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Zivan Locked account

zkrisher@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 months ago

I mostly read Science Fiction and Fantasy AudioBooks

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Zivan's books

Currently Reading (View all 21)

reviewed Orlando People by Alexander C. Kane (Orlando People, #1)

Alexander C. Kane: Orlando People (AudiobookFormat, 2019, Adible Originals)

Gretch Wolgast is a bit of a dud. Just ask her. She's a 21-year-old college …

This is Alexander C. Kane without the over the top super hero personas.

This is Alexander C. Kane without the over the top super hero personas. The characters are great, the humor is fantastic. Aided by Kristen Sieh's excellent performance.

Adrian Tchaikovsky: The Expert System's Champion (2021, Tom Doherty Associates)

In Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Expert System's Champion , sometimes the ones you hate are the …

Tchaikovsky gets to run at full tilt, exploring different types of intelligence, social structure and evolutionary strategies

After some hard world building in The Expert System’s Brother, in The Expert System’s Champion, Tchaikovsky gets to run at full tilt, exploring different types of intelligence, social structure and evolutionary strategies as humans and aliens try to adapt to a hostile environment.

Alexander C. Kane: Scum of the Earth (AudiobookFormat, Audible Studios)

Ezra Barker is a traitor. When the Merg invaded Earth, he didn’t fight or even …

This is a different Kane book.

I was hesitant to get Alexander C. Kane's, Scum of the Earth, it sounded like it would mostly take place in a MAGA senator's office.

This is not the case. This is one long car chase of a page-turner that I finished listening to in one day.

This is a different Kane book. Gone are the cartoon characters of the Andrea Vernon series. Replaced with fleshed out characters, even for the bad guys. It is written for an adult audience and doesn't rely on snark for its humor like the Orlando People series.

I enjoyed Kanes series, they are fun, funny, snarky and silly.

Scum of the Earth is different; it's subtle self-deprecating satire.

Review of 'Carmilla' on 'Goodreads'

I listened to the Audible dramatization, featuring some impressive actors.

Carmila was surprisingly sexy-lesbian for a late 19th century work.

It was interesting to read a pre-Dracula vampire story. The christian elements are more muted and the victim isn't tainted by sin.

John Scalzi: When the Moon hits your Eye (Hardcover, 2025, Tor Books)

It's a whole new moooooon.

One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon as …

Review of 'When the Moon hits your Eye' on 'Goodreads'

This novel is a writing exercise. How would people in the US react if the moon suddenly turned into cheese?

This setup works very well with Scalzi's, What the Fuck and Fuck you style of humor.

Things start to get more dramatic towards the end and I would have preferred a different ending.

Review of 'Drumindor' on 'Goodreads'

This is fan service for Royce and Hadrian groupies.

But it's mostly Royce, Hadrian and Gwen go on vacation and work on getting Royce to get over his teen angst and kiss Gwen.

Of course, where Rayira go trouble follows, but the action sequences are few and far between.

Review of 'The Stardust Grail' on 'Goodreads'

The Stardust Grail is both simple and complex.

There is no subtlety, everything is spelled out, the world and characters are skin deep.

However, the lines between good and evil are blurred, and that is where it shines.

I consider this novel to be for a YA audience.

It was to blatant for me.

Vajra Chandrasekera: Rakesfall (Hardcover, 2024, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through …

Review of 'Rakesfall' on 'Goodreads'

Rakesfall is a work of art, it requires experience in order to appreciate it. This is not a novel I will gift to friends that are not deep into Sci-Fi.

I was able to grasp that I was looking at something beautiful, but I needed the final chapter to understand much of what Vajra Chandrasekera was aiming at.

Rakesfall proposes a cosmology that integrates mythology and technology. It involves possession, gods, demons, time travel and a multiverse, and it takes us all the way from colonial history to the heat death of the universe.

Yet, it is very much a novel of our time, of the powerful, the greedy and corrupt who wish to attain godhood and those who will oppose them.

Robert Jackson Bennett: The Tainted Cup (Hardcover, 2024, Hodder & Stoughton)

In an opulent mansion at the borders of the Empire, an Imperial officer lies dead …

Review of 'The Tainted Cup' on 'Goodreads'

This Holms and Watson duo really captured me. The fact that the setting isn't London, but a province near the seawall that protects a biotech empire from seasonal attack by giant leviathans makes it much more appealing.

The biotech isn't mimicking current or future technology, it mainly enhances natural abilities. The augmentations have repercussions and unwanted side effects.

The story is toled in first person by Dinios Kol, an engraver, augmented to have perfect recall. He is very competent but suffers from imposter syndrome as he tries to hide his dyslexia from his superiors.

Kol is assigned to assist the eccentric genius investigator Ana Dolabra, an over sensitive woman that has to blindfold herself in order to manage the amount of information assaulting her brain. Kol assits her by going out into the world and recalling what he's seen and heard.

As the plot thickens, we learn more about the …

Emmi Itäranta: Kuunpäivän kirjeet (AudiobookFormat, suomi language, 2020, Teos)

Aurinkokunta on ihmisen valtakunta, jonka kaivokset, tehtaat ja viljelmät hyödyntävät taivaankappaleita uuraasti ja järjestelmällisesti. Siirtokuntien …

Review of 'Kuunpäivän kirjeet' on 'Goodreads'

Despite being set in space, this is a story about social justice, about the environment and the prosperous colonies abandoning the third world.

But first of all this is the story of a woman trying to find out why her spouse has disappeared and what he's been doing behind her back. Will she be able to reconnect with them and is their relationship salvageable?

Lumi is a healer, but she is a vulnerable soul, she is tested to the limit as her world crashes around her.

It is also an interesting mix of hard science and shamanism.







Sheri S. Tepper, Emily Durante: The Gate to Women’s Country (AudiobookFormat, Tantor Audio)

Bientôt, Chernon prononcera le voeu des braves comme tous les adolescents de son âge. Il …

Review of 'The Gate to Women’s Country' on 'Goodreads'


On one hand, The Gate to Woman's Country is a product of its time. Dealing with the aftermath of world war III. On the other hand, toxic masculinity is as relevant as ever.

In dialogue with the Iliad, Tepper Imagines a woman lead society that segregates men to a military garrison limited to Trojan War technology and confining war to formal battlefields set outside the walls where women, children and men who have renounced military life, live.

There is more to it than that, the arrangement isn't stable and must be maintained. The segregation isn't hermetic and women interact with the warriors outside Carnival Time. This is where the drama and the characters weaknesses and strengths come into play.

One place Where Women's Country really feels dated is that in a society where the sexes are mostly confined to their own camps and where marriage has been abolished, there is …