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Stephanie Grey, Zombie Response Team ZRT: Division Tennessee: I was interested in a post-pandemic zombie apocalypse book, but this wasn’t it. Cardboard characters who react to trauma with mean quips and misogyny; tough women contemptuous of “other girls” who are useless bitches braying complaints; bad expository dialogue. DNF.
Chuck Wendig, Zeroes: Hackers (including a troll, a political activist, and a script kiddie with real strength in social engineering) are scooped up for a secret government project, but it’s not what they think and they are soon in mortal danger. OK cyberthriller.
Chuck Wendig, Invasive: Genetically engineered killer ants freak out an FBI futurist sent to investigate them. A fair amount of gore along with the ant science; death of innocents, including at least one child, suggested rather graphically.
Chuck Wendig, Unclean Spirits: Cayson, a former MMA fighter turned reluctant bodyguard for some kind of supernatural being, thinks he’s been released from bondage when his boss is killed. But his wife and son are still trying to kill him, and another supernatural being blames him for the death of her husband. Instead, he joins forces with the murderer to figure out what’s going on, which turns out to be a lot of shenanigans and blasphemy. OK.
Chuck Wendig, The Complete Double Dead: Vampire wakes up after being entombed for decades to find there’s been a zombie apocalypse, which really cuts down on the food supply. He hooks up with a small party of humans who he agrees to protect in return for help finding more humans (but only the bad ones, the cannibals); fortuitously, one of the party has blood that might hold protection against zombification. The concept is the best thing about it; the characters are pretty much stereotypes.
Natalie Zina Walschots, Hench: A Novel: A temp for bad guys has her leg crushed by a superhero during a kidnapping (her bad guy is holding the mayor’s son hostage and about to get him to cut off his own finger via mind control), and decides to total up the damage caused by superheroes. Then she starts working with a supervillain who wants to destroy the hero who caused her injury. It was interesting, especially in light of the current debate over whether cops do more harm than good, but not entirely successful; I found the claim that the heroes created the villains and were therefore responsible for their evil as well to be facile. Lots of body horror.
Diane Duane, Omnitopia Dawn: A MMORPG is about to undergo a major expansion if corporate espionage and cyberattacks don’t stop it, and also something weird is going on with the code. Duane often leans in to the cozy side of her topics, which is often good, but here (1) I didn’t really like the class stuff—seventh richest man in the world (apparently riches not shared with his wife?) with “hot & cold running nannies” for his child, but no one at all was ever exploited by his company? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on. And (2) relatedly, a key plot point is whether he’ll lose control of the company when the stock price falls, and I don’t care how nice a guy he is, his canonically devoted lawyer would never have allowed that structure.
Chuck Wendig, Zeroes: Hackers (including a troll, a political activist, and a script kiddie with real strength in social engineering) are scooped up for a secret government project, but it’s not what they think and they are soon in mortal danger. OK cyberthriller.
Chuck Wendig, Invasive: Genetically engineered killer ants freak out an FBI futurist sent to investigate them. A fair amount of gore along with the ant science; death of innocents, including at least one child, suggested rather graphically.
Chuck Wendig, Unclean Spirits: Cayson, a former MMA fighter turned reluctant bodyguard for some kind of supernatural being, thinks he’s been released from bondage when his boss is killed. But his wife and son are still trying to kill him, and another supernatural being blames him for the death of her husband. Instead, he joins forces with the murderer to figure out what’s going on, which turns out to be a lot of shenanigans and blasphemy. OK.
Chuck Wendig, The Complete Double Dead: Vampire wakes up after being entombed for decades to find there’s been a zombie apocalypse, which really cuts down on the food supply. He hooks up with a small party of humans who he agrees to protect in return for help finding more humans (but only the bad ones, the cannibals); fortuitously, one of the party has blood that might hold protection against zombification. The concept is the best thing about it; the characters are pretty much stereotypes.
Natalie Zina Walschots, Hench: A Novel: A temp for bad guys has her leg crushed by a superhero during a kidnapping (her bad guy is holding the mayor’s son hostage and about to get him to cut off his own finger via mind control), and decides to total up the damage caused by superheroes. Then she starts working with a supervillain who wants to destroy the hero who caused her injury. It was interesting, especially in light of the current debate over whether cops do more harm than good, but not entirely successful; I found the claim that the heroes created the villains and were therefore responsible for their evil as well to be facile. Lots of body horror.
Diane Duane, Omnitopia Dawn: A MMORPG is about to undergo a major expansion if corporate espionage and cyberattacks don’t stop it, and also something weird is going on with the code. Duane often leans in to the cozy side of her topics, which is often good, but here (1) I didn’t really like the class stuff—seventh richest man in the world (apparently riches not shared with his wife?) with “hot & cold running nannies” for his child, but no one at all was ever exploited by his company? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on. And (2) relatedly, a key plot point is whether he’ll lose control of the company when the stock price falls, and I don’t care how nice a guy he is, his canonically devoted lawyer would never have allowed that structure.
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