I Wanted to Love Ready Player One More Than I Actually Did
My honest, messy take on Ready Player One: a wildly fun premise, a hero who's basically a walking trivia machine, and why it splits readers so…
Keep readingpulled from the messy shelves
My honest, messy take on Ready Player One: a wildly fun premise, a hero who's basically a walking trivia machine, and why it splits readers so…
Keep reading
My honest, opinionated take on The Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova: gorgeous steampunk world, thrilling leads, and the one thing that kept tripping me up.
Keep reading
My honest, opinionated take on The Maze Runner by James Dashner: the addictive hook, the maddening ending, the slang, and whether it holds up in 2026.
Keep reading
Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines is a YA steampunk about cities on wheels that eat each other. It's meaner and sadder than you expect. Here's my honest…
Keep reading
The Three-Body Problem is brilliant, cold, and occasionally a slog. My honest take on Liu Cixin's sci-fi juggernaut, plus who should actually read it.
Keep reading
Illuminae is a sci-fi told in hacked files, IMs and casualty lists. My honest take on the AIDAN twist, the format gimmick, and whether it holds…
Keep reading
The Long Earth has the best premise Pratchett ever co-wrote and a plot that keeps forgetting to happen. Here's my honest, messy take on why it…
Keep reading
My honest, opinionated take on Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie: the "she" thing, the slow first half, and why the ending earns it. Rated 4.5/5.
Keep reading
My honest, opinionated read on Station Eleven: the flu, the Traveling Symphony, Arthur Leander, and why the structure is the whole point.
Keep reading
My honest, opinionated take on Ted Chiang's Exhalation: nine stories, one perfect one, one that drags, and why the whole thing lives in my head rent…
Keep reading
The Martian by Andy Weir is a survival puzzle disguised as a novel. I loved most of it and got annoyed by some of it. Here's…
Keep reading
My honest, opinionated take on Recursion by Blake Crouch: the dizzying premise, the flaw nobody warns you about, and who should actually read it.
Keep reading
Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human is strange, tender, occasionally a slog, and unlike any other sci-fi novel. Here's why it still gets under my skin.
Keep reading
John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids is the granddaddy of cozy catastrophe. Killer plants, a blind Britain, and one dated, brilliant, weird book. My honest…
Keep reading
My honest review of Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon: the coldest, biggest, most divisive sci-fi novel ever written, and why its ending still guts me.
Keep reading
Frederik Pohl's Gateway is a 1977 sci-fi classic about guilt, alien tech, and a man in therapy. Here's why it still lands and where it drags.
Keep reading
The Colour of Magic is where Discworld starts and also where it fumbles. Here's why I love it anyway, and why I tell people to start…
Keep reading
My honest read on Clarke's The City and the Stars: gorgeous cosmic vision, thin humans, and one of the best openings in old sci-fi. Worth it,…
Keep reading
My honest, opinionated take on Slaughterhouse-Five: what Vonnegut nails, where the aliens lose me, and why "so it goes" still lands after all these years.
Keep reading
My messy, honest reaction to Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness: the slow start, the ice crossing that wrecked me, and whether it…
Keep reading
Heinlein's 1966 lunar revolution novel, TANSTAAFL and all. What holds up, what creaks, and why Mike the computer is the real heartbreak. My honest read.
Keep reading