Book Review: Queen Demon by Martha Wells

Queen Demon is the sequel to Witch King by Martha Wells, part of the The Rising World series. I picked it up on discount to check it out, even though it wasn't my favorite series. Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

Dahin believes he has clues to the location of the Hierarchs' Well, and the Witch King Kai, along with his companions Ziede and Tahren, knowing there's something he isn't telling them, travel with him to the rebuilt university of Ancartre, which may be dangerously close to finding the Well itself. 

Can Kai stop the rise of a new Hierarch?

And can he trust his companions to do what’s right?

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

While I haven't read Andy Weir's work before, I was familiar with The Martian thanks to the movie and hearing that Project Hail Mary was going to be turned to one I figured I'd read the book before watching it. Here's the Goodreads blurb:

RYLAND GRACE is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and Earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

This is the 2nd book in the original Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. It's been a long time since I read these, but I'm making my way slowly through them again. Here is the blurb from the Kindle version:

Vin, the street urchin who has grown into the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and Elend Venture, the idealistic young nobleman who loves her, must build a healthy new society in the ashes of an empire. Three separate armies attack. As the siege tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

This is the 4th book in The Expanse series. Just continuing my read of the books and comparing them to the TV series. Here is the Goodreads blurb:

The gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world. Among them, the Rocinante, haunted by the vast, posthuman network of the protomolecule as they investigate what destroyed the great intergalactic society that built the gates and the protomolecule. 

But Holden and his crew must also contend with the growing tensions between the settlers and the company which owns the official claim to the planet. Both sides will stop at nothing to defend what's theirs, but soon a terrible disease strikes and only Holden - with help from the ghostly Detective Miller - can find the cure.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Book Review: Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey

This is the 3rd book in The Expanse series. I watched the TV series first but have been meaning to get through all the books at some point.

 Here is the Goodreads blurb:

For generations, the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt - was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark.

Jim Holden and the crew of the Rocinante are part of a vast flotilla of scientific and military ships going out to examine the artefact. But behind the scenes, a complex plot is unfolding, with the destruction of Holden at its core. As the emissaries of the human race try to find whether the gate is an opportunity or a threat, the greatest danger is the one they brought with them.

Read on for my spoiler-free review.