SPSFC2 – FIRST IMPRESSIONS! #1

Hello people! I hope you all are happy and safe, and that you are ready to enjoy the weekend! Today I am here with some first impressions on a bunch of books from team Red Stars’ slush pile. I’ll try to keep this up and post some impressions on the books every week, even if I am not making promises. But while we wait to see if I’ll keep my word on this, let’s start with the first bunch!

Just a little disclaimer: I have read only 10% or such of each book, so this is really about first impressions. And if you click on the title of the books you could visit their Goodreads page.

Ghosts of Tomorrow was the first book I tried out of our slush pile, and let me say that we started with a bang! I was really intrigued right from the start, and I am really eager to go back to this one and read it fully because the first 10% was promising.
I also think that this book should come with a full list of trigger warnings because it is harsh. And violent. And disturbing. A lot. So be aware of this.
But, this aside, I was quite impressed by it. I can’t say that I cared for the characters, but let’s also be clear: I have read a small portion of it, a very smart portion, so it is too early to really make statements, and even if I didn’t care, I was intrigued by them all the same. I can’t wait to go back to it!

I really really dislike Broken Angel‘s cover. I know that you should not judge a book by its cover, but this one to me is just.. nope! But the book behind it is not so bad, yay! The idea of the book is quite intriguing, and I really liked that we get to read about mind conditioning and controlling. I think it’s fascinating, and this book promises to talk about them a lot. It is a bit uneven, there is quite a distance between the first and the second chapter, for example, and they sound more like two short stories than two chapters of the same book. Mind me, the MC is the same, and we are following his story but I had this feeling. Anyway, it was not offputting, just a tad strange. And I was interested in the story, so I am looking forward to coming back to this one, too.

Mercury’s Shadow has short chapters! Really short ones, and I just love some short chapters! But, luckily, this is not the only positive thing I have to say about the book. It is a YA, and I am not the biggest fan of them, and the plot is quite predictable, but Chim and her robot are interesting characters, and the writing is pretty captivating. And the world seems one worth exploring, or at least visiting for a bit. I think I have some expectations from this one!

EMP Strike has short chapters too, and the first 10% flew by. The writing is really smooth and the fact that we get to follow different POVs helps to keep up the pace. We just get a taste of the story, but I couldn’t put it down. The other side of the coin is that is one of those books that you can’t put down while you are reading them, but once you do it, they don’t stay with you and you are not so eager to go back to them. But things can still change, so who knows? Also, so far we don’t get the “sci-fi” part. It sounds like pre-apocalyptic instead or post, but again, it’s too soon to say for sure!

I am not so glad to say that QUBIT was the less interesting for me in this group. It may also be in part because, for once, I read the blurb before reading the book (I usually do not read the blurbs, but from time to time I can make exceptions) and I was expecting something way more involving than what I got. I can’t say that it’s a bad book, because we have some interesting premises and some different POVs who move the story to different places, but I wasn’t so invested in it, and I also think that some good editing could have done marvels here. But again, it is always possible I would change my mind later on!

So, that’s all for today! What about you? Are some books you find interesting in this bunch?? Let me know!

Happy reading!
S.