Steve Gibson
A very unusual book with some interesting aspects in it. This is a mystery set in a future post-apocalyptic world. A team of archaeologists are exploring a buried city. It is almost 1000 years after the big apocalypse that ended our world. It is a very tightly controlled world with police watching everyone all the time.
The story follows the team and the lives of some young people who are somehow related in a prophecy that will change the world they live in. I liked that Esperanto is the official language of this future world. I liked that the most important political goal for the future government is to prevent war.
Now for the difficulties with this book for me. I had a hard time reading each character's story, one after another. I did not know the reason for each character until the end of the book, so I was not interested in reading each person's story. I did a great deal of skipping ahead to get to the end. Finally at the end it is mostly clear what is happening. But, it was a problem for me that characters are introduced with no explanation of why I should care about them.
I say it is a very interesting book. It ends on a cliff hanger. We need to get the sequel to find out what happens with the characters.
This is an entertaining installment in the adventures of the intrepid female detective Maliha Anderson. Maliha is in Pondicherry, a colonial area in India ruled by the French. She works to solve a crime that has implications for relations between the French and British and that uncovers unpleasant secrets about her family.
The descriptions of alternate steam technology is detailed and excellent. This story is set in an alternate historical past in the early 20th century when Britain is the most powerful European empire. Maliha is a mixed race young woman who swims through, and struggles with, the cultural world of Indian natives and British rulers.
Fans of Valentine should read this installment to find interesting updates. This book is longer than previous stories about Maliha. There is sexual content so parents who think their children would be interested should read it first. Another solid addition to the the world of Maliha Anderson.
I am very impressed. This is my first Hyzy novel. I was expecting a light read, but I was surprised. This story became gritty and somewhat hard-boiled. Our heroine is dedicated to getting her story and she also wants to do the right thing and help people. Her job and personal lives are complicated and not going well. She is tough, but not a special forces commando in disguise (like too many fictional heroines, these days). She pursues her case to the bitter end, no matter how difficult it becomes.
Check out this book if you are interested in reading a hard-boiled investigation book with a smart capable woman in charge. Be careful if you are a fan of the Catholic Church, it does not come off well in this story.
Fledgling is now one of my favorite books. This was my second read. This story is about a young woman who does not fit into her society and must navigate the treacherous shoals of young adulthood. Her society is completely about academic lifestyle. Theo's mother is a respected scholar of very high status on the planet of Delgado. Women are the dominant gender on the planet and men play a secondary role. Theo's father is a competent scholar, but her mother's work and position takes precedence.
There is a dramatic growth in Theo's character through the book. She begins the book as a clumsy girl and later in the book is respected with the potential for great things. There is a lot of tension and conflict in the story, without fighting or battles.
People who would like this story are probably people who have happily spent time in academia and are not looking for fighting scenes. The next book continues Theo's story.
Have finished my third rereading of this book. This book and its sequel impressed me with the worldbuilding of the alien races. The story has at least three elements going for it. It has conflict between space faring races, strange but interesting cultural traits and habits of the races, and characters that I was intersted in. I was especially interested in Caitlin and Tully, and the minor houses of Jao. The authors introduce a great deal about the relationships of power and decisionmaking in the different cultures. I could see a school class spending a full semester using this book to explore alternative political power relations. The Ekhat would be the simplest. I really wanted to know what would happen to each character. Even minor characters are introduced with interesting stories.
The relationship between the Jao and the humans of Earth is complicated. It may be a path from hate to love over the history of the relationship. Fear, distrust, trust and promise are building the relationship and guide the decisions made by the members of the Jao and humans, as they prepare to fight the Ekhat. The relationship between humans and the Jao culture is fraught with tension and the potential for misunderstanding. There are many terms to explain the cultural differences the races have, but I found them easy to follow because of the good writing.
The world building is very impressive. There are three fully sentient races described in the story, the Humans, Jao, and Ekhat. Each has its strengths, weaknesses, oddities and traditions. I kept thinking that this reminds me of humans. The same 4 points could be made about me and all the people I know. This is a great way to relate the strange alien races to my own life and understanding.
The greatest tension in the book, after the difficulty of the different races communicating successfully across their barriers of difference is the looming threat of the Ekhat battle ships that will destroy anyone they encounter that are not Ekhat. This dangerous thread impacts every other storyline throughout the book, while not distracting from the interesting stories being told. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy military sci-fi or cross-cultural fiction.
I was intrigued by the faster than light technology used in the series. The frame point network is a unique addition to faster-than-light travel in science fiction and might possibly end up having some similarity to an actual technological solution to ftl, if humans ever achieve that.
When I finished the sequel I was ready to plunge into the next step in the story. Alas, I learned K. D. Wentworth died in 2012 and the third book in the series was not finished. My best wishes go to her family and friends.
This is story number 3 in the series about Maliha Anderson. She lives and solves crime in the alternate steampunk past British empire in India and Celyon.
Maliha is like a female Sherlock Holmes and the police and the government depend upon her skills. The ebook is about 136 pages and can be read in one day.
Fiction stories are art, so our enjoyment of them is more dependent on how they make us feel, than whether we agree with every concept in them. This story, like all art, does not depend on my liking every element in the story. Instead, the story works because it engages a reader like myself and moves my emotion. This story did those things for me.
Maliha is a complex character with deep character flaws. Her amazing ability to solve crimes is matched with her inability to live comfortably with her fellow humans. She is much more at ease with the lower caste members of society, than she is with her social equals. Many aspects of Maliha' past are revealed slowly in the stories, so we have some understanding of why her character flaws exist.
Most readers will probably enjoy this story more after exposure to one or both of the previous stories. As I mentioned, there are slow reveals of her past, so I came to this story with more of a background feel for the characters. A few of the other characters have been carried over from previous books also. The plot is not a continuation from previous books, so someone could probably get away with reading this one, if they have no access to the previous ones. I am looking forward to the next story in the series.
This second short novel is a well done continuation of the series of Maliha in India in a steampunk alternate British Empire. It is a third to half as long as an average length fiction book.
For me the world comes to life as I am reading the story. I visualize the alternate past Ceylon with airships, steam and voidcraft. Traveling through the streets makes me smell the spices and mud.
Maliha is the perfect heroine. She is strong of mind, while not super human physically. She knows when she is moving into danger, and tries to increase her odds of survival. She takes risks, and goes beyond her comfort zone to achieve her goals. We all hope that the people we depend upon will be as determined and loyal as Maliha.
This book stands up well by itself. I had read number one in the series, but the shared characters are well introduced in this story, so I think a reader could enjoy it alone. The back stories of the characters are interesting, but the only one that has important implications for this story is that of Maliha's host, who she is living with.
Maliha is a mixed-ethnicity young woman in the alternate past British Empire and faces some difficulties in her dealings in society. The question of interactions between the ethnicities of the Empire is handled well in the story. It is important that the story portrays these issues well, because reliving the past of European domination of Asia could be fraught with challenges about a painful time in history.
Maliha is like a female Sherlock Holmes, and the story contains characters useful for her role. There is the police inspector, the admiring acquaintances, villains, and side characters. As other reviewers have commented, there is no Watson to constantly ask for explanation of her feats of deduction, so we are left without understanding how she reaches her conclusions. I was fine with not knowing everything, it reminds me of real life.
I enjoyed this well done steampunk book and finished reading it in one day. I am enjoying reading about the smart and heroic female amateur sleuth. I am looking forward to reading the next one in the series.
This is an enjoyable read for fans of Dragonriders books. I read a Pern book years ago, and was happy to revisit Pern. This story gives the backstory of the first colonists on Pern. There is detail on how the colonists arrived and slowly lose their advanced science and technology.
I liked the technology talk about space travel, sled maintenance, and bio-engineering. I had originally picked this book for references to libraries. There is not much talk in the book. But there is communication with the spaceships in orbit and use of high tech.
The book gives a very detailed story of the beginning of the Pern saga. I recommend this for fans of Dragonriders. There is excessive detail at times, but the overall story is interesting.
Murder out of the Blue is a light entertaining read. I easily finished it in three days. It is about half the length of the average full size fiction work.
This steampunk story is set in an alternate world of English empire, at maybe the late 1800s. There is heavier than air travel and even space travel. The story is completely set on an airship traveling from Africa to India.
The heroine is a young Indian woman who is a first class passenger and a well-to-do citizen of the empire, but who faces prejudice because of her skin color.
The prejudice facing Maliha Anderson is well handled and feels realistic. One odd thing I noticed in the book, after I finished was that every character who had alternative gender preferences came to a bad end. Three characters who were gay, and had alternate livestyles were punished or came to a bad end in the book.
This is a well done steampunk book that is a quick read and a fun murder mystery with a smart and heroic female amateur sleuth. I am looking forward to reading the next one in the series.
I am not going to say much. There have been tens of thousands of reviews of each of the books in the Twilight series. I read them in a little over a week and enjoyed them all. I will just mention what I enjoyed most in this last book, Breaking Dawn.
The battle at the end was very enjoyable to me. It was handled as all battles should be written about. There was a long period of preparation, diplomacy was involved, the most important goal was to avoid fighting, and the minds and emotions and goals of each of the leaders on both sides was crucial to the beginning of the conflict and the final resolution.
It would be too much of a spoiler to say what happens in the final battle, but I was very happy at the outcome.
This was a satisfying conclusion to this tetralogy of books.
My contribution to the thousands of reviews about Twilight will be to discuss how the relationship of Bella and Edward can be seen as an illustration of romantic love in general.
Bella and Edward have a relationship that is dangerous to both of them. Bella risks death at the hands of Edward and his family. Edward risks exposure for himself and his family if anything goes wrong with the relationship with Bella. They are strangers to one another. They do not know the long-term emotional stability or reactions they each have had in the past or will have in the future.
As I was reading the book, it occurred to me that this danger is shared by many people who get into romantic relationships with people. Often when we fall in love, the long-term emotional behaviors of the other person is unknown. Generally in real life we are not exactly tuned into the thoughts, motivations and behaviors of other people. Unlike Edward, none of us can read other people's minds. So it is always a risk to put our trust and safety in other people.
So, I found reading Twilight offered me an interesting way to think about romantic relationships. Other than that, I also enjoyed reading the book. It had a balance of humor and danger to keep it interesting. Bella might be a Mary Sue, but she is an interesting Mary Sue.
This is a strong mystery investigation novel. I was drawn to it by the unusual premise of investigative geologists. Cassie and Walter are well drawn characters. We see most of the book through Cassie's first person POV. Our geologists protagonists are called in by the FBI supervising agent in charge of investigating an attack on a radioactive waste transporting truck.
I almost put the book down. I felt the villain was too amazing. He can do anything. He can track, fight, hide, steal valuable equipment and transport vast amounts of radioactive material without detection. There is a team of multiple agencies trying to track down the villain in Death Valley. The FBI, the Energy Department, and our intrepid forensics geologists. The villain is able to attack the investigators with impunity. Our heroes are attacked multiple times by the one villain who moves around the countryside freely and anticipates each action of the FBI led team. The villain can overcome armed FBI agents as if they are civilians. There is no explanation of why this individual is so amazing, except to say that he has had many jobs in his life.
I am glad I stayed with the book and finished it. It had a very dramatic roller coaster finale. There were three strong elements of the book, for me. The experiences of the heroine involved me, the description of desert and mountains brought Death Valley to life for me, and the tension and danger felt strong throughout the book.
It probably helped to keep the level of suspense high by having radioactive material on the loose controlled by a madman or madmen. The geologists take some trips surrounded by armed agents and some trips by themselves. They are not armed, except with scientific knowledge and tools of geological investigation. Our heroes are in danger, as well as the wilder region.
The author does a good job of bringing the desert area near the border between California and Nevada in the Southwest of the USA to life. I have been to Death Valley and found the descriptions credible. I did not recognize the exact locations mentioned, but they felt realistic.
The most enjoyable aspect of the book is Cassie's POV. When she is close to death from dehydration, I feel thirsty. When Cassie's hands are hurt but she needs to keep climbing up a rock, my hands hurt with her. When she finds that water could be contaminated, I felt uncomfortable with her swimming in the motel swimming pool the previous day. The author does a good job of making the reader feel what the main character is going through.
This book is a fast and enjoyable read. I recommend it to mystery readers. My one complaint is how the villain is drawn, but the book is good enough to overcome that complaint, for me.
This book is an enjoyable easy read. This paranormal mystery is a serviceable detective story. There is light romance with some intimate relations. Isabella and Fallon are likable heroes and are continuously on the case investigating some lost or stolen paranormal devices that can affect people's minds.
I believe readers who enjoy paranormal mysteries would like this book. I have little experience with this genre, but it held my attention all the way through.
The villains are somewhat simply written and the romance does not develop gradually, but instead emerges full blown in the first interactions between the two main characters.
This is book 10 in a series that spans time and different characters and the author demonstrates a mastery of the material.
Light fun read. This cosy mystery fills the bill if you are looking for a one day read. The heroine owns a bakery and solves the crime with help from ladies in a retirement home. There is some light romantic interest in the local town cop. Expect a light frothy mystery pursuit by an inadvertent sleuth and you will get what you expect.
Fun light high school adventure with a zombie background. This was perfect for me, because I am not usually a zombie reader. There are no guns in this book. No one gets shot. The goal is to scientifically and medically help the zombies and prevent new infections, and discover the cause.
This story is more a teen detective story, with the zombies being the case that needs to be investigated. I enjoyed the science nerd young woman hero who saves the day. She works on saving the school as she works on getting a date to the homecoming dance.
I am looking forward to the future adventures of Kate.
This is a good space opera adventure read. I liked that the level of threat and danger is continuous from the beginning of the story through to the end.
The parts I liked the best were the boarding of the alien starship and the space battles. The protagonists are faced with the daunting task of seizing control of an alien spacecraft that was built by an unknown civilization thousands of years ago. How they attempt to accomplish that is unique in my reading experience. I would never have thought of trying that. This book is only minimally military fiction. The space battles are few and far between, but I liked how they are handled. The opposing sides are alien cultures to each other and employ different weapons and tactics. It is refreshing to see battle postulated between mismatched military cultures. Military fiction is overflowing with fictional alien cultures that are armed exactly the same on each side. I liked the approach that each side had different strengths and weaknesses when they meet in battle.
The part I found the hardest was the character exposition. For me, the dialogue between the characters dragged. I found positive and negative in the character relations. It is a good thing that the protagonists are not a smoothly working team. Again science fiction books are filled with the heroes being of one mind and never disagreeing. In this book, the protagonists disagree and argue about what to do at each stage of the mission. I found that realistic and somewhat refreshing, while also getting a little tired of the bickering.
The leader seemed too much of a martinet during the first part of the book. He is always sure of what to do next, and orders his team to shut up and obey him. This felt like an unlikely style of leadership because they were such a small group in a tiny little scout craft. Then toward the end he changes, but starts trying to sleep with his underlings. Perhaps realistic for a man, but it irritated me.
I enjoyed this read and would read a sequel.
