lightreads (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lightreads) wrote2026-05-18 04:29 pm
lightreads) wrote2026-05-18 04:29 pm
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Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman
Operation Bounce House
3/5. Standalone scifi about a twenty-something loser dude on a colony planet who has to face off against mechs piloted by privileged Earth kids who have been duped into wiping out his population.
In a stroke of bad luck, my library hold for this came in at the same time as I was reading his latest Dungeon Crawler book. Comparing the two is unfortunate. They are interested in a lot of the same things – AI as menace and companion, the little guy fighting back against corporatized violence as entertainment, communities working together. But this standalone lacks the depth and complexity his series has accumulated, to say nothing of the charm. I mean, let’s be real here, Carl is not my favorite protagonist. But compared to our narrator here, he is a work of Joycean complexity. Our narrator here has a terminal case of get out of the way so the far more interesting women around you can make this story go. At one point, he’s moaning about how he just can’t commit to his girlfriend, and he’s like “maybe it’s because she’s too good for me.” Buddy. That’s the first insightful thing you’ve said in 50,000 words.
Anyway, I could also complain about how this book doesn’t manage that tricky swing from comedy to war violence, or how it doesn’t know how to land this story that is kind of about chickens and pigs and kind of about social media and kind of about a terrible band, oh and also about how to turn a bunch of nice colony farm kids into terrorists.
Look, it’s entertaining enough, but read Dungeon Crawler instead.
Content notes: Violence, massacres.
3/5. Standalone scifi about a twenty-something loser dude on a colony planet who has to face off against mechs piloted by privileged Earth kids who have been duped into wiping out his population.
In a stroke of bad luck, my library hold for this came in at the same time as I was reading his latest Dungeon Crawler book. Comparing the two is unfortunate. They are interested in a lot of the same things – AI as menace and companion, the little guy fighting back against corporatized violence as entertainment, communities working together. But this standalone lacks the depth and complexity his series has accumulated, to say nothing of the charm. I mean, let’s be real here, Carl is not my favorite protagonist. But compared to our narrator here, he is a work of Joycean complexity. Our narrator here has a terminal case of get out of the way so the far more interesting women around you can make this story go. At one point, he’s moaning about how he just can’t commit to his girlfriend, and he’s like “maybe it’s because she’s too good for me.” Buddy. That’s the first insightful thing you’ve said in 50,000 words.
Anyway, I could also complain about how this book doesn’t manage that tricky swing from comedy to war violence, or how it doesn’t know how to land this story that is kind of about chickens and pigs and kind of about social media and kind of about a terrible band, oh and also about how to turn a bunch of nice colony farm kids into terrorists.
Look, it’s entertaining enough, but read Dungeon Crawler instead.
Content notes: Violence, massacres.