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.

Amy Tintera - Reboot

Audiobook Review

Love. Life. And zombies.

This is a YA first person present tense audiobook exploring the 'I died and came back as a zombie' trope. Fortunately, it's better than the average wannabe-writer 'Isekai' project.

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.

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.

Rachel Bach (Rachel Aaron) - Paradox Series - Fortune's Paw / ...

Audiobook Review

Down-on-her-luck wannabe-warrior falls in love. Add exo-suits, aliens, baddy evil to fall in love with, an empire, a love story, and Rachel Bach's writing skills.

And what you end up with is a great series.

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.

Countdown to 2025 - #3 - Best SF & Fantasy books ever (my Top 3)

Countdown + Scifi books + Fantasy books

You may have noticed that a large part of this blog consists of nothing but SciFi and Fantasy book reviews. I'm 58 now, and I've done nothing but reading SF and Fantasy over the last 40 odd years. There has been the occaisional side trip into other genres, but in the end I always return to my roots 😇 So, what are the best books I've ever read?

Linden A. Lewis - The First Sister / The Second Rebel / The Last Hero

Audiobook Review

Linden A. Lewis proves that you should be careful how you title your book. Searching for 'The First Sister' on Goodreads gives more than ten pages of results 😅

After that little aside we get back to the core question: how's the book?

Anne McCaffrey - The ship who sang / Partner-ship / The city who fought / ...

Book Review

I never know what to think of Anne McAffrey. She has an easy going writing style, and I like her characters and ideas, but I feel some of the stories are simply not challenging enough, and with that I mean it is almost like the author isn't challenging herself.

Still, The ship who sang is a scifi classic.

Nanci Schwartz - Robber Barons 1 / 2 / 3

Audiobook Review

3 books by a debuting author. The series contains three books, and they're... cheap. Yeah. Literally, I mean. (Discounted on Amazon.)

Unfortunately, the price is somewhat a reflection of the quality of the proofreading. Someone should have given some feedback to the author, and that clearly didn't happen.

Rick Partlow - Drop Trooper 1 - Contact Front

Audiobook Review

Your typical, macho, space marine novel, but it's readable.

The obligatory bootcamp scenes aren't overly extended, and the techno babble is within limits and believable. Meeting up with an older woman is something you rarely see in these kind of stories, and the enemies - though still faceless - aren't outright evil, just... culturally and biologically different.

Joshua James & Daniel Young - Legacy of War - First Encounter / Enemy Lines / Invasion Force

Audiobook Review

Another space opera, and unfortunately it fails in the typical areas of science and logic. The story might have been a lot better with a little more work on the technical aspects.

Here are more of my usual gripes with much of the SF Space Opera and Military SF out there: