Book Review: Network Effect

After reading a couple of short stories in this series, including one that's an intro to the humans in ART/Perihelion's crew (see Artificial Condition), I felt that I was ready to start catching up on Murderbot stories. Yes, it was good to get back.

The story opens up with Murderbot providing security for a research trip at the request of Dr. Mensah. Besides some friends of Murderbot's, there's also some of Dr. Mensah's family members on the mission. Not everyone appreciates Murderbot's expertise—it is a SecUnit after all—but you know they will eventually.

Oh and some thugs try to rob the expedition and hint at possible kidnapping.

Nobody fucking listens to me.

After that "welcome back" scene, there are some flashbacks and then the story soon moves into the main plot: On their way home from the mission, they're ambushed by a much larger ship and, despite Murderbot's efforts, are captured. Before they can be rescued, the captor ship escapes through a wormhole.

From here, Murderbot has to fight off the attackers, figure out who they are, and where they came from. ART shows up (it's more complicated than just showing up but explaining it would be a spoiler) and needs to have its crew rescued from the same raiders that attacked Murderbot's humans. The situation gets messy, and Murderbot is overwhelmed. That leads to an unlikely alliance of rescuers.

Feelings—Murderbot's dreaded f-word—make their way into the story, forcing Murderbot to have to confront them, which often leads to a system reset. But sometimes it's better at dealing with some feelings than others. For instance, there's another SecUnit in the story, just hanging around waiting to die (its clients are prisoners of the raiders). Murderbot recognizes the predicament this other SecUnit is in, so it makes it an offer: "I can disable your governor module. I'll do that whether you help me or not." Translation: I'll break the chains that bind you, that enslave you, that can kill you, and you don't owe me a thing. It's such a wonderful act of selfless compassion from a snarky person who claims not to care about others, except when it so obviously does.

4.5 stars

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Book Review: 40,000 in Gehenna

Found this at the annual C.H. Booth Library book sale. It's a standalone in the Alliance-Union Universe of which Downbelow Station is probably the most well-known. Having recently read The Pride of Chanur, I was curious to read something else by C.J. Cherryh. Unfortunately, this one wasn't as enjoyable.

The book is essentially divided into three parts: the founding of the colony by the Union and its demise, re-contact with the descendants of the survivors by the Alliance, and the rise of the Gehennan civilization. The first section starts out dull and then fades into a depressing morass of doom. The middle section is ok, but every time an interesting character comes onto the scene, their time on the stage is too short. The last section proves to be the best as not only do the characters stick around, but we get to learn about how humans and calibans have interacted to build their civilization together.

I think this book would've been better if Cherryh eliminated that first section altogether and just summed it up in a briefing of Alliance sociologists or had them figure things out as a mystery.

The majority of the colonists were azi, programmable clones. The azi got their skills uploaded into them via "tapes." While they didn't have a choice as to whether they would go to Gehenna or not, they were promised that they could live like "born men" and have children of their own. While it was a promise that was kept, eking out a life on Gehenna proved difficult as the climate was tough on both man and machine and the supply ships never came.

The first section of the book spent a great deal of time on them, even looked into the life of one of them, Jin. When the clones have children, they lack their parents' reverence and obedience. You could say that they're rebellious, or that, being smarter than their parents, they realize that they've been screwed over.

But that final section is where Cherryh really shines. The dynamics of the human-caliban relationship is brought to fore. It's a complex one as human leaders interact differently with the calibans than the weirds do. While it might seem like a caste society, genetics are the true determination. The "first" among a tower will quite likely have a child that shows the characteristics of a weird. The calibans have their own battles for dominance based on color and size. And calibans play a large role in human politics.

But getting to this last part required a lot of patience from me. While some readers have plenty of patience, other potential readers might not. If you're the type of person that can hold out for 100+ pages, you have a chance. If you're not, well...

Two-star start. Three-star middle. Four-star finish. So, three stars overall.

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Book Review: Rosewater

Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless—people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.

Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again—but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.

Rosewater offers a fresh perspective on the alien contact sub-genre. It takes place in Nigeria with a cast of characters who are locals. America has gone dark, and no one knows why. The remaining world powers keep their distance, though at least one would like to learn more about the alien biodome. But they're on the periphery at best. Instead, it's the Nigerian government that has a vested interest in this strange visitor that appears to be both benevolent and threatening.

The story is completely told from Kaaro's POV. He's a sensitive, someone who can read minds thanks to the xenosphere, an effect created by microbes and spores emanating from the biodome. There are a couple of timelines that the narrative switches back and forth from, and one of them involves Kaaro's youth when he stumbled upon his abilities. It turned him into a thief. We learn how he honed his abilities, his recruitment into a government spy agency (S45), and his day job in xeno-security where he defends a bank from criminals who use their sensitivity to hack bank accounts.

I usually don't enjoy stories involving any super-mental capabilities (telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, etc.), but the way Thompson establishes how sensitives work with the xenosphere, the limitations placed on it, and countermeasures, it was something that I could get behind.

Kaaro is not without his flaws. In the oldest timeline, we endure his thieving. During the recruitment process, he's a coward and a womanizer. In the "current" timeline, he's a jaded, dour man in his 40s. We root for the younger Kaaro to grow up and the older Kaaro to stop being so cynical. Thompson does a great job with Kaaro's evolution, though I wanted one timeline to resolve itself before going to the next. But the way Thompson has the story structured, waiting for the big reveals turns out to be the best move.

I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

4 stars

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Book Review: Brothers

I wasn't planning on reading this book. While I enjoyed the first few Van Halen albums—I checked out after 1984—there are a lot more people further up on the fan spectrum than me. But a friend of mine loaned it to me, thinking that I might enjoy reading it (I'd loaned him Bruce Dickinson's What Does This Button Do?, so fair exchange). And yes, to some extent, I did enjoy reading it.

Alex takes a semi-chronological approach: how his parents met, the early years in Amsterdam, moving to America, and growing up in Pasadena with Ed. Music was a large part of the Van Halen brothers' lives growing up as their father played in jazz bands from before they were born. Another large part of their lives was alcohol, and they started young. Different times.

Alex goes to talk about the early formative years of the band, revealing the gradual evolution of what would become Van Halen. Fun Fact: David Lee Roth was the one who suggested they call themselves that. He thought their name sounded "strong" and had "power to it." Alex talks about each album, a little bit about recording, some more about touring and what it's like (for him) to be a musician. But the book pretty much ends with Roth's departure from the band.

Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar are background figures. How the former wound up joining the band is there and the latter is suggested by Ted Templeman (producer) as a replacement for Roth when they went into the studio to record their first album. But that's it. And Gary Cherone doesn't even rate a mention. There are a few people that get discussed (particularly if they wrote a book or conducted an interview with a band member), but it's primarily Roth that gets the focus. Alex berates him in one paragraph and praises him in the next. It sounds sometimes like Roth was the third brother.

Alex pulls in a lot of quotes from other people. He admits this at the end of the book. He felt that they helped to jog his memory (He was 70 when he wrote this). After pulling the quote Alex responds to it. Sometimes it comes across as argumentative, but to be fair, he's just giving his side of things and he does give credit where its due.

I'd recommend this for Van Halen fans who want to know a bit more about the brothers' formative years, the first half dozen albums, and Alex's perspective on life with Ed, music, and the entertainment industry. People forget just how great a drummer he is, having been overshadowed by Ed. But he doesn't brag or begrudge Ed. You can tell how much he loved Ed, how much he loved playing music with him, and how much he misses him. While it would've been great to hear how certain songs came together, but it's like the old saying, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." You pretty much had to be there.

3 1/2 stars

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I Hate Marketing - Getting Reviews

I hate marketing; I really do. But I know that "publish it and they will come" is not an effective strategy. I've tried it; many many indie authors have tried it.

So we try to get some reviews. Maybe we ask a friend or they just do it without asking because they realize how difficult it is to get reviews. But that quickly dries up, so we move on.

We submit our ebooks and physical copies—only if necessary—to those few review sites willing to actually read and review indie published books. There aren't many, and so for every book they review they have to say no to a hundred more. I know this firsthand as that's what we had to do here when we were open to submissions—something I hope to do again someday. And after a couple of years, well, you get burned out, or there just isn't time as real life gets in the way. Something has to give, and writing free book reviews is an easy choice to get the ax.

Now some entrepreneurial types figured out how to keep writing book reviews for indie authors. You could pay someone to give you a five-star review on Amazon. Maybe they had a few sock puppets to give you several five-star reviews. Some people did it themselves. Once it got out of control and reviews on Amazon didn't mean shit, Amazon cracked down and only allowed verified purchasers to write reviews. Does it still go on? Maybe. I don't know. But it gave paid reviews a stigma. How would you know if the review was honest?

Well, some people figured out how to do it the right way. I think it might be the norm now. I recently went through the list of reviewers at the Indie View, and there were a lot of paid review sites. But I wasn't ready for that yet.

But the free indie reviews list for sci-fi was short. There were plenty that were MIA or closed to submissions. I did manage to come up with a list of several sites and submitted my requests. That was July. Only one person has replied to say that they're interested. One site auto-replied to tell me to watch their site. Maybe they'd review it; maybe they wouldn't. The rest of them didn't respond at all. I'm not surprised by it really, nor can I blame them. They're probably inundated with requests and don't have the time to reply to them all. I get that. Sometimes people can be rude when you reject their book review request.

I realize that I'm going to have to open my wallet. I've got a debit card for switching my ISP and commiting to an extended period of time. It's found money. But I have to be smart with how I'm going to spend it on marketing. A few indie authors have shared how fast that ad dollar disappears. So I'm going with the biggest bang for the buck. Goodreads (owned by Amazon) is having a giveaway sale. I can give away 100 ebook (Kindle) copies to GR readers (that know to look for giveaways) for $99. The impression I get is that if I get five reviews out of that, it's a success. It runs for the month of September, so I'll report back to let you know how I did.

Want to read Armistice Day? Visit this page during the month of September to enter for a chance to win.

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Book Review: Swords Against Wizardry

This is the fourth book in the series and it contains four stories.

The first story is "In the Witch's Tent," and while it has some humorous aspects, it really just serves as a preamble to the next story.

And that story is "Stardock." Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser embark on an expedition to climb one of the highest mountain ranges in the world in search of a fabled treasure. It is said that the mountain range is so high that the gods used to dwell there and launched the stars into the night sky from the tallest peak. The gods used gems as models for the stars and then tossed them aside when they were finished.

This expedition is Fafhrd's idea, him being accustomed to cold laden lands and climbing icy peaks. Mouser is skeptical, but agrees to go anyway. Joining them is Hrissa the snow cat, who helps with the hunting and the fighting.

The journey makes up a good deal of the story. Leiber goes into so much detail describing climbing up the cliffs, dealing with the cold, and traversing the frozen wastes that I couldn't help but feel that he had firsthand knowledge mountain climbing, but I have no idea if he truly did.

The altitude, cold, and dwindling provisions lead Mouser to hallucinations which he dares not share with Fafhrd. But as they persist, he can't help but feel that they're real.

The third story is "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar." Our heroic pair have set out to sell their most recent haul, but each decides to outdo the other by selling their respective share to a jeweler or fence that each feels will give him the best price.

Women in the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser stories to this point are typically of the mother, maiden, crone variety, with maiden being the most common. But in this story, Leiber breaks out of the pattern that he's set and gives us female characters who can stand on their own.

The last story is "The Lords of Quarmall," a novella. Our heroes have had a bit of a spat and set off on their own for a while. Unbeknownst to them, each has been recruited by one of the sons of the Lord of Quarmall to serve as his champion. Both sons are adept sorcerors who despise one another. There's something of a "cold war" going on between them. Each has about a dozen sorcerors who cast spells attacking the other or defending their liege. Neither one is worth rooting for, and each of our heroes grows disillusioned with the job they've taken on. That leads to a bit of mischief. Ultimately, the cold war turns hot.

Besides the obvious familial intrigue, Lieber's Quarmall is a place where dread lurks in dark corners and forgotten rooms. The enslaved are not much more than zombies, forced to spend their lives (eternity perhaps) serving their master's needs, shambling on treadmills that turn fans that keep the air circulating in the forboding depths.

A solid collection of tales in the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser annals.

4.25 stars

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Book Review: Footfall

This is another entry in the alien invasion genre, one of the longest running plots in science fiction. War of the Worlds, probably the most well known work in this category, first appeared in print in 1897 (the novel in 1898). Hollywood spawned too many alien invasion movies to count in the 1950s and 60s. After a bit of a break—disaster movies and sci-fi adventures dominated the 70s—the sub-genre diversified. Some aliens were just stopping by to say "Hi" (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Starman), while some were here to eat us (numerous horror movies). Footfall stuck to the invasion part, but mixed things up a bit.

Footfall was published in 1985, takes place in 1995, but feels like 1975. How do I mean that? Culturally. It's a vibe I get. Men are men, and women need men. Everyone is either getting laid or deciding if they should get so-and-so in the sack. It doesn't matter that the aliens are bombing the place; people are sizing up members of the opposite sex for their nookie potential. And in a scene both funny and cringey, the aliens, while raiding Earth, raid a movie rental store and grab some porn. The aliens watch the porn and are confused by it, demanding their human prisoners to explain it to them. Not that the aliens were prudes, they were just as obsessed with their mating season as the humans with their... well, I guess we don't have a "season."

It also feels like it was written for the big screen or maybe a TV series. It has a huge cast full of stereotypes with no real character development. There's a bit of bloat to it with dialogue that one might expect in a screenplay, particularly near the end with endless comm chatter. With proper editing this probably could've been 100 pages shorter. Definite popcorn material.

I initially read this in the 80s as a teenager. I liked it then, but I don't like it as much now. The aliens were cool, even if they were just baby elephants with bifurcated trunks. There was a concerted effort into developing their culture. They weren't an all-knowing sophisticated race—they seem to have stumbled upon the technology that enabled them to cross the interstellar void. Their dealings with humans left them stressed. Some of their soldiers seemed to be getting PTSD. Their confusion over how humans behave showed that they really didn't do their homework. If the whole story had been them trying to figure out humans and how to conquer them, it would've made for a more enjoyable story.

3.5 stars

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