Title: The Happy Chip
Author: Dennis Meredith
Genre: Sci-fi
Publisher: Glyphus
Release Date: March 10, 2017
Format: Paperback
Pages: 283

 

The Happy Chip was sent to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of The Happy Chip is a not uncommon type of sci-fi story. New technology is introduced into society, seems great, then something goes horribly wrong. This is one of those sci-fi stories that seems like it could actually happen sometime in the near future. It is just enough of a stretch to be purely fictional, but still believable. Think more along the lines of Jurassic Park than Star Wars when viewing this book as sci-fi. That being said, it was a pretty good read.

First off we have the technology that fuels the story, the Happy Chips. These are injected into people’s bodies and, through a phone app, allow you to monitor your hormone levels. This lets you essentially measure your happiness to find more interesting hobbies, try foods you will probably like better, etc. And that is where it starts to go horribly wrong. With the 2.0 chips, the villain of our story plans not only to monitor hormones but to control them. While this premise is not too crazy, it shows how much power a person with leverage can wield over others.

So next we have our characters, starting with protagonist Brad Davis. He is a freelance writer hired to write the biography of the Happy Chips’ inventor, Marty Fallon. As he begins his research, he discovers the evil plot and his family is put in danger. Brad was almost too much of a good guy, as was his wife. At first they are fighting to protect themselves and their children but once we are past that they keep going. They do this because it is the right thing to do, but it feels like normal people in their situation would have said, “Ok, we’ve done enough,” by that point.

Then we have the villain of the story, who I will not expressly reveal for spoiler reasons. When first introduced, this character just seems like a jerk. Not necessarily a bad person but not a very nice one. That completely flips around once the threat is revealed and this person goes from “scumbag” to “irredeemably evil”. Politician-level evil, if you will. And then there is the “sidekick” Gregor Kalinsky. It almost felt like Gregor could have been the main character. Brad got the ball rolling on this adventure but Gregor was largely the person who got things done by the end of it.

Overall, The Happy Chip was a fun read. While the rating system only gives me whole numbers, I really think of this book as 3.5-stars. It is a good little summer read for folks who like a quick but entertaining sci-fi story.

Title: Thrawn
Series: Star Wars
Author: Timothy Zahn
Genre: Sci-fi
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: April 6, 2017
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 427

 

Note: This review will contain spoilers for the original Thrawn trilogy.

Thrawn (the character) is one of the biggest fan favorites in the history of Star Wars. Author Timothy Zahn’s original Thrawn trilogy is considered by many fans to be the pinnacle (and start) of the old canon Star Wars Expanded Universe. Prior to that trilogy, all the “extra” Star Wars materials took place around the time of the original films. Zahn put out a series that was 6 years later and added a lot of new material to the franchise. The Rebel Alliance was the New Republic, Han and Leia were married and about to have a baby, the Empire was all but defeated, and more.

On top of all that he introduced Thrawn, one of the greatest Star Wars villains. Thrawn is loved because of his military genius, making him one of the few non-Force users to be a threat. If you are 3 steps ahead of everyone else, Thrawn is 5 steps ahead of you. That characterization largely remains the same in this new novel. Zahn seems to have done the best he can to keep Thrawn the same in the new canon. Thrawn now pops up before the original trilogy instead of after, but his role remains the same (crush the Rebels).

This book did come out after season 3 of Star Wars Rebels, where Thrawn serves as the new main villain. He was not in every episode there so we only received some sparse exposure to him. However, it was enough to show that Thrawn is still Thrawn and this book greatly exemplifies upon that.

Thrawn (the book) deals with how Thrawn (the man) joined the Empire and rose through the ranks. This is not a simple journey, as the Empire is largely made of anti-alien people. In addition to simply being an entirely new culture, the deck is stacked against Thrawn from the beginning. But like other villain novels, such as Tarkin, we see how the rise to power comes about. Whereas Tarkin was primarily ruthless, Thrawn is able to maneuver individuals like chess pieces. He does not start out this way; in the beginning of this novel, his skills for politics fail in comparison to his military genius.

Along with Thrawn, the book also develops some other interesting characters such as Governor Pryce (a secondary antagonist in Star Wars Rebels). While there did seem to be some restrictions on Zahn simply because of how the New Canon is set up, longtime Star Wars fans will be happy to see that Thrawn is truly back.

Title: Rise of Dawn
Author: Justin Edward Friday
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Release Date: March 11, 2016
Format: Paperback
Pages: 286

 

Rise of Dawn was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Taking the story as a whole into account, Rise of Dawn reads like many other fantasy novels. You have a fantastical world with humans and various other species (in this case, animal people). There is magic and swordplay and a group of heroes. These heroes largely consist of your general fantasy tropes; the young hero, the old man, the honorable thief, etc. The issues that the story suffers come more from its construction than its material.

What sticks out the most is the extremely fast pace of the story. Fantasy books tend to be on the slower side, albeit not all of them need to be Tolkien-level slow. In Rise of Dawn the needle is in the red for practically the entire book. It felt like the content of this one book could have been stretched out across five. When the journey of the characters gets started in the beginning, it is just two people in the group. By the end that has expanded to over a half-dozen adventurers. Not to mention the small horde of villains readers will also be keeping up with. Characters are introduced so rapidly it was hard to keep everyone straight.

The influx of characters combined with the page length also made character development virtually non-existent. Three or four of the characters get focused on and developed, but the rest are static after their introduction. It feels odd for them to change so quickly, but it is not 100% clear how long the group was adventuring. We do not really see them trekking through the woods or walking down roads. They set out for a destination at the end of one chapter and are there once the next one starts. Even when they are sitting around, whole weeks or months just pass in between sequences.

Rise of Dawn’s other pressing matter was the need for a bit more editing. This may have just been an issue with the paperback copy I received, but I cannot say for sure. There are many parts in the book with missing quotation marks, no indication of who was talking when a group is present, punctuation errors, misspelled words, and more. It causes the book to read more like a draft or outline than a complete novel. Rise of Dawn’s story has potential, it just needs to be cleaned up and polished off.

Title: Overlord, Vol. 4: The Lizardman Heroes
Series: Overlord
Author: Kugane Maruyama
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: May 23, 2017 (English); July 31, 2013 (Japanese)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 304

 

The Lizardman Heroes plays out fairly differently from the previous books in the Overlord series. The premise of this story is that Ainz is sending an army to attack various lizardman villages. However, eight days prior to the attack they give the lizardmen a heads-up about this. While there are scenes here and there following Ainz’s group, most of the book is from the lizardman characters point-of-view. Having read the last three books, we as readers know these guys are just going to get slaughtered. The lizardmen, however, do not know this and that makes them interesting as characters.

For what will probably be one-shot characters, the lizardmen were incredibly well developed. The Lizardman Heroes goes into detail about how their society works, the history of their culture, the individual history of the key lizardman characters, and more. Even a love story manages to work its way in there on the eve of this massive battle. Most of the book is the central lizardman character, Zaryusu, trying to shore up his people’s defenses. This seemingly impossible task of getting everyone to work together is their only hope for survival and it is incredibly well written.

Titling the book “The Lizardman Heroes” is a very apt name. Zaryusu and the other lizardman do genuinely believe that they have a chance. They see this giant army that outnumbers them 3-to-1 incoming and know if they fight smart, they can win. This leads to some other character development as well, with Cocytus. Ainz put Cocytus in charge of the invasion as a learning opportunity for our favorite icy bug man. Ainz’s fight against Shalltear in the last book demonstrated that while the floor guardians are strong, they do not fight smart. They are so used to overwhelmingly overpowering opponents that they do not fight well tactically. Getting them to cover these weaknesses to avoid another incident like with Shalltear seems to be one of Ainz’s goals.

While Ainz’s group is not the focus in this book, we do see enough of them to get more character development. Ainz himself is shown to be furthering various goals to strengthen his power base while simultaneously starting to feel the pressure of being a ruler. Giving the characters challenges they cannot just solve with epic magic spells is very important here. If every book is just them one-siding every fight they are in, Overlord will get stale very fast. While the lizardman perspective was a different and somewhat slower approach, it was a way of keeping the series fresh. Still, getting back to focusing on Ainz’s group in the next book will be good too.

Title: Overlord, Vol. 3: The Bloody Valkyrie
Series: Overlord
Author: Kugane Maruyama
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: January 31, 2017 (English); March 30, 2013 (Japanese)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 288

 

The Bloody Valkyrie backtracks a bit from where the previous book stopped, showing what some other characters were up to. It opens with Shalltear, Sebas, and Solution (one of the Pleiades combat maids) off on a mission. (Apologies for the upcoming spoiler, but without it reviewing this book just is not going to happen.) While they start off dominating anyone trying to fight them, things go awry and Shalltear ends up mind controlled. These opening scenes are entertaining, highlighting how monstrous the main characters are compared to normal people. From this point on, the book switches back mostly to Ainz’s point-of-view.

In the first two books, we have seen Ainz and co. completely dominate every opponent they have faced. This time around the opponent is one of their own, someone who is as powerful as the other main characters. Ainz’s character development continues in this book as he begins to view his minions more as people. Most of them are modeled after their creators, Ainz’s old friends, and observing them reminds him of the good old days and makes him long for those long-lost companionships. These feelings are ultimately what make Ainz decide to face Shalltear in a one-on-one battle.

The big battle between Ainz and Shalltear is obviously the main part of The Bloody Valkyrie. As the story explains, Shalltear’s fighting style is pretty much designed specifically to kill magic users like Ainz. This part of the story does make more sense for readers who have played MMO games and are familiar with their combat mechanics. The novel is also much more detailed in that regard than the television show was, allowing for better explanations of the combat scenes. Kugane Maruyama does very well when writing fight scenes and that really gets a chance to shine in this book.

Like in the last book, there were scenes in The Bloody Valkyrie that were downplayed in the television show. Some of these scenes were probably cut short for time constraints and still worked within the show. However, two key scenes were omitted from the anime entirely. These scenes are probably not going to be too important until later in the story and the TV show producers likely did not know if they were getting renewed for another season when that decision was made, so it is understandable if disappointing. Still, if you want to keep up with this series this is a book that cannot be skipped in lieu of watching this show.

Title: Overlord, Vol. 2: The Dark Warrior
Series: Overlord
Author: Kugane Maruyama
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: September 27, 2016 (English), November 30, 2012 (Japanese)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 256

 

The Dark Warrior picks up one week from where The Undead King left off. With almost no knowledge of this strange new world, Ainz sets off for intelligence gathering. Donning a dark suit of armor and the name Momon, he poses as an adventurer to learn the lay of the land. This premise shows that Ainz is clever enough to be cautious. His battles in the previous book leave the impression he is nigh invincible in this new world. But he does not know that for sure and does not assume it. Ainz wants to take things slowly and find sure footing, as opposed to immediately becoming overconfident.

Ainz’s plans for the future stick out in other ways as well. The currency in the new world is different from the money he has stockpiled, which has two effects. One, he cannot spend most of their money without giving away that he is a “foreigner”. Two, he has no idea if the new money will work to create items, cast magic spells, etc. Despite being in a real world, video game rules do apply to Ainz’s new life. Not necessarily all of the same rules he is used to though, hence his extreme caution.

Besides Ainz, we do get some other good character development in this book. One of the Pleiades (battle maids), Narberal, accompanies him disguised as an adventurer so we get to flesh her out. A slew of new characters come in as well; a group of adventurers, their client, and a villain. The Swords of Darkness adventurers are a happy, campy group of well-rounded, typical adventurers. They gave a good feel for what most adventurers in this world are probably like. In the story they take a job for Nfirea, a talented young potion maker. He was a smart character who was put together well; hopefully we see more of him in the future. Lastly was the villainess Clementine; man, she was a cold-hearted snake. A nasty, nasty lady who is probably as evil as some of the literal monsters Ainz hangs out with.

The Undead King seemed more about world building while The Dark Warrior seemed more focused on characters. Notably, there were some differences from the television show in here as well. While the episodes that covered The Undead King did not leave much out, a lot of scenes from The Dark Warrior were either cut short or omitted completely from the show. It made the story much easier to follow in the book, which will make me happy to keep reading Overlord!

Title: Overlord, Vol. 1: The Undead King
Series: Overlord
Author: Kugane Maruyama
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: May 24, 2016 (English); July 30, 2012 (Japanese)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 256

 

Overlord is a “trapped in a game” story, similar to Tron or Log Horizon. The rules here are a little different from some other “stuck in virtual reality” stories. It is just one guy (username Momonga) who is trapped instead of the usual group of people. Despite not having other players trapped with his, the NPCs controlled by his guild have all come to life. They are now real people, but their personalities stay just like in the game. Saying they view Momonga as the boss is an understatement; he is more like a god to them.

This world they are trapped in is a bit different from similar stories as well. The video game Momonga was playing, Yggdrasil, is not where they are. They have been transported to an entirely new world; they are in unknown territory. By and large Momonga and his Guardians (essentially generals who defended his guild base from invaders in Yggdrasil) seem to be extremely powerful in this new world, but for all they know something just around the corner could be tough enough tOverlord, o crush them like ants. Interestingly, the book does not mention how or why Momonga got stuck in this new world. It just…happens. Presumably, that is a point that will be covered in the later books.

As characters, Momonga and the Guardians seem more in line with villains than protagonists. You have a lich (Momonga), demon man, a pair of dark elves, giant bug-man, vampire girl, demon lady, and a butler who probably is not human either. Beyond Momonga, there is not too much character development in this book. At the beginning of the book it is shown that each of the NPC characters had backstories in the game, so we will probably learn more about them later on in the series.

Usually the goal in these “trapped” stories is to get out and go home. Momonga has absolutely no interest in doing that. On the contrary, he seems happy with this turn of events. He has gone from being a video game obsessed office worker to a supreme overlord with an army overnight. Momonga is, if anything, the bad guy. He has become an (evil?) undead with a legion of monsters ready to serve him. By no means is he a nice person in this story, but he is not unnecessarily killing or torturing people either. But he would do both of those things if it furthered his goals. A lot of things in this story seem to be on the flipside of what you would usually expect and that is what makes it so interesting.