The Collapsing Empire

 

By John Scalzi

First novel of the Interdependency trilogy. 

In the distant future, and cut off from our home planet of Earth, humans have scattered throughout space, mostly living in manmade habitats, but a few on actual planets. Why in habitats instead of on worlds? Because of the Flow. Because faster-than-light travel does not exist:

"The speed of light is not only a good idea, it's the law. You can't get to it; the closer you accelerate toward it, the more energy you need to keep going forward, and it's a horrible idea to go that fast anyway, since space is only mostly empty, and anything you collide with at an appreciable percentage of the speed of light is going to turn you fragile spaceship into explody chunks of metal. And it would still takes years, or decades, or centuries, for the wreckage of your spaceship to zoom past wherever it was you originally planned to go."

So instead there is the Flow, which is:

"...generally described to laypeople as the river of alternate space-time that makes faster-than-light travel across the Holy Empire of the Interdependent States and Mercantile Guilds . . . The Flow, accessible by 'shoals' created when the gravity of stars and planets interacts just right with the Flow, to allow ships to slip in and ride the current to another star.

[However] The Flow is not anything close to a river—it is a multi- dimensional brane-like metacosmological structure that intersects with local time-space in a topographically complex manner, influenced partially and chaotically but not primarily by gravity, in which the ships accessing it don't move in any traditional sense but merely take advantage of its vectoral nature, relative to local space-time, which, unbounded by our universe's laws regarding speed, velocity, and energy, give the appearance of faster-than-light travel to local observers.

 And even that  is a crap way of describing it..."

So that's the author's way of having reasonable travel times so he can tell a story about an empire of city states run by the great houses based on trade which makes for interdependency without which they cannot survive on their own. 

So it's a system that has worked for a very long time. But all good things must come to an end, I guess. And that time has come for the Interdependency. 

Some smart people have figured it out. As have some not quite so smart people. Unfortunately, the not quite so smart ones based their conclusions on faulty math. They think they have figured out where the new center of government is going to be and they are doing everything they can to make sure they are the one running things. 

Meanwhile, the actual governmental hub, a bit slower to get it than the other group, figure out that the other group is working under wrong conclusions. But the governmental group, being in a phase of transition and being a bit slow to act, is being attacked by the other guys, who are using chaos and terrorism to gain the upper hand.

So that's the story. It pretty much ends with the government people telling the ambitious people that they are operating under mistaken conclusions. And that humankind still has to cooperate in order to survive the coming catastrophe of changing of the Flow.

This was a pretty good story, not as boring as a lot of these, what I would call political novels, as many of them are (to me). I found I wasn't skipping a lot of pages, I only did that a couple of times. Which says a lot as I have a habit of just glancing through text that is too descriptive, too gross, too talky or has depictions of battles. Battles, I only care about the outcome, not the action. So a pretty good story. Not good enough for me to follow up with the rest of the trilogy though. The second book is The Consuming Fire followed by The Last Emperox.

Here a review by Kirkus Reviews.

 

Stardoc

 

By S. L, Viehl

First book in the Stardoc series.

Cherijo Grey Veil worked hard at her studies and became a very skilled surgeon. Then she found out something about her father, Dr. Joseph Grey Veil, that turned her world upside down. And she fled her home and found a job at a medical clinic on another planet, trying to start a new life on a new world.

As a woman with a strong personality, Cherijo stepped on a few toes, mainly Drs. Mayer and Rogan. Really, though, she never had a chance with Dr. Mayer, who seemed to hate the very sight of her. But when a patient nearly died because of Dr. Rogan's failure to diagnose the patient correctly, Cherijo read him the riot act and earned herself an implacable enemy. 

Cherijo's father found out where she was and sent her threatening messages demanding that she come back home. He even sent people to kidnap her. But Cherijo laughed at his threats and continued on with her work at the clinic, treating whatever beings showed up in need of medical care. 

Most of her patients were not humans but that did not slow Cherijo down. She seemed to have an instinct for what all her patients who came to the clinic needed. That is until Alun Karas, a furry being who accidentally became covered with some kind of plant sap and had a reaction to it. No matter what she tried and for reasons she didn't understand, Alun Karas steadily went downhill, eventually dying. The medical tests showed no source of infection. But even worse, it soon became apparent that whatever had infected Karas was now spreading throughout the city. And none of the doctors have a clue as to what organism or toxin is responsible for the epidemic. Together, they are working to try to understand this sudden illness, but soon most of the doctors and nurses are infected too. Cherijo is unaffected and is bearing the weight of trying to crack this puzzle before the whole city is wiped out.

This was an OK story. Long, though, nearly 400 pages, way longer than it needed to be, I think. The epidemic section was way too long, it just goes on and on about how big of a puzzle the infection is. I found the story slow paced. And I never really liked the main character, Cherijo. I guess a lot of readers do like her story because it became a long series consisting of ten novels.

Rogue Protocol

 

By Martha Wells

Third book in the Murderbot Diaries.

Rin is headed off to a terraforming facility orbiting a planet as a leg in its search to gather more information about the evil corporation GrayCris that was behind the deaths in the first book, All Systems Red, boarding a ship as a stowaway. The ship contains a small group of humans and their humanoid pet bot Miki. The humans have been hired to inspect the terraforming facility before the new owners take possession. 

But, once again, Rin finds itself having to defend a bunch of hapless humans incapable of defending themselves, especially when it becomes clear that the two security people they hired are working with the attackers. Rin again questions itself about why it keeps getting involved with defenseless humans.

I think one of the best things about this series, other than the main character, is that the books are not 300 or 400 pages long. This one is only 158 pages long. I enjoy reading books but these modern books are just too full of excessive details. I really feel most novels today could use serious trimming. It is so nice to sit down to read a book you know you can finish reading in a day or two. 

But besides the convenient length of the book, is Rin. Once again Rin is smack in the middle of a huge mess and not only manages to extricate itself, it also saves the humans involved. And learns a lesson about the itself too, in the form of the pet bot, Miki. Just an exciting and touching story, I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, Exit Strategy.

Kirkus Reviews has a review of the novel.

A Closed and Common Orbit

 

By Becky Chambers

This is a continuation of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet.

The story has two main characters, Pepper aka Jane and Lovelace aka Lovey aka Sidra. Pepper is the owner of a small shop that does repairs of tech equipment. Sidra is an artificial intelligence who used to maintain a starship. But it was reset and removed from the starship and placed in an artificial human-appearing body by Pepper.

In this story we learn about Pepper's childhood. Known as Jane 23, she was a child worker in a factory that refurbished used parts. The factory is run by robots referred by the child workers as Mothers. It's a harsh and strict life and children who don't measure up are simply eliminated. Jane escapes one night only to find herself in a huge junkyard, the source of the tech that she and the other kids worked on. Knowing that going back to the factory will mean her death, Jane wanders until she is guided to safety by a disembodied voice. The voice turns out to be the AI of a grounded spaceship. The AI, named Owl, has been stranded alone in the ship for a long time after its crew was arrested for trespassing. Owl is thrilled to have someone to interact with. It gets Jane into the ship and together they work over the years to make the ship useable again to escape the hostile inhabitants of the junkyard planet. 

Some ten years later is when Pepper (Jane 23) takes on the responsibility of helping the AI that was known as Lovelace adapt to no longer being the AI of a spaceship but instead was inhabiting a "human" body, a situation it was never meant to be in. It has a lot to learn and some programming from its past life to deal with.

The AIs in the story are sentient and the story is a look at the idea that a sentient machine is a person that has thoughts and feelings. I didn't find Lovelace/Sidra's story all that interesting. It was OK but not much happens.

The Pepper/Jane 23 story is much more interesting. Beyond their training, the children in the factory are not taught anything except obedience. So once she is free of the factory, Jane is facing a dangerous world without the common knowledge that most would take for granted. For instance, she didn't know there was an outside of the factory. She had never seen the sun, or trees, or animals and she is ignorant of how dangerous some animals can be. So Jane and Owl work together to keep Jane alive and safe and get the ship repaired by scavenging parts from the huge junkyard the ship is stuck in.

The Guardian has a review of the novel.

Version Control

 

By Dexter Palmer

Rebecca Steiner is married to a physicist, Philip, who is trying to create a device that is essentially a time machine, although he and his team hate it being called a time machine.

Philip Steiner's project is being funded by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), a division of the Department of  Defense. He is in charge of a team of physicists who are making the machine, the Causality Violation Device do what Steiner's theory thinks it will do. 

Rebecca and Philip had a young son, Sean, who died in a car crash caused by a glitch in the operation of Artificial Intelligence piloted vehicles. Rebecca was the ostensible driver of the vehicle, although she was extremely inebriated and relying solely on the AI to do the driving and she was not able to take control of the vehicle quickly enough to avoid the pileup caused by the glitch.

Rebecca works from home as a customer service representative for an online dating service, Lovability. She is very good at her job and is known for her ability to talk subscribers into upgrading their subscription to more costly plans that offer more services. The author has some interesting things to say about dating services. He points out that the sites are not there to match customers to the perfect person. They have to maintain a balance between making successful matches and making too few matches. Because the longer they can keep people engaged with their site, the more data they acquire which they can then sell to interested businesses. As the author says, "So the goal is not maximum efficiency in pairing mates, but optimal inefficiency. The site maximizes revenue when takes as long as possible to make matches without taking so long that its members give up and stop using it." 

One day, Rebecca comes home earlier than she was expected.  And catches Philip having sex with a woman who is one of the physicists working on the Causality Violation Device. For revenge, she goes to his lab, intending to mess with his work. Instead, she steps inside the Causality Violation Device and back out after a few seconds.

That is the start of the second half of the novel. In which we find that the boy Sean didn't die in the crash, instead Philip was driving and he died in the crash. Which probably the best revenge a jilted wife could have on an unfaithful husband. But that is not the end of the story, there is still half the book to finish reading. The second half is titled "The Shadow Brought Backward."

This was on OK read although I thought it was way too long and delved too deeply in the private life of Rebecca and Philip. It was more like one of those dysfunctional family novels with a smidge of science fiction. I would almost call it chick lit, honestly.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

 

By Dennis E. Taylor

Bob Johansson made quite a lot of money in the tech industry and he used part of that money to pay for a place in a cryonics business where his frozen head would be stored upon his death. Which is exactly what happened when Bob died unexpectedly soon after.

But things went downhill in the world after Bob's head was frozen. The religious fanatics took over the USA and threw out the Constitution and set up a theocracy. 

Bob woke up from his frozen sleep but instead of being a living person, he is a program on a computer. So not really alive but circumstances force him to confront his new existence. Circumstances also force him to go along with the religious nuts who now own him as he either has to do as told or be deleted. 

His task, as he soon figures out, is to be the guiding artificial intelligence for a deep space probe to be shortly launched with the goal of finding livable planets as the political situation on Earth seems to be headed to global nuclear war. Bob goes along with the his new masters because being a program is better than not being at all.

Bob is, apparently, a lot smarter than the people who own him. He soon detects various traps and subroutines that are meant to come into play to control him and force him to do as ordered. He is way ahead of the game when launch day arrives and once off into space deletes all the traps and tricks set up to control him. 

Bob is not the only AI powered vessel from Earth that is tasked with looking for refuge planets for the human race. He has to deal with a fanatical Brazilian military AI that is of the Do or Die variety and is completely unwilling to compromise or listen to reason. So Bob's mission of exploration has to be constantly on guard for the Brazilian fanatic and his clones. 

Nevertheless, Bob and the clones he creates do find a few viable planets and a clone is sent back to Earth with the good news. But when it gets there it finds a world so decimated by nuclear war that it is becoming unlivable for humankind. So what remains of the human race is desperate for rescue from the trap of their own making. Which the Bob clone valiantly tries to do even though no one left on Earth really deserves rescue.

Anyways, that the is first book in the Bobiverse series, of which there are five so far. I enjoyed Bob's machinations to free himself from the control of the religious creeps who think they are his bosses. But after that, the story got rather boring with too much space battle stuff and tech talk about spaceships and other techy things. I won't be reading any more books in the series. 

Fledgling

 

By Octavia E. Butler

A creature wakes up in a cave, hungry and in terrible pain. It doesn't know why it is in a cave or how it got there but it does know it is gravely injured and in extreme pain. It suffers, not understanding how it came to be in such awful condition.

A man enters the cave. The creature senses him and knows the man is approaching. As the man reaches for the creature, it attacks and kills him and consumes his body. It doesn't know he was a man, all it knows is that it needs to eat to heal and survive.

Time passes, the creature heals. It can now see again. It craves raw meat, raw meat is the only thing that will save it. It leaves the cave and hunts. At first smaller creatures, but as its strength returns, larger animals. Eventually it is strong enough to catch, kill and devour large animals, like deer.

It heals. It mind grows stronger, it's body grows stronger. It's instinct pulls toward a particular place, a place that should be home. But instead it is a burned ruin of torched buildings. The creature can smell the lingering scent of death. The place seems dangerous and frightening. No help will be found here. It scrabbles around in the ashes and unearths a few garments that survived the fire. It dresses itself and leaves. 

But it realizes it needs more than just raw meat. It heads out, looking for something, what is not exactly clear to it. Coming to a road, it encountered a vehicle, which it recognized was car. The car stopped and the man inside asked it if it was OK.

At first it didn't understand the man but suddenly understanding came. When he offered it a ride, it eagerly accepted. The man smelled so enticing to it. He wanted to take it to the hospital, but it strongly refused. He asked its name. But it could not remember ever having a name.

The man gave it a choice: either consent to going to the hospital or go to the police station. It bit him when he grabbed its arm. The blood attracted it and it licked the blood off his hand. The man was startled but relaxed as it licked his hand. He was puzzled because the action of the creature drinking his blood had been pleasurable. The creature told him he tasted good. He brought the creature closer and it latched onto his neck, dining on the man's blood. The man said that he was enjoying it and that it felt fantastic. The man laughed and called the creature a vampire and took it him with him. He even gave it a name, Renee. 

It looked like a ten-year-old little girl. It was female, and still young. But it was not ten-years-old. It was many decades older than the man. And it was a vampire. A vampire with no memory of its past, no memory of how it came to be injured and in a cave, no memory of the burned and destroyed homestead, no memory of its actual name. 

But with the man's help she will seek those who so cruelly tried to end her life and in the process killed her memory of her past and murdered all the her loved ones, even though her memory of them is lost.

So this is the story of Renee/Shori, a "young" vampire girl from a colony of vampires. She finds out that her people were combining vampire DNA with human DNA in order to create a breed of vampires who are not adversely affect by daylight and the sun's rays. Shori is the most successful result of those experiments, able to be out and active in the daytime, able to function if dressed in clothing that covers her skin, with a hat and sunglasses when outside. It was this ability to stay awake in the daytime that enabled her to escape the attack on the homestead where she lived with her vampire family and friends, even though she was badly injured. 

The power behind the attack has not given up though. They are determined to end Shori, viewing her existence as unnatural and disgusting. And they don't care how many people they have to murder, how many homes they have to burn to bring about her end.

This was an OK read. It started out pretty interesting. But then it just got repetitive and tedious, especially when it got to the trial of the guilty persons. I found the last part very boring and just skipped through most of it.

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

 

By Becky Chambers

Book One of the Wayfarers series.

Rosemary Harper is a young woman in trouble. Running away from a notorious past that she did not create, she has spent all her considerable fortune on a new identity and an escape from her home planet of Mars. 

In her new identity, she has been hired as a clerical assistant to the captain, Ashby Santoso, of a private spaceship. She will be in charge of scheduling some stops and overseeing ordering of supplies and helping the captain organize his files and set up an archive of the captain's records.

The spaceship, named Wayfarer, is a private enterprise for hire. Captain Ashby and his crew build "tunnels" through space that are short cuts to manage the vast distances of space travel, basically stabilized "wormholes." It's a small crew, only nine members, including the captain and the built-in Artificial Intelligence that helps run the ship. Mostly composed of humans, three of the crew are not human, including the pilot, the navigator and the medical person/chef. And the AI, of course.

Of this mixed company, all are pretty much decent people with the exception of the navigator and the human in charge of the tanks that produce the algae-based fuel that helps power the ship. The navigator keeps to itself and the human is just unpleasant. Another source of power, for more the power-intensive chore to tunnel building, is ambi which a type of raw energy produced by black holes or other high energy phenomenon. 

Captain Ashby's operation is small time, compared to the huge tunnel manufacturing ships that take on the bigger projects. But a friend gives Ashby some inside info that enables him to be the first in line for a much more ambitious and lucrative project located near a planet held by the Toremi Ka, recent members of the Galactic Commons (GC). The Toremi are known to be rather blood-thirsty and their being admitted to the GC is likely based on the huge source of ambi near the planet held by the Toremi Ka. A questionable decision, certainly, given that the GC usually require that member species have reached a high level of technology and social advancement. While the Toremi are technologically advanced, their willingness to kill each other seems to indicate their lack of social advancement. But in the Toremi's case, the GC's greed has overruled common sense. And Captain Asbhy's crew and ship will be the ones to pay the price for that greed, unbeknownst to them, as they set out on a lucrative new job that will hopefully allow them to expand the capabilities of their tunnel-boring operation.

The book is mainly about the crew, how they get along with each other and work together to benefit of them all. Basically a crew of really decent and skilled persons, with very little conflict, although there are a few problems as can only be expected of people who live together for long periods of time in restricted conditions. 

The small angry planet of the title is Toremi Ka. My copy of the book was about 400 pages long and they only arrive at Toremi Ka after page 332. So the majority of the story is about the trip and the people onboard the Wayfarer and their interactions and the problems encountered on the trip. 

The story continues in the second book of the series, A Close and Common Orbit. I have put it on my wishlist because this was a pretty good story and I want to know more about the adventures of the crew of the Wayfarer.

Artificial Condition

 

By Martha Wells

Murderbot Diaries, Book 2

After Murderbot, the rogue SecUnit, was released on its own recognizance by Dr. Mensah, it slipped away from Mensah and the others of Preservation Aux it had protected. It was on a mission: to find out the truth about the mass murder it was told it committed at the RaviHyral Mining Facility Q Station. It doesn't have a memory of it, in fact its memory only goes back to a little more than three years.

But it refuses to accept what it has been told as a fact. It knows how unreliable facts can be and how easily manipulated. Manipulating facts is how it travels through everything, ever since it hacked its own governor module and continues to hack all the security systems and data feeds that would record its passage through various locations. 

It managed to locate a place on a cargo transport headed to RaviHyral that had no humans traveling on it or other SecUnits. It was being driven by a bot, a rather nosey and intrusive bot that Murderbot thinks of as ART or Asshole Research Transport. 

ART becomes an ally of Murderbot and helps it learn how to better pass itself off as a human. A SecUnit unattached to a proprietor is considered to be a rogue and extremely dangerous and unpredictable. But Murderbot isn't interested in enacting revenge on its creators, it just wants to understand itself and believes knowing the truth about its murderous past is where to start. 

So with ART's help and advice, Murderbot gets a job as Security Consultant to a group of young scientists who are desirous of obtaining research conducted by them on RaviHyral that was stolen from them by their former employer, Tlacey Excavations. Here Murderbot introduces itself to the three young scientists as Eden, the name of a character on its favorite serial, Sanctuary Moon. But looking at the situation, Murderbot is pretty sure that the scientists really do need a security consultant to keep them from being silenced. Plus it gets it the reason it needs to be on RaviHyral.

While not quite as action packed as the first book in the series, it does let the reader into the Murderbot's past a bit more. As in the first book, Murderbot is not willing to abandon its new set of charges, the three young scientists, to whatever evil fate awaits them. As it soon becomes clear, Tlacey is a very bad person and has no intention of returning their research. All she wants is them dead. And Murderbot is going to do its best to keep that from happening. 

All Systems Red

 

By Martha Wells

The Murderbot Diaries, Book 1

Murderbot. It's a SecUnit. Its responsibility is to keep the humans under its care safe and alive. Which it doesn't have a problem with and tries to the best of its ability to fulfill that mission. It actually cares about the humans, well, maybe not so much for Dr. Gurathin who has an attitude. Murderbot has feelings about its humans which it probably shouldn't. It's not part of its job. But Murderbot is not a typical SecUnit because it figured out how to hack its own governor module. Which means it makes up its own mind about what it does or doesn't want to do. And that is something that it is definitely not supposed to be able to do. 

So Murderbot's current group of humans under its care are exploring the possibilities of a new planet, going out in small groups under Murderbot's protection. Murderbot is equipped with a range of inbuilt weapons it can access in a flash if needed. Out with two humans one day, Dr. Volescu and Dr. Bharadwaj when a huge animal lunges out of the ground and grabs Bharadwaj. Murderbot is able to rescue Bharadwaj, but is gravely damaged in the process, nevertheless gets both humans back to the base. 

Reviewing some of the incidents that Murderbot first dismissed as failures of the company contracted to supply and backup the survey group that Murderbot is protecting, it and the humans realize something is wacky. They decide to travel to another groups' base but when they get there they find everyone is dead. And they themselves are soon being attacked by the SecUnits that were supposed to be protecting the people at the base. Murderbot realizes that the SecUnits have been taken over by some hostile force and reprogrammed to kill instead of protect. But it soon finds itself in danger of being reprogrammed too.

This story doesn't fool around when it comes to action-packed science fiction adventure. From strange beasts, questionable corporations, rogue bots, and ruthless criminals, the world of Murderbot is the good stuff! Very entertaining and I am looking forward to the next book in the series, which I think is Artificial Condition.

The Long Earth

 

By Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Another story about the multiverse, this time with an infinity of Earths to choose from, ranging from very slightly different to majorly different, including at least one where there is no Earth at all, just black space.

A man invents a device that allows people to flip a switch and travel instantly to the nearest version of Earth. To get to the next version, they have to toggle the switch again. So traveling to the further versions can take weeks, months and even years. Especially since iron metal doesn't transfer which means no equipment or machines made with iron and iron components. Also no livestock such as oxen and horses can be brought across. (Weird conditions the authors set up to make things more challenging and interesting, I guess.)

Oddly, none of these alternate Earths have their own naturally occurring populations of humans and are pristine wildernesses waiting to be exploited. Because of course that is what we do. Masses of people flee our planet to try their luck in a new world of their very own. I must admit it does sound appealing, but of course it is not as wonderful as it seems at first. Trying to carve a living out of a virgin wilderness is hard work.

It also turns out that there are some people who don't need a device to "step" as it is called in the story. It is an innate ability in some humans, most of whom are not at first aware they have that ability. But one who does is a young orphan being raised by the nuns in a childrens home, Joshua Valiente. 

The man who invented the stepping device released the blue print online without telling people what it does. Of course, people start building their own copy of it, just to see what it does, especially since it is intriguing powered by a potato battery. Who could resist that? It turns out that most definitely the kids in Joshua's local area can't and, when they flip the switch, they end up lost in a strange wilderness. But Joshua is not one of the disorientated kids when he steps and helps rescue the lost and frightened kids and discovers, in the process, that he doesn't need the device to step. He also doesn't suffer the debilitating side effects most people experience when they step.

Joshua's heroism creates interest in the public and he finds the attention unwelcome and uses his newfound skill to escape the scrutiny. Eventually he comes to the attention of a major multinational corporation and they make him an offer he decides not to refuse: a voyage of discovery using an amazing flying blimp to transit the earths effortlessly. He will be accompanied by an artificial human linked to a supercomputer that claims to be a reincarnated Tibetan motorcycle repair man. So the adventure into the plethora of alternate Earths begins.

The story is mainly about the voyage, with a few encounters with some creatures and beings, but not much else happens. Joshua and Lobsang encounter beings that they decide to call trolls because the beings are large and hairy. And beings they call elves because they are small and extremely vicious. Both trolls and elves have the stepping ability and have probably visited human Earth in the past. There is some mystery about why none of the Earths have native humans. There is also a mystery about why the trolls and elves are suddenly on the move, stepping from Earth to Earth. A further mystery is the presence that Joshua has sensed haunting his brain since he was a kid. And it also turns out that some people, a few, do not possess the ability to step, whether inborn or using the stepping device. This has created a natural resentment that has matured into a rebellion against the steppers. 

This book was a struggle to read because I found it so boring. Most of the story is centered on the voyage of Joshua and Lobsang in the blimp. They had one violent encounter with the elves but other than that, not much happens. At one point, they pick up a passenger, a woman who turns out to be the daughter of the man who invented the stepping device. There was some mystery in the story about that man and how he came to invent the device.

But I trudged through the book to the ending and it seemed pretty clear to me that The Long Earth is the first in a series. Also, unrelated though, Terry Pratchett is the coauthor of the book which is strange because it is lacking in the whimsy and humor that is what I was expecting from a Pratchett book. All in all, it was disappointing. And way too long, over 400 pages in paperback form. 

Despite this, it had a couple of passages that I did enjoy a lot. The first when Joshua is checking in at an airport to board a plane sent for him by a very important corporation:

"Once the clerk had entered his booking reference he went very quiet, and picked up the phone, and Joshua began to realize what it meant to have a friend in Lobsang, as he was whisked away from the lines of passengers and led along corridors with the politeness you might observe when dealing with a politician belonging to a country that had nuclear weapons and a carefree approach to their deployment."

And where the story is speaking of how various nations decided to rule their equivalent territories in the other Earths, some amusing words on how the French decided to handle it:

"The French, for example, declared that all the French footprints [territories] were available for colonization by anybody who wanted to be French, and was prepared to accept a carefully put together document which outlined what being French meant. It was a brave idea, slightly let down by the fact that despite a nationwide debate it appeared that no two Frenchmen could agree exactly on what being French did mean." 

Here is a review of the novel by Kirkus Reviews.

 

The Book of Bill

 

By Alex Hirsch

So there was this TV cartoon show, Gravity Falls. Now I never watched this show. But I was shopping for gifts for a ten year old child who requested books for Christmas. So I decided to get three graphic novels because I wanted to get fun books. But before I got the books ready to gift, I decided to read them to make sure they were appropriate. Two of them were OK, if a bit boring for an adult to read. But looking through The Book of Bill, I decided it was too much for a ten year old. So I read it instead.

It was kind of confusing, since I was not familiar with the TV series. It is copiously illustrated, full color, very artful. There is this thing, Bill, it's shaped like a triangle and is supposed to have escaped from a dimension that only exists in two dimensions which it destroyed while escaping. This Bill thing set its sights on Earth for some reason which had to do with its quest to rule everything? I'm not sure about that. Bill is a confusing thing, often referred to as a demon.

The book recaps, I guess, the story of the series and of Bill's encounters and temptations of the people of Gravity Falls, mainly with the Pines family. Bill is a really negative being and clearly cares nothing about humankind and our little planet. It basically has nothing good to say about us or this planet. It really does have a wicked sense of humor. Although I don't care about the TV series or the characters eventual defeat of Bill, I did enjoy the humor that is one of the best parts of the book. For example:

"What Is a Human? A human is an organic machine made out of blood and anxiety, designed to deliver a random bundle of genetic material into the future and turn to dust."

"Bill, Have You Ever Been In Love? Sure—tell your mom hi for me! By the way, have you taken a DNA test recently? Not asking for any particular reason."

"Remember, pal, at the end of the day, love is just the pupa stage for hate."

"How You Will Die: 4. Shockingly assassinated while simply trying to ride in your motorcade through Dallas with the roof down in the year 1963"

"Life doesn't care about your meaning, so why should you care about its meaning?"

Parts of the book are quite funny but the part that recaps the war between Bill and the humans was not that interesting to me. Not surprising since I never saw the series. It's certainly going to be more interesting to those who enjoyed the series. 

 

Monstrous Regiment

 

By Terry Pratchett

The little country that was Polly's home, Borogravia, was at war. Which was not unusual, it was frequently at war with its neighbors, being very vigilant against any intrusions across its borders. Part of the problem was the river that formed one of the boundaries was prone to change its course and thus creating arguments about the boundary location. The other was that Borogravia's religion was intolerant of other beliefs and its leaders were militant in their protection of the state religion.

What was different about this latest war was the alliance that had formed against Borogravia. Out numbered, Borogravia was on the verge of losing the war. Finding new recruits to fight was becoming increasingly difficult. The more men sent to the front, the more the home front suffered, as the able-bodied  men were swallowed up in the war. One of those men was Polly's brother, Paul.

So when the recruiters came to her town, Polly cut her hair and donned Paul's clothes and joined up, calling herself Oliver. She wasn't really interested in being a soldier, her goal was to find out if Paul was dead or alive and bring him home where he belonged. 

As the recruiters traveled to the various villages looking for new recruits, Polly came to understand that she was not the only female passing for male among the new recruits. Each had joined for different reasons, some to escape unhappy home lives, some looking for a lost lover, some who wanted to practice a profession that was not acceptable for a female. 

The truth about the war is finally revealed when the new recruits reach the front lines: Borogravia is losing and losing badly. They also know that the enemy has captured an important fortress and that it is where they are keeping the prisoners of war. Polly is desperate to get inside the fortress to find out if Paul is among the prisoners. So the small band of raw recruits remove their male disguises and don female clothes, determined to sneak inside the fortress as part of a group of local washerwomen. They manage to get past the first gate but are soon apprehended and locked up. All is not lost however and the women prove that even females can be good soldiers. 

This was an interesting story about women, of various sorts including vampires and trolls, trying be successful in a world that assigns rigid limits on the choices available to women. The humor, of course, comes from females trying to act masculine and how well they succeed or not. Pratchett is on the side of women being whatever they wish to be, without the traditional constraints placed on them by society's expectations. At the end of the story, it is revealed that several of the top military brass are women who have successfully passed as men for years and years. 

When the women find out that their sergeant knew they where women, they ask why he didn't say anything. His response: 

"You ain't the first," he said. "I've seen a few. Mostly by themselves, always frightened . . . and mostly they didn't last long. But one or two of them were bonny soldiers, very bonny soldiers indeed. So I looked at you lot and I thought to myself, well now, I thought, I wonder how they'll do when they find out they're not alone? You know about lions? ... Well, the lion is a big ol' coward, mostly. If you want trouble, you want to tangle with the lioness. They're the killers, and they hunt together. It's the same everywhere. If you want big grief, look to the ladies."

 

The Last Kids on Earth

 

By Max Brallier, Art by Brian Churilla

It's an ordinary day and four kids are on their way to school when everything falls apart. Most humans suddenly become zombies and giant, vicious monsters appear everywhere. 

The four kids scatter and thirteen-year-old Jack ends up living in a tree house alone. After struggling to survive for several weeks, he manages to contact his good friend, Quint, the science nerd. Later on Jack and Quint bring the school bully into their gang. Dirk, the bully, is just trying to survive like Jack and Quint and he is strong and brave and a good man to have on your side in a brawl. 

Jack has a crush on a girl, June, and he is determined to see if she has survived the monster/zombie apocalypse and he and his pals head out into a monster plagued world to locate June. Or die trying?

A child, 10 to 13 years old, might enjoy this graphic novel. It's nicely illustrated in full color. Jack and his friends are intrepid and manage to take care of themselves all by themselves. 

I read the book to make sure it was OK to give as a Christmas present. And it is OK. But, wow, was it boring! Kids might not find it so, but I sure did.

FGTeeV Blasts Off

 

By the YouTube stars known as FGTeeV and FV Family; Illustrated by Miguel Díaz Rívas

The FV family, Duddy, Moomy, Lexi, Mike, Chase and Shawn visits the National Space Center and end up taking an unauthorized trip in an experimental space ship. They get tricked into going on an intergalactic trip to find several vital artifacts that are crucial to the survival of humankind, or so they are led to believe. Turns out that was a lie put forth by a conniving little troll known as Xyle, the game store owner with whom the family is very familiar.

Anyways, they have exciting and improbable adventures on exciting and improbable planets and end up bringing a disaster back to Earth where the truth is revealed about Xyle. But the family steps up and counters his evil plans through a variety of video game challenges. 

This was a fairly interesting story, even though meant to entertain kids, which I expect it does. I enjoyed it and was surprised by the Xyle plot.  

I must admit that I have no idea who these YouTubers are. The book claims they are very popular which I suppose is true. I don't watch YouTube for kids. I bought this book as a gift and read it to make sure it was appropriate for the person I am giving it to. Which it is. It's pretty good, really.

Vita Nostra

 

By Marina & Sergey Dyachenko

Book One of the Vita Nostra trilogy

Sasha was a promising young high school student when she noticed a strange man is watching her whenever she is outside. Eventually the man approached her and gave her a task to perform. Every morning she had to get up early and go to the beach, strip off her clothes and go for a nude swim. If she didn't do as he said, there would be bad consequences to her family: "You will, Sasha. You will. Because the world around you is very fragile. Every day people fall down, break their bones, die under the wheels of a car, drown..." 

Sasha only has one person that she loves in her life, her mom. Sasha's dad is not a part of her life and she has no siblings. It's just Sasha and her mom. So she does what the strange man orders her to do. Of course, it doesn't end with the nude swimming. As graduation approaches, he forces her into attending a small college in a distant town, the Institute of Special Technologies.

Once she gets settled into the college, she comes to understand that all the students attending are there under the same threats she is. She gets to know one male student who stood up against the strange man. This kid, Kostya, reveals that the man is his father. Kostya did not want to attend this college either and as a consequence, his beloved grandmother died. And his father made it clear it was because Kostya was defying him. The two kids vow to kill the man, Kostya's father, if they ever are able to do so.

The texts and the rules of when and how to study them are different and strange and perplexing. But Sasha begins to absorb them and her perceptions of reality become affected. She is such a good student that she gets into trouble for reading ahead and experiencing frightening consequences. On one hand, her instructors applaud her achievements but then get angry when she gets too far ahead. She is constantly getting into trouble for that.

But outside of the studies and the feeling of oppression that envelopes the students, life there is typical of any college. Kids form cliques, kids pair up, kids test the boundaries, drink too much, smoke too much, hook up too much. Sasha is no different from the kids when it comes to college kid behavior. She gets involved with Kostya but then dumps him and finds a new boyfriend. But she and Kostya never lose their connection of their hatred of his father. 

As the college years pass and Sasha becomes an adult, she begins to understand just what the teachers are and what she is becoming. This is where the story gets even more strange. I would like to explain it but it sounds so ridiculous. All I can say is everything is words. Sasha is a word, Kostya is a word, all humans are words or parts of words. And that Kostya's father, the man who forced her into this situation, is not human. He is a text file? A program? A book disguised as a person?  It was all rather murky to me.

The book was really interesting even though the transformations the students are enduring are hard to comprehend. It's kind of a combination of Harry Potter and The Matrix. The students' understanding of the true nature of reality gives them powers, including the ability to manipulate time itself. But they don't perform spells (at least not in this book), their abilities arise from the perception of the true nature of things. Quite a start to a new series! 

The next book in the series is Assassin of Reality. 

Here is a review by Kirkus.

Darwin's Radio

 

By Greg Bear

A new disease has popped up. Women are having miscarriages, losing extremely deformed fetuses. Further investigation leads researchers to conclude that some ancient component of human DNA has suddenly reactivated and is causing these miscarriages. 

As scientists and the medical community try to figure out what is going wrong, a huge divide emerges, with one group claiming it is some kind of sudden evolution. And the other group claiming it is a disease that must be stopped. 

A small group of the 'it's evolution' scientists go rogue, running from the US government that is tracking pregnant women and performing abortions because they claim the offspring are just disease carriers who pose a terrible risk to human survival. Naturally, since no one seems to know what is really happening, it causes massive social upheaval and riots. 

Greg Bear loves to delve into the science. Unfortunately, a lot of it is hard to follow, especially for a person who does not have fairly high level science knowledge.  I don't need the amount of detail he goes into to understand the story. He just goes on and on about DNA and genetics. It just adds a lot of pretty unreadable bulk to the story. My paperback copy was over 500 pages long. Naturally I did what I always do when authors are suffering from word diarrhea: I skip it. Minutia doesn't interest me.

Anyway, two of the 'it's evolution'  scientists, a man and a woman, get together and have a baby. They want to prove their thesis is correct by giving birth to a new version of human. They spend the rest of the story hiding from the Feds. 

The evolutionary changes that Bear images are odd. How they are suppose to improve the human race in its struggle to cope with overpopulation and environmental degradation are not explained. One of the changes he imagines is people have squid-like skin that changes colors as a form of communication. I expect all that is explained in the sequel, Darwin's Children. Which I will not be reading.

Here is a review by Publishers Weekly.

Retief to the Rescue

 

By Keith Laumer

Retief, a diplomat, is posted to the planet of Futheron, home of the Hithers and the Nethers, more unkindly known as the Creepies and the Crawlies. Futheron, or as the natives call it, Ynnezadoog. 

An explanation of life on Furtheron from the book:

"When Admiral Slizz reported that the newly explored world Ynnezadoog was potentially habitable, a full Survey Party was dispatched at once....The landing party was greeted by a heavy bombardment to which the admiral responded by hastily erecting the fortified camp which has now come to be called Furtheron City. The early discovery of valuable mineral deposits provided sufficient incentive to remain, in spite of the hostility of the place....the 'bombardment' is a natural phenomenon, due to an eccentric sort of vulcanism, and has been proceeding continuously for at least some millions of years. Investigations by Groacian geologists revealed that gas pressure within the porous crust constantly expelled particles from surface pores, these particles ranging in size from dust grains to multi-ton boulders. Once expelled and having fallen back to the surface, such an object tended to roll or slide downhill until it encountered an open pore large enough to admit it, in time wearing well-refined grooves which thereafter channeled later objects to the same orifice. These returning particles clogged the gas vents until re-expelled, the repeated expulsions occurring along the most convenient channels, in time smoothing and strengthening them until they attained the appearance of well-polished gun barrels. Having evolved under constant bombardment from an unknown source, they [the native peoples] not unnaturally developed a sense of hostility toward whomever it was who was attacking, as they imagined. Since the enemy could be anyone, mutual hostility became the norm. Thus spurring the growth of intelligence, while the natural conditions kept the population small and prevented  developments of any cooperative nature, such as organizing socially. We Groaci found conditions of complete anarchy here, and of course set about creating local government institutions in the hope of ameliorating the universal impulse to attack on sight any fellow Furtheronian—foreigners, of course, being exempt, since clearly they could not be at the bottom of an assault which predated their arrival by eons. In the end, we arrived at two major factions, which we not unnaturally called Hither and Nether, based on the location of the parley sites at which the protocols were hammered out. We appointed Lib Glip as Premier here aboveground, and one Barf, self-styled 'General' as the Nether Leader."

 And this is the world that Retief has arrived on and on which he will attempt to bring some kind of peace and order to a world that has never know peace and order. With no help from the resident Groaci, an expansionist race that has been competing with humankind ever since they discovered each other. 

This was an OK read. It has the usual silliness which is what I like about the Retief stories. Unfortunately, too large a section of the story is about the super tank that Laumer has written about in other stories, the Bolo, which is an idea he clearly absolutely LOVES. I don't, though. 

 

 

Voices of Heaven

 

By Frederik Pohl

Barry di Hoa was doing pretty good, considering. Because he had been locked up when he was younger due to his mental illness. He describes it thus: "I had a 'psychosis' that closely resembled 'schizophrenia' of the type once called 'manic-depressive.'" He goes on to add that it, "came from my genetic heritage; my mother and my father just happened to carry some very rare recessive genes." Fortunately there was treatment that enabled Barry to live a normal life, with his symptoms under control. Unfortunately, it required injections several times a year, injections that he would have to have all his life. 

Barry lived on the moon and worked with antimatter fuel pods. Antimatter is very dangerous stuff but Barry was good at his job. And it paid very well. He had a girl friend that he loved and who loved him. The girl friend, Alma, used to belong to a religious cult, the Penitential Church of the Millenium, aka Millenarists. Which was basically a death cult that believed merely being alive was a sin, as was having children. And the best thing to do was kill yourself. However,  Alma tried hanging herself but only nearly died. That brush with death gave her a new outlook and she left the cult. 

So what does this have to do with the story? Quite a lot. Because a ship from a colony plant, Pava, had arrived on the moon and Barry was in charge of loading their large order of antimatter fuel pods on their vessel, the Corsair. The captain of the vessel, Garold and his close friend, Reverend Tuckman, were both Millenarists. And many of the colonists back on Pava are also Millenarists. They had legitimate reasons for their large order of fuel pods, though, so Barry thought nothing more about it.

Back to Alma, who had an ex-boyfriend, Rannulf. Who no longer wanted to be her ex. Surprisingly, Rannulf declared that he would be joining Garold on board the Corsair, to become a colonist on Pava. Before he left, though, he wanted to talk to Barry privately. Barry agreed to meet with Rannulf and as a result he was drugged and stashed in one of the freezer capsules by Rannulf used for space travelers because of the immense amount of time required for long trips, in this case, twenty five years from the moon to Pava. 

So Barry wakes up on Pava, and even if he did travel back to the moon, it would  be fifty years since he was kidnapped.  Alma would be fifty years older and Barry would still be a young man, thanks to the freezer capsules.

Life on Pava is harsh and the colony is struggling. Mostly because the planet is tectonically very active. They had recently experienced a serious earthquake that had destroyed a dam they were using for hydroelectric power. Although Barry is regretting his lost life on the moon with Alma, he gets to work, doing his part to help the colony survive. But he knows his medical issue will soon become a problem and that the colony doesn't have the medical experts or equipment to make the medications he needs in order to stay sane. The best the local doctor (who is actually a dentist) can do is give him medicines to combat depression and to calm him down when he is manic. Which sort of works, until Barry starts abusing the anti-depression medication to boost his spirits. And then the colony experiences another major earthquake and everybody is miserable. Except the native peoples, large caterpillar-like creatures, who had been quite helpful to the colony people, providing much needed labor. But they have all disappeared, for reasons unknown, and their contributions to the humans' survival is sorely missed. 

Finally Barry figures out something that was quite obvious from the beginning of the story, namely, Garold's real intentions with all those fuel pods of antimatter. Garold is going to do what so many religious fanatics love to do: kill nonbelievers.

My main problem with this book was the interrogation technique of telling the story. Person or persons unknown are questioning Barry and he is trying to explain his actions. I found that style of telling the story boring. So boring. The reader doesn't find out until quite far in the story who is doing the questioning. We also don't find out why until near the end. 

Like so many novels these days, the book was too long. Editors don't like edit any more, I guess. I don't think this story needed over 300 pages in order to be told. 

Another thing I didn't care for was the characters. Most of the characters are annoying at best, even Barry with his pathetic obtuseness. The most interesting characters were the natives but they don't get a lot of attention from the author. I guess they are only there to draw a contrast between the shitty humans and the virtuous caterpillar people. 

Finally, the title, Voices of Heaven. I never figured out if that referred to the caterpillar people or the religious fanaticism that seems to have overtaken the humans of this imaginary future. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.

Final Diagnosis

 

By James White

Hewlitt was born on the planet Etla of human parents. But two odd things happened to him when he was a youngster. First, he climbed up a very tall tree and dined on very poisonous fruit of that tree and then fell to what should have been his death. But he survived virtually unharmed, neither by the fall nor by the poisonous fruit he ate. Secondly, he (and his pet cat) survived a vehicle crash that killed both his parents and should have killed Hewlitt and his cat. They survived unharmed. 

As Hewlitt grew up, his health was quite good. Except when it wasn't. The strangest, most unlikely things were apt to result in his near death. The medical folks could not understand what his problem was. Which is how he ended up at Sector General, the multi-species, deep-space, hospital. 

Undergoing extensive medical tests and interviews, Hewlitt's condition was shown to be extremely serious when a routine blood draw put him into cardiac arrest. After nearly killing their new patient, the staff becomes much more careful in their treatment of him. 

The ward Hewlitt was in contained other patients, none of whom were human. One of the worse cases was Morredeth who was severely injured in an accident. Although Morredeth survived the accident, they were disabled in a way that incurable. But when Hewlitt touched them, by accident, Morredeth experienced complete healing, in condition as good as before their injury. At first, the medical experts had no explanation for this occurrence. Until they found out that Hewlitt had touched Morredeth.

Eventually the medical team decided that whatever made Hewlitt different had its origins in his childhood on Etla. And so they loaded him up and set off for Etla. When they got there, it was clear they were on the right track. Because Hewlitt's pet cat from his childhood was still alive and still healthy, even though it was about thirty years old. 

Not a lot happens in this novel. Yes, there is Hewlitt's two childhood accidents. But beyond that we don't get much about his life as an adult, other than the fact that he is impotent and very lonely and has weird health crises. Yes, he nearly dies in the hospital, but the doctors save him. And then there is the healing of Morredeth. But other than that, it's mostly just a lot of talk, talk, talk. Talk with various nonhumans but also with various medical persons who are mostly humans. It was a bit boring. 

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.