Zoe Hana Mikuta - Gearbreakers / Godslayers

Audiobook Review + Zoe Hana Mikuta

YA NA / FF / Post-apocalyptic / Mechas / First Person Present Tense.

Love betrayal combat mechas.

Can it get any better?

 

Xiran Jay Zhao - Iron Widow 1 - Iron Widow

Audiobook Review + Xiran Jay Zhao

Iron Widow is the first part of a duology / trilogy / series (?) with the same name. It describes Wu Zetian's rise through the ranks, in a Chinese inspired scifi / fantasy setting featuring a mystical 'spirit power' (a kind of paranormal energy source) and very large mecha-like creatures called 'Chrysalis'.

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time 03 - Children of Memory

Audiobook Review + Adrian Tchaikovsky

The third installment in the series, and (at first) very confusing, but in the end it all makes sense.

Again, Tchaikovsky takes a 'what if' and spins it all the way to its logical conclusion, in this case it's the Ship of Theseus concept.

Adrian Tchaikovsky - Children of Time 02 - Children of Ruin

Audiobook Review + Adrian Tchaikovsky

Book 2 in the Children of Time series. I'm probably one of the few who hasn't completed the series yet, but let me start by saying that Adrian Tchaikovsky plays the 'what if' game very well.

Book 1 featured intelligent spiders, and book 2 added intelligent octopi (?) and bacteria to the mix. (Not much of a spoiler as that's pretty clear from the start).

Amy Kaufman - Red Star Rebels

Audiobook Review + Amie Kaufman

First person, present tense, YA. romance / science-fiction. Classic recipe, and typical Amie Kaufman.

But... Published in 2026, this book is a bit of a let-down compared with her earlier co-op work with Jay Kristoff, especially the Aurora series, or The Illuminae Files.

A.J. Hackwith - Hell's Library 2 / 3 - The Archive of the Unwritten / The God of Lost Words

Audiobook Review

The third and final book of this trilogy. That, by itself, was a bit of a surprise, as these books had all the hallmarks of the start of a long, extensive, giganormous series of books.

But nope. It's a trilogy. (And there's nothing wrong with that.) Perhaps I'm over-conditioned by those endless multi-volume series. I think Hackwith could have gotten away with it, but she chose not to.

A.G. Slatter - All the Murmering Bones

Audiobook Review

This... is a weird one.

Take some dark, gothic fantasy elements, combine it with a family drama and a self-apreciating voice, and tell a tale that moves towards and touches upon horror territory.

Alexandra Bracken - Passenger 1 - Passenger

Audiobook Review

Book 1 of the Passenger series, in which the heroine is kidnapped from her own time (our time) and - obviously - travels through time.

Faith Hunter - Junkyard Cats 4 / 5 - Junkyard Roadhouse / Junkyard Riders

Audiobook Review

Faith Hunter (better known for her Romantasy stories) does a pretty good (Scifi) Apocalyptic series of novellas, all titled Junkyard Something.

Viola Grace - The Covert Dragons

Audiobook Review

Once you have a Rakuten Kobo Plus subscription you're going to try to maximize its usage. Let's read / listen to tons of free books - as long as the subscription lasts - right? On top of that, I was investigating the typical romantasy concepts. Free and with a purpose, right?

Well... yeah. Right. Unfortunately, lots of the better stuff isn't free, and lots of the stuff included in Kobo Plus isn't very good... Will Viola Grace change my opinion?

V.E. Schwab - Shades of Magic - A Darker Shade of Magic / A Gathering of Shadows / A Conjuring of Light

Audiobook Review

This is a well known series, in which the last of the Antari (dimension hopping mages) discovers his ancestry, and fights an all consuming magic evil.

It's pretty good, but I didn't find it as exceptional as it is often made out to be. Still good though.

Kalayna Price - Alex Craft 1 - Grave Witch

Audiobook Review

Dabbling in romantasy lately, are we?

Well. It's only for scientific purposes. And if the story is half-decent, then why not? I can always skip the random porn inserts that seem to haunt modern day fantasy novels...

Nicole Conway - Mad Magic

Kobo Plus + Audiobook Review

I've only read this one a few weeks ago, and I'm already forgetting about this one. I guess that means it did not leave that much of an impression behind.

Elizabeth Moon - Vatta's War - Series

Audiobook Review

Harringtonish... Nice read, still. Youngling gets kicked out of school, becomes trader, killer, captain, admiral, savior.

Predictable, I admit, but enjoyable.

Ryk Brown – The Frontiers Saga

Audiobook Review

Ryk Brown appears to have become a quite popular self publishing author. I've sampled some of his wares... It's a bit fannish, a bit 'wannabe', to be honest. Some of the jokes and characters are okay, and do bring a smile on my face. The plotholes though (especially the technobabble guffaws) are a bit of a let down.

Jeffery Haskell - Grimm's War 6 - A Grimm Decision

Audiobook Review

And yet another space opera / military sci-fi series. Shades of Honor Harrington, and that's fine. Captain Grim leads the crew of his older but still powerful boat through a conflict between multiple sides, Consortium, Caliphate, Guild, Alliance...

Elliot Kay - Poor Man's Fight 6 - No Man's Land

Audiobook Review

Another space opera / military sci-fi series. Main protagonist might be a little too much of an anti hero in the 6th book, but it’s quite readable.

Series starts with greedy corporations that unload endless debts on wannabe students, then moves on to an interstellar conflict between several races. 

Faith Hunter - Junkyard Cats / Junkyard Bargain / Junkyard War

Audiobook Review

Entertaining set of 3 (now 4) novels, in which a post-apocalyptic junkyard owner becomes a kind of queen bee, driven by biotech, and assisted (hampered?) by gen-engineered cats, after aliens overcame earth’s finest.

The Verdict: great read. Looking forward to book 4!

Erik Schubach - Fixit / Glitch / Vashon / Descent / Sedition

Audiobook Review

Supposed to be somewhat ‘lesbian scifi’ but - except for one scene that wasn’t even that explicit - these read as a fast paced nerd-becomes-heroine set of short stories. Does suffer a little from the Mary Sue effect.

Synopsis: dirtside engineer knows how to create sentient robots, and falls in love with a copper-without-impulse-control from the floating cities above.

The Verdict: perfectly readable, light SciFi.

Charlaine Harris / Christopher Golden - Cemetary Girl

Audiobook Review

Short story that got expanded into three short novels, about a girl who lost her memory and starts living on a cemetery.

It's an easy read - nothing too exceptional - with perhaps a somewhat unexpected plot twist near the end, where the whole story adopts a supernatural element.

The verdict: a decent, entertaining read.