ARC Review - Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman

 Operation Bounce House

by Matt Dinniman

Release Date: February 14, 2026
Genre: Sci-Fi
Age Range: Adult
Goodreads Avg. Rating*: 4.15 stars

I was so excited to start this book. Huge thank you to NetGalley and Berkley for the ARC to review.

Farmers versus crazily customized mechs. The premise alone sounds like so much fun. Then the gritty details of who is actually on both sides of the battle lines come into play. It is a gory display of some of the best and worst parts of humanity, all told with a dash of ridiculousness. From the start, it seems to be the colonists of New Sonora against the New Republic of Earth, but there is a third aspect at play. There will be threads of the conspiracy throughout, but it isn’t until the final showdown that it comes fully into the light. Even knowing what caused both sides to take such actions, you can’t help but feel bad for pretty much everyone involved. Well, maybe not the mildly psychotic teenagers.

Our story takes place solely on New Sonora. This is one of several colonized worlds and not even the newest. The planet is still mostly unpopulated and at a more agricultural point than urban. They do still have modernish technology, but at the same time, they didn’t even set up much in the way of transportation between major cities outside of trains to carry produce. For a good portion of the book, you are only on Oliver’s farm, so many of the places aren’t described in enough detail to know much about the world.

 What was interesting was this mix of it is the future and we have space travel technology mixed with an agricultural setting. Sure, there are robots that help on the main character's farm, so it seems more everyday, but that is actually only his farm like that. Most people only have the older, still more advanced than we have, technology, such as communication bracelets or computers. Thus, the whole society is more agrarian than we are today, as opposed to the vastly overcrowded urban landscape that they show Earth to be.

Somewhat sadly, this book is told solely from the main character's perspective. While this works fine in some stories and could have here, it is simply that for the first portion, I didn’t like Oliver much. 

 Oliver Lewis is a third-generation colonist. He wants a simple life, carrying on his family’s farm. Due to this, he didn’t concern himself with the politics or issues being brought up outside of his farm or among his friends. For the first few chapters, this would lead you to believe that Operation Bounce House came out of nowhere with no warning. 

Thankfully, you do have supporting characters such as Lulu Lewis, his younger sister; Rosita Zapatero, Oliver’s filmmaker girlfriend, who help inform us of certain events Oliver was too oblivious to notice. There is also Roger-Roger, an AI robot meant to be the main hub of controlling the more basic robots that built the colony. Roger also has the programming to be a tutor for Oliver and Lulu, a program that he has been left on since their grandfather died without telling them the administrator codes.

Though none of these characters stand out quite like the more memorable ones of his other series. They do help to prop up Oliver until he can start to be a fully present character. Dinniman’s ability to write such a variety of characters is impressive. It just didn’t feel like they had quite the depth that he is capable of. Maybe it is due to the shorter nature of a standalone that led to this feeling.

The colonists of New Sonora were happy when the transfer gate to Earth was finished. Oliver Lewis just wants to keep his farm running with what is left of the agricultural robots they have. Maybe one day he will play a real gig with his band. When the Earth government informs the colonists of an eviction notice against them, many are worried. Then the mechs arrive, piloted by regular citizens of Earth who paid to help stop the terrorist threat on New Sonora. Sure, most of these are streamers, teenagers, or regular gamers, but they totally know what they are doing. Now Oliver and his friends must fight to survive, as in Operation Bounce House, everyone is at risk.

 The book is divided into five-day sections. While this might lead you to assume you are following them over the course of the day, as fighting takes place or fortifications are built, this is not so much the case. Sure, there are some bits at different points of the day, mostly the fortifying parts. However, pretty much all of the fighting is relegated to scheduled battles in the middle of the night. This does make it feel more game-like in a sense; however, it still felt a bit off for the dire situation our characters were in.

There was also the element to the story of trying to figure out why this was happening in the first place. For the most part, it was pretty clear that it’s all about the money. There was enough intrigue, though, in some of the other elements being talked about to have you wondering.

Well, the story did wrap up pretty much everything. This is a standalone novel, and all the major aspects of this story were resolved. Was there still something left in a more nebulous space, yes, but we must just assume that Roger is fine. Otherwise, the main cast got solid endings where you can just picture a happily ever after in your mind. It was interesting by the end to have things explained and feel for all parties involved. There was definitely no right thing about what the Earth government did, but I could see why it happened.

Was I blown away by this book? Not really, however, it was still a solid read. Several spots brought me close to tears, and others made me laugh. Then, at others, it seemed to be trying too hard with a character that was just sort of flat. It could be a me thing, though, maybe it was just due to not liking Oliver as our main character. I did like the intrigue and background of the story. It was quite fun to connect the dots of conspiracy while also having ridiculous scenes of mech battles and trash talk happening.

You can find this book from the retailers below or many others:

Amazon     Penguin Randomhouse      

*Average Goodreads rating at time of review.

**All quotes shown are from the review copy.