Rarely do I think reading a book synopsis is all that necessary before I start a book, but for “Gearteeth” I highly recommend you do so. The western feeling steampunk world starts off already deep in the lore, the “after” of the event that forced people into the skies, following lightning storms in order to keep their floating cities sky bound and away from the deadly beasts below. We follow Elijah, a brakeman on one of these massive trains used to collect lightning. He’s very much a southern gentleman, which is partially why this book had such a south western vibe to it. The world was fascinating with a heavy dose of conspiracy theories that fit really well with the Edison vs Tesla alternate history, so I enjoyed the twist this story took with that. Tesla is the the lesser of two evils here with his ability to harness lightning which both gave rise to these cities, and birthed a cult as well. But for as much as I liked Elijah and the uniqueness of the werewolves in this setting, the pacing did not always match the story.

“Voided” has a super strong start: a skilled space fighter pilot is plucked from incarceration with the promise of freedom if she can complete a mining run that will help turn the tide of a war that their side is badly losing. In a nutshell, that’s what this book is about, or, what it starts out being about. The longer Nena works on this massive space ship, the more other elements come into play: the rights of sentient AI constructs, mysteries around what the commanders of this fleet are actually trying to accomplish, and a harrowing bargain with an ancient race that feels rather Faustian the more the reader learns.  All of those subplots get interwoven into a fast-paced military space odyssey that makes the world feel rich and full. “Voided” would absolutely scratch whatever itch a lover of hard science fiction could have. But, personally, all the plots that “Voided” attempts to address just needed more time to marinate for me.

This book took me a lot longer to get through than the other two. Maybe because of the bible-like pages where this book was just so much longer than the others, or maybe it was because of the pacing this time around… Regardless, here we are, in the third book of the series, the final one of this particular story arc before we switch to a new POV with Nesta. And honestly, after “A Court of Wings and Ruin”, I’m very ready for another POV. Well, I want Nesta’s POV. I don’t necessarily care for any more of spooky Elain, either. Perhaps it’s this time in my life where the way Nesta processes her grief and trauma sings to me much more clearly than Feyre’s, but I am so hype for more of my mean girl Nesta after so much of Feyre using/needing her friends and allies to run a distraction for her so she can do something useful.

I loved the vibes of this book. A sci-fi world with a grungy-cyberpunk feel? A slew of crime families and a corrupt corporatocracy in charge of the one settlement on an inhospitable plant with a secret sentient race? Oh and the vast majority of the cast are women and non-binary characters? Uh, yes please a thousand times over! “Persephone Station” is just on the right side of hard science fiction, meaning that it’s not Andy Weir levels of math and science but more than just a hand wave of “nano technology” to explain things. And while I loved the military-like action of this high-stakes adventure, often times those same action sequences I so enjoyed came at the detriment to character and plot building.

What happens when a murder occurs in the afterlife? That, in a very broad nutshell, is the premise of “Valhollywood” where an up-and-coming actor suddenly finds himself to be a resident of the afterlife, where the populace are the famous and infamous. The story is an homage to the authors love of Golden Era film wrapped up in a noir murder mystery with a very heavy sprinkling of spiritualism—maybe too much, but more on that in a second. Jake, still grappling with the fact that he’s dead and rubbing elbows with Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, and Ava Gardener, finds himself suddenly thrust in a whodunit murder mystery when one of Valhollywood’s residents actually dies ahead of fading as her fame dwindles to nothingness. Solving that murder and unraveling how it happened was where this novel truly shined! Unfortunately, the detour this book makes left something to be desired.