While the prose is not spectacular, the ideas are. While many people seem to be annoyed by the overly visual and geometric descriptions, I found them interesting if vague. Unfortunately Bear didn’t seem to be in his element when describing politics, personal relations, or heaven forbid, sex. None of this got in the way, and in the end the exponential nature of the plot made it more than worth reading.
Re-org-er Want to see how al-Sharaa drove to Damascus in victory, or how Satya Nadella reclaimed a stalled culture transformation? Skip the nonfiction. Read Pretender! (But certainly don’t read this if you haven’t read the proceeding 7 novels) This is the second valume of Bren Cameron’s long logistics return sub-arc. Destroyer was apex tech: shuttles, starships, and Skyfall. This one drops to trains, buses, biplanes. 1917. The theme of Pretender is that arrival is legitimacy. Once you enter the capital, the right deputies stand beside you. The security apparatus doesn’t object. Optics become fact. ...
Layover-er Destroyer is almost all plot, if logistics count as plot. Here they do. The novel reads like deployment orders disguised as fiction: departures, handoffs, waiting rooms, vehicles, briefings. Forward motion as structure. It took me back to my first trip into Baghdad: DC to Amman, then a C-130 into BIAP. A day in purgatory waiting. The briefing. The Rhino itself, an armored monstrosity to take to the embassy. The book moves with that same staged progression, that same sense that transit is the action. Little politics intrudes, largely because there’s no time for it. The story spans about forty-eight hours. It’s 24 dropped into the Foreigner universe, with a touch of Skyfall in its clean set pieces and relentless pace. The ending is nothing but transfer: shuttle to the main island, ferry across, on foot to horses, then a first night brawl at the mansion. And then: stop. These installments are less novels than episodes. But like the Atevi candies offered to make friends in space, they’re small, sweet, and easy to consume. It disrupted my day. Four stars.
** Diplomancer ** Explorer feels like a season finale: five books of setup suddenly widen into nested multilateral diplomacy, delivering the reward of a new species and a first contact that, remarkably, works. Cherryh rarely hands out unqualified success, but this win feels earned. Exploration quickly becomes diplomacy under pressure, and that diplomicy quickly continues by other means. Like Cibola Burn, the frontier doesn’t escape institutional folly, it amplifies it. ...
** Exposition Ascendant ** With a lower overall rating than previous and subsequent entries, Rising Thunder seemed like a throwaway installment. It isn’t. By this point in the Honorverse, exposition is currency with which we pay for space battles. The focus shifts from space battles to political economy, and the main conflict ends through non-military means—a choice that frustrates tacticians but fits the logic of the world. As one Army strategist told me: when you dominate the battle via conventional means, your enemies will go unconventional. Weber understands that, even if it costs readers their customary naval fix. ...
** Deus Ex Honor ** I understand the now Honor Harrington books run on a clear formula: Honor does the right thing, ruffles lesser egos, then redeems herself in battle. It’s competence porn, executed with military precision. Rather than deus ex machina, we get artes armorum a Deo—godlike weapons skills. Last book it was pistols, this time its swords. The climax is usually a well-executed space battle, the kind that’s as much poker math as mayhem. ...
What it Takes to be a Good Dog Dogs of War grabs you with action, then pulls off sharp pivots into a more contemplative legal and political thriller—never. I’m a sucker for stories with lean, exponential plots, and Tchaikovsky delivers. While mainstream debates about AI are stuck in endless useless sound bites, this novel explores what nonhuman intelligence might look like. Tchaikovsky moves past the usual “ai versus humans” noise, and the result is smarter and fresher. ...
** Blockbuster of the 80’s ** Reading volumes 2 through 5 of Akira found a new sensation: the pace is dictated not by the density of ideas, but by how fast you can turn a page. That physical act, rather than a director’s frame or an author’s prose, becomes the primary throttle of the experience. While Akira begins with an explosive, iconic first two volumes—arguably its most plot-rich installments—the rest of the series unfurls more like an extended aftermath than a dynamic narrative progression. As a post-apocalyptic story, it doesn’t quite cohere The setup is powerful, but what follows feels more like echo. ...
Not Enough for One Sitting Certainly a page turner. With sparse text and dynamic artwork, each page flies by. It’s not that the story is light, it’s just kinetic: you’re almost flipping pages in real-time with the action. I was surprised to learn there are six volumes in total. Having seen the iconic 1988 film, I now realize just how much of the original story was streamlined or reimagined to fit within two hours. ...
Daring to be Different Completed: March 19, 2025 Last edited time: February 9, 2026 1:39 PM Status: OBE Type: Book