The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi - Book Report #296

Book 2 of the The Interdependency series

Once again, Scalzi managed to entertain by cutting to the chase expecting his audience to keep up with him and using humor to terrific effect.

I am saddened to know that I have to wait until the spring of 2020 before the third book in the series is published.

In this book we come to learn more about the history of The Flow and of the Interdependency.  On a side mission we get to explore a long-cut-off part of space and human history.  There we meet a new character that I very much enjoyed.

The bigger, political and power-grabbing parts of the story that normally bore me to tears were made much more entertaining by putting Kiva Lagos into the middle of all of it.  Believe me, she is so much fun.

All in all, this was a fun read and I am looking forward to the next one.

~ ~ ~

On a personal note, this book got me through a difficult time in my life.  Our long-lived 16 year old Labrador was terribly sick and we had to put her down while I was reading the final few chapters of the story.  Thank you Mr. Scalzi for providing me with a much needed distraction and for giving me much joy in the story.

John Scalzi

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi - Book Review #295

Book 1 of the The Interdependency series

I've been looking for a space opera series I could get into but I am often turned away from the work involved in slogging through mountains of exposition many authors fall into to set up their worlds.  So I get bored, put the book down and never return to it.

 

Not so with John Scalzi.  This first book starts off with a bang - a mutiny with some fantastic sardonic wit and self-deprecation.  From the first page we are dealing with people betraying trusts and trying to get ahead, like all people since the beginning of people.  This ground the story to a manageable scale and introduced The Flow, which is a naturally occurring river in space that humans have learned to use to travel between the stars.

 

From this an economy, dynasties and a religion were formed to give order to society.  But there is a problem - The Flow changes from time to time and this can have devastating consequences to the systems newly cut off from interstellar travel.  This time the change is going to be much, much bigger. 

 

What Scalzi does best is weave exposition into the narrative, never expanding the world for pages on end but as the plot develops.  And there is a lot going on here, there are ship captains and scientists, merchant guilds that compete amongst each other and try to exert political influence with the Emperox who's own life is an interesting one. 

I don't know if it was intended but the changes in The Flow are very much like Climate Change today.  Especially in the inertia encountered with the establishment; nobody wants to believe it and nobody wants to do anything about it until it happens.  Sound familiar?

I very much enjoyed  the book and immediately went out and picked up book 2.

John Scalzi's website - https://whatever.scalzi.com/

John Scalzi

The President’s Brain Is Missing by John Scalzi

I use to love watching The West Wing; the dialogue, the intelligence of the characters and the humor all worked so well that I kept coming back to the show.

This story was a lot like that, okay the premise was silly, but all good science fiction plays with the question, "What If?"

So you go with it; a dim-witted president discovers that he cannot keep his head under water when he goes for his morning swim and he's feeling rather light-headed, come to think of it.  The resident doctor does some tests and sends the president to bed for some rest.

A meeting is called for the senior staff in the oval office.  The doctor's discovery is discussed and a plan is set in motion to discover how this could have happened.  And why is the president not dead, you know, by being without a brain?

What follows is a terrific romp with intelligent people trying to unravel a mystery that is utterly impossible but they have to deal with it.

Like The West Wing this story had excellent dialogue and that sharp Scalzi that made it a joy to read.  I actually put it down once just to savour it.

Honestly, this could be filmed.  It would make a terrific episode of The Veep.

Find John Scalzi here:  https://whatever.scalzi.com/

John Scalzi

The Human Division/Episode 2 - Walk The Plank by John Scalzi

31/100

Yikes! What a gritty story.

Unlike Episode 1 we are presented here with an audio transcript of an interview from a dying man who survived an attack by pirates. (yes! space pirates! cool.)

The poor survivor thinks he made it to safety but he, quite literately, dropped from one dangerous situation into another.

I was hoping we'd pick the story up with the same cast of characters from Episode 1 but instead I found the universe Scalzi has created expanded before me.  I loved the grittiness of it.  Space is hard and it takes tough people to occupy it.

I am now a giant fan of Scalzi.  This guy can write in any style he wants and make the story a pleasure to read.

John Scalzi's website is here:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/

John Scalzi

The Human Division/Episode 1 - The B-Team by John Scalzi

30/100

Scalzi is a fantastic writer.  In no time at all he can build a believable world filled with likable characters.  The disadvantage I had with this story is that it is deep into the Old Man's War series.  But even by dropping into the middle of the story The B-Team was a small enough that I could grab on to the plot points of this particular mission and enjoy it thoroughly.

I really enjoyed this one; the dialog was crisp and fun and I particularly liked that these people were not considered the best-of-the-best which made the whole thing sing for me.  But there is a lot of information to gather to fully understand what is going on in this little adventure.  There are enormous political divisions that gives the whole thing more meaning.  Space opera is like that and space opera is good, it's just a bit intimidating knowing there are many books that I missed.

The trick is to whet a reader's appetite to dive into the world that was created.  Scalzi did a fantastic job in getting me interested in the story as a whole without taking anything away from the short story I was reading at the time.  It did it's job; it entertained me and got me hooked on the back list as well.  I will read one more from the Human Division then put it down to read the first books of the Old Man's War series.

John Scalzi's website is here:

 http://whatever.scalzi.com/

John Scalzi

Book Report #91 - Redshirts by John Scalzi

Book 15 of 52
Page count - 314

I thought I'd try something new in picking my next book.  Up until now I've just followed my nose; this time I thought I'd pick an author who's birthday is celebrated in the current month, May 10th by the way.  Preferably I'd also have a book already on my shelf; Scalzi's name popped out and I have two of his books ready to read.  I've also read two of his books and enjoyed them very much.  The reading of those books, Old Man's War and Zoe's Tale, predate this blog so there are no reviews posted here.

Anybody who is even slightly interested in science fiction will get the Star Trek reference from the title and know that it will follow the "adventures" of those lowly ranked folks who tend to come to sticky ends on away missions.

The book is a fun romp through the TV SF tropes and was just a joy to read.  The book centers around a group of five "Redshirts" who begin to suspect that something very strange is happening on board the Intrepid, a ship much like the Enterprise.   Somewhere along the line our "heroes" find out their reality is being influenced by something unexpected

I loved this book, it was a wonderful way to roll around in TV SF lore and just laugh about it and enjoy it for what it is.  But then the book takes a turn, a wonderful turn, a turn that makes the book important, serious and wonderful.  There are three codas at the end, comprising the last 80 pages, that give the book weight; three codas written in three different voices, first, second and third person; that bring into focus the importance of the events of reality and fiction; of fiction on reality and reality on fiction.

If this sounds confusing, it should, and you should read this book.

The author has a blog HERE.

John Scalzi