Rare. Epic. Legendary.

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Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline

In a future of limited resources and failing infrastructure, humanity lives out its dreams in a massive virtual reality game-world. Wade Watts is a high school student, getting an elite education for free despite his impoverished real-world life, because that was the vision of the game’s creator: unlimited access to knowledge, for rich and poor alike, where every kid has a genuine opportunity to make something of themselves. But not everyone wants to keep it that way.

The original programmer is dead, and a prize is hidden in the game. Whoever decodes the clues first will inherit his billions—and control the virtual universe. Wade has been searching for years. If he wins, he can leave his life in “the stacks” behind, and he can protect the world he knows and loves. But big business is searching too. If they win, the world can say goodbye to free education. That could add up to trillions, and they’ll do anything to get it. Continue reading “Rare. Epic. Legendary.” →

A Rollicking Ride!

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Yet another strange installment of the Dragon Authors BookTube!

Realm FM, by Tyrolin Puxty, is about a radio show–with guests from other dimensions. (The station is built on a wormhole. Obviously.) We rounded up some inter-dimensional guests of our own to share their impressions of the book. (And the show.)

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The Rule of Three by Eric Walters

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A Well-crafted Global-blackout Thriller

Adam is 16. He’s a good student. He’s building an ultralight with his dad in the garage. He likes a girl he’s too nervous to talk to. And then every computer in the world goes dark. Permanently.

What’s a guy to do?

If his mom’s a police officer and his next door neighbor is some kind of retired government operative (spies tend to be vague about their personal history), he fortifies his suburban neighborhood and turns it into the last bastion of sanity amidst a dying civilization. Obviously.

If that sounds like an unrealistic plot line, here’s the crazy thing: It isn’t. Eric Walters’ brilliance as a writer is that he shows you that it isn’t–drawing you in, page by page, while his characters go through the slow burn of realizing that everything might not be okay.

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The List by Patricia Forde

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A Thought-provoking, Dystopian World

The List is a fascinating dystopian tale of a post-apocalyptic society in which language is limited to only 500 words. And falling. The leaders of Ark–a relatively save haven in the midst of chaos and wilderness–believe words are to blame for the cataclysmic Melting. Scientists and journalists used words to hide the impending global disasters behind pretty lies and false promises until it was too late.

Now, only the aging wordsmith and his young apprentice, Letta, are allowed to use words that are not on the List–collecting and protecting them until the day that humanity might once again deserve the full range of language and expression. When the wordsmith fails to return from a word collecting mission, Letta must take his place, only to discover that the promises of Ark itself are beginning to unravel.

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The Space Between the Stars by Anne Corlett

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An Excellent, Unexpected Read

If you go into this book expecting the usual dystopian fodder (one terrifying attempt after another just to stay alive… or to find other survivors… or to save what’s left of humanity), you’re in for a surprise. I’ll admit, that’s how I started out, based on the novel’s premise. But then something interesting happened…

I found myself on a parallel journey to the protagonist herself–letting go of the past; letting go of expectations; living from one breath (or one paragraph) to the next; letting the characters be who they were, instead of who I wanted them to be.

And then I became fascinated by the story in a whole new way.

It’s really a story about loss, and about living with that loss, on so many levels. It isn’t about stopping the plague. It’s about when the plague wins. And what comes after. It’s a human story about surviving the unthinkable, and then trying to re-imagine life as something different–not as a step backward, and maybe not as a step forward either…

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