Matt

Just finished Dragonslayer, book 2 in the Convergence series by Craig Alanson. Picking up immediately after the conclusion of the first book, I enjoyed this one immensely. Kaz and company are hunting a dragon and continuing to learn about magic, the Nether, and the Order. 

The Will of the Many is the fantastic start to a fantasy series from James Islington, author of the Licanius Trilogy. Set in the Roman-inspired Catenan Republic, an orphan harboring no love for the nation  stemming from a dangerous secret, is adopted by a Senator to investigate a mysterious death at the country's most elite academy. Vis is quickly tangled in a web of conspiracies and mysteries that play out in a way you have to read to believe. On the outset, this book seems extremely similar to Pierce Brown's Red Rising, but despite the parallels Islington crafts a story that diverges from Brown's work (or at least the first three books that I've read) in significant ways, creating a wholly unique and captivating fantasy experience. Excellent character development, shocking plot twists, and good world building. Readers will be left with many questions, but it's a brilliant ride that left me eager for a sequel. 

Mickey is an expendable, a clone designed to complete dangerous tasks in service to the colony, but when a mission goes wrong he'll discover a whole lot more than he bargained for. Ashton has written a fun and interesting sci-fi novel, which I generally enjoyed. Unfortunately the plot sometimes got bogged down by an alternating timeline of info dumps and redundancy, but overall I liked the characters, setting, and plot. 

I finished the FORWARD collection on Audible and I really enjoyed it. This anthology collects novelette/novella length stories of tomorrow, exploring the impact of emerging technology through the lens of speculative fiction. Featuring six excellent authors: N.K. Jemisin, Veronica Roth, Andy Weir, Amor Towles, Paul Tremblay, and Blake Crouch (who also curated the collection), each of stories was well-written, superbly performed, and presented interesting ideas. My favorites were Emergency Skin (Jemisin), You Have Arrived at Your Destination (Towles), and Summer Frost (Crouch). Overall this is a great anthology and I highly recommend it for sci-fi fans. 

HARD REBOOT: Upon a second reading I have increased my rating by half a star. An excellent novella about finding love amidst giant fighting robots. Kas comes to Earth on a research trip to study old code, but quickly becomes entangled in a wager that becomes more than she bargained for. Overall it was a cute story with real stakes. I loved the mecha combat sequences! found myself wanting to know more about the universe of this book, and would love to read more set here. I found I got more from this story as an ebook than an audiobook, but that may be on me - not on the narrators.