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When the gate finally opens between the New Sonora colony and Earth things are looking good for New Sonora. Oliver and his sister Lulu are working the farm together after their grandfather died with the help of Roge,r an AI bot used to control the drones that work the fields. But when large mechs land on planet and start attacking the colonists they quickly find out that they are being targeted for extermination by Earth.  The battle lasts five days and with some backroom deals with the company controlling the game as the battle is seen from Earth, Oliver alongside his friends and neighbors have to work with the company to make the game interesting in the hopes of surviving the game.  The players think they are helping to destroy the rebels but there are no rebels and a lot of disinformation is going on.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

Murderbot is on a mission to save some people and then it gets complicated.  Murderbot is running some new code that Art helped write to monitor their organic parts for emotional regulation. And when they find who they are looking to rescue a new complication arises and they have to rescue more people. Lots of internal dialogue as usual and seeing Three’s personality develop was great as well.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

This is a SF mystery with time travel. A super rich man has been murdered along with a clone of him murdered at a second site.  A retired cop is brought back to help with the case since she has a history with the victim.  There is a veteran cop familiar with her and a newbie cop and the three of them go to the murder site to work on the case.  I don’t want to get details since it will give too much of the plot away. 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

This is a cute kid story that has Molly moving with her parents and younger brother on the moon and how she needs to use her imagination to play since she could only take one toy with her. There is lesson on sharing since they only have the two twos between them. And there is a lesson in the story about gravity on the moon as well.  A nice book for any kid that is interested in space.

A group of bots that had been working in a restaurant decide to reopen it so they can pay their bills. Robots have a limited number of rights in California after the war and this group of friends decide to take matters in their own hands and make Biang Biang noodles to pay the bills. They are selling well but dister strikes in the form of review bombing them based on being a robot kitchen. By the end of the book they find out who is doing this and take the bad press and make it work for them.  This is a SF cozy even if it is set in a future San Franscisco trying to rebuild from a war.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

Mallory Viridian has seen way too many murders in her life and even after leaving Earth to live among aliens she hasn’t completely gotten away from it.  Currently in a lull ignoring her messages and trying to raise a baby spaceship. When a cruise ship full of mystery lovers is going to dock at the space station she finds out that she is supposed to give a keynote and meet with her agent who has been trying to reach her.   The ship docking isn’t a normal ship it seems to have limitless ability to adapt its interior to anything and has stored almost all of the data from Earth’s internet.  Mallory meets up with her agent and guess who gets murdered later on that day.  Now she needs to solve the murder and figure out what is so different about Metis. And for fans of the series, Tina is back bringing her own special blend of chaos.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

Yea for more mysteries with Sub-Inspector Ferron.  This time the victim knew she would die but now she is missing and the only clue in her apartment is a herd of tiny unicorns. This story gets into the details of social media in the future.  The killer is clever, but Ferron wins in the end.  

This series just keeps getting crazier and crazier. Faction Wars is now the focus of the ninth floor and thanks to Carl and Donut crawlers now have formed a team and the NPCs also have their own team led by Juicebox and Ferdinand. The big surprise to everyone is the former crawlers who made it out of the previous crawls have come back to join Carl to help him win and possibly take down the entire system of AI and Dungeon Crawls.  There is a lot of plotting between people that Carl isn’t privy to, and I think we may see more of what is happening off planet since so much happened off system in this book.  People do die that are close to the duo but I don’t think it spoils anything to say that Carl and Donut make it to the tenth floor.  Now to sit and wait impatiently for book 8.

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss

The third mystery has Pleiti going to help a former classmate now at a rival university. She goes to recruit Mossa’s help against the plagiarism charges on her friend’s cousin’s academic work.  Mossa is depressed and sends Pleiti away offering no support and just wants to be left alone to wallow in her melancholy. Pleiti arrives at the university and uses the mantra “What would Mossa do” to guide her to help Villette find the person slandering her and stop her from receiving a donship from Stortellen University. It was fun to see the role of primary investigator on Pleiti’s shoulders. 

Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss