Author: Greig

Professional Librarian from Fife who likes books and music.

azure?

Posted on by Greig

Maul

Tricia Sullivan

This is an enjoyable piece of work. A cartoonish thriller, heavy on the thriller element and light on scientific logic, it sets out to shock from the opening masturbation scene. Now normally this would just bore me, but it’s so fast paced that you just move through the story so quickly that you don’t have time to sit down and think about the absurdities and excesses.
The main plot takes place in a near future society where most males have been wiped out by an artificial phenomenon known as the Y plagues. The lead character is an autistic male clone, called Meniscus, who is used as a guinea pig in experiments designed to harvest useful chemicals from the human body by using modified Y plague strains. This process causes Meniscus terrible pain and the only thing that lessens it is immersion in a game called Mall.
The Mall forms the second thread of the story, an ultraviolent story of gun toting teenage girls, with the Jewish-Korean Sun as the main character. This part is very incoherent and sometimes completely ridiculous, but then again I suspect that this is a deliberate move to reflect the unreal nature of the Mall.
This book is a bit of a mess, but still a lot of fun. I wouldn’t read it if you were looking for subtle characterization or plausible science.
I’d recommend it if you’re in the mood for a pumped up, fast moving, science fiction thriller.

Rating: A-

hot dust?

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Revelation Space

Alastair Reynolds

Revelation SpaceThis is Reynolds’ debut novel and what a remarkable debut it is.
He takes three separate story threads taking part in completely different environments, gives you taste of them and their cultures. He stretches events across decades, gives you flashbacks hundreds of years in the past. Then he sets events in motion that draws these threads together with minimal clunkiness.
There are some fabulous pieces of alien tech, some remarkably plausible extrapolations of past galactic history and future human development.
There’s really interesting characters, great set pieces and it’s all done with real style.
I think I’ll be buying more of his books.
I’d recommend this to anyone starved for a genuinely great piece of hard SF in the current market of post-geek Singularity science fiction.

Rating: A

chaffinch?

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Chaffinch crop 3

Sometimes, just sometimes, you’re incredibly lucky when you take photographs.
I got lucky in this case – I was in the right place with the right lens at the right time with a bird that seemed determined to pose for me.
Mind you the whole encounter was under 30 seconds.
You could say I really like this photo.

static?

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Double Vision

Tricia Sullivan

Double VisionKaren “Cookie” Orbach is a sci-fi loving nerd. An overweight, over naive, African American woman that can see the events of a war taking place far from Earth when she watches TV.
This book is quite interesting, especially as you watch Cookie’s character become more self aware and self confident throughout the story.
The alien side of the story is very interesting, but the best of the book is reserved for the real world as Cookie’s wall of denial starts to collapse around her after a family tragedy.
I’d recommend it to science fiction fans looking for something a bit different and very much so to anyone looking for a book with a full on female perspective.

Rating: A-

extropian?

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Singularity Sky

Charles Stross

Singularity SkyStross’ debut novel takes place in a universe shaped by the intervention of the post singularity entity known as the Eschaton.
This strongly superhuman intelligence has perpetuated a human diaspora far out into the light cone of Earth. This creates many new civilisations of vaguely like minded people out among the stars.
One such civilisation is the New Republic, where technology (or the lack of) is used to keep the population firmly under the control of a centralised aristocracy. When the colony of Rochard’s World is visited by the unknown force that is the Festival people’s wishes are suddenly granted in exchange for stories, entertainment and information of all kinds. This the New Republic views as an attack on their sovereignty. In retaliation they are prepared to defy the Eschaton and the prohibition on causality violation by attempting to arrive in the system just after the arrival of the Festival.
On board the attacking fleet are Earth’s UN inspector Rachel Mansour and drive engineer Martin Springfield who both have hidden agendas.
This book is piled with ideas and some great humour. Unfortunately it’s let down by some mind blowingly dull "action" sequences and characters with large roles to play that don’t even make it to cipher level. It’s something that Stross has since gotten much better at.
I’d recommend this to lovers of idea rich science fiction and in light of the fact that the sequel is a much better book in the same setting.

Rating: B

fourths?

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Spin

Robert Charles Wilson

Spin by Robert Charles WilsonI made the decision to get this book after reading this post by Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Even though he has an interest in the book doing well his passion for the work was obvious to see. Taking into consideration the many positive reviews in the comments the purchase became a foregone conclusion.
The story is told from the perspective of Tyler Dupree. In one stream he recounts the story of his life as measured against the mysterious “Spin” and his friendship with the Lawtons. The second, alternating, stream takes place in his current day.
I don’t know if it would be at all helpful to go into any further detail with the plot – the book unfolds beautifully and the plot, ideas and characters are never less than fascinating.
This is one of the best science fiction books I’ve read in a very long time. I suspect it’s even better than The Chronoliths and if you read my review of that you can see how impressed I was.
If you have any love for science fiction do yourself a favour and read this book.

Rating: A+

quinn?

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The Chronoliths

Robert Charles Wilson

This is the first novel I’ve read by Wilson, and I am deeply impressed.
Scott Warden is the book’s protagonist. As the novel begins he’s living a slacker’s beach life in South East Asia with his wife and young daughter. One day he heads off with a dodgy friend to have a look at a mysterious object that arrived overnight in the rainforest. This object is made of unidentifiable matter, is hundreds of feet tall and devastates a wide area around it’s arrival point. At the same moment in time his wife is left stranded as their daughter develops a life threatening ear infection.
Life for Warden is never the same afterward – his wife leaves him, his daughter loses all hearing in one ear and the mysterious object turns out to be a monument commemorating a military victory by some unknown warlord called Kuin 16 years in the future – causing a journalist to dub it a Chronolith.
Over time the world is spun into chaos as more and more of these Chronliths appear, first in South-East Asia (including the destruction of Bangkok) and across the third world. The world economy collapses and political sentiment among the world’s population splits into pro-Kuin and anti-Kuin factions.
The novel is written from Warden’s perspective as he tells the story of how his life unfolds against this despairing backdrop as he is continuously finds himself at the centre of events as they unfold.
This is a really well written book full of complex, fleshed out human beings reacting to horrendous events in the world around them. It’s among the best science fiction I’ve read in years.
I’d recommend it to readers of science fiction hungering for more than cutout characters and who can handle the pretty much unremitting darkness of the novel’s world.

Rating: A

black plan?

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The Star Fraction

Ken MacLeod

The Star FractionMacLeod’s debut novel. Set in a Britain fractured into small territories divided by religion, politics, etc. after a political settlement imposed after the fall of the British republic.
Lead character is Moh Kohn, a mercenary for a trotskyist defence collective who defends technological businesses from attack by militant green and anti-tech groups.
Through a strange combination of memory enhancing drugs, the limited AI of Kohn’s Gun and his father’s software development Kohn finds himself at the centre of the Black Plan and the mysterious Star Fraction.
This is thoroughly enjoyable science fiction. Let down only by a circuituous set up, no real payoff on the Star Fraction of the title and some poorly developed secondary characters. For a first novel, this is brilliant.
I’d recommend it to anyone with a weakness for literate science fiction and a decent awareness of the breadth of political thought.

Rating: A-

johnny?

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Black And Blue

Ian Rankin

Black And BlueThis book is Ian Rankin’s masterpiece. Using the device of a Bible John copycat, Rankin examines Scotland through the lens of it’s
reaction to the original murders. Rebus is, as always, a fascinating puzzle of a character. Rebus is someone who must know the truth, must find out the answers and no cost is too high for him to pay – because only the truth heals.
This was the first book of Rankin’s I ever read and by god did it set a high standard. I don’t think I’ve ever read a crime novel that was more interesting, more insightful, more revealing.
This book is recommended to everyone. You will not read a better crime novel or a better book about Scotland pre-devolution than this.

Rating: A+

-ing?

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The Truth

Terry Pratchett

The TruthThis Discworld novel is set in Ankh-Morpork and is the story of how the city’s first newspaper starts up just as a conspiracy to remove
the Patrician goes into motion.
This book is middle ranking Discworld. Good read, funny in places, has a message. It just isn’t as profound the very best of the series.
Obviously recommended to pretty much everyone – Pratchett is a true great.

Rating: B+