Review 742: Superluminal

Superluminal by Vonda N. McIntyre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is one of those that sat on my bookshelves for several decades. I used to be drawn to science fiction more than I am these days. The other day I decided to try the book, see what I make of the beginning at least. Well, the story drew me in and ended up reading the book in about 24 hours.

The story starts out about a newly made pilot, Laenea Trevelyan, a brash woman. To be a pilot the doctors take out your heart and replace it with a machine which you need to control. This is done since people cannot stay awake during transit, which is faster than light travel. As crew you must be put into sleep pods. Laenea has a hard time sticking to the doctor’s orders, staying in the hospital even. When she ventures out, she goes to see her friends who are all crew, but they no longer want to talk to her. There becomes a hierarchy with pilots being looked up to and revered.

Later we meet Radu Dracul who Laenea becomes very friendly with, despite him being crew. Radu is new to earth, being raised on the planet Twilight. He doesn’t know the rules or at least how people are socially. They discover one reason why crew and pilots aren’t friends.

A third person becomes important to the story, Orca whose family has changed their DNA to become more similar to water mammals. They at least speak a common language.

There were some corny bits here and there, perhaps my rating is a bit high, but the story sustained me and I fairly enjoyed it. The book was published in 1983 during a time when there were fewer women writers of science fiction.

Review 638: Artemis

Artemis by Andy Weir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I like Weir's books, as they can be fun science fiction and high octane. This one is also high octane and off-world located on the moon, a small city called Artemis.

The main character is Jazz Bashara who is a porter, moves things for a living, and on the side is also a smuggler for extra cash. She’s young and maybe mouthy, stands up to just about everyone. When her top client offers a million credits (slugs) for disabling some heavy equipment she says yes, even though that type of job is way outside her norm. And things go sideways, of course it does.

This plot device of things failing to go as planned seems to be Weir’s m.o. in writing. Then goes into how to fix things. And since you’re in a small enclosed area where live is easily endangered things are amped up.

It usually works in his books, but didn’t work as well here. Not sure if it was the character who seemed unbelievable, or just the plot line overall. I did like how there were many women as the main characters and major areas, but they mostly acted like men just with female names.

I listened to the audiobook, which is the best way to read Weir’s books as they do enhance the reading experience.

Review 617: Red Rising

Red Rising by Pierce Brown
My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I didn't like this one too much. First book in the Red Rising Saga, and I won't be continuing on. Too much of the book was about the war games between the kids at the training school. Felt like hunger games in some major ways, but not as appealing, the main character wasn't as likeable. Maybe it was how masculine this book felt? Not sure this is really a young adult book either.

Review 513: The Space Race

The Space Race: The Story of Human's Greatest Adventure by Colin Brake, Patrick Chapman and Richard Kurti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 This was a full-production audiobook, blending history and fiction to tell the story of humans and their progress going to space. It is firmly focused on the United States with Russia as the adversary, while in the end being a joint contributor to the International Space Station.

I enjoyed the historical aspect, not so much the fictional portion. It felt displaced and bit hokey to include that. I understand what the authors were trying to do, show where we may go in the far future, but still felt oddly placed with the rest of the book.

Kate Mulgrew was the main narrator and her role was much like a documentary tv show. There were numerous interviews with a multitude of people and voice actors for roles of people who could not be interviewed, such as past presidents or astronauts or scientists who have since died.

Each chapter focused on a specific part of the space history, generally starting with the race to get to the moon. The final chapters dealt with the International Space Station and plans for the future, such as going to Mars. However, this book is already a bit dated as private space ventures were not mentioned other than foreseeing what could happen in the future. Also, nothing was mentioned about Artemis, the plan of the United States returning to the moon, nor any of the other countries who have since gone to the moon. So the book isn’t fully encompassing of human-space ventures.

This was not a quick read for me, as I listened to it off and only mostly when going on road trips. It ended up taking about a year doing it this way. I finally decided to just finish the last bit, not on a road trip. It’s the type of book that it doesn’t matter too much of there are long delays between chapters. 

Review 495: Unmade

Unmade by A.R. Capetta
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 stars for the genre - Science Fiction, Young Adult

It takes a minute to get used to the writing style. But the story line is good. A young girl sets out with her friends to save the humans from being eliminated from the universe. Sad thing is, the ones killing everyone are human too, called the unmakers.

This is a second book of a series. Was a number of years since I read the first book. The series does not continue past this second book. 

Review 407: The Employees

The Employees by Olga Ravn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This short novella is heavy with ideas. It is a series of responses by employees, workers on the Six Thousand Ship. As we quickly find out, some are human, and others are humanoid. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

I found it interesting that each response is numbered, but not necessarily in order, yet generally moves forward. It makes me wonder about what is missing from the record.

It’s a fascinating book. Short enough to read in a day.

Review 402: The Ferryman

The Ferryman by Justin Cronin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book starts out with Prosperans living a perfect life, once they get old they are sent back to the nursery to be given a new life to live again. The weather is also good. Prosperans don’t have children per se, instead they adopt a child, one that is a teenager back from the nursery. They understand the basics, but have to be taught much more. Prosperans work in creative endeavors, usually, although our main character is a Ferryman. Proctor Bennet helps take the elderly to the ferry which takes them across the water to the nursery.

Yet, all is not well in the island of Prospera. The others on the island, the help is getting unhappy with their lot, as they aren’t like the Prosperans; they have children the regular way and grow old then die. They also have to do all the manual work, and something has to change.

It starts the day the Ferryman is tasked with having an assistant, well more like a mentee, and the person they need to take to the docks is none other than Proctor’s father.

Without getting into too much of the details later in the book, as to spoil anything, I will say this is a bit of a mind-bending novel. There are many turns and adjustments one has to make while reading the book. It is also filled with action, and it becomes a gripping tale.

There were some parts when I felt the book was lagging a bit, and a tiny bit predictable, but then it changed and was not going where one might think. When the book came to the ending, I thought it was extended out much longer than it needed, maybe the last several chapters didn’t need to be there. All in all, a great ride.




Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine and NetGalley for an advanced electronic review copy of this book. However, I listened to the audiobook from my public library. An excellent narration by Scott Brick and Suzanne Elise Freeman.

Review 376: Eversion

Eversion by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

The main character is a doctor, an unreliable narrator at that. He keeps waking from up from a dream where he died...or did he really die? The doctor is on a ship, and the crew remains the same each time, but there are changes.

It's an interesting premise. There is also the warning, get out while you can. It all has a sort of Lovecraft type vibe going, something unknown with a slight horror aspect.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was fantastic!

Review 364: The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard

The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard by David A. Goodman
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

This was a fun read.

I did find it hard to "hear" Captain Picard's voice as I knew it from TNG, but as we got into that era it seemed to come out better.

There was a lot of glossing over events later in the book, letting the tv series and movies do the heavy lifting. If you haven't seen Star Trek this book likely wouldn't do much for you.

Review 274: Holdout

Holdout by Jeffrey Kluger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Not quite the science fiction book I was expecting, had more politics thrown in, but it mostly kept my interest. 

This isn’t solely a science fiction book that takes place in space. Instead, it ties space, specifically the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth. Walli Beckworth, an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts are on the ISS when a supply mission goes wrong. They narrowly avoid catastrophe, but the small impact created some problems especially for the three humans. The protocol is to abandon the space station and at the last minute Walli doesn’t board the shuttle stating she “Prefers not to.” Thus, begins her time as the “holdout” and the reason the world soon learns is to protest over the burning of the Amazon forests, destroying the ecosystem and native peoples of Brazil. Walli not only has the environmental concern in mind but also her niece who is more like a daughter, caught up in the middle of the fires as she is there as an aide worker. She asks the United States to intervene, which coincidentally a vote is scheduled just a few days away.

We have many viewpoints in this story, ranging from the presidents of Brazil and the United States, political figures, Russians, and of course, Walli and her niece. The politics and protests take up most of the book, but there are a few “space” moments when the space station is in peril and Walli has to do a space walk which she wasn’t trained for and is unheard of doing this all alone. Also, what happens when the Russian shut down part of their modules.

I didn’t feel very tied to Walli or her story, or really to any character in the novel. There were so many views presented that the story didn’t feel solid in any one way. I had hopes for more of a space story than a political one. This book has the feel like The Martian but it didn't reach quite that far, not enough character development of Walli and too much on the ground to balance out.

Thanks to Dutton/Penguin Group and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 259: Big Damn Hero - Firefly

Big Damn Hero by James Lovegrove
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed returning to Firefly and this universe. Makes me want to get the next one right away...but other books are needing to be read. Not a whole lot new for firefly fans, but still, it was kinda peachy.

I listened to the audio book which was a good way to return to this verse that was.

Review 212: Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An enjoyable science fiction book that is very deep into science fact. The structure of the book is similar to some others, particularly Weir’s first book The Martian, where once one problem is solved another one crops up. 

This book finds Earth in peril due to something draining the sun’s energy, which once isolated is called astrophage. The substance is also a highly dense energy source that can propel a spaceship to speeds faster than we currently have available. A spaceship The Hail Mary has its mission to go to a nearby star to find out why it doesn’t have the same sun dimming problem, which hopefully will help solve the problem in our own solar system.

One of the best parts of the book was the new alien life. I don’t want to give much away, but I did enjoy that aspect of the book.

The frame of the book is told in current time and many flashbacks. At times it's awkward, or left me wondering why that particular passage was added in. Overall the book isn’t perfect by any means, but I enjoyed the book, and found myself thinking of it, such as what will happen next, when I wasn't reading. If this gets made into a movie like his first book, I’m sure it will do well.

Thanks to Ballantine Books/Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

PS: the cursing language was cut way, way down in this book. 

Previously Read Andy Weir books:

    

    The Martian (5 stars!)

           Read: January 30, 2015 – February 3, 2015

Review 11: Solaris

Solaris by Stanisław Lem
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After trying to watch the movie version (multiple times) of this book and falling asleep every time (maybe both versions) somehow I still was attracted to this story. I didn't expect much given my boredom with the story before. Yet I was riveted to this. I raced through much of the book. Was it due to the narration done by Alessandro Juliani, or the story? I think it was both.

The idea of the others, the visitors and the creepiness was unexpected. One of the main things I remember from the more recent film version was the light. The book mentions the colors of the suns and the light and darkness more than you find in other books. This visual experience almost takes on an aspect of character as well.

Despite my intense fascination with the story when it ended I felt let down. It didn't feel resolved. No, it didn't need to be fully resolved, but I did want a little more with the ending. Perhaps a glimpse that there was some concrete headway into solving the Solaris question these scientists were studying.

I have this feeling a second reading would get more out of the book. Not sure that will happen, at least not sometime soon.