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So the Condor goes missing on Regis III, and our titular ship, the Invincible is tasked with finding out what happened. They land, locate the craft, and find all sorts of unexplainable and mysterious remains. It appears the crew succumbed to some sort of madness, leading them all to die of hunger or exposure, despite there being ample food, water, and shelter available. The environment on land is devoid of life, while the seas show marine creatures with a curious magnetic field sensitivity. There's a strange black cloud that blocks all form of communication, and a strange rain of molten metal. All signs point to something not right on the planet, but nobody's sure quite what that something is immediately. The captain decides to stick around, and his navigator (and our viewpoint) Rohan is tasked with investigating things.

It's an old book, but the story and writing still hold up. The author does an excellent job with characterizing the book's main players, and I was really intrigued with the mystery that the author sets up here on this desert planet. The captain and Rohan butt heads (in a professional way) frequently, as the captain is more of a traditionalist manifest destiny type and Rohan is more practical. The setting and feelings of the crewmates are also done well, leaving me well invested in the outcome of the ship.

I did feel like it lingered a bit too long in the last half of the book on matters of philosophy and characterizing what constitutes life, but it's something that I feel is somewhat common in sci-fi books of this era. Once the author pulls the curtain back a bit behind what's really going on on Regis III, I wanted more movement and resolution, and less musings on various aspects of technology and biology, and feeling beat over the head with the idea that sometimes doing nothing at all is the better route to take.

Still, really enjoyable read. Highly recommend to classic sci-fi fans.

I read the first book in this series earlier this year and really liked it, in the face of unfavorable reviews. I liked the sci-fi detective noir setting, and felt like people went into it expecting something different than what they got. It had flaws, but I really enjoyed the stream of consciousness writing style associated with our detective's thought processes, as well as the cyberpunk-esque setting he was in.

This book felt just a bit less entertaining, if only because it feels less a detective noir and more a cyberpunk thriller, which is fine I suppose, but not what I enjoyed from the first one. That's not to say this was a bad book -- I did give it four stars after all -- just that my reasons for liking the first one and this second one are different.

We're eight years off of the first book, and our still-unnamed protagonist is raising his kid after being relieved from duty while his wife retains her job on the police force. (story spoilers here) Unfortunately, Ascalon is back and still wants to get one over on her mom Akira Kimura and show how much better she is at everything, so her neural implant burrows into his kid's eye socket while she's swimming and takes her over. What follows is a lot of our protagonist thinking he's finally breaking the hold Akira and Ascalon have over him, but really he's following the path they meticulously lay out for him to the letter. Our protagonist does a lot of thinking in this one about whether he has free will, or whether he's just a puppet for either of them--or both.

There's lots of action in this one. Almost wall-to-wall action, actually. We go to space, we go underwater, we go to the old United States where people live without IEs and technology, giving the author plenty of time to flesh out this dystopian-esque cyberpunk world he's created. But you don't get much time to catch your breath or enjoy the scenery, because our protagonist is never in any of these places for very long before the next story beat yanks him away. The pace really is pretty frenetic, so if fast paced thrillers are your thing you'll probably enjoy this second book better than the first.

I thought it was just a little bit too fast for my taste, but I still did greatly enjoy the book (and that ending!). I'll be moving onto book three in 2025 sometime.

I'll just go ahead and say up front that I didn't think this book was as strong as the others. I didn't feel all that connected with any of the humans our SecUnit was protecting this time around, because the story doesn't really set any of that up in the same way as the other two. We just kind of...end up with them along for the ride when Murderbot was there for other reasons entirely. The framework story also felt not as strong, and a bit fragmented and confusing in places.

I do like the slow transition the author is building from how Murderbot was in the first book (standoffish, aloof, more than a little terrified, wanting nothing to do with any human for any reason) to how it is now (mildly aggrieved, reluctantly protective, a bit curious). There's definitely a lot of character development packed into these small stories.

"Today the sun has set on airships and ... it is feared that it has set forever."

Buddy Levy's arctic expedition books continue to not disappoint. I've read both Labyrinth of Ice and Empire of Ice and Stone, and rated both of those an enthusiastic 5 stars. This one, with its inclusion of the history of airship travel and the arctic, was no different, to no surprise of mine. There's just something incredibly compelling about these explorers who endure so much in the name of planting a flag.

This book's three parts tell the reader about a different airship attempt in each part. We first are introduced to Walter Wellman and the Chicago Record-Herald Polar Expedition, whose struggles to get airborne set the stage for what comes after. The second part brings in Roald Amundsen (a familiar name for anyone who's read about polar expeditions in the past) and his journey on the Norge, where both him and Umberto Nobile become rivals and enemies at the conclusion. Finally, part three involves the Italia, Nobile's attempt to cross the north pole, funded by Italy and Mussolini, that ends rather poorly. It turns out quite a lot can go wrong with giant bags of gas in a cold environment.

As usual, each part is well researched and well written, with footnotes included, as well as an extensive bibilography at the end. I evidently really need to read Amundsen's biography The Last Viking, because his inclusion (history spoilers(?) here) and conclusion was a huge surprise for me. I wasn't a huge fan of Nobile as a historical figure, but I sort of felt bad for the guy on his return.

Just a fun, informative, tense book all around. The only reason it took me so long to make it through this one is because life happened and I didn't get much time to read until now. I binged the last 50% in two days, it was that good.