military school, only also in the service of the Faith and in an adapt or die kind of situation. What a dick, right? Our protagonist thinks so, too, but he is dutiful, intelligent and hard working, so he eventually gets to shine.

  I love this kind of characters: surviving through action and thought, rather than luck, overcoming hardships and thus evolving as a person, rather than just increasing in power level or whatever. Also, no one tries to deconstruct anything or pander to any kind of audience. Vaelin Al Sorna is a classical male hero, well written and well balanced.

  Now, that's just the beginning, because a combination of adventures, foreshadowing and even prophecies let us know in no uncertain terms that he will have a sad but greatly consequential life. And even if he gets through a lot in this book, there are five novels in total and at least as many novellas set in this world.

  Yet, the characters are compelling, the subjects mature, the story captivating and the writing delightful without being too pompous or complicated. This was a near perfect book for me and I expect I will be reading the rest of the series, too, sooner or later.

  Penric's Demon is the first book in the World of the Five Gods series, which spans four novels and eleven novellas, and it's a novella itself - although the same Wiki page saying this has a list of 19 stories, make of this what you will.

  Short, entertaining and with a main character that I immediately liked, there is no reason to not read this book, I think.

  You see, in this fantasy world, Lois McMaster Bujold describes five gods of which one is "The Bastard", responsible with demons and stuff. In fact, there are four "main" gods that each get a season associated with them and The Bastard is responsible for all things out of wack, or out of season, so to speak.

  So in this world there is the possibility to get possessed by a demon which is like a non physical entity that inhabits you, grows with you and also gives you power. A very interesting idea, in which the demon is actually shaped by the people it "rides". It's not so much parasitism as symbiosis.

  Penric is a nice young man going to his wedding, only to accidentally get a demon. Only the demon is not that bad and Penric has not been trained/brainwashed into the religion of the Bastard so that he would not know how to interact with his new companion. It's more of a setup book, as it doesn't span many events, just a short introduction into a world that will become much larger in time.

  I don't know if I am going to try the entire series any time soon, but I might. I really enjoyed Penric's Demon.

  The Rook starts intriguingly with an amnesiac woman with strange powers who receives information in the form of letters from herself written before she lost her memory. And I've read that part, which was decently written, until I realized that I knew the story. They made a TV show out of it, which I did not enjoy.

  You see, from the great start it veers rapidly into a "secret paranormal government organization" thing, which is one of the most boring fantasy genres ever. But it's worse, since the woman is an agent of this organization and she has to hide that she lost her memory. So we're inside the organization in all of its pompous bureaucratic splendor instead of the more appealing side of the genre where the protagonist is trying to evade them without knowing too much of the group.

  Therefore, I stopped reading. I can't comment on the quality of the book or on Daniel O'Malley's writing after only a chapter, so I will leave it at that.