All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, Book 1) Martha Wells, 2017 Premise: All Murderbot wants is to be left alone to watch tv. Unfortunately, if it doesn't want its free will to be discovered, it still has a job to do, and someone's trying to kill the people it's supposed to protect. This was an absolute delight. Going in, I thought was that this was a novella from the point of view of a killbot. What I found was a snarky sci-fi adventure with a protagonist whose general misanthropy is not entirely genuine, but this never falters into pathos. The humans call it Security Unit, or SecUnit, but a murderbot is what it calls itself. The reason why is a mix of black humor and cynicism. Murderbot is not only hiding its sense of humor but also its free will from both the humans it's assigned to and the shadowy Company that owns it and financed the scientific mission they're on. A SecUnit has consciousness, but it isn't supposed to be able to choose for ...
This is Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee's View Today's Question is: Do You Judge a Book by its Cover? Yes, much of the time. I mean, a poorly done cover isn't a guarantee I won't read the book, but if I'm in a store or the library, it means I probably won't pick it up. Online or on the Kindle Store, I more use cover art as a quick judge of genre if I'm not sorting by genre. For example, when I'm clicking through cheap or free books, I won't click on any romance or lit-fic looking covers. For ebooks I'm more likely to buy/read based on the description than the cover, but I'll still judge the cover. If it looks like complete crap, that could be an indication of the quality of the writing, so it has to be a consideration.
The Incandescent Emily Tesh, 2025 Premise: In an alternate present where some schools teach magic, Doctor Walden is teaching teenagers how not to get eaten by demons while dealing with constant bureaucracy and her own nonexistent love life. I really, really liked this book. I'm not sure I loved it as much as the author's first novel , but that one was a truly unique experience. The two stories are different beasts, although there are commonalities, like occasionally unreliable narration and sapphic relationships. I liked the characters a lot, and I enjoyed the juxtaposition of the kind of nonsense that any elite school deals with - teenage drama spilling into the classroom, teacher infighting, the tension between kids from rich families and the handful of kids on scholarships, etc. - and potentially life-and-death magical incursions by extradimensional forces. As a stupid American, I did sometimes have trouble following the British school terminology (how old is a what number...
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