Posts filed under 'Science Fiction'
That is one of the subject headings in our catalog for this summer’s blockbuster The Passage by Justin Cronin and it’s an apt one. Reading this will be an epic adventure should you decide to take the 750+ page challenge. The Passage made many must read lists this summer and Cronin’s worthy writing credentials enticed me to take the plunge into science fiction, an unfamiliar genre for me. This is the first of a planned trilogy and the movie rights have already been sold so you’ll be hearing about this one for awhile.
There is so much going on in this book it’ll be hard to capture the plot in a few paragraphs, but here goes. The story opens with a scientific discovery in South America of an immunity boosting virus whose potential has got the U.S. government very interested; indestructible soldiers make winning wars much more likely. Collecting “disposable” humans on death row as test subjects is the job of FBI agents Doyle and Wolgast and their job becomes even harder when an underage guinea pig is ordered. Six-year-old Amy has been abandoned at a convent and ends up being the one to receive the perfected virus. The problem is the other twelve death row inmates have a much different reaction to the virus and turn into, you guessed it, human devouring vampires. Virals (vampires) begin infecting victims all over the U.S., but Amy and FBI agent Wolgast escape to the deep woods of Colorado to survive. Will they be the last Americans alive?
So after this initial set up of how the virals have come to terrorize the world, we are introduced to a small colony of survivors (not including Amy or Wolgast) who are living in the southwest almost one hundred years after the outbreak and destruction (nuclear weapons were used to clear out the virus infected areas). Lots of characters are introduced at this point and having this character list around when reading would have been handy. Many colony members are content, but a few are willing to risk their lives to see if anyone else has survived. After yet another nasty viral attack, armed and ready, some of them decide to explore the nuclear devastated area outside their protective walls to find other survivors and a power source since their battery supply is dwindling. This is when they come across other groups, including a Expeditionary Force of the Texas Army (Texas broke away from the U.S. when it all went down). Next thing you know Amy shows up and she is the key to figuring out how to rid the world of these pesky virals and bringing order back to the chaotic world they have created.
This apocalyptic tale is chock full of symbolism, religious overtones and spiritual messages and throughout the book, the dead influence the living through dreams and thoughts. Cronin skillfully blends many genres together in his story, science fiction, thriller and magical realism which makes this grown up vampire novel an enjoyable reader for all reader types, including those that avoid the science fiction aisle. Add this one to your holds list and clear your calendar when it comes in, it’s unputdownable.
July 22nd, 2010
Katharine - Sequoya
As a library student, checking out a book titled Magic & Madness in the Library: Protagonists Among the Stacks (edited by Eric Graeber) was almost serendipitous. The collection of story excerpts range from classic authors like Miguel de Cervantes and Voltaire, to the infamous feminist author, Virginia Woolf, to current royalty of genre fiction (the inimitable Stephen King and Ray Bradbury). Of course, what holds the collection together is the topic: how madness and magic have played out and in libraries, both fictional and real. Beginning with an excerpt from Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, published in 1605, and leading up through the years to The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken, published in 1996, this collection draws together some of the most interesting stories about libraries and magic and madness.
Some of my favorites from the book include:
In the excerpt from Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, the story unfolds as to the fate of main character’s fictional library, thought to have caused Don Quixote’s madness. The result will fire up any like-minded bibliophile.
Jonathan Swift’s tale is one in which the books themselves, vying for library space, fight for preeminence–a topic which could make anyone mad. As a library student, however, this battle would solve many library’s space issues.
Another passage has been gleaned from “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges, in which the author describes the ideal library, the Universe, which holds all the knowledge of the world: “In the vast Library there are no two identical books.” — such idealism there is.
In yet another, “The Library and the Librarian” by Edmund Lester Pearson, the narrator meets a very interesting character who shows him incredible books–that have never existed! Such items as: “The True Precepts of the Dramatick Art” by William Shakespeare, and “a strategical study of Waterloo” by Napoleon, and a continuation of John Wilkes Booth’s diary — wish I could read those titles! But, alas, I cannot.
While all of these were great, my most favorite excerpt was from “The Library Policeman”, a novella by Stephen King, in which Sam, the narrator, goes to the public library and meets an intriguing and old-fashioned librarian. To find out the outcome of that story, I checked out the actual novella in the . It’s awesome to me when reading begets more reading!
June 21st, 2010
Tina - Central
Margaret Atwood is no stranger to dystopian literature: her excellent novel The Handmaid’s Tale is a classic, and the future it imagines is frightening. More than twenty years after publishing this important work, Atwood has once again imagined a terrifying future for our world, this time focusing on the harm we can do to our planet as much as the harm we can do to each other. The Year of the Flood is a brilliant book with ties to another earlier work of Atwood’s, Oryx and Crake: the books are set in the same world and involve some of the same characters. The Year of the Flood is essentially a retelling of the events of Oryx and Crake, but from an entirely different perspective. The Year of the Flood is narrated by two women, Toby, an older woman who is a member of a group of religious fanatics that call themselves God’s Gardeners, and Ren, a young woman who has left the group to pursue a very different calling in a high-end sex club. When the two women become a few of the sole survivors of the “waterless flood” of disease that God’s Gardeners have predicted, they look back on their lives and ruminate about how they ended up where they are, and what they should do now.
If you’ve read any of Atwood’s books, you already know that she’s a fantastic storyteller, and The Year of the Flood is no exception. In the hands of a less skilled writer, the meandering narrative, which alternates between past and present, as well as between Toby and Ren, could be a muddled mess, but in Atwood’s careful, yet incredibly vivid prose, the stories flow together beautifully. The world she has created is entirely plausible, which makes the book even scarier. The characters she has created are also lifelike, if not entirely likable, and their stories are completely engrossing. Fortunately, I haven’t read Oryx and Crake yet, and after finishing The Year of the Flood, I can’t wait to jump back into Atwood’s version of the future, grim as it is.
June 1st, 2010
Kylee
As I mentioned in a former post, I’ve been on a steady diet of teen books in search of this summer’s Teen’s Choice review books. I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at a couple of titles which will be on this year’s list.
Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson is an exceptionally well-researched piece of historical fiction. The teen protagonist, Isabel and her five year-old sister, Ruth, are slaves living in pre-revolutionary New York. They were promised their freedom by their former owner. Upon his death, however, his relatives sell the two girls to a wealthy family in the area who happen to be Loyalists. Isabel, logically stunned by and chafing at her continued enslavement, and worried about her sister, becomes interested in helping the rebel cause when she is promised her freedom in exchange for information. Several things Anderson does so well in this book include giving readers a glimpse of some of the complexities and dangers of revolutionary times, as well as throwing the idea of freedom into high relief. Will this young country-to-be win its freedom from the tyranny of unjust governance? Will Isabel win her and Ruth’s freedom from the tyranny of the unjust system of slavery? While you’re reading, check out the upcoming Juneteenth celebrations.
The ever-popular Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins is also on this year’s Teen’s Choice list. I read this book because it was one that “all the teens are reading” and I felt I should have an idea what it was about. I didn’t expect to like it at all, because I knew that *spoiler here* many characters don’t survive the book. This is futuristic dystopian science fiction, truly at its best. Here’s a brief summary: In a future world 16-year-old Katniss takes her younger sister Prim’s place in the annual Hunger Games, a televised fight to the death. All she hopes to do is survive as long as possible, revolution doesn’t even cross her mind. In this tour-de-force Collins asks many provoking questions. Is compassion a strength or is it a weakness? How can people with few resources resist a government which preys upon its children in order to maintain control? If put in a situation in which your only choices are to kill or to be killed, what would you really do? And is survival in that situation the best thing or is their a way to strive for something better? This is a highly discussable book and would be a great one for a book discussion group. Here’s the link to Suzanne Collins’ interview.
Those are just a couple of the titles we’re reading this year keep an eye on our Teens Choice Awards blog for further news.
May 5th, 2010
Karen - Sequoya
The stories in George Saunders’s CivilWarLand in Bad Decline strike a balance between being laugh-out-loud funny and disturbingly violent. The “decline” is probably the key here, as all of the stories take place in a near-future where things have gone more or less, depending on the story, to pieces. The CivilWarLand of the title story is a sort of failing theme park haunted by the ghosts of the family who used to live on the land and who occasionally reenact the gruesome way in which they died. When a young visitor to the park falls in love with the daughter of the family, the protagonist has to inform him of her “spectral” condition and pay him fifty bucks to keep quiet. He later hides the evidence of a child who was murdered for stealing candy. Things quickly go downhill from there. I can hear you asking, “What’s funny about that?” and looking the book over, I’m not so sure. If you can’t see the humor in a ghostly one-armed high schooler, this might not be the book for you.
In another story, “Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz,” visitors to a different cut-rate establishment can strap themselves into a virtual reality machine and experience a variety of scenarios, including “Legendary American Killers Stalk You.” The character who plays that one makes the mistake of saying the wrong thing about Clyde Barrow’s mom, and that’s the end of the game for him.
The stories in the collection really do balance humor and darkness pretty well, and one of them, “Isabelle,” is quite sweet. But in the novella that ends the collection, Bounty, darkness dominates. In Bounty, human beings have been divided into two classes, “Normals” and “Flaweds.” Normals are, well, mostly normal. Flaweds are human beings who have suffered some form of mutation, due to pollution (I think), like having a vestigial tail or claws instead of feet. While in the East, Flaweds are nominally free, they are treated as second-class citizens. And in the West they can be legally owned as slaves. When the protagonist sets out on a journey to free his sister from slavery, he is very quickly sold into slavery himself and beaten into submission. Though that’s not how the novella ends, it’s still horrible.
I found myself thinking, “What a horrifying story, in which such a thing could happen.” And then I remembered we live in a world where this did happen, for centuries, and probably still happens in some parts of the world.
In the end I was somewhat disturbed by Saunders’s book, but I’m glad I read it.
April 1st, 2010
Jon - Central Library
Sadly, J.D. Salinger wasn’t the only author who died last week. Kage Baker didn’t write an iconic coming-of-age novel like Salinger, but she did write a witty and captivating science fiction series that started with In the Garden of Iden.
In Baker’s Garden, twenty-fourth century corporation Dr. Zeus, Inc. has figured out how to accomplish both time travel and immortality. You’d think that would be enough of a market niche to dominate, but the Company has other ideas. They use their knowledge to place undercover operatives throughout history to rescue artifacts–both natural and man-made–that would otherwise have been lost in the mists of time. These operatives are immortal cyborgs: orphans whom the Company has rescued from grim circumstances, modified to Company specs, trained in a specialty, and sent off to work in the shadows of history for their benevolent overlords. Depending on how you look at it, this is either a noble or a nefarious undertaking.
Botanist Mendoza is assigned to 16th-century England, tasked with gathering samples of extinct plants–extinct in the 24th century, that is–that will yield big pharmaceutical profits, once they are sent forward into the future to be “discovered.” While grubbing around amongst the flora of the English countryside, she breaks a major Company taboo by falling in love with a mortal. Naturally, complications ensue.
Don’t let the immortal cyborg thing put you off. Watching Mendoza and her fellow technologically advanced immortals living among and blending in with the locals is hugely entertaining and often laugh-out-loud funny. Baker’s take on time travel is a bit different from the norm, and her descriptions of Tudor-era life and language are lush and richly detailed. History, science fiction, romance, and wicked humor blend together to provide a little something for almost everyone.
There’s a lot more to the Company’s story than Mendoza’s troubles, though. In the Garden of Iden spawned several sequels, as well as short stories and novellas set in the Company universe, all careening forward through history toward a mysterious Big Thing that’s supposed to happen in 2355. Not the kind of stuff that defines a generation, but a cracking good read nonetheless. R.I.P., Kage.
February 5th, 2010
Kathy - Meadowridge
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
Previous Posts
That is one of the subject headings in our catalog for this summer’s blockbuster The Passage by Justin Cronin and it’s an apt one. Reading this will be an epic adventure should you decide to take the 750+ page challenge. The Passage made many must read lists this summer and Cronin’s worthy writing credentials enticed me to take the plunge into science fiction, an unfamiliar genre for me. This is the first of a planned trilogy and the movie rights have already been sold so you’ll be hearing about this one for awhile.