Review – Page 30 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

March 29, 2026

Cascade Failure (Review)

oddamn, but I loved this book. We start with a down-on-his luck hero who is wandering a spaceport, scruffy, worlds-worn, looking for any sort of ship work if only to get passage to move along. A ship opens up for him. He goes in, calling “Hello…. Hello?” and suddenly the door slams shut and an AI bot starts talking to him. Frightened, scared, he tries to get the lock open and suddenly it does, to reveal the crew of the Ambit, a merc-looking guy and a tufnut female engineer. But the merc the drifter knows and freaks, trying to make a […]

April 5, 2026

Hornet Squadron (Review)

ound this book on my dad’s old Kindle, good for me since I had jury duty in a few day’s time and this would be more compact than a 1980’s paperback (most would fit in your back pocket). So it worked out well for me. So, Hornet Squadron is the usual Derek Robinson fare; a squadron made up of arch-types and fuckups that is muddling through the worst of it – in this case, World War One. It’s an interesting link-up book, since Hornet Squadron was the name of the squadron in Piece of Cake, and Woolley, the horrific squadron CO […]

April 19, 2026

Gravity Lost (Review)

magine my delight when after enjoying the first book by this new author (L.M. Sagas), Cascade Failure, my friend told me a second novel just came out (This one!). Rushed right down to the bookstore and picked up a copy hot off the shelf! So again, we’re focused on the crew of the Ambit, a no-account dime-a-dozen rockhopper (seemingly unarmed) and its crew of three – Saint, Dash and their AI captain Eoan (with its “”Them/Their” pronoun). And they are just minding their business, back to dirty Guild jobs (in this case, doing a prisoner transfer for badass terrorist Drestyn) when […]

April 26, 2026

The Cruel Stars (Review)

always start most of my reviews like this, but I picked this up at the used bookstore on my credit. Was nosing the scifi books and it looked interesting. So, let’s see what author John Birmingham penned us, shall we? In this novel, it seems that hundreds of years ago, a bunch of anti-re-life, anti-augmenting, anti-genesplicing, anti-alteration purist bigots tried to kill off all “mutants and cyborgs” (their words, not mine). They almost pulled it off but apparently a stunning victory by the liberal (they don’t call it that, but it sure feels that way) elements of the galaxy kicked […]

May 3, 2026

One Second After (Review)

bout forty years ago, I was still designing games for a living of sorts. One idea I had was a game about the fall of civilization and managing a community in the aftermath. Titled After the Fall, it was based off a little Atari game where Malthusian growth is gamed, with populating outstripping food. In mine, you had the added features of hordes from the fallen cities, failed crops and an early hot-seat multiplayer game. Alas, we never got it finished beyond play testing – couldn’t get the tech advancements to work. It’s a good thing I knocked off when […]