Rosh's Reviews

AUTHOR: Suzanne Palmer GENRE: Science Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: May 26, 2026 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A post-apocalyptic science fiction. Great intent, but flawed execution. Interesting characters but with poor detailing. A slow-moving plot with hardly any action. Unexplored subplots, hazy world-building, abrupt ending. Confused about whether it wants to be cozy or dark. I was mostly bored except at the start. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: An old robot wakes up in a bathtub with a missing leg and with no recollection of how they landed there. There’s no one around except a cyborg dog named Atticus. Atticus helps the robot find some help, but the robot suspects a wicked intention behind whoever vandalised them and realises that they have to look for the thief. With Atticus’ assistance, they set out on a journey that will involve not just an interaction with various characters but also a navigation of the memories of the past and coming to terms with them. The story com...

AUTHOR: Bruce Holsinger NARRATORS: Stacy Carolan and January LaVoy GENRE: Contemporary Dystopian Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: July 8, 2025 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A contemporary drama about a family whose life changes after an accident. Interesting representation of technology (specifically AI) and its impact on real-life issues. Goes overboard on subplots and secrets. I expected to like it better given my antipathy towards excessive AI reliance, but the OTT drama and the annoying lead character were a turnoff. This is an outlier review. Plot Preview: The Cassidy-Shaw’s self-driving minivan gets into an accident when seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, his father Noah is next to him working on his laptop, and his mother Lorelei (a renowned expert on AI ethics) and tween sisters Alice and Izzy are in the backseat busy with their own phones. The accident results in the deaths of the two people in the other car. Who is to blame for their deaths? The situation gets fur...

AUTHOR: Annalee Newitz GENRE: Dystopian Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: August 5, 2025 RATING: 2.75 stars. In a Nutshell: A sci-fi dystopian novella set in the near future. Quirky robot characters. A whimsical storyline that is dark and cosy in turn. Goes overboard on the preachy themes and agenda. Lopsided in its allegory. Contains a subtle equivalence between robots and immigrants/enslaved people – weird. Suspension of disbelief and doubts necessary to enjoy the book better. Plot Preview: 2064. San Francisco, Independent California. A group of food service robots find themselves abandoned in a ghost kitchen. With no human around and with a desperate need to keep things going, they decide to take over their delivery app account, rebrand their food service, and serve the best authentic hand-pulled noodles in town. Just when it seems like they will be successful in their endeavour, someone starts review-bombing them, and worse, not all the one-star reviews are exactly false. Can the robots s...

AUTHOR: Glenn Dixon GENRE: Dystopian Science Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: April 7, 2026 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future technological fiction. A fair mix of human and appliance characters. Liked the humans, loved the appliances. Creative plot but confused execution. Didn't expect it to be so dystopian and sombre in tone. Too many themes. A few unclarified plot loopholes. Could have been fabulous with a better, streamlined structure. Recommended but not a must-read. Plot Preview: (This preview goes beyond the initial 10-15% as the story is somewhat slow to get going.) In the near-future, retired senior citizens Harold and Edie live in a smart house where the appliances are sentient enough to handle everything for them with the help of the omnipresent and omniscient Grid. Their little Roomba vacuum, who wants to be called Scout after enjoying one of the classics Harold read to the terminally ill Edie on her bed, longs for a greater human connection with her owners but the ...

AUTHOR: Yume Kitasei NARRATOR: Eunice Wong GENRE: Science Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: September 30, 2025 RATING: 3.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future literary eco-thriller about two sisters who go on an epic sea journey to search for their missing third sister. Character-oriented, decent pacing. Interesting plotline and characters, great worldbuilding. Three sections, with the impact of each going steadily downwards. A good option that sadly misses out on the chance to be great. Plot Preview: In a world ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, twenty-two-year-old Skipper, a skilled sailor, makes a meagre living by reselling plastic debris she finds in the ocean. Though the youngest of three sisters, Skipper lives alone with her grandmother, who isn't that kind to her. Then Skipper learns that her eldest sister Nora is missing. Nora had left home a decade ago to work with an organisation focussing on a solution to the global food crisis. Nora has been Skipper’s idol for a lon...

AUTHOR: Megha Majumdar NARRATOR: Soneela Nankani GENRE: Dystopian Fiction PUBLICATION DATE: October 14, 2025 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A near-future literary dystopian novel set in India. Character-oriented, steady-paced (but not fast). True to present reality despite being set in an unknown future time. Excellent exploration of human behaviour. Much recommended. Not for those looking for light, relaxing stories. Plot Preview: Near-future Kolkata, India. Ma, her two-year-old daughter Mishti and Ma’s elderly father Dadu have to stay just a few days more in their climate-battered city with its heat and food shortage. They have finally procured their climate-approved visas, and a week later, they will join Ma’s husband in Michigan USA. To their horror, the next morning, Ma’s purse is stolen, and with it have gone their visa-stamped passports. Can Ma somehow find those valuable documents before their flight? The story is set over the course of one week, and comes to us in parallel...

AUTHOR: Cherry Zong GENRE: Graphic Novel PUBLICATION DATE: January 13, 2026 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: An upper-YA graphic novel loosely derived from the fairytale of "Little Red Riding Hood." Not a retelling. Decent story but too meandering. Interesting characters, but not everyone is explored well. A good read, but could have been shorter and better. Plot Preview: Nineteen-year-old Red, a skilled hunter, has devoted her entire life to helping her grandmother, a witch trying to save the forest they live in from a strange rot that keeps spreading despite their efforts. Red's task is to locate the creatures known as ‘nawa’, kill them, and take their bodies to her grandmother for exorcism and deliverance. With no other humans still living in the forest, Red is quite lonely. But one day, she bumps into an injured wolf-girl named Sil. As the two of them move towards a hesitant friendship, Red uncovers some dark secrets about everything she's known. I'm not that f...

AUTHOR: Juhea Kim GENRE: Short Story Collection PUBLICATION DATE: November 20, 2025 RATING: 3.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A story collection set in various eras and locations. The resilience of humans and the destruction of the planet are the common themes. Intriguing storylines, flawed characters, slow-paced character-oriented narratives. Mixed feelings about the endings. A good collection, but not for all. Author Juhea Kim is known for her two historical fiction novels. This is her first short story collection. The ten stories herein span multiple eras (from historical to futuristic) and countries. There is no foreword introducing the theme of the collection, but it soon becomes clear that the stories have two things in common: broken people and a broken world. The ‘broken people’ aspect is quite significant in this character-oriented collection. Each character is either flawed in some way or misused by others. They are a product of their own nurturing (or lack thereof) as well as of th...

AUTHOR: Jacqueline Harpman TRANSLATOR: Ros Schwartz GENRE: Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic. PUBLICATION DATE: January 1, 1995 RATING: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A brilliant post-apocalyptic fiction about a group of women in a deserted world. Innovative plotline, excellent character development, vivid imagery, thought-provoking writing. A fabulous combination of bleakness and hope. No closure. Much recommended, though not to all. Plot Preview: An unknown time. An unknown place. An underground bunker where forty women reside. They have no memories of how they got there, or of how long they have been there. Most have minimal memories of their lives before this endless, monotonous captivity. The only exception is a teenaged girl who has absolutely no recollection of ever being outside the bunker, and hence doesn’t even know what the others are missing. When an opportunity presents itself for a change, this young girl is the first one to grab it, acting as the beacon of hope for future survival...

AUTHOR: Suzanne Collins NARRATOR: Jefferson White SERIES: The Hunger Games, #0.5 GENRE: YA Dystopian Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: March 18, 2025 RATING: 4.5 stars. In a Nutshell: The fifth book in the Hunger Games series, second in chronological order. Focusses on the 50th Hunger games and its winner, Haymitch Abernathy. Gets everything right from characters to plot to action to emotions to continuity. I am so thrilled one of my favourite characters of the HG universe got this fabulous book. If only it could have been happier, but we know it’s not possible. Much recommended. Read this only after reading the earlier four books. Plot Preview: On Haymitch’s 16th birthday, he wants to spend some time with the girl he loves. Unfortunately, his birthday is the same date as the Reaping. This year’s games are special. As the 50th edition of the hunger games, the Quarter Quell will have double the number of tributes from each district. Haymitch hopes against hope that his name won't be chosen...

AUTHOR: Suzanne Collins NARRATOR: Santino Fontana SERIES: The Hunger Games, #0 GENRE: YA Dystopian Fiction. PUBLICATION DATE: May 19, 2020 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: A prequel to the acclaimed Hunger Games trilogy. Villain-origin story of Coriolanus Snow. Excellent continuity from here to the main book series. Works well in its purpose but boring at times, especially in the second half where the “romance” seems to dominate the action. A good option if you want a psychological study of the future President Snow and expect a character-driven storyline than an action-driven one. Plot Preview: It’s a big day in the Capitol: the day of the Reaping that will start off the 10th Hunger Games. Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus is determined to excel in his role as the student-mentor to one of the tributes. If he wins the accolades, he can probably restore some name and money to the once-powerful house of Snow, which has fallen on hard times. The odds aren’t in Coriolanus’s favour. He is assign...

AUTHOR: Emily Buchanan GENRE: Contemporary Dystopian. PUBLICATION DATE: July 1, 2025 RATING: 3 stars. In a Nutshell: Partly, a romance-drama about an influencer who thinks that her dead boyfriend has been reincarnated as a plant. Partly, a near-future dystopian climate fiction. (Could you guess the second genre from the cover?) Not a light read. Somewhat unlikeable characters, slow-ish pacing, a bit bizarre and meandering in its plot development. Highlights the perils of social media, but also portrays environmentalists in a slightly lopsided manner. Mixed feelings, not just because the plot didn’t go the way I thought it would. Plot Preview: Thirty-two-year-old Fiona, popular online as @FoliageFifi, hasn’t left her house ever since her boyfriend Ed died three months ago. All that she had worked for – her role as a green influencer on social media as well as the environmental activism she did jointly with Ed, is now ignored. When a houseplant is left at her doorstep with an anonymous n...