averyjaye's reviews
33 reviews

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory by Martha Wells

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Compulsory by Martha Wells

adventurous funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This two page short really operates as the blueprint for what was to come. All of Murderbot's DNA is tangled up in just a few paragraphs here. 

It's the kind of thing that makes you want to write.

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells

adventurous emotional funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

While this installment doesn't quite rise to the thrilling highs of the last one, it does go further than any previous chapter into Murderbot's emotional world. Which, if we're being honest, is why we're all reading Murderbot in the first place.

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells

adventurous funny tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This book is a huge step up from the previous two. This is what it looks like when Murderbot is firing on all cylinders, operating at 100 percent.

A perfect little sci-fi novella that never stops racheting up the tension to its climax, while still maintaining all the charm and soul that made the previous two novellas so good.

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells

adventurous funny relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A much stronger showing than the first novella. The character study of our titular Murderbot is expanded on greatly in this book. We get a stronger sense of how they're feeling throughout, and the focus on their emotion really becomes the hook of this story.

Also ART is an excellent addition to the cast of characters. They are equally as charming as Murderbot, for very different reason. A perfect foil.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

adventurous funny relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

It's a great start to a fun series! Like a strong pilot to a TV show that shows a lot of promise!

Murderbot is such a charming character!

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book feels important right now, especially as the conservatives are walking a handful of detransitioners with right wing sympathys onto national stages to spread propaganda and misinformation with the express purpose of removing trans people from every facet of public life.

This book approaches the subject of detransition with a deft and delicate touch, understanding it not through the binary lens of 'regret or no regret', but through the same multifaceted, nuanced self-reflection that people's transitions happen in.

I was reading this book while struggling with my own detransition, and whether or not I should go through with it. Detransition, Baby helped me understand that, whatever choice I made, it would be the right one for me and the time, and that I was free to move along the gender spectrum at any point in the future, and that would be okay too. 

It's not the place you end up; Rather, the self-refection and self-actualization is the point of it all.

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

challenging informative mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Read this book.

It's a beautiful meditation on the meaning of family, as reflected in our relationship to the natural world, from the bacteria and archea that live in our stomachs to the complex navigations of sea turtles returning to their birthplaces to lay their eggs, from the shifting borders of the oceans to the thinning upper atmosphere and further, to the outer planets, to the Heliopause, to the Oort cloud, and to the silences beyond. 

The prose is rich and dripping with honey. It presents readers with the curiousities of natures and reminds of that we are not separate from them. It explores the idea of alieviation of the pain that comes from being a cognitive, social being while also individual, isolated self. It examines the hope for salvation, whether that is salvation given from others, loved ones and relatives, or salvation given from the mysteries of deep space and deeper time.

Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender

adventurous hopeful lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

This is my favorite collections of short stories.

Aimee Bender is a treasure. Her prose is light as a feather and, at times, sharp as a tack.

In this collection, you'll find tales of boys with irons for heads, men with keys for fingers, atomic bombs, and aqualine noses. Throughout each of these stories run braided strands of light and wit and joy. It is teeming with life.

Aimee Bender is the kind of writer who makes you want to write.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

dark sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

A dizzying, feaverish work of short-form horror.

It doesn't have a lot to say about anything, but it's a well executed concept that delivers a great chill. Sometimes that's all a story has to be.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Pregnancy