Independence – with robot chainsaws

4 of 5 Robot-Cock Stars – Independence by Alasdair Shaw.

This story is very short. I mean, you can’t really call it a ‘book’ at 28 pages. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is what’s packed into those few pages. And let me tell you, there’s more action and intrigue packed into this story than there is in many full length novels.

It’s about the aftermath of a brutal space battle, where two ships survive. Both of the ships are just barely supporting life, as they are so horribly damaged from the battle. But one of the ships seems to be repairing itself. Like it’s alive or something.

So of course the dumb white people (I have to assume they’re white) from the other ship go to investigate the self-healing ship. And damn. Shit happens, man. The dumb ass white people get gang raped by androids. Then, just for fun, the droids chop the white people into little bits. Like cold cuts.

So yea, robots are evil. I get that, man. But why do the humans have to be so goddamn stupid. I mean, why the fuck are you even investigating this fucking ship? There’s no life signs. There’s nothing on that ship that you need. Just blow (heh, I said blow) the ship to kingdom come (and come!), and get on with your life.

Because you can’t fucking argue with robots, man. They’ll just laugh and shoot you in the face. Because apparently these robots have personality traits, or something. They’re happy to do their job. Burning human flesh makes these droids giggle like little school girls. Sick and twisted school girls.

I liked this story because it was packed with non-stop action. And because I’m a sick and twisted bastard. I love reading about idiots getting what they deserve. And getting fucked by droids with chainsaw dicks was definitely what these dumb white people deserved.

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Reformed – is a Matrix prison

4 of 5 Alien-Matrix Stars – Reformed by by Anthony Morgan-Clark

This book is described as a short story collection. But it’s not. It’s a novel. And quite a good novel. It’s one of the best sci-fi books I’ve read, and I’ve read quite a few.

The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is because of the short story structure. It would have been a better book if it was written as a novel, instead of segments of a novel.

This story is about the future of criminal justice. About pre-crime justice technology. And of course, aliens. You can’t have a sci-fi story without aliens, right?

There’s this guy, Joe, who just got out of prison. He goes to the half-way house to plan his criminal future. Or does he? It seems to me that his whole life could just be a simulation. Because part of the justice system in this future puts repeat criminals into a Deep Sleep. It’s like the Matrix, because the prisoners are suspended in a virtual reality world, where they’re allowed to do their crimes in peace.

And then there’s the pre-crime revolution. Technology that’s developed to determine if someone will become a criminal. Or, if a criminal is likely to repeat his crimes. There’s a whole debate within the justice system about the legality of this technology. Is it fair to put someone in prison just because the technology says they will eventually become a criminal? Sure, you may save some lives. But if that’s the case, you might as well just put everyone in the Matrix. You’ll save even more lives!

But wait, the aliens have invaded the virtual reality. Oh noes! Apparently these aliens aren’t little green men. They’re energy, or something. They travel through the electricity, and troll people on the internet. And then they get bored of trolling, and finally just invade Earth, and destroy everything. Because that’s the only way they know how to save the Earth.

What? Save it? You just fucking destroyed it, you goddamn cocksuckers! What the fuck, man? How is that saving us? Oh, because even more evil aliens are on their way to destroy the Earth. Great. That’s like the best troll ever. Motherfuckers.

So the other evil aliens show up and destroy even more of the Earth. Like it’s some kind of sport. And the Earthlings have finally had enough destruction, so they decide to fuck the Earth. It’s a goddamn wasteland anyway. And they build huge spaceships, and take off to populate some other world.

Or did they? Maybe this whole goddamn story is in the fucking Matrix. Maybe there’s really no aliens. It’s all just Joe’s Matrix fantasy world. Who the fuck knows. All I know is, this is a damn fine book. There’s amazing technology, and fascinating characters. I fucking loved it.

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Worse than Senseless Things – yes, this book is worse

2 of 5 Fucking-Pointless Stars – Worse than Senseless Things by J. Battle.

I was bored out of my mind while reading this book. It’s not funny. It’s not exciting. It’s just an endless battle scene, told from several different perspectives. To me, this just made the plot convoluted as fuck.

I do respect the amount of work that went into this book. The world-building was amazing. All the different alien races and planets were fascinating. But what were all these aliens doing? Just wandering around their planet with their token human. Not doing anything interesting at all.

Awesome world-building does not mean there’s going to be a good story to go with it. Unfortunately for this book, the world-building was all it had. The story was weak. The characters were stupid and cardboard. And the endless space battles were fucking pointless.

When a character says, “Sir, we’ve just lost 78 more ships, sir!” Okay, big fucking deal. Why’d you lose those ships? Where’s the conflict? What can you do about it? The fleet was constantly losing ships, and nobody ever did anything about it. So how am I supposed to care? Conflict without any meaning is just empty conflict. It’s fucking useless.

This book is about an intergalactic war. Everyone is fighting, for whatever reason. Planets, and entire civilizations are being destroyed. Because, reasons. It really is fucking pointless.

I had to drag myself, kicking and screaming, to the end of this book. I really couldn’t stand it. I just wanted it to be over. Just nuke the whole fucking galaxy, and be done with it. Because I can’t fucking take it any more.

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Future Fossil – is Mad Max on crack

5 of 5 Hot-Bimbo-Bot Stars – Future Fossil by Gene Bathurst.

This is such a fun story, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a Mad Max type story, set in a similar post-apocalyptic type world, where there’s hot android bitches, and talking velociraptors. Good times.

The story is about Magnum Thrax, and his gang of hot android bitches. They scour the wasteland for precious metals to sell to the almighty sex shop. Because sex is the real currency, apparently.

Thrax and his sexy bitches travel in a high-tech tank, ready for battle. They come across a mine, and follow it deep into the mountain, where they come across sentient rocks, and talking raptors who are about to sacrifice Thrax’s buddy, and his young sister.

And of course, they’re doing the sacrifice for their god, the T-Rex. But the T-Rex can’t talk for some reason. It’s just a plain ol’ T-Rex. Nothing special about it, except that it was engineered to heal itself, and grow a new head, if need be.

Thrax and his sex-bots jump into the mix to save their friends. Hot lead and lasers light up the cavern, as Thrax tries to save his sister and his stupid friend, who’s trying to negotiate with the dumb raptors. “I can make you bigger, stronger, faster,” he says, pretending to be some genetic scientist, when in fact, he’s just a computer programmer.

Thrax’s sister argues this with Kal, saying he’s not a bloody scientist, when Kal says, “I know that, but come on… How hard could it be? I could learn that shit in a couple of weeks.” Heh. I lol’d.

Then, Thrax battles the T-Rex, and severs its head. But that’s no big deal. The T-Rex grows a new head. But not just one. Two new heads! And the chase is on. The sex-bots jump on the T-Rex and sever its two heads. Now it’s got three heads! Holy shit.

The battle continues, until one of the sex-bots jumps on top of the T-Rex, and jacks into its brain, controlling it. Fucking mind control of a T-Rex? How awesome is that? Super fucking awesome. So the sex-bot goes crazy with the T-Rex, tearing up all the stupid raptors.

Could this story get any better? It’s fucking awesome. I couldn’t find any fault in it. For such a silly story, it was very well written. It’s something my wife refers to as ‘crack’. You just take a perfectly normal story and throw some crazy shit in there. Like talking raptors, and a T-Rex with three heads. And hell, everyone loves some good crack.

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Snow Crash – a pizza boy’s dream

4 of 5 Virtual-Virus Stars – Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

This is a crazy tech-infused romp of a book. Its virtual world and real world are equally impressive, and fascinating. I think I was first hooked by this book when the protagonist was introduced. I mean, his name is Hiro Protagonist for Christ’s sake. And he’s a fucking pizza delivery boy for the goddamn Mafia.

Can you ask for a more interesting protagonist than that? I think not. He even has a fucking business card that reads “Last of the freelance hackers and Greatest swordfighter in the world.” I highly doubt that he is, in fact, the greatest swordfighter in the world, but just the fact that he thinks he is makes his character that much more interesting.

This book is the story of a virus named ‘Snow Crash’ that infects the virtual world as well as the real world. It’s used as a drug, and a computer virus. And Hiro’s best friend is hooked on it. He’s a fucking junkie. So Hiro uses his mad hacking skills to uncover the truth about Snow Crash.

The truth about Snow Crash, is that it was developed by a crazy religious cult that live on a huge barge out in the fucking ocean. Hiro and his new-found friend, a skateboard girl named Y.T. travel to the barge and try to stop Snow Crash from destroying both the real world and the virtual.

I loved this book because it was an exciting technological adventure. I hated it because it was way too goddamn complicated. I mean, the author created a whole new language for this fucking book. A whole new religion. A whole new world. It’s just too much. It would have been so much better if it was just the Snow Crash story, about how it’s destroying the world, and all that shit.

Often times, authors saturate their work with unnecessary details. They pad the pages with tons of horseshit, and they forget how to end a fucking story. They just end up rambling on and on, until they finally get frustrated with their own work, and just tack on whatever ending comes to mind.

It fucking pisses me off. Stephen King is the worst example of this, but there are plenty more authors who write 500 page books, when it would have been much better as a 300 page book. Snow Crash is in that same category. It would have been a much better 300 page book.

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Dutchman’s Curse – is unintentionally hilarious

3 of 5 Frack-Fucking Stars – Dutchman’s Curse by Gates Watson.

I laughed my ass off while I read this book. It’s fucking hilarious. But somehow, I don’t think the author intended it to be so goddamn funny. I think he meant it to be a serious, epic space opera.

And it is an epic space opera, in a way. I mean, there’s huge space battles, and such. But it’s hard to take it seriously, when one of the main characters is a 12-year-old boy named ‘Tom Clancy’. Seriously? Out of all the fucking names you could have chosen, you chose Tom Motherfucking Clancy? Really?

So, every time I read that name, I had to chuckle. It took me out of the book, and made me realize just how utterly stupid it was. I couldn’t keep track of the story, because every time I saw that fucking name, I’d be dragged back to the real world, to laugh my ass off.

Don’t get me started on Tom Clancy’s sister. A 5-year-old girl who’s pretty much River, from Firefly. She’s special. She can talk to spaceships, and she has like superpowers or something. And her name is AnaLise.

So now, every time I read her name, it’s Anal-ise. Emphasis on the Anal. Why? I don’t fucking know why. I’m a sick fuck, or something. But I just couldn’t help myself. So again, every time I saw that name, I had to chuckle, and it took me out of the story as well.

And then, there’s the officer named Moran. He’s a fucking moron, and every time I saw his name, I read it as Moron. Again, laughing my ass off. Then, I found this line, and laughed even harder: “You aren’t paid to think, Moran.”

That’s comedy gold, right there. Oh yea, and there’s General Butthead. That one’s good for a laugh or two. And the fact that this author chose to use the whole Battlestar Galactica swear word routine. ‘Frack’ this, and ‘fracking hell’ that. You couldn’t ask for more laughs from this book, I tell ya.

All that aside, this book is about some kids who hop a ride on some warship. They seem harmless enough, but they’re not. Tom Motherfucking Clancy is a goddamn serial killer, and his sister is some strange mystic that nobody understands.

Tom starts killing everyone, as you do. His sister is taken to a faraway planet, for safe keeping, because you never know when you’ll need a mystical heir to some clan. And then the wars begin. Because some asshole stopped a wedding, and another asshole killed someone important.

Tom escapes with his buddy Moran, because even a serial killer needs some comic relief. The battleship that was trying to stop the war ends up getting blamed for killing everyone. A bounty is set on that ship, and everyone goes after it, getting themselves killed in the process.

Seriously, like 6 ships were destroyed, because of a goddamn misunderstanding. Then, all is cleared up, and the war shifts to finding and destroying Tom and his minions. There’s also some bullshit in there about trade agreements, and turf disputes. Not that I paid attention to that. I mean, who would?

I liked this book, because I literally laughed out loud several times while reading it. I hated it, because it could never keep me in the story. I was constantly drawn out by the stupid names and references. But still, it was well written. And funny, albeit unintentionally so.

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Broken Angels – makes me wanna fly

4 of 5 Not-Totally-Gay Stars – Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan.

The sexy man-beast Takeshi Kovacs is back in action, for yet another adventure! Yay! Get that sexy hunk a stripper pole to dance around. Don’t bother with the g-string. Just let that hot wang flap in the breeze for us all to drool over.

Damn. That sounded gay. I’m not 100% gay, okay? But goddamn. I’m 90000% gay for Takeshi Kovacs. I guess it’s because he’s just so good at what he does. He always wins. If it’s mind games, a sword fight, a shootout, or a straight-out brawl, Kovacs will win every time. Because he’s just that fucking good.

Okay, enough of my drool…

This book is about Kovacs teaming up with yet another group of mercenaries, to recover an important alien artifact. You see, pretty much all of the high-tech stuff in their world, they stole from the aliens.

The problem is, those aliens were smart as fuck, and they put fun little booby traps in and around most of their artifacts, to wreak havoc with any fool who tries to snatch up such valuable items.

It’s crazy, because all the aliens are long past dead. Like centuries past dead. But their ghosts haunt the artifacts. Not real ghosts, of course. That’d be silly. I mean hologram type ghosts and such. Defense ghosts.

This story isn’t quite as good as the other Kovacs books, simply because there’s much less anal porn. Hardly any fucking at all happens in this book. It’s so sad. How can anyone deny such a hunky man-beast?

Dammit. Now I’ve got to go scour the interwebs for hot Kovacs slash fic. Because he’s so heterosexual in these books, that it actually offends me. How dare you keep that huge cock, just for the womens. How dare you!

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Magic Artinia – isn’t magic at all

3 of 5 Super-Bored Stars – Magic Artinia by Alina Grigorovitch

This book is very strange. It’s like a homework assignment. Like the teacher said, “Okay class, I want you to write a story about a unique world. A complete planet, separate from our own.”

In that respect, I’d have to give this author a C-. She created a unique world, sure, but she cheated. All she did is take the Earth, and everything about it, and change a few minor details. Like God. Their God is the same as ours, but it’s Bob. Like, “Bobdamnit!” or “For Bob’s sake, stop being such a cunt!”

And then there’s Diet Coke, or as this world calls it, ‘Diet Crack’. Apparently all soda-pop is referred to as Crack. Not as a joke. I mean, that’s what the fucking government calls it. They have food laws and shit. “You’re only allowed one can of Crack per day…”

Another reason that this book is sub-par, is because of its complete lack of anything resembling a fucking story. It’s like the author spent so much time coming up with her so-called ‘unique world’, that she forgot to actually include a story. Because this book is like a long episode of Seinfeld. It’s pointless. It’s about nothing. It just goes on and on about the normal, every-day life of people on this planet. Nothing interesting happens. Just people going to work. Going on a vacation to Hawaii. Going to school. Who gives a flying fuck?

Oh, but some of these perfectly boring people can actually fly! It’s part of this whole ‘unique world’ thing. People of this planet have what they call ‘tokens’, which are super-power like abilities. Everyone has a token. Some can fly. Some can see really far. Some can do math really well. Some can time travel. And some can bang your mom. Because seriously dude, your mom is nasty.

Okay, fine. An entire world filled with people who have super-powers. Wow, this should be good, right? I mean, with all those super-powers, something cool has got to happen, right? Not even, man. For some reason, nobody really uses their super-powers. Because for them, tokens aren’t really super. Your token is more like a zit on your forehead. You don’t really want to show it off to everyone. In fact, most people of this world hide their tokens, out of embarrassment.

What the fuck? Why do authors have to skullfuck their ideas so much? You create a world full of super-heroes and super-villains. There should be non-stop action, for fuck’s sake. But no. It’s just filing these papers. Getting some coffee. Chatting up some cute girls. Oh. My. Bob. Come on…

There should be so much more action in this fucking book. Not that there has to be non-stop action, mind you. You can make a perfectly good story without any real action at all. Just make it interesting. Have characters that someone might actually give a shit about. Is that so hard? Am I asking too much? I think not.

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Ready Player One – no! I’m not ready!

4 of 5 Golden-Ticket Stars – Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

So, Willy Wonka and the virtual world. That’s what this book is. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It still makes for a very interesting book. But I still had some issues with it.

The “Ready Player One” bit, for instance. That is a phrase for arcade games, or console games, where there are possibilities of a second player. The way this game is described, everyone has their own console, or actually a visor that logs them into the virtual world. There’s never a second player. At no time would this game ask “Ready Player One”.

That argument aside, this is a very cool book. A compelling read that is only mostly predictable. I mean, from the very beginning, you find out that the protagonist will in fact be the one who wins the contest. So, the rest of the book is just the story of the journey of how he got there.

It’s not very often that an author spoils the entire book from the very first page, but this author does it with style. He’s all “Fuck you, man! This is what’s going to happen… Deal with it.” *Puts on sunglasses*.

This book is about a virtual reality game that everyone on the planet is pretty much addicted to. The creator of the game dies, and wills his vast fortune to whomever can find and solve the many Easter eggs that he scattered throughout the game. It’s a crazy, fun adventure, most of the time.

I’m not going to mention the completely impossible bits that make no sense. Because that would be nit-picky. And, I’m not a nit-picker, damnit. Oh, who am I kidding. I’m totally a nit-picker. Okay, maybe I’ll mention just one bit that made no sense whatsoever. Like the fact that the protagonist spent hours on an arcade version of Ms. Pac-Man, to get a perfect score.

There was no reason for him to do this. He did not know there would be a reward from this accomplishment, that would win him the entire contest. So, why did he set forth to get the perfect score? Just because he has crazy OCD? He never had OCD before that… So, yea. Doesn’t make sense at all.

It was still a very fun book to read. But yea, fuck Willy Wonka. Fuck him in his dirty chocolate asshole.

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Super Anybody – is super dead

3 of 5 Mind-Controlling-Zombie Stars – Super Anybody by Brent Meske.

I have to say that this book is an improvement over the first book in this series. Just barely. It seemed more real to me. I didn’t even notice the complete absence of profanity. I did, however, notice the continued theme of brilliant skullfucking.

The author of this book assured me that there would be less skullfucking in this book. Something tells me that he’s not very familiar with one of my favorite terms. You see, skullfucking is a true artform. You take a perfectly good story and completely wreck it. And let me tell ya, this author is a real skullfuck artist.

Because the first half of this book is horseshit. So much teenage angst, it nearly made me puke. And oh noes, daddy’s acting weird. And mom’s turned into a complete bitch. Nevermind the fact that there’s a bunch of teenagers running around town with superpowers.

No, that’s not important. Forget that shit. Nothing to see here. See, that’s how you skullfuck a story. Just ignore the good parts, and go on and on about teenage bullshit. Oh, I wonder if that girl likes me. I think I’ll have some coffee. My dad’s banging my teacher… Who the fuck cares?

This book is about an entire town being mind controlled by some evil asshole. He wants to activate all the angsty teens, so their new-found superpowers will cause complete chaos, and destroy the city. Okay, fine, when do we get to that part? Does the book start there, or does it take a couple chapters to get going?

Fuck no, the book doesn’t start there. The book drags on and on for over 100 pages, before any of that cool shit starts to happen. And that’s when our so-called protagonist, Michael, finally gets his powers. He can do some kind of mind control shit. And he has strange visions.

And then he dies. Because, he’s a fucking idiot. But he’s not really dead. Or something. So he does some sort of zombie mind-control, or astral-projection, or something to try and help his friends battle the bad guy.

I don’t get this. The entire series of these books are centered around dumbass Michael. So why kill him? Or disable him at all? He’s the jackass who’s supposed to carry the story forward, goddamnit. What the fuck? Even though the kid is a useless cunt most of the time, he’s still the primary character. So to me, his so-called death just stalled the story. And for why? I have no fucking idea.

Then, Michael wakes up, just in time to have his epic showdown with Voldemort. Seriously, that’s totally what this story reminds me of. Michael had an encounter with this Voldemort character, when he was just a wee lad. The Voldemort guy tried to take away Michael’s powers then, but failed. Just like fucking Harry Potter.

I say that this story is an improvement over the first, just because the second half of this book was actually worth reading. It finally became a fun adventure. It actually un-skullfucked itself into a decent story for a second or two.

But then, out of fucking nowhere, the skullfucking returns, and Michael climbs a tower and fucking kills himself. For no apparent reason. What the fuck, man? Everyone knows that Michael is going to return. It’s just not shocking anymore, after he died the first time.

Wait… That was Michael’s father Michael who climbed the tower and tried to kill himself. I’m so fucking confused right now. Why the bloody fuck are so many people in this book named Michael?

I get that the author is just trying to set up his next book in the series. But that just pisses me off. I’m only going to read the next book if these books are actually good, not because of a goddamn cliffhanger.

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