📰🗞️💌🤖 Lots of Romance and a MURDERBOT!

 

    Diving Rivals and Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment #1 and #2) by Rebecca Ross are the two books of a YA fantasy romance duology. Ross has created a fantasy world similar in time and technology to World War I, where a light sprinkling of magic is present. The protagonists, Iris Winnow and Roman Kitt, both have magic typewriters that create a communication link between them. They are aspiring journalists competing for the same position as a columnist for the prestigious Oath Gazette. Familiar tropes like the Rick Boy, Poor Girl caught in the maelstrom of war, who grow to love one another, raise the stakes for their survival. However, a twist is that this war is fought in service to the gods Dacre and Enva, who are at odds with each other. This adds another layer of problems that need to be solved for the books to have a satisfactory ending. The concluding book, Ruthless Vows, has the lovers fighting against the God of the Underworld, Dacre. They experience perilous adventures and receive help from others who believe in their cause. 

    Prepare for a mini rant. I don't know why this wasn't one long book. I suspect it was to make more money, and, yes, publishing is difficult, but it is still aggravating. Thank you for your patience. 

📰🗞️💌

   The Friend Zone, by Abby Jimenez, is the first one I've read by this popular author. Her characters are vibrant and sassy. Her plots, like those of every romance, are predictable, but she brings the fun and twists. Jimenez doesn't spare talking about difficult things like fibroid uterine tumors, infertility, and loss. I did find the ending, given the tone of the book, unearned. Also, the main female character felt a bit psycho with her: I love you, but I can't be with you, and if I told you, you wouldn't want to be with me, so go away after you kiss me. So much of the book wouldn't have happened if she had a forthright conversation with her love interest. I looked at some reviews on Goodreads, and there are strong feelings about how the book ended. Overall, I enjoyed it and looked forward to reading other books by Jimenez.

🐾👨‍🚒🚑

    I continue my re-reading journey through The Murderbot Diaries with #4 Exit Strategy. Murderbot is wrestling with feelings. As a SecUnit, he doesn't usually have those feelings, but he finds that he cares about Mensa's well-being and, through analysis, knows she has been kidnapped. Mensa is a mother figure to Murderbot, and it both freaks him out and appeals to him. It's tough to be Murderbot.

🤖🤖🤖    

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Martha+Wells

🕊️🦅🦆🦜I Read Books Where Animals are the Heros🐑🐺🐑

 

    In a world where birds are magical creatures that are underappreciated and exploited, two competitive ornithologists seek to win the most fabulous prize of all: tenure! Circumstances, evil foes, unscrupulous competitors, and their own desires conspire against them. The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love by India Holton is a rollicking Romantasy. It is the first in her "Love's Academic" series. 

🕊️🦅🦆🦜❤️🦩🐦‍⬛🐦‍🔥🦤

    Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann, translated from German by Anthea Bell, is a wonderfully weird book. George, the Shepherd, has died in the sheep pasture with a spade through his middle. His flock of sheep work together to find who has killed their caring shepherd, who read to them each day, explaining the hard words. Who murdered their shepherd? The story is told entirely from the sheep's point of view, which makes for some fun misinterpretations.

🐑🐏🐑🐺🐑

🍰🐇🍷😭 Contemperary Dark Humor, Not a Single Dragon

    Through a strange quirk of fate, I have read two books about two possible suicides back to back. Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett is narrated by eleven-year-old Elvis Babbit, who shares a birthday with Elvis Presley, so her mother named her after him. Elvis is a science nerd trying to survive the grief of losing her mother. Elvis' mother drowned while sleepwalking. Her 15-year-old older sister, Lizzie, is also a sleepwalker. Grief causes some to fold in on themselves, while others explode out, and others freeze in place. Rabbit Cake portrays these sides of loss. The book is darkly humorous and genuine. A counselor tells Elvis that it takes about 18 months to move through the distress of the death of a parent. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I like the idea of there being a timeline. Despite its somber premise, I found Rabbit Cake a hopeful read because it helped me see that a loved one's death can bring about change, leading to new paths and a deeper understanding.

🎂🍰🐇🐰

    There Are No Rules for This by J.J. Elliott was recommended to me at a St. Patrick's Day party by the person who had been Elliott's nanny after her mother died of suicide. At first, I thought the book was a memoir, but it is actually a work of fiction written in the first person. There is a tight group of four friends, and one of them commits suicide. The surviving three are left to comprehend how their amazing friend could choose to leave her family and friends behind. The plot unfolds from the moment Ali is told by the remaining friends, Max and Liddy, of their friend Finney's suicide. As they suffocate in sadness for their beloved, funny, amazing friend, they seek to understand why. Elliott does a stellar job of showing how complex and unfathomable the path to suicide. The death of Finney moves the friends to celebrate life in darkly humorous ways. The book has an authentic quality in that there aren't rules for how to respond to someone's suicide, but crying and wine help the process.

🍷🧀🍇😭

    Limelight by Amy Poeppel is like an enemies-to-lovers romance story, only between a teenager and a mom-like mentor.  Allison Brinkley is getting her dream of living in New York City. Her husband's job necessitates a move to Manhattan. She has carefully planned to move her job and their three children and has a job, apartment, and schools lined up. Then it all falls apart. Her kids are unhappy, the apartment is so small, and her long-term sub high school English teacher falls through. She finds herself a personal assistant to a wildly famous 18-year-old pop music celebrity. They both learn a lot. The characters find themselves in foolhardy, laughable predicaments. I found myself invested in what was going to happen. Poeppel writes a tight, suspenseful, likeable story.

Here is a link to another Amy Poeppel book I reviewed:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2022/05/reading-about-atom-bomb-cello-music-and.html

🌟👯👨‍🎤

🪐🚀👨🏻‍🚀Aliens, Banned Books and Dragons!

 

Walking to Aldebaran is a standalone novella by Adrian Tchaikovsky about astronauts from Earth who get the privilege of being the first to examine an alien artifact in the Kuyper Belt. It appears to be an artificially created portal (wormhole) to other planets. But what is it really? And what is it capable of? This was a creepy, quick read.

🪐🚀👨🏻‍🚀

    Rogue Protocol, the third novella in The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, finds Murderbot growing into his independence and trying to understand the complicated relationship between humans and robots. He makes friends with another robot similar to him, but not a SecUnit; rather, it is a friend and is befriended by their humans. This makes Murderbot so angry, and he doesn't know why. Wells packs a lot of character growth and exploration into 158 pages. 

Here is a link to the previous Murderbot books: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Murderbot

🤖🦾☄️💔

One of the best depictions of a middle-aged, menopausal woman who tries to do it all

    The Undermining of Twyla and Frank by Megan Bannen is the second book to take place in Tanria, a former prison for the old gods and recently cleared of its infestation of drudges. Bannen's depiction of a middle-aged, menopausal woman who is trying to keep up with being a mom, employer, friend, grandmother, and widow leaves her feeling more like an object and less than a person. The book holds together because Twyla is someone we know, even though her day job is hunting bad guys and helping dragons. She gives lots of mom energy. 

Here is a link to the first book, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Mercy+and+Hart

🪑🐲❤️‍🔥

    The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman is a Newbery Award Winner, and my club is discussing it this month. I recall reading it when my children were in late elementary school and enjoying its rags-to-riches, prince-and-the-pauper over-the-top storyline. But it has been challenging to find. When I reread it, I think I understand why. Jemmy, the rat catcher's orphan son, becomes the crown prince's, Prince Brat, whipping boy. This is a historical truth. There were children designated to receive the punishment of the royals who misbehaved. There are several scenes of children being whipped. I suspect that has led to its decline. It will make for an interesting discussion!

🐀🤴🐻🧄🧺

   I chose  Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller because it was on a list of books about books. It was a book about the power of books to educate and to change hearts and minds. George R. R. Martin says: A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. Some studies show people who read tend to be more empathetic: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3559433

    I wanted to like this book because I have found that books can be transformative in understanding others who hold convictions that differ from my own. I think this book aimed to do that, but in the end, what I experienced was that only those who read banned books would have the "right" set of beliefs. This made the characters on both sides of the moral divide two-dimensional and stereotypical

    Another theme could be: our secrets make us sick, and I agree there are complex topics like racism,  abuse, and fake news that need to be discussed, but I doubt anyone responds well to "only ignorant idiots would believe that." 

📚📱🍑

📕📗📘📙📚📕Eight Books! New Record!

To be fair, four of the books are under 150 pages and could be read in two hours or so, but still, 8!

 

    John Scalzi is excellent at sci-fi, and I was absorbed by his premise in his Audible series. For some inexplicable reason, people who are murdered don't die, but reanimate somewhere they feel safe, with their body reset to where it was an hour or so before they died. From this strange phenomenon arises a profession called Dispatcher, who work at hospitals and other high-risk places. If something goes wrong in an operation and the patient is about to die, the Dispatcher murders them, enabling them to get a reset. It is a fascinating world where murder is off the table for bad guys. What's a crime boss to do? Our protagonist is a Dispatcher, and Scalzi takes the reader on a tour of the problem set and hidden benefits of this new "reality." If you are fortunate enough to have an Audible membership, they are free to you. They are short, each lasting less than four hours. Zachary Quinto (new Spock) does a bang-up job as narrator.

🔎🏥🏙️

    Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino was another interesting premise book. An alien civilization sends a scout to learn about Earth and report home. She is born as a baby and grows up learning of her mission. The book offers unique insights into people, relationships, and life as Adina Giorno matures, so does her understanding. A part of the book's tension revolves around whether she will be perceived as an alien or as mentally ill, and what her alien progenitor's plan for Earth entails. 

👽📠👾

    I am watching the Apple TV Series, The Murderbot Diaries, so I am rereading the books the series is based on. It is annoying when TV veers away from the "canon" of the book. I try to remember that it is challenging to create an accurate map of the world due to the need to flatten the sphere. Books are the sphere, and TV is the flattened map. With books, it is more difficult to convey the inner thoughts of the characters. It needs to be demonstrated. I like all forms, TV and books, so far. Martha Wells has created a prickly, likeable character who wants to be free. It's hard not to cheer for Murderbot.

🤖📚📺

    Martha Grimes is one of my favorite mystery writers. I have been finding her books in libraries for 30 years, so now her main character, Richard Jury, feels like a long-time friend. All of her books are named for British pubs or bars. The Old Success is consisely written and there are many characters from previous books. It's probably best to start with the first, Man With A Load of Mischief, and work your way through. I have rarely guessed who the murderer was. A notable feature of her books is that they often feature precocious children and beloved pets. She is definitely an animal lover. 

🐎🔎⛴️

    The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, by Megan Bannen, was a light horror Romantasy. I found it clever and creative in its premise--Zombies, called Drudges, are real--and Hart fights them out on the wastelands of Tanria while Mercy fights to keep her family's undertaking business afloat. They are hostile toward each other due to a series of misunderstandings, but these two lonely people find each other writing letters to an unknown friend--A You've Got Mail situation. The setting gives an eighteenth-century Western vibe. It is a fun read.

🧟❤️‍🔥🪦💀🤠

    I always get excited when I get to read a new Emily Henry romance, so when Great Big Beautiful Life landed in my inbox yesterday, I wondered how far I would get before today's post. I just finished it a few minutes ago, and it was delicious. Emily Henry's characters are funny and wounded at the start, then remain funny but become less wounded. She sparkles at dialogue, and I snort-laugh over a quip or retort without fail during every book. A romance book follows a formula, so at times the plot feels predictable, but Henry imbues her characters with life, which I am glad that the formula is followed. In Great Big Beautiful Life, topics discussed include celebrity life, family dynamics, the cost of love, and island life in North Carolina. 

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🩹📸🌴🐍

🚚🎥🤳👩‍🍼Suspenseful Mystery, 💔Ficiton, and🐌🛸 More Sci-FI!🤖🦾👽

 

Twisty, slightly unbelievable, 

    Holly Jackson is brilliant at plotting. She creates snaky, torturous storylines that keep me guessing. In The Reappearance of Rachel Price, the high school senior, Bel, agrees to contribute to a documentary about her missing mother, who has been gone for sixteen years. Her dad was put on trial for her murder, but was acquitted; however, her small town never trusted him. All Bel had was her dad, then her mother returned. Jackson twists and twists the story. It was like watching a corkscrew disappear into a cork, tensely waiting for it all to pop open. 

Here is a review of Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2024/11/murder-trouble-drug-trouble-and-more.html

🚚🎥🤳👩‍🍼

    Good Material by Dolly Alderton begins tediously and remains so for most of the book. A thirty-five-year-old comic, Andy, suffers a break-up with his long-term girlfriend, Jen. It devastates him, partly because he didn't see it coming. Most of the book is written from his first-person perspective, detailing his life after Jen, as he tries to piece together what happened and how to move forward without her. There is much humor in his actions, ruminations, and how his friends seek to help him. I thought about not finishing it, but several reviews said the best part of the book was the very end, so I stuck with it. I didn't find that it redeemed the previous slow pace. Overall, not a book I would recommend.

💔😭📦

    The Expert System's Champion by Adrian Tchaikovsky continues a previous novella, The Expert System's Brother. Tchaikovsky takes science fiction, an already imaginative genre, and reaches into both realistic and unforeseen places. He considers not only the flying car, but also the traffic jam. How do you survive on a plant that is poisonous to your biology? How would that impact future generations? Tchaikovsky asks and answers creative, thoughtful questions. 

Here is a link to the growing list of Adrian Tchaikovsky books I've reviewed: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Adrian

🐌🐝🌳

    I am rereading Martha Wells' series,  The Robot Diaries, starting with All Systems Red. I have been watching Apple TV's adaptation, and it's not bad, but it doesn't square exactly with the book. I understand that books and TV shows are different forms of storytelling, with TV and films being visual. Therefore, a book adaptation will always look different from the story I've built in my head. I sometimes feel like I'm being gaslit when new plot points surface, and I think: I don't remember that. Truthfully, half the time I don't remember! 

Previous reviews of The Murderbot Diaries:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=All+Systems+Red

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=murderbot

🤖🦾👽🛸

🧬🧝‍♀️ Science/Fantasy💐👒Recovery and🎄Christmas Mystery/Rom-Com--A Week of Mash-Ups!

 

    This week, I continue my obsession with Adrian Tchaikovsky, reading his novella Elder Race. It is told from two different points of view: Lynesse and Elder Nyr. Earth sends a group of humans to terraform a planet, making it suitable and familiar for habitation. A group of colonists and a scientific outpost remain behind, tasked with observing the events and reporting back to Earth. Lynesse is the distant descendant of those colonists and Nyr, a second-class anthropologist who occasionally emerges from stasis to check on what is happening. This brief novella explores the idea that science can appear magical to the uninitiated. So, is this book of fantasy or science fiction? This is a fascinating story, with terrific characters.

🔭🧬🧫🧝‍♀️😈

    Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman is a tragedy-to-triumph story. Young CeeCee's mother is mentally ill and not the fun, adorable kind. As her mother falls further into her delusions, CeeCee's traveling salesman father, unable to cope, leaves CeeCee to take care of her mother. Trapped CeeCee does all she can for herself and her mother, but bad things happen. CeeCee goes live with her mother's long-lost aunt in Savannah, Georgia. CeeCee moved from Ohio to life in the south in 1967. Her heart and mind have been battered and bruised, and she needs love and healing. The theme of this book is transformation from despair to hope with the help of her new neighbors and friends. 

    I love a happy ending, but this one was almost too happy, which is barely a complaint. I found the book compassionate about mental illness and the plight of those who live with it.

🌹🪻💐👒🌻👗

    I would put The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter in the mystery/rom-com category. It was an exciting romp, featuring many mystery tropes, including a locked-room mystery, an old English country mansion, and the usual suspects: greedy relatives, Christmas time, and tragic backstories. On the Rom-Com side, we have a feisty friends-to-lovers storyline. I love a good mash-up! The book was fast-paced and stocked with interesting characters. I didn't guess the killer, but worked out other red herrings. 

I have previously read another Ally Carter book called The Blonde Identity. Also, super fun. Here is the link to that review:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Ally+Carter

❤️‍🔥🔎🎄🔍❤️‍🔥

📚🦁 A Good Mix of Thinky-Thinky and Entertaining

 

    I enjoy reading award-winning books for several reasons. One is so I appear bright. Another is to understand what sets this book apart from all the others. Orbital by Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize. It was shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin Prize and nominated for Best Science Fiction on GoodReads.  I had expectations. I think what made Orbital stand out was that it didn't have a dynamic science fiction plot. It recounts a day on the International Space Station, gazing down at Earth and pondering life. The writing is excellent. Harvey had eloquent descriptions of the land masses slipping by. The deep thoughts revolved around climate change, our place in the universe, and what motivates someone to pursue being an astronaut, but I didn't love it. I guess I'm still a philistine when it comes to reading.

🌏🧑‍🚀🌍🧑‍🚀🌎

    Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe was sold as a fun romp. A nineteen-year-old woman becomes pregnant by her married English teacher and decides to keep the baby against everyone's advice. As the daughter of a single mother herself, she has limited support and few options. She loses her waitress job, and her roommates move out. Desperate to support herself, she starts an OnlyFans profile. Thorpe uses the storyline to hilariously explore conundrums, such as why acting is acceptable in movies but not in professional wrestling, and what distinguishes someone as white trash from someone more palatable. The book stressed me out because it's hard to watch a single mom make poor choices that have harsh consequences. But Margo is plucky and loves her son and family; you must root for her. 

👶🏻🤼💻💉

    How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley was so fun. A "mature" and somewhat reclusive woman decides she needs to make friends. First, she gets a wipe board to make a list.

😍

I was immediately hooked. This book belongs in the same subgenre as The Thursday Murder Club. It has quirky characters who need a shake-up in their lives. Things go wrong, things go right, and sometimes, things go really wrong. People help one another, and lives are changed for the better. There are smart dogs, grumpy senior citizens, teen dads, and menopausal housewives.  It has a formula, much like a romance novel, that's predictable and comforting, with whimsical side trails. This is a book that you know will have a happy ending, but it is delightful to see how they get there.

🐶👶🏻🪈💎 

    I have been reading through a compendium of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis before bed. It was not my first trip through Narnia, and it felt like visiting friends. When I first read the Chronicles, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first book in the series because it was the first one written. Now, The Magician's Nephew is first because it is the first chronologically. My favorite scene remains the same, where Eustace, who had become a dragon, once again became Eustace the boy. The final book, The Last Battle, does not hold up well, but it does a grand job of finishing the series. Overall, the books and the writing are worth five stars. 

🦁🏰🌊✨

    I'm enjoying reading books by Phaedra Patrick (what a fun name!). The Mess Lives of Book People seemed like a title designed to capture me. A woman in her 40s, Liv Green, is a cleaner. One of her clients is her favorite author, Essie Starling. When Essie dies, she leaves Liv with a life-changing bequest that will challenge her self-concept and shake up her life. I found the book to be a stretch in the realm of possibility, but entirely entertaining.

📚💻❤️‍🩹🪆

🕷️🕸️🧙‍♂️🔮🏰 More Sci-Fi with Lite Horror Fantasy and a Feel-Good Read

 

    I have read several books by Neal Stephenson, who excels at both science and historical fiction. I especially liked Cryptonomicon and Anathem. His latest book. Polostan is a historical fiction set mainly in the 1930s. It follows an unusual woman who was born in America to an American mother, moved to Russia with her father as a child in time for the revolution, then returned to the Midwest for her teenage years. She leads a complicated, fascinating life and is present at key historical events, like the Chicago World's Fair. Halfway through, I discovered that this would be a series, and I worried the ending of Polostan would be a disaster of unknowing, but Stephenson did well. I am excited to read the next book when it comes out in September.

🐎🪆🎡🎟️🩻

    After a steady diet of mindblowing sci-fi, I needed a palate cleanser. I chose The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, by Phaedra Patrick, because a review said it was like A Man Called Ove, and it involves an older man who has lost his wife and is unsure how to continue living. The adventures that Arthur Pepper pursues are more hilarious but also uplifting. It is just on the edge of believable. A lot depends on how eccentric you believe the British to be.

🐯🐅🚇👴🏻

     I am enjoying reading Adrian Tchaikovsky at present. Spiderlight, I assumed, would be more of his Children of Time series. It was not. It was about a group of misfits on a quest to defeat the dark forces of their world that could only be accomplished through killing the Dark Lord. They needed the fang of a spider queen and her map to the Dark Lord. One spider is appointed to accompany them in an uneasy alliance. It changes all of them, and they learn astonishing things about good versus evil. Tchaikovsky. This book was entertaining and also thinky-thinky.

🕷️🕸️🧙‍♂️🔮🏰

    I like a weird book with an unusual narrator. Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell is just that kind of book. The protagonist is, perhaps, a slime mold that can take in parts from humans, trees, deer, chain mail, anything, and create an externally believable human. The village it borders sees it as a monstrous worm threatening their safety. Though a monster, she desires connection and understanding, causing story tension and a propelling narrative. It reminded me somewhat of Frankenstein in its setting and sensibility. Some themes include: Who is the real monster? Parent/Child relationships are complicated.

🪼🏰❤️💀

😍😍😍 Adrian Tchaikovsky's Science Fiction and a Memoir by Amy Griffin

 

The more I read of Adrian Tchaikovsky, the more respect I have for his creative way of thinking about the intersection of science, the unknown, and the maybe possible. Alien Clay reminds me of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago because it is set in a deadly labor camp on a prison planet called Kiln. The leadership, the Commander, wants to make scientific discoveries that will make him famous. He drives his prisoners to make discoveries that conform to "acceptable" science on a planet seeking to colonize the bodies and minds of the humans transplanted there. It's terrifically creepy and scary with enough science to feel plausible. 

👽🥀🍄🍄‍🟫

    I don't know how I came across the book. I was on a waiting list for it and jumped into reading before realizing it was a memoir, not a novel. In The Tell, "tell" has several meanings. One is a "tell" that gives observers an understanding about someone they don't have, like an eye twitch when you're lying or crossing your arms when feeling attacked. Amy Griffin's tell was her perfectionism. Another meaning is "to tell." As one of her daughters pointed out, a part of Amy Griffin feels missing. Griffin explores why she is that way. The book starts with trigger warnings about sexual abuse, so the reader can guess at what will be discovered. Griffen had buried her horrendous abuse so profoundly that she didn't remember it. Brains are excellent at protecting us from damage. What saves us children, eats us up as adults. I appreciate Amy Griffin's forthrightness and gentleness in sharing her trek as she comes to know and tell her story.

❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

    And Put Away Childish Things and The Expert System's Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky have wildly different environments and characters, but they are similar. I have fallen into a spiral of reading Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I'm loving it. These short books are quite different, but they share the common theme of how to make sense of the protagonist's mysterious, dangerous world.  Who am I? What is my place in it? Those ideas probably all fit under the coming-of-age trope. 

    There is an idea that writers only write one book over and over. Adrian Tchaikovsky does a fantastic job of world-building each place and populating it with emotionally authentic characters doing weird stuff, in weird places, with weird companions and enemies. He is thought-provoking and entertaining. And sometimes a bit creepy.

 🤡🧸👹😷

🌳🐝🚀🤖

🤖🛸🐷🚀🧑‍🚀👯AI Friend or Foe? Two Books Explore

 

    I enjoy Adrian Tchaikovsky's science fiction and have read several of his books, like his Children of Time series. Service Model takes place on Earth. The protagonist is a valet robot named Charles whose days are an endless repetition of caring for his master, the only human in the house, that is run and maintained by robots. One day, Charles does something he'd never done before, changing everything for him, for robots, and for the world. This started slowly, but I persevered and was captivated by the ideas, the mysterious plot, and by Charles. It reminded me of Pinocchio. Charles goes through different places and experiences, meeting big, exploitative characters with his sidekick that doubles as the voice in his head that leads him toward his big moment.

 Here are reviews of other Adrian Tchaikovsky books: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Adrian

🤖🦾🦿

    Come & Get It by Kiley Reid has a cast of eight women. Their backstories have similarities, but differ in how family and authorities respond. Once, a character, when she was sixteen, almost hit a man with her car, and he had a heart attack and died. She receives support, counseling, and understanding. Another character accidentally kills a dog, and she is shamed and shunned. Reid weaves these experiences into the choices they make in the book. As someone who frequently wonders what causes someone to do, say, or act in unwise ways, I found this book fascinating. It has a large build-up to a critical moment. The aftermath is surprising to me. Reid's writing is tight and suspenseful. 

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   I have recently discovered the writer Mur Lafferty, a Hugo Award Finalist. She writes Sci-Fi that reminds me of Connie Willis, my favorite author. When I visited her website (https://murverse.com/about/), I saw that Connie Willis is one of her influential authors. This week, I listened to Six Wakes. A spaceship carries six crew members to a planet to colonize life. Cloning technology has been established, and many people use it to extend their lives. Maria Arena awakens in a clone vat without memories of her time on the ship save for her orientation: meaning she has died and the last mind map available for her clone is the start of the voyage. Around her are her fellow crew members also emerging from clone vats, plus several dead bodies. It is a locked room mystery. One of the crew members killed the others and then died as well. But no one has memories of their last days, which makes it difficult to know who to trust. Maria, the lowliest member of the crew, races to solve the mystery before the killer remembers and seeks to accomplish their mission. A great book from a sci-fi perspective, not only predicting cloning but also many of the problems surrounding clones. The book is a tantalizing mystery. So good!

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