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The Political Reading of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
This morning I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Decoder Ring. The most recent episode had a very interesting title: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie…Will he want a Welfare check? I don’t remember this book from my childhood, but I do remember reading this one (and others in the series) to…
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Review: Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1)
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros My rating: 4 of 5 stars When I saw that this book topped the lists for most checked out book in 2023 in multiple library systems my curiosity was piqued. But it was this episode of Our Opinions are Correct that pushed me over the edge into getting this book.…
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Review: Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons: Deluxe Edition
Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons: Deluxe Edition by Patrick Rothfuss My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book is the definition of a niche product. The only people I think would enjoy this are the intersection in the Venn diagram of D&D fans and Rick and Morty fans. I know I’ve been watching…
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Review: Fault Tolerance (Chilling Effect, #3)
Fault Tolerance by Valerie Valdes My rating: 4 of 5 stars Valerie Valdes continues the Gen X/Millenial pastiche that the Chilling Effect in this third, and final, entry. A few of the references across the trilogy:– Voltron– Portal (from previous books)– Smash Bros (crash sisters)– Death Star-like weapon– Solid snake reference?– Transformers– Pokemon (in previous…
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Review: Wrath of Empire
Wrath of Empire by Brian McClellan My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’m usually not a fan of the middle books in planned trilogies. They often can’t resolve anything because most trilogies are just one gigantic book split into three. While that’s also somewhat true in this book, McClellan has done a great job giving…
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Review: Sins of Empire
Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan My rating: 4 of 5 stars If you put a godstone on the mantle in act one…. Just to get my one issue out of the way – this trilogy is really just one giant book broken in 3. This book doesn’t really have a resolution at the end.…
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Review: Fugitive Telemetry
Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells My rating: 4 of 5 stars Murderbot continues to be awesome. As with most mysteries, there isn’t too much to say that won’t end up being a spoiler. Muderbot continues to grow as a character while also not losing that which makes Murderbot such a delight to read. It’s similar…
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Review: Middlegame
Middlegame by Seanan McGuire My rating: 5 of 5 stars I stayed up way too late last night reading. Today I took advantage of the fact that it was raining all day long to sit on the couch with a few cups of tea to finish the book. As I finished I recognized that this…
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Review: Prime Deceptions
Prime Deceptions by Valerie Valdes My rating: 4 of 5 stars Our favorite Cuban spaceship captain is back and I enjoyed it even more than the first book. Now that Eva is her new self and knows there isn’t any more lying to her crew, they can move on to more fun adventures. This book…
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Review: The Black Tides of Heaven
The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang My rating: 5 of 5 stars I would probably more accurately rate this book as 4.5, but I decided to round up. Yang does a perfect job in this novella creating just enough history for the world that we feel as though it’s gone on forever. It’s…
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Review: Save Yourself, Mammal!: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection
Save Yourself, Mammal!: A Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Collection by Zach Weinersmith My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’m not going to waste time looking it up, but I believe this was SMBC’s first collection. So Weinersmith (or whoever didn’t the formatting) hadn’t figured out the formatting. In order to save space, the comics are…
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Review: If Hemingway Wrote Javascript
If Hemingway Wrote JavaScript by Angus Croll My rating: 3 of 5 stars The intro mentions the natural language nature of Javascript. I wonder if the book had been concieved a few years later if it would rather have been Python or Ruby – both of which are way more like human language than Javascript.…
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Review: Walkaway
Walkaway by Cory Doctorow My rating: 4 of 5 stars Got this book for free from the Tor Ebook Club This book is a refinement of many topics that Doctorow has broached in the past: – uploading of consciounesses/backups and how that changes things– living in Capitalism vs leaving capitalism behind– the violence often used…
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Review: Chilling Effect
Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes My rating: 4 of 5 stars Description in one line? Cowboy Bebop meets Mass Effect with a Cuban protagonist. I grew up in Miami, Florida so having a main character speak in “spanglish” brings me back to my childhood. The narrator also nails the voice of our main character, Eva.…