Again, I haven’t read the two books before it, so I may have missed some important backstory or character development for context. The mashup of mil-sci-fi and noir is a fun one, but Colonyside never quite gels as a story. Though it’s also worth noting that Mammay doesn’t go full noir, either nobody wears a fedora, and there’s not a single femme fatale in the whole book. Honestly, the whole thing reminded me more of a noir mystery than anything, down to Butler’s snarky first-person narration and penchant for whiskey. He interviews people, chases leads, gets into trouble, and so on.

As while there are indeed a couple of fun action scenes (including giant carnivorous space-apes), most of the book is devoted to Butler’s investigation. There are some nods to Butler’s background and what he got up to in previous books (including nuking a hostile alien species of some sort?) but it doesn’t get in the way of the plot.įrom the description and the cover, one might think Colonyside to be a mil-sci-fi shoot ‘em up, but Mammay makes things more complicated than that. Most of the book’s action takes place on a single planet, and centers on Butler’s investigation. While Colonyside was the third in the series (and the library didn’t have the first two available for some reason), it’s not completely inaccessible. In Colonyside, the daughter of an ultra-rich space-businessman goes missing on an isolated, deadly jungle planet, so Butler gets hired on to investigate. Carl Butler, a former space-army officer who gets pulled out of quiet retirement to get sent on various space adventures. So, y’know, points for a consistent title gimmick, at least.Īs one could expect from those titles, Mammay’s books are pulpy ‘boots and lasers’ sci-fi. It’s actually the third of Mammay’s -side novels, preceded by Planetside and Spaceside. This said, I still try to capture that feeling of randomness when browsing through Overdrive, which is what brought me to Michael Mammay’s Colonyside.

It’s just easier to take a book off the shelf and read the back blurb than it is to wait a couple seconds for a book’s page to load up on the library app, though that loading time probably just means I should upgrade my phone and/or wifi router. However, one thing that ebooks haven’t quite managed to duplicate is that feeling of browsing the shelves at the library or bookstore, and picking out a random book on the shelf … just ‘cause.

A phone takes up even less space than most paperbacks, and I almost always have it on me. It’s something I never would have thought of years ago, but honestly the convenience offered by library apps like Libby and Overdrive make it wonderfully easy to snag an ebook or audiobook to read at my convenience. Book Review: Colonyside, by Michael Mammayįor awhile now, I’ve been reading more ebooks than paper ones.

Colonyside by michael mammay