Imgur link goes to Instagram graphic scheduled for June 19th
Blog post goes live June 4th
Will be discussed on Youtube in upcoming wrapup

**TL;DR:** Alice goes down a rabbit hole of Gates to find the home planet of a long lost war machine/AI and gets chased along the way. I have no clear view of the world or how things worked but it was still pretty fun?
**Source**: NetGalley, Thank you to the publisher!!

**Plot**: Alice finds an old AI masquerading as a fancy lava lamp and ends up getting chased and attacked while she hunts down a way to release the mind inside.
**Characters**: We didn’t get a lot of details on many of these characters, primarily we focused on Alice and her journey throughout the novel
**Setting**: I truly wish I could tell you more about the setting and what was happening. Alice is the last human and jumps between worlds via ‘Gates’. She visited so many strange worlds, but nothing was solidly built. Which was very disappointing for the SF fan in me.
**Science Fiction:** As mentioned above this is written much more as ‘science magic’ with very little hard edges to the SF. Don’t come looking for details or explanations.

**Thoughts**:

Unexploded Remnants is a very short, very action packed novella about the last human in the cosmos on the run to protect the sentient mind trapped in a war machine. I’m not entirely sure what I expected going in, but it definitely wasn’t what I got - and I’m not mad at it!

Alice is a the last human, taken in by the Archive, shortly before the death of humanity due to our own folly and infighting. She lives and learns how to barter and trade information and relics with the Archive, a giant alien depository of such things, and has spent centuries of time doing just that. We’re told all of this, not shown it, but Alice utilizes these pre-existing contacts on her journey. She picks up Gunn (as she names him) at a market and is immediately targeted and the chase begins.

My biggest complaint in this novella was the setting, as we didn’t get a enough details to really feel or see the worlds and planets we travelled through. Alice jumps through ‘Gates’ which take her from planet to planet randomly or intentionally depending on what she inputs and she’s never fully lost, just wandering. It definitely felt very Alice in Wonderland in vibes but left me scratching my head and asking questions I don’t like asking. What did she eat? What about a poo? It was very fast and light on details which pulled me out.

When I was able to ignore my questions and spats of confusion, the story was good! I was very intrigued. This is the rare novella for me that I think actually suffered from not being longer. This could easily have been a novel, especially with the themes that Elaine Gallagher was attempting to explore. A full length novel with just this premise? I would eat that like candy. As a novella it was fun, but a bit lacking.

3.5 out of 5 cleaning gels (that was strange, TBH)

Thank you Tor and Netgalley for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am obsessed with this??? I considered giving it 4.5 stars simply because I’m frustrated it’s not longer, not part of a series, not something I can lose myself in for longer than the hour and a half it took me to read it. But it’s just too good not to give a full 5 stars.

We follow Alice, a trans woman and the last human, and her quest to save a sentient being from the weapon he was designed to be. I wanted to know so much more about Alice’s past, about how she got to where she is, about her life on Earth. She’s such a compelling character and she was so easy to love right from the start.

And gosh, this story has so much heart and soul. Alice is such a beautiful person, so full of live and love and compassion and adventure. She never once gives up on Gunn, not even when he upsets her. Because she understands it’s not his fault and she just wants to help. Her big speech to him at the end was so damn beautiful. Doctor Who level inspiring, compassionate speech-giving.

I adored her relationship with Tegral. This was another thing I wanted so much more of. Their past, their future, all of it leaves so much open to explore. But what we did see was so beautiful, so loving and understanding. It made me feel all soft and fuzzy.

I really hope we get more of this character and this world from Gallagher.

If you’re a fan of Becky Chambers, I definitely recommend giving this one a go.

Sometimes, perhaps unfairly, I give a novella a lower rating purely because I so desperately wanted to read more about the world it is set in - and, in the case of Unexploded Remnants, I mostly felt that way because I found it to be such an enjoyable read. It's fast-paced and intriguing - I was left wanting to learn more about Alice and her adventures, in both the past and future. Though there were areas and themes I would have liked to see explored further, I won't hesitate to pick up more of Elaine Gallagher's work.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

2.5 stars rounded up

There were some interesting ideas here, but for me the execution was a bit of a mixed bag. I wanted to like it more than I actually did. Unexploded Remnants is a sci-fi novella following a trans woman who is the last surviving human in a wider world of alien planets and transportation gates. She discovers an ancient sentient weapon in a marketplace and has to go on the run from a family trying to take it from her. The world is cool and the ideas about sentience, choice, personhood, and violence are interesting. But for a novella, it spent so much time stopping and telling us things about the world and the characters backstory, it drags down the pace and very little actually happens. I think less information and more plot would have been better, either that or turn this into a longer work. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

In Unexploded Remnants, the last human in the universe comes across an unexpected find at a marketplace: an ancient weapons system disguised as a lava lamp. (It is not actually disguised as a lava lamp.) Our Protagonist is a woman named Alice who accidentally ended up in the wider universe after accidentally passing through a "gate." This gate network connects a variety of worlds, much like in the StarGate franchise. (Note: StarGate is not the first sf franchise to ever use "gate technology." There are a number of other works that also use the concept, see C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine novels as a second example.)

Once she ended up in the wider universe she was taken in by an organization called The Archive, which is somewhere between a museum, a library and information broker. (Knowledge is literally power in this setting, and the Archive has a lot of it.) Alice's function as an agent for the Archive is somewhere between a archaeologist, a smuggler, and a curator of artifacts. When she finds the artifact, she discovers that weapon is a person (that is, there's a sophont uploaded into the system--so she immediately goes off to find a way to remove the person for the weapon. Because of this she ends up on the run from agents of a militaristic civilization and a number of other organizations that want to either make use of the weapon, or destroy it.

This book has some fascinating worldbuilding and engaging characters. The book is fast paced and I appreciated the, "this is not a case of good guys and bad guys, it's more complicated" themes inherent in the plot. On the other hand, I was slightly disappointed that there wasn't more interaction between Alice and the "weapon." (Alice calls him "Gunn" because she isn't quite sure how to pronounce his real name.) I would have liked more communication between Alice and Gunn, since it seemed obvious that they were thematically linked. (Alice is the last human, Gunn is a weapon created by an extinct civilization.) Overall, this is solidly written book and I enjoyed it immensely.

This review is based on a copy received from NetGalley.

Imaginative worldbuilding that mostly hangs together, and a sweet transgender main character whose kindness is easy to root for as she tries to save an abused sentience and prevent battle. Lots of cultural references in the vein of the memes in Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb series, but they feel out of place here when this universe is rich and thriving and full of life and creation, where Muir's is desiccated and drained so it makes emotional sense for characters to hark back to long forgotten art and culture as nothing new is being made. Here it seems odd, undercutting the age and experience claimed by the main character, and overlooking her centuries of offworld life in favour of references designed for the reader instead of her reality. That aside, it's a solid novella with a lot of promise for a universe to be explored.

I really enjoyed this story!

With only one human character, I was concerned that the world building would be too cumbersome but it wasn’t at all. The writing was such that I understood enough about each kind of alien to follow the story. The pacing and plotting were good. I wanted more. I would like more of this world and these characters. More please.

I would also love to listen to this in audio format, or graphic audio, or full cast audio!

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy of this science fiction novella about war, forgiveness, moving on, and finding one true's self, no matter what society dictates.
My school library was for some amazing reason really well stocked with non-fiction books. I don't know how this little oasis of knowledge survived the Reagan years and kept both books and a staff, but they had numerous books, adult and child appropriate on numerous subjects. Being a quiet I was drawn to the books on war. One was a history of the London Blitz. Near the end after pages about the Battle of London there was a discussion about bomb disposal, and how years later, decades later, bombs would still be found, and still go off. I still remember this. Weapons going off after the war, it seemed mind boggling. Years later learning about landmines and unexploded ordinance in Cambodia and Afghanistan, I still couldn't wrap my hear around the idea. My parents couldn't get a refrigerator that lasted more than 3 years, and yet mines could explode decades later. I consider this a part of my awakening to this world not making a lot of sense, something that has only gotten stronger over the years. I think that is why science fiction stories dealing with ancient wars and war weapons hit my so hard. The idea of killing after the war has been forgotten, is a disturbing thought. A thought that is the plot of this novella, Unexploded Remnants, by Elaine Gallagher is a story of love, choice, surviving, thriving, and trying to do what is right, even when it might be wrong.

Alice is the last survivor of the planet Earth, and is spending a day in a vast open air market of technology when something catches Alice's eye. What she sees does not look like much, but something about it calls to Alice. The device also calls to others as Alice is followed, and soon being shot at, causing her to flee through the wormhole gates that allow people to travel world to world to world. Finding sanctuary Alice finds that the little data device is far older than it looks, and also has a quest living inside. An A.I., military A.I., from a war that ended thousands of years earlier, though to the A.I. which has been shut down for years, the pain of loss is still fresh. Fresh enough to want to kill anything remaining of its enemy. Others are looking for this device, for a variety of reasons, but not as pure as Alice's. Alice wants to bring a sense of peace to the A.I., stop the feelings of hate. Even if Alice has to bust a few heads to do it.

For a novella this story is jam packed with ideas, story, action and character development. Enough to fill a few series. Gallagher brings all this together well, the story about Alice, who she works for, her partner, and life in the grand universe. One wishes the story could have been longer to let things breathe a little, but I hope to see more of this character and this world, so I am content to wait. Gallagher makes everything seem real, and lived in. And of course one wants to know more. The story is a little standard on the war department, but everything else is so interesting, including the characters, one tends to forgive.

A really good story perfect for an evening's read, and I really can't wait to read more in this series or more by Elaine Gallagher. The author has a real gift for big stories.

My thanks to NetGalley for making an eARC of this book available to me.

This book gives an interesting view as to what an intergalactic civilization might have evolved into (sans humans). The portal transportation (can you say "Stargate"?) is kind of fun. Well worth reading, even if the final scene didn't work for me (in the context of the characters' previous interactions). Otherwise, a quick fun read.

A very quick/short review, for this one. This is a pretty fast-paced, galaxy-trotting science fiction novella. After a slightly shaky start, I quickly fell into the setting and became invested in the characters’ fates. It doesn’t quite stick the landing, but I nevertheless enjoyed it.

Gallagher’s novella starts with a busy bazaar scene, which had me initially a little worried — it felt overloaded with “who/what the hell is that?” moments, but thankfully it quickly moved on from that kind of scene-setting. As Alice embarks on her journey, the story became quite gripping, as Gallagher takes her character across the galaxy. Even though she’s fleeing for her life, protecting a strange piece of technology that appears to contain an ancient AI, readers are still treated to some more world-building. The author avoids info-dumping, and leaves plenty of scope to return to this setting in the future (which I certainly hope Gallagher does).

The story wrapped up a little suddenly, for my taste, and therefore felt like an anticlimax. Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed a lot of this, and certainly look forward to reading more by the author in the future.

The writing style is heavily narrative and carries a sense of removal from the story, which I don’t personally enjoy. I can see this going over positively with heavy sci-fi fans, though. It feels like it fits within the genre conventions well. I stopped 20% in, but it’s a likely 3 to 4 stars for the target audience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

The book's strength lies in its interesting ideas and world building. I loved the descriptions of different cultures, especially the Archive and how Alice describes changing her communication style based on cultural context. I also thought the book's focus on helping and healing a ghost in the machine -- as opposed to questioning its sentience or writing it off as inhuman -- was well done.

However, the book lacks the space to dig deeper into its characters. Alice, endlessly curious and dealer in information, is super cool, but we barely get to know anything about her. We meet figures from her past who are the same; we get an idea of who they are and their relationship, but little depth. There's a lot of "action," but much if that translates into "running through wormholes" that frankly gets dull and repetitive. The ending may bother some people -- I liked the concept, but felt the execution was off. If the same conclusion had been done without it being the result of a multi-page monologue, I think it would have hit home better.

In short, I think this book is okay for a quick, fun romp, but I don't think it's particularly memorable or great. If there were more space to dig into the characters, the settings, and the lore, I think the book would have been much stronger.

A brief story about that builds a very interesting universe in which it transpires. There were lots of glimpses of interesting places, people and ideas that I think could warrant a more in-depth and involved novel.

I loved this story, the world building is fantastic, and trans and queer representation is solid. Unexploded Remnants is a novella that is a well written exciting science fiction story as well as a quick read. It follows Alice down an almost literal rabbit hole to find and understand the story of a consciousness locked in a weapon of mass destruction, with fun cultural references from her home planet Earth (which at the time of the story has been destroyed). Being a novella it had constraints on how much was included and I found myself wanting more.I wanted to know more about the worlds the main character passes through, but I loved that I enjoyed it so much it left me wanting more. It is a fast read that I loved every minute of.