Timeless: Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic (Timeless #1) - Armand Baltazar [Review]

Title: Timeless: Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic (Timeless #1)

Author: Armand Baltazar

Genre: Fiction, Steampunk, Middle Grade, Science Fiction

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Publishing date: October 3rd 2017

Pages: 624   

Rating

★★★★☆

Hello! Today I’m reviewing a book I read a while ago, Timeless: Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic by Armand Baltazar.

This book is set in a weird future in which the world as we know has ended. There was an

event called the Time Collision that fractured time and space, tearing apart the earth and reshaping it into something entirely new.

This is the world Diego Ribera was born into. The past, present, and future coexisting together. Timeless.

In New Chicago, Diego’s middle school hallways buzz with kids from all eras of history and from cultures all over the world. The pieces do not always fit together neatly, but this is the world he loves. There are those, however, who do not share his affection.

On his thirteenth birthday, Diego learns of a special gift he has within, a secret that is part of something much bigger—something he cannot understand. When his father, New Chicago’s top engineer, is taken by the Aeternum, a malicious organization that seeks to reverse the effects of the Time Collision, Diego must rescue him and prevent this evil group from disrupting the fragile peace humanity has forged.

Warcross - Marie Lu [Review]

Title: Warcross [Warcross #1]

Author: Marie Lu

Genre: Young Adult, Science fiction, Fiction

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

Publishing date: September 12th 2017

Pages: 353

Rating

★★★★☆

Hello I can finally review this book that was one of my most anticipated reads of 2017.

Warcross is set in a futuristic world where technology of augmented reality has advanced a lot thanks to a young man, Hideo Tanaka. Hideo created a thing called Neurolink, glasses that let the user see elements of augmented reality in their surroundings and lets them play a popular game called Warcross, created by Tanaka too. The obsession with Warcross started ten years ago and its fan base now spans the globe, some eager to escape from reality and others hoping to make a profit.

The book follows the story of Emika Chen a girl who’s struggling to make ends meet; she is

Emika Chen

teenage hacker who works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. But the bounty hunting world is a competitive one, and survival has not been easy. Needing to make some quick cash, Emika takes a risk and hacks into the opening game of the international Warcross Championships—only to accidentally glitch herself into the action and become an overnight sensation.

Convinced she’s going to be arrested, Emika is shocked when instead she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem . . . and he wants Emika for the job. With no time to lose, Emika’s whisked off to Tokyo and thrust into a world of fame and fortune that she’s only dreamed of. But soon her investigation uncovers a sinister plot, with major consequences for the entire Warcross empire.

Project Terra: Crash Course #1 - Landry Q. Walker, Keith Zoo [Review]

Title: Project: Terra Crash Course #1

Author: Landry Q. Walker, Keith Zoo (Illustrator)

Genre: Science fiction, Middle Grade, Fiction

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Publishing date: September 19th 2017

Pages: 221

Rating

★★★★☆

Hello! Today I’m reviewing another middle grade book, Project Terra Crash Course.

This book follows the story of Elara Adele Vaughn, a girl who dreams to become a top planetary at the Seven Systems School of Terraforming Sciences and Arts. But for all her excitement, life at her new school is a lot tougher--and stranger--than she ever thought possible. Her roommate, Clare, is a mute, intergalactic sponge. A field trip almost ended in the belly of a monster. And no one at her new school knows what it's like to grow up on a planet so far away it's called "Nowhere." But if the galaxy's greatest terraformers made it through their first year, then so can Elara.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick [Review]

Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Author: Philip K. Dick

Genre: Science fiction, Dystopian, Fiction

Publisher: Del Rey

Publishing date: First published in 1968

Pages: 249

Rating

★★★★✩

Hello, it’s been a while since my last review, today I’m reviewing Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I had high expectations on this one, and I’m not disappointed.

The book is settled in a dystopian Earth after a nuclear war. Earth is not safe to live in due to

Blade Runner is a movie
                adaptation of this book.

radioactive dust that deteriorates people’s health until they become intellectually slow humans classified as a "special." The Earth's dust-irradiated atmosphere leads the United Nations to encourage mass emigrations to off-world colonies to preserve humanity's genetic integrity, with the incentive of free personal androids: robot servants identical to humans. As time passes by, those androids become more and more realistic until it’s hard to differentiate them from people. Rick Deckard, the protagonist, is a bounty hunter, he signs for a new police mission that is to remove 6 nexus-6 androids that had gone rogue. These androids are almost human, the only thing Deckard has to identify them is an empathy test, androids don’t feel empathy. During his mission he will start doubting himself, wondering if he is doing the right thing “retiring” androids, beings that want to live their own lives, that have intelligence of their own; and reflexing about what makes us human.

The Strain - Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan [Review]

Title: The Strain

Author: Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan

Genre: Suspense, science fiction, supernatural

Publisher: William Morrow

Publishing date: June 2nd 2009

Pages: 403 

Rating

★★★★✩

Hello everyone! Halloween is around the corner, so I though it would be a good idea to review a book darker than the usual things I read, that’s why I chose The Strain, it has some elements of horror.

            The strain starts telling us a particular story about Jusef Sardu, a Polish nobleman who

Poster of the series.

suffered from gigantism, and was brought to Romania by his father on an expedition to hunt wolves. The entire hunting party mysteriously died or disappeared, except for Sardu, who returned to his family home in Poland but was rarely seen by the townspeople; and he eventually became the village bogeyman. This little story is important to the whole plot, after that the real story begins, now we are settled in New York several years later, a Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold. There is some kind of virus transforming people into “vampires”, during his research he will team up with his colleague and former lover, Nora; a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham; and a plague exterminator, Vasily Fet to save the city.

Scarlet - Marissa Meyer [Review]

Title: Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2)

Author: Marissa Meyer

Genre: Fantasy, Science fiction, Young Adult.

Published: 2013

Pages: 464

Price: 7.88 USD

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Includes the short story “The Queen’s Army”

Rating:

★★★✩✩

Scarlet is the second installment of The Lunar Chronicles, in this one, after the events of the first

Scarlet, fanart by Lostie815

book, [spoiler if you haven’t read Cinder] Cinder is in prison. Let’s forget about her for a moment because this book’s title is Scarlet, which means now our protagonist is a red haired French girl named Scarlet Benoit. Scarlet lives in a farm in Rieux, part of the European Federation, with her grandmother, Michelle Benoit. Scarlet’s grandmother goes missing and as the police stopped the investigation, she wants to look for her herself. Then she meets a street fighter named Wolf, who may have information about her grandma’s whereabouts. Together they embark into the adventure of looking for Michelle Benoit, but Scarlet isn’t sure if it’s all right to trust this stranger, or what his intentions may be, but she’ll do anything to find her grandmother. 

Cinder - Marissa Meyer [Review]

Title: Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1)

Author: Marissa Meyer

Genre: Fantasy, Science fiction, Young Adult.

Published: 2012

Pages: 390

Price: $5.72 USD

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Buy it: Amazon

Includes the short story “Glitches”

Rating:

★★★★✩

Even though people always say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” the cover is the reason Cinder caught my attention. I knew about this book because I saw a classmate reading it and I liked the cover, I asked her what it was about and I thought it seemed interesting, so I bought it… and I don’t regret it, The Lunar Chronicles has become one of my favorite series!

            Cinder transports us to a futuristic Earth, where robotics and technology has advanced a lot,

Cinder, fanart by lostie815

making possible the creation of space ships, androids, even cyborgs. The story occurs in the city of New Beijing, where Linh Cinder, a 16 year old mechanic, is exploited and humiliated by her stepmother just because she is a cyborg. One day, Prince Kai visits her booth in the marketplace because he wants her to repair his android, and that’s how their paths intertwine. Prince Kai is having a rough moment, his father, the emperor, has the lethal, incurable, and highly contagious letumosis, and also, he must deal with the lunar queen, Levana, who wants to become empress of the Commonwealth, and will do anything to accomplish it. For some reason (I won’t spoil you), Cinder and Kai start seeing each other frequently, and they start developing feelings for each other, but he is being forced by Queen Levana to accept a marriage alliance. If he does marry her, she will give him the cure for letumosis, but if he doesn’t, she will start a war.