Category: Rated

homunculi?

Posted on by Greig

Under Old Earth and Other Explorations

Cordwainer Smith

Under Old Earth and Other ExplorationsThis collection, as with the majority of Cordwainer Smith’s work, is set among the worlds of the Instrumentality – his vision of far future humanity. Smith was primarily a short story writer – only writing one novel – and this book contains some of his finest work.
For much of this collection I found it a chore to finish the stories.
Smith had some fantastic ideas, with some very astute insights into the future of humanity, the milieu is superbly realised with every nuance thought through, but his writing can be as dry and unexciting as cold toast.
(As an aside Smith’s real name was Paul Linebarger, and he was a professor of Asiatic Studies and an expert on psychological warfare. I suppose I could blame his writing style on this background, but I’m clueless when it comes to literary theory)
Highlight for me would be the story of the deposed ruler, who instead of coming back to his kingdom with an army, sneaks in and saves his people by subtly altering the mind of the dictator who replaced him.
This is worth a quick read if you have a keen interest in the past giants of science fiction, or if you are particularly keen on short
story collections. It really wasn?t my kind of thing.

Rating: C+

goooooooool?

Posted on by Greig

Futebol

Alex Bellos

futebolFabulous history of Brazilian football and an examination of Brazil through it’s relationship with football.
Everyone knows about Brazil’s national team and the skillful game they personify, but I’ve never known much about the history of football in Brazil – even though I’ve always wondered how they got to be so good.
This book is a fascinating introduction to the way football became the Brazilian obsession and so tightly bound up with national identity and pride.
By looking not only at their World Cup teams and players (fascinating chapter about Garrincha by the way), but at club football, grassroots football, the Brazilian ‘mystique’ and how politics and religion all tie in together to create potent mix in this giant country.
It was mind blowing to realize that the most supported club in Brazil, Flamengo, has a support somewhere in the region of five times the population of Scotland.
If you’ve ever wanted to know more about Brazil or Brazilian football I would highly recommend this book.

Rating: A

puzzle box?

Posted on by Greig

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

Alastair Reynolds

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise DaysThis book is made up of the novellas that comprise the title. Both take place within the Revelation Space universe and shed light on various aspects of Reynolds’ creation that aren’t discussed elsewhere.
Diamond Dogs is about a group of adventurers who attempt to solve the puzzle of an alien artifact known as the Blood Spire. Nothing new here, in fact many of it’s ideas are cribs from other better realized works.
Turquoise Days is the more interesting of the two pieces, but still nothing remarkable. This one is set on an isolationist Pattern Juggler planet and follows a researcher called Naqi as she deals with the legacy of the Jugglers and the implications of the arrival of off planet visitors. It’s too short to deliver on it’s promise.
I’d only recommend this to someone who has become hooked on Reynolds’ universe and wants to know more. Outside of that context these are pretty forgettable little pieces

Rating: C

clown assassin?

Posted on by Greig

Iron Sunrise

Charles Stross

Iron Sunrise is the sequel to Singularity Sky . This is a significant improvement over that work.
The main plot revolves around young girl known as Wednesday who uncovers proof of a plot by a group called the ReMastered that resulted in the destruction of New Moscow, a relatively low tech planetary system. As the ReMastered set events in motion to cover their tracks, Wednesday goes on the run. Rachel Mansour and Martin Springfield (from Singularity Sky) appear in another plot thread – New Moscow?s revenge against the (wrongly) suspected New Dresden government was to send slower-than-light
weaponry to destroy the planet. These ships can be recalled, or set on an irrevocable course by the remaining Muscovite Ambassadors – except they are being assassinated one by one and their authority keys taken.
Wednesday ends up on a cruise ship and in the company of Frank Johnson, a warblogger with reason to hate the ReMastered. Gradually these plots are drawn together with the realization that the cruise ship has been in port at every location that a Muscovite ambassador has been killed and Mansour & Springfield board the ship to investigate.
This is a well written and well plotted book. I really enjoyed it.
I’d recommend it to anyone would likes their science fiction.

Rating: A

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?

Posted on by Greig

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

static?

Posted on by Greig

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?

Posted on by Greig

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?

Posted on by Greig

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?

Posted on by Greig

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