Tag: sci-fi

Reviews

Dungeon Crawler Carl Review

by amyleighreads1 Comment on Dungeon Crawler Carl Review

LitRPG isn’t something I’ve ever really been into but this book completely surprised me.

A man. His ex-girlfriend’s cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. Only a few dare venture inside. But once you’re in, you can’t get out. And what’s worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it’s game over. In this game, it’s not about your strength or your dexterity. It’s about your followers, your views. Your clout. It’s about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

I listened to the audiobook and I’m so glad I did. The narrator is hilarious, he reminded me of Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove. It totally elevated the experience. The banter between Carl and Princess Donut had me cackling way more than I expected. Their back and forth honestly made the whole book for me.

What I didn’t care as much for was the repetitiveness of the leveling up, stats, crawler “gifts”, all that stuff. That part kind of lost me and brought down the story a bit, but the characters and comedy more than made up for it. It’s not just funny either. There’s this one scene where they go out of their way to help some elderly residents, even though it puts them at risk, and that’s when I realised this book actually has a lot of heart too.

So even if LitRPG isn’t your thing, this book still might be. It’s wild, weird, unexpectedly touching, and genuinely funny. I gave the characters a solid five stars, emotional impact a four, and the rest sits around a three for me. But overall? Way better than I ever expected.

⭐️4/5 stars the audiobook for this was TOP TIER.. I highly recommend!!!

Reviews

Feed Them Silence Review

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*Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an ARC for review!*


What does it mean to “be-in-kind” with a nonhuman animal? Or in Dr. Sean Kell-Luddon’s case, to be in-kind with one of the last remaining wild wolves? Using a neurological interface to translate her animal subject’s perception through her own mind, Sean intends to chase both her scientific curiosity and her secret, lifelong desire to experience the intimacy and freedom of wolfishness. To see the world through animal eyes; smell the forest, thick with olfactory messages; even taste the blood and viscera of a fresh kill. And, above all, to feel the belonging of the pack.

I found Sean’s character to be a little insufferable. She’s definitely selfish and doesn’t take into account any one else’s thoughts and feelings before she acts. Which is shown countless times throughout the book but I think this was definitely intentional. The way she pushes away everyone who loves and cares about her to feed into this one-sided relationship with a wolf and her pack was bizarre.

Seeing the subtle shifts in her mannerisms and her attachment to her wolf was interesting to read about for sure and her evolution throughout the course of the plot after being sure that there was this connection to being rejected from the pack was quite entertaining.

The only thing that kept me from enjoying this book a lot more was all of the academic talk and language that was used. I kept getting pulled out of the story multiple times to try and decipher what was being said and the implications behind it. Maybe this book was just too smart for me but I had to slow my reading pace down drastically to even interpret the prose.

⭐️3/5 stars A very thought provoking, well rounded story!

Reviews

The Atlas Six Review

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The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation. When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. 

I can’t say I overly enjoyed any of our main characters but I appreciated that we got to read from each of their perspectives and get a gauge on what kind of person each of them are. Libby was probably my favourite of the bunch because she adds so much to the story. Her and Nico are actually actively using the library and exploring how far they can go with their abilities. They are coming up with theories using their research and garnering results.

Callum and Parisa I didn’t really like at all. I can appreciate how integral both of them are to the storyline and they both seem to have ulterior motives they are also working towards. However, they are both too overt and discreet with their powers. They are both unlikeable and even though we learn quite a bit about them through their perspectives I feel like I didn’t connect enough with them to care at all about their plans.

Tristan was an interesting character for sure. Not having a full grasp on what he is able to do was compelling and seeing how he learns more about the scope of his powers was entertaining. But he is always so unsure of himself and questioning everyone’s motives all the time it was a little exhausting. Atlas was an enigma that I wanted to learn more about and eventually we do but I would of liked to see in real time as opposed to memories.

Not enough was explained about the actual society and the library. I understand that this is going to be a series and we are only in the initiation stage but we are kind of just thrown in and each character begins their studies and things get kind of repetitive and boring. How do they get the books? The library is described as being sentient but how is everything stored and how do they request things? I thought this was going to be a lot more fantastical as opposed to academic and I think it the fact that we are mostly in the same setting the whole time that made this a bit tedious to read.

⭐️3/5 stars Didn’t quite live up to the hype for me…

Reviews

Cytonic Review

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*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Spensa’s life as a Defiant Defense Force pilot has been far from ordinary. She proved herself one of the best starfighters in the human enclave of Detritus and she saved her people from extermination at the hands of the Krell—the enigmatic alien species that has been holding them captive for decades. What’s more, she traveled light-years from home as an undercover spy to infiltrate the Superiority, where she learned of the galaxy beyond her small, desolate planet home. She faced down a Delver and saw something eerily familiar about it. And maybe, if she’s able to figure out what she is, she could be more than just another pilot in this unfolding war. She could save the galaxy.

I liked that again we have a new setting that we get to explore throughout the course of the book. I found myself a little disoriented for the first 100 pages or so simply because I had a hard time understanding how the Nowhere worked and the concept of the different fragments. Once I got my head around it and was settled into the story it was easier to comprehend what was happening.

I don’t think that Spensa has evolved all that much in this book. Sure she gets a better grasp on her cytonic abilities but she’s pretty much the same character that we’ve seen in the rest of the series. At the end she does have a little bit of an epiphany when she has to choose what path she is going to take next but other than that she didn’t really do anything that overly captivated me.

All of the other characters carried the plot in this book in my opinion. I was definitely more fascinated by Chet and who he actually was and his background being in the Nowhere for so long apparently. The manner in which he is introduced was entertaining and I liked learning about how his abilities differ to Spensa and how he helps her navigate through the Nowhere. M Bot we learn is much more integral to the plot than what I was anticipating. A super entertaining character however the constant talk about emotions and feels and asking Spensa to explain things annoyed me a bit, it was just too repetitive.

Repetitive overall is the word for this book. I had hoped it would be more action packed and adventurous than what it was. I was disappointed to be honest with the story overall. I was expecting crazy hijinks, twists upon twists and revelations to come out at every turn but this just felt like a filler book. Sure we are given a few little twists and new characters and a new setting but overall I didn’t really feel like I needed to know this story before Spensa comes back to the somewhere and reunites with her crew back on Detritus.

⭐️3/5 stars entertaining yet disappointing

Reviews

Skyward Flights Review

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I realised before I got stuck into Cytonic that I needed to catch up with the two novellas that take place between Starsight and Cytonic and then there’s a third novella after. I sped through the first two novellas and figured I would just post two short reviews in one!

Sunreach – I had quite forgotten about Spensa’s flight team back on Detritus because for the most part the series revolves around Spensa and her adventures. But I like the fact that we’re taken back and given different perspectives and we can see what these other characters are dealing with while. We were given short little interludes in Starsight about Jorgen finding the other Taynix with Gran Gran and I really enjoyed how in this novella we get to see them figure out that they are actually the hyperdrives. I also really enjoyed the rescue mission to Sunreach and just how fast paced and action packed it was. There were definitely some revelations and twists and I feel like this just added so much needed depth and context to the series. ⭐️4/5 stars

ReDawn – For ReDawn I thought it was definitely a necessary decision to have a novella from the point of view of one of the aliens and Alanik has been a pretty integral part of this series so it was nice to get to see things from her perspective. She is another Cytonic who has a different grasp on the abilities so it was interesting to see how she uses her powers in comparison to Spensa or even Jorgen with his limited knowledge. I liked the fact that we have a different setting as well on ReDawn and how we get to learn about a different race of being and how they govern themselves. It was a just a little a hard to visualise a lot of the fighting scenes in the air, that whole sequence was a bit chaotic and confusing. I really enjoyed seeing how all the pilots have bonded with the Taynix and how they are able to utilise them throughout their flights and integrate them into all of their plans. ⭐️3/5 stars

These novellas have definitely drawn me back into this series and has me reinvested in the storyline and eager to find out what will happen next and what is going on with Spensa in the Nowhere!