Corey J. WhiteBesprekingen

I could read a hundred books set in this universe and still want to know more about it. Like so many of my favourite spec fic stories there's just the right amount of possibility of reality for me to look at the future and wonder if this might be where we end up.

White reaches through the pages of this book and punches you in the face with an array of deep emotions (not literally, Corey is a very nice person). I find the characters to be powerfully written with strong, distinct voices. The worldbuilding is solid and intriguing. I'm really bad at writing helpful reviews. I just want to flail a bit and then go read the series over from the start.

Killing Gravity by Corey J. White

Killing Gravity by Corey J. White (2017), the first entry in the Voidwitch Saga, is a tight scifi novella, that is an enjoyable blend of pulp space opera action and cyberpunk aesthetics. The story is about Mariam Xi (“Mars”), who is a voidwitch, a posthuman weapon with strong telekinetic powers. She was transformed into this “weapon” by an evil militaristic lab (named MEPHISTO). She eventually escaped and has lived life on the run, trying to escape run-ins with a bounty hunter. We find her at the beginning of the novella hanging helpless in a dying spaceship, after an encounter with a bounty hunter, dependent on the mercy of any spaceship that will rescue her. When she's picked up by a small spaceship crew who befriend her it's the first in a series of events where she learns more about her past and confronts the people who are pursuing her and would use her for their own ends. With the revelations of her past, Mars story quickly becomes one of reuniting and revenge.

This is a tight story that gives the barest sketches of the Empire that these people live in while providing plenty of detail on the immediately relevant stuff. Characterization of Mars and her friends is also great and done in a very small space. The comparisons are true. Mars and her friends do remind me of the crew in Firefly. They’re all a bit eccentric, grumpy, familial - the way Mal and the good folks aboard Serenity are. Plus River Tam and Mars have a bit in common. White handles gender norms and sexuality particularly well through low-key commentary. Various forms of sexuality and gender identity appear to be ubiquitous in the universe White establishes. These sorts of lifestyles/preferences are just part of the everyday experience in this space adventure.

While the story isn’t completely fresh (villains treating humans as military experiments, protagonists with telekinetic powers, etc. are all very old sci-fi tropes), this novella, while not completely original, is still entertaining. It’s pulpy, thrilling, violent, and often touching.

And did I mention Mars has a cat-like pet named Seven? What's not to love?

In one sense, this is (part one of) a non-stop action blend of hard SF and science fantasy (future body-mind-machine mucking-about for nefarious purposes that to us reads as magic). In another sense this is the beginning of a complex tale of a person mistreated who has resurrected her self and is bent on wreaking havoc on those who hurt her and hers - a hero's journey, sort of. I loved it and will read more!

Killing Gravity
By Corey J. White

You know that feeling when you're looking for a book, like standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open and you are staring in and not sure what you feel like having today. Nothing looks good. Feeling like everything is boring even though you have like 40,000 ebooks. I was having one of those moments when this book caught my eye. It had everything I was hungry for!
Wow!!! Boy, this book hit the spot! What a great mix of elements. A strong female lead. Sci-fi kick @ss gal that everyone is after but the puzzle was why. Then when you find out, the book doesn't make her a whining b!tch about her past but sorrowful at times and always looking forward.
She was a loner before but meets people on a ship, a small crew, and it works out in the end that they all except each other. It didn't start that way. Lots of action, adventure, great world building, wonderful characters!
The gal also has a pet that is her only friend. It is a creature she rescued from a research lab. Seven is its name. She describes it as similar to a cat but much shorter legs and it fit in her helmet. Seven was definitely one of my favorite characters!
I definitely want to follow this series.

Good for those who wants to read about stuff blowing up and people dying.

White, Corey J. Repo Virtual. Tor, 2020.
In an interview, Corey J. White denies that William Gibson’s Neuromancer was an “inspiration” for Repo Virtual but says that Gibson’s novel was a “touchstone” for it. That seems to be a distinction without a difference, because the influence of Gibson is everywhere present in White’s novel. Set in a future multicultural South Korean city dominated by big tech corporations, the world of the novel certainly resembles Gibson’s Chiba City with echoes of his Sprawl. His hacker JD is a less conflicted character than Gibson’s Case, but they are both denizens of a tech underworld with some dangerous antagonists. The central caper of White’s story is a burglary to steal (perhaps repossess) a computer virus from a corporate mogul. The virus turns out to be an emergent strong AI that takes part in its own kidnapping. Along the way there is some lively discussion of the Turing test and what it takes to qualify as a person. There is also some fun future tech. I especially liked the robotic police dogs. They are not always good dogs.

From where I sit, it seems that cyberpunk was replaced by steam punk, which became another form of cosplay, or in other words, just another excuse for the young folks to dress up and perhaps try on a corset. Anyhow, I'm sure there is more to it than that, I just don't pay that much attention. When I was a just plain punk, interactions with screens was limited to going to a seedy theatre that mixed art films with grindhouse. Or an all-night party space that showed rock videos before there was an MTV. In 2020 Cyberpunk has “chosen” to focus on certain aspects of a particular form of cyberpunk like the Cyberheist, which undoubtedly has somewhat come to pass (yet also still looks like a potential future). The wider themes of Cyberpunk still resonate and that's why cyberpunk still exists and is being written it just looks differently because it looks forward to the potential future with an eye to current trends. All the examples about AI, interconnectivity and virtual worlds half exist now. They don't really in the way they do in most cyberpunk, but we still are looking forward to those. We are also looking forward to the new tech emerging. Then there is the other side of cyberpunk, the literary styles and examination of the political/social aspect of the genre which doesn't go away. That's why there are so many punk subgenres now (Cyberheist is just another of one of those). They all explore different tech potentials with the same principles as steampunk.

“Repo Virtual” essentially looks at the roots of the current revolution occurring in AI and uses the cyberpunk mould to explore the far flung potential of that in the way Gibson and Sterling did with networked computers. If anything the genre becomes more prescient, along with all SF but specifically cyberpunk, as technological advances have exploded in the last 35 years and we begin to consider the social ramifications of these technologies as they mature.



SF = Speculative Fiction.

This was a pretty predictable story. Teen girl has psychic powers and emotional damage because she was experimented on. Gets bloody revenge on her former captors.

I honestly never felt any tension or stakes in this story, and none of the characters interested me. It's escapism and not much more. Also kind of bloody. However, it was competently written, and I don't think it reflects poorly on the author. Just not anything special.

To read more of my reviews, check out my blog at keikii Eats Books!

Quote:

I hate money, I despise it. It has twisted a beautiful and creative species and turned us into a ravenous, all-consuming virus.

Review:
Repo Virtual was a very interesting book that was very easy to read and become a part of. I enjoyed the world, once I figured out what was going on. It also has a very diverse cast of characters and the story is fun and interesting, too.

Repo Virtual is about JD, who works as a Repoman for a virtual online game. His brother asks JD to do a special Repo job, which is much more like stealing than normal. For some reason, JD actually does the job, because family is family. It started complicated, when it was just stealing a piece of software from one of the most powerful companies in the world. It got even more complicated when that software ended up being the first sentient AI.

Julius Dax (JD) is not the most likable main character. He doesn't make the best decisions. He doesn't have the best outlook on life. And in some respects, he just happens to know people in the right place at the right time that he ends up the lead character in this story. Yet he has a lot of traits that do make him interesting in his own right. Like the fact that he is disabled because his he took part in some riots years ago, and he never had the money to fix the problem. So he lives in pain and with a limp. This job he takes is supposed to give him enough money to fix the problem in his leg.

I did enjoy the world, once I figured it out. But it took me a lot longer to actually figure out what was going on than I would have liked. I don't know if it is because I was distracted when I started reading this (I was on an hour long bus ride), or what. I just could not figure out what was virtual reality and was was reality. And then I learned that most of the book was augmented reality, which made things make a lot more sense. It also took me quite a while to figure out that this took place in Korea. In part because I'm not familiar with Songdo and didn't know it was a real place. And that's just some of the issues I had.

Repo Virtual takes place in a near future world where capitalism has run rampant and Corporations have near slave labor in the search of more of the all mighty money. People just accept that they are expected to work and work, and if something happens to them they are out of luck. There are even factions looking to stop capitalism, which is who JD ends up working with to steal what turns out to be an AI.

This was a bit of a slow start, because the book didn't really start until about 30% in. It was interesting before then, but once it started it went off with a bang. You just know that a heist starting off in the first quarter of the book is going to end poorly, somehow. In this case, it is the dilemma of how do you hand over a sentient being to someone who doesn't care about it and just wants to use it? There is also the dilemma that while JD is trying to find this out, both the people he stole the AI from and the people he was supposed to give it to now want him dead. And he can't just handle this on his own.

Repo Virtual was fun the entire time with a lot of cute moments. Especially when the AI was trying to figure out if it was sentient and what that means. I enjoyed myself a lot.

ARC received from Tor Books on Edelweiss. This did not affect my review. Thank you!

A good conclusion to the trilogy, although there is enough tantalising opening for more books in this series.

A free read from Tor. And worth every penny. A reviewer below describes it as "a trashy Serenity-like space witch murder spree" -- which is pretty much spot on. Not recommended½

More serious and settled, I guess, than book one, but still a grand space adventure.

This is a somewhat fun read, even if the subject matter is very much on the dark side. An unapologetic space adventure. Being a novella it's perfect for a quick hit of sci-fi, but it still provides a rich world as the setting for the copious action.

Who says you need a recap and setup? You're the second of a trilogy. Your readers have already done the first, or why are they here? Let's pick this story up and be attacking a planet within 10 pages. C'mon man. This is pulp at it's best.

Trashy Serenity-like space-witch murder spree

The third and final of the void witch trilogy rattles along at the same breakneck pulpy pace. All in all, an enjoyable little set.

The necessary 18 rating would probably make the audience too niche for TV to touch it, but the pulp styling lends it to "Firefly-now-that-you're-older"

Mars Xi evaded capture by the military research team who shaped her, and honed her psychic abilities into near god-like powers. But can she rescue her friend from a max security military prison before he loses his mind and his identity?

This is a small book with a big story to tell, but it's remarkable how thoroughly White manages to (re-)establish characters and set the scene before the explosions begin. Void Black Shadow homes in on the horrific processes the government uses to craft its super soldiers and ups the ante by making the stakes personal.

Our villains are military doctors who refuse to consider that even criminals and dissidents have rights, and prison guards who enjoy the sharper end of their job a little too much …and the prison turns out to be perfectly designed to protect them from Mars’s inhuman abilities. I’m not a big fan of prison narratives (and Shadow adopts many familiar tropes), but having established Mars as an unstoppable force, White does well to rein her back in, injecting tension back into the proceedings.

Where Gravity simply stacked up the bodies with a merciless, remorseless Mars at the centre, Shadow – thankfully – begins to turn the lens on how monstrous her actions are. Mars almost always reaches for violence as a solution and never embraces half-measures. Does fighting a deeply dystopian force really excuse the mass murder she routinely engages in?

I appreciated that Corey was prepared to step back and critically examine his protagonist's hard-boiled choices - and I look forward to seeing how that theme is developed in the final instalment.

Full review

Killing Gravity doesn’t so much kick off in media res as kick you in the teeth and start sprinting down the road with your wallet. It starts so thoroughly in the thick of the action that I found myself checking whether I’d accidentally picked up mid-series.

Mariam Xi – Mars – is on the run from a military research unit. Gifted with extraordinary psychic powers and trusting only a tiny, genetically-engineered creature who likes to sleep in her spacesuit, her instinct is to go it alone. But even a voidwitch needs allies if she’s to discover who – and what – she really is, and just what she can become…

Still, Mars isn’t inclined to explain anything to anyone – which keeps the reader neatly in the dark too. The complete lack of context is a little confusing, but it leaves you in no doubt about how mistrustful Mars is of everyone – and how amoral that frees her up to be.

One of the things I like about the Voidwitch Saga is that it takes a traditionally masculine role – the hard-boiled, super-powered antihero – and gives it to a woman. Killing Gravity makes very little effort to make Mars sympathetic (unless you count her affection for her face-eating space otak); it never dials back Mars’s attitude, and it consistently allows her to do terrible things.

If you're in the mood for a high-octane, no-holds-barred slice of space opera that somehow manages to squeeze in more character building than you'd expect, Killing Gravity is for you.

Full review

Void Black Shadow saw Mars reflect with horror on her death count in Killing Gravity; by the end of book two, she’d done far worse. In Static Ruin, I was expecting Mars’s guilt to play a pivotal role – and it does, to a point. For the first time, we see Mars exercise self-control and actively avoid mass-murder as her response to threats.

Instead, the drama comes from confronting her past. It makes Static Ruin a quieter, tenser affair than its predecessors.

And if I’m honest, it didn’t work as well for me. Unlike the first two novellas, this one felt rushed; for me, what it really needed was more space to land its blows. It’s neither a final bite-size serve of scorching action, nor entirely convincing as an emotional harrowing. But it does give Mars closure, of sorts – and I’m glad to have been introduced to this intriguing universe. I think I’d just like to have seen more of it.

Full review

This was interesting, and the whole concept was really cool, it just wasn't executed very well. The world was confusing, and there wasn't enough world building, we got some, but I wanted a little bit more so I could get some more context. What was there did unfold well in the story, and the pacing was also done well. I wish there was a little more character development though. Mars seems like a cool chick, and I just want to know more about her, and her motivations..they seemed a little thin.

After reading Killing Gravity I immediately sought out the next book in the series. Void Black Shadow by Corey J. White is the second book in the Voidwitch Saga, and a great second installment to the series.

The Voidwhich Saga is a series of novellas about Mars Xi, a woman raised from childhood to be a weapon of the state. Imbued with incredible power which even her captors didn’t fully understand, she is now free. MEPHISTO, the ones who created her, have taken a friend hostage. And Mars will stop at no lengths to get him back.

The second book in this series differs greatly in tone from the first. This contrast is made all the more stark when reading these books back to back. Void Black Shadow tackles the horrors mentioned but unseen in Killing Gravity and brings them to the forefront of the narrative. The feeling of pure adventure and the wholesale destruction Mars wreaks with little recompense in book one are gone. Instead, Mars must confront her actions since escaping MEPHISTO including the literal of thousands she’s slaughtered while trying to evade recapture. The majority of this novella takes place within a prison made for only the most egregious criminals. It is dark in a way the first book was not. Mars might murder her enemies in the way most heroes in large action/adventure science fiction movies and TV shows do, but she does not partake in the sort of torture and cruelty her enemies specialize in, and that is something we see firsthand here.

While I was unsure how I felt about this shift in tone and pacing at first, it is definitely to the story’s benefit. Mars is a main character whose plans do not always turn out the way she foresaw. The line between self-preservation while on the run from objectively evil individuals/government states and committing similar atrocities is one that is blurred, but one Mars must confront. I greatly respect the book for taking the time to delve into this so well. What I expected was another fun romp through space with a main character slowly healing from a lifetime of hurt tracking down her old enemies and exacting revenge with a few bumps in the road. This? This was not what I expected, and it was wonderful because of that.

If you don’t like darker stories that include things like torture, this might not be for you. Nothing in here was particularly bloody or gory – no more than the first book at any rate. But the darkness, the psychological torture, and the palpable sense of fear in sections might not be something for every reader, so do be warned if you think this might not be for you.

I do wish we saw just a little more of some of the other side characters. Yet, because of the book’s first person narrative, that was largely impossible. Hopefully we will get more story with Squid and Pale in the next novella.

Speaking of the next novella in the Voidwitch Saga, I am absolutely going to be reading it. I cannot wait to know how this wraps up. There are a number of subplots that haven’t been wrapped up yet, but are edging closer to a conclusion, and while I want to say that I feel like I knew where the story is going those same ideas proved to be totally wrong in relation to this book. In all, I would definitely recommend reading Void Black Shadow by Corey J. White and the Voidwitch Saga overall.

I received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This review was originally found on Looking Glass Reads, a book review blog.

You know what I like? Space adventures. You know what I also like? All powerful magical type characters. So, obviously, when a surprise copy Killing Gravity fell into my lap I made sure to read it immediately. Killing Gravity by Corey J. White is a fast paced, fun story about an all-powerful voidwitch.

Killing Gravity is the story of Mariam Xi, a woman who escaped the organization known as MEPHISTO after being subjected to years of experimentation which turned into a super-soldier, a voidwitch. Now they’re closing in on her, and a reliable source has evidence that someone from her past has sold her out. With her experimental probably-a-cat named Seven she must find the traitor and outrun the people who will stop and nothing to get her back.

The story is told from Mars’s point of view as she travels the cosmos, running from the people who turned her into a super-soldier. I liked Mars, and I liked hearing the story in her voice. She is a rather unreliable narrator, at least in certain sections. While Mars successfully escaped MEPHISTO, the group which experimented on her resulting in the witch-like abilities she has, she doesn’t necessarily know what her powers are, how exactly she taps into them, or what MEPHISTO wants with her. There are also sections where Mars finally remembers long forgotten parts of her childhood, but the circumstances under which she does the remembering are suspect. Did she remember correctly, or was what she saw simply a drug induced vision? Mars seems certain, but there’s still an element of uncertainty.

There are a number of side characters who weave in and out of story, all of whom were fascinating in their own right. Glimpses into some of their pasts are given, and I found myself wanting to know more about them. I would gladly read stories about the crew of the Nova and their past exploits.

This novella is quite fast paced. There is very little downtime in the story. Mars is always moving, dead set on reaching her goal and staying out of the hands of MEPHISTO. There are no dull slow sections. A rather broad range of locations are visited, and while the majority of those locations are ships and space stations, we do visit a very interesting swamp planet. Boring is definitely not a word I would use to describe this story.

Yet for all of its fast pacing and action sequences not everything was explained. I didn’t expect answers to everything, especially considering this is a series. But I would have appreciated a little more information about certain things. For example, the voidwitches are susceptible to mental conditioning, but nearly none of Mars’s would be captors use or even seem to know about this. Still, I look forward to the next book in the series and discovering more possible answers.

I absolutely devoured Killing Gravity by Corey J. White. It was fun, fast paced, and blended together some of my favorite speculative fiction elements. I am definitely looking forward to picking up a copy of sequel, Void Black Shadow, which has recently released.

I received this novella from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This review originally found on Looking Glass Reads.

This review and others posted over at my blog.

Not only was this a fantastic follow-up to Killing Gravity, but this book exceeded my expectations and the ending really threw me for a loop!

Mars – lovable, smart-mouthed, powerful, thieving, murderous Mars – is back and I’m in love. I’m a fan of fucked-up antiheroes, so it didn’t take long for Mars to worm her way into my heart. She makes rash decisions, has incredible telekinetic powers that she uses to murder hoards of people, but she’s got some morals in there and she’s stuck by her new friends because it’s the right thing to do but also because inside she’s secretly really lonely.

You need to read the first book before you read this one, because the plot picks up where the first leaves off. The gang needs to save Mookie and he’s been banished to a prison planet, due to the fact that he went AWOL years before – but he was only caught because Mars was taken in by Squid and his crew. Mars harbors a lot of guilt over that and decides the best way to break Mookie out of prison is to land herself in a cell.

The plot kept up a good pace and I loved watching (er, mentally visualizing) Mars friggen destroy everything around her. We meet a few more members of MEPHISTO to hate and get a look at another planet. The ending also kicked my ass. I kept trying to guess how Mars would fix everything and I’ll tell you right now, I was wrong, dead wrong. This book took some hard turns and they felt natural and right (well, in an awful way for the characters.)

If you liked the first book and you like prison breaks, I think you’ll like this book. If you’re interested in prison breaks and telekinetic space witches, then you should check out the series. I’m so upset I have to wait for November for more!

This review and others posted over at my blog.

Novellas are getting harder for me to talk about. They’re so short, I feel restricted in what I can discuss for fear of giving away the entire story. And I always say “they’re too short!” about ones I enjoy. Killing Gravity is no different. It was over too soon and I wanted more!

Mars is a boss ass bitch with some awesome telekinetic-ish powers. Who doesn’t want to read about a powerful space witch!? (If you don’t, get outta here!)

This book gave me some Angry Planet vibes, but like, in a darker way and I’m about it. Also, Mars has an adorable friggen pet, Seven. I mean, every witch needs a familiar, right? I want my own Seven – she seems like she’d be way more cuddly and adoring than my two cats.

I really don’t know what to say about this book without giving away major details. I liked the characters, I liked the plot and I like the world. There’s a bit of LGBT+ rep going on too. I wish this was a full-length novel because it felt a little unresolved (not that full-length novels don’t have cliffhanger endings too).

If you like space adventures, violent fights, kick-ass women, cute animals, evil corps that manipulate people for their own evil gains and sassy AI then I’m thinking you’ll enjoy Killing Gravity. I’m certainly going to read on!