Book Review: Furious Gulf

Trying to escape the relentless mechs, the last humans from the planet Snowglade take their ancient starship on a dangerous course straight into the Eater, the black hole at the galactic center. Hungry and desperate, the refugees begin to question the leadership of Captain Killeen, who believes the center holds their one hope of survival. Meanwhile, Killeen's son Toby struggles with the microchips that were implanted in his spine—a technology that now threatens his sanity. Caught between their genocidal pursuers and peril in the galactic center, Killeen and Toby bring humanity to its final destiny.

So this chapter in the Galactic Center saga is told from Toby's POV. Life isn't easy for the son of a captain. He wants to talk son-to-father, but too often it's in front of the crew, so it winds up sounding like an out-of-line ensign sowing discord. And when it seems like they're talking father-to-son, Killeen reverts back to captain-to-crew. The reason for that is Toby is carrying around the personality of his father's dead girlfriend, Shibo, on a chip mounted into his internal computer system. Killeen claims that it's because she was an important member of the crew with valuable skills, but Toby thinks Dad just can't let go. They're both right.

In the hierarchy of dead people stored on computer chips, personalities are at the top. They take up a lot of memory and, given enough time, can override their host. And that's what Shibo starts to do.

After a hellish trip through the high energy physics equivalent of Scylla and Charibdis, the Argo arrives at an odd oasis in some kind of balanced region within the maelstrom, a bit like a Lagrange Point but with space-time at work instead of gravity. Interacting with the people there is odd, and there is much confusion between the two parties with the locals using home field to their advantage rather than trying to help their distant cousins.

In the midst of negotiations, Toby has an outburst which complicates matters. Killeen tosses him into the brig. When Toby gets word of what transpired in his absence, he feels like he was setup. Toby runs away with Quath, who acts as a guard/guide. They sneak behind the proverbial curtain only to fall into what I think were pocket universes of space and time. Things get a bit strange as Benford plays around with physics at a level I can't pretend to understand. Toby finds himself on his own, struggling to deal with Shibo's needy disembodied personality, the weirdness of the landscape he finds himself in, coming of age as an adult, and being pursued by malevolent entities.

At my age, I'm not really into coming of age stories, but when Benford doesn't make the story all about Toby, it holds up. The exploration of around the galactic center made for some entertaining reading. I wouldn't have minded more of that. But I struggled with the physics involved getting near the core and Toby's explorations at the oasis. The conflicts are kind of resolved, but not really, and the ending is something of a cliffhanger. Still, if you've made it this far into the series, you have to go all the way.

3.75 stars

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Book Review: Tides of Light

Galactic Center series book #4.

Piloting an ancient starship, Killeen and the Bishop tribe escape the mech-ruled world of Snowglade. Seeking refuge on a far away planet, they discover vast wonders: an organic life-form as large as a world, a planet-coring cosmic string, a community of humans ruled by a brutal tyrant, and ultimately an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered. As they battle for survival against these myriad dangers, Killeen and his crew will gain an unforeseen ally—one that may determine humanity's true destiny...

This series continues to improve. Tides of Light builds on the series course correction that was Great Sky River. The book blurb summarizes the story pretty well. Whereas Great Sky River laid the groundwork for where the series now takes place, Tides of Light focuses more on how these tribes of humanity deal with each other and one another. The militaristic hierarchy is more prominent than I remember it being in Great Sky River, but if you're fighting for survival against intractable enemies every day, then I guess war is all you know.

The "alien race more awesome than any they have encountered" refers to the Cybers. I thought that was an odd name choice considering how cybernetically enhanced our Humans are here. But if you compare the two, the Humans are entry level cyborgs compared to these new aliens. And Benford does a great job of giving us their POV, particularly through the alien known as Quath. They look down on the Humans as being mere animals, but Quath comes to realize that they're something more.

The way the "organic life-form as large as a world" was introduced was a bit jarring. It seemed like Benford had gone off on a speculative tangent for the hell of it, but eventually he brought it back around into the story. Killeen's encounter with the planet-coring cosmic string also seemed like a physicist's thought experiment that was conveniently contrived because, well, he's an astrophysicist! Show off! ;-P But in the grand scheme of the story, Benford made it fit.

Speculative science and tech marvels aside, I think that at this point in Benford's career he finally got a good handle on characterization. I finally felt some attachment to these characters rather than being an dispassionate observer of the story's events (or worse). Even the Cyber Quath proved interesting. The tyrant was less so. He was two-dimensional, and it isn't until the end of the novel that we learn why; finding out earlier would've been a spoiler.

Overall, a good blend of speculative ideas and characterization.

4 stars.

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Book Review: Swords in the Mist

This one starts out well, is muddled in the middle, and then ends a bit disappointingly.

"Cloud of Hate" opens this collection. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are hanging out on guard duty for a benevolent patron when a malevolent fog rolls in. It seems that an enemy of the patron has invoked the god of Hate to murder said patron. Leiber switches back and forth from our heroes arguing over their financial predicament to the Cloud of Hate as it flows through the city, recruiting dangerous men for its violent task. Leiber excels here, juxtapositioning the witty exchange between our heroes with the visceral violence of the malevolent deity.

"Lean Times in Lankhmar" follows. While Fafhrd and Mouser are not strangers to bickering and arguing, it is a rare instance when the two let it overwhelm their friendship. In this story the two part ways. Mouser goes to work for a crime lord while Fafhrd forswears all of his indulgences and takes up a life of religious poverty, working as an acolyte for the sole priest of Issek of the Jug, a very minor god in Lankhmar (There's a bit explaining the difference betweens gods in Lankhmar and gods of Lankhmar). Mouser's boss gets a sizable chunk of his revenue via the protection racket. And as the religions in Lankhmar grow in popularity, so does his interest. Ultimately, Mouser is forced to target Fafhrd's newfound religion to exact tribute. This is another great one for Leiber. He crafts an excellent piece from start to finish.

But then the rest of the stories decline in quality.

"Their Mistress, the Sea" picks up right where "Lean Times..." leaves off. Herein it serves as a bridge to the next story. It's not really a story at all, just Leiber telling us what happened between stories.

"When the Sea-King's Away" is an odd tale. Fafhrd and Mouser hit a doldrum in the sea. No wind, no currents. They're stuck. Overnight, a hole in the ocean has appeared. Fafhrd wants to explore it in hopes of finding treasure and mermaids. Mouser is too nervous about drowning when the magic that holds the hole open collapses. Mouser stays on the boat while Fafhrd climbs down a rope to the bottom.

While there was some intriguing mystery, the storytelling dragged. The story is primarily told from Mouser's POV, and since he stayed on the boat, much of it is him fretting about his friend. When he does finally decide to follow Fafhrd, it's a little dull. There were some intriguing details, and I felt that maybe Leiber was trying to channel Lovecraft (He was a fan), but there just wasn't enough splendor amidst the muck. "The Sunken Land," which can be found in Swords Against Death was a far better usage of Lovecraftian elements and the sea.

"The Wrong Branch" is like "Their Mistress..." in that it serves as a bridge to the next big story. Leiber tells us what happened to our heroes as they sailed in a roundabout way across the sea back to Lankhmar, seeking out Ningauble of the Seven Eyes for help with their bad luck.

In "Adept's Gambit," Fafhrd and Mouser leave the world of Lankhmar and find themselves on Earth in Medieval times. Finding themselves cursed, the duo seek help from Ningauble in lifting the curse, which takes the rest of the story. Discovering their curse was humorous, at first, but then got tiring. The exchange with Ninguable restored the humor, but the quest to lift the curse went on for far too long. The antagonist was annoying, his story told by his sister. The story that was told smacked of Lovecraft in both style and substance. Now, I'm a fan of Lovecraft. When he had a character go off on a long-winded tale-telling, there was a payoff at the end that made it all worth it. What Leiber gave us lacked that. After building up to the climax, it fell flat.

Average of stories presented: 3 stars

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Book Review: The Ophiuchi Hotline

After supremely advanced aliens invade Earth to liberate the planet's intelligent species—whales and dolphins—the majority of humankind is exiled into space, where, by means of bioengineering, they begin to adapt to and thrive in their unforgiving environments. Cutting-edge tech means that they can modify body parts, regularly store their memories for cloning purposes and even merge with seemingly benevolent alien beings (known as symbs) to create another entity altogether. The discovery of a steady—and mostly indecipherable—stream of data originating from a star system 17 light-years away offers some kind of hope of advancing the species and retaking the homeworld. But when the novel's protagonist (a series of successive clones named Lilo) travels out to 70 Ophiuchi, what she finds may not be salvation for the human species but its damnation.

Besides the Gaea trilogy, Varley's other big series is the Eight Worlds saga. But it's really two different series, parallel universes that share the same technologies (memory recording, cloning, genetic engineering, sex changes, null fields) and meta plot elements. The latter being that highly advanced aliens have invaded Earth to save cetaceans from humans by dismantling all of our infrastructure overnight.

The first series consists of several short stories, novelettes, and the novel, The Ophiuchi Hotline. The second series consists of his "metals trilogy": Steel Beach, The Golden Globes, and Irontown Blues.

While it might seem like The Ophiuchi Hotline is the first story in the series, it's actually the last; the short stories actually precede it. Anyway, hundreds of years have passed since the invasion, and humanity is doing fine, scattered throughout the solar system. There are some Free Earthers who think that the time is right to attack the Invaders and reclaim Earth. It's a misguided plan, but humans and hubris...

Our protagonist is Lilo, a successful bioengineer who's been condemned to permanently die for crossing a line with her work. Permanent death means that all her memory and personality files get deleted and her clones dissolved. Normally, death is just a reboot from your last save, thus enabling people to live for centuries just by getting downloaded into a new clone body. Boss Tweed, leader of the Free Earthers and former prison warden, keeps her alive (and many others) as his slave, forced to help find a way to find a weapon to use against the Invaders.

The Hotline? Oh that doesn't become a plot point until midway through the book. The first half is primarily about Lilo trying to escape. Eventually there are three Lilos—as seen on the cover—each with her own storyline. At first it was a bit confusing trying to figure out if we were still on the same version of Lilo or if we'd moved on to another one. Ultimately, we figure it out, and we're able to follow their storylines to their conclusions.

For such a small book (180 pages), it seems to have quite a bit of filler. Varley wanders off on tangents for things—like fashion on Pluto—that seemed to have been added to hit the reader with "weirdness from the future!" World-building? I guess.

While I'll give him credit for the being the earliest author I've read where gender is a spectrum, sex is typically passionless, boring. It's put on the same level as playing cards with the neighbors on a Saturday night. Just something to do. I'm getting the feeling that's where authors in the 70s thought we were headed. In future work, Varley does a better job.

Oh yeah, that Hotline stuff. Well, it wasn't really important or impressive. Varley amazes us throughout the novel with all these incredible technologies ("Far out, man. I can grow bacon on a tree."), the advance aliens use a film projector to show a video to Lilo. Yeah, film. On demand sex changes and all kinds of body modifications, but he still has people centuries from now using film.

This is very much a first novel. Fortunately, having read his later works before this one, I know that Varley gets better. His novels become more cohesive, the storylines become easier to follow, and characters become richer. Hell, even the sex gets better. I think I need to swear off 70s sci-fi. I think the authors and the editors were all a bit too caught up in the times.

2.5 stars

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Book Review: A Memory Called Empire

Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn't an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.

Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.

From the onset of A Memory Called Empire, intrigue piqued my curiosity. How did the Lsel Station ambassador die? And what is so terrible about the Teixalaanli Empire that a Councilor on the station longs for a potentially even more dangerous foe to step out of the shadows? And it continues throughout the story, answers leading to more questions, until the underlying issues of the moment are resolved at the end.

Mahit made for a good protagonist. I rooted for her and her budding cadre of allies as she sought out the answers to the questions that were linked to her survival and those of her home, Lsel Station. I liked her even though I didn't share her love for Teixcalaanli culture. That's not to say it wasn't interesting. The importance of poetry in their society from top to bottom (competitions at parties!) was intriguing without being too literary. Their naming conventions (a number coupled with an physical object) struck me as unique. And Mahit's need to point out the differences between her culture and Teixcalaanli, from facial expressions to vocal manners, revealed such subtle differences that I couldn't help but wonder if Martine was trying to draw Earthly comparisons. Anyway, I enjoyed Martine's world-building.

Action was limited, but the threat of violence was always present. In seeking answers into the death of her predecessor, she stuck her nose into places where it wasn't welcome. Were it not for the setting, one could easy mistake this story for a political thriller.

One element that made the book even better was the humor, dry as it was. In one instance, Mahit is attending a party for government functionaries where there was a poetry competition. Her liaison, Three Seagress, approaches her.

    "Are you going to finish the drink?" asked Three Seagrass when the noise had died away.
    "Yes. Why?"
    "Because I am going to have to talk about Fourteen Spire's use of assonance for the rest of the evening, and you're going to have to listen, and we should both be slightly more inebriated."
    "Oh," said Mahit. "When you put it like that..."

Mahit and Three Seagrass develop a friendship, but overhanging their relationship the whole time is the spectre of colonialism. Teixcalaanli citizens are taught to view everyone outside their borders as "barbarians", no matter their level of civilization. As Teixcalaan-phile Mahit constantly seeks out acceptance and camraderie among her contacts, she occasionally crashes into a wall that reminds her of this fact: She will never obtain what she seeks.

I really enjoyed this book. There was engaging world-building, dashes of humor, and enough intrigue and tension to ignore the lack of action. Looking forward to reading the next book.

4.5 stars

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Book Review: Fugitive Telemetry

There's been a murder on Preservation Station and Murderbot has been called in to solve the case!

Not!

Ok, so yeah, the murder happened, but our favorite SecBot is actually a suspect at the start of the investigation. But as Murderbot puts it:

No, I didn't kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn't dump the body in the station mall, for fuck's sake.

You can almost hear the eyeroll.

Murderbot is interested in the case as it wants to rule out that the murder was related to GrayCris, the nefarious corporation out to eliminate Murderbot's favorite human, Dr. Mensah. She recognizes that this is an opportunity for Murderbot to improve its relationship with Station Security. After Murderbot provides an alibi that Station Security accepts, it works with them to track down the suspect because murders just don't happen on Preservation Station.

The full station threat assessment for murder was at a baseline 7 percent. (To make it drop lower than that we'd have to be on an uninhabited planet.)

Station Security is still leery of Murderbot as it's a SecBot, which avid readers of this series know is a Security Robot, a machine capable of lethal violence second only to Combat Robots. Its chief also doubts Murderbot's investigative skills.

    "Yes, I've had experience with investigating suspicious fatalities in controlled circumstances."
    Indah's gaze wasn't exactly skeptical. "What controlled circumstances?"
    I said, "Isolated work installations."
    Her expression turned even more grim. "Corporate slave labor camps."
    I said, "Yes, but if we call them that, Marketing and Branding gets angry and we get a power surge through our brains that fries little pieces of our neural tissue."

Of course, Murderbot is leery of Station Security as well, since, you know, they're humans. And getting along with humans is not something Murderbot was programmed for.

I didn't make an expression because I knew Indah would be more annoyed by me not reacting than by me reacting.

But Murderbot and the Station Security personnel try to make the most of a situation that neither side wants to be involved with to solve the case.

Fugitive Telemetry is another solid entry in a fantastic series. However, I don't expect a series of cozy mysteries involving Murderbot to become a thing. ;-)

4 stars

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Book Review: The Light Brigade

The Light Brigade: it's what soldiers fighting the war against Mars call the ones who come back... different. Grunts in the corporate corps get busted down into light to travel to and from interplanetary battlefronts. Everyone is changed by what the corps must do in order to break them down into light. Those who survive learn to stick to the mission brief—no matter what actually happens during combat.

Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops that don't sync up with the platoon's. And Dietz's bad drops tell a story of the war that's not at all what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think is going on.

Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it's hard to tell the difference.

This was a hot mess.

Before I start, ignore the comparisons to Edge of Tomorrow. This is nothing like it. In that movie, Tom Cruise's character dies constantly only to loop back in time. Dietz, the main character and narrator in The Light Brigade, not only doesn't die all the time but moves forward and backward in time, which is more like Billy Pilgrim's experiences in Slaughterhouse-Five.

The story started out well. We're introduced to Dietz just before basic training, and we can tell that Dietz is a hothead, act-first-think-later kind of person with lots of baggage having grown up poor and lacking corporate citizenship. The basic training experience is brutal and puts the new recruits into awful situations. So it seems like this will be a grinder sci-fi novel focusing on the brutality of war and what it does to soldiers. Nope. Once Dietz experiences teleportation, we get a broken time travel story. For the record, if the transporter (the whole "busted down into light to travel" is totally reminiscent of Star Trek's transporter) ever broke down in Star Trek, you can bet that Scotty or O'Brien would be all over it, trying to get it repaired. Losing people in transporter accidents is horrible. But this is Bones' worst nightmare with people materializing in walls and with limbs misplaced. Here, it's just another day on the job. A lot of resources go into training soldiers; they're not disposable. And if you can teleport a soldier and all their gear, why not just teleport a nuke?

For a military sci-fi novel, there really isn't a whole lot of combat. Dietz's squad either teleports into a battlefield where they're slaughtered or they go into a police action against civilians where they vaporize them. Bodies explode with blood and viscera like a typical episode of Ash Vs. The Evil Dead.

Dietz's internal monologue and conversations with other soldiers are fairly insipid. A lot of dialogue is just repeated. You could make a drinking game out of the phrase "Stick to the brief", a reference to abiding by the mission brief and ignoring everything else. We're told that they're monitored all the time, so they have to watch what they say, but Dietz gets a watch with some kind of jamming device built into it and later corporate causalities have become so high that the corporation doesn't have enough people to monitor every conversation. I guess developing computer algorithms or AI was harder than teleportation. At the end of the novel Dietz suddenly figures things out and becomes all-knowing.

We're told that all of the world's governments have collapsed and been replaced by corporations. But there's nothing vaguely capitalistic about them. Sure they have CEOs, but corporations don't bomb markets and slaughter potential new customers (Mercenaries do, sure, I'll grant you that). Amazon has been accused of putting a lot of small businesses out to pasture, but Bezos did it by shrewdly taking advantage of new business models that the internet enabled. He didn't send a hitman to kill the owner of your local bookstore. In this book, these corporations are feudal empires controlled by kings and queens.

There are these interrogation transcripts that begin to pop up between chapters. Although neither Dietz nor the interrogator is identified, it's obvious it's them. We have to read this lame polemic which gradually turns into an argument which gets rehashed in each interrogation. This book was published in 2019, which means Hurley wrote this 2017-18. The whole interrogation reads like Hurley is taking her grievances with what was going on in the USA at the time and uses the space to rant. Maybe that's why people liked it so much. I think it's meant to be inspiring or make some people think, but while I'd agree with the points made, the way it was done reads like Dietz was just stating the obvious.

1.5 stars

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