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An excellent book on the continuing adventures of a young Ada Byron (later to be Countess of Lovelace) and young Mary Shelly who, breaking all kinds of Victorian rules, set up a detective agency together and proceed to solve crimes. In this story, Lady Mary Sommerville asks them to investigate the pending marriage of a young girl to a peer who seems very anxious to get his hands on her family's fortune. Also involved is a mysterious girl in grey seen running in the streets that may be related to the case. If you pay attention to the story, you may be able to figure out the solution one step ahead of the girls, but not by much.

This is the second book in the series that plays a what-if with Ada and Mary, born years apart in reality, were about the same age, met and set up a detective agency with the help of young Charles Dickens and, in this book, their sisters. It's a fascinating scenario and quite well done. You also see young girls who, acting against Victorian norms, set out to do something instead of acting like 'damsels in distress'.

I look forward to reading the next book in the series, with hints dropped by the author in this book, of even bigger events to happen in the universe of the Wollstonecraft Detective Agency.

One of the few non-SFF stories I've read, mainly due to the premise that it revolves around a bookshop. It is an interesting book, told from the first-person perspective of the young niece of the bookshop's owner, and mainly involves the relationship between the niece and her uncle, but with a few books thrown in.

At the start of the book, the niece breaks off her relationship with a co-worker, and moves to live at the bookshop at the invitation of her uncle to recover emotionally. At first, all she does is take care of the shop and sleep. But she gradually opens up after reading books from the shop, and starts to go out into the surroundings, which is famous in Japan as a second-hand bookshop area. She meets and interacts with various residents, getting to know them.

But she has not fully recovered from the break-up, and needs a push from her uncle to do so. She also discovers that her uncle also has secrets from his past, especially over the uncle's wife (the niece's aunt), which disappeared years ago, but suddenly reappears into the uncle's life. It would need a trip with the aunt to discover what happened in the past and the estrangement that occurred between the uncle and aunt. And now, it would be her turn to return to favour and push the uncle and aunt to reconcile.

In short, an enjoyable read about people who bond over books, with some interesting characters and relationships that revolve around books and the people who write and read them.

A story that merges Chinese-style SF with a high stake meeting with aliens that doesn't quite meet the expectations of this reader. The blend of martial arts with futuristic tech is there, but the story's characters and situations didn't really pull me into the story.

The story evolves around one girl who continues the work started by her father, figuring out that much of the advances by human civilizations in the past was driven by periodic visits by aliens. Now, another one is due, and she is determined to go and meet the aliens.

But her plans are complicated by the involvement of two antagonistic men: one is wealthy, with commercial connections through his family, the other is a military AI leader who wants his own Pacific League to triumph over the Atlantic Alliance. Together, through cooperation and rivalry, they will set out together to meet the aliens, survive a test of their skills before the meeting, and then manoeuvrer through the political and military alliances on Earth to present the potential 'upgrade' of humanity peacefully, and for everybody.

While the book is brimming with ideas, the presentation of the science and technology, especially from the aliens, is somewhat clunky, with info dumps that bring the story to a halt while the characters (and the reader) digests the implications. The motivation of the characters are also presented in chunks, which didn't really let me 'get into' the characters as the story progressed.

Thus, this is a book that has a promising premise, but somewhat let down by the way the story is presented by the author.

A fascinating book and a topic that may be easily misunderstood: the application of quantum mechanics to computing. The author does not shy away from the maths of linear algebra and matrix computations, but if you stick with it and work through or think about the maths, you'll get a better understanding of how quantum computing works, instead of getting a 'hand-wavy' non-mathematical view.

The book starts with the basics of quantum mechanics: how the act of measurement alters the properties of a quantum object like light (photons) or electrons. Next, linear algebra and matrix computations are introduced and it is probably best for the reader to work through or become familiar with this, or much of the rest of the book will be incomprehensible. Next, the mathematics are then used to show how measurements of quantum objects cause them to take on the measured states: this is the 'shut up and calculate' form of quantum mechanics, where not much is said about what quantum mechanics is, but only about what it does.

Using mathematics, the author then shows what happens when two particles are entangled and their states measured. He carefully shows how measuring the state of one entangled particle 'instantaneously' causes another particle to take another known state, and why this does not lead to 'faster than light' communication. He also shows the calculations on how Bell's Inequality shows that quantum entanglement is real and not a due to a 'hidden variables' form involving classical particles.

The author then switches topics to introduce logic gates, which leads to the topic of quantum gates. Again, mathematics is used to show how such quantum gates work. These quantum gates are then combined to produce quantum circuits which are then used to show how 'superdense coding' and quantum teleportation work.

Finally, the work culminates by looking at quantum algorithms and how they achieve 'better' results than classical algorithms. Finally, a brief look at how quantum computers could perform better than their classical counterparts is given.

A fun prequel to the author's previous book, this one concerns the adventures of Viv the Orc when she was just starting out in the 'hack and slash' business with a group of mercenaries. Injured during a battle against a necromancer, Viv is bundled off to recover in a seaside town in the middle of nowhere.

With nothing else to do, Viv wanders into a bookshop, where she discovers an owner with a very discerning eye for readers, who recommends to her a series of books that Viv is startled to discover she enjoys. Viv then returns the favour by helping the owner to clean up the shop and help advertise it to visitors. Viv also gets acquainted with the owner of a bakery, which turns into a summer fling while she waits to rejoin the mercenaries.

Things take a dark turn when a creepy visitor turns up at the town, leading to a fight between the visitor and Viv. This would begin a series of events that would lead the necromancer Viv was fighting to the town, and it would need all of Viv and her friends' bravery to put an end to the necromancer.

The book might be called a 'cozy fantasy', as the story is more about friendships and romance, rather than heroics and fights, the usual tropes in fantasy stories. It is also a good lead-up to the author's previous book, showing the readers more about Viv's background as a fighter and why she eventually chooses to quit it and turn to running a coffee shop instead. It also shows a fantasy world where people are not judged by what they are (an orc, dwarf, elf, etc.) but by their actions. And, of course, interspecies romance would be in the air.

A light and fun read.

An average issue, with interesting stories by H.H. Pak, Caroline M. Yoachim, S.B. Divya and Luc Diamant.

• "Twenty-Four Hours" by H.H. Pak: a mother spends one day with her daughter, who is part of a war effort. As the story progresses, things don't start to add up, but it is only at the end is the true nature of the mother and daughter's connection revealed as the mother bids farewell.

• "Our Chatbots Said "I Love You," Shall We Meet?" by Caroline M. Yoachim: a girl is dreading her first meeting with a potential partner: but their AI chatbots have been having conversations with each other for ages and think they make a good match. It would require her to overcome her 'first date' nerves to learn if what the chatbots say is true.

• "Artistic Encounters of a Monumental Nature" by S.B. Divya: a graffiti artist and her team plan to get a viral hit by painting a mural (with environmentally neutral paint) in a nature reserve. But their plan gets aborted when an unusual monument springs up in the area. Their decision to go ahead with the mural, but doing on the monument instead, gets the attention of the government, and other artistic beings, when more monuments spring up around the world.

• "The Reflection of Sand" by Tan Gang, translated by Emily Jin: a story about venerated Buddhist caves that have been detached from its geographic location to physically walk the Silk Road and places further. Tied up in the story are discussions on whether the geography, artefacts, etc. in a cultural monument are really what define such places.

• "Himalia" by Carrie Vaughn: on a moon of Jupiter soon to be abandoned by its inhabitants, a returning colonist discovers her best friend is missing. She goes in search of her, hoping to find her before the last ships leave. But by the end, she realizes that her friend may be too attached to the moon to want to abandon it.

• "Bodies" by Cat McMahan: a worker at a factory growing cloned chickens that have been genetically modified for food discovers that some of her co-workers are going missing. As the story progresses, the nature of the people working of the factory is revealed, in this world where only some kind of people can do work.

• "Off Track" by Luc Diamant: a humorous story, told in a series of letters between the school and the parent of an activist student who goes on strike using personal microclimate gear, to help her friend compete in a sports competition.