I’m a big fan of author David Wong, and his latest family-friendly-read-aloud-to-the-kids book, Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick, is awesome. As usual, Wong combines outrageous humor with surprisingly deep, three-dimensional characters, and very little literal dick-punching.
Category Archives: Series
Review: Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
I’m a big fan of Alastair Reynold’s earlier books like Revelation Space. I didn’t like Terminal World, his foray into steampunk, and unfortunately, I had a similar reaction to Revenger. Continue reading
Review: Honor Among Thieves by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre
This YA novel is surprisingly inventive with a great, trouble-causing, mouthy protagonist, the kind you can’t wait to see what she does next.
Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is a fun, breezy book that feels like an eccentric Star Trek episode. The characters are bright and quirky, so if you’re in the mood for a story about goofy people getting along in a sci-fi setting, you should pick this up. Continue reading
Review: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is ridiculously fun. If a nerd got three wishes from a genie, experiencing what happens in this book would be one of them.
Continue reading
Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
This YA book has a great premise: on a distant planet, in a town with only men, everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts. Todd, the youngest person in town and a month away from manhood, slowly learns that everyone is keeping a horrible secret from him. He is forced to flee with his only friend, a talking dog. They discover the most surprising thing Todd’s ever seen: a living girl.
Review: The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld
The Risen Empire has some interesting ideas about the far future. Humanity has split into several factions, one of the largest is the Risen Empire, ruled by a single, immortal emperor for sixteen hundred years. This emperor has the sole power to bestow immortality on any of his subjects. When the emperor’s home planet is attacked and his sister held hostage, military and political gears start turning.
Review: The Lost Fleet: Dauntless by Jack Campbell
I’ve never been a big military SF fan, but The Lost Fleet: Dauntless does a solid job of changing my mind.
A soldier is woken up after one hundred years of drifting in space in survival hibernation and discovers that he’s been made a hero and a legend for his famous last stand. Not only is the war he fought in still raging, but he’s thrown into the command of a fleet of ships, deep in enemy territory and vastly outnumbered.
Review: Bad Hair Day by Jim Benton
This fun, goofy chapter book is the latest (after a ten-year hiatus) in the Franny K. Stein: Mad Scientist series. Franny decides to learn about the strangest, craziest thing she knows of: her mother. This results in several adventures involving powerful, shape-shifting, and self-aware hair.
Review: The Breach by Patrick Lee
The Breach is a fast-paced thriller, a firehose of plot unburdened with character development. A lone hiker in Alaska comes across a downed airliner with the dead bodies of the American First Lady and several others, along with an empty box that suggests a strange missing item. Continue reading