A long time ago the Edmonton Public Library had something called the Heritage Collection. It was a cache of books (over 10,000 of them) that could only be read in the downtown branch, they could not be borrowed and taken home.
A few years back this policy was relaxed. This allowed me to enjoy Daniel Francis' 1982 book about the fur trade of early Canada.
I found it to be illuminating, entertaining and filled with facts about the competition between the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company. Funny, how I always imagined the Voyageurs were exclusive to the HBC - how wrong I was. At least until they merged in 1821.
I found the subject matter completely engrossing and Francis' text crisp and readable as if it was published today. This says a lot about his writing style and clarity.
When getting to orbit is an everyday occurrence that’s the future I want to inhabit.
In this story, airships are used to lift up to a floating transfer station in the mesosphere, the very top of the atmosphere, where one transfers to an orbital ascender to make the final push to space. This takes more time but eliminates rockets, a very interesting idea.
But that is not the focus of the story, in it a rich industrialist takes a bet with a fellow billionaire to race to a Near Earth Object and back within 80 days.
But there is an obstacle in the industrialist’s way.
What I liked about this story was how the characters were no different than people today. There is no empire and culture to learn, no alien influence and no time travel. It’s just people being people with their egos and conflicting aspirations. Only the technology has changed.
A private corporation, JoveCo, has a mining station orbiting Jupiter to extract hydrogen from the atmosphere of the gas giant.
Nina Galindo is dispatched to the station to help resolve a problem. There are native creatures alive in the upper atmosphere who seem to be trying to communicate with the humans. But there is something else, there is another signal buried under the repeating “GO AWAY” which is encrypted and far more complex.
I found the story rich in imagery, I felt like I was watching a movie instead of reading a book. And it’s not because it was so well described, it was just the opposite, the author gave just enough information to frame a scene and I was able to colour it all in.
The orbital station was a marvel and how the story relied on it’s structure to uncover the mystery was part of the fun of it.
I've recently re-discovered Clive Cussler and it has been a joy to lose myself in a self-confident adventure.
Having read a couple more modern entries in the Dirk Pitt series I decided to go back to the first published book.
It felt nearly fully-formed even back then. The only thing lacking was the historical opening although it was history that pushed the plot.
Cussler had a confident voice from the very start but, be warned, the book is a product of its time. This particular volume was the 40th-anniversary edition so I am not sure if the text has been tweaked and edited for today's reader. However, Pitt was a bit of an ass at times and fell into some clichéd behaviour with the central woman of the story.
Other than that, the book held up rather well. Actually, I was glad some of those old sexist tropes were kept in this edition, it serves to show how the character has grown and adjusted with the times.
Be ready for a James Bond type of story but with the added fun of scuba gear.
When you're looking for something easy and entertaining you can't go wrong with a Dirk Pitt adventure.
I’m a fan of The Amazing Race and The Amazing Race Canada so this story spoke to me.
What this story did was take television, corporate sponsorships, consumerism and social networking forward into an unsettling place.
The Ultimate Race pitted seven teams, in small space ships, on a race from an orbiting casino, New Vegas, to Mars’ moon Phobos and back. But it was told from the point of view of a fan watching the show from home.
Honestly, the forward projection of media is not that outlandish, it feels very, very plausible.
One can make a case that Fantasy is just the opposite side of the coin where Science Fiction resides. Technology can be substituted by magic, starships by dragons.
I prefer to imagine my world forward because I am curious. I want to know what is around the next bend. When you look far enough back, history becomes legend. Somehow I don’t find that as satisfying.
This is a fantasy story.
A young boy is noticed then groomed to become the next court magician. He is overseen by - a ghost - I guess, but certainly his predecessor.
The child learns everything he is taught and is disappointed that most of the magic he has seen can be explained as slight of hand. The more he learns the closer he gets to real magic. Real magic exists but at a cost to the magician.
How much of that cost can the young man bear?
It was a well written story and a good one to boot. It’s just not the kind of story I am drawn to.
I just wish the Hugos would split the Fantasy from the Science Fiction. This is something Lightspeed Magazine identifies and I appreciate it very much.
I was a big fan of Ernest Cline’s previous book, Ready Player One which was turned into a Steven Spielberg movie. (I really should see that)
This book was a nice blend of console game history, pop culture and science fiction movies.
What if the rise in popularity of the First Contact SF trope was really a way to get the population of Earth ready for the reality of an alien invasion? What if all those video games were really training simulations to teach people how to engage the enemy without causing a panic?
I enjoyed this novel as an audio book narrated by Wil Wheaton who was simply terrific in it.
The story itself was rather predictable. However, the humour that was woven throughout and the gaming history was a perfect vehicle for it. I can easily imagine Spielberg making a movie of this one too. And that is because Cline writes vividly and cinematically which made the text disappear and the imagery pop into my imagination.
It’s a fun read so long as that is what you want - fun. Zach Lightman, who is the narrator and a high school senior, is obsessed with the passing of his father when he was an infant. He discovers a box of his dad's things in the attic and begins to read his old journals. In them, he discovers his father's theories about video games and what their functions really are.
It’s been a while since I’ve ready some short stories and I wanted some kind of direction. I turned to the Hugo Awards for that. I decided the 2019 short list would make for an excellent anthology of sorts.
I started from the bottom of the short story list and I plan to work my way up to the winner.
The story was funny, menacing and a perfect twist on the damsel in distress trope. The Princess Bride came to my mind, but with dinosaurs and that worked very well for me.
One day the Prince from a nearby kingdom wanders by and is nearly eaten. Through strange circumstances he manages to bring one of the raptor sisters into his realm and tries to make her the Royal Mount to replace the horse he rode in on.
But the Raptor Sisters and the Princess have other ideas.
It is no wonder this story was short-listed; it was fresh, original and had a rollicking good time flipping genres on their sides.
This is another story of loss and mourning in the Tor.com January - February 2019 collection. But this time it tackles the horrible experience of watching your loved one die.
The narrator here is not the easiest person to like but that's also what makes the story compelling.
There is a science-fictiony element to the story, where beings can occupy a dying person's body to give them a pain-free end of life. People are not cured but the journey is not as terrible as it could be. However, I found this aspect of the story to be unnecessary.
I've certainly seen the author's name around for years and I've always had her on my TBR list. This is the first story of hers that I've read and I must say that I've been missing out. If this is the kind of work she produces then I am already a fan.
There is a quiet confidence in the storytelling that I found compelling.
To be honest, I put the story down a few times just so I could come back to it later. It was an uncomfortable thing to read but I was taken by how I was able to connect with it.
I grew up reading Cussler and his Dirk Pitt adventures.
I loved that the story hinged on the lost Franklin Expedition, it is one of Canada's greatest mysteries. At the time he wrote the story, I am sure that Cussler knew there was a coordinated search, led by Parks Canada, for the lost ships Terror and Erebus. This was his last chance to have Pitt and Girodino have a hand in their discovery. Wonderful.
The action played out on the shaggy British Columbia coast and in the Northwest Passage. I liked that the moustache-twirling bad guy was taking advantage of the current climate change crisis, that was a nice nod to the real world.
I used to read the Dirk Pitt adventures in the ‘80s and drifted away from them after getting married and having children. Now Pitt has kids of his own and is married! I will have to find some older novels to catch up on things.
Having his kids investigate one part of the conspiracy while Pitt and Girodino chase their own high-arctic leads made for a well structured story.
These books are still terrific fun and an easy page-turner.
Highly recommended if you’re looking for escapist adventuring.
I cannot remember how I came across this little collection of stories from Tor.com but there it was waiting for me in my Kobo app. The ebook contains six stories. This was the first.
It was a sad story about a waiter coping with the loss of his mother and how he tries to recreate her dumplings.
There is much more going on here than just that. As he comes to terms with the loss of his mother he has to contend with his cunning and self-involved big sister who takes advantage of him at every opportunity.
The other employees of the restaurant see that he is suffering and offer help which is always politely refused. But there is one person whom the main character has a connection.
Climate change is a big, big topic and most of what I've read has been all about the doom. But surely, as Peter Diamandis often says, "The world's biggest problems are the world's biggest business opportunities."
I am an optimist by nature and if there is a problem, I like to take the position of; "Okay, what can we do from now on to prevent or fix the problem?" It does the world no good to constantly claim that the sky is falling.
If there are better ways to do things how can we go about doing them?
Bill Nye holds no punches but also doesn't go about blaming or pointing fingers. We, as a society, went about our ways in what we believed at the time to be the most effective way to grow, progress and thrive. And we've done exactly that. But we were not looking at the whole picture.
As humans, we've always believed that the world was limitless because, when there were much fewer of us the planet could actually sustain us - to a point. We were doing things from the very start that put us on a path to where we are today. I'm talking about CO2 here.
The book tackles a multitude of problems and explains how it came about but more importantly how to move forward from here. Energy production, transportation of goods and people, food production, desalinating seawater and the importance of space as a resource are all explored here.
There is a wonderful portion in the book where Bill, I feel that it's okay to call him Bill, walks the reader through his house to show all of the ways he's making changes to reduce his personal carbon footprint. Can he do all of this because he has money? Of course. But it serves as an inspiration to try to make changes around your own home. Rain barrels are a fine example of a cheap way to conserve water and not spend a lot of money creating the system.
The book is clear, concise and with a dash of humour along the way. This is the kind of book you'll refer to and lend to your friends.
