While there are a few twists and turns along the way, none of it seemed terribly inventive. It keeps going from there, down the predictable linear path to a predictable conclusion. But while it works initially, the plot frays a bit when the two are thrown together. It’s quite a simple setup, really: an offworlder is scammed out of her life savings by an equally desperate misfit and they have to team up to win the day. The story doesn’t take much to get into either. Indeed, the irradiated Earth seems quite like this: a relic that no one quite knows what to do with, so they steer clear of it except to visit on vacations, once, and never come again. I really enjoyed the starting descriptions of Old Earth from an Offworlder, one whose world was prosperous and advanced-it reminded me of Cowboy Bebop where Earth is a decaying ruin: broken, flooded, and constantly bombarded by meteorites. This new plan involves cunning, coding, the 3rd Empire warbot, and a whole bunch more money neither woman has.įeaturing gundam battles, cyberpunk enhancements, and a dystopian future, Hard Reboot is exactly the kinda read I’m into. Fortunately for her, Kas is already in too deep-and desperate enough to dig herself deeper in order to escape. But Zhi doesn’t have the money, and only has the most desperate of plans to come up with it. This is where Kas finds her-desperate herself to get out of the obligation of their bet. Now, indebted and hunted, Zhi goes underground to the remnants of her greatest secret-a 3rd Empire warbot, one that she’s worked for years to restore with little success. But Zhi doesn’t know that-or care, really-after all, every offworlder is loaded, so a lost bet will just be another inconvenience to the scholar. A bet fronted by the credit of the Sentinel Scholarium, based on money that Kas doesn’t have. What she finds instead is Zhi Zero, who quickly suckers her into a bet on a warbot fight. Of course, Kas had just risked everything to come here, to study the remnants of old tech, to find something that will make her career.

After all, Old Earth is part monument, mausoleum, and trash heap. When Scholar Zychtykas “Kas” Three comes to Old Earth, all she expects to find is an irradiated trash heap overrun by militant malware and practically unlivable.

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