Science Fiction – Made of Stardust and Stubbornness

“Warped State” Review

Posted on April 13, 2025May 9, 2025 by Jen

“Warped State” (“The Gifted of Brennex” No. 1) by Jo Miles

Jasper Wilder is an activist, not a spy, but he’ll become one if that’s what it takes to stop Ravel Corporation from reviving the research project that devastated his home planet.

His plan is simple enough: Break into the secure facility. Steal the research data. Find a weakness and sabotage the project. But all that goes out the airlock when he meets Havoc, a passionate but politically naive labor organizer trying to reform Ravel from within.

Havoc could help Jasper, but instead, he’s fighting for a lost cause. Jasper knows that if he sticks with his own plan, Havoc will likely take the blame—and Ravel doesn’t treat activists kindly.

With an elite security operative closing in, and time running out to sabotage the deadly project before it launches, Jasper needs to find a way to team up with Havoc… before his mission hurts the person he’s coming to care about.

Review

I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters were interesting and I had fun getting to know them. I also liked the way various methods of advocating for change were explained and discussed in the book. It was interesting seeing how the main characters, Jasper and Sowing of Small Havoc were dealing with the various issues. I thought it worked out well to explore why Havoc was so loyal to the company (Kovari cultural reasons) and that there were others who felt differently among his people but it took work for him understand it. I also liked that while Jasper had ideas about how to do things he was willing to work with Havoc later on to resolve everything.

I liked the way the friendship developed between Jasper and Havoc and I was okay with the potential romantic relationship developing because it came later on in the plot and didn’t distract from what was gone on. The main villein was a bit ridiculous but given how certain people in the current administration are reacting to criticism it clearly isn’t as far fetched as you’d think.

One somewhat frustrating part was the existence of a villain character who had augmented legs while also being addicted to pain killers. The addiction only seemed to exist as a method to allow the ship he was using (which has at some point become sentient) to help Havoc and Jasper with their work as the character was unconscious at the time. Nothing is ever mentioned about it again after that.

I did like that there were other people on the planet that were working to free themselves from Rival’s occupation and that it was a mix of both Human and Kovari – seemingly with Kovari in charge of that group. I also liked that there was at least one disabled character (a wheelchair user) in that group to balance out the evil disabled character.

I’m interested in reading the next book in the series though and seeing more of this universe.

Book Details

The cover is blue with what looks like an industrial land scape at the bottom of the cover. With a star filled sky above it. In the background there is the black profile of a head over the sky looking towards the right. There is another planet with a moon orbiting it at the top right corner and a space ship flying up and to the left with a trail of yellow, white light coming from the bottom.

Author’s Website: Jo Miles
Publisher / Date: Self Published, September 2023
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 398
Completion Date: April 12, 2025

“The Tensorate Series” Review

Posted on March 27, 2025May 9, 2025 by Jen

“The Tensorate Series” by Neon Yang

Across four novellas, Neon Yang established themself as a fantasist in bold defiance of the limitations of their genre. Available now in a single volume, these four novellas trace the generational decline of an empire and unfurl a world that is rich and strange beyond anything you’ve dreamed.

In the Tensorate Series you will find: rebellious nonbinary scions of empire, sky-spanning nagas with experimental souls, revolutionary engineers bent on bringing power to the people, pugilist monks, packs of loyal raptors, and much, much more.

The Tensorate Series omnibus contains The Black Tides of Heaven, The Red Threads of Fortune, The Descent of Monsters, and To Ascend to Godhood

Review

This was such an interesting series! The format of the third and fourth novellas are very different from the first two but I enjoyed reading all of them. I loved learning about the world and the characters. There were a few times I wished things had been explained a bit more, but it didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the series. If the author were to ever write more in this world I would definitly read it.

1) The Black Tides of Heaven: Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, who rules the empire are introduced. They were sold to the Grand Monastery as infants as payment for a debt. As they grow to adulthood Mokoya develops visions of the future while Akeha grows more discontent with their situation. Soon after reaching adulthood Akeha leaves to find their own destiny.

I really liked the way this one played out as the children grow up and explore their world. The relationship between the twins is great. Given how things played out I thought it made sense for Akeha to need to leave to figure things out. While the ending did feel a little abrupt it did make sense for the story being told and resolved a lot of what Akeha had been looking for.

2) The Red Threads of Fortune : Set a few years after the events of the previous story, Mokoya’s daughter was killed in an accident causing her to leave her old life behind. Currently Mokoya to hunts deadly creatures in the outer reaches of the kingdom. During one such hunt she meets Rider, but all is not as it seems.

I enjoyed reading this story – I thought a lot of things made sense with the way Mokoya was acting even though her actions weren’t always great. In this story we do learn a bit more about how the “magic” of the world works as well as Mokoya’s prophecies which I enjoyed. Again I liked the relationships between all the characters. The ending felt a bit more resolved in this one at least as far Mokoya’s story. The overall issues of the world are still there in the background but were never really the main point which is fine.

3) The Descent of Monsters: Set sometime after the second novella this one is told entirely in the form of letters between people investigating something terrible that has happened at an institute for experimental methods, and the journal entries of one of the investigators. There is a subplot involving Rider (from the previous book) and their own missing twin.

This one was interesting. The format isn’t usually my cup of tea but I ended up liking it a lot because it all flowed really well. The focus is on the main investigator for the case but he end ups meeting up with the rest of the characters from the previous plots. Still all told in journal entries we find out what happened and how the case was solved. Some might feel the ending doesn’t answer a few questions but I thought it gave enough hints to suggest where things were going.

4) To Ascend to Godhood: Set sometime farther into the future when the Protector has died. Lady Han tells her story of how she met the Protector while at a tavern in the aftermath. There are bits before and after the prequel story that give some hints at what has gone on, and what will happen next.

I thought this was an interesting way to finish up the series – and as an individual story I really did enjoy learning about Lady Han’s history with the Protector. It’s the shortest novella in the collection and while it’s a rambling story about the past, it fits in with the rest of the novellas as part of the larger world.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Tensorate Series”

Book Details

The book cover has many different patterns and designs on the cover set against a black background with red hues at the top right. There plants at the at the bottom spaced around the curls of a dragons tail and water spouts around the tail and balls of fire. There are yellow symbols that have dragons drawn inside them. The title is written across the top with the authors name above the title.

Author’s Website: Neon Yang
Publisher / Date: Tor.com, September 2021; The individual novellas were originally published from 2017 to 2019
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Page Count: 480 (across 4 novellas give or take a few pages)
Completion Date: March 26, 2025

“Màgòdiz” by Gabe Calderón

Posted on January 26, 2025May 9, 2025 by Jen

“Màgòdiz” by Gabe Calderón

Everything that was green and good is gone, scorched away by a war that no one living remembers. The small surviving human population scavenges to get by; they cannot read or write and lack the tools or knowledge to rebuild. The only ones with any power are the mindless Enforcers, controlled by the Madjideye, a faceless, formless spiritual entity that has infiltrated the world to subjugate the human population.

A’tugwewinu is the last survivor of the Andwanikadjigan. On the run from the Madjideye with her lover, Bel, a descendant of the Warrior Nation, they seek to share what the world has forgotten: stories. In Pasakamate, both Shkitagen, the firekeeper of his generation, and his life’s heart, Nitawesi, whose hands mend bones and cure sickness, attempt to find a home where they can raise children in peace without fear of slavers or rising waters. In Zhong yang, Riordan wheels around just fine, leading xir gang of misfits in hopes of surviving until until the next meal. However, Elite Enforcer H-09761 (Yun Seo, who was abducted as a child, then tortured and brainwashed into servitude) is determined to arrest Riordan for theft of resources and will stop at nothing to bring xir to the Madjideye. In a ruined world, six people collide, discovering family and foes, navigating friendship and love, and reclaiming the sacredness of the gifts they carry.

With themes of resistance, of ceremony as the conduit between realms, of transcending gender, Màgòdiz is a powerful and visionary reclamation that Two-Spirit people always have and always will be vital to the cultural and spiritual legacy of their communities.

Review

This was a really interesting and complex book with great characters. I really liked how everything developed and the way the characters ended up working together. I enjoyed the complicated ending and the fact that it ends with hope for a better future. The world building was interesting though I did feel like things could have been explained in a bit more detail. However that may have been intentional since a lot of information had been lost and what was left was very personal, including cultural stories that aren’t for outsiders. That said I really enjoyed the oral story telling aspect of the book and the various stories that were told throughout. I also liked the gender and disability representation in the book as well and the way both aspects just existed as part of the story.

The book does get fairly graphic in places both with regard to the violence the characters experience and the bleakness of the dystopian future. There are also a couple sex scenes near the end of the book that are somewhat graphic as well.

Warnings and additional reviews can be found on the StoryGraph page for “Màgòdiz”.

Book Details

Author’s Website: Gabe Calderón
Publisher / Date: Arsenal Pulp Press, November 2022
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 284
Completion Date: January 22, 2025

“Everything for Everyone” Review

Posted on January 19, 2025May 9, 2025 by Jen

“Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072”
by M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi

By the middle of the twenty-first century, war, famine, economic collapse, and climate catastrophe had toppled the world’s governments. In the 2050s, the insurrections reached the nerve center of global capitalism—New York City. This book, a collection of interviews with the people who made the revolution, was published to mark the twentieth anniversary of the New York Commune, a radically new social order forged in the ashes of capitalist collapse.

Here is the insurrection in the words of the people who made it, a cast as diverse as the city itself. Nurses, sex workers, antifascist militants, and survivors of all stripes recall the collapse of life as they knew it and the emergence of a collective alternative. Their stories, delivered in deeply human fashion, together outline how ordinary people’s efforts to survive in the face of crisis contain the seeds of a new world.

Review

This was a very interesting book about how things could be. It’s written as if it’s a non-fiction book of interviews with various people who survived all the uprisings and disasters and now live in what’s left of New York. The authors (who are academics) are written as themselves doing the interviews with fictional interviewees. It’s vitally important to read the introduction to this book as it explains the future setting and who the various people are. I think a lot of people are tempted to skip introductions to non-fiction books, but this one does the work of explaining what actually happened between now and the future setting.

I think there’s a lot of good world building within the book, and while there is a lot of telling instead of showing I think it makes sense given the chosen format. That said I do think there are very obvious gaps in explaining everything. We get a general sense that things are better now for everyone but only on a surface level. We don’t really know for sure how things have been resolved – is racism still a thing? Sexism? Etc.

In addition, while disabled people are mentioned don’t really get a sense of how things are for disabled people in general in this future. While many of the interviewees have mental trauma and mental health issues there wasn’t anyone with a physical or sensory or cognitive disability. I would have liked it better if at least one interviewee had been disabled themselves instead of just mention of specific individuals with disabilities.

In general though I do believe the book works as an idea of how things could be and depicts a hopeful future after a series of disasters even if I wasn’t entirely convinced that everything is for everyone in this future.

Warnings and additional reviews can be found on the StoryGraph page for “Everything for Everyone”

Book Details

The cover of Everything for Everyone depicts a map of a flooded future New York City showing what's left of the boroughs and the water ways around them over the land is a series of lines crossing every which way. The title is in the top left corner with the authors names.

Authors’ Websites: M. E. O’Brien and Eman Abdelhadi
Publisher / Date: Common Nations / August 2022
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 256
Completion Date: January 19, 2025

“The Deep Sky” Review

Posted on January 5, 2025May 9, 2025 by Jen

“The Deep Sky” by Yume Kitasei

It is the eve of Earth’s environmental collapse. A single ship carries humanity’s last hope: eighty elite graduates of a competitive program, who will give birth to a generation of children in deep space. But halfway to a distant but livable planet, a lethal bomb kills three of the crew and knocks The Phoenix off course.

Asuka already felt like an impostor before the explosion. She was the last picked for the mission, she struggled during training back on Earth, and she was chosen to represent Japan, a country she only partly knows as a half-Japanese girl raised in America. But estranged from her mother back home, The Phoenix is all she has left.

With the crew turning on each other, Asuka is determined to find the culprit before they all lose faith in the mission—or worse, the bomber strikes again.

Review

While the book starts out pretty slowly I ended up really enjoying it by the end. The book is split between the current timeline and Asuka’s time in training in the program years before. We learn a lot about Asuka’s relationships with the various people on the ship and those she left behind (her mother in particular). All of it ends up being relevant and important to the current storyline. There are a couple plot elements that aren’t really explained in depth which was a little frustrating but not terribly so. I thought the characters were pretty well developed with the help of the flashback sections. Overall I liked how everything worked out and I thought the ending fit the story.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Deep Sky”.

Book Details

Author’s Website: Yume Kitasei
Publisher / Date: Flatiron Books, July 2023
Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery
Page Count: 397
Completion Date: January 5, 2025

“The Ghosts of Trappist” Review

Posted on January 4, 2025May 9, 2025 by Jen

“The Ghosts of Trappist” (NeoG Series No. 3) by K. B. Wagers

Ensign Nell “Sapphi” Zika has been working hard to get past her trauma, but the unnerving pleas for help she’s hearing in the Verge and the song she can’t get out of her head are making that increasingly difficult. As Zuma’s Ghost gears up for a final run at the Boarding Games, their expert hacker is feeling anything but confident. Plus, her chief’s robot dog, Doge, is acting weird—a computer problem she can’t find an answer to—and the increasing number of missing freighters is putting everyone living on or stationed around Trappist on edge.

It doesn’t help the NeoG’s mission that Dread Treasure is sidelined from competing in the Boarding Games, and Commander D’Arcy Montaglione is stuck on the front lines of the mystery of the missing ships while also stuck in his own head. Never good at trusting people to begin with, he’s struggling to piece together his new crew in the aftermath of a great betrayal, knowing this may be his final chance at command. The last thing he wants to do is prove his enemies right and end up getting shoved behind a desk and forgotten. The easy answer to missing ships is pirates, but D’Arcy soon realizes the easiest answer is rarely the right one out in the vacuum of space. What’s worse is that the actual pirates are scared of something out beyond the asteroid belt. Something that’s been taking their ships too…

As the unknowns multiply and one of their mysterious enemies escalates by launching an attack on the NeoG itself, the Interceptor crews must brave both cyber and outer space to hunt down their foes, but no one is prepared for the truth that is revealed or the way it will shake the foundations of everything they believe about the universe.

Review

I really enjoyed this book – the characters are great and I love their relationships. That said I occasionally felt like there was too much interpersonal stuff going on instead of focusing on the actual current situation that was happening. Not to a terrible degree since I felt like it made sense to have those elements in it.

Also, while the book is supposed to be set two years after the previous one it doesn’t entirely feel that way with regard to how some characters are dealing with those events. Not that it didn’t make sense in regard to dealing with trauma but it felt a little too much like events had just happened rather than being two years later. As a result the book doesn’t feel like as much of a stand alone story as the author wanted it to be.

In any case I did feel as though the mystery plot was well thought out and I enjoyed how things were handled. There’s a lot of different elements going on within the story and I really enjoyed how the characters figured everything out.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “The Ghosts of Trappist”.

Book Details

The bottom half of the cover is taken up by nebula clouds that are dark near the bottom with stars shining through and then yellow and red at the top. Above and to the right is a planet and in the left corner is a belt of asteroids. There is a ship flying up from the bottom and is in the middle of the cover where the title is written behind it. The name of the author is at the top of the cover.

Author’s Website: K. B. Wagers
Publisher / Date: Harper Voyager, June 2023
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 538
Completion Date: January 3, 2025