Books are like Marmite. You either love them or hate them. I don’t think there is an in-between. The amount of time you invest even in a single book is more than most activities you will do in your life and if you are not into it you will probably not finish the first book.
We have all read good books and bad books but the fact that I read through the bad books even to the end says a lot about me. For sure, I am the same with movies. I’ve seen some atrocious celluloid disasters and sat through them to the end – not just in the cinema but even at home. I guess it’s my brain hoping, no wishing that they will get better before the ultimate climax of the story.
So recently I’ve been paying for Kindle Unlimited. If you don’t know what this is and love books you are missing out. It’s like a library and for a small fee you can download and read as much as you want. Sure there’s an annoying thing where you have to “return” the books and a limit as to how many you can have at once but I guess this is Amazon trying to replicate the library experience that some of us grew up with. I can’t see a need for this function. It seems superfluous.
That said I have read many books but it seems I have a favourite genre and style. This is English authors and apocalyptic tales to be more specific. Recently I have enjoyed RR Haywood’s Code Series a lot. There’s so much to take in. There’s retro elements, sci-fi, humanity on the brink of extinction and bad people. What’s not to love. I’m not going to spoil any of it for you but the main protagonist is a lovable rogue who gets drawn into political turmoil that can turn the fate of humanity. It’s set in space in the (relatively) near future where technology advancements are believable and so is what is left of humanity from the good (who want life to just be better), to the bad (who are the worst people you could imagine that have no respect for people other than themselves).
The comedy elements remind me of Simon Pegg at his finest. I’m not talking about the Cornetto Trilogy. I mean Spaced. There are modern cultural references that any nerd is going to enjoy and the crescendo at the end of the story is perfectly escalated. This is not the one of those books that you can sit amongst the sort of people that analyse Jane Austen’s novels but it’s a series I really enjoyed. I wish there was more.
I am going to give this series a good 8/10. I wish there was more but it’s still a really fun journey whilst it lasts.