Book Review: Eversion

In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.

Nataliya describes the way this novel begins so well that I'm just going to quote her:

This starts more like if “Moby Dick” had a literary baby with “Groundhog Day” while cheating on Jules Verne...

Who knew that the astrophysicist author best known for high tech sci-fi could dive deep into such mundane earthly matters as 19th century nautical fiction?

This is a difficult book to review, for I don't wish to spoil it for anyone. As you can glean from the blurb and Nataliya's quote, Dr. Silas Coade is the ship's physician on ill-fated expeditions across time. Through his exchanges with the crew and passengers aboard these ships, a host of clues are presented, but Silas is oblivious to them at first. As they come together, Silas is forced to confront the truth, but his reluctance to do so will doom him and the others to disaster.

That's all I can say about the plot.

I enjoyed each expedition across time as Reynolds varied the details and the unfolding of events. The interaction between the characters rang true to their time period with Ada being a bit of fresh air each time. Figuring out some of the clues wasn't too difficult as the narrative moved from one timeline to the next, but the big reveal caught me by surprise. And once revealed, the story still had enough mileage to stay glued to it.

Overall, an entertaining sci-fi mystery adventure. Would make for a good movie.

4.5 stars

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Book Review: Fearless Writing

Find the courage to create your best writing life. Whether you're a fledgling writer or a veteran with years of experience, fearlessness—that elusive blend of self-acceptance, confidence, and curiosity—is the defining quality of those who find fulfillment and success. Truly fearless authors banish writer's blocks with ease, receive critiques gracefully, and infuse their passion for the craft into every word they write. Filled with insightful wisdom and practical advice, Fearless Writing teaches you how to thrive as a writer, no matter your genre or career path. You'll learn how to:

• Find and enter a Flow state in which writing is a natural, deeply satisfying process.
• Quiet both internal and external critics and embrace the inherent value in your work.
• Use love, emotional engagement, and curiosity as the guiding principles for what you write and how you share it with others.
• Overcome rejection, procrastination, and other obstacles that stifle your creativity.

From the blank page to the first draft, and from querying to marketing, the writing life is filled with challenges, roadblocks, and new experiences. With Fearless Writing, you'll find the inner strength to embark on a bold journey—and build a lifelong career in the process.

I took a class based on this book a few years ago through Writers Digest University. It was handled remotely with assignments that went along with the lessons. The assignments were there to reinforce the lessons. And Mr. Kenower provided feedback on the assignments.

I loved it. It provided the spark I needed to finish my second novel, Gateway to Empire. I knew that I needed to have a copy with me on my desk at all times.

The book blurb does a great job outlining what's in this book, so I won't rehash it. I will point out that each chapter addresses some aspect of the writing or publishing process. Kenower always provides an anecdote that fits the chapter's subject which reinforces his overall argument. I'll admit that I wasn't necessarily 100% convinced by every chapter's example in and of itself, but Kenower was at least consistent with his argument, and it made the argument presented in the book as a whole more solid.

I found myself reading it this year because I'm back in that dark place that I was before. That shouldn't be interpreted as a condemnation of the effectiveness of this book. The problem is all mine. I've suffered from recurring bouts of low self-esteem and depression my entire life, and my experiences with publishing haven't helped in the least. In fact, they've contributed to a feedback loop that constantly inhibits my ability to sit down and write. "Why do I bother?" is a constant refrain in my head.

But in Fearless Writing, Kenower offers the right pep talk to break me out of that vicious cycle. And I'm good for a while, but something invariably comes along to mess me up. So I will be reading this book again and again until it becomes second nature. I don't know if I'll ever succeed in defeating my personal demons, but I know I won't if I don't try.

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Book Review: Ancillary Sword

Breq is a soldier who used to be a warship. Once a weapon of conquest controlling thousands of minds, now she only has a single body and serves the emperor she swore to destroy.

Given a new ship and a troublesome crew, Breq is ordered to the only place in the galaxy she will agree to go: Athoek station, to protect the family of a lieutenant she once knew – a lieutenant she murdered in cold blood.

So I read the first book, Ancillary Justice, nine years ago, which was four years after it came out. This book came out a year after the first, but I'm just getting to it now. Why? Well, Goodreads friends of mine had mixed feelings about it and warned it was even more soaked in tea than the first book. But also, by then I'd discovered Murderbot and that's been a far more enjoyable series. In fact, I was wondering if I should re-read Ancillary Justice to see if my opinion of it (five stars) held up.

Not wishing it to collect any more dust on my nightstand, I read it. I'm glad I did, but I didn't love it. Yes, everyone is having tea, and they're having it all the time. It's right there on the very first page.

So the Radch, the name of the empire, comes across as Victorian era Great Britain: The non-stop tea drinking, priceless tea sets, tea plantations, indentured servitude, self-righteous attitudes towards the "uncivilized heathens", fussiness about manners, and aristocratic nobility getting anything they want because of who they are. I didn't get that in the first book, but here it's in our face. With Breq being granted a ship and the rank of Fleet Admiral, we're thrust onto the high seas with Athoek Station as port-of-call. I'm picturing Victorian navy uniforms, all epaulets and big hats.

I found myself more annoyed by usage of the feminine pronouns than in the first book (The Radch doesn't acknowledge gender, so the default is "she") for two reasons. The first is that the indentured people on the planet do acknowledge gender so Breq is forced to be respectful and use their proper pronouns and titles like "grandfather." She struggles to get it right (Wait a second, did I?). The second is that in the Radch navy, everyone uses "sir" to address officers. So everyone is addressed by the feminine all the time in the Radch, except in the navy when they're also addressed by the masculine. The switching back and forth from she to sir and back again was silly. And with more characters to deal with, I had to look for behavioral clues to figure it out. Why was that important? Well, as a reader, I'm always trying to concoct a picture of the character in my head, and Leckie's not making that easy for me. I think I got it right. Maybe.

Anyway, back to the story. The galactic intrigue is put on the backburner. There's a murder that could've been something, but it wound up being nothing other than an excuse for Breq to go down to the planet to observe a mourning ritual. Once there, the whole story turned into the whole Victorian British Empire tea plantation indentured-servitude-is-bad thing, which is fine, but not what I tuned into this series to read about.

Again, it was a fine read, but not what I was hoping for. And with the meh reviews of the third book in the series from my Goodreads friends, I don't know if I want to bother continuing with this series. I mean, there are only so many tea parties I can read about, particularly since my daughter is too old to have them with her stuffed animals.

3 stars

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Book Review: The End of All Things

Humans expanded into space and found a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. Thus was the Colonial Union formed, to help protect us from a hostile universe. The Colonial Union used the Earth and its excess population for colonists and soldiers. It was a good arrangement...for the Colonial Union. Then the Earth said: no more.

Now the Colonial Union is living on borrowed time—a couple of decades at most, before the ranks of the Colonial Defense Forces are depleted and the struggling human colonies are vulnerable to the alien species who have been waiting for the first sign of weakness, to drive humanity to ruin. And there's another problem: A group, lurking in the darkness of space, playing human and alien against each other—and against their own kind—for their own unknown reasons.

In this collapsing universe, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson and the Colonial Union diplomats he works with race against the clock to discover who is behind attacks on the Union and on alien races, to seek peace with a suspicious, angry Earth, and keep humanity’s union intact...or else risk oblivion, and extinction—and the end of all things.

In the previous entry of this series, The Human Division, the book was a collection of a serialized stories bundled together with an overarching storyline. It didn't work for some people, but it worked for me. This entry gets to the bottom of the matter: Who's trying to sabotage the Colonial Union? The story is told over four novellas which offer varying viewpoints as to what's going on in different places and at different levels of society in Scalzi's Old Man's War universe.

The opening story is "The Life of the Mind" in which we see where all of the missing ships went. It's told from the viewpoint of Rafe Daquin, a computer programmer turned starship pilot who's just looking for work. He signs up for third string pilot aboard the Chandler and gets more than he ever bargained for. The ship is captured and he's forced to pilot the ship for Equilibrium, the organization looking to make life hell for the Colonial Union (CU). But despite being at their mercy at the outset, he plots his revenge.

"This Hollow Union" gives us a look inside the political operations of the Enclave, a confederation of 400 species who are united in their opposition to the CU and still smarting from their comeuppance at the conclusion of The Last Colony (Book 3). It's told by Hafte Sorvalh, the de facto number two of the Enclave. The Enclave is torn over what to do about Earth. Readers of the series will know that Earth told the CU to bugger off after they learned what the CU's been doing, not to mention that they believe the CU destroyed their space station. Some want to admit the Earth into the Enclave; others hate this idea as you just can't trust Humans. There's plenty of intrigue, and I admit to being caught off guard by the big reveal at the end.

"Can Long Endure" embeds you with a team of CU Marines as they're sent from one assignment to the next. CU colonies are upset and threatening to declare their independence. The CU can not allow that, and so the Marines are sent in to remind these would-be rebels that that would be a bad idea. Lt. Heather Lee listens to her squad debate matters from the CU's troubles to what's being served for lunch in the mess hall all while trying to stay above the fray and making sure that they focus on the job at hand. It's fairly lighthearted until the last world they're sent to and then Lt. Lee has had enough.

"To Stand or Fall" picks up where "Can Long Endure" leaves off. Lt. Harry Wilson narrates this one after appearing in "This Hollow Union." He's a realist, recognizing that the CU is falling apart but also that it's humanity's best chance for survival. Thanks to some clever interrogations, he's able to figure out the Enclave's grand plan that will tear everyone apart. The hard part is figuring out how to prevent it.

It's trademark Scalzi at the top of his game. He has characters you can root for, wonderful dialogue, and a worldview that I can get behind. While all of the worldbuilding was done at the beginning of the series and the aliens are people in rubber suits, I didn't mind. It works. It's solid entertainment for this reader.

4.5 stars

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Book Review - Black Star Rising

When a mysterious alien spacecraft approaches the Earth and demands to speak with the President of the United States, then destroys a large Pacific island to demonstrate its strength and its seriousness, you'd expect the President to talk. Problem is, in the late twenty-first century, there is no President—not even a United States. China rules the Americas, and to most people "US" and "USSR" are just quaint abbreviations in historical dictionaries. But the aliens prove unreasonable about accepting substitutes. So one Anglo rice-cultivator from the Heavenly Grain Collective farm near Biloxi, Mississippi is forced to begin an adventure that will take him from peasant to President, from Pettyman to Spaceman.

I remember when this book came out. I was subscribed to a science fiction book club (that might've even been the name), and this was the book of the month. I was intrigued by the cover and made a mental note to check it out in the future. Decades later, I found it at one of the used book sales I frequent and picked it up.

What a disappointment.

It's easy enough to picture this as an alternate future where the US vs. USSR nuclear war has happened and the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping have never happened. It's a bit stale, but not far-fetched. The far-fetched stuff comes later, after we meet the aliens. But I won't spoil that for any would-be readers.

The story starts off as satire, devolves to farce, and then falls flat trying to deliver some sort of message at the end.

The characters exist to advance the plot. I couldn't really root for any of them. We start with Castor, a man in his early 20s who has stars in his eyes but is pretty thick-headed about women. I felt a little bad for him early on, but that soon faded. There's a Chinese police detective in her 40s named Delilah who becomes Castor's sexual partner. Her constant denial of her feeling is over-the-top. Professor Fung Bohsien, aka Manyface, who has had the brains of dying people added to his in order to save their minds. The end result is a bit like multiple personality disorder. There are some alien characters, but to divulge anything about them would be a spoiler.

Pohl infuses the story with sexism and that attitude about sex that is common for sci-fi writers in the post "free love" era of the late 60s to mid-80s. It's very male fantasy oriented as that's who the target demographic was: teenaged boys and horny old sci-fi writers men. As a teenager in the 80s, I didn't know any better, but later as an adult, I realized wasn't real at all.

The coolest part of this book is the cover and the title. I should've just stuck with that rather than read it.

1 star

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Book Review: Children of Ruin

Long ago, Earth's terraforming program sent ships out to build new homes for humanity among the stars and made an unexpected discovery: a planet with life. But the scientists were unaware that the alien ecosystem was more developed than the primitive life forms originally discovered.

Now, thousands of years later, the Portiids and their Humans have sent an exploration vessel following fragmentary radio signals. They discover a system in crisis, warring factions trying to recover from an apocalyptic catastrophe arising from what the early terraformers awoke all those years before.

The book runs with two alternating storylines: the "present" (which is a joint venture between Portiids and Humans two generations after the events in Children of Time) and the distant past, roughly equivalent to the start of Children of Time. Eventually, the older timeline is advanced until it catches up to the present.

In the old timeline, we're introduced to a group of terraformers who've arrived in a system that, surprisingly, has life in it. Rather than destroy it, the terraformers split up: Half will study the lifeforms of the world (Nod), while the the other half will terraform the next planet out from the host star. Unlike Avrana Kern's expedition in Children of Time, there is no suicide bomber on board. Still, the Luddite faction back on Earth still manages to find a way to derail this batch of terraformers. But that isn't the worst of it, for Nod has an insidious lifeform of its own that threatens to devour everyone it encounters. There's a scene with serious The Thing vibes that I found terrifying.

Meanwhile, the terraformers successfully establish an octopus civilization on the other planet. Tchaikovsky does a fantastic job detailing how a sentient octopus thinks, behaves, and communicates and how their society might function. World building has always been his strong suit, and his ability to get inside alien minds is among the best in sci-fi.

So when the Kern's World expedition arrives, all signs point to some kind of war in progress. A scout ship sent to make contact finds out the hard way what's actually happening. The Humans and Portiids are still trying to iron out the wrinkles in their interspecies communication (vibrations for the spiders, vocalized language for the humans) and now they find that octopuses primarily communicate via color.

The book is a bit of a slow burn, and sometimes it seemed like Tchaikovsky was retreading the same old ground and story points. There were long passages of summarizing, where centuries of the octopus civilization's progress was told in anthropological fashion. It wasn't bad—Tchaikovsky manages to keep it interesting—but it can be dry and pads the word count. I think this book could be 10% shorter. It was at the midway point that the story's pace really picked up. Since I didn't bail, that's proof enough that Tchaikovsky knows what he's doing.

4 stars

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Book Review: The Rosewater Insurrection

All is quiet in the city of Rosewater as it expands on the back of the gargantuan alien Wormwood. Those who know the truth of the invasion keep the secret.

The government agent Aminat, the lover of the retired sensitive Kaaro, is at the forefront of the cold, silent conflict. She must capture a woman who is the key to the survival of the human race. But Aminat is stymied by the machinations of the Mayor of Rosewater and the emergence of an old enemy of Wormwood...

Whereas the first story in this series is told from the perspective of Kaaro, xenosphere sensitive and S45 agent, he takes a back seat here while Thompson tells the tale of Rosewater Insurrection from multiple perspectives. There's Aminat, S45 agent and Kaaro's girlfriend; Alyssa, a woman who can't remember who she is or any of her family; Jack Jacques, the mayor of Rosewater; and Anthony, the avatar of the alien Wormwood that is the heart of Rosewood. There are also a handful of minor characters who help move the story along: Eric the assasin, Walter the author, and Bewon the disgruntled guy.

Thompson doesn't waste much time getting to the insurrection referenced in the title. The president of Nigeria insists that Rosewood have elections and already has a candidate in mind. He's intent on driving Jacques out of office, but the mayor resists and declares Rosewater's independence. This pisses off the president, who calls in the military to violently put down the insurrection. Jacques is counting on Wormwood to protect the city, but something's amiss.

Anthony intuitively knows that something is making Wormwood sick, so he seeks out the cause. Meanwhile, as the bombs fall and bullets fly, Aminat is trying to find Alyssa and bring her in for study as S45 thinks there's a connection between her and the alien.

In Rosewood, we only got to see Aminat through Kaaro's eyes, but she really comes into her own here. She has to walk a fine line between her love for Kaaro and following her boss's orders to bring in Alyssa, made all the more difficult by the battle raging in the city. Alyssa is treated to her own evolution from selfish amnesiac to something more. I admit it took me a while to appreciate her as a character. And we get the mayor's backstory too. Parts of it will certainly have some readers thinking TMI, but it does help explain how he became the man he is.

The Nigeria that Thompson describes in 2066 is as complicated as it is today. Thompson doesn't sugarcoat his descriptions of the place. Suburbs and modern technology are countered by poverty and criminal gangs. The line between politicians and crime lords is a thin one. "The Tired Ones," an organization that Mayor Jacques has been involved with for decades, offers a sober perspective revealing the continent's nations are still stuck in a kind of adolescence.

Thompson also offers us a look into the homeworld of Wormwood. While it seemed in Rosewater that the aliens might've been benevolent in their colonization of Earth, Insurrection reveals that the aliens aren't on a moral high ground compared to us humans. Like us, they're not a monolithic people. All you can do is hope that the good guys win. It might be difficult to determine that though.

4.25 stars

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Book Review: Sundiver

In all the universe, no species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of a patron—except perhaps mankind. Did some mysterious race begin the uplift of humanity aeons ago? And if so, why did they abandon us? Circling the sun, under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in our history. A journey into the boiling inferno of the sun... to seek our destiny in the cosmic order of life.

Brin's Uplift Saga was easily one of my favorite series way back in my younger days. The thing is, I started with the second book (Startide Rising), being unaware that the series started with Sundiver. I always meant to get to it, but didn't have a chance until now. Having done so, I'm going to re-read the six-book series which was published from 1980-1998.

So as the book blurb states, no species has ever reached the stars without the guidance of a patron. But somehow, Humans were able to do it on their own. It is an amazing feat, if true. However, it came with a few tradeoffs. On the negative side, we had to invent everything that the Galactic Library just teaches the other races, not to mention our species' tumultuous adolescence (wars, pollution, etc.). But on the positive side, we were spared the indentured servitude client races have to endure at the behest of their patrons. These can go on for hundreds of thousands to millions of years.

While a few races cheer us on, the vast majority see us as enigma or worse, an abomination. Surely, the Humans must've had a patron at one point but for some inexplicable reason, abandoned the uplift process, a crime by galactic standards.

Rumors are circulating that clues to our patron can be found inside the sun, so an expedition is underway to search for those clues. How can a spaceship possibly survive a trip into the sun? Well, there's a back-of-the-envelope style explanation that Brin gives us and it involves a refrigerator laser and thermodynamic equations that I don't fully understand, but he holds a doctorate in astrophysics, so I trust him that it's legit even if the technology is currently beyond us.

So besides the human crew and passengers, there are some alien representatives going along as advisors and witnesses, some friendly, some not. Jacob is our protagonist, who was invited to go along by Fagin, a Kanten (a mobile, tree-like species), to serve as an investigator. The story is primarily told from Jacob's viewpoint. Also present are the commander of the ship, Helene deSilva; Bubbacup, a Pila representative from the Galactic Library; his assistant Culla, a Pring, who are a client race to the Pila (pictured on the cover); Dr. Kepler, the Human head of the mission; Dr. Martine, a psychologist; and LaRoque, a politically charged journalist invited along to write about the mission.

Brin crafts the story as a mystery. There's a murder to go along with schemes to end the mission with disappointment or failure—depending on the schemer. It's up to Jacob and his fellows to figure things out to save Earth's reputation and (mild spoiler) their lives, for the stakes are higher than they realize.

All in all, an enjoyable read.

4 stars

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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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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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Book Review: The Pride of Chanur

When Tully, a fugitive from a spaceship captured by the arrogant, thieving, rodent-like Kif, takes refuge on the Pride of Chanur, a merchant vessel belonging to a clan of the lion-like Hani, Pyanfar Chanur, its captain, gives him shelter, in spite of all the dangers she and her crew will face.

I remember seeing this offered in the science-fiction book club that I was subscribed to in the 80s. For some reason— probably financial as high school me didn't have much money—I never picked it up. So when a local used bookstore went out of business and was selling off their inventory, I snatched it (along with several other books). I wish I hadn't waited so long.

The story is told from the viewpoint of Pyanfur, and I think it's a great idea. Humans are the alien here. When Tully shows up on her ship, she initially mistakes him for an intruder and thus her claws are out. She has no idea if he's a wild animal or not. When he starts writing something in his own blood, it dawns on her and her crew that this naked creature is a sentient being, alone and afraid. Some protective instinct is triggered inside of her, and she orders that he be treated for his wounds. It's a decision that she constantly wrestles with, for it puts her and her crew in danger. The Kif consider Tully to be their property and demand that she return "it" to them. She's no bleeding heart, but it strikes Pyanfur as wrong, and she strives to prove that Tully is sentient and deserves the rights that all sentients of the Compact—a trade agreement among several civilizations—enjoy.

Pyanfar knows that she needs allies. The way home is a long one, and the Kif have faster ships than hers. She's also outnumbered; the Hani are a feudal society and thus not all clans are willing to set aside rivalries when the threat is from another species. Pyanfar has to negotiate with other species, convince some of them not only of Tully's sentience but value as a potential trading partner once proper contact with his homeworld is established.

Communication is as much an obstacle as the Kif gauntlet. Even though Tully is an avid pupil—he realizes that he can't plead his case if no one understands him—it takes some time before he can communicate with the Hani. And even then, there's difficulty. But even among the established species of the Compact, communication is difficult. Different larynx shapes make speaking awkward. Short sentences dominate conversations. There's a lot of repetition. While there are machines to help with the process, Star Trek's universal translator does not exist. Still, when there's money to be made, people try to find a way to communicate.

I really enjoyed this story. I would've liked more world-building, but the way the story unfolds, there's really no time to dwell on that. It's very much a novel where everyone is living in the moment, trying to survive. While I appreciate shining a spotlight on the difficulty of interspecies communication, sometimes it was a bit cumbersome to read, not to mention repetitive when Pyanfar needed to get a point across. But those are just quibbles. It's definitely a classic sci-fi novel worth checking out.

4 stars

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Book Review: Leviathan Falls

An excellent finish.

This is the third book in the final trilogy of trilogies, the last book in the series.

At the beginning of this book Duarte remembers how to remember and is inspired. His protomolecule infused brain is certain that he now knows how humanity can defeat the protomolecule builder killers (PBK). Once he goes missing, Admiral Trejo authorizes Colonel Tanaka (whom we met in Persepolis Rising) to find him at all costs and by any means necessary. A task she takes to with reckless abandon.

Tanaka seemed like a reasonable person back in Persepolis Rising before she was relieved of duty for not being ruthless enough towards the inhabitants of Medina Station. But here, we learn how damaged she is and how ruthless she can be when trying to accomplish her mission.

Meanwhile, the Rocinante crew are busy with managing the underground and trying to find a safe place for Teresa to further her education and hide. And Dr. Elvi Okoye is desperately trying to figure out who the protomolecule builders were and how they perished before the PBK can figure out how to end humanity.

One theme running through the book is the strength of long term relationships. Elvi is running herself ragged and pushing herself, primarily coaxed onward by her all too willing test subject, Cara, to keep going. Her husband, Fayez, is her rock. He's always there, willing to be a sounding board and constantly reminding her that she's a good person. Naomi and Jim are extremely grateful to be back together after Holden's imprisonment. He stands back to watch her run the resistance even though he's been a figurehead for it for decades. Plenty of people view him as the one to watch, but he's the idealist while Naomi is the pragmatist, and the one actually calling the shots. Each loves, respects, and accepts the other for what they are, even if by being true to themselves, it leads to trouble.

Alex and Amos are still with us. Alex has to send stealth messages to his son because of who he is, and he really wants to see him and his grandson. Maybe someday, but he has a responsibility to the family he joined decades ago. Amos carries on in his perpetual even keel state, moreso since the events in Tiamat's Wrath. Teresa still treats him like an uncle and becomes his apprentice as ship's mechanic despite all that happened. She's tired of her old life and desperately hopes for her father to return to his senses. Amos is the one person whom she can count on to treat her as a regular person, not as a princess, heir to the Laconian Empire. And she loves him for it.

There isn't a lot of action here, so it seemed a little slow. The experiments that Elvi runs provide for more cerebral entertainment. There are two action encounters, both involving Tanaka, yet they're enough in their own right as each is bloody and vicious.

About 3/4 of the way in, everything comes together for the final showdown. While it isn't the epic battle of Tiamat's Wrath—the spaceship battles are in the background—the focus is where it needs to be. The challenge is the confrontation with Duarte and the PBK. The resolution makes sense to me. How can humanity deal with a megalomaniac, who's tapped into the power of the protomolecule, and with the PBK, an enemy capable of breaking molecular bonds and voiding everything out of existence?

4.5 stars

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Book Review: Tiamat's Wrath

Wow, that was something!

This is book two in the third and final trilogy of trilogies that compose this series. And it might be difficult to top this one.

The book opens with Avasarala's funeral on Laconia of all places. Holden is still there and gets to talk to a few people—those willing to be seen talking to Duarte's "dancing bear"—about her and how much she'd hate it, which was probably Emperor Duarte's intent.

Except for the Epilogue, the rest of the book is told from the viewpoints of Bobbi, Alex, Naomi, Dr. Elvi Okoye (from Cibola Burn), and Teresa Duarte—yes, the Emperor's daughter. I'll start with her. Teresa is on a slow burn of teenage rebellion. She's growing disillusioned with people, whether they're her classmates or her adult handlers treating her with kid gloves. She loves her father, who is grooming her to be his replacement should anything ever happen to him. She finds solace with her dog and some hermit named Timothy who lives in a cave, calls her "Tiny," and says that she's the angriest person he's ever known.

Elvi has been drafted into the Laconian Navy and goes on exploration missions to the weirdest systems encountered in the gate network. Along the way, she's tasked with gathering as much information about the aliens that killed the protomolecule builders. Duarte has a plan for how to deal with them and has apparently never heard the adage to never poke the bear. He pokes it, of course, and boy oh boy does it get pissed off, hence the book's title.

Meanwhile, Bobbi and Naomi are at odds as to the resistance's strategy. Bobbi wants guerrila warfare and Naomi, who has sneaking around in shipping containers, prefers infiltration (putting their people in key positions) while Alex is caught in the middle. They're still family, but the way each deals with feeling powerless and seemingly hopeless odds, couldn't be any more different. Eventually, one of Bobbi's raids pays off, giving them a weapon they can use to strike back. But the price is so high.

If you've made it this far in the series and love these characters, you shouldn't be disappointed (but 6% are). There are a couple epic battles wherein our heroes depend on cunning to outwit the Laconians. The inside look at the Laconian inner circle from both Teresa's and Elvi's perspectives hammers home just how messed up cults of personality can be, not just the figurehead but the officers whose job it is to carry out the vision.

5 stars

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Book Review: The Last Emperox

The collapse of The Flow, the interstellar pathway between the planets of the Interdependency, has accelerated. Entire star systems―and billions of people―are becoming cut off from the rest of human civilization. This collapse was foretold through scientific prediction... and yet, even as the evidence is obvious and insurmountable, many still try to rationalize, delay and profit from, these final days of one of the greatest empires humanity has ever known.

Emperox Grayland II has finally wrested control of her empire from those who oppose her and who deny the reality of this collapse. But "control" is a slippery thing, and even as Grayland strives to save as many of her people form impoverished isolation, the forces opposing her rule will make a final, desperate push to topple her from her throne and power, by any means necessary. Grayland and her thinning list of allies must use every tool at their disposal to save themselves, and all of humanity. And yet it may not be enough.

Will Grayland become the savior of her civilization... or the last emperox to wear the crown?

In my review of the previous novel, The Consuming Fire, I drew a comparison to the original Star Wars trilogy, in that, many (most?) fans/critics consider the middle film, The Empire Strikes Back, the best one. After reading The Consuming Fire, I wrote that it wasn't the typical middle story in a trilogy, but, in fact, it was highly enjoyable, like Empire... Now I'm here to write that it was indeed the best book in the trilogy, also like Empire...

The Last Emperox starts off interesting enough. There's the great hook to lure you in:

The funny thing was, Ghreni Nohamapetan actually saw the surface-to-air missile that slammed into his aircar a second before it hit.

From there, the bad guys scheme, there's another assassination, and then more scheming by the bad guys. Meanwhile, Emperox Grayland and her lover, Marce Claremont, are trying to figure out how to save the billions of inhabitants of the Interdependency while being a cute couple. Kiva Lagos continues to not to have any patience for villains and their incompetent vassals and lets them know in no uncertain terms. And this is how the story goes until a little past halfway when the first surprise plot twist comes along to one of the major characters that puts a wrench into plans. 70% of the way in there's a surprise revelation. And then things just run along until 80% of the way when the bad guys put their evil plan into motion.

The usual elements of this series are still present: witty banter (always with Scalzi), surprise violence that comes out of nowhere, and villains who are really high on themselves and love to talk about their evil plans. There's a lot of talk about data modeling. Maybe too much. Lots of intrigue between ridiculously wealthy people.

The ending left me flat. Did it resolve things? Yes and no. And what didn't get resolved is what was disappointing. It was talked about, but there wasn't a heroic solution found within the allotted space for story. The protagonists took care of one thing in hopes that it would pave the way for the other thing. So, those feels I had at the end of The Consuming Fire weren't there for this one. But at least there weren't any Ewoks.

3.5 stars

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Book Review: Persepolis Rising

This is book one in the third and final trilogy of trilogies that compose this series.

Nearly three decades have passed since Marcos Inaros was defeated. The Belters run the Transport Union, which oversees the traffic between the thirteen hundred worlds of the ring gates. Terraformers from Mars are applying their knowledge to Earth to speed its recovery from environmental damage inflicted by Marcos and his henchmen during the war. So while the worlds of the Sol System are pretty much status quo, technologically speaking, the Martian traitors who sold Marcos the ships and weapons he needed to go to war against the Inners have been busy. Led by Duarte, the Laconians (as that's what they refer to themselves now) have been playing around with the protomolecule, plugging into an abandoned shipyard and seeing what else it can do.

Apparently, a lot.

Duarte decides that now is the time to unite humanity under his rule. By force, if necessary. And of course it's necessary. Humans just don't abdicate to someone claiming to be superior; they need proof. And the Laconians do just that.

It's much like 18th century warships going up against an Iowa class battleship.

Holden and Naomi were going to retire, but that's been put on hold. They and the rest of the Rocinante crew join some OPA vets and form an underground resistance on Medina Station. Meanwhile the navies of Earth, Mars, and the Transport Union prepare to defend Sol System from the Laconian warship. And how these two fronts play out make up the rest of the novel.

We see how Drummer, who's running the Transport Union, deals with the Laconian incursion. While interstellar travel through the ring gates takes place in the blink of an eye, in-system travel is still painfully slow, like watching an army march across Europe. She's constantly looking for weak points in this vessel. Things can't be this bad, right? Right?

And on Medina Station, it's life during the occupation with echoes from WWII, complete with puppet rulers, propaganda, infiltrators and traitors, and military checkpoints. To top it off, there's a military governor who's in over his head but doesn't want anyone else to know, so he errs on the draconian side.

It's bleak. All of our protagonists feel powerless, trying to do their part to confound the enemy and find their weak points so that they can exploit them. Everyone deals with the situation in their own way. Amos even gets a chapter, so that we can see how he deals with this in his emotionally damaged way.

In terms of the protomolecule, the first trilogy dealt with its discovery and seeing the power that it could unleash. The second trilogy was a power struggle over who would possess it while the realization came that someone exterminated its creators. In this last trilogy, with the protomolecule's powers unleashed, it is certain that whoever killed its creators will awaken and punish those who use its power now. Definitely curious to see how that plays out.

4 stars

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Book Review: The Consuming Fire

The Interdependency—humanity's interstellar empire—is on the verge of collapse. The extra-dimensional conduit that makes travel between the stars possible is disappearing, leaving entire systems and human civilizations stranded.

Emperox Grayland II of the Interdependency is ready to take desperate measures to help ensure the survival of billions. But arrayed before her are those who believe the collapse of the Flow is a myth—or at the very least an opportunity to an ascension to power.

While Grayland prepares for disaster, others are preparing for a civil war. A war that will take place in the halls of power, the markets of business and the altars of worship as much as it will between spaceships and battlefields.

The Emperox and her allies are smart and resourceful, as are her enemies. Nothing about this will be easy... and all of humanity will be caught in its consuming fire.

In a trilogy, expectations for the middle novel (or film) are typically kept low. The first novel lays the groundwork for the plot, introducing the reader to the world and this mighty obstacle that must be overcome. The last novel resolves the conflict in an epic conclusion. The middle novel is typically treated as filler. Maybe there's some minor errands that the protagonists have to deal with in order to get them to the point where they can confront that calamitous problem that they've sought to solve since the first novel. While it might be a good story, written well, even entertaining, the epic feels won't be there.

But any old school Star Wars fan will tell you that of the original trilogy of films, the middle film, The Empire Strikes Back, was the best.

Now I'm not going to tell you that The Consuming Fire is better than The Last Emperox, namely because I haven't read it yet. No, what I'm here to say is that The Consuming Fire is not the typical middle episode novel. In fact, I'd put it much closer to Empire... in terms of enjoyability.

The Consuming Fire gets my high praise because of the delightful way that Scalzi deals with the machinations of the antagonists. They're a cynical, devious lot. Always feigning respect in the most polite way possible while planning how to stick a knife in your back. We saw a good deal of that in the first novel, The Collapsing Empire. Once the news got out that the collapse of the Flow isn't bullshit, everyone and their mother decided to hatch a scheme to be top dog before it all falls apart rather than trying to work together to prepare for it. Because, you know, people. How Grayland deals with this is... tasty.

There are other enjoyable parts like the foul-mouthed, perpetually horny Kiva Lagos who receives a promotion from her usual duties in the first novel. There's the typical middle novel side quest, but here it's actually informative rather than just being a dreadful errand. And there's an assortment of backstabbery going on amongst the antagonists. Through it all, you have Scalzi's humor and humanizing of the heroes that makes his characters so wonderful. Forget the stuffy book blurb; this is Scalzi.

One observation I'll point out is that in both of these books, the action tends to come out of nowhere. One minute A is happening and then B comes in like a bolt of the blue. Now that might sound jarring, but life is like that, no? You're driving along, crossing through an intersection, when someone runs the red light and T-bones your car (Fortunately, I'm not speaking from experience). That's how Scalzi delivers some action events: The calm is suddenly, and without warning, interrupted by violence. I point this out as a pattern I observed, not as a criticism. It worked for me.

I look forward to reading how Emperox Grayland and her allies deal with the collapse of the Flow in the last novel of the trilogy.

4.5 stars

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