Tanitha's Cosmic Musings

We all have books that we DNF (Did Not Finish). Just because I did not like a book, and DNF’d it, it does not mean that the book in itself is bad. It means that the book was not for me. Some people may have enjoyed that book more than I did; that is absolutely fine. This post contains my opinion, and my opinion only. So, please take it with a pinch of salt as they say. And let me know in the comments if you read any of these, if you agree or disagree with me. But please be respectful. We all have different tastes, and one book you liked it may not have resonated with me the same way.

First book I DNF’d in 2025 is Blood and Feathers by Lou Morgan. The premise of the book sounded right up my alley, and I had high hopes for this. But it utterly disappointed me. Every time the writer wanted to progress the story, the FMC, Alice, had a temper tantrum. And voila she learned something or did something that showed her powers. Every damn time.
At some point, I was forcing myself to read it, because it was the book for March 2025 for my local science fiction and fantasy book club. But when a writer makes a battle between heaven and hell, sound boring, that is the moment I thought, I cannot read this anymore. I finally let go and DNF’d this at 70%.
Sorry but this was not even entertaining.

Then we have the Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley. Again a DNF at around 70%. Because up to that point, nothing was happening. I did not care about the characters, I did not see if this was going anywhere. I do not like books where the main plot resolves in the last 50-60 pages and the rest is filler. This is what I sensed from this book. I also went and read more about the writing style of Natasha Pulley, and she just does the same thing. I want to read something that is not filler 50-60% of the book. This book could be a novella, and nothing would be lost. And it might be more interesting.

Why did that book, “I, Starship”, even get chosen by my book club? Fortunately, we saw the light and we dropped it. I read the first 3-4 chapters and could not read any more. Every conversation in this book was cringe worthy. Not to mention that every character was either patronising to another character; or they were angry for some reason; or worst of all they were both patronizing and angry. Not to mention the chapter at the restaurant which was totally unnecessary and absolutely did not make much sense. Do not make the mistake of picking up this book, it is not worth it.

Another book club pick. Yes this year, they have picked some actual duds. The Space Between Us by Doug Johnstone. It could have been more interesting. It had telepathic space octopi! And it was not good, such a disappointment. This one I DNF’d quite early, at around 40%. The plot was somewhat decent (space octopi), but the characters were, not just stereotypical, but very badly written. The book also uses cliches, like men in black pursuing our characters, or the journalist that wants to help and our characters don’t trust him. I do like the cliches and tropes, but they have to be well concocted with interesting characters. This was not even close. After the first few chaptes, when the plot starts to unravel, it becomes tedious. I could not care less what happened to the characters.

I bought “The Necromouser” by Mary E Lowd, thinking it would be a nice funny short book with cats in a sort of fantasy setting. I was wrong on all counts. It was awful, it was anything but funny, nothing in the story made any sense. This was bad, really really bad writing.
This is about a cat in modern day that discovers about necromantic powers that some gadgets have or maybe it is them. Anyways, there is absolutely no sense in how/why they have these powers. Suddenly the printer can bring a mouse back to life, some phones can make zombies… There is no sense of world building, no sense in what happens… It was as if someone wrote this with GenAI… which would not be surprising.
I later learned and saw that the author, Mary E Lowd, has used AI slop to create some (if not all) of her covers and is a proponent of AI slop…
Needless to say that I absolutely will not be reading any more of her works.

Another read for the book club that I DNF’d. I do not even know how this won a Nebula, a Hugo and a Locus award for best novel!
The only plus that this book has is the description of the Ringworld. And Larry Niven may have been the first one to discuss one of these structures, but there are other writers who have done a much better job in writing books that feature such constructs.
The story is just a basic exploration story: alien people discover this, but they come from a “race of cowards” and need some others to go and find out what this is and whether the people living there are friendly or not.
The main character, Louis, is totally unlikeable, the know it all and can do all type of person. The Speaker, which comes from a cat like species called the Kzin, is the classic brawler warrior, who thinks that they are superior because they can fight and have muscles. Then we have Nessus, who comes from a race called the Puppeteers, and they are a race of cowards. Nessus is probably the most interesting character. And lastly, we have Teela, who apparently is there only because she supposedly has a “luck gene” or some such, but is there as the little pretty of the novel.
There are a lot of stereotypes, the characters are just cardboard, without any depth at all. Especially the main character, Louis Wu, is a stereotypical horny male.
There is a lot of misogyny in this text; and not the kind that you can dismiss because it was written in the 1960s. This is even worse. The Kzin females are non-sentient and they are there just to breed! Only the big muscled males are capable of any sentience. The Puppeteer females are assigned to males for breeding… This is an absolutely misogynistic take on various alien species.
Then, there is a point in the book where Louis says that if Teela wasn’t there , he might rape Nessus. That is the point of no return, especially in a science fiction book, even if it was written in the 1960/1970. I do not understand how that phrase passed the editing stage. You never ever ever bring up rape as a joke. That was the point I stopped reading.
And judging by this book, I will not be reading any other books by Larry Niven. I cannot stomach such misogyny, I cannot stomach rape jokes at all. There are much better books out there.

And we come to a very big disappointment of a book. This is the first in the Graven series by Essa Hansen, called Nophek Gloss. I was expecting so much more from this book, and I was absolutely disappointed.
What I loved in this book, is the world building. The description of how these universes work, how people can go from one universe to another, and can go to any planet in universes. That each universe has different physical laws… The world building was absolutely fantastic. And, despite DNFing this book/series, I am open to reading others in the same universe. I love the book titles as well.
I did like the main story in general. I loved how this book opens; in fact in the opening chapters, I thought that this book is going to be amazing. In the first chapters, Essa hansen has everything to create a wonderful story. And maybe the story would be good.
But, I could not get past the main character Caiden/Winn. I could not get past the temper tantrums, the anger, how he acts. He is angry most of the time, and everything he does, he does out of anger and spite. The actions of Caiden/Winn, most of the time, are totally cringe worthy and give me the ick. It is like he is addicted to doing everything the wrong way and never damn listening to anything someone with more experience and sense tell him. Caiden/Winn is written as an awful brat that runs on angry.
Also, some of the dialogue is written like the book is addressed to a 7-8 year old, and not to adults, or young adults.
I stopped reading because I could not care less what happened to the main character.

If you have read any of these books, please let me know your thoughts in the comments. As I said, these are my opinions, and my opinions only.

I wish everyone a Merry Christmas.