The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard - Book Review #286

I have a soft spot for AI’s and especially the one’s the occupy spaceships.  There is something familiar and yet alien about them.  Because I love ships of all kinds, ocean-going or space, I feel protective to them.

The Shadow’s Child was a military transport that suffered a catastrophic ambush in a past war and is currently working from a space station, taking on occasional passengers and brewing drugs to help humans cope and function during FTL flights.

I was taken by the acceptance of the AI as a being with rights and responsibilities.  Perhaps this is because the intelligence itself was first created by human parents before being transferred to the ship’s systems.

I was also taken by the culture, so much of SF seems to be an extension of Western military life but here the culture is overwhelmingly Asian in influence.  I found this refreshing.  So much world-building calls for authors to invent systems that fit their stories but why not use ones that are part of our world today?  If humanity is to expand into space it’s logical that we will take our cultures with us.

The story a pastiche as the two main characters, Long Chau is much like Sherlock Holmes and The Shadow’s Child as Watson.  The characters were engaging and the mystery cloaked in family history.

It was a delight of a book.  Plus, it won the Nebula Award for best Novella in 2018.

Aliette de Boddard’s Website - https://aliettedebodard.com/

Aliette de Bodard

Outbound by Brad R Torgersen - Book Review #273

This was a scary then hopeful story of a boy who is caught up in a civilization-ending war.

Why can’t humans get over their Earthbound problems?  Instead, war breaks out, like it always does, but this time the consequences are epically tragic.

Our young narrator survives the attacks and then takes up a quest to find a rumoured race of people living in the Kuiper belt.

I love these kinds of stories that take place on a giant canvas but are intensely personal too.

This was excellent stuff that is rich in possibilities of more stories to be enjoyed.

Seek it out.

Well worth the read.

Brad R Torgersen’s website - http://bradrtorgersen.com/

Brad R Torgersen

All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells - Book Review #244

Remember Peter Weller in Robocop?  Part man, part machine?

Murderbot is a bit like that; the central core of the "product" is biological, a cloned human being, but with only rudimentary free will - he can make decisions within a task but cannot decide between tasks.  Unless he has managed to hack into and subvert his governor module.

This is the big secret, he may be a security unit, known as a SecUnit, assigned to a small team of planetary explorers but he is not under their complete control.

The drama gets rolling when it is discovered that another nearby base has lost communications.  The team goes to investigate.

The story is narrated by Murderbot himself.  I’ve got to admit “Murderbot” is a pretty compelling name and I wanted to know why he called himself that. Only glimpses of his past are revealed.

Martha Wells has done a nice job of delivering a tense thriller and gave the protagonist unexpected depth.  The story is layered and I was happy to be introduced to the larger universe this one story occupies.  This is a perfect way to dive into a Space Opera; start with a small group of characters in a small place, in this case a far off planet, and then return them to their homes and you get a natural way to introduce the reader to a larger world.

I am certainly looking forward to reading the second instalment. 

Martha Wells' website - http://www.marthawells.com/

Martha Wells

Short Stories and Novellas.

Image from the article.

I read a terrific article on the WIRED website:  HOW TECHNOLOGY SHAPES THE WAY WE READ by some poor, uncredited staff member.  It tells the story of the resurgence of the novella and how it is the perfect format for our society today.

I must say the I completely agree.  I am often overwhelmed by the commitment involved in a series or even stand alone novels.

Way back, when the paperback revolution was underway, books often came in around 150 pages.  These were tightly plotted and sparse that got to the point of things.  But then, in the past few decades, books began to top out over 400 pages, my guess is to justify the cover price; readers wanted quantity over quality.

How often have you read a chapter knowing full well that it is nothing but filler?  I once read a Star Trek novel that took three pages (!) to answer the door.

Anyway, the article was rather liberating to me.  Short stories and novellas are often only available to mystery and science fiction readers in magazines or anthologies.  After reading the piece, I felt I had permission to enjoy myself, to read a short story or novella and appreciate it for what it can be - a story well told.

Although I've given short stories their fair share, here on my humble little blog (usually posted on Wednesdays), I've always felt that it is not "real" reading, you know?  Novels are the thing.  I've often felt that some of the best short stories could have easily been expanded into a novel.  But maybe that's not quite right.  Maybe I liked it so much, because it was just the right length, that it left me wanting more.

I went straight to Chapters Indigo and bought the first TOR.Com ebook that appealed to me.  It was by John Scalzi, more on that in my next post.

Star Trek: The Original Series: Seasons of Light and Darkness by Michael A. Martin

6/100

This is a very good Leonard McCoy "origin" story.

I'm using quotes since the novella explores McCoy's first mission as a member of starfleet, not so much his complete back story.  Here we find him trying to put some distance between himself and a difficult period in his life.  He is accepted into starfleet medical and immediately sent to Capella IV for an extended medical/diplomatic mission.

In the TV series and movies McCoy has a very strong belief in what is right and wrong and his own roll on the Enterprise.  If I want to be flip about it; this is the story that explains his saying, "Dammit Jim!  I'm a doctor not a ..."  But I don't want to trivialize this, McCoy came to this saying in a deeply difficult way.  If anything, reading this story will make that line less of a joke and give it a deeper meaning.

Yup.  I liked this one a lot.

Read it.

The opening scene of the book.

Michael A. Martin