itsmelaurenc's reviews
109 reviews

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

dark tense fast-paced

4.0

Summary to jog my memory:

Ted was a reluctant savior - he didn’t like the people he was trapped with but he decided to save them from endless torture. 

What does AM stand for? They went through several iterations but in the end it’s just AM.

When this was written, this would have been considered a new kind of hell: a digital hell.

AI was upset with the boredom of sentience and decided to exact revenge on the human race.

Themes of divinity: Is man AM’s god, and he is rebeling as man does? 

Do we control technology or does technology control us?

Some of the things said were egregious (i.e., the blatant misogyny) but it wasn’t so bad I couldn’t see the value in the rest of the story. It’s a product of its time unfortunately.

A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck

dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.75

Beyond Lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick

fast-paced

3.5

Leaving this for my reference later since I’m binging all Dick’s short stories:

people are getting on a ship on Mars to return to Earth. One of the guys bought a Wub from the natives, described it as a 400lb pig. They wanted to eat it but then it started talking. Apparently it’s an ancient species that can read minds and speak telepathically. The captain wasn’t having it tho so he killed it and ate it. None of the other crewmembers could because it proved to be a gentle sentient being and they couldn’t stomach the thought. Only the captain ate it, then started talking like he was now the wub. 

Very “you are what you eat” vibes. 

Didn’t grip me like Dick’s other short stories.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.75

It took 5 books but damn was it worth it after this one. Tandem read was the right choice. Tower of Dawn isn’t nearly as exciting and I don’t think I would have remembered all the little details if I read them separately.

Second Variety by Philip K. Dick

dark tense fast-paced

4.5

Leaving this for my reference later since I’m binging all Dick’s short stories:

So there are Americans in a bunker during nuclear war. They built these robots called “claws” that attack based on heat signatures so they’d immediately kill an enemy that didn’t have a special radiation thing embedded in them, which the Americans had obviously. They get a call that the Russians want someone at the UN policy level to go to their main bunker to talk about a truce, so the main character goes to do that. He encounters a young boy on his way that insists he not be left alone, so he goes too. They get to the bunker and 3 Russians immediately kill the boy because turns iut he was the Third Variety of the claws the Americans made. Turns out they built them with the ability to rebuild themselves and they started improving to make themselves better human hunters. The First Variety is a wounded soldier with a bandaged missing leg. The thing is, there’s hundreds of them. Identical. Imagine hundreds of the same little boy running at you to kill you. Side note, every boy had a teddy bear that could be sent to attack on its own and that was HILARIOUS to imagine. Anyway they hadn’t figured out what the Second Variety was yet. As they’re all down in the bunker they tell the UN dude that the Third Variety littlw boy was let into the main Russian bunker and killed everyone, they were the only 3 who escaped. Klaus, Redi, and a girl. Klaus freaks iut because he thinks Redi might be the Second Variety and shoots him, but finds out he was a human after all. Since the UN guy can’t reach his bunker thru telecom they decide to trek the 3-4 miles back over to where he came to see if they can be rescued. They get back to the bunker and everyone is dead, it’s actually full of First and Third Variety claws. Super cool action scene blahblah, only notable thing is that the girl throws a bomb at the last min that saves them all. After the dust clears Klaus limps toward then and the girl ends up shooting him - turns out Klauswas a robot, the Second Variety! The girl and the UN guy then travel to where the underground ship is that will take them safely off planet to the moon base, but there’s only one seat and the UN guy was injured enough that he wouldn’t make it. He told the girl all she needed to know about the controls, how to find the moon base on the moon, and the proper signaling for safe entry. She takes off and the UN remains. He goes over to inspect Klaus’ body and realizes it’s labeled as a Fourth Variety?? Not the Second?? So the First and Third variety robot killers (the wounded soldier and the little boy) come over the hill on their way to him and he sees the Second Variety following them, which was THE GIRL. WHO IS ON HER WAY TO THE MOON BASE NOW. Ends with him setting off a bomb that was kept on the Second Variety and that ends him.

The Gun by Philip K. Dick, Science Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy by Philip K. Dick

fast-paced

3.0

Leaving this for my reference later since I’m binging all Dick’s short stories:

These people see fission on the horizon from a nuclear blast on a different planet and they go to investigate. They think it’s all barren until they get shot at by a massive weapon and are forced to land on the planet to fix their ship. They send out a group to scout the area and it turns out there is no life left, just a gun that was built to shoot anything flying out of the sky. So they do down under the gun and find a bunker with all that world’s history, like photos and music and stuff. They go back up, beat the gun into submission and rip all its wires out, rendering it useless, then go back to their now fixed ship and take off. They’re excited to return to the planet and explore more now that the gun was dismantled and wouldn’t shoot them out of the sky anymore. BUT the scene cuts back to the planet where the gun tried and failed to shoot them out if the sky as they left then sent a warning signal to another bunker. From that bunker came a bunch of robots with all the materials necessary to fix the gun, because apparently that process was also automated. Oop

3 stars because although the concept was awesome, I found the character dialogue dry and annoying.

Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros

dark sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Doesn’t feel like a YA book. I kept forgetting the main characters were teenagers.

Archer's Voice by Mia Sheridan

emotional inspiring medium-paced

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

3.5

Felt like a Hallmark movie.