Tag: MassEffect

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#BookReview: The Loathe Boat by Cindy Dorminy

Fun Cruise Read. But It Has The Wrong Best Video Game Ever. When this book releases on my birthday – US Presidential Inauguration Day as well, this year – I will literally be out of the country. Specifically, I’ll be on Grand Turk with the Carnival Mardi Gras… yes, on a cruise myself that week. 😀

Reading this one in the last few days before I drop down to Orlando and Port Canaveral to meet up with the Mardi Gras was particularly fun, but I can tell you from over 4 months of cruising across nearly 20 years now that this book really does capture the spirit of the modern cruise industry quite well. Some of the other aspects re: group cruises or partial charters (and particularly the type of group doing the charter here), I’m less familiar with as neither group cruises nor this particular type of group are really my scene. Even there, from what I’ve seen of that group, Dorminy shows the group in a favorable light and does a solid job of incorporating the better elements of that group within the overall story being told here.

And the story being told here is actually one of the more interesting romcoms I’ve read in quite some time, mostly because even though it uses several tropes (what romance book these days doesn’t?), it uses them in far more rare and interesting ways. The comedy segments are done particularly well in many different aspects, including some that will have you literally laughing out loud. The “spice” is somewhere around call it habanero or so. It gets a bit interesting without going so far as to cause really anyone to “get the vapors” or anything, though it *is* more than some will want to handle.

Overall a fun and interesting read, great for getting in the “vacation mood” without necessarily hearing Jimmy Buffett (but also, thankfully, no Sweet Caroline either).

Oh, and the *actual* best video game ever? Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Find it on any console or PC, and you’ll thank me for the game recommendation even more than the book recommendation.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Loathe Boat by Cindy Dorminy was originally written on January 10, 2025.

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#BookReview: Tides Of Fire by James Rollins

Sigma. Is. Back. With Kingdom Of Bones, it looked like Rollins was delving too far into the fantastical and leaving behind the more grounded roots of this series. Here… the ties are more to the scifi than the fantastical, including The Abyss, Pacific Rim, Earthcore by Scott Sigler, and even… Mass Effect 3??? Yes, there is one particular scene roughly 2/3 into this tale that while not *quite* word for word with a particular moment in Mass Effect 3, is damn close – and the sentiments and reasons are identical within their worlds. (To be fair, in this particular situation… the wording is always going to be very similar, no matter where you encounter it.)

But more than the scifi zeitgeist connections here, this tale truly gets back to the real roots that make Sigma Force so special. We’ve got the historic and the scientific, and again, the scientific is at least more closely based on actual science this time around. But we’ve also got the camaraderie among the team, including having most of the team (minus Painter, Lisa, and newer team member Jason) together the first time we see them and having a bit of a mini-adventure then as the overall tale begins to pick up. Then we’ve got the Sigma Split, with the team breaking up to go their own separate projects to try to uncover and stop whatever is happening. Each of their specialties get highlighted and tested to degrees not seen in recent Sigma books in a fair amount of time, even Gray’s “special brain”. More akin to David Wood’s Dane Maddock Adventures in this particular point, there are even several callouts to other characters from prior Sigma tales and how those characters are still impacting the world even through the events of this tale.

And that epilogue… It sets up the 2024 entry into this series to be one of the most explosive in quite some time, and you’re going to want *that* book in your hands the moment you finish this one.

Very much recommended.

This review of Tides of Fire by James Rollins was originally written on August 12, 2023.

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#BookReview: The Overlooked Americans by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett

Wokeism (n): The Tendency Towards Social Justice Turned Toxic. Got your attention with the headline here, right? Good. Now sit down in that chair right there and let me show you how “it’s done”.

When you get beyond David Auerbach’s Meganets, when you get beyond Tobias Rose-Stockwell’s Outrage Machine, when you get to the *person* you think you so adamantly oppose…

… what happens when you find out that while they may come from a different culture than you, the human condition remains the same across cultures, and ultimately they share quite a bit of commonality with you?

What happens when you find out the monster at your door, the horrid kaiju that is threatening your children and your very way of life…

… is just another person who is just trying to protect his own way of life and his own kids, who thinks that *you* are the horrid kaiju threatening *his* kids and way of life?

What happens when you stop shooting at each other for just one minute…

… and find out that you had far more in common than you ever had different all along?

Don’t get me wrong, this book has a few problems. Currid-Halkett still tends to be at least somewhat elitist and/ or condescending to those opinions she disagrees with, and there is quite a lot of discussion of COVID here – the latter point being the star deduction, as even in 2023 I remain adamant in my one-man war against any book that mentions COVID, and the single star deduction is my only “real” “weapon” there.

Overall though, it is on the higher end of normally well documented, at 29% bibliography, and fairly well reasoned overall. For those that want to avoid the fates shown in David French’s Divided We Fall… this book is one that so very many people will need to read and take to heart.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Overlooked Americans by Elizabeth Currid-Halkett was originally written on May 9, 2023.

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#BookReview: Paradise-1 by David Wellington

LONG – And Still Only Tells One Part Of The Story. The biggest thing I was left with at the end of this book was whether I was satisfied with the tale here – and thus the book should get the full 5* rating- or whether I thought it was a cash-grab that only told one part of the story and demands money to get the rest of the story (which I’ve seen in other books and written about in other reviews, though I note here that neither of these refer to books from this author) and thus should get a star deduction. Obviously, I ultimately sided with it being a complete tale *so far as it goes*, and I personally would love a sequel that picks up moments after this book leaves off.

As to the tale itself, think “Dead Space” or maybe a touch of the Suicide Mission in Mass Effect 2 or any number of other movies / tv shows / games / book / etc where our main characters wake up already in a survival situation… and things only get more horrific from there. Here though, we also get almost disaster movie type setup with a bit of the “normal life” of each of our crew members before they are sent on this particular mission, and this both helps ground the characters and serves as a touch of foreshadowing of how the tale plays out. The horror is real and visceral, but of a type that if you have your internal “blood filters” set, you may envision at least somewhat less carnage than others who envision the more complete “Mortal Kombat experience”. And as horrific as the physical horror is, the psychological horror here could be said to be even worse – yes, this book goes *that* deep. Ultimately, if you like any of the franchises I’ve named here – and I’ll even drop in the original, space based, Aliens movies here – you’re likely going to enjoy this book. If you like visceral survival / horror type space tales, you’re going to like this book. Again, I truly do want a sequel here, so I’m hoping either Wellington is already planning that or sales/ outcry is enough that we get one. Very much recommended.

This review of Paradise-1 by David Wellington was originally written on January 30, 2023.

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#BookReview: The Extinction Trials by AG Riddle

Preachy Philosophy And Just-Too-Far-Out-There Part V Mar Otherwise Stellar SciFi Novel. Outside of some hyper preachy philosophy in Part IV and a Part V that simply breaks everything previously established and shatters all possible suspension of disbelief, this book was truly a stellar scifi suspense/ action tale. One that should have simply ended with the conclusion of Part IV. You’ve got elements of Brett Battles’ PROJECT EDEN, James Dashner’s MAZE RUNNER, THE MATRIX, WATERWORLD , BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, Ted Dekker’s CIRCLE QUADRILOGY, and a jump-right-into-the-action opener ala Jeremy Robinson’s UNITY or (a bit more precisely) MASS EFFECT 2’s opening level. And these are all franchises that I personally LOVE. In other words, if you like scifi at all, this is going to be something you’ll want to explore. Even if scifi isn’t really your thing, the meat of the story here, of forced proximity creating a family-of-choice, secrets, lies, betrayals, and survival… those are all human elements that Riddle uses effectively to tell his story remarkably well. So well that were it not for the issues noted at the beginning of this review, this is very *easily* a 5* tale. As is, it is still a mostly solid, action packed book, and still recommended.

This review of The Extinction Trials by AG Riddle was originally written on October 10, 2021.

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Featured New Release Of The Week: The Dark by Jeremy Robinson

This week we’re looking at a scifi action tale that wraps itself up in horror clothing remarkably well. This week we’re looking at The Dark by Jeremy Robinson.

As always, the Goodreads review:

The Master Turns To Horror. With this book, Jeremy Robinson – The Modern Day Master of Science Fiction – again attempts a horror book… before bringing it back to the scifi action that is his bread and butter. He first establishes a loveable galoof of an anti-hero: an Army veteran who has PTSD from his experiences in Afghanistan who can’t quite fit in with his suburban civilian “normal” life. Then, he begins building in the mystery and the horror, slowly ramping it up to truly horrific levels across several different types of horror, finally culminating in a truly utterly horrific sequence that, arguably, hard core fans of Mass Effect who are familiar with Mass Effect 2 in particular may be at least somewhat jaded to. And then, the actual scifi action conclusion – almost as though Robinson has made us see hell, and now wants to leave us on a more interesting/ happier note. Long time fans of Robinson may see at least a few similarities to his 2010 “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God” retelling, TORMENT, though for me that particular book was so horrific *because* it was essentially a modern day version of that famous sermon (which was, in itself, essentially a then-modern retelling of Dante’s Inferno). For those like me who literally had nightmares for *years* after reading that book, I can tell you that this one isn’t anywhere near that bad – at least not in the same ways. It truly is utterly horrific in a couple of sequences in particular, and these new horrors may indeed haunt your nightmares for quite some time. But dammit, that is what makes Robinson the Master. 😉 Very much recommended.