Garbage. Hated it. Nothing new here. Just a commercial for her online, behind-a-paywall information.

What started as an exciting tale of four space stations racing to be first on Mars, turned into a massive collaborative effort to rescue three teams and collectively finish the mission. Once again, the author brought a lot of humor along for the ride. I recommend this book because it was a great comedic space adventure.

I absolutely adore the whole Keeper of the Lost Cities series because there is never a dull moment! Shannon Messenger adds twists and surprises, and I never want to put the book down!

It was okay. Silly.

The characters were very comical, I enjoy how a mission was made more fun with humor.

After being laid off from his journalistic job, Charlie struggles to make ends meet as a substitute teacher while living in his deceased father’s home. After he’s turned down for a loan to purchase his local bar and run it, Charlie finds himself at loose ends, until he gets news that is rich uncle has passed away and wants Charlie to take over his business. What Charlie doesn’t know is that business is the villain business and Charlie’s uncle was a major player. Oh yeah, and there are sentient cats who can communicate via keyboard and he’s got to negotiate a labor dispute with the dolphins who, again, like to swear a lot. I found myself laughing out loud at multiple points during Starter Villian. And yet in the laughter, Scalzi takes time to make a few interesting points and observations about the world and the people we’re putting in charge of things, the state of technology, and multiple other issues I won’t necessarily delve too far into here. But what Scalzi does so well is entertain first and foremost — the scene where various wannabe villains present their evil plots and are either rewarded with the thumbs up or sent flying via a giant spring into the sea is just one example of this in a book packed full of them.

I loved all the different endings for the book! The storyline was exciting and kept me wondering what was going to happen next!

It feels like this one was written on autopilot. There’s never any real hook for me and I never became invested in the central mystery enough or the main characters to feel invested enough to want to race to the finish. I finished more out of a sense of — well, I’ve come this far, might as well see where it all goes. A disappointing entry from a usually reliable author.

As a mystery fan, I recall some of my fellow mystery buffs being dismissive of Cornwell and the Scarpetta series. I don’t necessarily see why with this one because The Body Farm‘s central mystery is a solid one that hooked me in and kept me guessing. I’m guessing that the later books delve a lot deeper in Scarpetta’s personal side, which could be a big disconnect. I found there was a balance enough of the personal and mystery plots to keep my interest sustained, despite having dropped in cold five books into the series.

Unfortunately, we do not appreciate the story book, the main character had a poor sense of self and was not considerate toward others. He participated in bratty, obnoxious and harmful behavior. We do not recommend this book.