What a romp of a read - combining campy sci-fi with classic horror monsters tugged on my heart strings and made me laugh out loud repeatedly. Truelove brings us on quite a journey and does such a fantastic job wrapping everything together and with such HEART! I can't wait to see what she has in store next - hopefully more of this rag-tag crew!

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Bizarre in the best of ways! Think Becky Chambers’ Wayfarers series vibes - less cosy, but just as much adventure, loveable characters and found family. I couldn’t put Of Monsters and Mainframes down.

I haven't read a book over 200 pages in one sitting in years. I didn't put it down to do anything else. I didn't switch to another book. I did not pass go. I just kept going. This isn't my normal genre, but I loved the previous book this small publisher put out and decided to give this one a shot. I'm beyond thrilled I did.

This book was so, so good. It had me laughing so often. I fell in love with a spaceship, and I won't hear of anyone who doesn't fall in love with Demeter. They're protective, caring, and most of all, clueless about humanity.

Meanwhile, Steward is the AI doctor on board and is frustrated by Demeter's inability to understand humanity.

Then there's Agnus, Frank, Mina, and Steve. I won't spoil it. I will only say I devoured this book. It's clearly inspired by old school horror, and I'm living for it. I couldn't shut up about it once I finished. I had to tell EVERYONE about it.

Okay I went into this book blind, just having seen a post about it online. It's an absolutely fantastic book, and I am obsessed with the mix of historical science fiction/ fantasy and modern science fiction. All the characters have such heart, and this book is genuinely funny. I really liked seeing things from each characters perspective, that was great as well. Overall, 10000/10!

This book completely surprised me!

Told through the shifting perspectives of AI systems, humans, and even monsters, it’s eerie, emotional, full of suspense and nods to gothic horror.

Barbara Truelove weaves dread and hope together in such a unique way. I didn’t expect to feel so much for an AI program (literally a spaceship!), but its fear of failure, limited understanding, and unexpected moments of connection pulled me in completely. There’s horror, mystery, sci-fi—but also real heart. I would absolutely recommend this one!

Holy WOW. I started reading this book in slight disbelief. Then, I kept reading because the outrageous plot is hilarious, WEIRD, and randomly endearing. I LOVED this book. I’ve never read anything like this before, but I’m glad that I have now.

If you’re a fan of the dry wit and reluctant tenderness of The Murderbot Diaries, or the warm, chaotic found family vibes of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, then Of Monsters and Mainframes will absolutely be your kind of read. It’s zany, it’s tender, it’s a little bit bonkers in the best way, and I loved every minute of it.

Barbara Truelove has created something really special here: a space opera that manages to blend slapstick humour, existential dread, horror, and genuine warmth without ever feeling like it’s trying too hard.

The star of the show is Demeter, a passenger ship AI who begins the story doing her best to safely shepherd humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri B. She’s diligent, polite, and bound by the rules of her programming, and she’s also wildly under appreciated and blamed for basically everything that goes wrong. Unfortunately for Demeter, a lot goes wrong. Like... ancient vampire stowing away on board and murdering everyone wrong. And that’s just the beginning. Werewolves. Supernatural disasters. An increasingly bad reputation. And through it all, Demeter somehow keeps trying, even when she’s being rewritten and “optimized” into something more efficient, but less her.

What makes this story so engaging is that, despite the absurdity of the events, the characters feel real. Yes, Demeter is a computer, and yes, her fear is expressed in gigabytes and her joy in spinning disks, but she is one of the most emotionally resonant characters I’ve read in a while. The relationships she forms particularly with the ship's reluctant medical AI, and the growing, evolving human passengers she accidentally adopts as her own, are so rich with heart. There’s found family here, yes, but also found purpose. And that’s what makes this book so compelling.

So yes: there are vampires in space. There’s a ship AI writing her own code for vengeance and learning what it means to love. There’s snarky banter, heartfelt sacrifice, a little bit of gore, and a lot of heart. And there’s an unforgettable cast of misfits who find each other against all odds and decide, together, to go hunt Dracula.

What more could you possibly want?

Thank you to Bindery Books and Ezeekat Press for inviting me to read the ARC! Comes out Jun 3rd!

An insane joy-ride of a novel, undeniably fun, silly, and full of heart.

Was I a little skeptical about a book about a ship and her motley crew of monsters (including a werewolf, mummy, and Frankenstein) as they try to kill Dracula? Yes. But did I have an incredibly good time anyway? Also yes!

Demeter is one of my favorite protagonists I've ever read and she's not even human. I was so invested in her and her ever-growing abilities to love and buck the expectations of her code.

My one compunction is that there is not nearly enough Dracula. He's barely in the book. But that's OK, I had fun anyway.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC !

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

An enjoyable and thought-provoking journey in space that explores what it means to be human and the connections that we make from an unlikely and motley crew of those decidedly not.

Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove is a sci-fi fantasy horror novel (though I personally don’t really categorize it as horror, maybe horror elements?) delivers an enjoyable read and adventure as two AIs — one a spaceship and the other the medical AI, encounter literally supernatural entities and navigate the consequences of being the only ones to do so with either nonexisting or shoddy data.
Now at risk of being decommissioned, Demeter is determined to seek revenge on the one monster who started it all and remains at the center of everyone’s problems: Dracula.

Which I’m finding very interesting because now that I think about it, despite her name being Demeter, she very much takes on the role of Cassandra, in the sense that as an AI — especially one with lacking data, no one believes her claims of monsters and supernatural entities, not even her fellow medical AI.

I very much enjoyed reading this book, and it was a breeze to get through even during one of the worst reading slumps I’m going through. The writing was delightful and engaging, and I really enjoyed getting to read through different character’s POVs.

I thought the characters were really fleshed out, and particularly with Demeter and Steward (who I’m not going to lie, only realized was a female AI at like the last part of the novel) I enjoyed how the author was attempting to explore the mindset of an nonhuman entity and their development to being exposed and developing human emotions and feelings.

“I’d kill everyone. Kill them before they can kills us. Fuck the first law. But not you, Demeter. You’re good, obedient.”
“If your ‘Demeter’ has woken up, defied her programming, decided to go against what she was created to be, then she broke herself.”

Like I said, I really enjoyed all the characters, the AIs especially!

Now onto the points I wasn’t the biggest fan of:

Now this point might be baseless because I don’t have confirmation, but maybe because I haven’t read Of Mice and Men in so long, I would have like the novel — in which the title seems to be referencing to it, would have had more references to it, or even the poem the title comes from.

The biggest issue I had was the pacing of the story. It felt like we were taking the scenic route to get to the actual conflict of the novel. It’s odd to comment on, because I understand why the novel progressed the way that it did, but when the summary talks about getting revenge on Dracula with a motley crew of monsters and AIs, I don’t expect it to take me 68% to actually get to that part of the novel. Like I said, I understand the necessity of the culmination to lead to that, but after the one chapter of Dracula’s appearance and until the 68% mark where we get back on track, the way the moments in between felt oddly disconnected. It felt like I was reading an anthology of supernatural shenanigans this poor AI was unfortunately having to deal with and the only one alongside Steward. So I get that what happened had to happen, but it took a little too long that it at some points, felt almost independent.

In addition, ironically, my favorite monster section that we had with the fish aliens was so interesting and a solid monster horror, just to explain a minor detail in the ending of the book. A little in disbelief at the realization lol. On that note, like I mentioned before, I didn’t really feel like this is much of a horror? Yes it is quite bloody and graphic at some scenes, but there was no sense of fear or terror despite including well-known horror monsters.

Other than that, this book was a wonderful sci-fi fantasy mashed with monster horror exploring what it means to be human and the meaningful connections that help define it, particularly in this age of AI.

Of Monsters and Mainframes ended up being a favorite book of the year. I went in with the concern that it might take itself too seriously and while there are deeper topics here there’s also a lot of heart and some humor. I truly didn’t want to put this book down to go to work because I was enjoying it so much. I loved the characters, especially the AI itself and I loved the direction the book took.

Note: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Really enjoyed this one. Another good selection by Ezeekat Press.

This one is a Sci-Fi interstellar novel where a spaceship named Demeter joins forces with other popular Monsters to defeat Dracula. I thought it was fun, funny, endearing, has splashes of horror mixed throughout, and was uniquely its own.

Hoping there’s more to this story with a sequel.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy.

A good rompy science fiction with a delightfully strange twist. I didn't know what I was expecting doing into this, but I'm glad I gave it a shot!

Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove is such a wonderfully weird book. Thanks to Bindery for an advance reader copy!

This story is told from the POV of an Ai spaceship who comes to care for a band of misfit monsters, as well as navigating her relationship with the onboard Ai medical program. Demeter’s job is to shuttle people between Earth and Alpha Centauri, but when Dracula sneaks aboard, bad things happen. Soon Demeter finds herself helping a werewolf, mummy, frankenstein, and vampire track him down.

I love a found family story. The plot was a unique mashup of sci-fi and classic monsters. The characters were quirky and charming. The structure was…sometimes confusing.

The first maybe quarter of the book is relatively episodic, giving us what is basically the backstory for the main characters. Once it gets caught up to “now” the pacing is perfect. There are also numerous interludes from the POV of almost every other named character. While it was fun to get first-person reactions to things, I sometimes got a paragraph or two into a chapter before figuring out whose POV we were in.

I think this book tries to do too many things at once, but I enjoyed it anyway. Ultimately it left me with tons of new ways to look at our oldest horror tropes, which is what a good book does.

"What other ships? Wait. Are you being bullied, Demeter? A strange flux of hot, messy data trickles through my processors. Tell me their unit numbers. I'll send emails. I'm good at sending emails. They'll rue the day they took up arms against you."
4.5☆|5

I can't remember the last time I laughed so much while reading a book, but one thing is sure: this weird book oscillating between SF and fantasy was absolutely hilarious. Here, we follow Demeter, a spaceship AI who travels between Earth and Alpha Centauri B Habitation 004. And she is trying her very best, but somehow, her humans keep dying. Steward, her medical AI, is convinced that it's because of equipment failure, but she insists that those are paranormal murders. It is now time to seek revenge.

What a ride! When I tell you that this book is weird, I mean it. But it is a compliment. Of Monsters and Mainframes has been a rollercoaster of emotions, and I simply didn't want to put it down. We enter into a very fast-paced story somewhere between SF — and you all know that I ADORE SF and space-related books — and fantasy, with such a fun cast of supernatural characters. This book also has several points of view and time skips, partially due to two of the main characters being AI with…very peculiar sense of time. And what makes it even more perfect are the dialogues!! They were so funny and great.

Even though this entire book has been an adventure, I adored it. I wasn't expecting a lot from this book, and yet here I am absolutely delighted to have requested it and to have had the opportunity to read it. We follow a very diverse cast of characters that are all weirder than one another, but also all very unique and distinct. My favourites were probably Frank and Agnus, and this will make no sense if you haven't read the book, but I won't elaborate as everything I could say is qualified spoilers. But I also, really, really, loved Demeter. Another really cool element of this book has been the relationships. This has a huge vibe of found family, and more exactly, my favourite flavour of found family, aka the odd, slightly dysfunctional type of found family. In addition, I really adored the slowly growing relationship between Demeter and Steward. I don't know how AI characters can feel so great and lovely, but I adored them, and they made me smile so much.

Finally, I really loved the plot of this one. Is it perfect? No. Are there some tiny plot holes in some place? Sure. Is it mostly character-driven? Totally. But it was still extraordinarily nice and addictive. And that world building!! Beautiful. I love every part of this book, and I am pretty sure that it deserves the world. Please bring me back inside those pages.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Ezeekat Press for sending me this e-ARC. This book goes out on June 3rd, and believe me, it deserves the trip!

CW: death; murders; violence; medical content; blood

Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I truly didn't know I needed this in my life, but here I am, chuckling after a neat read.

It's PART Chambers-cozy, but that's only later on. Mostly, it's an outright creature-feature movie from the lowest budget B days where Abbot and Costello meet the mummy, Dracula and the werewolf.

Of course... with a very sharp space-opera supercomputer AI PoV twist.

Me, I was just hoping it'd turn out to be a cool hacking meets survival horror type book, but it became something really delightful and more complex than that.

Ghost ship, indeed. :)

I can't say I'd want to see a bunch of knock-off novels in this vein, mind you, because it MIGHT get really old in the wrong hands. But in Truelove's hands? If she wrote a whole SERIES of this, with these wonderful characters, I'd gobble them up until we hit two dozen of them... AT LEAST.

As it is, I'm STILL enjoying some light-hearted chuckles in memory of quite a few of the events in the novel. That's precious to me.

This book's synesthesia would have to be a bit of rough but comfortable fur under my fingers and a bit of ozone in the air.

They’re not just fighting Dracula—they’re fighting what it means to be monstrous. And maybe… what it means to be human.

📚 Reasons to Read Of Monsters and Mainframes
Dracula. In. Space. – This isn’t your grandma’s vampire story—it’s high-tech, high-stakes horror with serious style.


A chaotic crew of queer-coded monsters – Werewolves, zombie engineers, ancient pharaohs, and sassy spider drones form the found family of your dreams.


Sci-fi meets supernatural – Spaceships, murder, and ancient evil collide in a genre mashup that works.


Big heart and sharp teeth – Between battles and banter, it’s a surprisingly emotional story about identity, belonging, and chosen family.

This is my 3rd book that I have read from Ezeekat’s Bindery Press imprint, and each one has been fantastic. While the book starts as a Last Voyage of the Demeter in space vibes, it continues as many incidents over time of people continually dying on the ship, but for different reasons. The way this book comes together, gives you a found family, and has you rooting for 2 AI voices in the ship is genius. It was fun and I cannot recommend it enough.

I loved this SO MUCH, I blew through it in two days despite expecting it to take me much longer. Demeter and Steward are just so much fun and so endearing, and the entire book feels like both a love letter to classic monsters and a found family anthem. I mean, I'm very weak to "you're an idiot but you're MY idiot", and this has that in spades in so many directions, so I guess I couldn't help but absolutely fall head over heels for this book.

I love how much depth there is despite the relatively light tone of the writing, dealing with issues of loss, trauma, recovery, and building a home with a cast of spaceship AIs and future incarnations of classic monsters. Speaking of which, I love, love, LOVE, the way these incarnations are treated. Aside from Dracula, everyone is fully a part of the futuristic setting, while still weaving through such deep cameos and references to their original works while keeping a perfectly constructed world of future human settlements. The scarabs and Cthulu fish-aliens were probably the most fantastical, but since they're definitely more on the comedic-relief side of character designations in the story, it still works really well.

The fact that it also takes place over a pretty wide timeline also works so well with the story, giving time for things to happen and change and situations to develop (Frankenstein's creation may have punched me in the heart a little, oof). I just enjoyed every moment of this.

It honestly reminds me a lot of the tone of the Murderbot series, in the way that the writing and tone is almost irreverent, but there are so many emotional beats and feelings carrying the whole thing that you can't help but get attached to the whole cast.

This was a really fun read. I love cozy sci-fi and this definitely fits that bill. I loved the character and how diverse this book was. This was a solid addition to the sci-fi genre.

Of Monsters and Mainframes took me by surprise! I typically struggle with Sci-Fi books but combining the space travel elements with monsters and quirky programming made me love this one! I immediately was hooked by Demeter as they are invested in keeping their passengers safe while trying to unravel who/what is attacking. Once we got to the halfway point, I couldn’t put the book down and wanted to find out if they would be able to complete their mission!
Demeter and Dr. Steward were the highlights of the book for me, especially when they were interacting with each other! Steward is so snarky for a medical AI and the perfect balance to Demeter’s earnestness.
This was an interesting take on Dracula and some other famous monsters such as Frankenstein. I would definitely recommend to anyone looking for a unique retelling or any sci-fi fans!

Thank you to Netgalley and Bindery Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove
Rating: 4.5/5

Barbara Truelove delivers an audacious, genre-defying adventure in Of Monsters and Mainframes, where classic horror collides with vibrant space opera in a story that is equal parts witty, heartfelt, and emotionally resonant. Truelove’s ability to juggle tone—moving from absurdist humor to poignant reflections on identity and humanity—is one of the novel’s standout achievements.

The cast is a delightful chaos of misfits and monsters, each contributing their own flair and backstory to a plot that builds momentum with every chapter. Despite the cosmic stakes, the heart of the story lies in its exploration of chosen family, redemption, and what it means to belong when the world sees you as ‘other.’

With sharp dialogue, inventive world-building, and a pace that rarely lets up, this book reads like the queer, neon-lit cousin of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy—but with more bite (and blood). For readers who enjoy fast-paced speculative fiction that embraces both camp and complexity, Of Monsters and Mainframes is a ride worth taking.