June 2026 Book Club: Decision at Thunder Rift (Gray Death Legion Trilogy #1) by William H. Keith

 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi
Content: Sex is alluded to but nothing is shown on page

 

Thirty meters tall, seventy tons of quick-striding death and destruction, the armored war machines called BattleMechs are the front line forces of the crumbling star empire locked in the horror of the endless Succession Wars. Their pilots are MechWarriors, 31st-Century knights riding armored machines powerful enough to take a city apart.

Grayson Death Carlyle had been training to be a MechWarrior since he was 10 years old, but his graduation came sooner than expected. With his friends and family dead and his father's regiment destroyed, young Grayson finds himself stranded on a world turned hostile. Now he must learn the hardest lesson of it takes more than a BattleMech to make a MechWarrior...

But to claim that title, all Grayson has to do is go out and capture one of those giant killing machines...if it doesn't kill him first. 

 

This isn't the sort of book I would usually pick up to read but it was our book club pick. I actually voted for it as my second choice because I was curious about Battletech. It's a game my husband has played over the years. Needless to say, he was really interested in this one. I had low expectations going in but was pleasantly surprised at how much this book kept me entertained. The characters aren't real deep, although the main character does grow a bit from being naive about some things to learning his lesson, but the book plays out like a pretty good action movie. I enjoyed the story for what it was. I found the different mechs to be one of the most interesting aspects of the book. 

For book club we set up the pieces to the tabletop version of the game as centerpieces on the table and kitchen island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blindside (Planetside #5) by Michael Mammay

  

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi
Content: Strong Language

 

Colonel Carl Butler charges back into the world of military crisis, corporate malfeasance, and intergalactic mystery in the action-packed fifth Planetside novel from science fiction master Michael Mammay.

Carl Butler has returned to his home planet from the moon Taug and is looking forward to some rest and relaxation. But following two mysterious deaths connected with the Taug mission, he realizes that the intruders that recently set off his home’s security system might be looking to add him to the death toll.

Having been Butler’s muscle on numerous missions, Mac is no stranger to getting involved with mysteries that should be none of his business. So when the daughter of one of his gym members goes missing, he offers to help. Mac assumes she’s a simple runaway, but the case turns out not to be so clear-cut. Wondering if these strange occurrences are somehow related, Butler—along with Mac, Ganos, and the rest of his small crew—once again finds himself neck deep in intrigue.

As the clues for the various cases begin to intertwine, Butler sees the hand of an old enemy at work, and…well…he’s never been one to sit back and wait for something to happen. Gathering the team, he heads off across the galaxy to confront his suspects head-on.

But this time, they’re waiting for him. 

I was glued to this book from the very beginning. I thoroughly enjoyed being back in this world with these characters. I can never get enough of Carl Butler, but I enjoyed getting to read Mac's point of view as well. The story was fast paced and kept me on the edge of my seat. I love that the author included recaps of the other books at the beginning so I could refresh my memory. I wish all books had this. One thing I noticed is that all but one of these books has started off with a missing person. I hadn't really thought about until I read the recaps. I hope the author starts the next book off differently. 

This was the first book in the series I didn't listen to on audio and I feel like I enjoyed actually reading this more than listening to the audio. I think I'm going to eye read the rest of the series from now on. 

 

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing me with an ARC of this book. 

 

 

 

 

 

Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries #8) by Martha Wells

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi, Space Opera
Content: Strong Language

 

Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good.

After volunteering to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realizes that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn't know.

Including human children. Ugh.

This may well call for... eye contact!

(Emotion check: Oh, for f—)

  

I'm so glad that I went back and reread all the books in this series in chronological order before reading this one. I feel like I was able to appreciate this one so much more because of that. Everything was fresh in my mind, and the overall story being told throughout the books made more sense in chronological order. 

This was another fun entry to the series. I particularly enjoyed Murderbot's reactions to the different people it met, and how it was trying to work through its feelings through emotional checks. It seems Murderbot is adjusting.

I've enjoyed all of Murderbot's adventures and I'm looking forward to more. I love that most of these are short novella length and I can listen to them in one sitting. This is one of the few series that I enjoy listening to instead of eye reading. 

 

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for providing me with an ARC of this book. 

 

 

 

 

February 2026 and March 2026 Book Clubs: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bestar, and The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke

 February-

  

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester 

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi
Content: An off page rape, A rather gruesome murder

 

In Alfred Bester's classic tale of murderous revenge in the twenty-fifth century, Gully Foyle was a Mechanic's Mate 3rd class, a crewman with no education, no skills and no ambition. But he did want to live. And Gully Foyle had lived for 170 days, the only survivor of the wreck of the spaceship Nomad, drifting halfway between Mars and Jupiter, living in an airtight locker the size of a giant's coffin, when the spaceship Vorga passed by, leaving him to rot, giving him a compelling reason to make it back to earth.

 

This audio narrator I found for this on Youtube kept me listening but I did not enjoy this book. It's a sci-fi novel that was inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo so there's quite a bit of vengeance in the book. Where this diverges from The Count of Monte Cristo is that the main character here does some truly awful and unforgivable things including rape and murder. In my opinion it went too far. By the end when the main character suddenly realizes he was wrong and shouldn't have taken vengeance, too much damage is done and I just want him to pay for the things he's done. I also have a real problem with authors making rape victims develop romantic feelings for their rapists. It happens in this book, although it's subtly done, so some readers may not catch it. Despite not liking this I can give it credit for being ahead of it's time in some ways, and keeping my interest despite, for me, being an unenjoyable story. Thus the two star rating instead of one star.

 

 

 

 

March-

 

The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke 

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi
Content: Clean as far as I read

 

Renowned structural engineer Dr. Vannevar Morgan seeks to link Earth to the stars-through the construction of a space elevator connecting to an orbiting satellite 22,300 miles from the planet's surface. The elevator would lift interstellar spaceships into orbit without the need of rockets to blast through the Earth's atmosphere-making space travel easier and more cost-effective.

Unfortunately, the only appropriate surface base for the elevator is located at the top of a mountain already occupied-by an ancient order of Buddhist monks who strongly oppose the project. Morgan must face down their opposition-as well as enormous technical, political, and economic challenges-in order to make the project successful. 

 

This ended up being a DNF for me. Right off the bat I didn't care for the narrator, but I'm not sure a better narrator could have saved the story. It was just so uninteresting. Not much happens in the first half of this book, and the story as a whole seemed to be trying to pound the science versus god theme into our heads, with atheism being the clear preference here. I wouldn't have minded as much if it hadn't been so heavy-handed. Overall, the book seems disjointed with some things thrown in that are never really developed. 

In general, classic sci-fi hasn't worked for me, although there have been a few exceptions. I did like Rendezvous with Rama, despite some flaws. I also enjoyed The Rolling Stones by Heinlein. But I've found myself consistently disliking the way the female characters are portrayed in classic sci-fi. I also dislike the outdated takes on certain things, although it can be interesting to see how far off, or how close they came in their speculations of the future. Most of the time I just find the way they're written to be rather boring. 

 

 

 

 

 

July and August 2025 Book Clubs: Way Station by Clifford D. Simak, and The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

 July-

  

Way Station by Clifford D. Simak

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi
Content: Clean

 

Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he has done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.

More than a hundred years before, an alien named Ulysses had recruited Enoch as the keeper of Earth's only galactic transfer station. Now, as Enoch studies the progress of Earth and tends the tanks where the aliens appear, the charts he made indicate his world is doomed to destruction. His alien friends can only offer help that seems worse than the dreaded disaster. Then he discovers the horror that lies across the galaxy...

  

I had high hopes for this going into it. I liked the idea of the way station that aliens stopped at here on earth. I was looking forward to meeting the different alien species. It brought to mind the short story Why I Left Harry's All Night Hamburgers by Lawrence Watt-Evans, which I loved. 

While I think the concept of this book was great, unfortunately, I felt like it lacked in execution. I was pulled in at the beginning and it seemed like it was going to be great, but then somewhere along the way it took a turn that didn't work for me. This is a book that's very much a product of it's time. The cold war was on everyone's mind and it permeated fiction. So instead of this book being just about aliens stopping at a way station and sharing their adventures with us, we got "our world is doomed and we have to stop it from happening" as well. The main character decided just based on his own observations that this is sure to happen and almost agrees to some very drastic measures, that quite frankly would have been just as devastating as war. Imagine what would happen if we suddenly lost all technology, even the memory of it. A lot of people would die from lack of food, warmth, shelter, etc. Luckily our main character here decided against that route, but not because he realized it would be just as bad. But this isn't were I first realized the book was going off the rails for me.

The first indication that this book was going to be a bit of a disappointment was when the imaginary friends manifest, including a love interest (two things that will surely ruin a classic sci-fi book for me are the terribly developed female characters, and instant romance that seems to happen in a lot of these). I get that this guy is lonely for human companionship, but this was just ridiculous. It also felt more like magic and less like science in this sci-fi book. That wasn't the only part that felt magical. There's a deux ex machina moment at the end as well, involving another character, that didn't work for me either. And please don't get me started on the way the government just gave him back a dead alien body they had stolen when he told them he needed it back. We all know that would never happen.

All this being said, I still enjoyed parts of this book. I liked the parts with the aliens and the descriptions of them. I wish the book had leaned into that more. I think my rating for this is skewed a bit because I liked the concept, and I enjoyed it more than most of the other classic sci-fi books I've read. I just can't bring myself to give a rating as low as 2.5.

 

 

 

 August-

 

The Stainless Steel Rat (The Stainless Steel Rat #1) by Harry Harrison

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi
Content: Clean

 

*Beware some minor spoilers ahead. 

This book started off great. I was really into the heist that was going on. The main character was cocky and sure of himself. No one was smarter than him. At least that's what he thought. I got quite a few laughs out of this when he gets outsmarted by nearly everyone else. Just from the description you know he gets caught and recruited to work on the side of the law. 

There was a point while reading this that I thought it was going to go the way of most of the other classic sci-fi books I've read with the sexism. However, I was surprised that the main character ended up being thwarted multiple times by his sexist views. He was constantly underestimating this woman he meets in the book. I felt like this book was ahead of it's time in the way this was portrayed, even if she was also a psychopath. 

So I was enjoying the first half of this until he decides that he's in love with this woman that he doesn't really know. You see, she's beautiful, and she's clever like him, except for the inconvenient fact that she's also a psychopath. But lets not let that fact get in the way. She's beautiful and he can fix her by erasing the psychopathic part of her brain, if he can only catch her. Also, her psychosis ends up being about her looks. Yeah, this is where the book went downhill for me. And all of that progress the book made, being ahead of it's time was slowly erased and ruined by the time I got to the end. 

The author had something good going for a while but he had to ruin it. I'm still giving it 3 stars for the parts I liked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

May 2025 and June 2025 Book Clubs: Monster Menu by Terrell Garrett, and Starter Villain by John Scalzi

The books that got picked for the last couple of books clubs have been pretty bad in my opinion. I ended up not even caring to finish either one of them. 

 

 May-

  

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Fantasy
Content: Strong Language

 

An LA taco truck chef is transported to a fantasy realm where bad reviews are the least of her worries in this cozy culinary LitRPG adventure.

For Renee “Nay” Favreau, food is life. She’s the owner of a Los Angeles taco truck who dreams of becoming a respected chef and expanding her fleet, and whose greatest enemy is an unhappy food critic. Always hunting for her next great dish, the search eventually leads her to a near-fatal encounter with an interdimensional spider.

Awaking in a strange world where words appear before her eyes, a talking tentacle befriends her, and people are trying to kill her, Nay learns she has the ability to become an one of the special chefs who prepare the magical meals that power the enigmatic Marrow Eaters.

Soon, Nay is working in a remote village, where she wins the hearts—and stomachs—of the locals. But when evil threatens to destroy the place, she’ll have to employ all her wit and newfound skills to survive and save her new friends . . . 

 

DNF @64%

I read this for book club. I'm not a fan of this genre but even so, I feel like this one was worse than most. I didn't like the main character and I found the story to be pretty boring. On the plus side, there were lots of book related food items to serve at book club. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos.

 

 

 

 June-

  

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Sci-fi, Fantasy, Satire
Content: Lots of F bombs

 

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

 

 

 DNF @57%.

One of my least favorite things I've read so far this year. I liked the cats but that's about it. The main character is not very bright, and comes across as kind of a loser. We have to follow along as everything gets explained to him. It was like he was floating around in the middle of everything that was happening but made no real difference to the story himself. I guess that makes sense since he seemed incapable of making any real difference in his own life.

One of the things that annoyed me most about this book was the way the dead uncle's assistant tried to rationalize said uncle's villainy. The main character's uncle was not less villainous than the other villains in this book. His tax payer funded villainy is just as bad, and saying he didn't care about money because he only kept 5 million of his trillions liquid is disingenuous.

It seems this was trying be some sort of satire or humorous commentary on capitalism but in my opinion it failed miserably. The whole thing felt juvenile, like something a 12 year old boy would find funny, which is exactly what I thought about the other book I tried to read by this author, The Android's Dream. This book had me bored and repeatedly rolling my eyes at the stupidity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 2025, March 2025, and April 2025 Book Clubs

 To catch up on my book club posts I'm combining the last three into one. 

February-

 

Summer with the Leprechauns by Tanis Helliwell 

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Supposedly Non-Fiction, but I'm categorizing it as Magical Realism
Content: Clean

 

An astonishing true story about one woman’s journey to Ireland where she lived in a cottage with leprechauns.

These seldom-seen beings taught her about the evolution of elementals—the race to which leprechauns, faeries, elves, trolls belong. They explained the importance of humans and elementals working together for the betterment of both of their races and the Earth. Far more than a faery tale, this book is a classic that has been published in eight languages.

Now the author has re-edited her book so that the reader can hear the leprechaun’s voice in all his mischievous wisdom. You also learn about body elementals that keep you alive from lifetime to lifetime and about the beings in the center of the Earth who are helping our planet. And all this with a great sense of humor as Helliwell captures life in a remote Irish village with an insight into the people that is infectious.

An Irish Jewel, this is a good humored, true account of Tanis’ summer in a cottage in Ireland where the resident leprechaun taught her about the evolution of elementals (fairies, elves, leprechauns).

 

This was such a weird book. It wasn't what any of us were expecting. We thought this was going to be a cute magical realism story about leprechauns, sort of like Darby O'Gill and the Little People, but somehow missed that it's supposedly a woman's real life spiritual journey. We thought the true story claims were going to be tongue in cheek. I can't figure out if the author really believes this crazy stuff happened to her or if that's just a gimmick. This is categorized as non-fiction, but I'm not shelving it as that. Apparently there are sequels, but needless to say, I'll pass.

 

Here are some book themed foods we had-

 

 

 

 

 

Peat fire brownies

 

 

 

Irish Soda Bread

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March-

 

Planetside (Planetside #1) by Michael Mammay 

I had already read and recommended this book to my husband. He liked it so much that when it was his turn to pick books, this one was on the list. 

Here's a copy of my original review:

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi, Mystery, Space Opera
Content: Strong language

 

A seasoned military officer uncovers a deadly conspiracy on a distant, war-torn planet…

War heroes aren't usually called out of semi-retirement and sent to the far reaches of the galaxy for a routine investigation. So when Colonel Carl Butler answers the call from an old and powerful friend, he knows it's something big—and he's not being told the whole story. A high councilor's son has gone MIA out of Cappa Base, the space station orbiting a battle-ravaged planet. The young lieutenant had been wounded and evacuated—but there's no record of him having ever arrived at hospital command. 

The colonel quickly finds Cappa Base to be a labyrinth of dead ends and sabotage: the hospital commander stonewalls him, the Special Ops leader won't come off the planet, witnesses go missing, radar data disappears, and that’s before he encounters the alien enemy. Butler has no choice but to drop down onto a hostile planet—because someone is using the war zone as a cover. The answers are there—Butler just has to make it back alive…

 

Military sci-fi can be hit or miss with me, but Planetside was one that I ended up really liking. It felt rather like a space opera at times, so maybe that's why. I loved the mystery in this book. It really kept me guessing as I tried to figure out what in the world was going on! I thought the characters were very well done. The author is a retired Army officer, and I think that made his characters more convincing as military personnel.

One of the things I liked the most about this book, was that the main character is an older retired guy, instead of the usual younger character. He's also married, which can be rare for a main character in books like this. My friend said his personality reminded her a bit of Avasarala, from The Expanse series, and I can see that. She was one of my favorite characters in that series, so maybe that's one reason I liked him so much. I like his no-nonsense personality. He just does what needs to be done with no apologies. It was great!

There are three books and I'm looking forward to reading more.

April-

 

Orconomics (The Dark Profit #1) by J. Zachary Pike

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Satire
Content: Strong Language

 

Professional heroes kill and loot deadly monsters every day, but Gorm Ingerson's latest quest will be anything but business as usual.

Making a Killing in Professional Heroics

The adventuring industry drives the economy of Arth, a world much like our own but with more magic and fewer vowels. Monsters’ hoards are claimed, bought by corporate interests, and sold off to plunder funds long before the beasts are slain. Once the contracts and paperwork are settled, the Heroes’ Guild issues a quest to kill the monster and bring back its treasure for disbursement to shareholders.


Life in The Shadows

Of course, while professional heroics has been a great boon for Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and all the other peoples of light, it's a terrible arrangement for the Shadowkin. Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds, and their ilk must apply for to become Noncombatant Paper Carriers (or NPCs) to avoid being killed and looted by guild heroes. Even after getting their papers, NPCs are treated as second class citizens, driven into the margins of society.


An Insane Quest

Gorm Ingerson, a Dwarven ex-hero with a checkered past, has no idea what he's getting himself into when he stands up for an undocumented Goblin. His act of kindness starts a series of events that ends with Gorm recruited by a prophet of the mad goddess Al'Matra to fulfill a prophecy so crazy that even the Al'Matran temple doesn't believe it.


Money, Magic, and Mayhem

But there’s more to Gorm’s new job than an insane prophecy: powerful corporations and governments, usually indifferent to the affairs of the derelict Al’Matran temple, have shown an unusual interest in the quest. If his party of eccentric misfits can stop fighting each other long enough to recover the Elven Marbles, Gorm might be able to turn a bad deal into a golden opportunity and win back the fame and fortune he lost so long ago.

 

I actually read this book twice in April. The first time I listened to it and my mind kept wandering. There were big holes in what I could recall from the story. I felt like this was a book I could really enjoy but I just didn't enjoy the audio, so I decided to read the ebook after I had finished the audio. A weird choice in a month that I didn't have a lot of reading time, but it was my book club read and I wanted to give it another chance for that reason too. So, after reading the ebook version I bumped what would have been a 3 star rating up to 4 stars. I enjoyed the characters in this story and I loved the satirical nature of it. There were even a few moments where I teared up. 

Here are the book themed foods we had-

 

 

Healing Potions. These were significant in the book.

Rice Krispie Treats made to look like rocks or boulders. The purple sprinkles are the purple treasures given to the troll in the book. He would hide them under rocks, and he could change his shape to look like a boulder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beef Buns. They ate beef buns at the beginning of the book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Elf Food

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ghost Line by Andrew Neil-Gray and J.S. Herbison

  

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Sci-fi, Horror, Paranormal, Ghosts, Suspense
Content: Mild Language

 

The luxury cruise ship the Martian Queen was decommissioned years ago, set to drift back and forth between Earth and Mars on the off-chance that reclaiming it ever became profitable for the owners. For Saga and her husband Michel the cruise ship represents a massive payday. Hacking and stealing the ship could earn them enough to settle down, have children, and pay for the treatments to save Saga’s mother’s life.

But the Martian Queen is much more than their employer has told them. In the twenty years since it was abandoned, something strange and dangerous has come to reside in the decadent vessel. Saga feels herself being drawn into a spider’s web, and must navigate the traps and lures of an awakening intelligence if she wants to go home again.

 

This was a slightly creepy, atmospheric read on an abandoned luxury space liner. It was like a haunted house, only it's a space ship. I enjoyed exploring the ship and uncovering the secrets hidden there, but the creepy moments could have been dialed up a lot more than they were, and there could have been a lot more of them. Some things about this reminded me a little of the movie Passengers. It's sort of what I was expecting Passengers to be when I watched it. Anyway, this was good but not great. I enjoyed it for what it was, even though it could have been creepier. It still made for a nice, slightly creepy read before Halloween.

September 2024 Book Club: A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan #1) by Arkady Martine

 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre:  Sci-fi
Content: Clean

 

Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn't an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.

Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.

 

This was our book club read for September and I enjoyed the first half of it more the last half. I tend to like sci-fi books with mystery elements and the mystery is what really kept me reading this, but it ended up not keeping my interest throughout the whole book. Unfortunately, this book was extremely slow and the plot was bogged down by too much politics. I would recommend reading the Foreigner series by C.J. Cherryh over this one, if you like sci-fi with lots of political intrigue.
 

 

 

 

 

August 2024 Book Club: Short Stories

We read 11 short stories for book club in August. I thought most of them were good with a couple of them being just ok. I'll post them in order of favorite to least favorite. Make sure you scroll down to the end to see our themed refreshments.

 

Signal Moon by Kate Quinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Story
Genre: Historical Fiction, Sci-fi, Fantasy
Content:Strong language

 

A short story about an impossible connection across two centuries that could make the difference between peace or war.

Yorkshire, 1943. Lily Baines, a bright young debutante increasingly ground down by an endless war, has traded in her white gloves for a set of headphones. It’s her job to intercept enemy naval communications and send them to Bletchley Park for decryption.

One night, she picks up a transmission that isn’t code at all—it’s a cry for help.

An American ship is taking heavy fire in the North Atlantic—but no one else has reported an attack, and the information relayed by the young US officer, Matt Jackson, seems all wrong. The contact that Lily has made on the other end of the radio channel says it’s… 2023.

Across an eighty-year gap, Lily and Matt must find a way to help each other: Matt to convince her that the war she’s fighting can still be won, and Lily to help him stave off the war to come. As their connection grows stronger, they both know there’s no telling when time will run out on their inexplicable link.

 

I really enjoyed this short story. If you've seen the movie frequency or the short lived TV show that was on the CW then this is similar in that there is a radio that allowed a couple of people to communicate with each other across time. For me this packed just the right amount of an emotional punch along with character development or a short story.

 

 

 

 

Bastard, Sword by Tim Pratt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Strong language

 

Betrayed by his companion and robbed of everything down to his boots, Rodrick wakes to find himself in the very tomb he meant to rob. Fortunately, Rodrick can still turn a profit—he just needs to slip past a slumbering linnorm, retrieve a talking sword with a wit as sharp as its blade, and return in one piece to his employer. Yet a talking sword may have goals of its own... From Hugo Award-winner Tim Pratt comes a dark comedy of theft and danger set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. 

 

This was great fun to read. I loved the talking sword! It's a story based on an RPG, but it didn't feel like I was reading a story based on an RPG. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Story
Genre: Sci-fi, Horror, Fantasy
Content: Clean

 

The advanced technology of a house first pleases then increasingly terrifies its occupants.

 

I really enjoyed this story. It was a very well crafted short story that somehow packed a lot into just a few pages. And that ending! The house that does everything for you and the theme of technology making people lazy feels very ahead of it's time for 1951. But then again, those ideas were floating around back then. It's where the seeds of the smart home began.

 

 

The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Young Adult, Children, Middle Grade, Short Story
Genre: Fiction, Classic, Humor
Content: Clean

 

Two men kidnap a mischievous boy and request a large ransom for his return.

 

A fun short story about kidnappers who kidnap a boy who ends up being more than they can handle. I wouldn't be surprised if this inspired Dennis the Menace and Kevin McCallister from Home Alone. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

Rappaccini's Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Story
Genre: Classic, Gothic, Horror, Fantasy, Sci-fi
Content: Clean

 

“Rappaccini’s Daughter” is one of the best-known short stories by the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864).

First published in 1844, it tells a story settled in medieval Padua, where Giovanni Guasconti, a young student, started to frequent the house of Giacomo Rappaccini, a physician who grows a garden of poisonous plants.
Guasconti is told by another physician to avoid Rappaccini, but he falls in love with his daughter Beatrice…

“Rappaccini’s Daughter” has been the source for several plays and screen adaptations.

 

I find Hawthorne's writing style to be hard to get into, so sometimes it was hard to stay focused on the story. Despite that, I did enjoy this, although not quite as much as would have liked to. There were aspects of this story that I appreciated, and the more I've thought it, the more I like it. There are different theories about what the story means. One being that it parallels the fall from grace, the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and the original sin, with the genders of Adam and Eve reversed. Another is that mortals should not play God, with the story showing the consequences of interfering with the laws of nature. And yet another is that the story shows that Giovanni, unable to accept Beatrice's uniqueness, attempts to make her normal and then ends up losing her instead. This last one is very similar to the conclusions I drew from another of Hawthorne's short stories, The Birthmark. All three of these theories seem plausible.

On a weird note, if Hawthorne was alive today I can't help but think he would be writing about super heroes and villains. Poison Ivy anyone?

Also, I have to give a shout out to the Youtube channel, The Well Told Tale, for giving voice to this story. Superbly done!

 

 

 

  

The Disk by Jorge Luis Borges

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Story
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

 

A woodcutter who lives in the midst of a deep wood in old England tells the reader of the time a man appeared at his door and asked for lodging. 

 

An interesting story. I liked it but didn't love it. The story illustrates the lengths someone will go to obtain something they want, only in the end to not have it. There's a real irony in the fact that it's there but he can't find it. 

 

We read The Two Kings and Two Labyrinths from this collection. My rating and comments are only for this one story.

 

The Two Kings and Two Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Story
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

A Babylonian king orders his subjects to build him a labyrinth "so confusing and so subtle that the most prudent men would not venture to enter it, and those who did would lose their way". When an Arab king visited his court, the king of Babylon told him to enter the labyrinth in order to mock him. The Arab king finally got out and told the Babylonian that in his land he had another labyrinth, and Allah willing, he would see that someday the king of Babylonia made its acquaintance. 

 

Initially I thought this was just a story about two kings being awful to each other, but I like the way the story has two completely opposite things that have the same result.

 

We read the story One Man's Courage from this collection. My rating and comments are for that story only.

 

One Man's Courage from the L5R Fiction Archive

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Story
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

 

In this story, a man has to choose between his two sons which of them is going to receive the ancestral sword of his clan. Who does he choose? The son who knows what it means to win, but he does not know how to lose or the one who keeps trying?

This is a short story based on a fictional game world. I've never personally played this game but my friend has and this is a story she really likes because she likes the Crab Clan, and how they do their duty and persevere. I enjoyed the moral of the story even though I didn't have the connection to it that she had.

 

Certainty by Liane Merciel

 

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Story
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

Faith is the greatest battle. To fallen paladin Ederras, right and wrong aren't as clear as they once were, and even the forces of good seem tainted by sin. Lost and broken, the formerly righteous warrior joins up with the crusaders of Mendev, the last bastion of civilization fighting desperately against the demonic tides of the Worldwound. There he plans to rediscover his faith—or die trying. Yet even on the edge of total destruction, humanity's base nature runs rampant, leading any crusader to is there anything left worth fighting for? From rising star author Liane Merciel comes a tale of battle both physical and ideological, set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder campaign setting.

 

There's some good description in this short story but I have a hard time sometimes with stories that are based on role playing games. I felt like I was reading a story of a role playing adventure. The different characters were there to perform their roles as needed. I don't really know how else to explain it other than it has a different feel to it from a regular fantasy novel based on a world that has nothing to do with a game. I also thought this story was a little depressing, but the end was good.

 

Tower of Babylon by Ted Chiang

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Story
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Clean

 

Together with a crew of other miners and cart-pullers, Hillalum is recruited to climb the Tower of Babylon and unearth what lies beyond the vault of heaven. During his journey, Hillalum discovers entire civilizations of tower-dwellers on the tower—there are those who live inside the mists of clouds, those who raise their vegetables above the sun, and those who have spent their lives under the oppressive weight of an endless, white stratum at the top of the universe.

I'm not sure why, but stories about the tower of Babel or the tower of Babylon just don't usually interest me, and this was the same. I did end up liking the ending of this story but getting there was a bit boring at times.

 

 

 

  

The Crystal Spheres by David Brin

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi
Content: Clean

 

In a universe filled with habitable worlds why have we had no contact with extraterrestrial intelligence? David Brin's "The Crystal Spheres" offers a fantastic explanation for the Great Silence. Instead of being late-comers - might humanity have come upon the scene too early?

 

This could have been a lot more interesting. It's a story about why we haven't been contacted by any alien species from other planets, and why we can't contact them. Unfortunately, I found it to be a bit dull at times.  

 

 

For our book club meeting I topped this cake with objects that represented each story we read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Man's Courage- silver sword; The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths- labyrinth; The Veldt- lion, Bastard, Sword- blue crystal sword; Certainty- paladin; The Crystal Spheres- small crystal ball; Signal Moon- radio (not the right kind of radio but it worked well enough); Tower of Babylon- tower; The Ransom of Red Chief- two feathers; The Disk- clear disk that's hard to see; Rappaccini's Daughter- ivy vine around the cake and flower in the middle of the cake.

 

 

The sword from the story Bastard, Sword made out of crackers.

With the treasure added. The sword is lying on top of treasure, specifically gold, in the story.

A cheesy Tower of Babylon

 

Crosstime Traffic by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult, Short Stories
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Content: Mild language

 

Twenty stories by Hugo-winning author Lawrence Watt-Evans, exploring the infinite possibilities of traveling not just forward or backward in time, but sideways into the multiverse. Includes the award-winning "Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers."

 

I really liked the story Why I left Harry's All Night Hamburgers by Lawrence Watt-Evens, so when I needed to find a short story for an upcoming book club I decided to try his other stories. I have to say that initially I was a little disappointed. None of them were as good as the Harry's Hamburgers one, not even the sequel story that he wrote for it, A Flying Saucer with Minnesota Plates, though it was amusing. However, after I've thought about these for a while and even reread a few of them, I do think some of them are quite good. I think, for me at least, to enjoy short stories I have to be in the right frame of mind, and they can't be read with the same mindset or expectations that a full length book or even a novella is read with. They're little snippets of stories that, if done well make you think, or leave you wondering. I'm putting my ratings and comments for each of them down below.

Paranoid Fantasy #1 (1975)  3 stars  

An amusing story about a man who is very paranoid and takes all sorts of precautions to be safe from everything. 

 

 Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers (1987) 4 stars

About a diner that's a stopping point for unusual travelers from alternate realities of earth. A grass isn't always greener on the other side kind of story.

 

A Flying Saucer with Minnesota Plates (1991) 3 stars

A cute follow up to Harry's all night Hamburgers where a flying saucer gets stuck at the diner.

 

An Infinity of Karen (1988) 3.5 stars

About a man looking for his true love across different realities.

The Drifter (1991) 3 stars

A man volunteers in an experiment involving parallel worlds.

 

Storm Trooper (1992) 3.5 stars

About characters from different realities becoming stuck in the wrong one.

 

One Shot (1991) 3 stars

Someones goes back in time to prevent JFK from being assassinated in an alternate reality.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way (1992) 3 stars

Imagines a world where Herbert Hoover was elected for a second term.

Real Time (1989) 3.5 stars

A time traveler goes to murderous lengths to change the past, but did he really change the past or is he just crazy?

New Worlds (1991) 3 stars

A story where crosstime travel and interstellar travel meet.

One Night at a Local Bar (1980) 3.5 stars

About an alien from another planet who stops into a bar and gets discriminated against because he's different, by a bunch of people who are misfits themselves. The author says that most people miss the point of this story. It seemed rather obvious to me, so I'm wondering if I missed something, but I don't think so.

Science Fiction (1991) 3.5 stars

The whole time I was reading this I was thinking it was like if Phineas and Ferb lived on a space station but weren't quite as smart. I mean no one notices that these kids build a space ship in their backyard. 

Watching New York Melt (1991 with Julie Evans) 3 stars

Flying saucers are zapping things in New York City and melting them, like the World Trade Center. Knowing what happened later to the World Trade Center made reading this sentence weird. "I didn't mind when they got the World Trade Center, but I'm going to miss the Empire State." This one didn't age well at all.

Monster Kidnaps Girl at Mad Scientist's Command! (1992) 2 stars

A very pulpy story (that was the point) about a bug-eyed monster that tries to carry a girl off because of a misunderstanding. The story I liked the least in the whole collection.

 

Windwagon Smith and the Martians (1989) 3.5 stars

About a man who gets kidnapped by Martians in order to participate in a race with the windwagon he's invented.

The Rune and the Dragon (1984) 3 stars

The story of a mysterious rune that a dragon wants very badly for some mysterious reason.

The Palace of al-Tir al-Abtan (1989) 3 stars

About a man trying to break into a wizard's palace.

The Final Folly of Captain Dancy (1992) 3 stars

Amusing at times but too long in my opinion. In the beginning, it reminded me of Weekend at Bernie's. It's about what happens if the hero of the story gets killed before he can implement his plan. A plan he hasn't told anyone else about yet, and his crew have to try to figure it out without letting anyone know he's dead.

 

The Man Who Loved Dragons (2000) 3.5 stars

About a man with a dragon obsession. He collects dragon statues, pillows, coffee mugs, etc. and his niece is worried he's mentally ill because of it.

After the Dragon Is Dead (1990) 2.5 stars

What comes next after a fantasy hero defeats a tyrant and his dragon, from the point of view of his sidekick.

July 2024 Book Club: How to Safely Live in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

 

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-fi
Content: Sex bots and masturbation are mentioned

 

A story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space–time.
 
Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him—in fact it may even save his life.

 

This was very meta. It's a book being written within a book and very obviously a metaphor for parental abandonment and the way it affects the child. Throughout much of the book I wondered if the main character was just sitting in a box making this all up in his head, which could be what the author did, since this appears to be his personal story. At least that's what I'm assuming since he put himself in the book. I feel like the title even points to living in a fictional reality so as to block out the feelings of abandonment, but maybe I'm reading too much into it. A big theme in this book is not wasting the time we have. There's a part where he talks about how his dad wasted so much time trying to get more time, which was both profound and sad. This was my favorite thing about the book, and in support of that theme, I stopped wasting my time at about halfway through and skipped to the end.

June 2024 Book Club: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

For book club we read a book that I had already read before. I did a reread of it and ended up liking it about the same as I had before. I'm reposting my original review below with a few small tweaks along with a photo from book club.

 

 

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi
Content: Strong language, mild drug use

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”

Dark Matter starts out like a normal thriller, but with a title like Dark Matter you know it has to turn sci-fi at some point. I don't want to say too much about it and spoil anything for other readers though. For me most of the book was very easy to figure out or see coming. Going in, I was expecting the book to keep me guessing about some things, but it was never hard to figure out, and neither was the reason behind it. However, that did not ruin my enjoyment of this book. I found it very hard to put down. I liked the love story that was the center of the book, and the things Jason discovers about himself. I was on pins and needles through some of the situations in the book and I thought the ending was perfect, but I really would love to know more about Amanda and where she ended up. 

I'm adding what some might consider a minor spoiler in this review, although I don't consider it one. So skip the next paragraph if you don't want to read it. 

***Minor Spoiler below***

I'm not sure how I feel about the multiple Jason's at the end of the book. There can be all kinds of complications when writing a multiverse type of story which can lead to some inconsistencies. I wondered how there were multiple Jasons created as he was traveling to different realities, but we didn't run into any multiples of Amanda. Also Jason 1 caused multiples why didn't Jason 2? I think I would have preferred if there had just been no multiples because once you go down that road there really doesn't seem to be a way to do it right..

***End of spoiler***

 

I made these Jason cookies for book club.