As I'm no longer having as much free time for reviews anymore, I'm going to be trying something new on this blog: Mini Book Reviews...posts with multiple smaller book reviews for books I have less to say about than normal.
So below the jump I have reviews of two self-published works I found through the SPSFC: Syn City: Reality Bytes and The Audacity 3. Syn City just isn't super interesting enough to be worth a full review, even if it's not bad, and The Audacity 3 is a sequel to a book I did do a full review of, and is more of the same of that book - which is a good thing mind you, but it means it doesn't really require a full review as a sequel.
My thoughts on these books is below:
Syn City: Reality Bytes is a self-published cyberpunk novel published in 2019 by Lewis Knight, which was assigned to my group as part of the Self-Published Science Fiction Competition (SPSFC). The story, as you might tell from its awfully punny title, is a cyberpunk story in a world where corporations are what control things seemingly after a great disaster, and much of humanity chooses to have their bodies wither away as they live in a virtual reality world...and the world is filled with both humans and Synoids, artificial humans, as well as cyborgs and other such combinations of human and machine, as well as those called Symbionts with their own special abilities.
The plot focuses upon two characters: A cyborg woman named Enigma, forced by implants to work for a corporation she hates and once fought, and a hacker Symbiont who's addicted to VR but has the ability to jump into the mind of and control Synoids, as his attempt to find funds to keep his ability to stay in VR leads him on a dangerous mission.
The book is solid at setting up both characters, even as it tries a bit too hard with its cyberpunk setting - so many characters wearing bondage type gearhere - and I was intrigued with its plotting and ideas of VR addiction, fights for freedom, and conspiring and plotting characters. But it's also unfortunately an incomplete book, with the story ending just after the two leads have joined forces, something you'll be waiting for all book, and ending on a major cliffhanger....one that doesn't seem like it's ever going to be followed up, as there's no sign of the sequel book on the Author's website 3 years later, despite multiple other projects. The result is just unsatisfying despite its potential, making this not a book I can really recommend.
The Audacity 3: Be Kind Rewind by Carmen Loup
The Audacity 3 is well, what it sounds like, the third book in Loup's self-published Douglas Adams inspired science fiction series. I reviewed book 1 here, which was part of the SPSFC, and actually read the first half of this book before book 1 due to a mixup when the author submitted the wrong book to us SPSFC Judges. I was actually enjoying this despite reading it out of order, so after I finished and enjoyed book 1 and then returned to this (despite not having book 2 in the interim).
And well, The Audacity 3 is more of what you get from book 1, maybe with it being a little more zany as a result of the book not needing to setup anything. And that's why its only getting a micro-review, because there's not much more to say here: this is still a really really fun wacky story, both through characters and language used, as human May has to deal with having lost their ship and having both of her Alien friends and companions suffering from a disease with seemingly no cure and symptoms of making them go even crazier than before, dangerously crazy. It leads to an ending swerve that is Douglas Adams-y in its particulars without really feeling like copying, and to a conclusion that wraps of this series while still leaving things open for more stories to come if anyone wants.
Basically if you enjoy Hitchhikers-esque stories, the Audacity books are strong books for you, and this final book just continues the winning formula from book 1. Recommended.
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