STG's

Shareware Heroes, by Richard Moss, covers what was called shareware for many years, specially on the games area. I found out about the book because one of the game authors interviewed (Thomas Warfield) is a friend on FB. I used to be an ASP member for many years (not a game developer, though, and I still sell my "shareware" today), and I talked to him there, as well as several others that appear in the book. I also used BBSs and the web in the 90s, so this was a very interesting trip down the memory lane for me. Lots of details about products I used, and how they happened. I agree in part with the author's conclusion - in a way, the core of shareware (free games where you pay for extra content) certainly has a big part of the market today. But of course, the "share" part is now meaningless, since it is trivial to download anything you want in minutes (if not seconds).

 Mickey7, by Edward Ashton, is a SF novel. The premise is based on non-FTL galaxy colonization, with a lot of emphasis on printing people and downloading their memories. Thus creating the Expendables - people who are sent on dangerous missions, as they can just get a new copy later, a big deal on a colony with limited resources and population. Having multiples is a big no-no and only acceptable in the most dire conditions. There is also a big faction that thinks these are soulless and unacceptable in any circumstances. Mickey7  is an expendable. He is left for dead, but comes back... After his duplicate was made. And thus the story begins. Overall, quite enjoyable, even if the obvious alien detail is carefully ignored till convenient for the plot. Perfectly pleasant ending.

Valuable Humans in Transit, by qntm, is a collection of quite clever short stories. Overall, excellent, possibly one of my favorite short story collection over the years. Mostly stories are very short, but use different concepts or narration forms. The ending of the last story strongly reminded me of  The Turing Exception , for reasons that should be obvious.

Ed, by qntm, is an SF novel that looks like a themed short story collection till the end. I thought it was a short story collection focused on the one guy, Ed, the genius. It was nice how so much got integrated in the last few chapters, which were particularly good. Lots of interesting concepts. It is pretty short, so it was very much worth the time.

 I read Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman because William Gibson mentioned it on Twitter (on a thread asking for cyberpunk recommendations). When starting, it seemed a bit boring, but it quickly improved, and was cyberpunk in a way, while being completely different from the typical Cyberpunk book. It mostly concerns an executive taking care of the extinction industry as it applies to the mining company he works on, and a research that certifies species intelligence level (as it costs more if you cause an intelligent species to get extinct). Not a whole lot of new tech overall, although there are a lot of drones and autonomous factories. I have seen some reviews that complains about the long bits about a couple of (made up? looks like it) species - I agree that it was longer than necessary, but was still interesting. I really liked both epilogues, which are great on their own way (The first for the little twist from the formulaic end, and the second for changing the story quit...

 Heard about this one because it was available to vote for in one of Steam's 2022 awards. This is a pixel art mining game with what I guess could be called tower defense aspects. Mostly you mine the land below your dome for a few different elements (iron, water and cobalt), and after a very short time, you have to go up to defend your dome from monsters. There are a few upgrades (better drill, jet pack, dome laser, etc, etc) and a few gadgets (lift, digging companion, automated laser, probe, etc), which can also be upgraded. The goal can be getting resources (prestige mode) or getting an specific relic. The game works well, but there a few annoying choices: - tutorials are minimal, and sometimes you have to guess what a gadget does - music plays just sometimes. There is a setting, but I can't recall ever seeing someone do it this way??? - no mini-map  - even basic indicators are upgrades you need to buy - even if you like specific gadgets, you can't choose them (mostly) . T...

 I read Delta-V, by Daniel Suarez (which I liked from other books, specially Daemon) last month and forgot to review it (seems common lately). This is a common theme for SF books - near future, add some mild advances, go mine asteroids, which is obviously a big step for humankind. Higher Education and The Billion Dollar Boy come to mind, although I seem to recall both had way more SF tech (I believe the second is mostly outside the solar system). Delta-V uses more realistic, currently available tech, and it does it in a very believable manner, with nice amounts of action and betrayal (technically a spoiler). It was quite enjoyable, and I happened to get it when I heard about the sequel, so when I finished (at about 2 a.m., I believe), I happily went to buy the sequel. Which was when I realized it was only on pre-sale, 2 months away. :-( Oh, well, it should be available next month, at least...