All Systems Red is a 2017 science fiction novella by American author Martha Wells. The first in a series called The Murderbot Diaries …
The series is about an artificial construct designed as a Security Unit, which manages to override its governor unit, thus enabling it to develop independence.
It calls itself Murderbot, and likes to watch unrealistic soap operas. …
I don’t think I’ll continue with the Murderbot Diaries.
The 9-year-old son of a jailed white supremacist disappears.
A black Texas Ranger is called in to assist with the investigation.
Interesting plot.
Interesting setting – Lake Caddo, a sprawling, irregular inland sea divided between Texas and Louisiana.
Interesting timing. Trump was just elected. It’s Texas.
I don’t envy this cop.
Oh. He has a cruel mother. A wife with whom he is trying to reconnect.
Overall, this book is quite good.
Nora Seed decides to commit suicide.
And finds herself offered a chance to reinvent her life by going back and making different major life decisions.
Some include Nora becoming a glaciologist, Olympic swimmer, and rock star.
Haig put together this construct to talk philosophically about regret, hope and second chances. The author is a a champion of mental health causes. Instead of preaching medical science, he puts the same messages across in an entertaining narrative.
I found the book very uplifting.
Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever.
Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices
. . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”
MattHaig.com
Click PLAY or meet Matt on YouTube.
Persepolis Rising (2017) is surprisingly set 28 years after book 6.
Aging gunship Rocinante still has our core crew — but they are 28-years-older. In their 60s-70?
James Holden & Naomi Nagata just deciding to finally retire.
Bobbie will take over as captain.
There are now 1300 new inhabited planets on the other side of the Rings.
Needless to say, a NEW THREAT arrives. Holden and crew called back to save the day.
I’m not a big fan of the story telling in these books, actually. BUT I liked this one best so far.
… WHO do you think would win if Bobbie and Amos had a fight?
In fact, I’m actually looking forward to what happens next.
5th book in the excellent Sean Duffy series.
Best so far, I’d say.
Duffy is less self-destructive. AND gets a cat. AND might become a father.
Reader Gerard Doyle does an excellent job in the audio book.
Duffy is a Catholic cop in 1980s Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
When journalist Lily Bigelow is found dead in the courtyard of Carrickfergus castle, it looks like a suicide. But there are just a few things that bother Duffy enough to keep the case file open.
Which is how he finds out that she was working on a devastating investigation of corruption and abuse at the highest levels of power in the UK and beyond.
And so Duffy has two impossible problems on his desk: who killed Lily Bigelow? And what were they trying to hide?
officialadrianmckinty
I really liked The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah’s coming-of-age story about a girl, Leni Allbright, who moves with her parents, Ernt and Cora, to a log cabin in the wilds of Alaska.
Her 2021 book — The Four Winds — is good, as well.
Also historical fiction.
Another coming-of-age story. Loreda lives through the Dust Bowl in Texas. The family fleeing to California in the “Okie” migration — to semi-slavery picking cotton.
The Okies had replaced Mexican migrant workers.
Though started 3-years prior to the pandemic, many of the issues are important to Americans today. Trying to reduce the gap between richest and poorest, for example.
I recommend this book.
Texas, 1934.
Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance.
In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life.
kristinhannah.com
Sarah Pinborough has published about 20 books, so far, but is most famous for Behind Her Eyes (2017).
It was adapted into a Netflix TV series also called Behind Her Eyes.
Cross Her Heart (2018) is similar. Another psychological thriller.
Female friendships, mothers and daughters, teenage girls. Workplace drama.
It’s good. An interesting plot.
But I liked Behind Her Eyes better.
This one feels too long. Could have used a more severe editor.
Jerry Saltz won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2018.
Since 2006 he’s been senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine.
Astonishingly, he was a long distance truck driver until age-41.
One of the very LAST words I’d use to describe myself is artist. Yet even I found this book useful in my quest to become a more artistic video creator.
Click PLAY or listen to an excerpt on YouTube.
The Expanse on TV is better than the books.
For some reason I just can’t get hooked on the story telling of of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who publish as S. A. Corey.
Too long. Too many characters. Too much talk. Not enough action.
Also — why the weird book titles?
I was happy to see James Holden and crew back together again. With Bobbie Draper.
It’s now a combined fleet of ships from Earth, Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance fighting the Free Navy, run by BAD GUY Marco Inaros.
I’m looking forward to sixth and supposedly final season of The Expanse on Prime which should be based on this book.
Cas Anvar as Alex Kamal will be gone. Charged with multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault.
Sweterlitsch says The Gone World was inspired partly by chatting with his brother-in-law, an NCIS agent.
His brother-in-law said that it would be interesting to investigate crimes by jumping forward in time to question witnesses after the heat of the moment has passed, then jumping back and applying their testimony to the investigation.
Moss hops between 1997 and 2015 a handful of times, encountering wildly different futures as her immediate investigation progresses.
She quickly discovers that there’s more to this murder than meets the eye. The suspected killers are connected to some serious anti-government movements, including several terrorist attacks — and they seem to be the crew of the vanished Libra.
The Gone World is a brilliant, complicated novel about the consequences of time travel
Rick McCharles 