Category: Review

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Shards of Honor and Barrayar – Lois McMaster Bujold

Behind the rather tacky cover is an omnibus edition consisting of McMaster Bujold’s debut novel “Shards of Honor” and its immediate chronological sequel “Barrayar”. The latter won the Hugo in 1992. These chronicle the adventures of Cordelia Naismith from the time she first meets her future husband, Lord Aral Vorkosigan, when she is his prisoner of war. At the end of the “Shards of Honor”, she goes to Vorkosigan’s home planet of Barrayar to become his wife. Barrayar is quite different from her own modern home planet of Beta Colony. It has only recently been rediscovered, and an old system of blood ties, honor, nobility, and plain Machiavellian insanity keep it ticking. Cordelia’s adaptation to Barrayar, and her key role during a civil war, are the subject of “Barrayar”.

The first book, “Shards of Honor”, is decent but not stellar. McMaster Bujold shows an early talent for characterization, describing motivation and personal development. “Barrayar”, on the other hand, is a rich story of adventure and one woman’s fight for herself and her family in the midst of an (to her) insane civil war. I enjoyed it immensely. McMaster Bujold has a knack for describing emotion and motivation that sweeps the reader along as if he is looking right over Cordelia Naismith’s shoulder. As a heroine, Cordelia is perfect. Heroic when need be, but more importantly rational and humble in a world where honor and revenge pull society’s fabric to the breaking point and beyond. Highly recommended.

Shards of Honor

Barrayar

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The Void Trilogy – Peter F. Hamiton

A novel in three volumes consisting of:

  • The Dreaming Void
  • The Temporal Void
  • The Evolutionary Void

Like “Night’s Dawn” and the Commonwealth Saga before it, the “Void Trilogy” is not so much a series as one single novel, sprawling over three 1500 page volumes. That’s why it took two months to read. Set over one thousand years after the end of Commonwealth, it reintroduces many of the old familiar characters. While it can be read independently, I would highly recommend that you read Commonwealth first. The background is invaluable.

In the Commonwealth of the 3500s, humanity has split into many groups. Biggest is the split between Advancers, what one might think of as “old fashioned” humans, and Highers, who see their physical existence as a precursor to upload into the machine intelligence known as ANA. Among the Highers, there are several rival factions, from the Accelerators, who wish to speed up human evolution towards the enigmatic goal of transcendence, to the conservative Conservatives. Into this mix is thrust the religion of the Living Dream, born out of the dreams that its founder Inigo had of events inside the Void, a vast, enigmatic and (mostly) impenetrable region in the center of the galaxy. Inigo has dreamed of the life of a man called Edeard in a mysterious city on a planet in the Void. In fact, Inigo’s dreams of Edeard’s life mark a major subplot in the novel, as we follow Edeard from country boy to refugee to city constable in the city of Makkathran. The goal of Living Dream is to start a pilgrimage into the Void and there reach “fulfillment”. The rest of humanity and most alien races are more or less united against it, believing that such a pilgrimage will lead to an expansion of the Void which will engulf the rest of the galaxy, terminating all life.

As usual with Hamilton, the plot is complex, the characters are many, and the descriptions just lovely. The story is certainly gripping. However I did feel that this time, Mr. Hamilton didn’t quite grip me enough. Perhaps I now have too high expectations from him, but Void felt a bit ponderous, especially in the beginning. By contrast, the interludes with Edeard were quite the story in themselves, almost able to stand on their own as a novel. Weird as it may seem, I felt as if the novel wasn’t quite long enough. Some bits were a bit too sketchy, such as the whole Ocisen attack subplot. Yes, it was just a device used by a faction, but even so the complexities were worth exploring further. There was also a bit of a lack of action for much of the novel. People went hither and thither in their starships but there was often precious little actual plot or character development. So I wanted the novel to be longer, but in parts it was too slow? Exactly! The ending, however, was quite gratifying. Hamilton has by his own admission, often had difficulties actually tying things up. But he did it nicely here.

So what’s the verdict? If you have read Commonwealth and enjoyed it, you can’t go wrong by continuing with Void. It is not as good as Night’s Dawn or Commonwealth, but Hamilton at his worst is better than most authors at their best. It is great space opera, and few can write it like he does.

Peter F. Hamilton – The Void Trilogy

Like “Night’s Dawn” and the “Commonwealth Saga” before it, the “Void Trilogy” is not so much a series as

one single novel, sprawling over three 1500 page volumes. Set over one thousand years after the end of

Commonwealth, it reintroduces many of the old familiar characters. While it can be read independently, I

would highly recommend that you read Commonwealth first. The background is invaluable.

In the Commonwealth of the 3500s, humanity has split into many groups. Biggest is the split between

Advancers, what one might think of as “old fashioned” humans, and Highers, who see their physical

existence as a precursor to upload into the machine intelligence known as ANA. Among the Highers, there

are several rival factions, from the Accelerators, who wish to speed up human evolution towards the

enigmatic goal of trancendence, to the conservative Conservatives. Into this mix is thrust the religion of

the Living Dream, born out of the dreams that its founder Inigo had of events inside the Void, a vast

enigmatic and impenetrable region in the center of the galaxy. Inigo has dreamt of the life of a man

called Edeard in a mysterious city on a planet in the Void. In fact, Inigo’s dreams of Edeard’s life mark

a major subplot in the novel, as we follow Edeard from country boy to refugee to city constable in the

city of Makkathran. The goal of Living Dream is to start a pilgrimage into the Void. The rest of humanity,

and most alien races, are more or less united against it, believing that such a pilgrimage will lead to an

expansion of the Void which will engulf the rest of the galaxy, terminating all life.

As usual with Hamilton, the plot is complex, the characters are many, and the descriptions just lovely.

The story is certainly gripping. However I did feel that this time, Mr. Hamilton didn’t quite grip me

enough. Perhaps I now have too high expectations from him, but Void felt a bit ponderous, especially in

the beginning. By contrast, the interludes with Edeard were quite the story in themselves, almost able to

stand on their own as a novel. Weird as it may seem, I felt as if the novel wasn’t quite long enough. Some

bits were a bit too sketchy, such as the whole Ocisen attack subplot. Yes, it was just a device used by a

faction, but even so the complexities were worth exploring further. There was also a bit of a lack of

action for much of the novel. People went hither and thither in their starships but there was often

previous little actual plot or character development. So I wanted the novel to be longer, but in parts it

was too slow? Exactly! The ending, however, was quite gratifying. Hamilton has by his own admission, often

had difficulties actually tying things up. But he did it nicely here.

So what’s the verdict? Well, if you have read Commonwealth and enjoyed it, you can’t go wrong by

continuing with Void. It is not as good as Night’s Dawn or Commonwealth, but Hamilton at his worst is

better than most authors at their best. It is certainly great space opera, and few can write it like he

does. 20101123

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Do Unto Others (Ripple Creek II) – Michael Z. Williamson

In the sequel to Better to Beg Forgiveness, Williamson revisits his team of six elite bodyguards. This time around, they’re not only a well oiled machine, but an experienced and perfectly meshed well oiled machine. They are tasked with protecting the twenty-something year old daughter of the richest man in the world(s). The action starts in Wales but soon moves to a gargantuan mining operation at the heart of the customer’s business empire. Not completely unexpectedly, there are multiple threats.

Just like the first book, this one ramps up slowly and spends a lot of time focusing on technical skills. Williamson takes what is often a very tedious and mind-numbing routine and makes it sound interesting. He is also very good at describing characters who do not act entirely rationally, who act out, who think they are doing good while in fact completely misguided. By the end, the book is a total page turner, moving the reader deftly through some rather amazing and well-crafted locales. If I have one big gripe, it is that the team itself is perhaps a bit too perfect. Fascinating to read about, but do such superhumans really exist? Or more properly, can disbelief be suspended? I certainly found mine cracking at times.

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Forever Free – Joe Haldeman

This is the direct sequel to The Forever War. Twenty years (subjective for our heroes) have passed since the War ended. William and Marygay have settled down on the frigid planet of Middle Finger, which has the largest population of veterans that have not integrated with the “Man” group mind comprising most humans. Like most of the community of veterans, they feel alienated from the rest of humanity, which uses implants to integrate into a mind “Tree”; a group mind where individuals willingly surrender most of their individuality. The Taurans, enemies during the War, have a similar arrangement, and Man (group mind humans) have more in common with them than with the old-style humans. It is a life, but our heroes are not happy with it. They hatch a plan to take a starship forty thousand years into the future by flying a big loop at relativistic velocities. Only ten years subjective will pass on Middle Finger. However soon after departure things start going very wrong for unexplainable reasons and they must get in the lifeboats and return in suspended animation, taking decades to do so. Once back, they discover that everyone is gone, vanished simultaneously and instantaneously.

This is a very different book from the Forever War in some ways. It does not deal with war, for one thing. However the themes of alienation in one’s own society are still there. It grapples with what it means to be human, what it means to be an individual, what it means to be sentient. Without giving away too much of the ending, I will say that it also deals with God, or at least one possible interpretation of God. The ending surprised me but in a good way. It was very thought-provoking. Just as in the Forever War, the characters and plot are finely tuned, flowing nicely. Despite the heavy themes, it is not a heavy read. Recommended but read The Forever War first.

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The Forever War – Joe Haldeman

TheForeverWarThis is a classic written in 1975 and I finally got around to reading it. The novel is about William Mandella, a young man drafted into the military when the first interstellar war starts. He is part of the very first group of recruits. The training, under Vietnam War veterans, occurs on a fictional planet so far out from the Sun that the environment is at almost absolute zero. Almost half the recruits die in training. Following that, the men and women are sent towards a distant planet for their first encounter with the Taurans. The important point here, and that which gives the story its name and main plot device, is that since the troops travel at appreciable fractions of the speed of light, much more time passes for those they left behind than for them. They are in transit a few months while decades and more pass on Earth. This is a consequence of general relativity. When Joe returns home, his mother has aged decades. The Earth is dystopian and unrecognizable. Despite his distaste for things military, he dislikes the current Earth more and decides to re-up together with Marygay Potter, the girlfriend whom he met in the service. Next time he returns, wounded, from a mission, centuries have passed, and society has changed even more. Since there are still several years left on his enlistment, he is sent out again, heartbreakingly on a separate assignment from Marygay, both in space and now in time. On this mission, seven hundred years will pass back home.

Mr. Haldeman is himself a Vietnam War veteran, and it shows in the novel. The draftees are disaffected and do not have a personal stake in the war. In fact, they do not understand it. They are just victims. As Mandella’s rank increases with time, he makes good military decisions, but this is not out of some desire to be a hero, or even because he seems particularly interested in the outcome of the war. As he repeatedly explains, he will be lucky to get out of the war alive. It is a matter of probabilities to him, not skill. In the wider perspective, the war itself seems to be an inevitable product of the society in which they live. As the centuries pass, the war gels to permanence, or as the title puts it “forever”. Society and the economy only exist to support the war and the survival of mankind. There are no lofty cultural or artistic goals involved. Mr. Haldeman’s descriptions of battle and military life cooped up in ships for months are gritty, realistic, dark. Death is commonplace both in battle and outside it. People are mourned but the characters are fatalistic about the whole thing. They know that they will die, probably soon and unexpectedly, and their lives are made up of trying to find pleasure and joy even with that knowledge. The military is a faceless machine that grinds on without much more purpose than to exist. The contrast with the caring Mandella and Potter is striking. Mr. Haldeman’s genius, however, is only partly in his setting. The other part, I feel, is that this novel is so readable, so full of (admittedly dark) humor, so “light”, if you will. Even while filled with senseless death, it still makes the reader smile. Perhaps it is because Mandella is so easy to identify with. Despite everything, he has a rather sunny outlook on life. He tries to do his best. He is a nice guy thrust into uncontrollable circumstances and he tries to make the best of things.

This is one of the finest novels that I have ever read.

 

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Into the Light – Jane Wallace

The story is about Tem Sevin, who as a child saw his entire family killed by an evil group of humans known as the Gharst. Twenty years later, Sevin is a major in the special forces, and the Gharst are slowly winning a war of conquest against the Coalition. Eventually the Coalition surrenders and Sevin and various hangers-on are accused of war crimes. During the last mission, they conveniently find a Gharst prototype ship advanced well beyond the current state of the art and off they go to try and fix things.

I’ll confess that I didn’t finish the book, managing only about one third. The story is set firmly in the space opera camp, with an almost Star Wars feel to it. Physics are conveniently in support of the story and economics are ignored. Now, I’m ok with that, but since there is little science in the science fiction, the characters, plot and setting need to compensate. A prime example is Lois McMaster Bujold, where technology is not a crucial part of the story but the setting and characters are so stellar it doesn’t matter at all. Ms. Wallace, on the other hand, goes into the technology to the point that you think it would matter, then proceeds to whip out a convenient deus ex machina that negates the rules she set. There is also little sense of the military being, well, a military. The decision making process, command structure and tactics are completely out of whack. I understand that some militaries are incompetent, but at this level of operations that just wouldn’t be possible. I’m even ok with the military being unrealistic, the aforementioned Star Wars is a prime example. But in that case it shouldn’t be a primary driver for the story. And then there are the logic holes. At one point Sevin needs an emergency bandage for a buddy. Despite being surrounded by fresh corpses in uniform, he cuts up his own trouser leg. Also, since the corpses belong to soldiers presumably they would all have at least basic first aid packages on them.

Having said all that, I did enjoy the rich Universe that Ms. Wallace has created. I’m also very much in favor of Science Fiction from women, and authors who are not based in the US or the UK. If the characters had been just a bit more fleshed out, I probably would have finished the book. But I had a hard time identifying with their motivations.

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Threshold (Boundary II) – Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spoor

Our friends from Boundary are back in a pretty direct sequel to the first book. The race is on to find more Bemmie bases. The Ares Project, despite having managed to get a foothold on Mars, is strapped for cash and resources. With some clever manoeuvring they manage to get both, and set off towards first Ceres, then Enceladus.

The first book was nicely crafted, with excellent character development. This second one feels much more forced, especially the first half. I really enjoyed going back and seeing what the gang was doing after the previous story ended, but was a bit disappointed at the lack of a strong story. This series will never be “heavy” but it needed a bit more than this effort. That being said, it harkens back to adventure science fiction from an earlier time, before all the dark and broody bits that are so in vogue nowadays. And so I still liked this book more than it perhaps deserves. The ending wasn’t quite a cliffhanger but certainly lacked resolution, leaving the door wide open for a sequel. Yes please.

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Yellow Eyes – Tom Kratman & John Ringo

Even more Ringo! For some reason I had been avoiding this Posleen series side story. That came back to bite me as I launched into the follow-up Hedren series and some of the characters popped up.

The story is set before and during the Posleen invasion of Earth, but deals specifically with events in Panama. Realizing that the Panama Canal is strategically important, the US sends military and material aid to bolster the defenses, including three warships. Through a complex series of events, one of the ships, the USS Des Moines, gains sentience. The story follows the defense of Panama, both from the perspective of the Posleen-Human conflict, and from the perspective of the struggle between corrupt officials and honorable ones. The Darhel, overlords of the Galactic Federation, want the humans to win, but only just, so that human civilization is shattered and cannot be a threat to them.

The Panama aspects are very interesting, and it shows that both authors have been posted there during their military careers. The story itself is quite good, with predictably excellent battle scenes. It is a worthy addition to the Posleen series, but should probably not be read as a standalone.

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Live Free or Die – John Ringo

More Ringo? Why yes. You can never have enough Ringo. Live Free or Die is the start of a new series (that man is a total workaholic) called “Troy Rising“. Aliens pop up, drop a stargate (well, it is) in space, and leave. A while later, another race pops up and demands tribute in the form of most of Earth’s more valuable metals. Humanity has no choice but to comply. Through a combination of luck and deviousness, Tyler Vernon, an IT guy reduced to doing odd jobs, manages to find something that another race of aliens actually wants to buy. In the process he becomes the richest man in the world. And so starts humanity’s long road towards independence.

Like several other of Ringo’s first novels in a series, this one has three “episodes”. I don’t know why he does this but it works. What I particularly like about this novel is how humanity is thrown in at the deep end of a very deep pool without the least knowledge of how to swim. The Horvath, basically the local bullies, come in and just say “give”. It is a refreshing change from the many first contact scenarios where human technology is more or less equal to that of the aliens.

As usual with Ringo, this is an intelligent page turner with lots of cool action. The only part that became slightly confusing was the whole “many mirrors” bit. Would a schematic or two have killed you, Mr. Ringo?

The next book in the series is Citadel.

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Agent to the Stars – John Scalzi

A Hollywood agent (for actors that is) acquires a new client: an alien blob named Joshua. It seems the aliens want to contact humans, but their appearance (read:image) is not the greatest.

Scalzi’s debut novel shows off his trademark humor. Great dialogue, funny situations, interesting characters. It does bog down a bit by the end, but unfortunately that is also a Scalzi trademark. Well worth a read. This book is funny!

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Abandon in Place – Jerry Oltion

In this short story, ghost rockets, seemingly identical to the Saturn V Moon rockets, begin launching from Cape Canaveral soon after Neil Armstrong’s death. One astronaut is chosen to board one of the rockets before it launches.

Cute little love story declaration for the Apollo program, but really nothing special.

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The Last Centurion – John Ringo

This near future novel starts with a major plague that wipes out over half the planet’s population. Then there’s global cooling as the Earth enters a mini ice age. Our hero Bandit Six, who tells the story from a first person perspective, is a US Army Captain with a farming background. He becomes stuck in Iran (invaded by the US before the story started) with one company of infantry guarding an enormous amount of supplies left behind as US forces pull out. Meanwhile, the US is crumbling due to the global disasters and inept political leadership. Bandit Six has to pull of a heroic extraction of his men to get back to civilization, but he becomes more than that. A symbol of hope in a “time of suckage”.

Right up front, I should tell you that this novel is right-wing, very pro-America, racist (but only if you misinterpret it), anti-liberal, pro-military and littered with the f-word. Bandit Six tells the story in the first person, using a blog style tone. In your face doesn’t even begin to cover it. Bandit Six is old school conservative (not the same as “modern Republican”). He truly believes in good old Americans and good old American know how and perseverance. He believes that people should be treated like adults and not be coddled. Liberals, the press and  “tofu-eaters” (organic food eaters who don’t want to know where their food comes from) are roundly criticized for being short sighted and just plain stupid. Now, I may not be as right wing as Bandit Six, but I have a hard time disagreeing with most of what he says. His theses are well argued. He is right about a lot of things. Ringo does his usual great job of using dry humor to tell a story. And it is a very good story. Gripping, exciting, humorous despite the enormous tragedy and suffering suffusing it. The Centurion metaphor, setting America as the new Rome, a beacon of civilization in a barbarian world, with the military defending it, is well done. Even if you don’t agree with the book’s views, do read it. The salient points are better argued than what you will hear on the conservative news or by conservative politicians. That alone makes it worth it.

Much of the story is based on Xenophon’s account of the “Ten Thousand” and their march back to Greece in 401-399 BC.

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Noble House – James Clavell

The sequel to Tai Pan is set in the early 1960s, a time when Hong Kong had come into its own as an economic powerhouse with liberal laws allowing huge fortunes to be made and lost. The story focuses around Struan’s, the company founded by Dirk Struan from Tai Pan. The company is in trouble from several fronts, and both inter-company and political intrigue play a part.

Struan’s is rather obviously based on real life company Jardine Matheson, still one of the most important corporations in Hong Kong. while Tai pan was exciting and had a great setting, Noble House reminded me too much of one of the 1980s soaps Dallas and Falcon Crest. Ruthless, scheming rich people bickering and fighting. I read about a quarter of it but became terribly bored and gave up. Despite the really interesting snapshot of Hong Kong life in the 1960s, on the cusp of modernity, I couldn’t make myself care about the plot or the characters.

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Tai-Pan – James Clavell

This massive novel dramatizes the events surrounding the founding of Hong Kong. Our hero, Dirk Struan, is a merchant prince, head of his trading house. He is known by the Chinese expression “Tai-Pan”, meaning “supreme leader”. The book chronicles his efforts to found and develop Hong Kong as a way to both open up trade with China and ensure that the West be exposed to Chinese influence.

The book is skillfully written and a page turner. The characters are larger than life. Great fun all around. Clavell shows a keen eye for the way different people are motivated based on ethnicity and culture, sex and social position. The many action-filled twists do not seem confusing, but drive the story forward without seeming like just pointless noise.

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Dune Roller – Julian May

A 1950s short story about a terrorizing creature that lives in a big lake.

Cute story with nice characters. It is very interesting to read something that is not only from the 1950s, but is also SET in the 1950s. Just the whole ham radio thing was quirky from a contemporary viewpoint. May wrote this with skill, foreshadowing the great things that were to come for her.

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Eye of the Storm – John Ringo

After having spent quite some time on side stories, the “Legacy of the Aldenata/Posleen” universe finally gets back to the central core of the story, if you will. Peace is at hand, but there is trouble as the Darhel keep trying to screw humanity over in a sort of grand plan for their own domination of all races. Pretty soon, all that falls by the wayside as a new threat is looming. The Darhel now have to come to terms with the fact they need those pesky humans. However, unlike during the Posleen War, humanity is well aware of what is going on, and can dictate terms. Mike O’Neal is brought back from disgrace (he was framed) to lead.

One thing I loved about this novel was how many of the main protagonists from both the central Posleen War stories and the side stories were brought together. It was like a Greatest Hits album with only cool songs. The reunion of Cally and Mike O’Neal, with the latter being unaware that his daughter was even alive, was entertaining as hell. And any excuse to bring back the SS troops from “Watch on the Rhine” is a good one. Like the early books in the Posleen War series, this one focuses on preparation, leaving a cliffhanger as the main action finally begin. Looking forward to future installments.

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Contact with Chaos – Michael Z. Williamson

Set in the “Freehold” universe, this novel is about first contact with a planetbound race that has almost no metals. They turn out to be quite advanced in ceramics, steam and other sciences, all developed without metals. Humanity, in the form of a joint Freehold/UN mission, makes efforts not to expose the race to metals. This inevitably causes tension.

While not as action packed as other Williamson novels, I found this highly enjoyable. The plot is both smart, entertaining and clever. The characters are perhaps somewhat unoriginal, but do the job adequately. I did have a hard time keeping track of some of the secondary characters. A dramatis personae would have been great. Williamson is at his best when describing the effects of weapons and other technology. Many other authors would have turned this book into a boring scholarly piece, but Williamson manages to keep the technology discussions both entertaining and fascinating. The story has many interesting twists to keep it going.

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The Five Fists of Science – Matt Fraction & Steven Sanders

This graphic novel sees Mark Twain join forces with Nikola Tesla and Bertha von Suttner, using technology to bring about peace. The antagonists are J.P. Morgan, in this book a demon-worshipping wizard by night, Thomas Alva Edison and Guglielmo Marconi.

This is a fun little piece. A bit too short perhaps, but not atypically so for the genre. I did find the art, while gorgeous, a bit too dark and often hard to decipher. The action scenese in particular were somewhat confusing.

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Deception Point – Dan Brown

NASA discovers a meteorite in the Arctic ice pack. It holds a wondrous discovery. But does it? Rachel Sexton, daughter of a the presidential challenger, is caught up in a web of conspiracies while she races to find the truth.

Did the last paragraph sound like the blurb for an over the top action novel? That’s because this one is. Dan Brown is fine at creating intricate plots full of action and suspense. This time, however, he went way too far. So much stuff is just “too much”. He has an annoying tendency to get people out of sticky situations with deux ex machina. The right tool or idea for the job seems to pop out of thin air just as it is needed.

I dislike it when authors state in an introduction that all the technologies described already exist, then write military technicalities in completely inaccurate ways. Case in point: The Delta Force operatives int he book are painted as inhuman robots who never talk about a mission after they have performed it. Really? No after action reviews? That seems absurd. There are plenty of other examples where the tech just seems a bit too “neat”.

Part of the central premise of the story itself, that if NASA were disbanded and lost its monopoly private contractors could undercut by factors of two or three, seems quite implausible to me. If nothing else, NASA only has a monopoly in the USA. If NASA is so protected by legalities, why aren’t space companies simply shipping their operations abroad? In conclusion the book is a semi-decent diversion but not much more.

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Digital Fortress – Dan Brown

An NSA cryptographer tries to find a solution when someone has supposedly created an uncrackable encryption algorithm.

Dan Brown’s first novel is much like his future efforts: An action and intrigue packed thriller with myriad twists. This one is actually not “as bad” as some of his later writings. The twists are not as implausible. It is like reading an over the top action movie script, albeit a pretty decent one.