A fun new outing from the author of the incredible Dungeon Crawler Carl series.
Operation Bounce House follows the fate of some young farmers on the recently(ish) colonised planet New Sonora. Oliver Lewis and his sister are the last surviving members of their family, working with intelligent agriculture bots to keep everything ticking over, one eye on building a future. But then they start getting attacked by remotely operated mechs – the operators young teens on Earth who think they’re wiping terrorists from the planet. Thing is, there are no terrorists, just people who were promised a home. So they fight back against Operation Bounce House, using everything they can, bots and all.
It’s got a younger tone than the DCC series. In fact, the core group of young adults reminded me somewhat of the bloggers in Mira Grant’s Feed/Newsflesh series. It also takes a little while to get going (and for Roger the head bot to become more intriguing), but there are some great ideas bubbling away. Dinniman explores topics like the impact of AI photography on society, greedy corporations, what it means to be human, grief, the list goes on. Plus the ending is incredibly twisty and turny!
Operation Bounce House works well as a standalone novel, though I’d happily go back to find out what happens next on New Sonora. A good, solid SF read – after you’ve read all of Dungeon Crawler Carl!
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