*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review and is rated 18
*This review is cross-posted to Otakus and Geeks.
After the death of his grandfather, Victor is convinced he was murdered. But nobody believes him due to his diagnosis of mirror resonance syndrome, which causes blackouts, nightmares, hallucinations, and a lack of control over strong emotions. Determined to discover the truth, Victor no longer knows who to trust as not only his condition worsens but a dangerous conspiracy involving a possible cure and a plot to lock up any broken mirror whether they’re a threat or not.
This is a great cyberpunk thriller. Set in a dystopian, 1990’s, you get this futuristic feel and the stakes make it tense but there are moments that drag as the next twist is set up. I really felt for Victor and I think you’ll find yourself rooting for him the entire book, as I did. The world around him is built perfectly within the narrative making the entire story engrossing and engaging. An awesome novel worth checking out. 4 out of 5.
After the destruction of their ships, Captains Skyler Luiken and Gloria Tsandi with their crews are stranded within enemy compounds, scattered and separated with no escape and surrounded by the Scipio; having survived a huge attack, and now must find a way to find their comrades, defeat an armada, and get out alive.
Despite the flurry of characters, this is an interesting space opera with some high handed concepts that feel bigger than they really are. Other than my personal curiosity about the previous books in this series, this one stands alone just fine. It’s enjoyable, the characters and writing kept me interested but not enough to get truly lost in it and I found myself easily distracted instead of engaged. It comes in, does its thing, then it leaves fulfilling its task. Not bad, though. 3 out of 5.
*This book was given to me in exchange for an honest review and is rated 18+.
I debated posting this review at all considering I honestly hope people don’t read this and think of buying it because of my reaction. But given enough thought, I decided people needed to be warned about this THING. I have been sitting on this review since October of last year because every time I started it, I would get so LIVID, I’d have to put it down. I was going to do sketches for this one too, but again, blind rage kept me from accomplishing this.
First off, just so you all know the level I am dealing with here? I apologize to Serena’s Plight. If you have not read that review? Go read that first. Then be VERY afraid.
Also, this review will be full of spoilers and I just don’t freaking care.
Cailyn Derys is a high-class courtesan who takes an interest in reclusive noblewoman Teran Nivrai, who is known for her darker tastes. While Cailyn can see there is a depth to the fearsome woman hidden from everyone else, there is still a very real danger in being involved with Teran.
First off this book is boring. Very, tearjerkingly, hair pullingly boring. Between the repetitive word choices and Lesbain Sex For Dummies 101 clinical and dry writing, it was a true struggle to get through this book I almost quit the book at 17% because the image of this alien woman in a pool of water was described in the blandest way possible. If I am tempted to stop reading your book because I thought of 5 different ways to rewrite your scene to make it more interesting, ya dun fucked up. I have ripped apart The Beauty Books and even there, I can at least say the prose was beautiful.
As to how “dark and disturbing” this is? No, sorry. It really isn’t. Teran’s darker tastes can be found in your average adult leaning vampire novel; bloodplay, cutting, and such. Not to mention how the tension between Cailyn and Teran is undercut by how familiar Cailyn is with Teran right from the start and their intimacy seems unearned. Out of nowhere this alien woman feared by all just opens up about her former lovers like Cailyn is a trusted confidant? Sorry, not buying it.
One point I will give this book is Cailyn is her own person. If a client or anyone steps over the line, she’s not afraid to call them on it and put her foot down. And that trait does carry through to the rest of the book. She never becomes a doormat.
So, after all that, all the build-up to how dark this book is and how I found it to be as dry as a bag of sand in the Sahara, what about this book made me want to rage out? At 80%, Teran gets mad for whatever fucking reason because it honestly doesn’t matter and we are treated to an overly detailed rape scene between her and Cailyn. As if I wasn’t annoyed or indifferent up to that point because of the rest of the boring sex in this book, now I’m pissed off and disgusted. Tossing this pointless shit in there doesn’t make this “dark erotica” it makes it exploitive schlock of the worse common denominator. Teran is now irredeemable and I don’t want to follow this character for the remainder of this book because all of that effort to make her seem less of the monster her reputation says she is has been destroyed. She IS a monster and this book can suck it for trying to make me see her as anything else.
I don’t know how I made it through this… Cailyn starts the book as an accomplished courtesan with autonomy and freedom and ends it as a slave owned by her rapist. If you want BDSM, Story of O did it better. If you want dark erotica, Killing Stalking is a great example of something taboo, disturbing, yet also compelling. Other reviews had people quitting around the 70% mark saying it was too dark but no, it was boring and dumb. I have never outright hated a book this much and I refuse to give it any stars at all.
Geneticist Isabel is given a once in a lifetime chance; to go back in time and get a second chance with her lover, Diego. But this is for much more than just love as their relationship may hold the key to saving humanity from mass extinction.
Now, I know one would think that knowing me and my other reviews; a “time travel, dystopian romance” would not only have my eyes rolling out of my head but send me into Serena’s Plight levels of anger. Neither of these happened. I LOVED this book.
Isabel and Diego are both whip-smart, strong brave characters and there were precious few moments in the plot where I doubted they were anything else. And while their relationship takes center stage, supporting characters like Matt are quick witted, kind, and funny. All of them have such chemistry I didn’t want to leave them (and I will be getting the next books in the series).
The time travel bits can get confusing and part of me doesn’t want to believe anyone could accidentally set off a nuke (but with how things are with a president who tweets unintelligible typos, it seems sadly likely) but overall, this story had even a cynic like me believing that one relationship could mean saving the world. 4.7 out of 5.
In case you don’t already know what this show is, it’s basically a modern Twilight Zone with each episode telling a completely different story. You can absolutely make the comparison because the issues brought up in the older show (racism, nuclear war, fascism) have been updated to our more modern fears (reality TV, technology overtaking our humanity, cyber-terrorism).
I’m not going to go episode by episode but overall, I’m hooked on this and I think this is a very well written and acted modern counterpart to something like Twilight Zone. It’s topical without being too preachy and taps into some real unease most of the public has these days. All I hear from my friends is “D00d, just WAIT for season two!” so, that will be up next. I’m looking forward to it! I’ma big fan of smartly written entertainment.
This week’s Finally Watched It post is going to be Black Mirror and in watching this, I had a strange thought: SciFi these days has a lot of sex in it.
I find myself more often than not being super excited about a new fantasy, science fiction, or horror series only to start it and with in 5 minutes think “Whelp, I can’t watch this with my kid.”
I have very fond memories of watching Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Star Trek, Quantum Leap, A-Team, and Knight Rider with my mom. We would talk about what happened, joke about stuff; it was a bonding experience for us. So, when a new series is announced, part of me gets all nostalgic for those days and I want to recreate them with my kid. Like a good parent, I watch it alone first to make sure it’s alright for a 9 year old to see (at least in my opinion) only to end up with a sex scene, massive amounts of cursing, or a pair of breasts right there on the screen. This happened with Defiance, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and now, Black Mirror. And to have a kid who LOVES SciFi, comics and horror who is too young to really be grabbed by something as old as Twilight Zone and has already seen Star Trek, it’s a little disappointing when something I think is cool comes out but I can’t share it.
With the exception of Stranger Things; which had a tolerable amount of cursing in it considering at 9, my kid has heard all this already and it’s not excessive in the show. It also has characters closer to her age group; much like Goonies was for my generation.
I’m not saying that every show in this genre needs to be accessible to children. I’ll sit and watch Gravity Falls or Star vs the Forces of Evil all damn day because they’re entertaining, well written, and fucking hilarious. But so much of the new stuff relies on all this sex to sell itself and it’s a trend I noticed. Has anyone else noticed this? I know it’s not a NEW thing but with TV not being as strict as it was 20 years ago and the advent of services like Netflix having none of the restrictions traditional cable has, there’s a lot more boobs and sex now. And it doesn’t always seem necessary for the plot half the time.
The subject of a series of unethical experiments, Eleven escapes her tormentors and is found by three young boys; Lucas, Dustin, and Mike. But Eleven isn’t the only escapee and with townspeople vanishing, the organization is hunting Eleven down.
That’s a pretty thin synopsis but I don’t wanna even attempt to give anything away. I don’t know what is going on with these little original series these days but WOW, are they impressive. The characters are written so well you relate to them immediately and the flow of this is on point. I won’t give away too much but I will say that the sheriff character in these types of shows can take entire seasons to deduce things but Jim Hopper is on the damn ball. And Winona Ryder as Joyce? She’s just amazing. Â Even the kids make these fabulous performances.
The only bad thing about this is just a common writing thing where if the characters provided simple explanations, some misunderstandings would be avoided but that’s just a very, VERY minor gripe.
I get some serious Outer Limits, Twin Peaks vibes from this show and it trips my nostalgia switch being set in the early 80’s. This is yet another series where I am so glad I listened to people when they insisted I watch it. Completely worth my time and I look forward to season 2.
The crew of the Jinxed Thirteenth is sent on a rescue mission to retrieve the only survivor of an abandoned space station. What they find is Jessie Madison in cryo-sleep; and she has been there for several millennia. Awakening to a world that’s completely unknown to her, Jessie struggles to learn new languages and face the loss of her husband. Meanwhile, a crew criminals lead by Domiant, sets out to capture the ship and Jessie as valuable cargo. Captain Morwyn and his crew must beat back Domiant and his dangerous underlings in order to protect Jessie and her unborn child from being sold or worse.
This book is like a combination of Event Horizon and Firefly in that the story takes place mostly on one ship and the crews on both sides are made up of very different species with all sorts of different abilities and specialties that struggle to get along and work together. They work well together and the world building and action sequences are written very well, there are so many characters with not enough development to properly tell them apart. I found myself getting confused as to who was who very easily. Except for Jessie; who stood out really well but mostly because she is truly a fish out of water. While this book is the second in a series, it stands well enough on it’s own. For muddled characterization but an exciting story, I give this a 3.5 out of 5.
*I received this book in exchange for an honest review.
When Charlie Cass – the unacknowledged son of a duke – is freed from a POW camp, he returns to find a kingdom on the cusp of war. The dukes are plotting against one another and the king and now with the presumed dead Charlie back in the picture, they fear he will interfere with their plans. But Charlie refuses to go down without a fight.
I’m not usually a fan of military sci-fi but I honestly have to say this was the characters that kept me interested in this book. Charlie is a compelling, sensible character who is smart enough to surround himself with competent, loyal, and colorful people. Especially the prostitutes. They made me laugh. The techno jargon and political dancing were a little much but I just let it wash over me until the cool stuff started happening again. All that posturing and double meaning give me a headache. It’s why I could never be a politician…
As this book was filled with all these thrilling space battles and has a satisfying conclusion to the main conflict, I felt the epilogue deflated everything; especially after such a climactic ending. I honestly can’t think of another way to mend all those plot threads together without adding a few hundred pages to the book so I’ll let the exposition dump slide. For unexpectedly entertaining me despite being out of my usual tastes, I give this a 3.7 out of 5.
Three decades after the defeat of the Galactic Empire, a new threat arises. The First Order attempts to rule the galaxy and only a ragtag group of heroes can stop them, along with the help of the Resistance.
I am SO sick of the slackjawed expressions I get when I say I haven’t seen this movie so here it is. At just 15 minutes in, I already get the sense that in rebooting this series, this movie mirrors Luke’s journey but kicks off it’s training wheels. All the effects are really well done, Fin and Ray are funny and yes, this is a fun time. I find it hearkens back to the wonder and coolness of watching the original movies for the first time as a kid but I can appreciate more things as an adult.
As a total aside, I don’t get why the Ghostbusters reboot got so much hate but this one didn’t. I had fun watching both… But that’s a gripe for another time.
