The war between Humanity and the somewhat crab-like alien species, the Regul, is over. Regul fought heir battles using Mri, a humanoid race of mercenaThe war between Humanity and the somewhat crab-like alien species, the Regul, is over. Regul fought heir battles using Mri, a humanoid race of mercenaries who shun most contact with outsiders. The war decimated the Mri, and now their adoptive homeworld, Kesrith, is about to become a human colony. With the millenia-long employment contract about to be broken, the Mri become a political inconvenience. Niun, the young unblooded warrior and his sister Melein- the last priestess of the tribe must find the answer to their people's survival. And an unlikely human, a soldier assigned to assist the new governor of Kesrith will become the advocate of the greatest enemy his species has faced in space.
The trilogy is primarily about space politics. Races alien to each other have fundamentally different ways of conceptualizing ideas and making decisions, and it's the interplay of these conflicting understandings and the outcomes that come from them that are the meat of the book.
Unfortunately, it takes way too long to actually get to this point. Only Book 3 really gets into this aspect, as Book 1 is largely all set-up and Book 2 is a travelogue; Only in Book 3 do we get to see some serious asides, big-picture contemplations and other hallmarks of proper space opera. It does manage to save the book, and the pacing improves; but the fact that the beginning was a slog and the middle was better-paced but basically inter-personal character development still hurts the overall impression. The story becomes fairly interesting- but it takes a good while to get there, and moments of action are fairly infrequent. There's a lot of waiting going on, but for the most part the thinking that characters do during this waiting isn't particularly grabbing.
The Faded Sun has a fairly good premise, and moments of amazing writing; but the overall slow, sometimes plodding pace really brought down the experience for me. ...more
Alastair Reynolds is a name I've come to associate with the "hardest" of hard sci-fi, largely due to his phenomenal "Revelation Space" trilogy and othAlastair Reynolds is a name I've come to associate with the "hardest" of hard sci-fi, largely due to his phenomenal "Revelation Space" trilogy and other works in the Galactic North setting.
Imagine, then, my surprise when "Terminal" world ended up telling an entirely different type of tale: a swashbuckling romp across a post-apocalyptic desert that swiftly transitioned into a vaguely steampunkish airship adventure. And it's a pretty widely known fact that airships make everything better.
Quillon is a pathologist working in a morgue in the city of Spearpoint-the last major city on Earth. Long, long time ago, the Earth has been changed, and it is now divided into various "zones". Each zone has restricitons on what kind of technology will function there- from basic mechanics, to internal combustion engines, to electricity, to more high-tech. Quillon is an agent from the highest Zone- the Celestial Heights inhabited by the humanoid Angels who was altered to be able to survive in lower zones. Having gone rogue a few years ago, Quillon lives in hiding, but his past catches up to him and he is forced to leave Spearpoint. Along with his surly guide Meroka he ventures into the wider world-and there he stumbles onto something that leads him to question the very underlying principles of his world.
The scope of imagination here is vast. Although the story feels more grounded, Reynolds manages to cram an inordinate amount of world-building into the relatively short narrative. A whole menagerie of characters, all sufficiently believable with their motivations and characters traits & flaws.
The pacing is solid, the action follows Quillon with no shifts in PoV and that keeps the story going and building constantly. The action bits are interspersed with world- and character-building in solid proportions and overall I'd say the pacing work really well for this type of story, even if sometimes descriptions of the ruined world can get a bit elaborate.
Overall, the book went in a completely unexpected direction, but it pulled it off well. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it makes for an enjoyable adventure read. ...more
The adventures of Nona Grey, magical assassin nun in training continue. The world of Abeth is dying. The moon, an artificial construct that reflects tThe adventures of Nona Grey, magical assassin nun in training continue. The world of Abeth is dying. The moon, an artificial construct that reflects the sun's energy onto the surface, keeping the encroaching glaciers at bay, is descending, and the Corridor of habitable land it provides continues to shrink. As more and more people find their homes devoured by the ice, tensions grow as struggle for land becomes more desperate.
Nona continues her training and finds herself advancing to the Grey Class- the second level of study. Once again, she has to face criticism and hazing as she finds it harder than ever to fit in- however, it soon becomes apparent that these aren't just school games and the hostility she faces is rooted in the Empire's politics and high families.
"Grey Sister" is a book of 2 halves. The first is continuation of "Red Sister", being mostly about Nona's struggles at the convent, as she constantly competes to prove herself. This part's all right, but it can get a bit slow. Then something happens, and the action shifts outside the convent of St Mercy. Things REALLY pick up then, as we see a ton of action from several PoVs, at an increasingly accelerating pace, resulting in a massive showdown finale that kept me up till 2 AM on a work night reading. Basically, once we leave the convent for spoilered reasons, the book becomes awesome. It's not really "epic", but it's good, action-filled fun. The book also sets upt he series for a strong conclusion, since it seems unlikely we'll go back to school routine again. ...more
Lawrence leaves behind the post-apoc sort-of Earth of the the "Thorns" and "Red Queen" trilogies and sets up shop in a new setting. What we get now isLawrence leaves behind the post-apoc sort-of Earth of the the "Thorns" and "Red Queen" trilogies and sets up shop in a new setting. What we get now is.... a quasi-medieval setting on the verge of the apocalypse (an impending Ice Age), with overtones of magic and high tech both (there are colony ship wrecks...and their reactors power magic?), so, on the second brush, We aren't really straying far from what Lawrence is known for. There's also a bunch of morally ambiguous characters, plotting, betrayals, and repressed memories of family dramas that unfold, ever-so-slowly throughout the story.
The protagonist, Nona is an orphan with a troubled past and a penchant for violence. She finds herself rescued from gallows and put into a convent school for magical assassin nuns. Many traditional "magic school tribulation" tropes follow, but delivered in Lawrence's style. As Nona makes her way int he school and both discovers more of her power, and shares more of her past, political plots happen, and Nona and her school is thrust in the middle of them. The ending isn't particularly shocking, or mind-blowing, but there's a lot of promise for things to come.
To be perfectly honest, I'm pretty indifferent to the whole "magic/ warrior school" setting. I was never a Harry Potter fan, so that type of story doesn't interest me in and of itself. Nona's story is more interesting that Jorg's (whose trilogy I read primarily for the world-building), but nor as good as Jalan's (which included Lawrence's best characters to date). A bunch of teenage assassin nuns in training just can't compete as a main cast with a conniving womanizer prince and an honourable but far too trusting viking. Probably not a fair comparison, but that's my opinion anyway.
So what does "Red Sister" get right? Well, the pacing- it's crisp, plot flows, there are some cool "personal achievement" moments that come with the whole "school and tests" setting, and the world's pretty interesting. The characters aren't off-putting, the way they were in "Thorns" books, and they work well enough, albeit their motivations are pretty clear and there weren't any twists that really took me by surprise.
Overall, it's a decent enough Book 1, and the series shows promise, despite not really reaching the levels of Lawrence's previous series. ...more
The adventures of the AFS "Willful Child" and its captain Hadrian Sawback continue. The evil Klang aliens are trying to surrender to him in order to uThe adventures of the AFS "Willful Child" and its captain Hadrian Sawback continue. The evil Klang aliens are trying to surrender to him in order to undermine the Affiliation's economy via sabotage; his rival captain Hans Olois plotting with the Affiliation's higher-ups to arrange for his disgraceful demise; and a bunch of temporal agents are watching him throughout time and space, causing varius screwups in the timeline.
Throughout all this, Se continues to tell his satirical story, in a manner that had me chuckling for the entirety of the week it took me to read it. Innuendo and grotesque consumerism gone wrong paint a grotesque, yet hilarious pictures of dystonian future of the universe.
Pacing remains solid, and the humour works. A lighter book, obviously, but still utterly good time. ...more
The legendary radio play that became a book, about the weird and wonderful universe(s), and the most useful book of all, the aforementioned Guide .
TThe legendary radio play that became a book, about the weird and wonderful universe(s), and the most useful book of all, the aforementioned Guide .
The trilogy is actually a 5-part book. But that's just the beginning of the weird. Arthur Dent, the English everyman is one of the few survivors when the Earth is demolished one wonderful Thursday afternoon to make way for a galactic overpass (coincidentally, the same Thursday Arthur's own council estate was due to be demolished to make way for an overpass in his hometown). Rescued by a friend who happens to be an alien from Betelgeuse and one of the field writers for the Guide Arthur finds himself facing the wide universe--and then thrust into a number of plots as he finds a fellow Earthling survivor Trillian (née Tricia McMillan) working for a thief-cum-President of the Universe and his experimental ship; things escalate further from there, as Arthur and a whole cast of other characters find themselves skipping around the universe in a series of highly improbable events.
The book is primarily a satirical work with occasioanl diatribes against bureaucracy and capitalism, but the tone is generally good-natured as it ridicules things taken to the extreme. The plot can sometimes be difficult to parse, as there's a certain picaresque-ness to it, that reflects the books' origin as a radio play as well as their episodic nature. This isn't high literature, but it is, for the most part, a fun read. The quality was a bit uneven- I felt that parts 3 and 5 were generally weaker than the rest, and I'd have preferred the book to end with part 4. That being said, it is an overall enjoyable read. And of course, it's worth reading just for the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. ...more
This is a collection of short (sometimes) fiction focusing on the worlds of Sanderson's Cosmere universe. They are grouped by worlds, and deal with thThis is a collection of short (sometimes) fiction focusing on the worlds of Sanderson's Cosmere universe. They are grouped by worlds, and deal with the settings of the Mistborn novels (planet Scadrial), the Stromlight Archive (Roshar), "Elantris" (planet Sel), as well as 3 other star systems (Taldain, Threnody, Drominad). The stories of the first 3 worlds tend to fill in some gaps in our knowledge of what's been going on in the stories Sanderson set there, while the latter 3 provide new examples of Sanderson's use of magic systems, and soem more insight into the underlying cosmology of his fictional universe.
Probably the single most important work here is the Stromlight novella Edgedancer starring Lift, the protagonist of one of the "interludes" from "Words of Radiance". Lift's story fills the gap between Books 2 and 3 and it actually provides a crucial moment of character development for one of the major players in the series. But aside from that, Edgedancer is a pretty good piece of writing, and Lift herself is a quirky but fun character with flashes of sudden brilliance. The novella is well-paced and reads in a single sitting.
The collection also includes a well-received and highly praised novella The Emperor's Soul , set in the world of Sanderson's debut novel; "Elantris". This is my favourite part of the collection, since it tells a story of a kind I always find incredibly interesting, but also very rare in speculative fiction- that of a craftsman creating a masterpiece. Even though in this case the craft is magical, and the craftswoman is embroiled in intrigue and escaping her imprisonment, this does not diminish the impact of the main theme. Sanderson conveys it well, and I absolutely loved it. The world of Sel also contains a brief short story The Hope of Elantris I didn't really remember much about the original "Elantris" so this short story didn't have a strong impact one way or the other.
Rounding out the trio of familiar worlds are the Mistborn works. Here Sanderson gives a lot of attention to Kelsier, the venerated Survivor whose memory transcends the original trilogy and whose presence is still felt int he follow-up Wax & Wayne novels. Sanderson fills in his backstory and in doing so does the first ever in-world (as in, not in the appendices) honest-to-goodness infodump about the greater cosmology, as someone in the know flat out states what are the "Shards" and where they came from... sort of.
The stories are fascinating for the extra insight, though to be fair I found ,i> Mistborn : Secret History to not be as well-paced as the other works.
And then we have the 3 "new" worlds. Taldain, the world of the Sandmasters is to be featured in a graphic novel. An excerpt from the novel is provided, along with a writing sample it was based on. I must admit, the graphic novel format didn't work for me, as I found it rather visually distracting and disorganized. The writing sample made the world and its magic seem pretty cool, but i'll probably pass on it unless it becomes available in written form.
Each of the remaining worlds offered one novella of around 60 pages Sixth of Dusk draws heavy inspiration from Polynesian culture, and mixed a great setting with a number of sci-fi tropes in a very unique way, being probably my second favourite work in the collection. Shadows for Silience in the Forests of Hell offered a much more sinister setting with the least structured magic system I've ever seen from Sanderson, feeling much more Grimm-like in its storytelling. Interesting piece, with a few links to another work.
And interwoven between are the introductory notes on each system that help to sketch out part of the scope of the Cosmere. Sanderson does not reveal all the Shards in Arcanum, and there's certainly more room for the universe to grow, but at the same time this can certainly provide some semblance of a reference framework for anyone unfamiliar with the larger picture he's been constructing behind the scenes of his various works. ...more
Second installment of the"Bel Dame Apocrypha" is a very uneven book.
It's been seven years since Nyx hunted down the alien gene pirate Nicodem and parSecond installment of the"Bel Dame Apocrypha" is a very uneven book.
It's been seven years since Nyx hunted down the alien gene pirate Nicodem and parted ways with her crew. She's been working as a mercenary, running with a new crew taking on gigs as bodyguard or debt collector, and continuing to miss the days when her work carried some honour with it. When the Bel Dame Council calls her in to hunt down a splinter faction that's opposed to the Queen, Nyx is willing to risk everything to get her status back.
The best part of the book is not Nyx, however. Her search takes her to the nation of Tirhan- a peaceful go-between who supplies the warring nations of Nasheen and Chenja with weapons to ensure the generations-long war continues. It is here that most of Nyx's old crew are trying to rebuild their lives. Hurley is at her best when she describes these struggles- and how the characters react to having the whirlwind of chaos that is Nyx blow back into their lives.
While there was a lot of good character development and in fact the bulk of the book can be said to be dedicated to this, I didn't feel the payoff was sufficient. Yes, there's a big, explosive action setpiece that results in some comeuppance for the antagonists; but then the story takes a few pages to leave a few principals' arcs hanging. The conclusion felt unsatisfying- and the Book 3 preview indicates that it'll take place another 6 years into the future. While a few of the characters were left by "Infidel"s plot in a good place to re-enter the story, some others really weren't, and I will feel frustrated if they suddenly come back into the picture 6 years later, given where they were left off.
That quibble aside, there's an overall story arc in here that's got somewhere to go; But I felt that Hurley may have done too good a job making me shift my focus from the setting to the characters, and then by favouring the former at the latter's expense left me less invested. I'm curious how this will play out and i'll be reading Book 3 soon, but this does colour my overall perception of the book as "disjointed"...more
The last of the 3 volumes of Moorcock's Best Short Fiction is focused on Karl Glogauer- the main character of both "Behold the Man" and the titular "BThe last of the 3 volumes of Moorcock's Best Short Fiction is focused on Karl Glogauer- the main character of both "Behold the Man" and the titular "Breakfast in Ruins". I reviewed "Behold the Man" previously, but it's important to note that this is the much shorter, original novella and not the expanded, standalone work- 60 pages, as opposed to about 140 of the expanded work.
So the focus here is on "Breakfast in Ruins". It's essentially a collection of period vignettes, covering each decade from the 1870s to the 1960s. each short vignette involves a different incarnation of a Karl Glogauer, across the world, each successive one being a year older, starting from a seven-eyar old boy trapped in the fall of the Paris Commune and ending with a 22-year old G.I. participating in a civilian massacre during the Vietnam War. The backdrop to all of this has some shoutouts to the Jerry Cornelius stories, as in 1971 London the neurotit Glogauer encounters an enigmatic stranger in the rooftop gardens of the Derry & Tom's Department Store. This man introduces Karl to the technique that allows him to experience the lives of his earlier incarnations. As Karl masters the skill, his incarnations gain progressively more agency over the events in their lives- and as they act out in increasibgly selfish ways, so does the "real world" Karl assume a progressively more vampiric role in the strange relationship with his benefactor.
"Breakfast in Ruins" is overall confusing, feeling very much a cacophony (sharing its tone with the bulk of the Cornelius works). However, in terms of individual vignette pieces, Moorcock's writing is top notch as always. While I didn't particularly care for the meta-plot (or the philosophical "What would you do?" dilemmas at the end of each chapter, the sheer variety of settings and the quality of writing was enough to make "Breakfast in Ruins" a fairly quick read.
Of the rest of the works in the collection, "London Flesh" I read before in "The Metatemporal Detective" collection, and "Behold the Man" is, as mentioned, a shorter version of the standalone work I reviewed earlier. of the other 3 pieces, the duology if "The Time Dweller" and "Escape from Evening" were interesting pieces of sci-fi, presenting a vision of an Earth far in the future, and the approaches various branches of humanity took to adapt to the increasingly hostile conditions.
I didn't really get much out of "The Dead Singer"- a story featuring a ghost(?) of Jimi Hendrix, but it's likely due to me missing the cultural significance of him and his music to the time at which Moorcock wrote the piece.
Overall, an interesting compilation to round off the Best of Short Fiction collection, but nothing truly standout, unlike the earlier volumes. ...more
If I am to find one common theme running through the works in this collection, it'd be "the things humans are capable of in extreme circumstances". ThIf I am to find one common theme running through the works in this collection, it'd be "the things humans are capable of in extreme circumstances". Throughout the stories in this book, Moorcock demonstrates alternatively, the very best, and the very worst of the human nature, as his characters face a variety of apocalyptic scenarios, including several "last men on Earth" -type situations. Majority of these are short enough for the setting to be roughly sketched out and the plot is central to the story. The one exception here is , which describes a world that survived a catastrophe, and, being a relatively longer work, it spend a lot of time establishing its setting- the ramshackle Aswan in Egypt, as the narrator pursues his lost sister, slowly unfolding the plot. The nature of the changes in the world is never stated outright, but it can be inferred from casual mentions of severe rationing of fuel and travel. Overall, the book is somewhat reminiscent thematically of earlier sci-fi volumes of the collection, such as Travelling to Utopia and Moorcock's Multiverse , so anoyone who's enjoyed those should find something to like here. ...more
The celestial convergence of the Earth and the Twin is coming. Worlds are about to come in contact for the first time in 4 thousand years, and once agThe celestial convergence of the Earth and the Twin is coming. Worlds are about to come in contact for the first time in 4 thousand years, and once again, this is supposed to herald a a time of chaos and destruction. As enterprising human magisters (magical engineers) drain the world's finite magic, the banished gods stir and plot. Caught in the middle of all this are the Kressind siblings, who continue to follow their paths. The explorer Trassan leads his iron ship to the city of the precursor race Morfaan lost in the southern ice continent; Garten, the secretary to the minister of foreign affairs is summoned to the capital of the Hundred Kingdoms for the election of a new Legate. Aarin, the Guider, servant of the God of Death seeks answers for his order; Rel, the soldier faces an invasion from another world coming from the Glimmering Sands, the world's magic oil fields; Gius the eldest grapples with the dark entity inside himself; and Katriona, the only Kressind sister fights her own battles, as she prepares a social revolution in the early industrial society where workers are treated worse than serfs.
"City of Ice" is a bit of a schizophrenic book in how it jumps between various PoVs. Along with the Kressind siblings we also get insight from the enigmatic Morfaan, and Madelyne, a lowborn adventuress who seeks to trick the Duke of Hell. As agents of the Iron Gods work behind the scene to bring ruin to the world, the various characters act out their own struggles. The book reads at times like an exploration story (when dealing with Trassan's expedition), before jumping into global or social politics, and then dipping into a deeply personal story with Madelyne. For a while, there was some confusion as to where some of the stories are going, but towards the mid-point of the book, everything becomes clear, and the conclusion is exhilarating, if maybe a little rushed. Overall, the story is really interesting, and the pacing is good, which is enough for me to continue recommending the series, as I can't wait to find out what happens next....more
As with every concluding volume of a series that's got 3 or more books, the main question I ask myself is: "Did the author succeed in wrapping up the As with every concluding volume of a series that's got 3 or more books, the main question I ask myself is: "Did the author succeed in wrapping up the story?" Short answer: Scholes mostly does.
"Psalms of Isaak" is a very interesting series, that started with a very focused cast and plot-centered around the aftermath of a single profound event in Book 1, and proceeded to expand the scope of its story with every subsequent installment, introducing a rich and forgotten backstory dating back millennia before the earliest memories that the plot's principal societies have. There's a reason volume 4 needed a sizeable glossary to help the readers make sense of all the hints and tidbits dropped throughout the story.
In my review of Book 4 I noted that I was feeling that Scholes might have created a world too big and a history too rich for his story to contain. You can imagine my trepidation, then, when "Hymn" starts by introducing a brand-new faction into the plot-one whose initial description and role practically screams "deus ex machina plot device!". I was skeptical, and not a little bit worried. But I must say, Scholes manages to write them into the story in a way that makes sense, and limits their actual impact well. Although in several points they DO move the plot along rather conveniently, at others, their well-intentioned interference throws spanners into various characters' works in original ways.
Overall, the plot feels rushed, but at the same time, manages to lack urgency. The major "end game threat" that emerges towards the end isn't exactly a surprise, but at the same time, it's not entirely convincing. It's strange, and difficult to explain while keeping spoilers to a minimum, but the main premise revolves around several clashing plans as to how to finish undermining a common enemy, where the various character's motivations and plans result in irreconcilable differences of opinion over what seem to be minor philosophical disputes. While the plot and the story works, and it delivers a suitably epic and bittersweet conclusion, doing a good job to give closure to all principal characters and, at the same time, avoids a definitive "happily ever after" end-all finale, the way things get there can feel more than a bit contrived, once I look back at it more critically.
Nevertheless, the short answer remains the same: Scholes mostly sticks the landing. The book reads quickly, pacing is much more solid as there's always important things happening, and none of the characters act in a particularly jarring manner that'd be inconsistent with their prior arcs. I was pleasantly surprised that Scholes manages to answer most questions his expansive world-building posed previously, and overall, I am happy I read the series as it's certainly a unique mix of fantasy and SF elements, with a plot that grows progressively more labyrinthine as the series goes, and yes, it does stick the landing. Mostly. I'm certainly interested to see what Scholes writes next. ...more
It's difficult to be present on the Internet in the modern world and not hear of Lovecraft. A lot of the mythos has become quite memetic. And the factIt's difficult to be present on the Internet in the modern world and not hear of Lovecraft. A lot of the mythos has become quite memetic. And the fact that it's part of creative commons, and no copyright laws apply means that various authors like to incorporate eldritch space horrors into their own works. I've been exposed to Cthulhu before, through Laundry files, Vadim Panov's own spin on the mythos in "Hidden City" books, and, of course, by the "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" game on PC.
All that being said, this is my first encounter with the original.
I am not a horror fan. It is a not a genre I particularly enjoy in film. That being said, I'm adequately savvy in the genre. For a modern consumer of media, Lovecraft isn't all that scary. He is the opposite of graphic, and "jump scares", such as they are, are written out in such minute detail that their actual sudden-ness, and urgency is greatly diminished.
So what makes Lovecraft good?
The answer to that would be "subtlety of delivery". While I was rarely surprised by where the plot would take yet another intrepid explorer of things best left unexplored, I certainly appreciated Lovecraft's style of delivery. There are certainly points where he may get too wordy, but overall, the stories did a fairly good job holding my attention throughout. And the mythology he builds up- that of various cosmic entities that came to inhabit the earth millions of years before the emergence of humanity- is certainly fascinating, and it's easy to see why it's been so often imitated. ...more
The year is 2057. Humanity is taking its first tentative steps exploring the solar system. The most lucrative ventures involve identifying resource-riThe year is 2057. Humanity is taking its first tentative steps exploring the solar system. The most lucrative ventures involve identifying resource-rich comets, attaching engines to them and driving them closer to Earth to be processed. That's "Pushing Ice" and the crew of the Rockhopper is very good at it.
Everything changes when Janus, an unremarkable ice moon orbiting Saturn suddenly alters its course and begins to accelerate to leave the Solar system. Janus is an alien artifact- and the Rockhopper is the only human vessel with a chance to get close enough to it to learn anything. The crew is thrust into a desperate race to catch the runaway moon, and as it becomes the focal point of humanity's hopes, politics and corporate intrigue seep in. The conflicts and manipulation cause a rift in the friendship between the captain Bella Lind and the head of engineering Svetlana Barseghian. As the question comes up whether the ship will have enough fuel to get back to Earth should it catch up with Janus, loyalties are tested, as factions emerge. And Janus itself holds secrets that are likely to lead to some drastic changes--to everything.
The first, and most salient impression I have of "Pushing Ice" is this: Reynolds really knows how to make space scary. There isn't much here that's particularly fantastic; yet here, even more so than in the "Revelation Space" books, space is vividly portrayed as a truly hostile environment, where a single act of misfortune or error in judgement is likely to prove catastrophic. The sheer grounded-ness of the whole set-up just makes it feel more unsettling.
The story itself is quite good; it is a story of how humans deal with extraordinary situations ; the central conflict between the two abovementioned characters is the driving force of the plot. I admit, I wasn't all that invested in it. It were primarily the side stories of secondary characters fleshing out and humanizing the plot that gave it the most weight. Towards the last act the story devolves into a bit of an idiot plot, where the central conflict prevents the 2 antagonists from sharing information; this leads to mis-informed decisions that drive the plot forward, but feel somewhat contrived, as you can really see them coming from way off.
The plot isn't the strong suit, imho. But the unrelenting, oppressing strength of the setting, and the way the characters rise up to the challenges, very much is. For that reasons, I'd still recommend this to any sci-fi fans. This is Reynolds on top of his game. ...more
Steven Erikson does somethign different here, in an homage to TV sci-fi, and especially Star Trek, I presume.
Full disclosure: I was never big on spacSteven Erikson does somethign different here, in an homage to TV sci-fi, and especially Star Trek, I presume.
Full disclosure: I was never big on space exploration TV, and the only series I watched were "Babylon 5" (in 1st year Uni) and "Space Cases"( back when I was still in elementary school). And Futurama, I guess- if that counts. So I had a lot of reservations starting this.
Nevertheless, it's hilarious. When Erikson gets serious writing comedy, as Malazan Book of the Fallen taught us, he does an amazing job.
The premise is simple enough. Sometime in the 21st century, a bunch of aliens took a wrong turn somewhere, wound up on Earth, and left some used but highly advanced space tech as litter. Oh, and used a massive EMP pulse to kill most tech, so recollections of the times are sometimes garbled up due to faulty record retrieval. Fast forward a few generations, and Earth is space-faring nation in the Affiliation of Civilized Planets. A brash young captain full of Star Trek cliches takes over a brand new exploration-class ship on its maiden voyage and proceeds to bewilder his crew. Plot happens, hilarity ensues.
Basically, this is a comedy book. A few characters appear to be too genre-savvy, but there's eventually an explanation for this, which kind of leads into a sequel hook and creates a plot arc. TV comparisons are inevitable, so I'll probably stop here before I throw out more tvtropes terms.
The pacing is strong, the humour worked for me.. SE is at his usual top notch quality when it comes to banter and dialogue. I'm sold, and I want to see where the story goes. ...more
This is a collection of short stories, that encompass a little of bit of everything in Reynolds' work. Not all are great, a few pieces I found to be sThis is a collection of short stories, that encompass a little of bit of everything in Reynolds' work. Not all are great, a few pieces I found to be somewhat bland, though most have interesting, albeit somewhat disturbing twists to them.
My appetite is whetted for more of his full-sized works, so I suppose the book reaches its goal. ...more
"Necessary Evil" concludes the Milkweed Triptych. It is a solid enough, but unremarkable end to a solid enough, but unremarkable trilogy, imho.
follow"Necessary Evil" concludes the Milkweed Triptych. It is a solid enough, but unremarkable end to a solid enough, but unremarkable trilogy, imho.
following the events in "The Coldest War", Raybould Marsh finds himself transported to his own past, in an attempt to prevent the apocalyptic future from coming to pass. Gretel, the omniscient seer, is happy to guide him to her own ends, but the presence of 2 instances of the same person in the same timeline makes things go awry in interesting ways. As Marsh attempts to subvert the future by destroying both the British warlocks and the German super-soldiers they were called up to fight, he must do whatever lesser evils necessary in order to avert the end of the world...
The basic premise is "time travel and how it changes the timelines". Tregillis does a serviceable job navigating a tangled plot, re-treading portions of book 1 as his timeline -savvy characters reshuffle the alt-history that happened. However, once again, I didn't feel anything particularly strong about the plot. it was consistent, the pacing was solid, and the book flowed to its logical conclusion and a (relatively) happy ending, but it didn't stir any strong feelings in me. It's serviceable, but there's nothing great about it. ...more
"Behold the Man" was a fun little novella about a a neurotic failed psychiatry student obsessed with religious mysticism and Jung travelling back in t"Behold the Man" was a fun little novella about a a neurotic failed psychiatry student obsessed with religious mysticism and Jung travelling back in time to 28 AD to witness the events of New Testament.
The story is as neurotic as the protagonist Karl Glogauer himself- frequently jumping into flashbacks of his messed up and awkward childhood and young adulthood.
The whole thing is an exploration of a search for purpose/meaning in religion, using time travel and living out/creating the myth.
I was kinda vary about having Moorcock tackle religion, but in the end it works, and the academic interest kinda supplants everything else that could come out of this (i.e, there's no atheist subtext here- Glogauer himself is an agnostic, and the whole whole thing is filtered through his attempts to understand the world and find meaning in it)...more
The book does somethign interesting by blending cyberpunk and low-ish fantasy. There's strong hints of portal fantasy overarching teh whole thing but The book does somethign interesting by blending cyberpunk and low-ish fantasy. There's strong hints of portal fantasy overarching teh whole thing but whether it's real or a computer simulation is part of the plot's mystery.
We start off in a futuristic London, a typical cyberpunk dystopia, where pharmaceutical megacorp largely replaced the governements after privatizing healthcare and using mind-bending drugs to turn population into obedient corporate drones. Enter the protagonist, a cybered-up vigilante/superhero, "Gecko without a G" (all London-like). An infiltrator, assassin, pyromaniac with a burning desire to take down Pilgrim Corp. When a job goes bad he finds himself plummeting off a rainswept rooftop... and wakes up in a fantasy land in a teleporting inn. He is greeted by the loremaster known as "the Bard" who informs him that his coming may hail dark stirrings...
And then we get the fantasy plot. The world is pretty low fantasy- there's magic, but it's pretty low-key and mostly forgotten. Plot happens all over the continent as heroes try to comprehend the growing dark influences- while Ecko's convinced the whole thing's a computer simulation designed to psycho-analyze him.
The idea of mixing genres is pretty novel, and it worked for me. Pacing is a bit uneven, and teh book can get a bit raunchy at times- nothing Richard Morgan-levels explicit and frequent, but there's lot of lust and tension between various characters, and it sometimes fits the plot, and at other times can be distracting.
Characters aren't particularly deep, but generally interesting. There isn't much action but what's there is pretty solid. The ending is a good hook that makes me want to read Book 2 to see what happens next.
This genre mashup isn't perfect, but it's interesting. ...more
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