Review 712: The Ephemera Collector

The Ephemera Collector by Stacy Nathaniel Jackson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an unusual and unexpected book format, reminded me of a post-modern style book, but it wasn’t that. It is not a straightforward book by any means.

There are pages of images, some that repeat are a timeline that I found helpful to understanding the full story. There are other images, maybe some from a dream journal. There are poems and excerpts, from a journal maybe. It’s not very clear where these textual parts.

There are two stories here. The main frame of the book is with Xandria Anastasia Brown, who is an archivist at Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. In 2035 she's been having health issues, particularly memory lapses, and passing out, when an event happens at the library. It has to do with BlackoutWika, which she established but wasn’t involved in this event. She became locked in her office, which happily contains essentials for surviving for a few days. Xandria doesn’t understand what is going on. Yet she still strives to continue working with the archives, she is focused on the work.

The very opening of the book has Xandria talking in an interview on her 300th birthday. Something happened to her medically that caused her to stop aging.

The second story takes place further in the future, at Diwata, an underwater community that was built to escape the devastation on the surface. While other communities went into outer space, this group, the Black Reconstruction Collective, established themselves off the coast of California.

There is an audiobook for this but I’m not sure if that would translate well as there is much here that is visual, not just what was mentioned above, but also with the formatting. There are bots that communicate which is identified by brackets, maybe audio can adapt that part. Anyway, not sure this is one to attempt in audio.

Overall, there were parts of this book I liked, some I did not. There was some repetition, which I didn’t like, and some parts of the book were confusing. I found the bot named sassafras interesting.

Review 693: The Memory Hunters

The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars



I got hooked into this story and had a hard time putting the book down. I kept grabbing for it whenever I could, so despite its page length I read it fairly quickly. However, the last part of the book spoiled some of the story line for me.

The world building was very interesting, loved the concept of people being able to dive into the past and see things that happened before just by using some mushrooms. Our main character, Key, was particularly gifted and had perfect memory.

Kiana Strade, known as Key, came from a famous and rich family. Her grandmother was form head curator and founder of the Institute of Human Memory. Her mother was head resifix (like a priest) for the city of Asheburg and her father a ctiy councillor. Her mother hoped Key would follow her and not her mother. But Key wanted to work for the museum, do field work, and get away from all the demanding public in the city.

All hunters had guardians, and hers was Vale, a fierce stout woman that was quick to anger. Vale came from the south, where the storms were frequent and lived with losing ones home to the waters happened too often. She was poor, her family depended on her to send money home.

The story begins with Key finding something very interesting about the deep past, and perhaps the beginning of the rituals. The memory was also very strong and wouldn’t leave Key’s mind. This could happen to memory hunters, being haunted by a dive. Yet this find of Key’s seemed so important.

This is a start of a series, but I may just leave it there. In any case, I have to wait until the next book, and I'm not too big on series in general.

Review 618: Where the Axe Is Buried

Where the Axe Is Buried by Ray Nayler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I zipped through this book, hard a hard time putting it down. It’s a science-fiction, political, dystopian, techno book, taking place in the future (far?). A bit confusing through the first part of the book, different POVs and different technologies. At first I just wanted to get beyond the confusing part. Then I was sucked in.

This is a future where everything and everyone is watched constantly. In the free west it is for advertising purposes, in the totalitarian states it is to ensure the people are controlled. Many countries are run by A.I. Prime Ministers, and The Federation is run by a president whose consciousness gets transferred to new bodies one the old ones deteriorate. Then there are the dissidents. The book is mostly about the dissidents.

The book is a commentary on totalitarianism and artificial intelligence. Starts out with a very gloomy outlook but ends with hope and possibility.

Review 368: The Deluge

The Deluge by Stephen Markley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A deluge of words and pages, later becomes a deluge of rain and flood waters then finally a deluge of people.  

This is an impressive book, it takes us from current time into the near future, incrementally year by year. It gives us a horrifying look at what climate change might look like, and US politics. 

There are a large cast of characters, in the beginning of the book they each get their own chapter, with some depth, that it feels like you are untethered. But later they do start to intertwine and recur with subsequent chapters. There are some unusual aspects to the book; one character’s chapters always contain side boxes with extra information, there are some articles interspersed, and occasionally a full page with headlines and snippets.

While I am impressed with the scope of breadth of this book, part of me thinks it is too much too soon. Many of these events take place ten to fifteen years from now and seem too extreme for possibility (or at least that’s my hope!). The book is overwhelming, impressive, and frightening. 

Certainly, the author is hoping this epic book will serve as a warning. Perhaps one take away from the book is that one person can make a difference, as we see several versions of that here. 

Thank you to Simon and Schuster for an advance print copy of the book. 

Initial thoughts: I need a breather after this one.

Yet, I didn't wait to start a new book....only a few hours later began something new.

Review 329: AI 2041

AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Unfortunately, I had a hard time with the format of this book. It is part fiction and part non-fiction. The book addresses several different areas of artificial intelligence and how it will impact our lives in the future. While these may not happen exactly, there is the direction AI is going towards today. To help make these concepts more appealing there is a fictional story demonstrating a specific aspect of AI.

The format made for too much repetition for me, with one author proving the framework, then the fictional story, then a recap and further explanation. The stories were long and with the before and after it was too much redundancy for me reading this book straight through.

My library bought a copy of this book and I see the appeal for college students studying artificial intelligence. They could easily pick the chapters that interest them the most and read those sections.

One interesting final note, just in the last couple of weeks a Google engineer claims their chat bot has become sentient, is this the end goal of artificial intelligence?


Read April 01-07, 20, then June 08, 16 - 2022

Review 281: Appleseed

Appleseed by Matt Bell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is quite the tale, expansive and allegorical, incorporating ancient myths, fables and American folklore. The story is told in three timelines, three main viewpoints. One is the near future, one is of the past when America was being colonized, and the other is the far future. Every timeline deals with the world coming to an end, or vastly changed from what it currently is into something new and different.

In the past, as settlers conquer the wild, Chapman and his brother Nathaniel travel around planting apple tress for their future. Chapman is a faun, half-man, half-animal. Faun and apples are echoed through each story line.

In the far future a lonely C, a regenerated synthetic, reborn when the current body is too damaged and needs to be renewed. The current form C-433 looks mostly like a faun as well. This newest version stopped the exploring, instead found old books and is trying something different.

Then we have our near future, where the corporation Earth Trust is taking over while attempting to save the what is possible with the climate and species collapsing. People join as volunteers giving up everything, even their citizenship in exchange for shelter and food. This timeline is easier to connect to, closer to our current world and yet a bit fantastical as well. John is this focus here, he helped start Earth Trust, with Eury the head of the corporation, yet now thinks she’s gone too far. He has a plan to stop her.

This is a bit like fantasy and science fiction mixed with fables and ancient myths, perhaps some magic thrown in. The book has almost a feel of a trilogy contained within this one book.

Thanks to HarperCollins/ Custom House and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 226: The Ice Lion

The Ice Lion by Kathleen O'Neal Gear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Having read many books by the author Kathleen O'Neal Gear (co-authored with her husband) in the North America's Forgotten Past series, I was curious and interested to read a book focused on the far future.

The world building had me guessing throughout the book. I cannot say my questions were completely answered, but some do resolve as the book goes on. There is a fantasy feel to the book with the belief system of the Sealion People, which is reminiscent of the Gear’s other series.

While there a few similar aspects between this book and the other series, this is a completely different world. Hints of our modern world now long past pop up. The icy world that now exists seems to have developed with an attempt at fixing the climate change problem in the past and failed. Now tribes are at war with each other, while constantly on watch for the large animals that hunt them, such as bears, lions and wolves. The biggest obstacle though, seems to be keeping warm in this icy world. I love how women are warriors too!

Good book for fans of the Gear’s books, as this book will have the same feel. While generally I don't read series, I do make exceptions and this will be another, as I'm looking forward to the next book.


Thanks to DAW Publishers and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 214: Oval

Oval by Elvia Wilk
My rating: 2.75 of 5 stars

Part of the book was interesting, mostly in the beginning, then it seemed to go off the rails for me. This is a fictional book taking place in the near future in Berlin. A big part of the book is the house where Anja and Louis live, a new type of eco-community that is completely sustainable. Yet there are cameras everywhere and the company involved is where Anja works, who just got fired but then hired as a consultant. Anyway, when it ended I just had to ask -- what did I just read? I know much of it is satire, but still trying to make sense of it.

Review 211: Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not by Alexandra Oliva
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A near future book, that I enjoyed. At the center we have Linda who had a strange upbringing. She is known as Clone Girl to the public, born to replace her sister who died tragically as a teenager. Linda was made, probably manipulated, and implanted to her mother Lorelei, who was not fit to be a mother again. Linda’s life was one of abandonment, lacking love and completely confusing, as she was hidden away in the house compound, until she finally ran away and into the world.

During the book we see her trying to cope, but barely with the world. She tries to avoid people at all times, and is extremely vulnerable with feelings of being attacked when viewed and taunted by the public. A neighbor with a dog moves in and Linda is drawn to her, perhaps making a friend, who shows her the world of virtual reality games. A side story pops in are we living in a computer simulation. Is this story a computer simulation?

I enjoyed the book for the most part, wanted to give this book five stars but the book didn’t quite reach that far. There were moments, throughout the book, when the color of someone’s skin was mentioned and it was awkward and odd. Perhaps it was part of showing how Linda was isolated while growing up, but it felt out of place.

Around the mid-way or so the book ramped up the tension. I found it hard to put down. One weird aspect to the book is how it worked in the current pandemic into the narrative. It comes up a couple of times, which was a little weird reading while we’re still in it, dealing with it, and who knows how it will shape the future overall.

Thanks to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.