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Dale Whitehead is back at it again. The poor guy deserves a whole Chinese buffet after the crazy events at the tech/sci-fi convention.

Book two brought the familiar sympathies of a tech geek wishing for just a moment for the dream to be real while simultaneously fending off your own endless insecurities. There's plenty of drama in the pages but perhaps the greatest of all is Dale's internal one. Without that earnest interior these books could easily be cliche. Instead they are (sometimes painfully) relatable, entertaining, and thrilling mysteries.

There's a certain level of tech-geek required to get full enjoyment. If you know what IPv6 is, or how to rebase in git, and you like a good mystery then you're going to love this.

In this work Andy Weir returns to his excellent recipe from The Martian moreso than his experiements in Artemis. The technique pays off and we're left with another thrill-packed science-triumph. The story offers plenty of adversity and even some emotional moments of despair, but a calm head and ingenuity can accomplish miracles.

I would highly recommend picking this up on audiobook over paper. To explain why is a spoiler, so just take my word for it.

There's something truly satisfying about these cozy witch mysteries. Perhaps it's the amateur vibe, the way they toss together monsters and borrowed fables with abandon, or the predictable characterization. They're easy to read and enjoy.

I don't think this one was as strong as the first, but it carried me along nicely.

What a fun romp! This story struck the balance between action/adventure and intrigue with a healthy dose of world(s) building. The pacing was excellent and gave appropriate time to sink deeply into the interpersonal relationships and politics while not rushing through action sequences. The cast of characters is wide with individuals precisely painted and unique enough to follow from the start. I will definitely be picking up book 2.

This is a clear improvement over the first book in the series, which was already quite good. Here the author took his time to dive deeper into the inner motivations of the heroes and villains to great effect. The action was still there to keep it all moving forward. Multiple interwoven plots and character goals drove a tight story. This series will be one to follow.

Well that got action-y!

This one flowed better than the last. I like where this is going.

It started very strong relying upon "real science" as the description calls it. Then the book quickly adopted hollywood aliens as the bad-guys with all-too-familiar motivations and group dynamics. What follows was fun, but not digging any new ground.

This is my second series of novels in the cultivation genre. The Cradle books by Will Wight have more interesting fantasy elements and have a better sense of power scales from the start, but this series has much greater detail on the cultivation itself, the drama of the fights, and draws much from Chinese culture. I enjoy both and will continue the series.

Lovely fun cozy mystery. I think the "spy" angle was overblown here, but perhaps we'll go more in that direction as the series progresses.