The Rosewater Redemption, by Tade Thompson

This series is definitely not perfect. You have to adjust your expectations as you go along. Overall I'd say it's loosely written and feels kind of out of control in places. But if you can just kind of roll with it and enjoy the point of view, it ends up working pretty well.

The final installment begins with Oyin Da, aka Bicycle Girl, and through the book we get more of her story. She is definitely the most confusing character in the bunch, doing some kind of low tech time travel for her part of the story, phasing in and out of people's lives through the xenosphere, the aliens' pervasive communication scheme. But the rest of the bunch--Femi the operative, Aminat the heroic agent, Jacque Jacques the highly complex politician, and Kaaro the sensitive sensitive--really grew on me with this last installment. There are several other characters I didn't name that get their own line and personality, so in that sense the work is very well balanced.

There's a whole lot of action throughout, which really kept me reading. I thought several times during my reading that there is a movie script here--the characters are described as very attractive and it seems like the visuals would be interesting. But capturing the plot would be kind of hard, since there's so much going on.

Some reviewers were pretty bothered by the plot inconsistencies, and it made the ending less satisfying for them. But I have to say I liked how he wrapped things up. Yes it is consciously done, in a chapter called "Reprise", but that doesn't mean it's too simple.

Overall I'm glad I chose to persist and finish this series. There's a lot of fun to be had reading it, and some interesting ideas there as well.

My Goodreads Review

The Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex, by Tobias S. Bucknell

This is a fun short read--about Earth being discovered by alien species, most of whom are more advanced than we are, so Earth becomes mainly useful as a tourist attraction.  The major cities are mostly geared around providing habitats and merchandise for curious aliens.  It would be bad if something happened to disrupt that...

Bucknell's description of future cities as tourist attractions rings true now--worldwide, the major cities for tourism are starting to resemble each other pretty closely, with large areas given over to tourist management, and even managed experiences for people who want to have "more authentic" experiences.  Good stuff.

Late Returns, by Joe Hill

Late Returns is part of Hill's Full Throttle collection, and was nominated for a Locus award for 2020.  It's a time travel story--an old bookmobile seems to have the ability to go back in time and give books from the future to readers that need one last read.  It's a sweet story, not dwelling much on paradox.  Joe Hill even name checks himself (in a Joan Baez song) in the story.  It's a nice way to spend an evening with people that want the best for each other, and find an interesting way to do it.  And of course books about books are always tempting to write.

The Rosewater Insurrection, by Tade Thompson

The first book in the Wormwood Trilogy was a fascinatingly weird setup--there was a lot of ground to cover, and Thompson managed to do it without large blocks of characters lecturing each other or "historical" chapter introductions. The second story is more action-oriented as we see the continuing development of the alien invasion of Earth. The characters are incredibly engaging and complex--there's no one lead, and all of them have their own distinct role and voice in the story. There's plenty of great action to carry it along--I think it's got potential as a movie, if it could avoid getting kitschy over weird alien life.

A very interesting aspect of this is its African setting, in a world where American has gone completely dark and has no present influence. Colonial organization structure lives on, but much more Africanized. This fresh perspective and great action writing are keeping me hooked.

My Goodreads Review