Sunday, July 10, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Recently read: "Long Eyes and Other Stories" by Jeff Carlson
This was my first introduction to Carlson. There's three stories here:
"Long Eyes" a story about a human/spaceship hybrid, and what makes someone human.
"Planet of the Sealies" about future archaeology, and the skills necessary for survival of the species
"Pressure" about a human/sea creature hybrid.
I've said before that I don't read a lot of short fiction, and I know that it's my loss, since so much interesting work (and new authors) first show up in the shorter length. I assume Carlson is more know for his Plague novels (Plague Year, Plague War and Plague Zone). Based upon these shorter works, I may have to try Plague Year.
I've also heard good things about The Frozen Sky, so I should try that.
Recently read: "Moon Flower" by James P. Hogan
I really didn't want to read this. I first read Hogan in high school, starting with Thrice Upon A Time. That book, along with Inherit the Stars help cement my interest in SF. I followed Hogan for a long time, until he starting going off the rails (my last book of his was Cradle of Saturn, which I knew was bad, but read just to see how bad it could be).
One of my book groups picked this one to read (I think partially because Hogan died last year, and this one was in print and easily found) so I read it to see how bad it was.
Ugh...Earth is a mess, being dominated by massive corporations (ok, nothing new here) and "developing" new worlds (there's a FTL drive which allows us out of the solar system). On the planet Cyrene, Terrans from the base are disappearing. Myles Callen, a facilitator for the Interworld Restructuring Corporation is sent to find out what is going on, and to find physicist Evan Wade, one of the humans that has left the base.
Marc Shearer, an idealistic physicist who was a colleague of Wade's, is given the chance to go to Cyrene (the corporation hopes Shearer will lead Callen to Wade). Once there, Shearer finds that Wade has laid the groundwork for him to follow, with help from the Cyreneans.
Once on the planet, most humans find themselves becoming more like the Cyreneans, less interested in being selfish, and more about "doing the right thing".
****Spoilers****
I guess this is a spoiler, though the once you start the book the title gives a bit of it away, but there's a flower on Cyrene which somehow (handwaves quantum physics) allows some communication backward in time. This allows people to make the "correct" decisions. (This occurs on Earth, but is too faint for anyone to recognize. Shearer has been doing research into this. The flower acts as a sort of antenna for the waves).
One of my biggest problems with this story is that, given that humans are screwing up the planet, the solution is through a "magical flower". It's very depressing.
Well, that's one problem The book is also badly written, with most of the characters being bland, despite some background information. There's also bad science (including a bit of Velikovsky, which really serves no purpose in the plot) including some wonky orbital dynamics of the Cyrene system.
***Spoilers over***
Hogan isn't the first author to lose his way as he got older, but really stands a an excellent example of such. I saw him a few years ago at an ArmadilloCon, and got him to autograph a couple of books. He asked "why none of the new books..." which I was able to laugh off (I really didn't want to go into that with him at an autograph table).
Recently read: "Leviathan Wakes" by James Corey
So, does this qualify as "the new space opera"? Given that it's confined to our solar system, I suppose not. I did enjoy the book a lot, though.
We have alternately chapters, told through the viewpoints of two characters.
Jim Holden is the XO of an ice miner. His ship investigates a derelict, and while aboard his shuttle, his mining ship is destroyed. Based upon evidence found aboard the derelict, he broadcasts that Mars may be responsible. This causes an immediately increase in tension between Mars and the Belt, with violence of various levels starting to break out.
Miller is a detective on Ceres. Given a side assignment to find a missing girl (who's parents have money and pull) he realizes that she may be the key to what's actually going on. He may be too good (or too determined) for his own good, since he's ordered to drop the missing girl case.
There was a time, about 3/4 of the way through the book, when I thought that maybe the authors (Corey is the pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck) had stretched the story out too long, but it picked back up, and had a bang up ending. Miller and Holden are both well written characters, I think, and some of the secondary ones are interesting also. It's not quite "hard sf" (the Epstein drive is sort of a magical space drive, though I think they were right in not trying to explain it) and it's not clear that the economic situation makes sense (Earth and Mars are the two major powers, with the Belt a minor third one).
It's book one of a trilogy...I certainly plan on seeing how the second one comes out.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Recently read: "Feed" by Mira Grant
Well, the last thing I expected to be reading was a zombie novel....
First, it gets nominated for a Hugo, and then someone in our book club recommends it, so I took a chance on the Kindle version.
We get somewhat traditional zombies (very slow moving, mindless creatures trying to eat you) with a scientific origin (a virus, originating with a vaccine). We also get bloggers, in this case twins Georgia and Shaun Mason, along with their colleague Buffy (yes, a reference to that Buffy). The trio is picked to be the official bloggers covering the presidential candidate of Senator Peter Ryman.
Grant has built a world where humans are dealing with a deadly virus, with all the checks and controls that would be necessary, including a very powerful CDC. Partly because of this, social media rules in 2039.
Bloggers are even slotted in categories ("Irwins" are ones that like to poke things with sticks). The book is first person, from Georgia's viewpoint, with blog posts heading each chapter.
Our heroes deal with politics (infighting for the Republican nomination) and find that what appears to be accidentical infestations might be murder instead. The tension is ratcheted up through the book, and ends with a fairly explosive climax.
There's two more books coming, and I was impressed enough that I have already grabbed the Deadline in a Kindle edition.
Recently read: "The Quantum Thief" by Hannu Rajaniemi
I've been waiting for this book every since I've heard rumors of it, and the author (I first heard of him in a blog comment from Charlie Stross). I even bought it in hardcover instead of Kindle, since I wanted a permanent copy. I enjoyed it a lot...
...but I wanted to love it.
In a way, the book's plot is a caper novel (interesting, since I read Richard Stark's "Comeback" immediately before it) with the protagonist an amnesiac thief, so it's not that it's a difficult read from that standpoint. From a world building standpoint, it's very confusing for an initial read.
The book opens with Jean le Flambeur being confined in a Dilemma Prison, where he is playing the Prisoner's Game daily, and has been shot numerous times. He is broken out of prison by Mieli, an Oort solider, and taken to the Oubliette, a city on Mars that is moving across the surface (and home to the only baseline human population left in the solar system). He is given the chance to win his freedom if he steals something for Mieli's boss (one of the Sobornost, part of the posthuman upload collective)which he failed to do before.
On Mars, time is a currency, and memories are held tight, and gogol piracy (cloning minds and enslaving them for specific tasks) is a problem. In the Oubliette, we have Isidore Beautrelet, a young (ten Martian years) architecture student and amateur detective, who must try and figure out who Jean le Flambeur is, and what he is doing on Mars. Isidore is also dating a zocu, who are posthuman warriors (descended from members of MMORPG guilds).
This all can be very confusing, and it's the last book someone should give to a new SF reader. Rajaniemi throws the reader into the story, and expects him/her to pick up the background from spare clues (most of which are just naming of items). This book is sort of the anit-infodump example. There is a handy glossary on Wikipedia, though I think it would have been nice to have included it in the book.
There will be two more books to come, and I'll certainly read them (though depending on the time between releases, I may have to do a re-read of this one), and I look forward to seeing how Rajaniemi develops. This is a good book, I just don't think it's a great one.
Recently read: "Comeback" by Richard Stark (aka Donald Westlake)
After 1974's Butcher's Moon (reviewed here), Westlake didn't return to his Parker character for nearly twenty-five years. He apparently started Parker stories several times, but always hit a wall. He finally started one, and apparently the story flowed easily, and we got this book, followed by several others.
Here, Parker teams with two other criminals to rob a "Christan Crusade" of cash collected at the door. His team is helped by an insider, who feels that he will take his share of the money and do good, since he has lost faith in the Crusade leader, who appears to be a typically sleazy televangelist.
As with much of Westlake writing, the heist goes wrong. Here, it's one of the partners trying to kill Parker and escape with the entire take. Parker is forced to run, and try and find both the money and the traitor. We get the Crusade's security chief and the city's police dedective on the hunt also. Thrown in the mix is also a trio who knows about the heist, and is intent on stealing the money themselves.
Parker is Parker, and despite the gap between books he still feels pretty much the same. The world has changed somewhat (it's going to be harder to find large amount of cash money to steal) and I'm interested in seeing how Westlake handled the rest of the series.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Do Falling Home Prices Lead to More ofr Less Divorce
An interesting post (from a guest blogger) at Megan Mcardle’s blog.
It’s the first economic blog posting I’ve seen that references a Loudon Wainwright lyric (from a song on Songs For The New Depression).
The takeaway is that, for college educated couples, falling house prices seem to reduc e divorce rates.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
Recently read: "All You Need is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
Another Haikasoru book, and one that I liked a lot (not quite as much as Usurper of the Sun or The Next Continent). James Nicoll has been reviewing the Haikasoru books, and gives a good run down of this one here.
We have Keiji Kiriya, a Japanese solider fighting against the "Mimics", aliens which are invading Earth (they appear to be part of a "terraforming" process for the eventual intelligent aliens). Even with power armor (called Jackets here) humans are having trouble holding their own.
Keiji dies in his first combat experience...and then wakes up the day before the battle. He learns that he is in some sort of time loop, returning after each combat death to the same moment the day before. He can alter events within the loop, but always returns upon his death.
In each iteration, he notices Rita Vrataski (the "Full Metal Bitch") who is a legendary American solider. He then finds out that Rita is aware of the loops, and knows how to break the cycle.
This is a short book, so there's not a lot of depth in the other characters, though the author does give you background on Rita. Keiji is falling in love with Rita (and she with him) but there will be a price to be paid for causing the loop to end.
This is a fast moving, well written book, and I hope it gets some traction here in the US. I will say that based upon the cover art, it's not a book that I would have normally picked up, though it does help that it has a cover blurb from John Scalzi.
Recently read: "The Dogs of Rome" by Conor Fitzgerald
The first novel by Fitzgerald, and the first of what is meant to be a series about police chief commissioner Alec Blume, an American expatriate living in Rome.
Blume, a teenager when his art historians parents were murdered during a bank robbery, has grown up to be a loner, but also a sharp police officer. When an animal rights activist, who's wife is also a prominent politician, is killed, Blume must deal with interference from his superiors as he zeros in on his suspect. The victim had ties to the mob (his mistress being the daughter of the local mob chief) and was instrumental in in exposing a dog fighting ring.
I enjoyed the book, though it was hard to get a handle on Blume. He's written as such an outsider, there seems to be no "hook" into his character. I also had to try and understand the Roman police bureaucracy, which was unfamiliar to me, and the sense that casual corruption is an excepted thing (perhaps not that different from modern American police mysteries).
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Recently read: "Hogdoggin'" by Anthony Neil Smith
The second "Billy Lafitte" novel, after Yellow Medicine (which I reviewed here) and the third book by Smith that I've read (the last was Choke on Your Lies, reviewed here).
Our "hero" Lafitte, after the collapse of his career as a deputy in Yellow Medicine (Minnesota), is the right hand man/enforcer of "Steel God", the giant leader of a motorcycle gang in North Dakota, who's leadership is starting to be questioned as his health declines. FBI Agent Rome, banished to New Orleans for his hot dog actions going after Lafitte, has hatched a plan to lure Lafitte back to the Gulf Coast by focusing on his ex wife.
Lafitte tells Steel God that he has to go, and heads south on his turquoise-blue chopper. Bad things happen along the way, and Rome, with his fellow agents, are coming to meet him.
If possible, this book is even darker than Yellow Medicine. Smith takes his characters deeper into violence, with nearly everyone making bad decisions.
Recently read: "In the Shadow of Ares" by Thomas James & Carl Carlsson
This is a self published Kindle book (one of the authors, James, is a Lockheed Martin engineer). After a prolog in 2029, showing the disappearance of the Ares III mission, the book is set on 2051, as colonization of Mars has started. Amber Jacobsen is 14, and a minor celebrity as "the first kid on Mars". She would just like to be able to live on Earth and be a normal teenager.
After her family's homestead is destroyed by an accident, her mother finds a job at the independent settlement near Noctis Labyrinthus. Anxious to show her worth, Amber tries to be of use, but most of the colonists see her as a distraction, even a burden. As a way to prove her use to the colony (and Mars) she vows to find out what happened to the Ares III mission.
There's a lot of politics here, as the colonists are continually at odds with the Mars Development Authority (MDA) (the book is written with a heavy dose of free market economics) and Amber's investigations give the MDA a reason to try and take over the colony.
There's a mystery, with hints of some sort of conspiracy, and danger to Amber (in an almost "Nancy Drew" sort of way) which I found reasonably enjoyable. I did feel that some of the villains weren't well drawn (that is, their motives seem to come out of left field) and the MDA is almost a strawman opponent for the authors economic arguments (and that with me agreeing with the core of their libertarianism). The science is pretty good overall, and they've given some thought to how the settlements would be set up.
Overall, a retty good read, though I did have some problems with the formatting on my Kindle.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Megan McArdle talking Art in Politics (and Politics in Art)
“Talent is not wisdom. It's not even connected to wisdom. Art at its best gives us new ways of looking at the world, and this is itself beyond price. But that doesn't mean that art is Good With a Capital G, much less that artists are. They are all unreliable narrators.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)