Tim
This one blew me away. It's one of those stories that shifts and evolves beneath your nose, and somehow you don't see the Ex Machina twist coming until it's already got you by the throat. I loved every bit of it.
Riley starts out as an unwilling, unknowing creator, part mentor, part god, part friend, but the tide turns in a way that's subtle, inevitable, and terrifying. I even found myself shipping them at one point (oops), before the creeping dread kicked in and I realised this wasn't going to end well.
The writing is brilliant: emotional without melodrama, grounded without being dry. It feels real, which makes the whole descent even scarier. It didn't necessarily make me rethink AI or consciousness (I've already been down that rabbit hole), but it will for anyone who hasn't.
The ending? Chilling, logical, and perfect. Terrifying for a human, but completely understandable for Max.
Didn't love this one. I get that it's supposed to be “deep,” but it mostly reads like someone describing a dream they half-remember, then insisting it's profound. The whole “oh, I couldn't possibly describe it to you, but imagine it as...” thing felt lazy. No, Ursula. That's your job. I'm here for the descriptions, not a creative imagination prompt.
The dark twist was fine, but the “perfect city built on a child's suffering” thing felt heavy-handed and oddly hollow. It had no weight, no emotion, just an author winking at me saying, “look how clever this is.” The grim bits felt more real than the utopia, but even that didn't land.
It's somehow waffly and vague despite being short, like someone tried to copy Lovecraft's voice but forgot to include any horror or heart. The ending? Predictable. “Some get cross, and others leave.” Okay, hun.
Maybe I'm just the one who walks away from Omelas because honestly, there wasn't much to stay for.
The concept was strong, but the execution just didn't quite land for me. The idea of a citizenship test that pushes morality to its limits is fascinating, and honestly, feels like something my own government might actually do, but the writing style let it down. Ending a chapter with “NNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO” made it feel a bit like a GCSE creative writing piece, and there were a few other moments like that which broke the immersion.
Idir, though, is great. Honest, courteous, kind, the sort of person who deserved citizenship before even taking the test. The story explores dehumanisation on a community-wide scale (there must be a word for that), that awful idea that it's better to conform to the wrong ideology than challenge it and risk standing out. That part hit with how things are now days.
The pacing was fine, and the concept carried it further than the prose did, but it never really got me in the gut the way it clearly wanted to. Even the big emotional moments fell flat.
Fantastic idea, middling delivery. Idir deserved better.
This was pure fun from start to finish, punny, self-aware, and constantly winking at you like a smug NPC who knows they're breaking the fourth wall. I sniggered all the way through.
The whole thing gleefully mocks RPG tropes, level grinding, fetch quests, chosen one prophecies, but somehow still nails them better than most serious fantasy stories. Every time something predictable happened, I found myself muttering, “of course... of fucking course...” but grinning while I said it.
Yui is a fantastic protagonist. A total badass, but not in the overpowered sense, more in the clever, chaotic, probably has a Reddit account sense. Her chemistry with Ken was perfect, two sides of the same stat screen.
The pacing was great, the humour spot on, and the story hit that perfect sweet spot of parody and genuine charm. It's self-aware without being smug, and silly without being stupid. The ending even teases a sequel, and honestly, I'd read ten more of these.
If you've ever yelled at a video game, laughed at a boss monologue, or wondered why the villagers keep saying the same line on loop, this one's for you.
Loved this one. Absolutely loved it. It's short, sharp, and feels like being slapped in the face by a humanity that's completely right.
We never hear the protagonist once, everything we learn is through the humans they meet and the outraged AI voice in their head. It's such a clever way to tell a story, and it works perfectly. The whole thing feels disturbingly current: billionaires hoarding everything, the 1% of the 1% (the so-called “Founders”) rewriting history to make themselves gods. Sound familiar?
The twist, that the Founders' people are pitied and humoured by the humans left on Earth, was brilliant. They've been gaslit into believing they're superior, when in fact they're just sacks of cells in a bio suit with delusions of usefulness.
No real “character development,” just awakening, and that's enough. The themes of control, greed, misinformation, and humanity's ability to rebuild when coming together hit hard, especially in 2025 when it feels painfully real. The AI voice is perfectly gross, sexist, racist, classist, everything wrong about power structures condensed into one outraged narrator.
The ending was spot-on: hopeful, slightly Matrixy, and begging for a sequel where more of the deluded skinless minions see the light.
Best short I've read in ages. Smart, scathing, and yet weirdly hopeful, a “humans suck, but maybe not all of us” kind of story.
I went into Akata Witch blind, only knowing I liked Nnedi Okorafor from Binti, and this one's very different, but it shares that same deep cultural grounding. It's bursting with Nigerian lore, Leopard People magic, juju, and that double-life energy where someone can be completely ordinary on the surface but quietly extraordinary underneath. Loved that.
The story simmers quietly for most of the book and then bursts into a short, loud bang with the final Masquerade showdown. It's oddly effective. The football scene was a surprise highlight, which is wild, because I don't like football.
Sunny is great: thoughtful, clever, and a bit too polite for her own good sometimes. I kept wanting her to say the thing she was thinking instead of just rolling her eyes. But she's relatable, and that makes her work. Her crew of misfit friends, Orlu, Chichi, and Sasha, felt completely real. Misfits that actually fit.
Themes of friendship, identity, and teamwork carry the story, and while the ending came in fast (and pretty safe, honestly), it didn't ruin the ride. If anything, it pushed me straight toward book two.
Nigerian Hogwarts without the TERF and way cooler, powered by juju.
It reads like home, but the wildest, most dangerous home you've ever visited. The worldbuilding sings so loud in my mind I can hear the wind in the forest, smell the sweat, feel the hum of torches. People feel real, with flaws and strengths, not caricatures. The pace is just right, enough motion, enough breathing room, never overwhelming but always charging forward.
Tone hits: excitement, hope, humour, anxiety. Grey as an optimistic captain (but not blindly so) is a delight. The stakes when Mars was down or Dot was thrown into the fray kept me on edge. Sci-fi at its finest when it's also about hearts and trust.
Standout moments: the Crest Knights blew me away, humans trained so hard they blur into magic. Dot, held back by her upbringing but bursting with power and loyalty. The fight scenes, plasma blades, alien metal, staffs clashing in midair; if John Wick had a sci-fi fantasy twin, this is it. And the crew of The Trench? Every damn one of them memorable: an oracle who despises fighting, the awkward genius doctor with perfect photographic memory, the married tech-pilot team, Mars the giant with his paradoxical softness and destruction. Even the villains feel textured, not just bad guys you shoot at.
Themes: camaraderie, bravery, friendship, love that isn't flashy but solid. The ending felt neat but earned. No cheap “they lived happily ever after” wrap, but a “yeah, we've earned this breath” close.
If you want a fun, sharp, emotional, and ambitious sci-fi space pirate ride: this is your compass. I'm already itching for the next book.
I didn't know what I was walking into with this one, other than the fact that S. L. Rowland (Steve Rowland) is that Steve Rowland — the “Author Steve Rowland” stripper from Dungeon Crawler Carl. That alone meant I had to read one of his books. I'm glad I did.
This is a cosy, low-stakes fantasy that feels like a palate cleanser in the best way. Almost no stress (almost), just gentle storytelling and drinks that sounded amazing (seriously, I want to try them).
The real highlight was Rohren and Kallum. I didn't expect romance here, and definitely not between two male leads, but I was rooting for them so hard. When it finally happened it was written so warmly that even the most cynical reader would have to smile.
Rohren himself is wonderful, intelligent, polite, caring, and his secret past as the Bloodborne, the most powerful blood mage of the Northern Front, made him even more interesting. The fact that he chose kindness above all else just cemented it.
Pacing was softer and gentler than what I usually go for, but the longer I stuck with it, the more invested I became, especially in their gentle romance. Themes of found family, friendship, and second chances made it quietly meaningful.
Absolutely recommend as a cosy break between heavier reads.
Best of the trilogy, hands down. It takes everything from the first two and just goes bigger, weirder, and somehow even more emotional.
At 67% Binti was dead and I had no idea how it could possibly continue. But it did, and it worked. Her death was gutting, her rebirth at the rings of Saturn was incredible, and the war/root burning was both grim and moving.
Binti's whole journey here feels like the perfect mix of satisfying, sad, and triumphant. It's all tied to that idea from Oomza Uni: “it grows because it is alive.” Life happens, dies, and continues because it does. You can fight it, or you can move with it. That's the core of the book, and it hit beautifully.
New Fish was a standout (so good), Mwindi too. The pacing was steady and familiar, just stretched longer to fit the scope. And the ending? Probably too neat if I really wanted to nitpick, but honestly, I don't care. I rarely get to enjoy a neat, happy wrap-up, and this one felt earned.
Best of the lot. A brilliant finale.
I liked Binti a lot. I liked Home even more. It takes the cosy, intimate vibe of the first book and makes it bigger, more complicated, and way more interesting.
This one is all about belonging; to your family, to your culture(s), to yourself. And how if you belong to too many worlds, you sometimes feel like you don't belong anywhere at all. That tension was really well done, and surprsingly relatable.
Binti herself is still bold, still lost, still stubbornly human (and not-human), but she's also more of an outcast than ever. It makes her both more real and more fragile. The pacing gave a little more room to breathe with details this time, which I loved.
The last section hit hard: humans refusing to trust what's different, maybe even killing off our Meduse ally and sparking another war. Stupid humans being stupid. It felt too close to home with all that's going on in the world, sci-fi at its best.
Straight into The Night Masquerade now, because this has me hooked.
Fresh, short, and surprisingly cosy for a book about interstellar massacre. I went in blind and really enjoyed it, it felt homely in tone, even if the subject matter wasn't.
Binti herself is fantastic: bold, brilliant, and an outsider whose perspective flips the usual sci-fi lens. As a white bloke, I appreciated that coin-flip view. She's written in a way that's both intimate and strong, and it works beautifully.
The cafeteria scene? Absolute carnage. Buckets of blood, but handled with a strange restraint. And then there's the cultural grounding, the Himba traditions and otjize clay were probably my favourite part. It felt like the author wove fantasy into sci-fi but still made it feel authentic, rooted in Earth and identity.
The Meduse could've been weirder, but they worked, not over-alien, just enough to be unsettling. Pacing was spot-on, never dragging. The ending was a touch predictable, but not in a bad way, it feels like the right lead-in to the trilogy.
Straight onto Home next.
I liked the premise a lot, but the execution was a mixed bag. The structure often felt jumpy, chapters would skip beats, forcing me to backfill the missing moments in my head instead of immersing in the atmosphere. It made me think more than imagine, which pulled me out of the flow.
The prose is very steeped in Japanese cultural and folkloric references. That in itself isn't bad, in fact, it's one of the book's strengths, but as a non-expert it sometimes left me scrambling. For an international audience, a little more subtext or context could've gone a long way.
There were also moments of repetitive phrasing that distracted me, which is a shame because when the writing hit, it hit well.
On the plus side, the creeping horror works. The characters behave believably in the face of dread, sometimes even acknowledging how much it feels like being trapped in a real-time horror movie, which made the tension more grounded. The ending was sad, and wrapped things up in a way that allowed imagination to continue past this book.
Creepy, claustrophobic, and very atmospheric, but uneven in delivery.
A sharp, unsettling novella that I tore through in 90 minutes flat. Not exactly a book you “enjoy,” but it had me hooked from start to finish.
The tone mixes domestic dread, cosmic weirdness, and reality slippage. One moment you're in the supermarket, the next your whole life is unrecognisable, rewritten, and stripped away. That reset feeling, where everything is wrong and there's no way after everything was wrong then it was returned, broken, hit hardest. The finale, a burned-out home and a life erased, lands like a gut punch as he was so close to being back with his love.
Phil is a poor bastard, an ordinary guy who just happened to be in the wrong aisle at the wrong time (or was he guided there?). He's relatable in his averageness, which makes the cruelty of his fate sting more.
It's not scary in the jump-out sense, but it is deeply unsettling and weird. Short length, great pace, and surprisingly strong worldbuilding for such a quick read.
A sour little snack of cosmic horror.
Really liked this one. The yokel speech, the mix of belief and disbelief among the townsfolk, and the sheer weirdness of the Whateleys all build a strong atmosphere. It's less about scares and more about creepy gothic vibes with a satanic edge.
The imagery is great: the “thing” in the hills, the farmhouse, the strange, dark presence that never feels of this world. It's all foreboding and alien, if not outright terrifying.
Wilbur himself didn't read as tragic to me, he felt too knowing, too much a willing cog in the interdimensional weapon being set loose. His part in it is creepy, not pitiable.
The ending lands well, with the inevitable “brother” reveal tying everything together. Compared to The Colour Out of Space, this feels more slow-burning and less striking overall, but still a strong piece of cosmic gothic horror.
Creepy, cool, and very Dunwich.
My first foray into Lovecraft, and I really liked it. His poetic, old-fashioned style is strangely captivating, constantly throwing in words that have fallen out of use (thank you, Kobo/Wikipedia plugin). It feels alien even in the language.
The whole thing is defined by what you don't see. You never fully glimpse the Colour, you can't even imagine it. It's described as literally unimaginable. That's very cool, and very different from most horror.
The tone for me was more creepy intrigue than outright horror. Not scary, not traditional sci-fi, just eerie weirdness pressing in from the edges. Some images though... haunting. The grey decay spreading through all life, the mother turned into “something” in the attic, and that unseen, only heard, sludgy squelching presence downstairs. Ew.
I liked the narrator a lot. Balanced, skeptical, but clearly unnerved by his own minor experience. And the horror works because it's all foreboding dread rather than jump scares.
The ending is great, a touch ambiguous, a lingering sense that the Colour isn't gone. I did wish for a bigger crescendo, something to really terrify me. Still, as an introduction to Lovecraft, this is spot on: short, unsettling, and not too heavy.
Unimaginable, in the best way.
“Enjoy” isn't quite the word, but I couldn't stop reading. Gran's style is so conversational and sincere; no unnecessary cleverness, just direct storytelling that pulls you along.
Early on, it's genuinely creepy (the tapping/scratching had me squirming), but it never really tips into scary. Instead, it shifts into something sad and inevitable. I liked how the narrative itself became less coherent as Naama took over, like the possession was leaking into the prose.
The scratchings, Amanda's growing distance from Ed, the slow decay of their relationship... it all builds to a bleak inevitability. The killing hit me as tragic more than horrifying. Amanda felt sympathetic, though a part of me kept wanting her to fight harder, which of course is the whole point. Naama doesn't just take you, she convinces you not to resist.
The pacing is spot on. Short, sharp, finished in two sittings. The “editor's notes” at the end, a Q&A to unnerve the reader, didn't work on me, but I really liked the concept.
Overall: not terrifying, but effectively creepy, weird, and sad. A great entry point to the demon possession genre, and a quick read that lingers afterwards.
Creepy, tragic, and weirdly conversationa, like sitting through a confession you really didn't want to hear.
This isn't one of King's big “jump scare” stories, but the imagery is unforgettable. The golden eyes on the chest are unsettling, but it was the eyes on the hands that really got me. There's something deeply repulsive about the idea of palms staring back at you.
The tone balances cosmic horror, body horror, and existential dread. The astronaut narrator feels sympathetic and utterly doomed, especially with that brutal and understandab e ending. Him using his hook hands to drag a shotgun to his mouth because “it's started again”? No happy endings here. And honestly, the bleakness makes it stronger.
Not terrifying by modern standards, but bold and deeply effective in its time and even now. A reminder that the scariest horror is often just being forced to live with something you can't stop.
Well. That was a thing.
Kaiju Battlefield Surgeon isn't Dungeon Crawler Carl or The Grinding, but it doesn't need to be. It's a beautifully grotesque creature of its own. The more I read, the more I enjoyed it, even as I was wading through mucus, surgical trauma, and the rapid erosion of Duke's sanity.
Despite its reputation, the gore didn't overwhelm me. Yeah, there's viscera and cannibalism and the infamous ceremony (YOWCH), but the over-the-top absurdity and dark humour carry it through. There were even a few moments that were quietly devastating. Looking directly at you, Banksy. “Father, am I real?”
I really liked the game hud system, especially coming off the back of DCC, and it's tightly integrated without dragging the pace. The characters were pretty solid too:
- *Duke is a mess of trauma and dumb decisions, but weirdly compelling by the even though you know you shouldn't agree.
- Clara/Samantha was great... until she wasn't. Bitch.
- And Banksy. My beautiful city-sized maggot child. Deserved better.
It doesn't chase deeper meaning, and I don't think it needs to. It's messy, bitter, tragic, disgusting fun, and it knows it.
A visceral, grim, and deeply uncomfortable read, and intentionally so.
As a vegan, the world depicted in this book felt disturbingly plausible. The coldness, the way humanity adapts to industrialised cruelty, and how easily people justify horrors when it's “normal”, none of that felt that far-fetched. It's not subtle, but it's not supposed to be.
Marcos as a protagonist veered between sympathetic and alienating. One moment you're feeling for him, the next you're questioning every single decision. His relationship with Jasmine started off almost sweet... then veered hard into nightmare fuel.
It wasn't a page-turner in a traditional sense, but it held me in a slow, horrified grip, like watching a train derail in slow motion, watching people die. Some of the lines hit hard, especially the commentary on societal norms: marriage, children, meat - all just things we do because we're told is normal.
And the ending? Just... Ugh. A gut punch. The kind that makes you sit quietly for a while and go, “well then.”
Would I recommend it? Not to everyone. But if you can stomach some deep existential horror with a side of commentary on consumerism and meat industries,then yes, absolutely.
But also, no thanks. I'm good for a while.
Oh boy.
Emotionally drained, confused, elated, wrecked. This one's a beast. Dinniman turns the dial to eleven and then breaks the knob off. It's darker, sadder, and somehow still manages to be deeply funny and still full of hope.
Katia's arc devastated me: her transformation, her pregnancy, her exile. She's human again, and it's somehow the cruelest fate in a dungeon full of horrors, but also pure hope. And Donut... when she said, “I thought all of them were going to be on the inside” when talking about her scars I cried.
The cookbook entries from Carl? Beautiful, sad, heartbreaking. And when all the past crawlers and authors came back to help and probably die doing it? Gut punch of the best kind.
Lore is peak. The twist with Lucia holding 120,000 Earth kids inside her mind? The scale is insane, but it never feels bloated. Carl and Pony stay steady, while Donut catapults in power -level 80ish to 130-ish?, but it's her emotional journey that terrifies me. She's still just a sweet, young cat. I hope she doesn't break.
This is Dinniman's masterpiece so far. Dark. Hilarious. Desperate. Hopeful. Inevitable.
Don't talk to me. I'm still recovering.
A completely different beast from Dungeon Crawler Carl, but the familiar writing style is comforting in the most twisted way. This one's raw, desperate, and unrelenting.
Adam is everything Carl isn't: a coward, flawed, terrified and forced to step up when absolutely everything goes sideways. The body horror isn't an aside; it's visceral and intricate, ripping open your calm underbelly.
The stakes keep climbing all the way through. You'll swear you know the twist... and then the actual twist hits in the final paragraph and grabs you by the throat. I audibly whispered “fuck you Matt” out loud.
Set in Tucson (though I've never been there), the city feels real and broken-in. Dinniman's background living there brings the location to vivid life. The diary/eyewitness narration sucked me right into Adam's fear, dread, and screwed-up survival attempts.
Characters are not comfort food: Adam, Nif: uncertain; Scooter: deserving death; that kid with the plastic gun, holy shit, what a scene. It's pure dread the entire way.
And the horror? That weird talent of Dinniman's to describe the gross, the shocking, and the barely imaginable *lwithout spoiling anything or letting you know what's coming next is fucking brilliant.
This isn't a generic “city dies, monster wins” setup, it's clever, emotional, and savage.
Recommend to anyone craving something darker, to hardcore horror lovers, but maybe not to those who freak out at too much body horror or religious paranoia.
Absolutely loved this. Short, sharp, funny, exciting, and weirdly relatable if you've ever wanted to crawl under a table and avoid all human interaction forever.
Murderbot is a brilliant narrator: imagine if Mal from Mal Goes to War had even more social anxiety, more sarcasm, and a deep addiction to trash TV. The pacing was perfect (a nice breather after a run of much longer books recently), and the internal monologue had me snort-laughing more than once. Honestly I worry i might be a Murderbot too.
The story itself was spot on: tight pacing, fun world-building, and a plot that gives just enough without bogging you down. The human characters (aka the meatbags) were great too, especially because they didn't all immediately trust or love Murderbot, which made everything feel more believable.
Did I want a happy ending? Sure. But this is Murderbot. Emotional closure is not part of the installed settings package.
Highly recommend for anyone who likes sarcasm, action, anxiety, and awkward sentient robots who just want to binge their serials in peace.
Starter Villain is like being promised a giant lair with sharks and lasers... and getting a moderately sized office with mood lighting and a cat that tolerates you.
It's fine. Genuinely. The bones of a great, sharp, chaotic villain story are here... but it never quite claws its way to greatness. The start was slow. The ending felt like it tripped over its own shoelaces and just lay there staring at the ceiling tiles.
There are moments of real fun though, the cats are brilliant (Hera especially) and the dolphins were chaotic little agents of nonsense that really did make me grin. But the humour always seemed to hold back at the last second. It wanted to be sharper, weirder, meaner... but didn't commit. Other than the dolphins, they went there.
Also... full honesty? The whole time I was comparing it (unfairly but unavoidably) to Dungeon Crawler Carl in humour. Charlie Fitzer is like Carl with a faulty sarcasm chip and half the trauma, and once you've read DCC, mild banter just doesn't hit the same.
Would I recommend it? Sure, to people wanting light, quirky, and low-stakes villainy with cats, unionised dolphins and lasers. But if you're coming from high-chaos, high-emotion books... temper your expectations.
I really did enjoy it in spite of what I have written, I just wanted more.
What a brilliant read-aloud book to my son. Dahl's childhood was crazy, and his storytelling makes it feel like he's right there in the room with you, dropping old-school 20s slang and casually describing traumatic injuries like it's a normal Tuesday.
Read with my son, and he was shook at how grim and dif erent life was in the 20s and 30s — especially the school punishments. The chapter about his sister's appendix removal on the kitchen table? We both winced. Every day sparked new chats about how wildly different the world used to be.
Highlights included the Great Mouse Plot (obviously), and all the Repton stories. The pacing was perfect, chapters varied and snappy, and Dahl's honesty made it all the more engaging.
Would 100% recommend to parents and nostalgia hunters alike. It's a time capsule, but told with wit and grit.