The Second Life of Ryan Hunt series by Garritt Overeem

 

Book One: Resurrection

I met Mr. Overeem at a local pop-up vendor market and had such a nice chat with him.  I ended up buying all three of his books, self published, and thought I would just give them a whirl. It has been a while since I read some straight up science fiction.  I forgot how much I enjoy a good space odyssey! 

Now, if science fiction is not your thing, that is totally fine, just move along.  It is ok to skip this review if you don't want anything to do with space ships, aliens, black holes, and urns of 48,000 year old ashes.

Mom, that means you.  Love ya, mean it, Brad Thor has a new one out, go read that. ;-)

But I was pleasantly surprised!!   I originally gave this book three stars, but then I thought, no, I really enjoyed this story and so I bumped it to four, thinking that against all odds this author has published a very original storyline and I really hope others will pick it up so he can continue his work and tell more stories.  Many people are turned off by a three star rating (which still means I liked it), and this series deserves a bump!!

While the premise is really super far-fetched (isn't most sci-fi?  Three years on Mars in The Martian, much??), Overeem's story of a man, Ryan Hunt, whose remains survive tens of thousands of years and many annihilations and worlds only to be rejuvenated with futuristic technology in order to save the universe is actually very readable, relatable, and HUMAN.  Overeem does a great job with the banter between our hero and the determined and smart Dr. Katalina Winslow - you can actually feel their chemistry on the page.  A few awkward passages but overall this story is full of adventure, inventive futuristic life, and so much heart.   Other species are vividly described, and we even get an angel siting as well as other creatures of current mythology.  Think Han Solo meets Meredith Grey - in space.  They are both tough, both struggling with losses from their pasts, and of course Ryan is thrown into a world where nothing is as he remembers it, and then they give him his own AI being in the form of NORA.  

Let the games/chase/adventure begin.  And then continue into book 2!!! (See below:)

"The wonderful thing about life is discovering what you are capable of."

Whoa. I just finished this one last night, after reading the first book over the summer. This one starts off with a Bang, a really great beginning flashback. Then we meet Ryan and Kat again but things are different after what happened in Book One, especially for Kat. Of course a new adventure/danger presents itself and our whole gang are once again off on a mission of saving an entire species this time. I had a bit more trouble following the plot here, but honestly I am not sure that mattered! The new characters introduced here, along with more polished writing, some pretty deep life statements woven in, and THAT DOLL..... great little addition!

Overeem is a local author in my area, and I met him at a vendor faire in the Spring of 2022. Hit it off and thought, I am a Reader, I will read just about anything, let me give this sci-fi series a try and support a local author. Win win! And now I find out that while I did buy his three books, there is a FOURTH one coming! Whoo hoo! How I love a series. So, halfway there, can't wait to see where Ryan and Kat go next, how their relationship grows, and what Nora is going to do about it. HA! I hope Vicki shows up again, she is fun to hate, and we saw a bit of a softer side of her in this book - for about 5 minutes - but it is there. Overeem's imagination continues to offer fascinating ideas of what future life could be like, popping over to another planet just like we drive to the Grand Canyon now. Interesting technology, ideas about DNA enhancement, neural commands, and surviving black holes all make for serious brain candy. Plus, Ryan is just a fun guy - always cracking a joke even when being blasted with lasers or facing down evil spliced species. Plus, wait til you meet his car.

If you like super nerdy space adventures and technology and computers who have feelings, this is a great place to spend an afternoon/weekend. Fun stuff. Thank you Gerrit!

Matrix by Lauren Goff

 

So, maybe DON'T listen to this one on audio.

I was looking for a story to captivate me on a total 8 hours in the car to the beach and back. This was NOT it.

I usually love historical fiction, especially in a century not often written about (late 12th early 13th c), strong female characters, royal court intrigue, and natural herbal remedies of the times.

But I was bored. I didn't like the narrator, I didn't like the main character, it really was a history of Marie de France's life after she was sent in exile to an abbey to help run it at age 17 because she was an orphan, bastard royal child who was too tall and ugly to marry off. So Eleanor of Aquitaine separated Marie from her female lover, removed her from her court (Marie was also in love with Eleanor apparently), and left her to find a life that she didn't want but of course ended up thriving in. And, wow, she was a Crusader before she was 17? Ok, that is pretty cool, maybe I would have liked it better with more on that phase of her life as compared to living in silence and starvation in a nunnery. Or maybe I just missed the whole thing about her influence as an educated poet whose writings and fables and translations are famous according to Wikipedia (that research I did on my own was more interesting than the book, ha).

Based on a real person in history, I just did not find this version of her life interesting, and I do think the narrator, whose voice was just depressing, had a lot to do with that. Bummer.

All the Stars!!

I listened to this one on audio, but I don't think that necessarily enhanced the book, it is just how I got it first.  I think that reading this one in hard copy would be just as wonderful, if not better.  However, there is an Australian accent and alternating performers for the several points of view presented which is always a bonus.

A Note on the Author:

I am on an unintended but now focused journey to be a Geraldine Brooks Completist.  I love her writing.  Each of her books are so different yet all of them share this in common:  they are all based on real events and people.  Check her catalog out.  My favorite is People of the Book, followed closely by Caleb's Crossing and Year of Wonders.  But they might both be bumped by Horse.

And I'm OFF!

What do horseracing, slavery, skeletons, art history, Kentucky, Australia, and a cute doggie all have in common?

Yeah, Horse.

This is the brilliance of Brooks' Books.  She takes a relatively small bit of history, in this case the story of Lexington, a fabulous but short-careered and incredibly fast stallion in the mid-1850's, and tells an intricately woven story not only of the horse, but of his enslaved and devoted groom Jarrett, the artist who paints them, the art student who finds said painting 160 years later, the Smithsonian scientist who studies skeletons, and a real life art dealer thrown in for good measure.  We spend the most time (I think) with Jarrett and "his" horse, delving into the injustice of racism and slavery, which is then echoed in the present tense to a horrible level in the story told jointly by Jess, the Australian scientist, and Theo, the Nigerian-American art historian.  But the story is really of the horse, his little known impact on history, and the dedication of a few people to bring his story to the forefront.  I found the different angles of story telling to be fascinating.  There are so many levels to this, no these stories!!  I loved them all.

I feel like I have not given this book its due in this review, but if you like historical fiction, horse racing, and hard looks at hard topics, this is definitely one to pick up!

Edited to add:

I talked to my mom about this book and she just started reading the hardback.  She says it is a bit hard to get into what with all the different perspectives and time period jumping.  It is not chronological at all.  So I may have to revise my above statement and say that listening to this one might be best as you have different auditory voices to help keep the chapters separate.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

 

This book is the reason I rarely leave a book unfinished.

I almost gave up on this one.  I was not invested, the storyline and timeline kept changing, leaving characters behind, I could not find the connector.  Because I was not supposed to.  Until literally about halfway in.

Then it was:  Oh, wait, what?  And then:  OOOOoooohhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I read the second half twice as fast as the first half.  Natch.

This story is very complicated, and echoes back to several other novels I have read, one of them very recently, which left me in a bit of deja vu.  Interestingly enough, in the acknowledgements the author lists about a dozen other novels you should read if you liked Sea of Tranquility, and the books I had in mind were on her list.  I won't name them here, as that would be kind of a spoiler.  IYKYK. (And I would add the book Replay by Ken Grimwood, one of the best time travel books I have ever read, outside of Outlander o'course, and 11/22/63 by Stephen King).

I am not going to attempt to give you a plot summary here - get that on Goodreads for what it will be worth for this one.  I do understand from Goodreads Questions that if you read The Glass Hotel first, you will recognize several characters from that book in Sea of Tranquility.  I am hoping that once I go back to The Glass Hotel, I will find out the answer to one main question I felt was left unanswered in a secondary plot about a lesser secondary character (Vincent). Mandel again weaves in Shakespeare, art, a pandemic, and futuristic devices (like she did in Station Eleven).  If you like science fiction, the idea of what life could be like in the future, and coming full circle, this is a great read.  Be patient, I promise it will deliver.  

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

Recommended by the (young) bookseller at Barnes and Noble, this horror fantasy left me wanting something more - not interested in a sequel, but just more in the story. (Although a PREQUEL could be interesting.....) I did not realize it was a horror book - it is more creepy than scary.  Three sisters disappear together and when they are later found, weeks later, they seem different.  They grow up, weird people out, and their dad KNOWS something is off.  What really happened to the girls?  Where'd they go?  Who took them?  Why is there a scar on their necks?  We do get the answers, I didn't like them, especially when flowers start growing in weird places.  Beauty is deceiving seemed to be the theme.  There is of course a twist which I did not see coming, and honestly the story kinda went downhill from there for me.  Good writing and Great character development - I loved Vivi and wanted more of her viewpoint at the end, she kinda faded out.  Very original and a super Dark story, disturbing and weird.  Courtney, you'd love it.  Mom, not so much.  ;-)

Life Expectancy by Dean Koontz

 

I am a huge Dean Koontz fan.  I have read about half of his books (he is prolific!!) and he has his OWN shelf in my library.  Only Diana Gabaldon is also afforded that honor, and we know how I feel about her.  (Right?  If not, I have done something wrong here  #obsessanach).

I found this treasure for a dollar at my local used bookshop, The Book Lady in Monroe NC.  (I moved last year, but don't worry The Book Rack in South Charlotte, I am coming for YOU tomorrow!)  I knew I had read it before - who can forget a name like Punchinello Beezo???  But I could not remember exactly what happened in this story of predictions, life, coincidences, dread, hilarity, and clowns.

That's right.  Clowns.  Don't read this one, Ashley. 

Jimmy Tock is born on a stormy night, the same night his grandfather dies in the same hospital where Jimmy is born.  The same night Punchinello Beezo is born, and the same night Punchinello's father goes on a shooting rampage in that same hospital.  The same night that, before he goes, Jimmy's dying Granddaddy sits up with some astonishing words:  "Five days.  Five Terrible Days."  He then proceeds to shout out five specific dates on which Jimmy will have Terrible Days.

And so the waiting and the dreading begin.

Most of all, though, this is a mad caper of hilarity and punchy dialogue and deadpan jokes.  Koontz is a master at taking something terrifying and making it common and normal and yes, laugh out loud funny.  A wonderfully poignant ending, full circle, and some of the best banter since Doris and Rock.  This is not a horror novel.  It is fast paced and crazy and funny and fun with a super twist near the end.  Yes, there are guns involved, but there is also a library and love and babies - and hope.  I highly recommend this one - no supernatural stuff really, which you can find in many of Koontz's works.  This is a stand alone, and so so good.  Enjoy!

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

What a beautiful and devastating book.

I kept hearing how good this book was, but of course was wary due to the subject matter. It is not a spoiler to say this is about love, family, a mother's fierce love and heavy guilt, and the death of a child. But we learn so much about the family and the times and the WRITING - omgosh y'all, the writing is absolutely beautiful. I felt like I was in Stratford, I could smell the horses and feel the scalding water for laundry and hear the creaks of the stairs.

"A breeze slips invisibly, insistently through the streets, like a burglar seeking an entrance. It plays with the tops of the trees, tipping them one way, then the other. It shivers inside the church bell, making the brass vibrate with a single low note. It ruffles the feathers of the lonely owl, sitting on a rooftop near the church. It trembles a loose casement a few doors along, making the people inside turn over in their beds, their dreams intruded upon by images of shaking bones, of nearing footsteps, of drumming hoofs."

So descriptive and atmospheric and heartfelt! The passages describing the parents' grief in the months after their child's death will tear out your heart. So well done, fractured, real. But I did not cry with this one, although several have said to have Kleenex nearby. I knew it was coming, and that helped. AND, that grief comes more towards the end of the book - there is so much more here than just the death in the story. This is a story of a marriage, of two people who come from dysfunctional families and find their way to, away from, and hopefully back to each other. It is the story of the twin left behind. Of a nameless playwright in England in the late 1500's (yes, THAT playwright) struggling to find his place away from his abusive father and hopeless life. I loved that he remained nameless throughout the novel, because this story was about Agnes, his wife. The one left behind when he goes to London and finally finds the stage. The one who knows things about people, who knows she will have two children and yet births three, who knows the man down the lane will be gone from sickness by the end of the year. The girl from the forest who is the healer. The one who could not save her own child.

I had read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox several years ago by this author (audio version actually) and did not really like that story, or that ending. THIS book makes me want to be a Maggie O'Farrell completist. Or maybe I will stop with this one - perfection.