Tag Archives: Book Review

Four Book Reviews   (2017Jan24)

Posted by XperDunn on

Monday, January 23, 2017                                                9:36 PM

Of my recent readings, four books have stood out as enjoyable to the point of recognizing their worth and sharing my enjoyment with others:

“Xenophobia” by Peter Cawdron   –   “The Sculpted Ship” by K. M. O’Brien   –   “The Simpleton” by Mark Wayne McGinnis   –   “Feedback” by Peter Cawdron

Below is a re-post of my Amazon reviews for each:

“Xenophobia” by Peter Cawdron

xenophobia

[‘Super 8’ in Africa]

Do not be fooled by the generic title—this book is unique and exciting in many ways. First of all, I love it when a science fiction story starts out as a regular novel, bringing the reader into a real-world scenario both interesting and engaging—meanwhile, very slowly and subtly at first, the introduction of the strange—and the total lack of expectation of anything otherworldly on the part of the characters—adds greatly to the sense of dislocation one would feel, if confronted by, say, an alien—rather than simply reading a story that has an alien in it.

Perhaps I’m over-explaining myself—all I’m saying is that the protagonist, a young doctor working in a war-torn third-world country—and her UN-assigned military team of protectors—have more than their share of drama unfolding throughout this book. The introduction of some kind of First Contact, late in the story, was superfluous in terms of good story-telling. The woman’s struggle is as much about the human condition as anything else—quite gripping, all on its own—and, as I said, the realism of this story only adds to the sense of alienness concerning the visitors from the sky, when they finally appear.

As a child of Clarke, Asimov & Co., I have no set requirement for literary excellence in my science fiction—though when I come across it, as I have done here, I’m very appreciative. What I do demand is that there be, if not originality, at least uniqueness to the concepts or the science—and that is also here, not so much in the ingredients of the story, but in the interactions of the various players and in the frustrating of comfortable assumptions and expectations.

If a combination of the movies “Tears of the Sun”, “Rescue Dawn”, and “Super 8” sounds like something you’d enjoy, then Xenophobia is right up your alley.

 

“The Simpleton” by Mark Wayne McGinnis

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[Flowers for E.T.]

While the representation of a story through a mélange of movies is not something I’m entirely comfortable with, it sometimes seems quite apropos—and in the case of “The Simpleton” by Mark Wayne McGinnis I’m tempted to say that it is a combination of “The Lawnmower Man”, “Flowers For Algernon”, and “E.T.”—with just a hint of “Ender’s Game” thrown in for good measure, at the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed McGinnis’ take on the familiar ‘enhanced intelligence’ concept—it has always fascinated me. That the alien feels concern for enhancing the intelligence of a living thing without its consent is a great doorway to ruminations about the paradox of life being a violent exercise, yet intelligence urges us to seek peace. I appreciate writers who, like Tolstoy, take side-trips into the philosophical in the course of their story-telling.

On the down side, I’ve never been a big fan of the sci-fi trope in which the aliens are too peaceful to defend themselves and thus require us savage humans to fight their war for them. How is that not just using humans as second-hand weapons? But, whatever—it also allows for alien characters who are more savage than humans, rather than less—so balance is maintained.

Being anti-authoritarian, I’m also a big fan of stories where the security forces and the military are so paranoid and knee-jerk violent that they practically doom the planet in their narrow-minded quest to control a situation they don’t understand—so I enjoyed that aspect of this story as well.

I’m very story-oriented—when I read, it is basically just to enjoy myself. This makes it difficult for me to discuss my impressions of a book without a great deal of ‘spoilers’—but rest assured that “The Simpleton” is far less simple than the little bits I’ve given away in this review—and the whole story is complex and entrancing in the way only good sci-fi can be.

 

“The Sculpted Ship” by K. M. O’Brien

sculptedship

[A Fairy Tale of Space]

Any good adventurer needs a little luck and a few helping hands to make it through the dark forest of inexperience—that is the message of most fairy tales—and it is also the theme of this delightful sci-fi fairy tale.

A young lady who just happens to be a genius at starship engineering just happens across a very special starship that has fallen on hard times. As her quest to get the ship back into the dark parallels her coming of age, she runs into a Star Wars-like collection of good, bad, and just plain odd people—smugglers, bots, royalty, and charm-school matrons, just to name a few.

While there may be little doubt as to what happens next, the reader is diverted by the exhaustive creation of a future society, complete with political intrigue, fashion faux-pas, and space-naval traditions. There is, in some books, such a pleasure in inhabiting the story that the lack of much surprise in the plot is beside the point—we simply enjoy the work of a good story-teller.

I certainly enjoyed “The Sculpted Ship”—I dashed through it, and it ended way before I was ready to let it go. I only hope there will be sequels.

 

“Feedback” by Peter Cawdron

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[Even If You Don’t Care For Time Travel]

Time Travel as premise is not something I care for, most of the time. For one thing, I dislike getting the feeling that I understand the physics better than the author—which has happened to me too many times. For another thing, many authors err either on the side of ‘Time Travel makes everything possible’ or the side of ‘Time Travel can’t change anything’—in such cases, either way, it seems an exercise in futility.

But sometimes, as in “Feedback”, Time Travel is both taken seriously as a physics hypothesis—and is neither let loose to cover everything nor confined to where it hardly matters. In “Feedback” we are treated to a nice demonstration of how a Time-Travel premise can be tweeked into something that both preserves the past and yet allows for human determination to help shape the ultimate future.

This story gives a new level to the term flash-back, as we bounce back and forth from two different story-lines, both equally engaging and both quite distinct until nearly the end, when all things become, at last, not just tied together, but twisted into an infinite loop. And it is a rare book that saves the surprise ending for an extended epilogue—and for that new experience, for this old, old bookworm, I have to thank Mr. Cawdron.

Having just finished reading this enthralling story, I suspect that I could spend a great deal of time poking holes in it—Time-Travel tales are notoriously loose-logical. But this book keeps you moving right along—and it would take a keener mind than mine to have noticed any glaring errors during the course of my reading. And, hey, if it’s good enough to support the willing suspension of disbelief until the last page, it’s hardly fair of the reader to try and tear it apart, after the fact—we’ll leave that to the poor fool who has to write the screenplay adaptation.

I would have to give the author a nod simply for writing a Time-Travel story that I enjoyed. But “Feedback” was more than just acceptable—it was a great sci-fi ride through space, time, and science—and that’s all I ask from any book.

Book Report: “The Jennifer Project” by Larry Enright   (2016Jul24)

Posted by XperDunn on

Sunday, July 24, 2016                                              2:59 PM

(NOTE: This review was previously posted to amazon.com)

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I’m sad to have just read the last page of “The Jennifer Project” by Larry Enright—check that box on the good-read checklist. This is a light-hearted romp—the dated nerd vernacular of the hero is almost embarrassingly comforting, like listening to your old stoner uncle. Jennifer herself shows some nerdy wit—and super-intelligence that acts more like magic than tech. Still, there is enough tech-speak and buzz-word scientifical-ness to help the willing suspension. Thrilling concepts are explored as if they wouldn’t need a book-shelf’s worth of ground-breaking new physics to implement—something I truly enjoy in my science fiction.

Terribly fast-paced—I read this book the same way I eat potato chips when I get the munchies—it must do without any tremendous amount of depth. The characters are what one would expect them to be—and we know little about them beyond their actions in advancing the story. The story’s ending might be too obvious to the experienced fan, but with the rush of words, one reaches the end before it becomes irritating. As with the better science-fiction, if you’re paying too much attention to the people and not enough to the ideas, you’re missing all the fun.

Larry Enright is a consummate speculator on future possibilities—and he knows how to entertain his readers. He’s sort of a cross between Harry Harrison and Michael Crichton. I will be reading as many more books like this as he cares to write—don’t miss out.

Book Review: “Soledad : Dark Republic Book I” by D. L. Young  (2016Jun11)

Posted by XperDunn on

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Saturday, June 11, 2016                                           2:22 PM

A near-future Texan dystopia is the setting for this tale of a young soothsaying-witch who travels the badlands in search of her lost family. Rich in detail, from the ways of the isolated bands and freelancers to the characters who accompany her in her search for the truth, this story posits a very believable, if highly unpleasant, future history for the lone star state.

D. L. Young grabs you right away and holds on pretty tight for the duration of this slim novel—but, if it seems too short, note that the title suggests more to come. I read it in one sitting and found the time flew by. And I commend the ending of this book—it leaves one thinking—and for me, that’s the best ending a book can have. It seems excellent fodder for Hollywood so I suggest you read it now, before they make the movie. Good story-telling, good writing—what’s to complain about?

No story can be grand without a grand evil—and Mr. Young has come up with a doozy or two—though I won’t spoil it for you. While modern technology makes any near-future story a case of speculating on where existing tech will be in twenty or so years—and that can be both awe-inspiring and terrifying—I miss the old days, when a Sci-Fi story had a big idea behind it. To be fair, Sci-Fi is well-traveled territory—and big ideas aren’t just lying around like they used to be. Plus, there’s a lot more of it being published (or e-published) these days. While that ensures that the number of so-so Sci-Fi books will expand, we may still hope that the ‘good reads’ will increase, as well. This book is certainly a good read, and its writer a good find.

I’ve read a lot of science fiction—I mean a lot. At sixty, I can fairly say that I’ve obsessed over Sci-Fi for fifty years, for most of that time averaging a book a day—and a good 90% of them being Sci-Fi anthologies or novels. I’m about as familiar with story-telling as a person can be, short of actually being a fiction writer. Inevitably, nowadays, most fiction I read resonates with the echoes of the many stories where a similar idea, plot-point, character-type, etc. was used.

I never read many Westerns—but I made a point of reading “The Virginian” by Owen Wister, because I had read that it was the first book to use Western tropes such as ‘dueling at high noon’, or the ‘pretty schoolmarm’, and other such clichés that we now find re-worked in an appalling genre whose readers (and movie goers) apparently favor iconic sensationalism over originality. But not all Western writers are completely beholden to Mr. Wister. The genre has accumulated many more tropes and clichés from more original contributors. And we must accept the fact that a genre so limited in space, time, and culture can only offer so many scenarios suitable for dramatic storytelling.

I’ve always considered Science Fiction to be quite different in that respect—there are no constraints of time, space, culture—or much anything else—and that is partly the point of Sci-Fi, to begin with. Yet, like Westerns, once the mass market gets involved, there arises an audience for re-workings of the most popular and sensational set pieces—war in space, robot uprisings, alien invasions, time travel, etc. The most insipid aspect of mass market Sci-Fi is its drooling cousin, the comic-book super-hero genre—the only redeeming feature of which is that it makes me less annoyed at the conflation of Sci-Fi and Fantasy—at least Fantasy shares some of the infinite, boundless vision of Sci-Fi, even if it pollutes it with fairy dust.

All of this is a roundabout way of reaching my point—that Sci-Fi, though all about ideas, is now amenable to some mining of the past. It is still nigh onto plagiarism to write an entire ‘collage’ consisting only of the popular ideas of others—but an original work can be excused for borrowing parts and pieces. The annals of Sci-Fi contain some of the most brilliant brain-work of the last century—many of our actual technologies were invented by Science Fiction writers—so if we’re going to start pointing fingers, we’ll have to confess that we all live in somewhat of a ‘plagiarism’. Further, there are aspects of outer space survival, orbital mechanics, etc., that have left the arena of speculation—so repetition in that respect is merely an eye for realistic detail.

‘Inventing worlds’ itself was originated by Frank Herbert, just as inventing societies, cultures and languages was pioneered by Ursula Le Guin (in Sci-Fi—Tolkien, of course, did it earlier with Fantasy). But such breakthroughs are in the nature of opening a door that no one else had hitherto seen—and it is only natural that writers should jump on the band-wagon of greater possibilities—subsequent writers don’t copy them so much as learn from them. And in this respect, Sci-Fi lit has a proud heritage of conceptual plagiarism—much like literature as a whole.

So, while “Soledad” has a few bells and whistles that will seem familiar—and a discernible patina of Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Water Knife”—it is still an original story told in a unique voice. As an old salt in the sea of Sci-Fi, I’ve learned to excuse the familiar elements of the modern Sci-Fi-writer’s toolkit and embrace the newness it is used in service of. Especially when the writing is good.

 

The Singularity Series Does NOT Disappoint   (2015Jul05)

Posted by XperDunn on

Sunday, July 05, 2015                  6:47 PM

[A review published yesterday on Amazon.com]

 “Avogadro Corp : The Singularity is Closer than it Appears version 2.0” (The Singularity Series: Book One)

“A. I. Apocalypse” (The Singularity Series: Book Two)

“The Last Firewall” (The Singularity Series: Book Three)

“The Turing Exception” (The Singularity Series: Book Four)

Publisher:         liquididea press, Portland, OR

Author:             William Hertling

Science fiction was once such a tiny pond compared with the oceans of it we have today. My favorite thing about that is finding a whole series by a new author—a good writer, and writing right down my demographic alley, as it were. Hard sci-fi, AI computers, space-flight, robots—I’m a sucker for all of it.

I enjoy how we can always have our eyes opened to something fantastic about our existing tech—some new bit of its history, some obscure phenomenon that we always noticed but never thought about—or just appreciating some small, cog-like component of the vast sprawl of global infrastructure that makes all the wheels go round. Then there’s an even greater enjoyment in the vicarious world of the future.

WllmHertling_01

The future gets closer all the time. People used to write sci-fi about a hundred years from now—now sci-fi writers can speculate about ten years from now—and come up with a lot more than ‘flying cars’. Which makes sense—we just had the centennial of powered flight, computers have turned fifty, wireless is still in its teens. Born in the 1950s, I just marvel constantly over the parabolic—no, logarithmic arc of tech development. One of my grandmas once reminisced to me about fetching water in a bucket. My son is an expert gamer of MMORPGs. It’s a strange world—and getting stranger, faster, all the time.

WllmHertling_02

I worked with programming and systems most of my career, so when sci-fi gained all of its ‘cyber’ themes, I was equally amazed by the good writers and amused by the genre-pulpers who were obviously better-versed in writing than in computer basics. Now that AI is getting its time to shine, as a fiction-writing premise, there’s a lot of lurid pulps out there, romanticizing the concept out of all believability. There are some who get it right and still tell a good story.

WllmHertling_03

But William Hertling has done something I like even better than that. He’s had fun with it—he’s brought humor to it—and that makes all the difference. Clearly, this is no comic romp—it’s a fast-paced action thriller from Book One right on through to the last chapter of Book Four. I just finished Book Four and I’m still high on Hertling. That was a great read.

WllmHertling_04

People talk about binge-watching TV—they don’t know. Bookworms have been shoving thousand-page gulps down their reddened eyeballs for a long time—there’s nothing like losing all the feeling in your extremities from standing still too long, almost passing out from the rush of finally standing up. I get so lost in the story that reality becomes annoying. Imagine the nerve—asking me to stop the universe so this stupid body can go relieve itself.

AI presents unmatched dramatic possibilities—the idea that we could make our machines so much smarter than ourselves that they would lose interest in us—or worse yet, seek to destroy us—is high drama already. Add to that the speed of microprocessors—the possibility that it could all happen in minutes or hours—and things get pretty tense.

So make sure you have nothing else planned before you dive into this wonderful series. Once you’ve finished (and caught your breath) head over to William Hertling’s website, where the links to articles pointing to the reality of much of his story will keep you sleepless for yet another night.

Reviews In Review   (2015Jun09)

Posted by XperDunn on

Tuesday, June 09, 2015                                              5:10 PM

I’ve just finished reading:

“The Three-Body Problem” by Cixin Liu,  (Ken Liu -Translator)

“(R)evolution” by PJ Manney  (‘Phoenix Horizon’ Book 1)

“The Water Knife” by Paolo Bacigalupi

And watching:

“Jupiter Ascending” (2015) –  Written and Directed by The Wachowskis and Starring: Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, and Eddie Redmayne

“Kingsman: The Secret Service” (2014) –  Directed by Matthew Vaughn and Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, and Samuel L. Jackson

[Note: the following three book reviews were published on Amazon.com yesterday]

20150610XD-TheThreeBodyProblem_byCixinLiu

In “The Three-Body Problem” by Cixin Liu, I was treated to some rare Chinese historical fiction, as the story involves both alien invaders and their contact on Earth—and, in a fresh take, someone on Earth other than an American establishes First Contact. The protagonist’s story begins with her childhood during the most horrific times of the many Reform movements that swept China early in the second half of the twentieth century. Starting that far back, we are given a small primer in modern China’s history and culture by the time the story’s climax reaches the present day.

But there’s more. There’s science too—radio astronomy, virtual-reality gaming, extra-dimensional manipulation, near-FTL travel, and a planet with an unusual orbit, to say the least, are only some of the highlights. Things get technical enough that I glimpsed one reviewer in passing, complaining that this book ‘read like a tech manual’—but I found it refreshingly reminiscent of Clarke and Asimov. This is still a nerd’s genre—if you can’t take the heat, you’re not going to enjoy the story.

The characters and relationships are, however, as fully fleshed-out as one could wish—this is no space opera—and the plot is so clever that I hesitate to give even the slightest of spoilers. You should discover this book for yourself. And—good news—it is the first in a series—so there’s even more to come!

20150610XD-(R)Evolution_byPJManney

In “(R)evolution” by PJ Manney, I found an entertaining and involving thriller based on the idea of nanotechnology used to facilitate the brain/electronic interface. While there is little new in the scientist who experiments on himself, or in super-secret societies that control our businesses and governments from the shadows of limitless wealth and power, there’s still a freshness to the storytelling that kept me turning pages until late into the night. Good writing, if not especially great science fiction.

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“The Water Knife” by the reliable Paolo Bacigalupi is a story of a near-future America suffering through the destruction of the American Southwest due to water shortages. The draining of the aquifers, combined with the lack of snow-melt from the Rockies, leaves California, Nevada, Arizona, and displaced Texans all struggling in a world where rivers are covered to prevent excess evaporation. Water rights become life or death matters for cities Las Vegas, LA, and Phoenix, AZ—where most of the action takes place.

The ‘water knife’ is a euphemism for an enforcer of water rights and a hunter of anyone trying to access water without legal authority. Angel is one of the best, in the employ of the sharp female administrator of Las Vegas’s Water Authority, Catherine Case. He becomes involved with a hunt for a water-rights treaty granted to Native Americans—a priceless document so old that it would take precedence over all existing agreements—and in the process, becomes involved with a female reporter who’s gone from being an observer to being in the thick of the life and death struggle of everyone in Phoenix as the water runs out and the dangers only grow more unbeatable.

However, the most frightening thing about this novel is its basis in fact—much of the disastrous environment described has been warned of in a non-fiction book, “Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water” by Marc Reisner. That book was published in 1987, and much of what he warned about is starting to manifest itself—such as the present severe drought conditions in California.

Like most doomsday-scenario stories, “The Water Knife” describes people on the edge, people in trouble, and twisted people who take advantage of chaos to create their own little fiefdoms of violence and tyranny. I never read such stories purely for the goth-like rush of people being cruel and dark—but in cases where I feel the story will give insight into something real, I put up with it—especially from a writer as good as Bacigalupi. And this is an exciting, engrossing tale of intrigue, passion, and ‘history as a hammer’, for all its darkness.

[Here ends the text from my Amazon.com reviews]

Having just finished “The Water Knife”, right on the heels of “(R)Evolution”, I’ve had my fill of dystopian cynicism and game-theory-based ethics—or lack thereof, rather. “The Three-Body Problem” was the worst, however—a Chinese woman endures such a horrible childhood under the Red Revolution’s Reform Era that she wishes for aliens to take over the Earth—how’s that for misanthropic?

Science Fiction at its best can be wildly hopeful and uplifting but let’s face it—the vast majority of it deals with rather dark subject matter. I can only hope that my next read will have a little leavening of the stainless-steel truth in it. At heart, I’m a Disneyfied, happy-ending kind of guy.

In between, I watched a few movies. The latest include “Jupiter Ascending” and “Kingsman: The Secret Service”. Talk about dark!

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“Jupiter Ascending” is a science-fiction movie based on the premise that Earth—that is, all the inhabitants of Earth—are just a crop being grown only to ‘harvest’. Our unknown alien overlords are just about to harvest (i.e. slaughter) the Earth’s population for the purpose of creating the ‘rejuvenation juice’ that makes them immortal.

Our only chance is a young lady who is surprised to learn that she is the genetic double of Earth’s former ‘owner’, a wealthy noblewoman of the alien master-race whose death left her planetary holdings to her evil son, including the fabulously overpopulated Earth. The evil son is none too pleased to learn that a mere Earth girl is capable of confiscating his prize planet—and the hunt is on. Helping the girl evade the evil son and realize her destiny is a grizzled veteran of the alien military special-forces who’s been unfairly drummed out of his squad.

Some romance between the two slips between the non-stop CGI laser-beams and space destroyers, but even with a happy ending, it’s hard to get past that nightmarish premise.

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“Kingsman: The Secret Service”, being a more straight-forward action movie, might lead you to expect a lighter tone. But this Cinderella/James Bond story has several scenes of wholesale slaughter in hand-to-hand combat. Poor old Colin Firth ends up killing an entire congregation of a church—and while their preacher prefaces the scene with rankly bigoted ravings beforehand, it’s still not very enjoyable to see them all slaughtered for their ignorance.

The fight scenes (though in this context, I’m tempted to call them ‘slaughter scenes’) are so busy that the film has to freeze into slo-mo for each death-blow (or death-stab, or head-squish, etc., etc.) just so the naked eye can follow all the mayhem. This is one of the bloodiest films since ‘Reservoir Dogs”, but it has all the trappings of an arch re-mix of James Bond meets Agent Cody Banks.

The director seemed to have trouble fixing on a genre. Samuel L. Jackson is a chipper, lisping arch-villain; Colin Firth is a chipper, upper-class Brit in the style of Patrick Macnee in ‘The Avengers’ TV series; and Taron Egerton gives us a well-meaning but troubled English lad thrust into an unusual situation. But all the set dressing, style, and verve is drowned in a sea of blood that leaves little room for those delicious bits of comic relief that leaven the best action thrillers.

Having said all that, I must admit that as far as quality goes, these were two exceptional movies compared to the dreck that comes out of Hollywood most of the time. Had “Jupiter Ascending” had a gravitas more in keeping with its somber theme, or had “Kingsman” relied a little less heavily on squibs, they might have been great movies. As it is, they were merely good.