I listened to this with my children (age 12 and 13) and we all loved it, in my case much better than some of the YA we've been reading over the last fI listened to this with my children (age 12 and 13) and we all loved it, in my case much better than some of the YA we've been reading over the last few months. Smart and whimsical writing, wonderful characters, an interesting world (necromancer swordfighters in outer space!!!!) and a great recording. It was, however, about twice as long as it needed to be, with very long stretches with very little plot development and lots of the two main characters exploring the palace/planet they were in. And then lots and lots of plot at the end, just on time to make you want to read the second volume--which I dread is even longer....more
About as epic as a novella can get, This is How You Lose the Time War tells a spy vs. spy story about two operatives for dueling systems engaged in a About as epic as a novella can get, This is How You Lose the Time War tells a spy vs. spy story about two operatives for dueling systems engaged in a war that rages across numerous timelines, moving backward and forward in various histories, with huge epic battles that are only described elliptically and moving in and out of brief glimpses of historical events, like Caesar’s assassination, Genghis Khan, and the German-Soviet battles in World War II. All of this takes place in multiple timelines that have much in common but much not, in some Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, in others a comedy; in some Atlantis has fallen into the sea, in others that is just a legend.
But all of that is in the background, barely described. The foreground is a series of letters between “Red” and “Blue”, at first taunting each other about their exploits on opposing sides, but then getting to know each other, falling in love, but still struggling to understand what is a deceptive trap and what is genuine. All of which comes together in a wonderfully done ending....more
This short story was well executed but a a bit too didactic for my taste. A group of humans that left Earth ages ago needs to return to pick up a DNA This short story was well executed but a a bit too didactic for my taste. A group of humans that left Earth ages ago needs to return to pick up a DNA sample they need, they are all trained to think of themselves as an all male superior race that lives in artificial skin, does not tolerate diversity, disability, aging, or anything else--and that this is why they survived while the weak and overly tolerant people who remained on Earth died out. But guess what? In many ways the opposite of 1950s military sci-fi, but a bit too much so.
I should add, it is free with Amazon Prime and I listened to the Audible version, which was excellently narrated....more
I have not read anything by Blake Crouch I haven't loved. His recent novels have made him a master of the near future, plausibly scientific, thriller I have not read anything by Blake Crouch I haven't loved. His recent novels have made him a master of the near future, plausibly scientific, thriller about the dangers of technology. In this novella/novelette/long short story, a game designer takes an AI that operates within the game and starts training "them" (name is Max, gender is ambiguous, and pronouns are they/their/them). Watching Max absorb fantastical amounts of information and start to change into a super intelligence while having an evolving relationship with their creator is fascinating. And it is all very suspenseful and well crafted, albeit much more obvious than Dark Matter or Recursion--with a higher ratio of writing about an idea to writing for plot than those books.
I should add, it is free with Amazon Prime and I listened to the Audible version, which was excellently narrated....more
A nearish-future hard sci-fi novella about four astronauts sent on a voyage of discovery to a planetary system fourteen light years away. Other than hA nearish-future hard sci-fi novella about four astronauts sent on a voyage of discovery to a planetary system fourteen light years away. Other than hibernation and deliberately mutated skins to handle being in outer space, the rest is technology familiar to us today and their discoveries are also more like plausible biology than walking, talking aliens. It opens as a letter to earth, one that will take fourteen years (of course) to get there and in the closing we understand why they are writing the letter.
I wanted to like it a lot more. It moved fluidly, had interesting parts, did not ever get bogged down in unnecessary detail. But I also felt it didn't have much of a point, the scientific "twist" was not completely persuasive even on the science, the human "twist" made even less sense, and the characters themselves were not particularly well developed. Notwithstanding all of that, I enjoyed it and look forward to more by Becky Chambers in the future....more
This is among the best graphic novels I have read (although not quite The One Hundred Nights of Hero). Beautifully drawn, complex(ish) characters, a fThis is among the best graphic novels I have read (although not quite The One Hundred Nights of Hero). Beautifully drawn, complex(ish) characters, a fun(ish) space opera setting with misfits in a slightly dreamy science fiction universe, what is most striking is how achingly and touchingly it presents love and loss. Oh, and it is beautifully drawn. And weird. But it also mostly makes sense....more
Consistently clever and creative, Redshirts is told from the perspective of lower-level crew on a Star Trek-like ship that notice that notice that theConsistently clever and creative, Redshirts is told from the perspective of lower-level crew on a Star Trek-like ship that notice that notice that they consistently die on away missions while the captain, the science officer, and the chief engineer always survive. They start to wonder if they are living in "the narrative" and whether by understanding this they can escape the destinies that have been written for them. A hilarious send-up of science fiction television, time travel plots, and an excellent piece of science metafiction....more
The Zita the Spacegirl trilogy was fantastic. I read the first one myself and then read and re-read them numerous times with my children. They were crThe Zita the Spacegirl trilogy was fantastic. I read the first one myself and then read and re-read them numerous times with my children. They were creative, funny, intriguing, whimsical, humane, and altogether a real joy. Several years later Ben Hatke is back with a sequel that merges the story with his Might Jack series. It was worth reading but veered further a tick further into silly and incoherent in a way that made it fall short of its outstanding predecessors....more
I enjoyed The Testaments but it felt like more of an enjoyable exercise in answering some questions that didn’t really need answering than a deeper exI enjoyed The Testaments but it felt like more of an enjoyable exercise in answering some questions that didn’t really need answering than a deeper extension of the very original world Margaret Atwood created in The Handmaid's Tale. Although the world of The Testaments is familiar, it does build on the original with a broader perspective including Aunt Lydia who is at the top of the female hierarchy and a girl from free Canada where anti-Gilead protests are a staple. The plot is reasonably good and kept me turning the pages, even if mostly predictable (even what might be considered twists were not particularly shocking) and sometimes implausible (why exactly did they need to go through all of what they did to accomplish their goal, trying to avoid a spoiler). Moreover, we already know the ultimate fate of Gilesad from The Handmaids Tale.
Then there are the characters. The first person narration by Aunt Lydia is phenomenal, picturing the place she puts herself in, and how different her interior and exterior lives are—making one wonder in general about that discrepancy in totalitarian societies. The two teenagers, one from Canada and one from Gilead, form a nice contrast in the “natural” attitudes people have versus the degree to which those attitudes are reshaped by their society and circumstances. But none of the characters, other than Lydia, has much in the way of agency or growth, they are more props to keep the story in motion, albeit good props.
If this all sounds more negative than I might intend it is because of the expectations and judging it on the scale of The Handmaids Tale. Judged on its own terms it was enjoyable, interesting, and I’m glad I read it....more
A set of uneven sketches, trifles and shaggy dog jokes, some salvaged from the very beginning of John Scalzi's career, these Miniatures are uneven butA set of uneven sketches, trifles and shaggy dog jokes, some salvaged from the very beginning of John Scalzi's career, these Miniatures are uneven but almost every one of them is funny, enjoyable and perceptive. If there was another volume I would listen to it as well. Agents representing superheroes and super villains, various mundane day-to-day challenges of living with alien species, a story told from the perspective of a cat about a new household robot, children charging extortionate prices for lemonade, and more....more
Closer to a short story than a novella, I had been thinking about reading this and then noticed it was only $1.99 on Kindle so bought it and read it iCloser to a short story than a novella, I had been thinking about reading this and then noticed it was only $1.99 on Kindle so bought it and read it in one sitting. It was decent but in many ways more of a preface so will have to fully reserve judgment until I read the next two books in the trilogy, which I certainly intend to do.
A fusion of Africa and space travel, Binti takes the eponymous hero from her tribe in Namibia on a sentient space ship to the galaxy's leading university. What looks like it could be a space operatic epic confrontation between different interstellar civilizations turns quite different in Binti's hands as she promotes mutual understanding. I don't want to be a lame proponent of laser battles in space, but something about resolving everything so easily and peacefully seems sort of, well, lame.
The invention was reasonably interesting, a fusion of quasi-scientific, quasi-mystical, organic, electronic, and the like into a galaxy that still takes races very seriously and has a mixed record of cross-cultural understanding and misunderstanding. I am hoping all of this world building gets put to better use in the next installments and that it gets combined with some more complex and developed characters, plot, interesting revelation, and the like--most of which was, unfortunately, missing from this first installment....more
Broken Stars reads like an also ran to the excellent Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation. Both are collections of CBroken Stars reads like an also ran to the excellent Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation. Both are collections of Chinese science fiction edited and mostly translated by Ken Liu. Both have many of the same authors. But where there is overlap, the stories in Invisible Planets seemed better (e.g., “Folding Beijing” was better than Hao Jingfang’s story in this collection, both Liu Cixin’s were better in the previous collection than in this one, the essays at the back were much better in the first, etc.) Several of the stories in Broken Stars are excellent, some feel distinctively Chinese (“What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear” by Baoshu) while others less so (“Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xia Jia and “Reflection” by Gu Shi), but overall a nice variety of styles and types.
Some specifics:
“Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xia Jia (5 stars). I can’t get enough of Turing Test stories and this is an excellent one, interspersing vignettes of a near-future autonomous agent with dialogues between Turing and a machine he created.
“Moonlight” by Liu Cixin (4 stars). Very good story with a simple or even simplistic message about the hazards of the unintended consequences of trying to reengineer human society to address problems.
“Broken Stars” by Tang Fei (2 stars). I just could not get into this story.
“Submarines” by Han Song (2 stars). A trifle of an allegory for I’m not sure what about poor people being forced to live in mini submarines while their children play in cages.
“Salinger and the Koreans” by Han Song (4 stars). Also a bit of a trifle, but inventive enough that it sustained its short length, an alternate history where the North Koreans conquered the world, crediting J.D. Salinger with their success. But the famous recluse won’t play along with them.
“Under a Dangling Sky” by Chang Jingbo (2 stars). Very impressionistic, could not get into it.
“What Has Passed Shall in Kinder Light Appear” by Baoshu (5 stars). Loved this. Science fiction with Chinese characteristics. It tells a relatively conventional life story, centering around a love story, against a historical Chinese backdrop. But the backdrop works in reverse. At first I thought the author made a mistake when 9/11, for example, came after the global financial crisis. But then all of the events of global history and especially Chinese history went into reverse, for example Mao succeeding Deng and bringing a stronger form of communism that undid market reforms etc. This works really well and drives home the point that there is nothing natural about the sequence of history, especially of Chinese history, and the logic of the events often works as well in the reverse as it does in the original.
“The New Year Train” by Hao Jingfang (4 stars). A short, whimsical hard sci-fi story about a train is lost in hyperspace.
“The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales” by (3 stars). A shaggy dog story about a bullshit artist of a king who wants to train a robot to exceed him in his fabulous tales. The robot heads out on a set of fantastical/fabricated adventures that get more and more epic.
“The Snow of Jinyang” by Zhang Ran. Started this, didn’t get into it, skipped it.
“The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Laba Porridge” by Anna Wu (2 stars). All the references to the original just showed the limitations of this story.
“The Emperor’s Games” by Ma Boyong (3 stars). A sleight story about an ancient emperor whose work ruling the kingdom and video game playing effectively merge together.
“Reflection” by Gu Shi (5 stars). Worthy of M. Night Shamalyan, a psychiatric researcher takes a student to see a clairvoyant and much reversal of time’s arrow ensues, followed by a deeper set of psychological explanations. I plan to re-read this one sometime.
“The Brain Box” by Regina Kanyu Wang (4 stars). A near future where you can get “brain boxes” implanted, like the black box in a plane, that record the last five minutes of your thoughts before death. A man gets these memories implanted from a woman who dies in a plane crash on the way to what was going to be his marriage proposal. It reverses everything the thought he understood. Relative slight but interesting.
“Coming of the Light” by Chen Quifan (2 stars). Did not get into this story about a near-future Beijing.
“A History of Future Illnesses” by Chen Quifan (3 stars). An interesting concept, a series of descriptions—almost Wikipedia style—of future illnesses starting with the more mundane (iPad addiction based on the Retina display) and becoming increasingly exotic (“chaotic chronosense” as people use general relativity to control the speed of their time and become increasingly disoriented), with much whimsy in between (“Controlled Personality Shattering”) about the way people alt tab between different personalities in different windows and how it can all shatter. No characters or plot, more in the style of some of Borges....more
Exhalation is a thought provoking, mind expanding collection of stories all of which explore very specific ideas and scientific concepts, in the proceExhalation is a thought provoking, mind expanding collection of stories all of which explore very specific ideas and scientific concepts, in the process shedding new light on our past, present, and future. Almost every story is a gem, well worth the 17 year wait since Ted Chiang’s only previous collection (or two years in my case, since I was relatively late to him). I expect to re-read and re-think about these stories in the years to come. Specifics on some of the stories below with a certain number of spoilers, even though the stories themselves are not really plot driven. (I should say, I listened to the audiobook and the narrators were all excellent, a few different people so that voices and genders matched the stories themselves.)
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”: 5 stars. You could almost convince me that this tale came straight from A Thousand and One Nights it reads so authentically with stories within stories. Even the introduction of time travel seems authentic with a person (or even a person’s hand) entering one portal and coming out another portal at a different time. But the time travel is not magical, but instead follows a rigorous set of rules (in the afterward Chiang explains they come from a lecture by Kip Thorne). Most importantly, in a well-constructed surprise twist people learn that they cannot actually change the past but have to accept their fate—and do so without falling into an paralyzing crisis about the lack of free will (see “What’s Expected of Us”).
“Exhalation”: 5 stars. It starts out as a fanciful description of a world where people have interchangeable lungs and clocks are all increasingly running fast but then turns into an exploration of the scientific rules underlying this world which center around the role that pressure differences play in animating machinery in people’s brains. As pressure becomes more even in the universe these people live in, their time slows leading to their eventual extinction. What a vision of entropy.
“What’s Expected of Us”: 5 stars. A very short story about the spread of a machine that lights up immediately before you push it, and the implications this has for people’s understanding of free will. I will not forget this one anytime soon, if ever.
“The Lifecycle of Software Objects”: 5 stars. More novella than story, it follows a group of people who adopt virtual-reality animals and watch and help them to grow and develop what almost seems like consciousness. Very little in the story is fanciful, is like the Tamagotchi digital pet where people have pellets to feed their pets but with the pets developing over time. The challenge people face is how to balance their emotional attachments to people vs. these creations, how these creations evolve over time, whether it is possible to build an AI that works immediately without decades of teaching, and ultimately whether people will sacrifice for virtual beings.
“Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny”: 3 stars. More of a trifle styled as an authentic history of a nineteenth century automaton nanny. Fewer ideas and less cleverly constructed than anything else in the book, it was nevertheless enjoyable.
“The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”: 4 stars. Alternating stories about how an African tribe is transformed by the introduction of writing (which allows people to rely less on memory and subjectivity, but instead record objectively and reproducibly) and a futuristic technology that lets people video record and easily retrieve any experience they have in their lives, something that leads families into endlessly proving each other wrong by going to the proverbial videotape. The pros and cons of the triumph of objectivity over subjectivity are explored in this manner.
“The Great Silence”: 4 stars. I’m a sucker for Fermi Paradox stories and this is a pretty decent one, starring intelligent parrots.
“Omphalos”: 5 stars. A serious contender for my favorite story in the collection, it is about a world where scientists find extensive evidence of the creation of the earth and all its creatures a few thousand years ago, for example primordial trees with no rings at their center, primordial human remains with no belly buttons, and primordial clams with no layers. An archeologist devoted to using science to uncover more evidence of god’s creation falls into a crisis of faith when she is exposed to a new cosmological theory that is a clever twist on both Copernicanism (which decentered the earth from the universe) and special relativity. Brilliant, internally consistent, and with stronger characters and emotion than some of Chiang’s other stories.
“Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom”: 3 stars. My lack of love for this story may be my fault not Chiang’s and I will read it again at some point. An excellently rigorous and believable invention of a quantum machine that enables people to communicate across the “multiple worlds” spawned by different resolutions of uncertainty. The machine only allows communications across the branches since it was invented and it has a finite amount of information it can transfer. The transference itself creates disturbances that change the course in different dimensions. Chiang explores this consequences of this idea for a variety of people as they go through life and therapy. I loved the science, but did not love the people and at times found their stories a little confusing as it cut back and forth between them....more
I read this book and loved it as a kid. But I'm not sure I could recommend that anyone read it when you have the option I did not have as a kid: listeI read this book and loved it as a kid. But I'm not sure I could recommend that anyone read it when you have the option I did not have as a kid: listening to the absolutely divine Stephen Fry recording. Everything is just as fresh and humorous as it ever was. Plus it feels prescient about artificial intelligence, although partly that may be because some aspects of the packaging of AI have actually followed the book rather than just being anticipated by it. My 11 year old son listened with me and liked it just as much. (As an aside, I should say that we initially tried the originally radio play but was not nearly as good because the worse audio production, too short, and Fry does a variety of voices even better than a variety of people do.)...more
An amazingly satisfying conclusion to an amazingly satisfying trilogy. By turns hilarious, suspenseful, insightful, it is impossible to put any of theAn amazingly satisfying conclusion to an amazingly satisfying trilogy. By turns hilarious, suspenseful, insightful, it is impossible to put any of these books down. They are set in an "Interdependency" which was established by humans as a set of habitats around star systems that are linked by "flow streams" which allows faster than light travel between them. The flow streams are collapsing severing the different systems, a big problem because the interdependency is organized around a set of noble houses each of which has a monopoly on one type of good or service so none of which can exist on their own. Against this backdrop an epic set of schemes, counter schemes, some competent, most of them incompetent, play out. I don't think a single chapter dragged in any of the books, and the twists were as surprising ex ante as they were completely inevitable ex post. So go get the first one and start on this now!...more
I read the Mortal Engines quartet by Philip Reeve with my children and loved it. This book was written before it and was not nearly as good. It is in I read the Mortal Engines quartet by Philip Reeve with my children and loved it. This book was written before it and was not nearly as good. It is in the silly scifi genre with a tinge of steampunk, like a worse Douglas Adams. Set in an alternative history where Isaac Newton discovered a powerful anti-gravitational engine powered by alchemy, the British Empire has all of its ossified traits but is now spread throughout the solar system. A brother and sister enter into a mortal battle with white spiders based on the planet Saturn and team up with an interplanetary pirate named Jack. You get the idea. Was genuinely witty at times, but the "adventures of" genre has its limits in terms of a genuinely suspenseful plot and the silliness undermines the world building and the characters are all pretty stock. But not terrible or anything and my children liked it....more
Enjoyable humorous space opera, this is the second installment in a trilogy about future descendants of Earth who have spread out across space to set Enjoyable humorous space opera, this is the second installment in a trilogy about future descendants of Earth who have spread out across space to set up an "interdependency" based on trading between far flung habitats connected by a spacetime "flow" that is a set of wormholes. The entire socio-political edifice is overseen by an Emperox, who combines political, spiritual and mercantile leads. Overall it as a byzantine/medieval setup of intrigue, deceit and amorality that all seems, nevertheless, to hold together. But as the flow starts to collapse and worlds are going to be separated it all comes apart.
The second book was as fast paced as the first but the characters were a little more locked in to their either good or bad sides, in some tension with the grey amoral world the book is set in. There are some surprises but no major ones as all the double crossing is done by various bad guys against each other. But it all stays interesting.
I should add I listened to the audio recording read by Wil Wheaton who was excellent, felt like a genuine performance....more
I confess The Hungry City books are really growing on me. A series about a future where giant traction cities wage battles against an extremist group I confess The Hungry City books are really growing on me. A series about a future where giant traction cities wage battles against an extremist group promoting static settlements while underwater burglars, aerial balloonists, and a group of people hidden away in North America engage in various manners. Some of the best characters are truly excellent, like Uncle who is a Fagin-like figure running a group of burglar boys, Pennyroyal who is a foolish, venal, cowardly liar who in this book has become the Mayor of a town, and some of the locations themselves are like great characters--in this book the floating pleasure city of Brighton. The plot is also quite fun as well.
Overall, everything one could hope for in a book to read to/with a 9 and 10 year old--if not quite what I would read on my own....more
I wanted to not like this book but couldn't help myself--the setting was imaginative, the plot was engrossing, and the characters were interesting (enI wanted to not like this book but couldn't help myself--the setting was imaginative, the plot was engrossing, and the characters were interesting (enough). The second in Philip Reeve's Hungry City Chronicles did not really need to be written since the first book had a self contained ending so I was not looking forward to the second book, which often lack the imagination of the first and feels no need to be driving towards a conclusion. But I was wrong.
But in the "further adventures" vein, Predator's Gold keeps up an impressive pace of imagination, introducing "traction cities" on ice, giant cities that are constantly on the move looking for prey or avoiding predators. The book centers around Anchorage, an ancient dynastic fiefdom that moves around the arctic that has largely been wiped out by disease but carries on in faded splendor and Arkangel, a fearsome predator city. The duel between the two of them takes place against the backdrop of a growing "anti-traction" extremist movement (the Green Storm) and a set of amoral burglers that operate out of an underwater lair (Grimsby). And all of this propelled by the hero Tom Natsworthy and the increasingly fearsome heroine Hester Shaw.
In full disclosure, I read this (and listened to Audible) with my 9 and 10 year old and I am not sure I would recommend it otherwise. And they are now making me read the third book, which seems even more unnecessary because Predator's Gold had a genuine conclusion....more
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