Dilman Dila is a Ugandan writer and film maker. The story is about a robot facing an existential crisis. Is he a human inside of a pet robot? Does he have a spirit? What is his purpose?
This felt a bit like a physics lecture, with a side dish of techno-babble. However, if Murderbot ever wants to adopt a pet, this could be the ideal dog for it. Nice plot, although the ending is a bit abrupt—I think this could make an interesting novella. I liked it. ★★★★☆
I will post updates whenever I finish another story.
I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
The final issue of Volume 3. We follow Andy and Effie‘s adventure in one stream…
… and Telsa, Helda and Mila in the other…
… to a fairly predictable ending. Fairly short with 22 pages. Good, if not surprising. Ok, some surprises in between. Taking a break now, before picking up the issues of Volume 4.
I don‘t usually freak out about the end of the month coming, but July got away from me. I read good stuff, it was much better than June, but I did not manage to catch up… For my #ReadBIPOC2021 challenge I barely glanced at my pick for July, which was all about a collection or anthology. The main prompt leaned towards poetry, but I went for a short story collection from my TBR pile. My plan was to read:
In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world.
Ella and Kev are brother and sister, both gifted with extraordinary power. Their childhoods are defined and destroyed by structural racism and brutality. Their futures might alter the world. When Kev is incarcerated for the crime of being a young black man in America, Ella—through visits both mundane and supernatural—tries to show him the way to a revolution that could burn it all down.
Literary Award:Alex Award (2021) — there was a ton of nominations for other awards, which this did not win…
Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless – people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumoured healing powers.
I saw several people commenting on the similarities to Ready Player One. I haven‘t read that book, only watched the movie. Mighty media tycoon, ok. But they do not delve into a digital world here. It‘s rather like the first Jurassic Park, with an actual entertainment park, with unicorns and dragons instead of dinosaurs. A real-life game of D&D. That‘s the plan, anyway, but contact to the island breaks off, a coast guard boat tries to go to the island and everybody on the boat is killed when they hit an energy shield surrounding it. An adventuring party is sent to investigate.
Straight forward, linear story telling. A bit like a dungeon crawler. One mystery and obstacle after another. Check, next one. Don’t forget to pick up all the loot, it might come in handy later. Our heroine is a nerd and knows her way through a dungeon crawler. She has a bunch of soldiers in tow. Or rather, they have her in tow and she helps them to find their way to the center of the island, for the final big reveal.
There’s a lot of Tolkien references. I suppose this qualifies as LitRPG… the writing is good, but I didn‘t find it terribly suspenseful or interesting. I guess I expected more adventure and thriller elements. This was fairly slow paced. Definitely something for lovers of epic fantasy, RPGs, Disney animals and seekers of unicorns and dragons. If you are looking for action-driven suspense and a touch of Michael Crichton, this isn‘t it. I wasn‘t exactly bored, but didn‘t feel a driving need to pick it up and find out the next mysterious thing. Somewhere in the middle I started a little skimming, wanting to get to the end already… which turned out to be pretty unsatisfying. There was a proper ending, no cliffhanger and the good guys won, as expected. The loose ends were tied, everything was explained. The End. Pretty meh.
I received this free e-copy from the publisher/author via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
The beginning of this one is told from Mila‘s perspective.
Mother‘s story continues, we go on a detour to Gnish and I spotted something that looked suspiciously similar to a light saber… Oh, an Telsa takes us to a really interesting place at the end of this issue! The plot thickens! One more issue in this story arc and volume…
I just came across a post mentioning Tom Hanks as an audiobook narrator. Colour me intrigued. I immediatley sought out the book and listened to the sample.
The sample sounds great, Hanks goes along at a nice clip, enunciates beautifully and is just his usual awesome self. However, the story is really not my kind of thing. Usually I run the other way, when I see a book tagged as literary fiction.
Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Throughout their lives, they return to the well-worn story of what they’ve lost with humor and rage. But when at last they’re forced to confront the people who left them behind, the relationship between an indulged brother and his ever-protective sister is finally tested.
From the Goodreads blurb
Will have to think about it! I also feel tempted by his short story collection, Uncommon Type: Some Stories. Somewhere I came across a story talking about his hobby of collecting manual typewriters. It immediately made me long for having one again myself. They are so expensive! And not easy to come by…
I love Tom Hanks. I hope there will never, ever be any stories in the news declaring him to be a horrible human for some reason. It would break my heart.
An in-between issue. Andy fights vampires, the story of Mother is taken another step forward and we meet another character from Descender, who was not such a surprising surprise. He had to show up eventually.
If you are interested in this series, you should start with the first Descender volume:
A boy wakes up in a place where everybody else is dead. He has been asleep for 10 years. Turns out he‘s not a kid, but a robot companion.
Gorgeous watercolour artwork.
There are some pretty strong Star Wars vibes. That flashback was a throwback to Tatooine. All that was missing was R2D2 and C3P0. Plenty of potentially interesting planets and (hopefully to come) complex world building.
Tim, Driller and the yappy bot are great characters. The humans and otherwise biologic entities are a colourful bunch. Shocking violence! I screamed like a girl. Well, once… the bad guys are nasty. And the potentially nice guy is flawed. I liked the story of robots being the hunted underdogs.
I read the first few chapters, then skimmed my way roughly to the middle of the book, looking at the illustrations and reading a bit here and there. The writing doesn‘t feel as dry and dated as I feared, but all together this didn‘t grab me enough to properly read it in full. That‘s just me though. I recommend reading the Goodreads review of my buddy Trish…
The prologue was a smart way of summarizing the salient points of the previous book. The first chapter though… did he just copy and paste that complete chapter with the kayak tourists and the pod of orca from the previous book?
Early on we meet the main character from The Loch and the subsequent novels of that series. Cross-over time! Unfortunately that character talks with a Scottish brogue. I don‘t mind (too much), however it‘s pretty inconsistent. Whole sentences in the Queen‘s English and then a few Scottish things thrown in. Nobody talks that way.
Alten sticks to his tried and tested routine: two plots with distinct sets of main characters that each face their challenges—the respective monster of the day. First they alternate by chapter and eventually, as the suspense heats up towards the later parts of the book, the narrative switches between the plotlines faster and faster. Chapters usually finish with cliffhangers and then move on to the other plot. Which is annoying and means that you basically have to rush from one chapter to the next, driven by the momentum of whatever crazy thing just happened.
Somewhere in or after the middle Alten throws in some weird development from the other series, specifically from Vostok (I think—I haven‘t actually read that one). You have to suspend your disbelief very hard. He went into a very ridiculous, superfluous direction. Which is saying much, considering that this is about the appearance of pre-historic sharks, Liopleurodons and a ton of other bizarre creatures. My reading buddies and I all rolled our eyes so much…
Up to that point the plot was more or less a repetition of the last book. Felt a bit like Alten plagiarizing himself. Copy-and-paste-a-lot…. I wish that Alten had just stayed with the main plot — chasing the megs and capturing that Liopleurodon. Adding another monster and the character from the other books with his own brand of crazy… what‘s next, sharks in space?
Sorry, I stole this pic somewhere, but didn‘t keep track…
And for the characters — I didn‘t have many expectations, but even those are completely interchangeable. David is Jonas, Monty is Mac… Never mind David‘s squeeze of the day. That romance/friendship-with-benefits was implausible at best. The way Alten writes the female characters is just atrocious. Again. Hoping for an improvement on that front was probably naive.
Why did I think picking up this book was a good idea? And why on Earth did I finish it? Embarrassingly enough I quite enjoyed the action in Part 3 and 4, despite there being too may different monsters. I didn‘t mind all the new monsters in the last book, they worked within the setting of that book. Here it read like a hodgepode of (more) crazy. *head desk*
And you know what? Apparently there will be only one more book. I can‘t not read that one, even it it will be another 2 start rating. Oh boy.
Cathy's Reading Bonanza 