Random Tag Tuesday: The Wanderlust Book Tag

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Blog Life, Book Tag, Final Fantasy, Random Tag Tuesday, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction

I think most of us have been feeling a bit cooped up lately, so it’s probably pretty easy to imagine why I felt inspired to finally take on this particular tag.  Since I haven’t done one of these in a while, I’ll remind everyone that the name of this series is a throwback to my college days when Tuesdays were the day for, well, random adventures.  Please note that most of the tags I cover under this heading come from my backlog notes and that I am terrible about keeping track of where I find them. As such, I probably will rarely, if ever, tag anyone.  It is not personal.

Secrets and Lies: A Book Set in a Sleepy Small Town

Highway of the Damned, by Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene.  This mashup homage to Hunter S. Thompson and Lovecraftian horror spends a lot of time in the fictional city of Arkham, MA, a place that certainly has its share of secrets.

Salt and Sand: A Book with a Beach-side Community

Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor.  Set in Lagos, Nigeria the city is changed forever when extraterrestrials land off the coast and make first contact with both humanity and the creatures of the sea.

Here There be Dragons: A Book with a Voyage on the High Seas

Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow.  God has died and it’s up to disgraced Captain Anthony Van Horn to haul the massive corpse across the Atlantic Ocean to its final resting place in an Arctic iceberg before rot sets in and the press finds out.

Tread lightly: A Book Set Down a Murky River or a Jungle

Everfair, by Nisi Shawl.  A steampunk-inspired alternate history in which European socialists, American abolitionists, and an African warlord enter into an uneasy alliance to overthrow the forces of King Leopold II and establish a new nation in the former Belgian Congo.

Frozen Wastes: A Book Book with a Frost-bitten Atmosphere

The Terror, by Dan Simmons.  Another historical fiction, this one follows the doomed crew of the John Franklin Discovery Service Expedition as their ships get trapped in the Arctic ice and a supernatural force begins hunting the crew.

The Boonies: A Book with Rough or Isolated Terrain

2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson.  A good deal of the action here takes place on Mercury and Venus, which despite human settlements remain rather inhospitable places.

Hinterlands and Cowboys: A book with a Western-esque Setting

The Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson.  The first book in the Second Era Mistborn novels, civilization on the planet Scadriel has advanced to roughly that of the late 19th century United States.  The main character, Wax, is a frontier lawman who definitely gives this story a Western vibe.

Look lively: A Book Set Across Sweeping Desert Sands

Dune, by Frank Herbert.  Obviously.

Wild and Untamed: A Book Set in the Heart of the Woods

A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson.  Humorist Bill Bryson hikes the Appalachian Trail, imparting plenty of fun facts and humorous observations along the way.

Wildest Dreams: A Whimsical Book Shrouded in Magic

The Hobbit, by J.R.R Tolkien.  While it does have some serious themes, I always think of this book as being rather whimsical at heart.

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Book Review: Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor

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Binti, Book, Book Review, Nnedi Okorafor, Novella, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction

Once again I am back with a novella to share with you all!  This is another popular one on the review scene that also had the honor of taking home both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella in 2016.  This is my second time reading something from Nnedi Okorafor and the latest in what is apparently a lengthy line of Tor novellas on my reading list.

The story begins on Earth in the distant future and introduces us to Binti, a young Himba woman living in Nairobi.  She is the first person from her community to earn admission to the prestigious Oomza Uni, the galaxy’s most elite technological institute.  Her acceptance, however, is not without controversy.  Despite being renowned for their mathematical and technological skills, the Himba people rarely leave their home city and often face extreme prejudice from others.  Binti is determined, however, and decides she can’t pass up the opportunity so she sneaks off one night to catch a space shuttle to the university, leaving behind her home and family forever.  The universe (of course) has other plans, for just as Binti starts to settle into her new life, the shuttle is intercepted by a group of hostile aliens.  Protected by a mysterious trinket she brought from home, Binti finds herself held captive aboard the ship and must use all her wits to not only remain alive, but prevent further bloodshed as well.

I enjoyed this read and found myself really getting drawn into it.  The author’s decision to slowly reveal the full scope of her world to the reader as it was encountered by Binti really added to the mysteries and surprises of the novella.  There was one moment early on where the story throws an absolute shock at you and from that point on I couldn’t put it down.  You’ll know it when you get there.  Equally importing, I found Binti herself to be a very engaging protagonist in her own right.  There was a lot of tension in her character from being an outcast from her homeland (by choice) and new surroundings (by prejudice) that had a very profound impact on her actions throughout the story.  It was also interesting to see how her cultural traditions, in particular her cosmetic rituals, shaped the way she looked at and interacted with the universe and the other beings in it.  I was likewise intrigued by how her fellow Himba approached mathematics as a spiritual undertaking.  I am admittedly baffled by higher math, but I nonetheless find that sort of thing fascinating to contemplate.

Overall I thought this was an excellent story that I would recommend to other sci-fi readers.  There are two other books in this series that I am looking forward to reading once I can get my (virtual) hands on them.  This one ends on something of a cliffhanger and I really am curious to see what direction the story goes from there.

Book Review: The Island, by Peter Watts (Sunflower Cycle)

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Book, Book Review, Peter Watts, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Sunflower Cycle

As I promised the other day, here we go with another short work from the Sunflower Cycle.  Although it was the first of these stories to be published all the way back in 2009, this is currently the third act of the series and takes place a very long time after my initial point of reference, 2019’s Freeze-Frame Revolution.

Although it came first, this work reads like it was a fresh installment of a long running series in terms of how developed the world and characters were and how cohesively it fits into with the stories that would come later.  Set aboard the spaceship Eriophora as it continues its unending mission to construct transportation gates, this 40 page short story references (or rather foreshadows) a lot of things that happen in Freeze-Frame, most notably the crew’s efforts to limit the authority of Chimp, the AI that controls the ship and mission.  In these pages, we join the eternal Sunday Ahzmundin as she is awoken to investigate an unexplained signal emanating from the area of the ship’s next construction site.  When the source is determined to be a sentient life form unlike anything conceived of before, Sun and Chimp have a profound disagreement over their obligation to avoid harming it.  Adding to the intrigue is that the only other person around is a rather odd crew member named Dix, an artificially conceived child of Sun with some very complicated loyalties guiding his view of the argument.

I found this story absolutely fascinating for a number of reasons.  First and foremost for me was the alien lifeform. It was just so far outside the scope of human comprehension and the norms of what you tend to come across in most sci-fi stories that I couldn’t help but be drawn to it, and the outcome of its encounter with Sunday and Chimp left me even more taken in by it.  Speaking of the two leading characters, it was a whole lot of fun watching their calculated aggressions against each other, all the while both fully aware of how much they ultimately need each other. This dynamic between the two also shaped my other two highlights of this story (and indeed the series in general), those being the psychological effects of a life divided up into short moments across the eons and the exploration of humanity’s place alongside advanced artificial intelligence.  With both of these topics, the author manages to create a great deal of tension in the stories that doesn’t necessarily always have a resolution which is definitely something that will keep me coming back for more of this series.

I’ll keep this post short and sweet and close by saying that this was an absolutely brilliant short and one that I highly recommend.  That this story managed to pack so much depth into such a small amount of space is truly amazing and something that must be read to truly appreciate. There are still a couple of Sunflower Flower stories out there that I really enjoyed, but in the interest of keeping things fresh around here, I might not review them for a little while.  My schedule is freeing up a bit in the near future and I have a number of other books I’m eager to get to!

Book Review: New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson

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Book, Book Review, Climate Change, Democratic Party, Kim Stanley Robinson, New York, Politics, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction

It with great pleasure (and a small bit of relief) that I am finally able to get this review posted!  Originally published back in March 2017, I had been eagerly anticipating this read not only because it looked to cover some really interesting subject matter, but also on account of Kim Stanley Robinson having emerged as one of my favorite authors.

The book is set in New York City and spans the years 2140 through 2143.  In this future, sea levels have risen upwards of fifty feet world wide on account of climate change and the accelerated melting of the Earth’s polar ice caps.  Coastal cities across the globe have been ravaged and we find that in New York, all of lower Manhattan, the Meadowlands, Brooklyn, Queens, and the south Bronx are now shallow seas.  The local population, however, has, with much struggle, successfully adapted the partially submerged buildings into livable spaces, creating a “SuperVenice” that is once again becoming fashionable and drawing the eye of capital investment.  The story revolves around various residents of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower and opens with the introduction of two rogue coders named Jeff and Mutt who are abducted by unknown forces moments after releasing a hack that exposes evidence of widespread illicit trading practices to the SEC.  As the investigation of their disappearance unfolds, a diverse grouping of their former neighbors find their lives increasingly caught up in the incident. Among the key players are Vlade Marovich, the building’s friendly yet grim superintendent; Gen Octaviasdottir, a tough NYPD inspector from the poor side of town; Charlotte Armstrong, a passionate legal advocate of displaced people and leading figure in the influential Householders Union; Frank Garr, a high powered hedge fund manager; Amelia Black, reality star and environmental activist; and, finally, Stefan and Roberto, a pair of adventurous orphans.  As their lives entwine, they find themselves caught up in a corporate conspiracy that threatens the very essence of their community and way of life. Fortunately for them, a chance discovery may just provide them the means to fight back.

Let me open the review by saying that this was an absolute monster of a book.  It was dense, it was detailed, and it was a hefty 860+ pages. And for the most part I absolutely loved it!  To get them out of the way upfront, the book did have some flaws regarding certain aspects of the overall pacing and storytelling.  The author had a tendency to spend a lot of time on things that ultimately didn’t add much to the story as a whole and this had a pretty significant impact on the length and pacing of the main plot.  As much as I liked Amelia, her early chapters felt a bit extraneous and likewise Frank’s extended courtship of JoJo took up a lot of early page time for things that by the end weren’t central to the plot.  While these items certainly added color to the story, they did add considerably to an already verbose tale.

That said, I nonetheless found the experience of this novel extremely satisfying.  The world created was absolutely fascinating, well developed, and full of brilliant and innovative ideas and technologies a near-future society may have at its disposal.  The author certainly did his homework about New York’s history and geography and brought the city to life as a vibrant, living part of a complicated world. The characters were all wonderfully engaging as well, with my particular favorites being Charlotte for her fiery activism, Gen for her realism and dedication to both police work and social justice, and the wonderful duo of Jeff and Mutt.  These last two felt like the result of fusing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Waiting for Godot in to the worlds of coding and finance with all the requisite knowledge and banter.  They themselves even comment upon on this shortly after I started thinking it!

It was the novel’s political message, though, that really made me love this book so much.  The joint environmental and economic oppressions of this world were a constant source of tangible tension throughout the story and really grabbed me as a reader  It was also through this that the author delivered an explicit (and rather on point) critique of capitalism in general and large financial institutions in particular as not only enemies of a free and open society, but also major factors in the willful ignorance that led previous generations to ignore the realities of climate change.  Charlotte’s eventual notion of unleashing a mass campaign of financial disobedience in the form of a debtor’s strike (in which the participants stop paying all mortgage, rent, and credit debts) to cripple the banks and open them up to seizure by a progressive government was brilliant and something that just felt right to me. There were a number of passages along these lines scattered throughout the story that felt like a rallying cry for the near future.  A couple of my favorites were:

But that lack on my part is now an advantage, because that career track is what made the Democratic Party so weak.  But I’m a Democrat for lack of anything better, and I intend to speak out of the people’s side of our party’s two-sided mouth and shut the other… I’m not taking money from anyone and I don’t have any of my own…Vote for me if you want, and if not, you get what you deserve.

• Excerpt from one of Charlotte’s campaign speeches

At this point, justice and revenge are the same thing!  Justice for the people would be revenge on the oligarchs.  So yeah, I want both. Justice is the feather in the arrow, revenge is the tip…look once you’re cutting [the rentier class] apart, you tell them they each get to keep five million.  Not more, but not less…Most of them will do a cost-benefit analysis and realize that dying for a bigger number is not worth it.

• Jeff on how to make a better world

Well, there you have it.  As alluded to above, I loved the righteous political message of this story and really enjoyed the characters and world building that went along with it.  The one thing that stops me just short of declaring this an absolute must read for everyone is the length and density of the novel, especially given some of its pacing issues.  I got enough of political rush out the story’s message to overlook these things, whether another reader does as well may (or not) be decisive factor in how much they enjoy this.

Book Review: Tiamat’s Wrath, by James S.A. Corey (Book Eight in The Expanse Series)

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Book, Book Review, James S.A. Corey, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, The Expanse

If you’ve been following my reviews for the past couple of years, you may have noticed that I have had some rather mixed feelings about The Expanse series.  I’m in way too deep to turn back now though, so here we go with book eight, published in March 2019.

The story picks up several years after the end of the previous novel and deals with the aftermath of its events.  The action focuses specifically upon the fledgling resistance to Laconian conquest, James Holden’s imprisonment, and High Consul Duarte’s continued experiments with protomolecule technology despite increasingly severe push back from some unknown force.  These stories unfold from the perspective of old friends Elvi Okoye, Naomi, Alex, Bobbi, and Holden along with newcomer Teresa Duarte, daughter of the Laconia colony’s ruthless ruler.   

Wow, now this was the book I’ve been waiting for!  Here is where the series finally steps up to its potential and delivers a huge payoff for the reader following all the starts and stops I’ve written about in the past.  No longer held captive by the often frustrating whims of James Holden, this intriguing universe has now fully opened up to stories on many fronts, each headed by a character we’ve come to know and care about.

It was for precisely these reasons that this installment hit all the right notes for me and avoided many of my previous criticisms.  The story was excellent and advanced both the galactic politics and protomolecule arcs to some really interesting place while simultaneously providing plenty of action, intrigue, and philosophical quandaries.  That it also at long last starred a full cast of characters you could actually care about (Holden included), made this read even sweeter. The former Roci crew really do feel like old friends at this point, Elvi remained fantastic, and the addition of Teresa offered a very interesting perspective on the enemy camp.  Not to give away too much, but when certain prominent characters die each hurt in a way I don’t think would have been possible in the previous books. My only complaint here is that I wish the authors more slowly revealed a certain character’s true identity.  I knew immediately who it was and I think the impact of their death would have been even greater if they kept us guessing until closer to the end.

At this point I am now pretty excited about the upcoming finale, even though I am a bit worried that it will have a lot to wrap up in a relatively short amount of space.  Shortly after finishing the book I came across another post in which the reviewer mentioned that reading the novellas associated with this series made the read even better and for the first time in eight books I am tempted to do so.  If you were like me and on the fence about whether or not to continue this series, my answer to you now is to do so. This story was totally worth getting through the occasional disappointing read for.

Book Review: Death’s End, by Liu Cixin (Book Three in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy)

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Book Review, Liu Cixin, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Three Body Problem

And today I make my triumphant return to book reviews with some exciting news!  Completing this review means that I have closed out my time in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy and have accomplished one of my reading goals for the year.  This series has been a really enjoyable ride so far, so let’s see how the final installment played out.

The child that was human civilization had opened the door to her home and glanced outside.  The endless night terrified her so much that she shuddered against the expansive and profound darkness, and shut the door forever.

Spanning multiple eras from the present day, near-future, and way, way, beyond, this book serves to expand upon the Dark Forest hypothesis presented in the previous novel and look at how the unforgiving realities of such a universe affect not only the situation between Earth and Trisolaris, but the enigmatic game of universal geopolitics.  It does this by following the life and rather eventful career of an aerospace engineer named Cheng Xin. Born in the early 21st century she, like many of the other characters we’ve encountered thus far, lives a life essentially outside of time by using her position and influence to spend many years in cryogenic hibernation, resurfacing only at potentially critical moments in human history to help steer certain events she sets in motion over the centuries.

I enjoyed this story in general, but upon looking back at the series as a whole this is probably  the installment I connected with the least. A large part of that feeling is based on my impression that the characters were not as strongly written this time around.  I liked Xin well enough, but I did not find her nearly as interesting as Luo Ji and thought many of her decisions were a bit suspect, or at the very least based on motives that were made insufficiently clear.  Similarly, her associate 艾AA felt a bit hollow and did not have the same presence as her counterpart Da Shi from the previous novels or even many of the other minor characters encountered previously.  Combined with the diminished presence of the usually rich cast of supporting characters as the story went on, these relatively minor issues stood out a bit more for me than they probably would have otherwise.

This somewhat lackluster showing by the main characters put a lot more emphasis on the story, which for both better and worse, had a tendency to get a bit out there at times.  The numerous theoretical discussions regarding the interactions between various dimensions and the ways in which laws of physics could be weaponized were topics I found fascinating, but they also made my head spin a bit the longer they went on.  That’s not necessarily a problem, mind you, but since there were some moments where I just couldn’t fully conceptualize what was going on I felt a bit lost in places (and yes, I do admit that is in part on me). One area in which I think the story excelled, however, was in its depiction of the changes in human society and culture across the centuries.  I really enjoyed following the ebbs and flows of civilization and how people changed from the carefree naivety of the Deterrence Era hyper-information age (a future that despite its idealism still really creeps me out), the authoritarianism of the years surrounding the Trisolaran occupation, and the determination of the Jovian space colonists. I also found it fun to compare these visions to some of the others I’ve read recently to see where they overlap and contrast.

Looking back on the series as a whole, I do say that I quite enjoyed it despite its occasional faults.  Not only did I find the main stories about the Trisolarian conflict and life in the Dark Forest quite interesting, but I also found many of the more personal interludes equally engaging.  Wang Miao’s discovery of the Three Body game, the experiences of the Galactic Humans beginning with the Blue Space and Gravity, and the interplay of Luo Ji and Da Shi are some of the things that stick out the most in my mind.  I also enjoyed how the author would have minor characters pop up in recurring roles to give the books a sense of continuity that otherwise might have been very hard to maintain.  

So there you have it. I’m sorry to see my time in this universe come to an end, but on the other hand I am also happy that I am a bit more freed up to move on to new adventures!  These books take the reader on a journey through time and space that I would highly recommend to fans of harder sci-fi.

 

Book Review: A People’s Future of the United States, edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams

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A. Merc Rustad, Book, Book Review, Daniel H. Wilson, Fantasy, Hugh Howley, Lizz Huerta, N.K. Jemisin, Omer El Akkad, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, Short Story

I’ve probably said this before, but one of my greatest discoveries upon starting this blog was the wonders of short story compilations.  This one immediately caught my eye with its obvious homage to Howard Zinn’s famed historical text, A People’s History of the United States, and I was excited that the introduction mentioned that some of Zinn’s central ideas regarding power, representation, and inclusion were used as writing prompts for the 25 authors contributing to this compilation.

It pains me to say it, but taken as a whole I found this collection to be a bit uneven and occasionally unsatisfying.  I wanted to love it through and through, especially since I fully believe in and support both the ideals that inspired it and the voices of the authors presented, but several of the stories I just couldn’t connect with.  Some I didn’t find interesting, a couple had a writing style I couldn’t stand, and some were perhaps too thematically similar to the stories preceding them. Again, I absolutely believe that stories like these that examine issues of racial, sexual, and gender equality, civil rights, and the role of government are important, even essential, topics to cover, I was just not sold on how some of them were told.

That’s not to say I had a bad time with this read, though.  There were some real gems in here and upon looking back these far outshine the works I found less interesting.  To focus on the positive, my favorites (in the order presented) were:

Our Aim is Not to Die, by A. Merc Rustad: In an authoritarian future where conformity to a straight, white, conservative worldview is monitored through mandatory social media updates, a group of non-binary friends are forced to put their lives in the hands of an illusive AI promising to protect their secret.  I liked how this story provided both a glimpse of a social media-driven dystopia as well as a reminder that good actors can also leverage technology to the benefit of society.

The Wall, by Lizz Huerta: Secure in their position behind a border wall, a group of Mexican scientists work to re-humanize the drugged American soldiers used to instigate a brutal military coup in the former United States.  One of a few stories that depicts Mexico as the ultimate beneficiary of a border wall that shields it from the chaos of a failed US, this one just like it had the most complete vision of these stories.

Riverbed, Omer El Akkad: A Muslim diplomat from Canada returns to her childhood hometown in the Midwestern United States to collect the belongings of her brother.  Killed after escaping an internment camps several years prior, his remains are part of a controversial period of history that has left people on both sides of the camps alienated.  A thought provoking look at the limits of protest and the lengths to which rank and file individuals will go to justify and rationalize their role in abuse. It also touches upon the human tendency to shy away from that which discomforts us by delivering on of my favorite quotes of the compilation:

“You know what this country is?  She said. “This country is a man trying to describe a burning building without using the word fire.”

No Algorithms in the World, by Hugh Howley: Story of a son bringing some life changing news to his near-future Archie Bunker dad.  A fun little slice of life story, it was also notable for being the only story in which the future more or less turns out alright.  It also shone an entertaining, yet no less accurate, light on the hypocrisy behind some strongly held conservative beliefs and the extent to which Google guides us all.

Give Me Cornbread or Give Me Death, N.K. Jemisin: This story of a black female militia fighting genetically engineered dragons set loose on their community by an oppressive government was probably my favorite in the collection.  Using the power of love and food (most notably collard greens), they find creative ways to turn the tools of the oppressors against their creators. Like so many of the other Jemisim works I’ve read this year, this not only made me think but made me really hungry as well!

A History of Barbed Wire, Daniel H. Wilson: A dead body found in the haven that is Cherokee Nation raises some profound security questions and reveals the lengths desperate people will go to in order to protect their family.  I apparently really enjoy a good detective story, and this one certainly fit the bill!

Book Review: 2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson

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2312, Book, Book Review, Kim Stanley Robinson, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction

As an avid reader of science fiction, I feel like Kim Stanley Robinson is an author that I need to be way more familiar with than I am currently.  He’s had a very successful and prolific career, having won multiple awards over the years, along the way earning praise like “the gold-standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing” from The Atlantic and a “Hero of the Environment” from Time Magazine.  I can’t believe how quickly the time has passed since reading my first novel from him back in 2016, but here I am finally getting into a second one!

The majority of this book takes place in and around the year 2312.  In this future, while humanity has spread out across the Solar System, it is still spiritually beholden to an Earth wracked by the effects of climate change, overpopulation, and massive social inequality.  The story unfolds mainly from the perspective of an eccentric artist named Swan Er Hong and opens with the death of her grandmother Alex, the widely respected and extremely influential Lion (ruler) of Mercury.  Shortly after the funeral, Swan is approached by a pair of Alex’s colleagues, Inspector Jean Genette of the Interplanetary Police and a diplomat from the Saturnian moon Titan named Wahram. Prompted by their inquiries regarding any messages Alex may have left behind regarding a particularly sensitive project, Swan uncovers a store of hidden communications left for her to deliver, a mission that quickly finds her swept up in a plot that spans the Solar System.

I was absolutely blown away by this book!  Though it often dove into some pretty dense subject matter, the story remained thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding throughout.  It covered so much ground and featured such a richly developed universe that I am thoroughly impressed the author managed to pack so much into a single 576 page book that still offered an intricate story and vision.  From the internal politics governing the various centers of humanity to the complex, Basque-inspired, economic system tying them together, the political and economic realities of this world told a compelling piece of the story.  Guiding this, of course, was a heavy dose of science and astronomy, with a multitude of facts and theory shaping the author’s portrayal of everything from quantum computing and space travel to patterns of climate change on Earth and the resource requirements for terraforming other worlds.  While this may sound a bit dry to some people, I can assure this book was anything but! The author’s beautifully detailed descriptions of such fascinating locations as a terraforming Venus, rugged settlements on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, the flooded remains of Manhattan, and the rolling city of Terminator on Mercury really made this universe spring to life and make the reader feel like they were places they could actually visit.

Another fascinating part of this story were the people inhabiting this universe, for it is through them that we explore the complex social and biological changes this future brings.  The three mains, Swan, Wahram, Inspector Genette were all fascinating on an individual level, but more broadly served to explore the other frontiers presented in this novel; namely, a re-imaging of human biology, gender, and sexuality.  Inspector Genette, is what is referred to as a “small”; a person who by design is significantly shorter and lighter than the average human so that they are better suited to life in higher gravity. As for Swan and Wahram, the story got a little more radical.  Though they identified as female and male, respectively, both were revealed to be gynandromorphous, a fairly common trait among the spacers of this universe who tended to embrace treatments and procedures that often radically redefine the human experience. It was Swan, however, who pushed the boundaries of humanity more than most in this story, to the point of alarming her companions.  Her major body modifications, beyond the addition of male sex organs, include incorporating animal brain matter into her own, ingesting a suite of alien bacteria found on Enceladus, and, perhaps most notably, embedding a quantum computer in her neck. There was a very interesting balance of necessity and vanity to all of these enhancements, as well as an air of rebellion in doing things simply because one could.

As for the actual plot, well, I really don’t want to give that much of it away!  A lot of the fun of this story was watching events unfold while experiencing the wonder of traveling the Solar System with Swan.  The cryptic lists and extracts that the author added between chapters were an excellent way to unobtrusively get the reader up to speed on some of the events and ideas that shape this world, and once they started coming into clearer view, made for some shocking revelations and insights.  Likewise the gradual reveal of Alex’s project and the root of her mistrust of quantum computers made for some fascinating reading.

Put that all together and this was an impressive book that offered a thoroughly captivating look into humanity’s future while telling a fascinating story.  Needless to say, I highly enjoyed this one and found that offered everything (and more!) that I had hoped for upon embarking on another sci-fi adventure. I know I’ve said this a lot lately, but this author is definitely getting an increased presence at the top of my TBR list.  I’m even going so far as to promise myself now that I’ll read at least one more book from him before the year is over!

Book Review: The Consuming Fire, by John Scalzi (Book Two in the Interdependency Trilogy)

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Book, Book Review, Interdependency, John Scalzi, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction

Shortly after I mentioned needing something to lighten my mood a bit following my last book review, I stumbled upon just the read I needed.  Always good for a laugh and some fun sci-fi hijinks, John Scalzi’s novels always have a place on my reading list and this one popped up at just the right time.  Published in October 2018, this is the second book in the ongoing Interdependency Trilogy that I began back in July of 2017.

Taking place shortly after the end of the previous novel, Cardenia Wu is now fully established in her position as Emperox Grayland II and desperately working to hold her empire together.  Facing the impending collapse of the Flow, the natural phenomena that links all human settlements and makes space travel possible, and a continued opposition to her reign from the influential Nohamapetan family, she must battle every step of the way to make sure her voice gets heard.  Standing alongside allies like scientist Marce Claremont and ruthless business woman Kiva Lagos, Cardenia must by any means necessary find a way to convince her various constituents of the reality of Flow collapse while fighting well-coordinated attempts to undermine her authority.

As expected, this was a fun, rollicking romp of a space adventure featuring a compelling world, complex political scheming, and some pretty spot-on satire covering a variety of timely topics like religion, the role of corporations, the denial of climate change, and the willingness of corrupt individual to use lies and rumor to subvert reasoned discourse.  Seeing as I tend to agree with Scalzi’s nominally left-leaning, irreverent slant on these issues, I found these things all rather wonderful in a cynically mirthful sort of way. Playing an integral role in moving this forward was an amazing collection of characters with absolutely hilarious inner monologues that alternated between dry wit, spit-fire obscenities, and chuckle out loud observations.  The people you root for, like Kiva and Cardenia, and against, looking at you again Nohamapetans, were equally joyful to behold and really made the story for me.  Kiva, despite an uncharacteristic attachment to a certain lady friend, was as rowdy as ever, though it was easily Cardenia that impressed me the most this time around.  It was absolutely fantastic to see her embrace the role of Emperox and embark upon a mission to expertly stick it to the people oh-so desperately have it coming.

In short this story absolutely delivered the good, fun read I was hoping for and have come to expect from this author.  This book was an excellent reminder of why Scalzi is one of my favorites and if you’re a fan of his work I highly recommend checking out this series if you haven’t already.  My only regret here is that I am going to have to wait for the final book to come out!

Book Review: The Dark Forest, by Liu Cixin (Book Two in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy)

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Book, Book Review, Liu Cixin, Reading, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction, The Dark Forest

Getting back into the reading side of things, the next series that I want to finish off this year is Liu Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy.  Published in 2008 (and translated to English in 2015), The Dark Forest is the sequel to Three Body Problem, an immensely popular Chinese hard science fiction novel that also just so happened to be runner up for my favorite sci-fi novel of last year.

The story begins about three years after the events that ended the previous the previous book.  Now aware that there are only 400 short years left before they are confronted by an invasion fleet from Trisolaris, the nations of Earth have begun coming together to dream of ways that humanity might survive the encounter.  There are no easy answers, however, as the Trisolarians possess vastly superior technology and already have some rather formidable advance forces in place on Earth. Desperate to develop any sort of defense, the United Nations and newly formed Planetary Defense Council nominate four prominent individuals, called Wallfacers, to secretly develop strategies for survival.  Granted unprecedented authority and resources, they are given nearly free reign to direct their projects. Though each is controversial in their own way, it is the shocking selection of a “cynical and irresponsible” astronomer/sociologist named Luo Ji that may ultimately make the greatest impact.

Like its predecessor, I found this book absolutely fascinating to read.  It takes its name from one particularly bleak interpretation of the Fermi Paradox and again leaves the reader with plenty to think about in regard to life, the universe, and, well, science.  The story moved along at a steady pace, switching between a variety of characters and locations as the story progressed. Particularly notable moments for me were seeing the Wallfacers confronted with the truth of their plans (which felt oddly reminiscent of a Bond villain’s reveal in reverse) and the palpable tension leading to humanity’s first encounter with a Trisolaran probe.  This latter event was probably my highlight of the book and even though it turned out more or less how I thought it would, I found this section riveting all the same. I’ll admit there were a couple of other plot points about which I had to try not to think too hard about, but on the whole the entire story was incredibly engaging.

I also found the scientific aspects of the story quite intriguing as well.  The first two thirds of the book focused on near-future tech and cutting-edge theory, presenting a very thought-provoking mix of ideas.  The ones I found most interesting were the space elevator and alternatives to consumable fuel about which I of course did some additional (non-required) reading.  The final third of the book, which thanks to the wonders of cryo-preservation, takes our main characters 200 years into the future, was equally intriguing. I don’t want to say too much, but here I found developments like nearly limitless, renewable power and having everything around you connected to a network fascinating concepts, though also a bit terrifying in the case of the latter idea.  Surely though, it will be the major advances in spaceflight that have the biggest impact going forward.

And finally, some thoughts on the characters.  The book had a deep, well developed cast that succeeded in putting a human face on all the ideas and theory discussed above.  Luo Ji, was easily my favorite of the main characters. Something about seeing such a brilliant yet disinterested person granted so much authority really entertained me, and it was most certainly noteworthy that he was also the only Wallfacer who actually succeeded at creating a (relatively) low-cost, viable plan that he was able to keep hidden across centuries.  I loved seeing him paired with bodyguard/kindred spirit Shi Qiang, another favorite of main and the only character from the previous novel to return in a regular role.  The dynamic between the two was incredibly entertaining and really brought a solid human element to the story. As for the other lead, Zhang Beihai, a political officer in the PLA Navy and eventual Space Force, he was in contrast a much more serious and determined individual, though he certainly had plenty of surprises in store for the reader as well.  I definitely found him much more interesting as the story went on.

I am now very eager to jump into book three and find out where this journey is taking us.  Since this installment actually ended on a somewhat positive note, I am really curious what the final chapter has in store for the beings of Earth and Trisolaris.  With a few big plot points potentially left on the table, namely the existence of other “hunters” and the rather ambiguous resolution to one of the other Wallfacer’s plans, I’m sure there is plenty of great story yet to come.