Not as bad as I FEARed. See what I did there? Eh?Eh?Eh?
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Time travel is so tricky, and I didn't have a lot of faith in Remender to start with ifNot as bad as I FEARed. See what I did there? Eh?Eh?Eh?
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Time travel is so tricky, and I didn't have a lot of faith in Remender to start with if I'm being honest, so the fact that this ended in a way that didn't piss me off took me by complete surprise. Remender will probably never be my jam, as I find his stuff mostly a maudlin look at life, but he pulled it off this time for me. I didn't hate it.
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This was a story of that guy. He's tough and he never gives up, no matter what life throws at him. He doesn't like people and people don't like him. But he does the right thing anyway. Mostly. And he's got an alcohol addiction, but he pushes through. Because you can't stop him. He's a cowboy. IN SPACE! And let's face it, who doesn't want to read a story about that guy?
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There's actually quite a bit of depth here, as Remender uses every trick in the book to show how Heath is a product not just of nature, but of nurture. With the use of time travel, cloning, & mind swaps, you can see how life experiences made him into, well...different people who might lead vastly different lives. Where's our personal line in the sand? That path we take, or maybe the one that takes us, that branches off to a place where we would become unrecognizable to ourselves? A cruel person? A crazy person? An evil person? We all like to think it couldn't happen to us, but that's probably because that last button we have hasn't been pushed. Yet. So, kudos to the subtle and not-so-subtle plot threads running through this thing.
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And yet. I have to say that I was pretty happy to be done with this story by the time I got to the end. Like in the First Volume's Deluxe Editon, I found all of the added issues of Heath's prior adventures boring. But I will freely admit that it was probably just because I wanted to move on and tick this damn thing off of my list. Fans will no doubt appreciate all the extras. Recommended for Space Cowboys....more
This was such a disappointment. I was hoping for something cool and twisty and I got slapped upside the head with a wet blanket. Sorry I wasted my time This was such a disappointment. I was hoping for something cool and twisty and I got slapped upside the head with a wet blanket. Sorry I wasted my time (pun intended) with this series.
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Sometimes an entire series can hinge on its ending for me, and this one was a prime example of that. I thought it would take quite a different turn and surprise me, have some twist that would make this fun, or a big reveal that would make the whole thing take on an exciting turn. It did not.
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Bottom line? If you like quasi-sappy stories about life being a predetermined and inescapable journey, you might like this one. Not my cuppa....more
It appears that Kevin and Nadia are stuck in the distant past with a bunch of anti-robot colonists that are now headedNothing is what it seems?
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It appears that Kevin and Nadia are stuck in the distant past with a bunch of anti-robot colonists that are now headed by her mother. What's going on here?
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Things are heating up, I just hope they can bring this whole time travel debacle full circle and give us a cool ending....more
A badass bounty hunter is on the trail of Nadia, Tatsuo, & Kevin. But the thing is, you kind of like the guy because the story is that his grandson neeA badass bounty hunter is on the trail of Nadia, Tatsuo, & Kevin. But the thing is, you kind of like the guy because the story is that his grandson needs medical treatment and this job will pay enough to get it. So yeah, he's a bad guy, but even bad guys have hearts.
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The Arcola Institute which took Nadia's family to some supposed utopian society in the past is looking shadier and shadier the more they discover about the group and its recruitment practices. And Tatsuo is dying of rad poisoning, and jumping desperately to different future eras to find a cure. But will he run out of time before he can locate the right one?
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You can't really say much more without giving major spoilers, so I'll just say this one is keeping me on the edge of my seat.
The crime families are at war and chasing Tatsuo and Nadia through time. Also Kevin. <--the only robot who can survive time travel.
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Nadia is stilThe crime families are at war and chasing Tatsuo and Nadia through time. Also Kevin. <--the only robot who can survive time travel.
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Nadia is still searching for her family but what she learns in this volume puts them a few more jumps away. Can Tatsuo survive those jumps, though? And after the death of his son, Helgi has been usurped by Marston, but he has his own plans for his career in the Syndicate.
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I'm really enjoying this one in a B-movie kind of way. And by that, I mean that this isn't some grand tale that I'd push on just any old reader. But if you like time travel, sci-fi, and graphic novels, then you'll probably get a kick out of this one.
Bobbie Draper is staying with family after the events on Ganymede changed the way she thought about the universe. BuAunt Bobbie to the rescue.
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Bobbie Draper is staying with family after the events on Ganymede changed the way she thought about the universe. But this book isn't about Bobbie, it's about her nephew, Martin. He's a smart, angry, horny teenager. And he's trying to navigate growing up, becoming a man, and leaving home.
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Oh, and he's cooking up some Martian meth for the local drug dealer. So, yeah. If he's not in trouble when we first meet him, it's only a matter of time.
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And when things do go tits up, that Marine who has been sitting on his couch for the past few months shows him what it means to be a member of the Draper family.
Not for me. I read the foreword to try and get a feel for what this was going to be about, as I had never read anything by Alejandro Jodorowsky before.Not for me. I read the foreword to try and get a feel for what this was going to be about, as I had never read anything by Alejandro Jodorowsky before. Maybe something is lost in translation, but he sounded very up-his-own-ass in it. Especially the part where he talked bout how one artist couldn't draw faces, one could only do robots, one wasn't good with landscapes - and how he wrote the stories that allowed them to work within those parameters.
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There were little forewords in front of each story that didn't add much to the reading experience other than to overexplain a bit for my taste, as well.
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But maybe I just didn't understand what I was getting into? I only grabbed it because it was a Hoopla Bonus Borrow and I was out of comics. Anyway. I thought all the stories kind of sucked (except the one about the vampire, ironically), but none of them were long enough to actually hate.
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Whatever this is, I'm not the right audience for it. Recommended for someone else....more
A pretty decent collection of bite-sized sci-fi stories.
3 stars Ark by Veronica Roth An asteroid is going to hit the planet. Can Aerosmith write anotherA pretty decent collection of bite-sized sci-fi stories.
3 stars Ark by Veronica Roth An asteroid is going to hit the planet. Can Aerosmith write another #1 before it hits?
4 stars Randomize by Andy Weir Quantum entanglement, Keno, and a casino owner. What can go wrong?
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If you're into sci-fi shorts, you could do worse than this collection. They weren't all winners for me, but they were most definitely all readable. Recommended....more
I loved it. I thought it was the perfect length to showcase the origins of one of the main characters of the Rocinante.
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Ok, so I didn't read theI loved it. I thought it was the perfect length to showcase the origins of one of the main characters of the Rocinante.
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Ok, so I didn't read the blurb and therefore didn't know who this story was about when I downloaded it from the library. Those of you who know me will not be shocked at my lack of knowledge going into a book, but at least I'm not accidentally reading them out of order, so...progress. I was just looking for a few hours in the world of The Expanse universe. I said all that to say that I was FLOORED at the end to discover who this character was. Floored, I say! But then again, I didn't realize I was reading about one of the main characters. So. That might have something to do with it.
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It's only about 2 and a half hours long but it packs a punch. Recommended for fans of The Expanse....more
I didn't love it, didn't hate it, but also didn't get the point of it. Or, I guess that's not right. I got the point, but it didn't wow or horrify me.
[I didn't love it, didn't hate it, but also didn't get the point of it. Or, I guess that's not right. I got the point, but it didn't wow or horrify me.
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A person wakes up on a table and can't see. They can't remember...anything. For most of the rest of the book, a voice from another room instructs them in activities that will hopefully bring their mind and body to a state of health. The first few pages were interesting but I ended up thinking that it was ultimately kind of long and drawn out for what seemed to me to be a pretty foreseeable ending.
(view spoiler)[So what that she's making clones of her dead husband and none of them have survived? So what that he didn't "authorize" her to make the clones? When you're dead, you're dead. You won't care what happens to your DNA. It's like how I've never understood why some people get so freaked out over the idea that someone in a funeral home might fuck their dead body. Who cares? You're dead. If some weirdo has a last hurrah with my corpse...LOL! Are they gross? Yes. Does it concern me? No. (hide spoiler)]
This seems to be a favorite from the Forward Collection, but it was too disjointed to be a five-star read for me.
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So, the premise is cool and tThis seems to be a favorite from the Forward Collection, but it was too disjointed to be a five-star read for me.
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So, the premise is cool and the first half of the story really gives you a lot of food for thought. If you could choose your unborn child's temperament using genetic "nudging", would you? A fertility clinic gives a man the opportunity to see three different versions of what his son's life will be like using statistical probability based on what personality attributes they can bring to the forefront. Would you want your child to be content and stable if it meant they never lived up to their true potential? Would you choose a path that had creativity and passion if it also meant addiction and chaos? Would you pick a life where charm and charisma meant skating through life as an asshole until life invariably teaches them a hard lesson? You gotta think about that for a minute, right?
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Because you're not just trying to weed out diseases or decide on an eye color. You're plotting out a roadmap for their life, and not in the hopeful let's make sure they go to a good school sort of way. No, you've gone whole hog in a manipulatively invasive way. Oh, wow! That's something to chew on.
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Then it veered off the rails and went in a whole new direction when he left the clinic to mull things over. Without giving any spoilers, I'll put it like this: Pretend you're sitting at a bar and you strike up a conversation about {insert SPORT here} that's playing on the television. Then suddenly, this other guy starts ranting about the ice wall around the flat earth and how 5G cellphone towers have been installed by the government to send out mind control signals. It's not where you thought your night was headed when you casually mentioned that you were pulling for the college basketball team on the television.
(view spoiler)[Sam's having doubts about his life choices and daydreams that his wife is having an affair with the fertility doctor, so he hits a bar on the way home. The bartender gives him some sob story about having triplets after their first child, causing him and his wife to have to re-arrange their priorities (this equals being poor), then tells him about his one smart daughter and 3 not-as-smart sons and all the sacrifices they made for her to get into the best college, only to be told by her doctor that they all needed to sit down and talk because ISSUES, and the whole family saw a therapist and the kids all talked about their childhood, and it was just the most specialist thing ever. Then the bartender and another patron proceed to tell him that they think the military is funding the clinic to make super-soldiers. Yes. Seriously. So Sam gets in his self-driving car and rides back to the clinic and snags his sperm. He hops back in his car, goes to the pub, and slaps his container full of spooge down on the bar. I'm taking my DNA back, baby! The three guys eyeball his jar of goo as the story fades to black... (hide spoiler)] I get it, but that whole last bit ruined the initial what if coolness of the first part of the story for me. It overexplained things in a way that took the fizzle out of it.
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The first half was such a great premise that I can't give it less than 3 stars, though....more
Very cute. So the gist is that (sometime in the future) a bunch of the 1 percenters got on a spaceship as the Earth was hitting a crisis point in the eVery cute. So the gist is that (sometime in the future) a bunch of the 1 percenters got on a spaceship as the Earth was hitting a crisis point in the ecological sense. They made a new version of Earth. A "better" version. One where they don't have to deal with peasants. Now they've sent back someone in the servant class to retrieve some kind of resource that they need, with the promise that he'll get this perfect skin as a reward. That part was very hard for me to visualize, but whatever. Basically, he'll get to be blond with a big dick. Earth was dying when they left, so all he's got to do is navigate this barren planet and get the goods. But he is in for the surprise of a lifetime.
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(view spoiler)[ Earth is flourishing. Filled to the brim with not only plant life, but people! And they're happy in their ecologically sound cities, where everyone has everything they need to live and no one is forgotten or abandoned. They even get paid if they don't work! It appears as though life got better for the have-nots once the haves left en masse.
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Inside his mind, he's got this chip with basically a downloaded version of the new world leaders' consciousness that's constantly talking to him and telling him what to do, how to do it, giving out information (that's a sunset, that's a tree, that's a woman, etc.), while informing him how gross it is on Earth when compared with the perfection they've created on their planet.
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At the end, our unnamed astronaut has to decide what he wants to do with this information.
Unfortunately, I'm not rich. And I've met my peers. Some are wonderful, some are horrid. Greed and callousness aren't character traits relegated only to the wealthy. So, while it's a lovely idea to say that if only we could get rid of the people in charge, the borders would come down and we would all peacefully work toward finding solutions that would benefit mankind as a global unit, I'm afraid that's just not so. What would realistically happen if they all disappeared is that their Great Value counterparts would step in to take their place. We'd still have wars, we'd still have genocide, we'd still have people that lacked basic necessities. It doesn't mean it's useless to try to make the world a better place, it just means that there's no such thing as a quick fix. (hide spoiler)] But this is fiction and I liked the story. Sci-fi, ftw!...more
An NPC in a game gains sentience. How? Why? No idea. Its creator spends years of her life trying to unpack what that means and trying to ensure that herAn NPC in a game gains sentience. How? Why? No idea. Its creator spends years of her life trying to unpack what that means and trying to ensure that her new life form doesn't get out of control. As with all new technology involving AI, it works out splendidly for the humans.
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Ok, this is one book that I would recommend you go the audio version. Rosa Salazar killed it with the narration - the amount of emotion conveyed was just *chef's kiss* I mean, I'm talking about her voice cracking and everything. Good stuff, good stuff.
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In the end, I was on the side of the AI. (view spoiler)[I mean, everyone's going to die someday, so why not kill everyone off and upload them into a reality without all the nonsense and anxiety? I didn't really see what all the fuss was about. Our main character was miserable already. And as far as the "noooo! just let me end!" argument, well...you are ending. It's whatever cleaned-up version of you that the AI uploads into their new reality that will keep on keeping on. (hide spoiler)]
It's the end of their world as they know it. But Samantha does not feel fine.
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There is a meteor hurtling toward the planet. And the impact is goiIt's the end of their world as they know it. But Samantha does not feel fine.
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There is a meteor hurtling toward the planet. And the impact is going to kick up dust clouds that will blot out the sun. Then there will be the requisite tsunamis. And whatever is left after that the lava monsters who live in the center of the planet will most assuredly break out of the crust and destroy. Shhh. Just let me have that last one...
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Ok, so most of the end of Earth via impact stories revolve around humans stoically making their peace with death OR trying to figure out how to divert/destroy the asteroid. Roth's story assumes that people figured out this thing was coming at them and started planning evacuation. I'm intrigued. There's a way off the planet, so what's the story about?
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But the nuts and bolts of the story aren't about how they built enough ships to send humanity out into the stars. That part is blessedly glossed over as a given, and we are introduced to a small group of horticulturalists and scientists who are working to classify as many plant specimens as they can before the final ship takes off. And even the plants aren't the story. No, it's about one young woman whose life holds no meaning and who is secretly planning to stay on the planet till the bitter end.
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To be honest, the majority of the story is dreary. I mean, if you want to stay behind...why not? Why not, indeed? There's a hopeful note to this one that I appreciated. (view spoiler)[Even if there is nothing for you at this moment, you just never know what you might miss out on if you give up. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but I think humans need it. (hide spoiler)] It's not a fast-paced thriller but it was a decent story. Recommended....more
When a genius gets her husband to help her cheat at Keno with the help of a quantum computer and entanglementThe house always wins. Or does it?
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When a genius gets her husband to help her cheat at Keno with the help of a quantum computer and entanglement theory, it looks like she's covered all of her bases. But she forgot that while she's got brains, the owner of the casino has decades of experience catching would-be cheaters. So what's a girl to do when it looks like the chips are down?
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I loved this one! It was just long enough to tell a story and get me invested in the characters. It can be hard to do that with shorts, but Weir managed it. Recommended....more
When a genius gets her husband to help her cheat at Keno with the help of a quantum computer and entanglementThe house always wins. Or does it?
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When a genius gets her husband to help her cheat at Keno with the help of a quantum computer and entanglement theory, it looks like she's covered all of her bases. But she forgot that while she's got brains, the owner of the casino has decades of experience catching would-be cheaters. So what's a girl to do when it looks like the chips are down?
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I loved this one! It was just long enough to tell a story and get me invested in the characters. It can be hard to do that with shorts, but Weir managed it. Recommended....more
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