Science Fiction

Review of Remember Me by Estelle Laure

October 10, 2021 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Blurb

Remember Me is an astonishingly bold young adult novel from Estelle Laure, the critically acclaimed author of This Raging Light and Mayhem

If you could erase all of your painful memories, would you?

Blue Owens wakes up one day with the strangest feeling that something is very wrong. Everyone’s acting weird and she’s found a note in her closet telling her to get on the Little Blue Bus at 7:45, which she does, meeting up with the exact person she was supposed to avoid: Adam Mendoza. Even though she has no idea who he is, something about him is so familiar.

When she confronts him, the truth is revealed—Blue has paid to have her memories removed, and Adam is one of those memories. As Blue struggles to piece together her history, she is torn between her desire to know why she would do something so drastic and her fear of what she will find.

Remember Me is the bold and beautiful story of a girl who must find the courage to face the demons of her past and reclaim her loved ones—even if it ruins her.

Review

I love twisty mind-bendy books about memory, so I was excited when this one came to my attention. The story starts when Blue Owens wakes up one day but feels that everything is off — something is not quite right. On top of that, her friends are acting weird, whispering behind her back, trying to force her to bring orange juice, and giving her strange looks. This part of the story filled me with a pervasive, discomfiting sense of unease: the kind that raises gooseflesh on your arms. She then finds a note under her jewelry box telling her to get on the Little Blue Bus at 7:45, so she does — and ends up meeting a boy named Adam Mendoza. But, as we soon learn, Blue has undergone a procedure to have her most painful memories erased, and that includes all memories of Adam. What follows is Blue trying to figure out why she willingly removed her memories, even though she may have to uncover some painfully devastating truths in the process.

I really loved the conversation in this book about pain and grief and the extent that someone may go to in order to lessen/erase that pain. It’s also a clever examination of the role of pain in our lives. This book took me to some fascinating places and was not only poignant and heart-wrenching but also eye-opening and thought-provoking. I loved journeying along with Blue as she unraveled the missing parts of her life and eventually discovered the reason she took such a drastic measure. Though raw in places, it was ultimately a hopeful story about trauma, love, grief, and healing. This is a book all about feeling: feeling pain, feeling love, feeling friendship, and allowing yourself to feel sadness because it deserves to be felt.

I found the plot of this emotive story utterly compelling and the characters realistic, relatable and well-drawn. The author did an excelling job with the relationships in the story, and I was delighted that they included a non-binary secondary character.

Additionally, I think many will find the plot relatable because how many of us haven’t wished that we could erase an especially painful memory at one time or another? That being said, the book is definitely sad and messy in places but ultimately ends on a positive and compassionate note, with love at its core. I tend to enjoy reflective writing — writing that examines humanity and character-driven stories that explore the many sides of human complexities & relationships, and that is what we get with this novel. All in all, Remember Me is an ambitious novel with a huge heart.

This title will release on March 22, 2022 but it is available now for preorder.

A huge thank you to Netgalley for providing a review copy of this book.

Review of Hello, Rest of My Life by Rick Lenz

October 10, 2021 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Blurb:

A TIMELESS LOVE STORY

When Danny Maytree, an ambitious young 1970s film actor, met Samantha on a blind date and fell in love, he decided he no longer cared about Tinseltown stardom. He still acted sometimes, but he became a writer too.

Now married and in their seventies, they find a dog whose faded tag has the name “Tali” and a Beverly Hills phone prefix from fifty years earlier.

Writing a time travel novel in 2021, Danny gets a call from a mysterious, velvet-voiced acting agent. He has a meeting tomorrow in Beverly Hills. Tali, in one of their singular “conversations,” questions Danny’s motives.

Now, Danny is in Beverly Hills-not at the meeting, but in the elegant home where he lived in 1974, forty-seven years ago. He is twenty-seven again, bewildered, but with a second chance at his Hollywood dream.

He doesn’t want it, because Sam is not in this world.

Unhappy in his new “now,” he realizes his journey back to “Kansas” hinges on the magic of film. A sharkish agent helps him navigate Hollywood’s rocky shoals. A worldly-wise teen and a New Age fortune-teller offer spiritual advice. And a sexy wicked witch throws a monkey wrench in his path.

Review

Given that I love time-travel stories, I was excited when this one came to my attention. It follows seventy-five-year-old Danny Maytree, a former actor who suddenly finds himself thrust back in time 47 years to 1974. Danny is once again 27 and finds that he has a second chance of living his Hollywood dream. However, he soon discovers that the dream may not be everything it’s cracked up to be without his beloved wife, Samantha. Now trapped in time, Danny desperately tries to find his way back to his own time — and to Samantha.

This was a well-written and twisty love story with rich, evocative scenes and compelling, well-drawn characters (including the delightful and enigmatic dog, Tali). In addition, there was plenty of fun and witty banter between the characters, which added to the richness and enjoyment of the story.

I found this to be an utterly riveting tale that sent me on a wild roller-coaster ride of emotions. By about 1/4 of the way in, I was sucked into Danny’s story and loved seeing his reaction to his situation, especially once he began concocting a plan to return home.

Time travel, along with its pitfalls and potential paradoxes, can sometimes be migraine-inducing, but that was not the case with this story. All the details you need are worked seamlessly into the narrative. The time travel aspect here was believable, unique, and not at all confusing. Hello, Rest of My Life is a blend of science-fiction, a touch of history, and romance. I thought this book was a breath of fresh air in a well-worn genre. An unexpected gem!

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Review of The Twin Paradox by Charles Wachter

July 17, 2021 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Blurb

With ten years passing for every three minutes on a remote stretch of Texas coast, planes fall out of the sky, evolved species are on the hunt, and people die inside one of the most vicious ecosystems ever grown—all a result of the government’s efforts to slow down time.

A lot can happen in ten years. That’s the point. Governments are always racing for supremacy, for scientific breakthroughs, for technological advantages—and these things take time.

Until something goes wrong.

With the grounded yet massive world building of READY PLAYER ONE, thrilling scientific questions of JURASSIC PARK, and the time-bending teen drama of BEFORE I FALL, Wachter’s THE TWIN PARADOX is a brilliantly plotted tale that is both intimate and massive, relentless yet deliberate, and explores the themes of self-acceptance, self- confidence, and natural selection in a richly hued and unforgettable world. Ultimately the eternal question of Nature versus Nurture is boiled down into this fast-paced thriller told over the course of five days and culminates in one single question:

Do we get to choose who we are?

Review

I love mind-bendy books, especially those with time travel, time manipulation, or multiple timelines, so I was excited when this book came to my attention. This Young Adult Techno-Thriller follows a group of high school kids in the Honors program who one day learn that they have been cloned from the DNA of history’s most brilliant minds such Isaac Newton, Leonardo de Vinci, Martin Luther King, and Einstein. The children are then sent to a secret facility in Texas – a place where time moves at different speeds (ten years pass for every three minutes spent inside of the dome). What follows is a whirlwind of shocking revelations that lead our protagonists into a world they could have only imagined. Because unbeknownst to them, they are pawns in a much larger game — a game involving governments who are trying to win a dangerous race. He who controls time, wins.

Also unbeknownst to the kids, they are not the only ones who have been cloned: a rival government has cloned some of the world’s deadliest villains to help stop the US Government’s progress — and that includes stopping the kids. Oh, and if that isn’t enough, the science has run amok.

This story was non-stop action, barely giving you enough time to catch your breath between scenes, and the author wastes no time in plunging the reader into the middle of this frenetically-paced wild roller coaster ride. What I initially thought was a sci-fi story quickly turned out to be much more. It’s a mind-bending, gripping techno-thriller that even dips its toes into the horror category (there are a couple of gory and cringeworthy scenes, but they’re minimal). This book has a bit of everything: time travel, time paradoxes, secret government experiments, cloning, dark holes/vortexes/wormholes, murder, espionage, secrets, manipulation, dark and dangerous schemes, biological warfare, betrayal, mutated creatures/monsters, cannibalism (this was the gory part I mentioned), evil villains and even a bit of magic.

On top of all that, the author gives us one hell of a continuous adventure that ultimately left me shocked, surprised, appalled, and thoroughly entertained. The story has so many pieces and layers that it unravels super fast, and what you think is the truth isn’t — what you think is happening isn’t. The atmosphere is rich with gritty drama and unnerving situations where the thrills and twists dominate — which is precisely what I look for in a thriller. Recommended!

A huge thank you to Netgalley for providing a review copy of this book.

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Review of The Last Exit by Michael Kaufman

January 26, 2021 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Blurb:

Perfect for fans of Tom Sweterlitsch’s The Gone World . In this thrilling futuristic novel, the secret to eternal life is closely guarded by people who will do anything to protect it — even if it means destroying everything in their path.

Set in Washington D.C. 20 years from now, climate change has hit hard, fires are burning, unemployment is high, and controversial longevity treatments are only available to the very rich. Enter resourceful young police detective, Jen B. Lu, and her ‘partner’, Chandler, a SIM implant in her brain and her instant link to the Internet and police records, and a constant voice inside her head. He’s an inquisitive tough guy, with a helluva sense of humor and his own ideas about solving crimes. As a detective in the Elder Abuse unit, Jen is supposed to be investigating kids pushing their aging parents to “exit” so they are eligible to get the longevity drug. But what really has her attention are the persistent rumors about Eden, a black market version of the longevity drug, and the bizarre outbreak of people aging almost overnight, then suddenly dying–is this all connected? Is Big Pharma involved? When Jen’s investigations of Eden take her too close to the truth, she is suspended, Chandler is deactivated, and her boyfriend is freaked out by “the thing inside her brain.” This leaves Jen to pursue a very dangerous investigation all by herself.

Review:

The Last Exit is a dystopian sci-fi crime novel that follows Jen Lu, a detective in the Elder Abuse Unit, and Chandler, a SIM implant that is embedded in her brain. Her interaction with Chandler was kind of akin to having a conversation with a voice inside your head — although Chandler’s personality is that of a snarky, tough guy, which I found quite amusing. I immensely enjoyed the banter between Chandler and Jen and loved seeing Chandler’s personality develop throughout the pages.

In this world, people are encouraged to “Exit” when they reach the age of 65; that is to say, they are expected to agree to kill themselves. Once they do, their children will be given the Treatment that’ll protect them against a deadly disease called ROSE, an illness similar to Mad Cow except that it’s fatal for a high percentage of the population. If the parents refuse to exit, the children are subsequently denied the Treatment. Needless to say, this opens the door to all sorts of elder abuse, with children forcing their parents to exit should they refuse.

Of course, all these rules don’t pertain to the mega-wealthy who are not required to exit at all and who can partake of a different treatment guaranteed to provide everlasting life (people who have this are called “The Timeless.”)

So what we have here, then, is a society where the wealthy can prolong their lives indefinitely, whereas those who aren’t rich are expected to terminate their life so that their children don’t die before their time (of 65). I found the idea of this society extremely intriguing….and chilling.

The intrigue of this story, however, lies in a black market version of the longevity drug called Eden and the subsequent outbreak of people experiencing accelerated aging and then dying, all within a couple of days. As detective Lu investigates, she unearths a mystery that runs a lot deeper than anyone had initially thought. She ends up getting thrust into the center of a deadly conspiracy. There are also those — including her boss — demanding that she abandon her investigation.

I ended up thoroughly enjoying this book and loved how each piece of the tightly plotted puzzle falls slowly into place as we race to the finish line. The author redefines here the boundaries of crime fiction with a novel that is part dystopian/sci-fi, part thriller, and part mystery. I loved Jen’s character in this book; she’s intelligent, relentless, and determined, and the crisp banter between her and Chandler caused several laugh-out-loud moments.

But at the end of the day, I found this to be an engrossing and intelligent story — a complex, somewhat chaotic, dark, and entertaining read as we follow the sinister and menacing machinations of a foe whose identity is up to Jen to uncover. And in so doing, puts her own life in danger. Weird, wacky, and wonderful!

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Review of Everything I Thought I Knew by Shannon Takaoka

October 13, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen Leave a Comment

Blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Six months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, the “new Chloe” takes heedless risks, like skipping her anti-rejection meds while running wild with the class party girl and nearly crashing a motorcycle she’s not even licensed to ride. Even more unsettling: her recurring nightmares of dying and the strange, vivid memories she doesn’t recognize as her own.

The only place Chloe feels at home is in the ocean, where she’s learning to surf the Pacific’s wild waves and slowly falling for her instructor, Kai. But as her strange symptoms continue, she becomes more and more convinced that something is wrong with her new heart—or even worse, her mind. As Chloe searches for answers, what she learns will lead her to question everything she thought she knew about life, death, love and the true nature of reality.

Review:

This follows our main character Chloe whose life is derailed after she collapses while running. She learns that she has a serious heart condition and is a very sick young lady. Her doctor tells her that her only chance of survival is to obtain a heart transplant sooner rather than later. Luckily for her, a heart becomes available, and the operation is a success.

So after that, C begins to have disturbing nightmares about dying in a motorcycle crash and dreams about a woman she’d never met, all of which start seeping into her everyday life. She’s also begun recognizing people she’d never seen before, experiencing unfamiliar feelings, and is developing a desire for doing things that have never even crossed her mind in the past, such as surfing and getting tattoos. She ends up exploring her “rebellious” side, something quite out of character for the “old” Chloe.

To satisfy her urge for surfing, she even begins taking lessons from a super attractive surfer dude named Kai, and he ends up playing quite an essential role in her life.

The book got especially interesting once she starts researching cellular memory, in which an organ donation recipient can experience thoughts, feelings, and even memories of the original organ owner. I was mesmerized when the story took off in this direction, and Chloe begins asking some big questions, providing a lot for the reader to think about as well. It was fun journeying and guessing along with Chloe as she moved closer and closer to a place of understanding.

So what we have here, then, is kind of a speculative mystery as Chloe searching for answers about what is happening to her — about the strange visions and memories that seem to be taking over her life. She even tracks down her heart donor’s family to prove to herself she’s not going crazy.

This is such a sensitive subject, and Takaoka delves into with a lot of thought and consideration to all parties who might be involved. This is one of those books that was about a serious issue and one that you probably don’t think about unless it touches your life; about how in order for one person to live, someone else had to die. I’d never considered many of the issues that this book brought up, and I am definitely glad that I read it.

And the unusual paranormal/quantum physics direction that the book went in as well as the compelling mystery added to the richness of the reading experience. There’s also a HUGE twist near the end which I did not see coming, but which made me love this story all the more. I was surprised in the best of ways, and the new knowledge even brought a tear to my eye.

In truth, Everything I Thought I Knew is a super-rich story: it deals with very loaded issues like grief, regret, loss, survival, and trauma, but also with the opportunity to start anew, with the vital importance of second chances, and the difficult journey of personal growth. It’s Chloe’s steely determination to figure out what was happening to her that makes Everything I Thought I Knew compelling, fierce, and ultimately human.

A huge thank you to Shannon Takaoka and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy of this novel.

Purchase Everything I Thought I Knew from Amazon

Review of Auxiliary: London 2039 by Jon Richter

September 7, 2020 by Roger Hyttinen 1 Comment

Blurb

The silicon revolution left Dremmler behind, but a good detective is never obsolete.

London is quiet in 2039—thanks to the machines. People stay indoors, communicating through high-tech glasses and gorging on simulated reality while 3D printers and scuttling robots cater to their every whim. Mammoth corporations wage war for dominance in a world where human augmentation blurs the line between flesh and steel.

And at the center of it all lurks The Imagination Machine: the hyper-advanced, omnipresent AI that drives our cars, flies our planes, cooks our food, and plans our lives. Servile, patient, tireless … TIM has everything humanity requires. Everything except a soul.

Through this silicon jungle prowls Carl Dremmler, police detective—one of the few professions better suited to meat than machine. His latest case: a grisly murder seemingly perpetrated by the victim’s boyfriend. Dremmler’s boss wants a quick end to the case, but the tech-wary detective can’t help but believe the accused’s bizarre story: that his robotic arm committed the heinous crime, not him. An advanced prosthetic, controlled by a chip in his skull.

A chip controlled by TIM.

Dremmler smells blood: the seeds of a conspiracy that could burn London to ash unless he exposes the truth. His investigation pits him against desperate criminals, scheming businesswomen, deadly automatons—and the nightmares of his own past. And when Dremmler finds himself questioning even TIM’s inscrutable motives, he’s forced to stare into the blank soul of the machine.

Auxiliary is gripping, unpredictable, and bleakly atmospheric—ideal for fans of cyberpunk classics like the Blade Runner movies, Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon, William Gibson’s Neuromancer, and the Netflix original series Black Mirror.

Review

Auxiliary: London 2039 was such an exciting book in that it’s a dark combination of the detective noir, cyberpunk, and sci-fi genres. Our main character, Carl Dremmler, is the kind of detective you’d find in a 1940s noir story: he drinks too much, has a painful past, is a bit crass, and picks up strangers for sex (though he often has sex with his personal humanoid robot). I thought the author did a fantastic job of meshing the different genres, and they all worked seamlessly in this story.

The setting for this dystopian thriller is more than a bit disconcerting and grim, taking place in the near future where machines pretty much run the world. Robots have replaced most jobs, humanity has stopped growing, striving, and evolving, and people are continuously monitored and controlled by the primary operating system. “Real Life” as we know it has nearly become obsolete.

We get a taste of this in the opening scene where Detective Dremmler is called to the flat of a young man who was so engrossed in the virtual reality “AltWord” that he neglected to eat or drink, and thus died at his computer. It’s at this point where we’re introduced to the main operating system, TIM, which stands for “The Imagination Machine.” TIM is a single interface that controls every aspect of people’s lives, from turning on the lights, ordering food, shopping, playing music, transportation, surgery, etc. Basically, this system holds absolute power, with everyone’s lives being tightly controlled by the AI.

The story then becomes especially interesting when Detective Dremmler is called to the scene of a grisly crime. A young man has allegedly murdered his girlfriend by crushing her skull with his cybernetically-controlled prosthetic arm. It appears to be an open and shut case of murder. However, the distraught man protests that the arm, whose chip is controlled by TIM, acted on its own accord and that the man couldn’t stop it — that he had neither intention nor reason to kill his girlfriend. Initially, Dremmler is certain that the man is lying because what he’s claiming is impossible. TIM is unhackable; everybody knows that. Right?

But as Dremmler and his partner begin investigating deeper, he soon begins to suspect that there’s a lot more going on here than what he first thought and the case then morphs into something else entirely. In fact, the “unhackable” TIM may not be as safe as everyone thinks. Further digging causes him to suspect that there’s an even larger conspiracy at the bottom of it all.

Of course, there are those who want him to stop digging, especially those higher up in the police hierarchy and certain mega-IT corporations. It also becomes clear that some will do whatever it takes to ensure that he stops digging because if it’s proven that TIM was indeed hacked, that knowledge could destroy the public’s trust in the AI and throw society into panic and upheaval. Dremmler and his partner then begin working under the radar, and the more they uncover, the more deadly the situation becomes.

The clever and imaginative plot was utterly compelling and had me madly turning the pages to discover what was really going on here. I thought the story was fascinating though certainly dark, creepy, and profoundly unsettling. This book captivated me from beginning to end as the twists started to pile up. I thought this was a blood-chilling roller-coaster ride of a novel that’s both provocative and shocking. Compelling, dark, and intense, this story of technology gone wrong kept me guessing until the end and took me places I very much didn’t expect.

Speaking of the ending, it’s worth mentioning that the book ends rather abruptly mid-scene, which is the type of conclusion one often finds with short horror stories. I’m not a fan of these types of endings, so I knocked off a star for that as it did leave me feeling a little unsatisfied. But apart from that, I thought this gripping story was phenomenal and the world-building exceptional. I’d definitely read more by this author.

A huge thank you to the publisher for providing a review copy of this book.

Purchase Auxiliary: London 2039 on Amazon