Halcyon Years by by Alastair Reynolds (2025)

The book struggles with structural mismatches. Reynolds folds a hard-boiled noir detective story into a large-scale space-opera setting, but the elements clash. The noir props—paper files, land-line phones, cars, firearms, physical beatings, arson, low-tech murders—sit awkwardly beside robots, interstellar ark ships, and higher technologies. The mystery reveals its clues too late, which blunts the investigation. The pacing drags in places and the finale feels overloaded.

The book's strengths keep it afloat. The resurrected Yuri Gagarin as a hard-boiled detective is bizarre but effective. The characters are well drawn. The high-tech background holds together. The setting has scale and ambition.

Entertaining but unsatisfying. 3/5 stars.

StarGods: Star Carrier 9 by Ian Douglas (2020)

The book has minor flaws. Many characters ascend into "the Singularity," and political squabbles dominate much of the drama, action, and combat. Long-term security and the demands of perpetual vigilance are largely unresolved. The Enlightenment-era spirit of exploration is overshadowed by a seduction of utopic cyberspace.

Despite these issues, the novel succeeds as a conclusion. The storylines resolve convincingly within the universe Douglas built over the series. The characters remain engaging, and the scale of the narrative delivers the expected spectacle. 5/5 stars.

Contact by Joshua T Calvert (2025)

The book opens well. The setting is imaginative, and the mystery promises intrigue. The android characters have personality and humor, giving the story early momentum.

Then it collapses. As the mystery unravels, the plot turns chaotic. Sudden "alien magic" contrivances pile up until the ending negates everything that came before. The story depends on a chain of deus ex machina twists that feel careless and unearned.

A strong start wasted by a disastrous finish. 1/5 stars. Avoid this one.

Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity (2025)

This book collapses under its own thesis. The author ignores centuries of progress in life expectancy, public health, infrastructure, medicine, and standards of living. Instead, he romanticizes a mythical pre-industrial past, lamenting our supposed surrender to "the machine." His vision of history erases violence, starvation, disease, and labor exploitation. The result is a nostalgic fantasy built on false premises.

The critique of modern digital life—social media, online services, and passive entertainment—has some merit, but it rests on exaggeration. The author dismisses personal choice and human adaptability, assuming we are helpless before technology and the enshittifcation of social services.

The argument is shallow, moralizing, and historically blind. 1/5 stars.

A kiss before dying by Ira Levin (1953)

During his promotional tour for his first-ever novel (after 50 movies), Woody Allen commented that this book is the best book he ever read.  Intrigued, I grabbed it and added it to my reading list.  The writing is, indeed, fantastic.  The book pulled me in right away. The main character, Bud Corliss, plans his path to a millionaire's wealth through charm and cold calculation. He courts women, spins lies, and kills without a flinch.

The author builds the story through three sisters' viewpoints, one per section. The story slowly reveals Bud's well-planned grift. All of the characters, especially the three sisters, feel real and complex; Bud's steady narcissism is extremely unsettling in quiet ways. I was deeply immersed in his calculated risks and plans.

The book examines ambition without limits: how one person's polish erodes trust and safety, a reminder of everyday deceptions. This book is one of my top five reads this year. It's worth your time for Levin's clean tension. 5/5 Stars.

Bright Light: Star Carrier 8 by Ian Douglas (2018)

I enjoyed this penultimate book despite all the annoyances. The expansion of the magical system feels arbitrary and contrivances for the plot. The repeated use of time travel and time dilation produces convenient but extremely inconsistent results. The world-building creates the largest gap. Earth and the Sol system remain the focus of every advanced species despite an earlier claim that the Sh'daar empire spans millions of species and quadrillions of people. The  trans-universal and post-singularity powers amplifies the mismatch. The setting becomes Sol-centric in a way that conflicts with the series' own premises.

However, the strengths hold the volume together. The characters maintain momentum. The plot lines converge. The sense of awe remains intact. The action keeps the story moving. The writing sustains a great pace. The result is a workable space opera that I found entertaining. 3/5 stars.

Complicity by Ian M Banks (1994)

I look through Iain Banks's non-Culture novels because I enjoy his prose. For me, this psychological thriller was somewhat of a disappointment because of its stark torture, rape, and murder scenes. Cameron Colley, hard-boiled, flawed journalist narrator, is extremely well-portrayed. Flashbacks and plot twists in the story probe societal rot: corruption festers in the UK media, politics, and greed of the 1980s. Second-person killer sequences blur guilt lines. Banks indicts the reader's complicity in systemic sins, forcing confrontation with vigilante justice ethics. Banks' prose is very good, but the violence is overwhelming. This one is not recommended. 2/5 stars.