Romance and space opera, with spies and aliens

Space opera | Starshine (Series: Aurora Rising #1; Amaranthe #1) | G.S. Jennsen

⭐⭐⭐, aka I liked it

The main characters and their motivations are well done. The galaxy destroying aliens are plausible.

The future tech is high quality soap-opera and almost credible, the right quantity of science terms and jargon are thrown in at appropriate times, while not descending to handwavium and unobtainium (big plus).

The economics, as in all space opera, makes little sense. People zip between planets like they'd zip between cities on Earth, the major population centres on whole planets are as tiny as 30,000. Come on, we have villages in my country which are bigger than that! There are whole planets run by mafias.... but then, that's why it's space opera, right? And this one is quite well done.

There is good character development for the heroine and the hero, and a few of the main characters. I presume the villains will be better fleshed out in the subsequent books. As of now, they are just creepy evil bad guys. This book is for the female gaze, and the romance is overly signalled to start with, but once you get used to the idea, it's quite fun, because the characters are solidly done.

Will I read more in the series? Yup, planning to dish out good money for it.

Pew-pew-pew fun from one end to the other

Military Science Fiction | Scorpion’s Fury (Series: Metal Legion, #1) | C.H. Gideon  

⭐⭐⭐ and a large planet, aka I liked it quite a bit

No wasting time. Our heroine leaps into battle in the prologue itself, and then continues for the rest of the book, winning a field promotion while saving the day and dissing the inept officers around. So far, fairly standard expectations. So what else is there?

Bad language used by soldiers (who are supposedly the dregs anyway)? Check. Sassy and fearless heroine? Check. At least one decent senior officer? Check. Comrade under fire? Check. Bureaucratic own-ass savers? Check. Hand to hand fighting with own side? Uhh..., check. Mystery man? Check. Fancy futuristic battle craft? Check.

Flashes of humour, believable battles (ok, willing suspension of disbelief, but at least there are no infinite ammunition supplies), almost invincible aliens, all check. Political twists and turns, yup, a few.

The characters come to life and you care about them. Hence, an 'I like it' rating. No way to give a partial star, so let me say: this sits at the top of 3 stars, with a large planet.

Futuristic boot camp to fight alien monsters

Military science fiction | Earth Alone (Series: Earthrise, #1) | Daniel Arenson 

⭐⭐⭐ aka I liked it

This book features mandatory drafting of all eighteen year olds, worldwide, to fight alien monsters. Most of the book is about the boot camp that our heroes go to. There is the mandatory bully, the tough sergeants, the unapproachable officers, the teen romances.

But the boot camp went on and on, and the remaining pages got less and less. This was supposed to be a military sf book featuring alien monsters. Now, there was hardly any book left, and the boot camp was still on. I wondered if these teens would ever actually fight a war or, horrors, was I expected to go to book two for that?

Well, if Arenson had done that to us, nobody would buy book two. Fortunately for sales, he did not disappoint regarding battles with the aliens. The book went into high gear, the aliens appeared. And there was still a chapter left to wrap up the whole thing  in case you decided to stop at book one. However, such authorial kindness should be rewarded, and the rest of the series beckons more appealingly as a result.

A Detective Story about a Detective Story

Detective | Magpie Murders | Anthony Horowitz

⭐⭐⭐ aka I liked it

An editor finds the last chapter of the detective novel by the boutique publisher's bestselling author missing. Shortly after, she learns that the author is dead, presumably a suicide. Her search for the missing chapter hints darkly at murder, and she ends up risking her life chasing the chapter and the truth.

You get to read the whole of the detective story by the fictional author as well... heh heh. Two mysteries for the price of one.

Anthony Horowitz tends to place himself and his family in some of his detective books. This time, he leaves the poor folk in reality. It makes the story a bit better this way, I think. That stuff is clever-clever, not necessarily more entertaining.

James Bond Guy with Dog takes on terrorists with mutated germs

Thriller | The Kill Switch (Tucker Wayne, #1) | James Rollins

⭐⭐⭐ aka I liked it

James Bond with Dog takes on terrorists with mutated germs that can destroy whole crops (ya, attack the food supply rather than the people, an uncommon twist).

The hero cares more for his dog than he cares about most people, which always puts off speciesists like me. It's a typical Hollywood mix of running up a body count unless the character is named, whereupon our hero becomes all kind and squeamish.

Withal, a light thriller that won't tax your brain cells.

Flying wizards and wishy-washy inverted sexism

Fantasy | The Philosopher’s Flight | Tom Miller

⭐⭐⭐

American college story set in the 19th century. Young adult. Interesting and pacy read. Quaint language (like calling wizards philosophers), but smooth and does not jar.

Robert Weekes is a boy who wants to be a flying wizard ("hovering philosopher") and work in the search and rescue corps. Except that only girls are philosophers...

It's gentle. The underdogs win. There is only one bully, who is pretty pathetic, not a real enemy. Fans of Harry Potter would probably like this one.

I didn't quite see this as a good book on sexism using the male as target. The lack of agency and #everydaysexism just isn't there. There's nothing in the story that makes you boiling mad at any stage. It's all very plasma and not whole blood.

I'm reminded of a quote, which I'm paraphrasing: If you get to learn about sexism by being told about it rather than experiencing it, that's privilege. This book may be about inverted sexism, but it's very privileged. Sexism isn't experienced in this book, it's something third-hand. Partly, it's because though all the 'strong philosophers' are female, the rest of society is just the same, so the sexism that Weekes experiences is a watered down revenge of those with a little power, not really sexism the way billions experience it daily.

I really liked the concepts, but this drags away at least one star.

3 stars = I liked it.

Hard sci fi that bends reality very convincingly

Science fiction | Ball Lightning | Cixin Liu

⭐⭐⭐

Good, but not as good as the Three Body series or Wandering Earth.

I like Joel Martinson's translations better than Ken Liu's. Let's get that out of the way directly. Ken Liu's are more faithful, Joel Martinson's flow.

Chen sees his parents incinerated by ball lightning on his 14th birthday, and therefore grows up to be a ball lightning researcher. The only way something as rare as this gets funded for research is military applications. He meets and works with Major Yun Lin, who is a reckless but influential person with a searing interest in new weapons of all types, the more quixotic, the better. They are joined by the cantankerous genius theorist Ding Yi (who also shows up in the Three Body series).

What eventually happens to Yun Lin is an outcome of her psychology, quite fascinating and heh heh, quantum. And I have never, ever, come across such a way of concluding a war as in this book. Trust you me, MAD is nothing.

Ball lightning turns out to be something that Cixin Liu specialises in inventing: strange forms of matter that seem superbly convincing while you read the book. You have to finish the book, roam around outside, touch a few solid things, and check on the Internet that, since the book was published, scientists have actually found out what it is (and it's not what's said in the book, thank goodness for that!), and then return to the normal world after the mad roller coaster ride of imagination.

This book has a slower pace and not as large a sweep as the Three Body series. But it is a prequel. Fans of the series should read it; they will not be disappointed.

3 stars = I liked it