Books Received in October and November, 2018

Turns out when I took my unscheduled break last month I forgot to do my books received post. Sorry about that.

The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson - This is the second book in The Masquerade series, and I've already reviewed it here. The series is quite intense and brilliantly written.

Her world was shattered by the Empire of Masks.
For the power to shatter the Masquerade,
She betrayed everyone she loved.

The traitor Baru Cormorant is now the cryptarch Agonist - a secret lord of the empire she's vowed to destroy.

Hunted by a mutinous admiral, haunted by the wound which has split her mind in two, Baru leads her dearest foes on an expedition for the secret of immortality. It's her chance to trigger a war that will consume the Masquerade.

But Baru's heart is broken, and she fears she can no longer tell justice from revenge...or her own desires from the will of the man who remade her.

FTL Y'all: Tales From the Age of the $200 Warp Drive Edited by Amanda Lafrenais - My review of this graphic novel collection will come out mid December. I loved the diversity of the creators and characters, though found the artwork a mixed bag (artwork is very subjective). This was a kickstarted collection.

Six months from now, detailed schematics anonymously uploaded to the Internet will describe, with absolute precision, how to build a faster-than-light engine for $200 in easily-available parts. Space travel will be instantly—and chaotically—democratized. The entire cosmos is suddenly within reach of all humankind, without organization, authority, or limitation.

This comics anthology is about what happens next.
The concept for FTL, Y’all! was inspired by a 12-year-old RPG.net thread, which was in turn inspired by the work of Jerry Oltion. 

With 25 stories and over 350 pages of comics, FTL, Y'all! is one of Iron Circus Comics' biggest anthologies ever.

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi - This is the sequel to The Collapsing Fire, which came out last year.

The Interdependency-humanity's interstellar empire-is on the verge of collapse. The extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible is disappearing, leaving entire systems and human civilizations stranded.

Emperox Grayland II of the Interdependency is ready to take desperate measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But arrayed before her are those who believe the collapse of the Flow is a myth-or at the very least an opportunity to an ascension to power.

While Grayland prepares for disaster, others are prepare for a civil war. A war that will take place in the halls of power, the markets of business and the altars of worship as much as it will between spaceships and battlefields.

The Emperox and her allies are smart and resourceful, as are her enemies. Nothing about this will be easy... and all of humanity will be caught in its consuming fire.

Shout-Out: Stealing Life by Antony Johnston

It was just another job, right?

Nicco Salarum is a thief, and a good one. In the rough-and-tumble city of Azbatha, where every street hustler has an enchantment in his back pocket, Nicco prides himself on using his skills – and the best technology money can buy – to get him into the houses and boardrooms of the wealthy.

But Nicco’s last job went sour, leaving him in debt to a powerful gang boss, and deep in trouble. When a foreign wizard offers him a vast sum for a visiting diplomat’s trinket, he leaps at the opportunity.

But nothing happens in a vacuum. Caught in a game where the futures of whole nations are at stake, Nicco finds himself racing against time to right his wrongs… and save his own skin.

Video: Aliens the Ride

Planet Coaster is a video game that allows you to make simulated roller coaster rides and theme parks. Hin Nya has used it to create a virtual ride for the movie Aliens, incorporating sets, sounds, and movie clips. This is a ride I'd wait hours to go on. There's a making of video for it as well.

Book Review: The Razor by J. Barton Mitchell

Pros: lots of action, fast paced, compelling characters, interesting setting

Cons: romance felt somewhat out of place

Flynn is an engineer framed for murder, being sent to the most dangerous prison planet that exists: the Razor. Half of the planet is frozen, the other half boiling, and in the middle, there is a small strip of liveable ground. The planet is home to the purest form of Xytrilium in the galaxy, and whoever controls that power source, controls the galaxy. So when a strange beam lights up the sky and all the guards evacuate, Flynn knows something bad is happening. He’ll have to team up with a group of dangerous misfits if he wants to survive, and get off the planet before it’s too late.

The book opens with Flynn’s arrival on the planet and while it take several chapters before things start to go wrong, the characters and setting are quite fascinating and carry the book easily. Short chapters and a lot of action makes this a quick read.

The characters are an interesting mix. Flynn is book smart but that won’t save him in with the general population of inmates. Key is street smart but feels the weight of the people she’s let down, and tends to cover her fear with bravado. Maddox is an ex guard, turned prisoner, who faces a rough welcome from his previous squad members. He’s also got a guilt complex for the people he couldn’t save. Raelyn is a doctor who made some bad decisions and is living with the consequences. Zane was probably my favourite character, a man who was experimented on and is now super strong, with the ability to absorb metal.

The romance between Maddox and Raelyn made a kind of sense, with him using saving her as motivation for living. It still seemed somewhat out of place considering the severity of what was happening. The romance between Key and Flynn felt like something that might burn hot and die out quickly as they have nothing in common to keep them interested in each other after the adrenaline rush of staying alive is over. It also seemed a bit odd that all the main characters paired up. I did like that neither pairing felt rushed. They both developed fairly slowly and organically.

The Razor is a fun read with good set-up for the sequel.

Video Game Review: HUE

Hue lives in a world made of up black, white, and grey. His mother researched colours and one day disappeared. When he finds a light blue square, he learns she’s lost in the colours. To save her, he must finish the colour wheel and go to the university where she once worked.

This is a puzzle game, where you have to manipulate the colours on the wheel to get through and over coloured blocks. In some puzzles you have to move them onto pressure plates, others have jumping components, etc. Each level adds a new component. Every door you pass through is a save point, so while some of the puzzles are difficult, if you die you only lose progress from that room.

There are hidden potions to find, some of which are obvious and some of which a quite hard (one required replaying the full level three times before we found the hidden passageway).

The controls were easy, though there were times when I swore I was on one colour but when I left the colour wheel I was actually on a different colour (not sure if that was the controller, the game itself, or if we had our sensitivity too high). Also, some of the colours were so similar it was easy to mess up (like the pink and purple, and yellow was very close to the orange on one side and green on the other). This seemed deliberate, as it would have been easy to get hues that weren't confusing.

The story was interesting - talking about the mother’s time at the university and why she thought researching colours was so important. It’s fairly short, but it felt complete.

A few puzzles were frustrating, but on the whole the game was a lot of fun.

Shout-Out: Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri

The Amrithi are outcasts; nomads descended of desert spirits, they are coveted and persecuted throughout the Empire for the power in their blood. Mehr is the illegitimate daughter of an imperial governor and an exiled Amrithi mother she can barely remember, but whose face and magic she has inherited.

When Mehr's power comes to the attention of the Emperor's most feared mystics, she must use every ounce of will, subtlety, and power she possesses to resist their cruel agenda.
Should she fail, the gods themselves may awaken seeking vengeance...

Video: Hyperlight

A fantastic short film by Nguyen-Ahn Nguyen.

Two elite astronauts wake up in the abyss of space; they return to their stranded ship and discover the surprising reason behind their mission's catastrophic failure.

Hyperlight [4K] from Nguyen-Anh Nguyen on Vimeo.