Of Monsters and Mainframes
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Our view
“Of Monsters and Mainframes” is a playful, good-natured mash-up of space adventure and classic monsters, told by a spaceship. Demeter, an AI that carries passengers from Earth to Alpha Centauri, keeps losing them to a very old vampire and gathers a crew of monsters of her own to strike back. Barbara Truelove makes the ship an engaging narrator, and the book can be enjoyed without having read the horror classics it borrows from.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Spaceships aren't programmed to seek revenge--but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception. Demeter just wants to do her job: shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying--and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans. To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team of monsters: A werewolf. An engineer built from the dead. A pharaoh with otherworldly powers. A vampire with a grudge. A fleet of cheerful spider drones. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil--Dracula. The queer love child of pulp horror and classic sci-fi, Of Monsters and Mainframes is a dazzling, heartfelt odyssey that probes what it means to be one of society's monsters--and explores the many types of friendship that make us human.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 166 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 53% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 8.1 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 8.2 | 166 | 100% |
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 8.1, the closest to this book.
