sci-fi – Marlo Yonocruz

Book notes: Redshirts by John Scalzi

Redshirts by John Scalzi book summary review and key ideas.

Get the audiobook on Audible 👇 (affiliate link)

Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by Author

Synopsis:

“Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the facts that (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces; (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations; and (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.” -Audible

~If you enjoy my summary, please consider buying me a coffee via my Ko-Fi link (click the button below) or support this blog in one of several ways! 📖 🎓

I appreciate every donation as it goes directly to the maintenance costs of my blog and creation of new content. 😊

Book notes: Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover

Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover book summary review and key ideas.

Get the audiobook on Audible 👇 (affiliate link)

Shatterpoint: Star Wars Legends by Matthew Stover

Synopsis:

“The jungle planet of Haruun Kal, homeworld of the legendary Jedi Master Mace Windu, has become a battleground in the increasing hostilities between the Republic and the renegade Separatist movement. The Jedi Council has sent Depa Billaba – Mace’s former Padawan and fellow Council member – to Haruun Kal to train the local tribesmen as a guerrilla resistance force. But now the Separatists have pulled back, and Depa has not returned. The only clue to her disappearance is a cryptic recording left at the scene of a brutal massacre: a recording that hints of madness and murder and the darkness in the jungle…a recording in Depa’s own voice.

Mace Windu trained Depa. Only he can find her. Only he can learn what has changed her. Only he can stop her. He will leave behind the Republic he serves, the civilization he believes in, everything but his passion for peace and his devotion to his former Padawan. And he will learn the terrible price that must be paid when keepers of the peace are forced to make war….” -Audible

~If you enjoy my summary, please consider buying me a coffee via my Ko-Fi link (click the button below) or support this blog in one of several ways! 📖 🎓

I appreciate every donation as it goes directly to the maintenance costs of my blog and creation of new content. 😊

Book notes: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

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

Get the audiobook on Audible 👇 (affiliate link)

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

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

~If you enjoy my summary, please consider buying me a coffee via my Ko-Fi link (click the button below) or support this blog in one of several ways! 📖 🎓

I appreciate every donation as it goes directly to the maintenance costs of my blog and creation of new content. 😊

Book notes: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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

Get the audiobook on Audible 👇 (affiliate link)

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

~If you enjoy my summary, please consider buying me a coffee via my Ko-Fi link (click the button below) or support this blog in one of several ways! 📖 🎓

I appreciate every donation as it goes directly to the maintenance costs of my blog and creation of new content. 😊

Book notes: Spell or High Water by Scott Meyer

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

Get the audiobook on Audible 👇 (affiliate link)

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

~If you enjoy my summary, please consider buying me a coffee via my Ko-Fi link (click the button below) or support this blog in one of several ways! 📖 🎓

I appreciate every donation as it goes directly to the maintenance costs of my blog and creation of new content. 😊

Book notes: Head On by John Scalzi

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

Get the audiobook on Audible 👇 (affiliate link)

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

~If you enjoy my summary, please consider buying me a coffee via my Ko-Fi link (click the button below) or support this blog in one of several ways! 📖 🎓

I appreciate every donation as it goes directly to the maintenance costs of my blog and creation of new content. 😊

Book notes: Recursion by Blake Crouch

Recursion by Blake Crouch book summary review and key ideas.

Get the audiobook on Audible 👇 (affiliate link)

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

~If you enjoy my summary, please consider buying me a coffee via my Ko-Fi link (click the button below) or support this blog in one of several ways! 📖 🎓

I appreciate every donation as it goes directly to the maintenance costs of my blog and creation of new content. 😊

Book notes: Lock In by John Scalzi

Lock In by John Scalzi book summary review and key ideas.

Get the audiobook on Audible 👇 (affiliate link)

Lock In by John Scalzi

Synopsis:

“A blazingly inventive near-future thriller from the best-selling, Hugo Award-winning John Scalzi.

Not too long from today, a new, highly contagious virus makes its way across the globe. Most who get sick experience nothing worse than flu, fever, and headaches. But for the unlucky one percent – and nearly five million souls in the United States alone – the disease causes “Lock In”: Victims fully awake and aware, but unable to move or respond to stimulus. The disease affects young, old, rich, poor, people of every color and creed. The world changes to meet the challenge.

A quarter of a century later, in a world shaped by what’s now known as “Haden’s syndrome”, rookie FBI agent Chris Shane is paired with veteran agent Leslie Vann. The two of them are assigned what appears to be a Haden-related murder at the Watergate Hotel, with a suspect who is an “integrator” – someone who can let the locked in borrow their bodies for a time. If the Integrator was carrying a Haden client, then naming the suspect for the murder becomes that much more complicated.

But “complicated” doesn’t begin to describe it. As Shane and Vann began to unravel the threads of the murder, it becomes clear that the real mystery – and the real crime – is bigger than anyone could have imagined.” – Audible

~If you enjoy my summary, please consider buying me a coffee via my Ko-Fi link (click the button below) or support this blog in one of several ways! 📖 🎓

I appreciate every donation as it goes directly to the maintenance costs of my blog and creation of new content. 😊