Category: science fiction

Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty (Science Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 5/5 Characters: 4.5/5
Mallory Viridian appears to be cursed. Murders tend to occur whenever she is around. She solves them — quickly and well (much to the irritation of the local police) — but it would be much better if they didn’t happen in the first place! After the latest murder, wanting to be as far from perishable humans as she can get, she makes her way onto Eternity — a sentient space station — where bizarre coincidences tend to happen even more often.

The story is a great mix of action, cultural exploration, and personal growth with an impressive cast of characters (human and not, multi colored, of various sexual proclivities — checks all the right boxes but does not beat the point to death). One step further in the diversity collection — experiments with symbiotic pairings between beings becomes somewhat central to the plot(s). These include sentient hardware, hive minds, giant vegetarian rock people and the “moist races” like humans. Honestly the disgust felt by some of the aliens at the thought of all the “liquid” in humans just cracked me up. The plot often veers at crazy angles with multiple surprises, inducing a pleasurable ADD experience in me (I’m normally more of a linear planner type). Lots of banter and a very cool ending where countless loose end were tied up in highly satisfying ways.

I absolutely loved this book and can’t imagine how I missed it when it first came out. It’s my kind of science fiction — full of aliens, but with fully fleshed out (and imaginative) cultures and individual personalities (alienalities?). No all-hands-on-deck to kill the bug-eyed monsters thread!

Perfect for fans of Ann Leckie or early Becky Chambers (the Monk & Robot series do nothing for me). The best news — book two is coming out shortly (November 7th), and if I’m lucky I’ll get an early copy!

The Dispatcher: Travel By Bullet by John Scalzi (Sci Fi)

Scalzi always has a Big Idea behind each one of his books, which he then wraps with action, humor and some world class banter. His characters are always smart asses — the kind I’d like to hang out with, not the adolescent smirking types that I’m utterly sick of. And he always draws me in with the very first line — in this case: “It was 2:48 PM on a Tuesday, and I was about to do the same thing for the third time since I began work at noon: convince some distraught people that I shouldn’t, in fact, kill their loved one.”

The premise of The Dispatcher: for reasons no one understands, if someone intentionally kills someone else, that person will come back to life 999/1000 times — buck naked and in a place they consider safe, with a body in the state it was in about a day earlier. The new Family Compassion Act gives families the right to request dispatch.

Toss in cryptocurrency, some very rich people with their own twisted philosophy about what makes life worthwhile, and a loner hero with strong ideas about friendship and you have a very entertaining Scalzi ride.

Thank you to Subterranean Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book was published on April 30th, 2023

Translation State by Ann Leckie (Science Fiction)

Translation State is a standalone story in the (beloved) universe of the Ancillary Justice series. You don’t need to have read those first, but they are wonderful, so if you haven’t — do so now! Leckie’s universe is populated by any number of richly delineated alien species along with numerous human based cultures, far flung across the universe. In this story, three completely unrelated characters are drawn together through a bizarre set of circumstances and manage to have an impact on the way things have always been done. Enae — the reluctant diplomat tasked with tracking down a fugitive from 200 years ago; Reet, an adopted mechanic who struggles with intense (and definitely unacceptable) urges that he doesn’t understand; and Qven, a juvenile form of a manufactured species designed to translate between humans and the mysterious Presgers — absolutely necessary to preserving the fragile peace between the two races.

I love the way Leckie writes rich interior (alien) lives while simultaneously illustrating the complexity of multiple, variegated, worlds. I loved her description of the process for “raising” the translators — as alien as you can get and described from Qven’s very nuanced and real perspective. This story includes a fully fleshed out description of how to challenge cultural expectations when some aspects of the problem are (currently) immutable while others are simply rigidly accepted ways of doing things. The teasing apart of the situation and dawning awareness of what solutions are possible is brilliant and a skill that I wish would be more developed in us all.

As an aside, Leckie has a great time playing with pronouns. While occasionally single characters are referred to as “they” (which I hate), there are several other labels (sie, e, he, she) which I admit I couldn’t always differentiate but were meaningful to the characters — more importantly though, there was a wide range of pronouns which people sometimes had to correct but never got strident about.

Ann Leckie may well be my favorite current science fiction writer — in addition to writing engaging stories populated with realistic and diverse characters, she doesn’t insist on dwelling in constant dystopia and darkness as so many of today’s SF writers do.

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on June 6th, 2023

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake (Speculative Fiction — Audio Book)

Writing: 3/5 Characters: 3/5 Plot: 4/5

Mixed feelings about this one. A kind of combination of Hunger Games and Divergent. Six very powerful magicians (Medeans) — each with their own very particular kind of magic — are recruited to join the Alexandrian Society with power and secret knowledge offered to those who manage to be initiated. With one small hitch — one out of six will not be allowed to make it.

Pros: Some very interesting world building that blends philosophy, psychology, and a version of physics which embeds magic at its core. Really interesting description of reality and how it is perceived. Each of the six, with their own backstory and strength, adds a nice twisted spin to the way we think about things.

Cons: I found the characters and dialog pretty adolescent. Plenty of arrogance, and amused smirking, and competition as to who can adopt the most superior tone. Blah, blah, blah. Most are greedy for power for their own sake while I greatly prefer reading about people who are motivated by achievement and / or relationships.

And the biggest “con” of all: a complete cliff hanger at the end which I loathe.

So … entertaining for the most part, some cringeworthy and tedious introspection and sparring, and an irritating cliffhanger at the end. The second book just came out a couple of months ago, so if you’re interested, you won’t have to wait for the cliffhanger to be resolved. While I didn’t love it, this is a VERY popular title!

I listened to the audio book which had different (and good) readers for each of the six main characters as aligned with the chapter which centered on them.

In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune (Speculative Fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 3.5/5
A small and definitely diverse family (consisting as it does of three robots and a small human) lives happily in a dense forrest finding discarded electronic treasures in the local (and wildly gigantic) scrap heap and refurbishing them. Two successful refurbishments are now part of the family: Rambo — the ultra-loquacious, ultra-needy, and anxiety plagued vacuum robot; and the truly twisted and psychopathic Nurse Ratched (Registered Automaton To Care, Heal, Educate and Drill) — possessed of a dry wit and an “Empathy Protocol” she engages to hysterical effect.

When they find a damaged (and very handsome) robot in the scrap and manage to bring him back to “life,” it unleashes the force of the Robot Authority — the same group that wiped out all humans because they were busily destroying each other and the Earth. A rescue mission into the City of Electric Dreams with the “help” of a wild cast of characters along the way and a gay, interspecies romance (if you count advanced robots as a species) round out the tale.

I liked the characters and the humor — laughed out loud many times. I really liked the ongoing philosophical discussions and thoughts — plenty of existential considerations and an exploration of what it means to human, sentient, and / or conscious. Guilt, forgiveness, grief, and joy and what it means to experience those emotions. A scrutiny of Morality in a wide gamut of situations. And lastly, what does it means for a species to evolve? I also loved the well-integrated cultural references, especially to one of my all time favorite movies (Top Hat — yes!). The adventure sequences went on a bit too long for my taste, though I admit they included some pretty creative beings and mechanisms and I’m not really into ANY adventure sequences, so …

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on April 25th, 2023

In the Shadow of Humanity by N. John Williams (literary science fiction)

Writing: 4/5 Plot: 4/5 Characters: 4/5 Overall Enjoyment: 5/5

What it means to be human is the theme driving this story of two brothers — one alive and one long dead (but faithfully rendered as an AI in the metaverse and allowed to age) — who each long for the other’s existence. One longs for the immortality and eternal healthy youth while the other longs for the rights and respect kept from him by dint of not being fully human despite his ability to think, feel, create, and perceive pain.

This is technology driven science fiction — my favorite kind, reminiscent of the “old days.” It made me realize how much better this kind of SF is when written by an author with actual experience in the technical areas s/he is extrapolating from. In this case, the author is well versed in Computer Science, Linguistics, and Artificial Intelligence, and it shows in his fully fleshed out cultures evolving from a thoroughly described metaverse (the metaverse is the blending of physical and virtual worlds, not to be confused with the multiverse which is the theoretical existence of multiple physical universes). There are power struggles (the Administration powered by Technologists; transhumanist activists; and an evolving superintelligence) with equal word count given to the abundant (and to me more interesting) ethical / political issues.

I’ve thought about the ending for some time — I’m not sure I like the conclusion but I do think I understand it, and it was quite thought provoking (a top criterion for me). One of the better SF books I’ve read in the past few years.

Thank you to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 1st, 2022.

The Sisters Sputnik by Terri Favro (Science Fiction — Audio book)

Broad, sweeping story that spans all 2058(!) worlds in the multiverse (and some time shifts to boot) — starring Sputnik Chick: A Girl With No Past. Debbie Reynolds Biondi is Sputnik Chick — and the comic book artist and storyteller bringing her to life for others. What I loved about this book — and I really did love listening to it — was the way the author brought every one of the various worlds to life with each fully developed (and different) culture resulting from differences in the world’s timeline. Synthetic humanoids, AIs brought to life, mutations, language deterioration, and Cozy World — where pandemics have converted the populace into retiring hermits terrified of human interaction. I’ve been reading science fiction since I was five (really) and this book constantly surprised me with both new ideas and many old ideas morphed and molded into unrecognizable emerging customs and habits. There is plenty of action and adventure — which I can find boring — but it was all enveloped in such interesting philosophy, reflection, and world building that I never had to skim.

Highly recommended for those interested in a more human-centric, creative type of science fiction.

Thank you to ECW Press Audio and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review. The audiobook will be released on June 30th, 2022 (the printed book was released on May 17th)

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi (SF)

Laugh out loud funny and full of action (which normally bores me to tears but Scalzi always manages to pull it off), this latest standalone novel from one of my favorite SF authors is a breath of fresh air.

Jamie Gray — a recently fired, PhD drop out (her dissertation was going to be on utopian and dystopian literature), is making an unhappy living as a deliverator when a chance customer offers her a job with an animal rights organization. Only as it turns out, the “animals” are more ecosystem than animal, are absolutely humongous (and scary), and don’t exactly live on this particular version of Earth. Armed with her sci-fi mindset and a talent for lifting things (think heavy, not theft), Jamie manages to save the day … quite often. Added bonuses: Godzilla origin story explained and Snow Crash properly revered.

For Scalzi newbies, a few writing extracts:

“It’s more like we have a workable service relationship with a tenuous personal history.”

“It was stupidly perfect how all my problems were suddenly solved with the strategic application of money.”

“I’m officially skeptical about this Godzilla origin story.”

“That thing looks like H.P. Lovecraft’s panic attack.”

“It’s not the trees, you dense argumentative spoon.”

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on March 15th, 2022.

The Battle of the Linguist Mages by Scotto Moore (Audio Book — Science Fiction)

Writing: 4.5/5 Plot: 5/5 Characters: 4/5 World building: 5/5
A wild ride blending linguistics, gaming, technology development, and yes — saving not just the planet or the universe, but reality itself from the “Thunderstorm” which simply unravels reality as it progresses. This reminded me strongly of the feeling I got from Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash — one of my old favorites — plenty of action and a recognizable world which has developed in unexpected and pretty cool ways through technology. A main difference — this story is propelled by girl power — most of the very strong, very capable, and very imaginative characters in this book are women. Plenty of men, too, and the hero(ine) / evil nemesis extremes are liberally distributed among both sexes so it doesn’t set off my wild stereotype alarm. Warning: There is glitter.

There is plenty of snark which the audio book reader pulled off almost too well. Very interesting and convoluted world building in terms of blending linguistic concepts with symbiotic alien lifeforms, influences on the way we think, and embedding power in language. Lots of blurring between “game” life and real life, supported by the ability to move the action (with real implications) between the two. Although I listened to this — and so was unable to highlight great lines — the writing was very good with an impressive vocabulary and well structured thoughts. Way above the quality of your typical SF fare (I say this as a long time SF fan). Some over the top disdain for rich white guys and distrust of big government (which is beginning to bore me) but honestly very little and not the main point.

Original.

Thank you to RB Media and Net Galley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book was published on January 11th, 2022.

The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu (Science fiction audiobook)

The Wandering Earth contains ten, marvelously imaginative stories about humanity’s future, with China at the center (unusual for us Westerners to read and it definitely has an impact on the story lines).

The premise of each story is intriguing, and I never know where it will lead. I’m usually hooked by the first sentence which is very unusual — Cixin Liu is a tremendous writer, combining hard science fiction with individual reflection and massive socio-cultural settings and impact. Stories ranged from the rescue of the Earth from a dying sun to a simple malware virus turned into a death warrant for humanity to the results of capitalism run rampant (definitely a Chinese view on this one). One story embedded the author and a friend into a key point of the story with hysterical (and simultaneously sobering) results.

This is definitely a science fiction book written from a man’s perspective. The main characters (the ones written with such depth) are all men, and the few female characters fit stereotypes from the 50s — a little dumb, easily led, not a priority, and occasionally vindictive. It didn’t bother me — plenty of books written by women have only two dimensional depictions of stereotyped men — but it’s worth mentioning.

Liu’s political beliefs appear to align with those of the Chinese government which provides an interesting lens through which to read his stories. I believe this is the only Chinese science fiction translated into English that I’ve ever read. Ken Liu translated the Three Body Problem and did a beautiful job. For some reason I can’t seem to find out who translated this one but they, too, did a fantastic job.

The narrator(s) were a tad robotic at times, but that actually fits the stories well, and the reading speed was fast enough for me.

Thank you to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book was published on October 12th, 2022.