Month: April 2022

A World of Secrets (The Firewall Trilogy #2) by James Maxwell

Posted on April 26, 2022 by - Book Review

A World of Secrets (The Firewall Trilogy Book 2) by [James Maxwell]

Oh Mr. Maxwell, I really really tried to get into this one. A Girl From Nowhere had such great potential, and the battle scenes were masterfully choreographed, but what we got in A World of Secrets is the story-bridge equivalent of Back to the Future Part II.

Yes, we did get to see a bit more of the relationship between Taimin and Selena grow, and a pretty big character roadblock was “fixed” in a cheeky way that, in my opinion, was an insult to the character.

I will say, I did enjoy the last quarter of the book, but the first three-quarters felt, to me, like a bit of a drudge. There was some slight character development, and the story slightly pushed along, but much as in Back to the Future Part II, this was just a platform to bridge book one to book three without really adding much to the bigger story other than a pivotal twist at the end.

Yes, the pivot was practically genre-jumping, and a real game-changer in what is going on, but we had to get through a lot of what basically gets flashed into irrelevancy in the final pages of the book.

I do understand that there was a bigger journey that was important to what was built up in book one, but the transition to the “big reveal” came across, again, in my opinion, as mildly insulting.

Sadly, I just don’t have the motivation right now to continue on to book three.

The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry

Posted on April 25, 2022 by - Book Review

Murder and the multiverse. Yeah, that just about boils it down. This seems like a pretty simple premise, but the elegant word- and world-smithing of Mr. Barry are what make The 22 Murders of Madison May such an enjoyable read.

The novel opens with New York real estate agent Madison May getting brutally murdered by a client she is showing a house to, and the details, ludicrously, don’t make any sense.

Enter reporter Felicity Staples. Felicity is gathering the details on the senseless murder and seeing more and more that nothing is making sense, and the killing seems pretty random. Then she spots the killer on the subway and watches as he vanishes.

This is where things get really weird. Felicity seems to have slid into a different New York City. There’s been no murder of Madison May and details in Felicity’s life are just a little bit off. Then, this universe’s Madison May, an actress, is murdered.

From here, Felicity takes it upon herself to find the killer, and she runs into a few individuals who understand what is going on and are hunting the killer as well. Now, Felicity is jumping from universe to universe uncovering more and more clues and trying to reach a point at which she can stop the killer and Madison May can live.

This wasn’t my favorite of Mr. Barry’s work. Perhaps by design, I found it a tad disjointed compared to some of his other efforts. The worldbuilding is very well done, but I just didn’t find the world all that compelling. There are certain details that seem to have been watered down in editing, and that kinda bugged me. Don’t get me wrong, The 22 Murders of Madison May is a suspenseful read, I just wanted more out of it.

The Kaiju Preservation Society (by John Scalzi)

Posted on April 7, 2022 by - Book Review

** This book was provided to me by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review **

I’m just going to put it out there right off the bat that I’m a total sucker for anything remotely related to kaiju. For those of you not in the know, the easiest way to approach the phenomenon/sub-culture is, simply, Godzilla. If you can imagine giant, city-crushing, monsters on a tear, that’s kaiju.

I digress, though. The kaiju are just a portion of what Mr. Scalzi sets out to tackle in The Kaiju Preservation Society. Written, appropriately enough, in the middle of our little COVID-19 pandemic, the novel is a lovely pastiche of social commentary, science, adventure, and corporate fuckery.

This isn’t heavy reading, but it is hella entertaining reading. Our intrepid protagonist, Jamie Gray, has fallen from corporate idea guy to food delivery driver thanks to COVID and a bit of horrible circumstance. Luckily for Jamie, he runs into an old acquaintance who has a spot open on his team with “an animal rights organization.” Jaime takes the chance, and the adventure begins.

Much as the title describes, the Kaiju Preservation Society is charged with maintaining the “health” of a kaiju population in what can best be described as an “adjacent” Earth that can be accessed due to what can best be described as dimensional thinning due to nuclear activity.

The Kaiju of this realm can best be described as living, breathing — and sometimes flying — nuclear reactors (as all good kaiju are somewhere rooted in). The kaiju it turns out, are more of an ecosystem than just individual organisms, and the KPS tends to all of their needs.

There is other spoilery stuff that I would rather not reveal because this is just one hell of a fun read that deserves to be unfolded by whomever has it in their grubby little hands.

Mr. Scalzi has a proven track-record of getting all of the proper bits together for compelling storytelling and worldbuilding, and The Kaiju Preservation Society demonstrates this handily. The banter is very natural, the story progresses as one would expect a sci-fi flick script to do, and the pop culture references are just downright witty.

I know this is 85-90% a one-shot novel, but it would be interesting to see some expansion on some of the ideas, characters and technologies introduced. I’m not going to hold my breath, but a nerd can hope.

If you need me, I’ll be watching Rebirth of Mothra for the seventieth time.