#published 2018

Artificial Condition: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

I adore Murderbot, both the character and the series. I found myself missing Mensah, but ART was such a great addition. I’ll miss ART as well. Hoping some of these characters make reappearances.

Murderbot itself continues to have the human experience, both good and bad, as it goes off into the universe to explore its new found autonomy. Answers to questions can be found, but aren’t always satisfying. Humans are baffling. Bots are also similarly baffling.

Book 1 was more of an adrenaline rush than this book, but I loved both. This felt like a very natural progression to the story. This one kept hitting me in the feelings. Murderbot is probably going to end up on my list of favorite characters of all time at this rate.

submitted by: anonymous

Reset (215989 words) by scotchplaid Chapters: 23/23 Fandom: Warehouse 13 Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells Characters: Myka Bering, Helena "H. G." Wells, Pete Lattimer, Claudia Donovan, Irene Frederic Summary: Set several years after the end of Season 5, this fic sees the return of H.G. Wells to Warehouse 13. The Warehouse and, by extension, the world is under threat, and H.G. is the only one who can save it. However, in order to set the world right, she has to fix all that has gone wrong in her life, starting with Myka . . . .

Please tell us why you like this fic so much!

Well written fix-it, set several years after the end of season 5. It has adventure, mystery, humor, angst and everything that we could want in a fanfiction

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It was an easy read, but it just felt so generic. Nothing about the setting or characters really drew me in, and there’s a big chunk of the book where barely anything happens. A lot of stuff threatens to happen, and the main character is afraid of stuff happening, but not much actually does. Or, I should say not much happens to the main character - everyone else seems to be living in a more interesting book that we don't get to read.

I also didn’t really believe the love between the main character and her love interest. Probably because neither felt like enough of a real person to me, and there were so many time skips. We're told their relationship and feelings develop, but we're rarely shown.

MOD NOTE: Contains explicit smut, further details under cut

A TMNT Fanfiction One-Shot by CJtheStoryteller

*Story Summary: He had watched his invention selflessly save them all. So why does Donatello still feel as though he failed everyone?

*Note: This one-shot that takes place after the episode 'Metalhead Rewired.'

*Special Note: This story is dedicated to my immensely talented friend, @donnies-toaster-strudel (aka Crimson-Eyes26).

*Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

Promises Broken

I can hear the distinct roar of laughter outside my lab. The heavy metal doors separating me from the rest of the world are doing little more than soften the voices I’m desperately trying to escape.

Pffft! Sound-proof, my shell…

The echo of amusement hanging in the air is the equivalent of pouring salt in an open wound. I know that my brothers aren’t deliberately trying to hurt me. They’re merely recapping the strange events of the night for our father and one can’t help but to chuckle whenever my baby brother puts his colorful spin on things, but the sound of their merriment burns nevertheless.

Sinking deeper into my chair, I stare down at the reason for my rather gloomy mood. A pair of trapezoid eyes staring back at me, cold and dead. My fingertips absently trace the contours of his lifeless face and the brief contact makes a lump start to solidify in my throat.

In the back of my mind, I can still see the light flickering out of those now-black eyes and it makes a fresh round of tears start to prick my own.

Despite my best efforts to stifle a sob, a small squeak, not unlike a hiccup, slips past my defenses. As if of its own accord, my right hand flies up to smother what’s left of the noise that I gulp back down.

Not that anyone would hear it…

Not them.

Certainly not him...

Click here to keep reading ‘Promises Broken’ …

Click here to read my TMNT stories on FanFiction

Exit Strategy: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

Book 4. This was SO good! My favorite of them so far. I spent the last half of the book basically on my bed, kicking my feet like a teenager texting their crush while reading it. Very glad to come back around to the Preservation crew again.

This expanded on what was already known about Mensah as a character, which was nice. And also had so much development for Murderbot itself. MB is such an unreliable narrator of it’s own experience, but it’s done is such a way that it’s easy to see the cracks in it’s own perception, which adds so much dimension to the character.

This felt like a good wrap up to the story arc that was set up in All Systems Red. Excited to see what happens in the next book. Would love to see a return of ART.

Per online recommendations, going to jump into Fugitive Telemetry next and then do Network Effect after. Actually, I already read the short story, Home, immediately after. But for sure next is FT.

Vengeful by V. E. Schwab

The sequel to Vicious. Each book in this series seems to have one quarter that’s slower and more difficult to get through. For Vengeful, it’s the first quarter. Afterwards the book really hits its stride and doesn’t come back down.

The Januaries hit hard this year, so reading has been difficult. But I managed to stick to reading every day, even if just a few pages. This was the first book to finally pull me out of the slump a bit. The prose is an easy read, and the very short chapters make it easily digestible. My only issue is the early chapters jump around in the timeline a lot. While each is clearly labeled, I still had trouble keeping track of when each chapter was.

The plot picks up with our main characters from book one. Sydney is growing up. Victor is suffering the consequences of dying. Mitch is around. Eli is having an exceptionally bad time. Some new characters are introduced. I’m still unclear about the actual character of one of them, June, aside from a convenient plot device. The other, Marcella, is kind of lost in the first quarter but becomes rather interesting in the rest.

While the main characters (mostly) remain the “villains” in this book, they are somehow not the most horrifying or terrifying people in the book.

The book was engaging and exactly the kind of light adrenaline rush I needed right now, even if it’s not a book that I’ll find myself returning to for a reread, or that will live rent free in my head. But it’s a good series, I might read more by this author.

“Normal is overrated. Spoken like someone who didn’t have to work so hard at it. Who hadn’t needed normal to survive.”

submitted by: anonymous

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Natural Phenomena (17863 words) by beyondthesea Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: Warehouse 13 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Myka Bering/Helena "H. G." Wells Characters: Myka Bering, Helena "H. G." Wells, Pete Lattimer, Claudia Donovan, Steve Jinks Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Storm Chasers Summary: There's nothing as lonely and volatile as the Great Plains in late spring, except for, perhaps, the woman standing at the bar, but that's what draws Myka to tornadoes and it's also what draws her to Helena.

Please tell us why you like this fic so much!

A good AU with our traumatized heroines about a field I didn’t know much before

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