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Oh, "Sudanna, Sudanna" you're such a weird book. An interesting and very weird book. There are several characters that are followed in this novel, but the primary are Prussirian, Hailey, and a Holo cop. Prussirian is the criminal rebel wannabe sort of rockstar guy who plays the forbidden instrument and with it connects with his ancestors. Hailey is the quintessential 40-ish over-bearing father figure, who is paranoid that everything is going to get him. And Holo Cops are the Good Thought enforcers, of which the particular one wants a new, shiny office. Sounds pretty normal...
Except, these are aliens who are flat as a board, eat sunshine, and have emojis for faces.
Surprised yet?
The book is incredibly Orwellian, with a little bit of Scientology's auditing sessions thrown in for good measure. Their "religion" hails to the almighty Mamacita, an aging super computer who has set forth a system of asinine, personality-crushing rules for its Ut populace to follow. The story touches the system, the world, and the alien life upon it as best as it can in its novel length, and if you viewed this through the lens of the novel "1984" you'd forget the oddities about the planet and its peoples. The characters are incredibly relatable.
But, like 1984, expect this novel to be a downer. There isn't going to be this grand victory, and the wants of the people are piffling yet human and needed. My most major gripe of this book is the stuff around Hailey's nearly 16-year-old daughter... who falls in love with the ADULT rocker guy, marries, does the diddly, and yeah. Gentlemen, teenage girls aren't that stupid. It was so dumb. So very, very dumb. And then she quickly Opheliaed her way out. Like, wow... women are misunderstood and emotional and useless creatures to this author family. That part ages poorly, and this is why I dropped it a star.
Otherwise, you can guess the cons in this by reading it and if you're the right reader for this type of work, which is to say, most people aren't. But I like exploring very alien worlds, and this fulfilled that need nicely.

Left an honest review because the author asked for one, and it hurts to write this. I'm sorry. They are aware of the issues with their novel and are working on edits. The book itself was pulled from the Amazon market in the meantime. Most of the issues within the book have been noted by other reviewers, and hopefully in the future those will be corrected for.

Went through a quarter of the book, and couldn't push any more. I hope this improves after a considerable edit because it has the merits of potentially being a good sci-fi/fantasy. The biggest service to it would probably be stripping the first 20ish%. Start the main character at Earth, at 8. Have the parents show their spaceship that they're tinkering on, and explain in under 500 words "We're from this planet. We escaped because of the Dark Lord, etc." Less is more, and the worst killer of fantasy in particular is too much or needless world building.

The information in this book will be a bit old and outdated now (not when I originally read it), as the blockchain and assorted technologies are vast, ever-changing, and innovating. It gives a broad and slightly generalized overview of most extents of the blockchain at the time of publication. Any deep dives, reference the source material, whitepapers, and so on. But if you're a person who is curious about what the technology does and where it could head, it goes way beyond the basics of "wallets".

I wouldn't recommend this material to people who are looking to invest in cryptocurrency or understanding the hype behind new and old trends within, such as DogeCoin or NFTs (those the latter is touched on, though the psychology of human spending isn't covered here). If you're looking for that stuff, go somewhere else.

It's an accessible read given how convoluted blockchain and assorted technology can be, and covers what you need to know, and is a great piece of follow up work to those who want to know what it can do than what the news says. It's light. If you're a wannabe cryptoenthusiast, you're the right reader for this book. Again, newbies will not benefit from this, and the people who are experienced in crytpo and the blockchain will find no information to be gained from this. It's niched, and for me, it fits as a solid explanatory read. But most readers are in the larger band who don't want a "this is what the extent of crypto can do", they just want to make money. And the power crypto people (developers, researchers, security specialists, etc) will snuff at this for being uninformative.

Purchased this book as a thank you, and the author gave the caveat of "You won't enjoy this." With a title like this, a given. So, let's see what we've got here.
The book is creative non-fiction where some of the stories have a victim or observer story then followed by the true crime overview of the circumstances that led to the child's eventual murder. I believe at least one of these crimes I've seen a documentary for, and several I've even heard of. If you watch true crime documentaries/television, you'll know what to expect here.
Because of that, I wasn't shocked by what was detailed. The author stories kindly and dialogues very well. The first person narratives are uniquely their own. The descriptions outlining the events balance it out. At the end of the book there is a detail of why these types of incidents could happen. It was raw, informative, and honestly a good piece of work about a horrible subject matter.

This is going to be a niche read. If you're an evangelical Christian who is tackling the struggles of getting started with your writing and sticking to it, Ms. Kleefeld offers some heartfelt insights into what can often be the greatest hurdles for would-be authors. It is a good way to not feel alone in the daunting trial that is creating a solid piece of literature.
However, this book is not going to be a suitable read if you don't fit into the evangelical Christian category. There is an entire segment devoted to non-writing related prayers. The often more challenging aspects of authorship (publishing, marketing, the plethora of agent rejections, etc) are glossed over as the author is neither a trained theologian nor experienced enough in the publishing industry to cover these.
But, most writers have to start somewhere, and many are people of faith. This is a good book to validate those early writing frustrations, especially from the prospective of those who would like the solace and comfort of knowing that they are not alone in said journey.

Got this book after watching "Love, Death, and Robots" and the short "Zima Blue." Was screaming at the screen, "Who wrote this? Who is the writer?! I need their work now!!!" Received it as a birthday present, and I love, love, love it. Most of the work runs in the realm of bittersweet stories, of course everyone has their favorites. Mine is "Enola." If you're obsessed with WWII, you know exactly what an Enola is and I was amused by the AI's cleverness but also its compassion. Generally his characters, being humans on the fringe, or AI, are smart, engaging, thoughtful. I also appreciated the author's comments appended to the shorts. Insight for any fresh writer who wants that raw clarity into the creative and especially the publishing process.

I've been avoiding hard sci-fi and its accompanying genres because I don't know where to look, but enjoyed Alastair's works and am looking to give his own recommendations a try.

Why did my friend "gift" this to me? Why am I friends with them at all. What terrible people for giving me this book. FYI, I made it through half of it and couldn't read anymore after being bored to tears. I can see why Laurence Sterne self-published this. (Yes, originally self-published. Thanks 'Forward' for explaining that even back in the 18th century, it was too garbage for publishers back then and its existence was partially designed to troll the public and be a flippant remark to society at large. It's basically self-insert criticisms.)
The plot itself is light, and not expansive. And while the English and its perspectives is older, and bit harder to enjoy for my tastes... what really killed it was this was the author's thinly-veiled attempt at also marketing the sermons he published. For over 20 pages, one of the characters literally reads a sermon diatribe that fell out of another book, verbatim. The book is a lecture, within a lecture, failing to get anywhere. The whole idea that it's novel that the character isn't even born for the first few chapters, as if we as readers should marvel at the absurdity, is not interesting. The marvel here is how anyone can enjoy it.