Posts filed under 'Science Fiction'
If you haven’t read Suzanne Collins’ book The Hunger Games, be aware this review will have spoilers in it.
A year ago, Suzanne Collins came out with the first book in her new trilogy, The Hunger Games. I remember picking up the book as a quick filler read for the weekend, only to spend the next twenty-four hours gripped by Collins’ compelling, frenetic story. In the first book, Katniss barely survives the annual Hunger Games, besting nearly all of her opponents. Defying the Capitol, she fights to let Peeta, her fellow tribute from impoverished District 12, survive. Playing on the popular perception that she is hopelessly in love with Peeta, Katniss emerges the victor not only of the Hunger Games, but in her rebellion against the authority of the Capitol.
The sequel, Catching Fire, has Katniss on a victory tour of Panem following the games and unrest and discontent among the districts is palpable. Katniss isn’t happy either: upset over her ‘romance’ with Peeta, Gale keeps her at arm’s length, and a marriage to Peeta has been mandated by the Capitol. But after witnessing the terrible consequences of resistance during the tour, Katniss comes to the relization that her stand in the arena has sparked a wider revolt against the cruelties of the Capitol. And as the symbol of that resistance, she has become the principle target in the Capitol’s efforts to crush dissent.
I can’t go into more of the story without giving away too much of the plot, but for those who enjoyed the first book, Catching Fire continues Katniss’ story at a breathtaking pace. The world Collins created becomes more focused, as Katniss sees first hand the plight of other people of Panem. There’s also a better sense of the people surrounding Katniss, including Haymitch’s backstory and District 12’s history with the Hunger Games. But the star of the story remains Katniss. Her blend of courage, stubbornness and resourcefulness makes for a protagonist that’s definitely human but one readers really want to see succeed.
It’s true that a lot of the story takes place away from the arena, but with more people depending on Katniss the pressure is even greater. There’s a definite sense of the story snowballing to the final book, as Collins leaves the story in (if possible) an even more gripping cliffhanger than the first title. Collins is currently in the process of writing the third book in the trilogy, and for fans, the completion of Katniss’ story can’t come quickly enough.
September 21st, 2009
Katie H.
Every once in a while I’ll spot a book that Just Looks Interesting. Case in point: Year million : Science at the Far Edge of Knowledge, a collection of essays by scientists and science writers edited by Damien Broderick. What will things look like 1,000,000 years from now? Fourteen different essays contributed by fourteen different people with some pretty impressive academic credentials have fourteen different ideas and opinions, but no definitive answers.
There’s not really a road map on how we’ll get to the future, either. No one predicts what the world will look like in even twenty years, which was kind of a disappointment. We’ll probably keep getting smarter, or at least we’ll be adding to the sum of human knowledge, where most mathematical problems have been solved and the physics of the universe is more fully understood. And we’ll be able to store and retrieve that knowledge more efficiently. We may travel to the stars, but we may not be able to exceed the speed of light, in which case interstellar voyages may be less Star Trek-like visits, and more like colonization, with no plans to ever return to our “home” worlds. Although we may decide that physical exploration is pointless if less developed life forms we might encounter are as fascinating to contemplate as mold in a petri dish. Two-way communication with colonies on distant stars won’t be possible either, if the lag time between sending and receiving messages is measured in years. This is all assuming we don’t figure out how to travel at faster than light speed. Energy needs will still be a problem. If power needs keep rising, at some point we’d have to surround the sun with solar collectors just to absorb every bit of available energy and convert it for our needs. Not to mention deconstructing most of the planets in the solar system for their usable materials. So if you thought we’re a rapacious species now, well, we’re just getting started.
Humans will continue to evolve, of course. We have been evolving all along, although we don’t really notice it over the course of three or four generations, except in the machines we develop. One of the essayists pointed out that humans are actively evolving, just by being selective in choosing their mates. Smarts, being good providers and physical attractiveness will still be desirable characteristics in a mate. Not stated is whether there will be an X-Men type super-species that will for all intents evolve a separate evolutionary path while homo sapiens becomes another branch of the hominid tree that the new “we” acknowledge as sharing the same ancestors. The ability to extend life, or perhaps digitally store most human thoughts, feelings and memories is also suggested. If we achieve a form of immortality where we’re ageless, all-knowing, and essentially indestructible, will we become like the gods our ancestors worshiped?
Community may evolve as well. Social networking has already caught on. Terms like the “hive mind” aren’t quite as threatening as they once were. Advances in communication will continue and that, combined with computer processing power and storage as well as portability, means that people can stay connected and share more. It’s even possible that the lines between human and machine will blur. Nothing so threatening as the the Star Trek Borg, of course.
Fascinating stuff to contemplate, although the are some pretty daunting ideas to grasp. The future we can envision from today’s vantage point is a far cry from the one imagined by previous generations. The sad part, of course, is that with these big brains we’ve evolved we can also envision past 1,000,000 years in the future, when not only humanity itself ends, but also the universe itself. At least as we know it.
September 9th, 2009
Dennis - Central
“The thing people seem all too happy to forget is that where there be superheroes, there also be supervillains. It makes one wonder: If the heroes went away, would the villains follow?”
So opens Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge and a better opening would be hard to find for this clever, fun, adventurous, complicated novel. The white and black of the title are Callie Bradford, code name Iridium, and Joannie Greene, code name Jet. Callie and Joannie met at the Corp Extrahuman Academy where all superheroes train. And as with all super stories, forces conspire to send Callie, now known as Iridium, on the run as a villain. Once her training is complete Joannie, now Jet’s, mission is to find and defeat her one-time friend.
Jet is determined to be the hero she was trained to be but struggles with her heroic identity and the trappings that go with it. Coupled with the fact that the Corp corp is not all it seems and the academy not the shining beacon she remembers and Jet’s role becomes even more murky. And while Iridium is the one acting illegally her actions take on a more heroic tinge as time passes. Things are certainly not as Black and White as they seem.
The authors play with comic book conventions to great effect in their first joint venture (more adventures to follow). What would Batman be without the Penguin or Superman without Lex Luther? Just nice looking men in tights. Kessler and Kittredge play with that fact while exploring the thin line between good and evil. And tell a darn good story along the way. I look forward to more battles between Jet and Iridium.
September 1st, 2009
Jane J. - Central Library
The recent swine flu hysteria makes Jacqueline Carey’s newest story very timely. In Santa Olivia a pandemic has panicked the US government into creating a buffer zone between Mexico and Texas. This buffer zone is miles wide (similar to the demilitarized zone in Korea), bordered by massive walls and has engulfed whole towns like Santa Olivia.
When the walls were built, Santa Olivia was just another sleepy Texas town. Given the abrupt choice between staying in their home town and leaving, many of the residents chose to stay (not realizing how bad it could get). Now Santa Olivia is known as Outpost 12 - isolated between concrete walls and policed by American military personnel. The only way out is to win in the sport that the military commander loves. Anyone who can beat the General’s choice in the boxing ring can win the chance for two people to leave Santa Olivia. To date no one has won that opportunity.
Half-siblings Tom and Loup Garon follow different paths in their quest to escape. Tom is determined to train for the boxing ring so that he can eventually win freedom for the two of them. Loup, who was born with a little something extra genetically speaking, takes a different route. What begins as a series of pranks, supposedly perpetrated by the patron saint of their town, soon begins to look like a revolution to the military powers-that-be.
Jacqueline Carey is best known for her minutely detailed, richly drawn, epic fantasy novels. In Santa Olivia the detail and richness are there but the story is more compact. The tightness of the writing made for great pacing; with a a quiet buildup leading to powerful finish. And while the book did wrap things up there is scope for more story. When I asked my Comic Con source, she said she asked Carey that very question and the answer is, yes, a return to the Santa Olivia universe is in the works. Woohoo!
July 31st, 2009
Jane J. - Central Library
I had very high expectations for China Mieville’s sci-fi crime novel The City & the City, and while it was a good, well written story, I just didn’t love it the way I hoped I would. The story’s setting was my favorite part: the cities that the book is named for, Beszel and Ul Qoma, are located in Eastern Europe on the exact same spot on the map. Due to some unexplained political events, the two cities have come to exist in the same area. Though geographically next to each other, the citizens of each city must obey strict laws regarding their own city’s borders, to the point that they must “unsee” those who reside in the other city but are located within eyesight. A mysterious entity known as Breach watches over both cities to ensure that anyone who violates the border in any way is swiftly punished.
Inspector Tyador Borlu of Beszel is the unlucky official assigned to investigate a complicated situation: an American studying in Ul Qoma is found murdered in Beszel. The case leads him to Ul Qoma to collaborate with their police force, and while investigating the murder, Borlu becomes involved in a web of intrigue that links both cities and beyond.
The cities Mieville has created in this novel are fascinating, but unfortunately, I found his characters dull in comparison. Mieville blends his expert science fiction writing with the conventions of a detective novel, which unfortunately includes the shallow characterizations and cliched dialogue that can crop up in some mediocre examples of the genre. The author also provides little in the way of a history of the cities, which I found frustrating. I couldn’t understand why the two cities existed simultaneously, considering the fact that they were in the same space. Some of the oddities this arrangement creates are explained, such as intense training programs for any foreign visitors, who must learn to unsee the other city, and factions of rebellious “unificationinst” causing trouble, but I never found a satisfactory explanation of why these people can’t just live together anywhere in the book. I think I’m probably supposed to simply accept the situation, but I just couldn’t stop myself from finding it ridiculous, which probably kept me from enjoying the whole novel. That said, the book still kept me turning the pages, which I think has more to do with Mieville’s writing than anything else. I’m eager to check out more of his work, since it seems that The City & the City is a departure from his usual style. I think I’ll start with Un Lun Dun, which takes place in an alternate London and has been compared to Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.
July 13th, 2009
Kylee
Nearly every American has read at least one unflinching account of slavery - painful as it is, it’s an important part of our country’s history. Bernardine Evaristo has written an entirely new sort of slave narrative: an imaginative one in which the white people are the slaves, not the slave owners. Her novel Blonde Roots imagines what the world would be like if Europeans were smuggled into Africa to work on sugar cane plantations, rather than Africans being sold to Americans to work in their fields. She tells the story of Doris Scagglethorpe, a woman kidnapped from the Cabbage Coast of England as a girl, who has worked for Captain Katamba (whose initials - ironically, KKK - are branded onto her back) ever since. The book is divided into three parts: our introduction to Doris just as she’s given an opportunity to flee with the help of the underground railroad, a change in perspective to see things from her master’s point of view, and a return to Doris’s life on a sugar cane plantation. This is an ambitious, audacious novel, and I’m not sure it’s entirely successful. The tone of the narration is dry and clever, verging on snarky, which makes it interesting to read, but frankly, made me pretty uncomfortable. If the author intended to use shock value to make her point, it certainly worked on me.
After Blonde Roots, I decided to check out Octavia Butler’s classic science fiction-influenced novel of slavery, Kindred, which I though was a heck of a lot better. Dana is a 26-year old newlywed writer who is in the process of settling into her new home with her husband Kevin when she is instantly transported to a different time and place - the pre-Civil War South. After saving a young child from drowning, she finds herself back in her living room. Back in 1976, she deduces that the plantation she was on was the very same one that Alice, an ancestor whose name she has only seen in an heirloom family Bible, may have been a slave on. The next time she feels herself being pulled away, Kevin grabs her and is transported with her. Kevin’s white skin gives him an entirely different role in this other world, one that tests their relationship in ways nothing could today.
Butler brilliantly imagines Dana’s experiences as a highly educated, modern black woman thrown into the world of slavery, and reading about these experiences is painful and eye-opening. Dana’s relationships with Kevin and with Rufus, another ancestor who also happens to run the plantation, are expertly explored through Butler’s writing. I think Evaristo might have been attempting to evoke a similar effect in her novel, but if you ask me, Butler clearly has won this round. I also recommend M.T. Anderson’s The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing if you’re interested in fresh takes on slave narratives.
June 16th, 2009
Kylee
The Berserkers - cold, steel, killing machines. Their one purpose - to wipe out all of humanity. Sounds cheerful doesn’t it? Fred Saberhagen has created the ultimate nightmare of technology gone mad in Berserkers: The Beginning.
Think of Berserkers as a kind of sentient death star, able to replicate and repair themselves. This first book in the series is a collection of loosely connected short stories. I really enjoyed the way that Saberhagen played with this concept. Some of the stories are grim, as you might expect, and others are light, humorous pieces.
I highly recommend this book, but have this question for all of you Saberhagen fans in blogland. My impression is that later novels in the series turned into straight-up military science fiction, how do they compare to this one? Are they worth the read?
May 11th, 2009
Gregg - Sequoya
You might think you don’t like science fiction, but you might really like the story of Jesuit priest Emilio Sandoz, the lone survivor of a long expedition in an unknown territory. Sure, the “long expedition” may be a 40 Earth-year trip through space in a refurbished asteroid, and the “unknown territory” is the planet Rakhat, millions of miles from our solar system, but the setting is really secondary to the story. In The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell has done what I thought was impossible: she has written a novel that includes space travel, aliens, and asteroids that doesn’t confuse me, bore me, or make me giggle when I’m not supposed to. In fact, I absolutely loved it.
Sandoz isn’t your typical space traveler. He’s extremely intelligent, but not when it comes to physics or aeronautics or any of those other science-y things that are so important on a spaceship. He’s actually a linguist, one who specializes in learning languages by being thrown into the thick of them. He’s worked in remote areas of Earth with tribes that rarely see modern men, but he hasn’t seen anything like what he finds on Rakhat. His story begins in the year 2059, when he returns to Earth without the seven colleagues he originally left the planet with, utterly traumatized in mind and body. He must explain himself to his fellow Jesuits, who learned from transmissions from a group that were sent to Rakhat after his own that Sandoz had murdered a child and worked in a brothel during his time away from the planet. Sandoz admits that these shocking events are true, and explains how and why these things happened through a series of intense conversations with the priests and flashbacks to more innocent times, when enountering Rakhat and its inhabitants was merely an exciting idea.
At first, Sandoz’s situation doesn’t sound like something anyone could relate to, but I’d challenge anyone who reads this book not to empathize with him at some point. His struggles with his faith throughout the novel are poignant and very real, and his need to reconcile his past as the son of a drug dealer in Puerto Rico with his unknown future in a very different environment also resonates with the reader. And on top of it all, he has a great sense of humor. Even better: he isn’t the only character that is so wonderfully written! The novel is filled with characters just as fascinating as Sandoz, and their relationships and conversations throughout their ordeals are beautifully portrayed. I could go on and on about how much I love this book, but I think I’ll just pick up its sequel, Children of God, instead.
March 3rd, 2009
Kylee
How far away is our society from televising survival games that culminate in the last man standing? Watch a little cable TV, and you’ll quickly realize that depravity and debauchery abounds and that sanctioned killing (voluntary of course, just sign here on the dotted line) can’t be far off. Suzanne Collins’ new novel The Hunger Games takes this premise and cuts a little deeper.
To celebrate reaping day, the twelve districts that comprise what was formerly North America must each submit a boy and girl tribute to participate in the Hunger Games, a televised survival game in which children fight to the death. Kat’s little sister’s name is drawn in the lottery and Kat volunteers to take her place in the games. At sixteen, she has been caring for her family for years, hunting game, gathering food and developing some pretty savvy survival girl skills in the forbidden woods outside the Seam, the mining district where she lives.
Kat can hold her own, but what about the boy tribute from her district? Peeta is the son of the baker and completely and secretly in love with Kat. Will this help him or hurt him? Does he have any useful skills? And what does it mean for Kat?
All I can say is, “wow.” This book is beyond beyond. The Hunger Games are outrageous. Parades, interviews, professional stylists and sponsors are involved. The contestants range from trained child soldiers to starving children from the poorest districts. Add to that multiple love stories woven into a setting where children fight to the death? You will not be able to put this book down. Absolutely, this was my favorite book of 2008. How about you?
January 6th, 2009
Molly - Central
Samantha Hunt’s first novel, The Seas, is one of my all-time favorite books, and her second novel, The Invention of Everything Else, is almost as good. It’s a fictionalized account of the later life of inventor Nikola Tesla, someone I knew very little about before reading this book. Actually, most of my information came from the movie The Prestige. I probably should read a biography of Tesla to get my facts straight, but I think the most important thing to know about Tesla is that he basically invented alternating current electric power. This is what powers nearly all electrical devices today, but at the time he invented it, there was some controversy over whether his method or Thomas Edison’s direct current was most effective. Though Tesla’s system ultimately won, he didn’t fare well during the media circus of the “war of the currents”, and spent the latter part of his life living in a hotel in New York as a mad scientist, nearly penniless.
It’s a pretty depressing story, and Hunt’s version is fittingly bleak, but she invigorates the truth with a story about Louisa, a maid who becomes an unlikely friend to Tesla; her boyfriend Arthur, who may or may not be from the future; and a time machine. It sounds a little out there, but it works. Hunt vividly captures New York in the 1940s, and the characters she creates are fascinating. The entire novel is elegantly stylized (much like the gorgeous cover), creating a surreal, engrossing atmosphere. Even if you’re not a fan of science fiction, or even books about scientists, the way Hunt transforms science into magic is simply beautiful, and not to be missed.
September 9th, 2008
Kylee
“These are strange times to be a Jew.” That’s a common refrain in the Federal Districk of Sitka, Alaska. After losing the war to the Palestinians, European Jews settled on the frigid coast of Alaska, left to fend for themselves for 60 years. But the district is about to revert to Alaskan jurisdiction, and three milion Jews have started the long, uncertain journey in search of a new homeland.
Detective (noz) Meyer Landsman should be one of them, but a dead baby and a painful divorce has left him washed up and apathetic in the seediest of Sitka hotels. When a dead man with a false name turns up murdered in his building, Landsman is intrigued, especially by the battered chess set he discovers near the body. Something about the chess problem triggers memories long buried–and points to a distinct mob culture at the heart of Sitka. With his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Semets, Landsman starts digging into a culture of rabbi gangsters, sketchy chess players (patzers) and a few slick Americans ready to pick over Sitka’s bones before Reversion is complete. But in a city with no hope for the future, Landsman learns that the only people interested in the murder of an anonymous chess player are those willing to go to any lengths to keep the truth buried.
It’s tough to catagorize Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union as literary fiction, mystery or science fiction. Defying the boundaries of all three genres, Chabon creates a rich work that recalls the noir Los Angeles of Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. But where Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler gave their disillusioned detectives a brittle slang, Chabon gives Landsman and Berko Yiddish slang that has its own particular rhythm. When Chabon writes descriptions comparing laughter to the sound of someone jumping up and down on a leather valise, the image is unexpected, a little nonsensical and totally apt. Landsman is a dogged character whose problems only make him more endearing as the book moves along. My favorite character, however, was Bina Gelbfish, police commisioner, Landsman’s boss and ex-wife, whose unwillingness to suffer fools makes for delicious complications.
With his rich descriptions, Chabon’s writing is slower reading than the Spade/Marlowe mysteries to which he pays homage, but I found that the evocative, inventive language made up for deficiencies in pacing. Having won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Chabon received science fiction’s Nebula Award with Yiddish. A movie, written and directed by the Coen brothers, is also in the works.
August 20th, 2008
Katie H.
Way of the Wolf by E.E. Knight is the first book in his Vampire Earth series.
First off don’t let the vampire in the vampire earth series put you off, this is not another book about blood sucking count dracula types. The vampires refer to the Kurians, an ancient alien race that has come to earth to feed on the vital aura of human beings. To do this they first had to soften the earth up by sending disease & assorted nasty creatures, reducing civilization to a primitive state. The earth is now divided into free areas that fight the Kurians and those who collaborate with them.
E.E. Knight was born in Wisconsin, and it shows. There is a good chunk of the book where the hero, David Valentine, is running through Wisconsin, and his descriptions of the area add a nice local touch.
It’s a great rip roaring trip, with elements of science fiction, horror, and military fiction. A great summer read.
July 26th, 2008
Gregg - Sequoya
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