Book Reviews – Page 10 – Marlo Yonocruz

Book notes: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi book summary review and key ideas.

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Synopsis:

“John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.

The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce – and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So, we fight, to defend Earth and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity’s resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You’ll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you’ll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea of what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine. And what he will become is far stranger.” -Audible

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Book notes: Never Finished by David Goggins

Never Finished by David Goggins book summary review and key ideas.

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Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins

Synopsis:

“This is not a self-help book. It’s a wake-up call!

Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins’ smash hit memoir, demonstrated how much untapped ability we all have but was merely an introduction to the power of the mind. In Never Finished, Goggins takes you inside his Mental Lab, where he developed the philosophy, psychology, and strategies that enabled him to learn that what he thought was his limit was only his beginning and that the quest for greatness is unending.

The stories and lessons in this raw, revealing, unflinching memoir offer the listener a blueprint they can use to climb from the bottom of the barrel into a whole new stratosphere that once seemed unattainable. Whether you feel off-course in life, are looking to maximize your potential or drain your soul to break through your so-called glass ceiling, this is the only book you will ever need.” -Audible

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Book notes: Armada by Ernest Cline

Armada by Ernest Cline book summary review and key ideas.

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Armada: A Novel by Ernest Cline

Synopsis:

“The new novel from the best-selling author of Ready Player One

It’s just another day of high school for Zack Lightman. He’s daydreaming through another boring math class, with just one more month to go until graduation and freedom – if he can make it that long without getting suspended again.

Then he glances out his classroom window and spots the flying saucer.

At first Zack thinks he’s going crazy.

A minute later he’s sure of it. Because the UFO he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada – in which gamers just happen to be protecting the Earth from alien invaders.

But what Zack’s seeing is all too real. And his skills – as well as those of millions of gamers across the world – are going to be needed to save the Earth from what’s about to befall it.

Yet even as he and his new comrades scramble to prepare for the alien onslaught, Zack can’t help thinking of all the science-fiction books, TV shows, and movies he grew up reading and watching and wonder: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little too…familiar?

Armada is at once a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming-of-age adventure, and an alien-invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever heard before – one whose every minute is infused with author Ernest Cline’s trademark pop-culture savvy.” -Audible

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Book notes: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky book summary review and key ideas.

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Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Synopsis:

“Adrian Tchaikovksy’s critically acclaimed stand-alone novel Children of Time is the epic story of humanity’s battle for survival on a terraformed planet.

Who will inherit this new Earth?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age – a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind’s worst nightmare.

Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?” -Audible

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Book notes: Spell or High Water by Scott Meyer

Spell or High Water by Scott Meyer book summary review and key ideas.

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Spell or High Water: Magic 2.0, Book 2 by Scott Meyer

Synopsis:

“The adventures of an American hacker in Medieval England continue as Martin Banks takes his next step on the journey toward mastering his reality-altering powers and fulfilling his destiny.

A month has passed since Martin helped to defeat the evil programmer Jimmy, and things couldn’t be going better. Except for his love life, that is. Feeling distant and lost, Gwen has journeyed to Atlantis, a tolerant and benevolent kingdom governed by the Sorceresses, and a place known to be a safe haven to all female time-travelers.

Thankfully, Martin and Philip are invited to a summit in Atlantis for all of the leaders of the time-traveler colonies, and now Martin thinks this will be a chance to try again with Gwen. Of course, this is Martin Banks we’re talking about, so murder, mystery, and high intrigue all get in the way of a guy who just wants one more shot to get the girl.

The follow-up to the hilarious Off to Be the Wizard, Scott Meyer’s Spell or High Water proves that no matter what powers you have over time and space, you can’t control rotten luck.” -Audible

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Book notes: Head On by John Scalzi

Head On by John Scalzi book summary review and key ideas.

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Head On: A Novel of the Near Future by John Scalzi

Synopsis:

“John Scalzi returns with Head On, the stand-alone follow-up to the New York Times best-selling and critically acclaimed Lock In. Chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural, Head On brings Scalzi’s trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports.

Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are “threeps”, robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden’s Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real, and the crowds love it.

Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.

Is it an accident or murder? FBI agents and Haden-related crime investigators Chris Shane and Leslie Vann are called in to uncover the truth – and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.” -Audible

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Book notes: Recursion by Blake Crouch

Recursion by Blake Crouch book summary review and key ideas.

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Recursion: A Novel by Blake Crouch

Synopsis:

“Reality is broken.

At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery – and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself.

In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth – and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery…and the tools for fighting back.

Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy – before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.” -Audible

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Book notes: Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino book summary review and key ideas.

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Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino

Synopsis:

“Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity.

Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly through a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die. Gleaming with Tolentino’s sense of humor and capacity to elucidate the impossibly complex in an instant, and marked by her desire to treat the listener with profound honesty, Trick Mirror is an instant classic of the worst decade yet.” -Audible

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