Wulf's Blog

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (The Murderbot Diaries #4.5), by Martha Wells My rating: 4 of 5 stars This short story primarily focuses on Mensah (irritatingly called by her first name Ayda here) is nice enough but doesn’t live up to the standards of the rest of the series. Most disappointingly, Murderbot itself is hardly ever present and just at the moment when it got interesting, the story was at its end....

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars “I had options, and I didn’t have to decide right away. Which was good, because I still didn’t know what I wanted. But maybe I had a place to be while I figured it out.” So, four novellas and I’ve devoured them. One short story and one novel (so far) to go. I haven’t had this much fun with a book series since… Hitchhiker’s Guide, I guess. Whereas the latter is (almost) purely h...

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars Well, here’s yet another great instalment in the “Murderbot Diaries” series. It starts exactly where the previous novella left off and this leads us to yet another exciting adventure. While it’s, again, more of the same in a good way, this time we get to know even more about Murderbot’s ethics and morality because he has to deal with a human-form or pet robot. Miki, the “pet”, i...

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Murderbot Diaries strangely appeal to me. As I’m still on my way to the full length novel, recently published, I’m wondering at the simple elegance and straightforwardness of the novellas. This second instalment in the series is, thankfully, pretty much more of the same in a very good way. We still get a good view of a “construct” that’s basically a robot with human parts ...

All Systems Red by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars “And in their corner all they had was Murderbot, who just wanted everyone to shut up and leave it alone so it could watch the entertainment feed all day.” I’m not a Science Fiction fan. I’m not especially fond of novellas. This one, though… I can’t even really explain what appealed to me about this novella: Murderbot neither really feels like a robot nor like a person but still s...

Beach Read, by Emily Henry My rating: 3 of 5 stars When I decided to read this book, I was expecting a light, funny romance before going back to more “serious” books. I basically wanted what the title promised – an early “Beach Read”. Unfortunately, this was obviously not to be. First of all, January, our heroine, is annoyingly insecure. Her mother got cheated on by her late father and both the cheating and the dying entirely shatte...

Warden’s Fate A Sci Fi Adventure by Tony James Slater My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really didn’t expect this. The previous book, “Warden’s Vengeance” in the “Ancient Guardians” series wasn’t very good – the pacing was problematic, typos all over the place and the characters didn’t develop at all. Along came “Warden’s Fate” and with it, the final instalment in the series, Tony is back! Gone are (most of) the typo...

Age of Empyre by Michael J. Sullivan My rating: 5 of 5 stars “The stories I write might be fantasy, but the depiction of the feelings people share for each other is real.” I’m cheating. The above quote is not from the actual content but from Michael’s afterword. I chose it for the simple fact that, to me at least, this is what makes Michael’s books “work” for me. But we’ll come to that yet… First, I have to admit that I was actu...

The Chocolate War by Martin Walker My rating: 3 of 5 stars Yet another Bruno short story. This one deals with the market again and the ensuing eponymous “Chocolate War” that Bruno ends in a typical Bruno way. This is a very short read but it’s a nice one at least. View all my reviews...

A Birthday Lunch by Martin Walker My rating: 1 of 5 stars Another short story from the “Bruno universe”. Unfortunately, like the later novels, this one didn’t have any appeal for me. A large part of it is basically simply a narrated recipe… “He beat the yolks and eggs together with a hundred fifty grams of sugar until they were creamy.” … and that really doesn’t float my boat, sorry. The rest is just plain boring. Moving on. View ...