Here There be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido - Star Trek: S.C.E Book 3 - A Short Story Review

 

Here is the strength and weakens of tie-in books - they reward the dedicated reader while making somebody new to the series know they are missing context. 

This story in particular really made me feel that I was missing out on just how it fit into the wider narrative of the Star Trek Literary Universe.

Just look at the Historian's Note inserted before the story!

Here There Be Monsters takes place shortly after the events of the Gateways crossover, specifically after Book 3: Doors Into Chaos, Book 4: Demons of Air and Darkness, Book 5: No Man's Land, Book 6: Cold Wars, and the stories "Horn and Ivory," "In the Queue," "Death After Life," and "The Other Side" in Book 7: What Lay Beyond.

Whew!

Is this pure marketing or a service to the reader?  Being a completist myself, the references in the story to the events above served only to distract me from the events in front of me.  Of course, had I read those books previously, I would have been feeling quite rewarded by all this.

A good writer will not allow previous books to take away from the one he is writing nor to make those details required reading to understand the current adventure.  And that was the case here.

The gateways, which in my mind looked and worked like the time portal from the original Star Trek TV series, was causing havoc on a distant colony.  "Monsters" were coming through and making things unpleasant for the locals.

Thank goodness Star Trek is about "seeking out new life and new civilizations" and not just killing the life forms we don't understand.  The team of the U.S.S da Vinci take the time to understand what is happening before taking any action.

This is why I will always love Star Trek.  It posits that one day we will be better than our bullets.

The Riddled Post by Aaron Rosenberg - Star Trek: S.C.E Book 3 - A Short Story Review

 

Sometimes, after reading a big book like one of the Expanse tomes, I like to settle into something short and familiar.

Nothing fits that bill quite like Star Trek stories.

Best of all, if you like the ideas and the world of Star Trek, the books are a terrific way to get more ST goodness.

This series of books are collections of short stories of a different ship, with a different crew, on a different mission, to fix what is broken.

Great pains are taken to fit these adventures into the timeline established by the television shows and movies PLUS the timeline within the Star Trek Literary Universe.  Whew!

In The Riddled Post the crew of the USS da Vinci are sent to investigate what happened to a far-flung outpost that seems to have been attacked. 

These Starfleet Corps of Engineers stories are problem solving adventures - like MacGyver in space.

I must admit, I thought I had the problem figured out from chapter 3 but I was surprised by the actual source.  

It took the entire team to figure it all out and make the outpost safe again.

I do enjoy stories about smart people being smart.

Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey - Book Review 334

 

Book 5.

I have read, or listened to, books 2 through 4 but haven't reviewed them here.

They were all very good.  Book 4 especially rang true with today's examination of colonialism and its terrible legacy.

But this is book 5.  Back in the solar system, the crew of the Rocinante get some well-deserved shore leave. 

The ship is in dry dock at Tycho station getting major repairs done.  Meanwhile Alex, Amos and Naomi all leave to take care of personal matters.

But the world they live in keeps churning.  Somehow everybody winds up in the middle of a solar system catastrophe and each plays a part in dealing with it.

I enjoyed this book very much.  Best of all, after each book, I get to watch a season of the television series.

I've always found stories that break up a team frustrating.  Because teams work best TOGETHER.  However, this was a terrific opportunity for character development and to reset the ground rules. 

What can I say?  I'm all in with this series.  Absolutely terrific stuff.

Mathew Swain: When Trouble Beckons - Book Review 333

 

Normally I don't review books I don't enjoy.  Because I usually don't finish them anyway.

But I had a conversation with my daughter, asking her when she gives up on books?  After a certain page count?  When the story jumps the shark in some way?

"I finish all my books.  Even the ones I don't like."

"Why?"

"For two reasons; one - what if it gets better?  And two - if it doesn't then at least I know that much."

Huh.

I asked her because I was reading this book and was considering stopping and donating it to our Little Free Library.

So I kept on.  You know what?  I still didn't like it.  Now I know.

And it held so much promise too.  Just look at that cover!  A Han Solo wannabe lighting up a cig on the moon!  A private eye no less.  This could be campy fun.

I tried to be kind.  It was published in 1981 after all.  The Space Shuttle was still being tested in those days.  There was very little common knowledge about orbital mechanics and the limits of the lifting capacity of rockets.  Heck, dune buggies on the moon were the most advanced notions in those days.

And that's what got me.  The fact that I was reading a 41 year old book.  It had all the hard boiled detective stuff that I wanted but life in orbital space stations, the size of them, the materials lifted to create them AND how the author would often forget that he set a foot chase in zero G was too much for me.

It was a strange, strange read.  There were other highly implausible plot points that just went beyond reason.

So was there value in reading beyond the point of giving up on a book?  I must admit there is, now that it's over.  

I kept asking myself, "Why am I still reading this?"  Now that I've turned the last page, I can really appreciate it as a bad book.  I know it is, because I read the whole thing.

Thank goodness it was only 216 pages.

Artemis by Andy Weir - A Reread - See Post #227

 

As mentioned in my last post, my good friend sent me a care package of books.

I didn't mention to him that I had already read Artemis.  Sorry Steve. 

But since I respect him so much, I reread the book.  This is something I very, very rarely do.  Life is too short.  There are so many stories to discover.

I was curious.  Would I like it as much as I did the first time around?

Yes.  More so even.

I found Jazz Bashara more well-rounded than I did the first time I read the book.

Near space is something I like very much in my science fiction.  By that I mean our solar system.  Sure light speed is cool but come on!  We haven't even been back to the moon yet.  

We need more science fiction like this, to inspire us to explore the Moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter's moons.  Interstellar travel will come, but we need to get out there first.  We need to explore, fail and learn before we can ever take a trip on the Enterprise. 

The Expanse is a series that is also fulfilling that need in our SF.  More on that later. 

Yes.  I enjoyed my second time in this book.  I am happy to say that my previous post about it stands.  Feel free to read Post #227 to hear what I thought about it. 

Thank you Steve.  I had a lot of fun.  Hope you enjoy the book I sent you in return.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Book Review 332

 

A good friend of mine sent me this book in the mail. And I am so glad he did.

Andy Weir is a terrific voice in Science Fiction.  He makes being smart, industrious and creative the hallmarks of his stories.  They are just as inspiring as they are entertaining. 

Learn all you can.  Follow your passions and interests.  You just never know when what you know can solve the problem.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor of a deep space mission sent to save all life on Earth from an environmental catastrophe.  Don't worry, it's not what you think. 

Trouble is he has no memory of his mission or who he is.  Never mind the two dead bodies that are in the ship with him.

Then he is faced with a first contact situation with another race from another star system. 

It's a terrific story of survival, solving the mystery of why Grace is on this mission, finding a way to communicate with the alien in the ship next door, and cooperation between them.

At 476 pages, I found myself going back to it for just a few more pages just to see what happens next.  The pace was quick without being frantic.  Kind of like space.  Things are so far away that time takes on a whole new scale.

Problem solving is still at the heart of Weir's writing, but this is different from his previous two books. It's his first interstellar story and I was glad his aliens were not humanoid.  Why would they be?  This presented a whole new set of mysteries to solve.  Communication. Environment. Technology.  But they had physics and mathematics in common. 

I look forward to the next adventure Mr. Weir takes me on.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Book Review #329

 

What a read!

The post-apocalyptic story is one we are all familiar with.  Some catastrophe has fallen upon humanity, be it environmental, plague, or war, and we follow a story of survival.

A father and son are walking from the north, most likely the eastern seaboard of America, to the south.  The father wants to escape the winter and to presumably find a better life for his son. 

The world McCarthy created felt a bit further on in this genre, I thought of it as a post-post-apocalypse.  

It is a story of survival, against nature and people.  Dedication.  And determination.

When it looked like the story was going to devolve into a Mad Max kind of thing, it didn't.  I found this refreshing.

I tore through the book and very nearly read it in one sitting.

The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez - Book review #321

Mac Megaton is a robot taxi driver just trying to earn his citizenship.  

One day his neighbours are abducted, the circumstances are suspect, but the police are not motivated, so Mac decides to do something about it.

This book is a wonderful mashup of detective fiction, a Jetson's vision of the future, all set in a city filled with talking gorillas and mutants.  

Narrated by our protagonist robot, I was reminded of Robert B Parker's Spenser series.  Empire City is a strange place populated by even stranger citizens which brought to my mind George R R Martin's Wild Cards books.  

The story itself moved along quickly and was peppered with terrific side characters.

If you're looking for some light-hearted, escapist fun, in this crazy pandemic world, this book will fit the bill.  It will help you to forget our reality for a while.

I am glad I read it.

Recommended. 

Wild Cards I - Voume One edited by George R R Martin - Book Report #313

 

Apologies for the lack of posts.  There has been a pandemic going on and I've been busy building my own personal blog at eric-hebert.ca

It was the cover that drew me in.  It looked steampunk to me but I've heard the series described as dieselpunk  which is similar in that it's "retro futuristic" but instead of being informed by the Victorian era it takes its technology cues and attitudes from the 1930's to 1950's.  

I've always been drawn to the aesthetics and technology of the WWII era and the rest of the 1940's.  So this looked like fun.

The series has been around since the 1980's and continues on today.  This particular book was in a mini hardcover format that I also found interesting and prompted me to buy it.  I only wish the other two books in the first cycle were available in the same format, they would look very nice on my bookshelf.

The stories are all loosely connected around a singular event, that of an alien virus spreading throughout the world killing many and giving others "powers" that could be described as super or meh.  Some survivors were made heroic, others villains and still others merely shlubs. 

Think of the X-Men to get a feel of the super-powers folks develop.

Each story was a delight to read and did not just tell the story of some conflict but also delved into the consequences of being changed by the Wildcard Virus.  There is a humanity, humour and pulpy fun to the stories.

I found this book a delight to read as it offered a timely subject (the virus) but also charged the stories with fun.  I felt that we can get through this fight with COVID-19 in much the same way as the characters deal with their virus, by coping and adjusting to it.

Recommended for a bit of escapism in a comic book way that does not take itself too seriously. 

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson - Book Report #302

If you look back to my previous reviews of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy I raked him over the coals.

But, as time went on, I kept thinking about those books and what became obvious, is the unbelievable amount of research Robinson put into them.  This is a hallmark of his writing.  He researches his topics to death, to the point of probably being an expert himself.  And this becomes the gift of his novels.  When I reach for something by KSR I am usually interested in the subject, be it climate change or Mars or deep space travel and I know I will get a factual education along with a narrative to hang the details onto.

New York 2140 places a cast of characters in the city after the global oceans have risen by disastrous amounts.  It is a story of survival, adaptation and how the current financial systems and the machinations of globalism, consumerism and capitalism persist.


It was a stunning look at how things could drastically change and some not at all.  It's a well-researched warning as to what could happen if we don't change everything quickly.  Climate change does not necessarily mean the end of humanity, but it could.  Robinson only looked at the effects of sea level rise and not the consequences of pollution, temperature increase and acidification of the waters.

I see it as a call to action to get things right - today.  The decisions we have made to stem the wreckage of the global financial crisis have lasting effects into the future.  In the future of the novel decisions are viewed as short-sighted and lacking.

I loved this story as it helps to crystallize a view of the world as it could be.  Visions of the future are very difficult to imagine and we only try to correct things with images of the present.  This is a trap.

Robinson takes on gigantic topics and did a tremendous job of not spinning this into a trilogy too.  By keeping the subject to one book he has made a strong and potent case for solving our problems now and into a future we can barley grasp.

Well done sir.

Kim Stanley Robinson's Wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Stanley_Robinson

The audio book was narrated by - Jay Snyder, Robin Miles, Suzanne Toren, Peter Ganim, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Christopher Ryan Grant, Caitlin Kelly, Michael Crouch, Robert Blumenfeld

Kim Stanley Robinson

Tribute by Jack Skillingstead - A Short Story Review

A mission to Mars goes badly.  NASA is defunded.  Corporations are nearly the only players left in space.

But what of science?  What of exploration?

How can these higher pursuits be served when the profit motive is the only thing left in space?

It's an interesting story, especially for those voices who do not see the value of a government funded space agency. 

I found this last story of the collection very thought provoking.  The missions to Mars are terrific storytelling but the bigger questions of corporate priorities in space lingered in my mind.

There is room enough in outer space for all the players, if you ask me.




Jack Skillingstead's web site - https://www.jackskillingstead.com/

Jack Skillingstead

Rare (Off) Earth Elements - A Sam Gunn Tale by Ben Bova - A Short Story Review

I've been a long-time fan of Bova's.  I consider him the Clive Cussler of space.  His writing, although much more nuanced are still firmly "pulpy."  Bova's villains are often psychologically damaged, greedy or
mustache-twirlingly evil.

But there is a special place for Sam Gunn, who is a comical rogue that flitters in and out Bova's novels but more often lives in stand-alone short stories.  He is an opportunist who is constantly seeking, and losing, his fortunes.

This story hinges on asteroid mining and the limitations placed upon the activity by the Outer Space Treaty.  In order for an individual or a country to have a legal claim to the minerals of a body in space the claim must be made from the object itself.  A "flag" must be planted.

That's a pretty onerous legal detail but it forces interested parties into space, where adventure awaits.  When you think about it, it's a rather human clause.  We have a long history of exploration and this method of flag planting has long been acknowledged as the correct way to go about things.

In this little gem, the plans of a nation are pitted against the motivations of an individual.

I liked this story very much.

Ben Bova's website - http://benbova.com/

Ben Bova

Star Trek: Titan: Fortune of War by David Mack - Book Report #300

I'm always a bit torn when I read, or listen, to Star Trek books.  On the one hand it's terrific to catch up with those characters but on the other, it can be a bit frustrating, because so much has gone on in the books that I feel like I've missed out on a lot.

And that should be okay.  Why shouldn't dedicated readers be rewarded for sticking with the franchise and supporting it?  The Titan series is not a bad one to drop into as the books are pretty much stand-alone adventures but with a narrative arc that spans over all the books.  The authors are usually pretty good about catching a new reader up with details from previous books.

And there's the rub; I'd love to read them all but there are so many that it's daunting.

In any case, this story picks up a thread from an episode of the TNG television series and that is always satisfying.

A superweapon is discovered and the race is on to make sure the bad guys don't get their hands on it.  There are a lot of bad guys, not-so-bad guys, opportunists and the Federation here.

This is a David Mack story so be ready for lots of action, good humour and a high body count.  My only frustration with the Titan series is that I wish they'd get Admiral Riker off the fucking ship.  He is constantly second-guessing Captain Vale's decisions that I am surprised Star Fleet continues to allow the situation.

Other than that quibble, this was a terrific yarn, jammed full of the stuff that makes Star Trek fun.

David Mack's website:  http://davidmack.pro/

David Mack

The Butcher of Anderson Station by James S A Corey - A Short Story Review

Fred Johnson was a very important character in the first Expanse book.

This is the story of how he became known as the The Butcher of Anderson Station.

It was a nice way to enjoy a little bit more of this world without having to dive into another 500+ pages.

It's entirely possible this was edited out of the original manuscript.  If so, it's a nice way to get the story out there.

James S A Corey's website - https://www.jamessacorey.com/

The writing team known as James S A Corey

Leviathan Wakes by James S A Corey - Book Report #298

Book One of The Expanse series

My first taste of the series was of the television show.  I only watched one episode and it did not grab me.  I had the copy of the first book in my basement for years.  After hearing that the TV series has been renewed for a fifth season, and friends telling me how much I would like it, I decided to dust off book one and give it a read.

I was hooked very quickly.  This is the kind of lived-in, day-to-day, blue-collar kind of science fiction that I love.  For those of you as old as me (born in the 60's) think of what you felt when you first saw the Millennium Falcon.

This was an excellent blend of gritty neo-noir detective story and grand political drama set in a solar system that has been dominated by humans.  Mars, the asteroid belt, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn all have human presence.  And much like humanity of today we are not there for scientific reasons; we are there to make a living.  Water and oxygen are more valuable than gold to the people living and working off Earth.

An ice mining ship answers a distress call, which is a trap that starts a war between Earth, Mars and The Belt.

What I liked most about the story is how it focused only on two characters and the people that surround them.  This kept the larger story from spinning the the whole thing out of control.  It is a gigantic story and it took discipline to contain it in this first book.

This is a big series, with novels, novellas and short stories that bounce around the timeline of the novels.  I've decided to read thing in publication order to experience it the way fans from the beginning would have.

Generally I like my SF to be about humans, FTL and aliens tend to make storytelling a bit more lazy.  I like that we are stuck in our own solar system and that people have to be very careful about acceleration, maneuvering and things like the Coriolis effect.  (I had to look up that last one.)

It was well written, fun, fast-paced, believable and had lots of characters that I liked.

Highly recommended.

Website of James S A Corey - https://www.jamessacorey.com/

James S A Corey is the pen name for authors
Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck

The Rabbit Hole by James Gunn - A Short Story Review

What are conditions like inside a wormhole?

James Gunn takes a stab at some serious alternate reality in this story.

A message form an alien culture  is decoded and instructions to build a ship capable of entering a wormhole to travel to a distant solar system is discovered.

The ship is built and flown where directed.

Hold on to your brains as life inside is difficult to understand and manipulate.

I thought Gunn did a great job of making such a challenging environment light and fun to read.

It stands apart from the other stories in that it is less blue-collar Hard SF than scientific Hard SF.


I enjoyed it very much and found it quite cinematic in my mind.  I kept seeing Event Horizon blended with Memento.

James Gunn's Wikipedia page -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_E._Gunn_(writer)

James Gunn

Ten Days Up by Curtis C. Chen - A Short Story Review

I will say, in this first sentence, the story did not work for me.

It was very well written, I loved the story about two workers on a routine run up and down a space elevator.

Things go wrong on the way up and one of the crew is trapped outside with an oncoming solar storm making things worse.

Man vs environment is a terrific plot construct but sadly there was just too much channeling of MacGyver for me to believe in the plausibility of it.

I think the author tried very hard to amp up the danger when he did not have to.  Being stuck outside, in a hard vacuum, with a solar flare en route was plenty of peril for one person to deal with.  Adding orbital mechanics to it was just a bit too much for me.

Everything else about the story was excellent, I loved the interaction with ground control and the worn-in routine of working on a space elevator. 


Curtis Chen is an author to look for.

Curtis C Chen's website - https://curtiscchen.com/

Curtis C Chen

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

Malf by David D Levine - A Short Story Review

Asteroid mining, automated and on a contract basis.  This is the ultimate gig-economy job.

What if asteroids were mined remotely and brought back to Earth, splashed into the ocean, recovered, and the minerals extracted?

Great idea. But, since it’s for-profit companies that are doing the mining, getting the asteroids ready and guided to Earth is a job best contracted out.

This, of course, opens the process to non-standard methods of operation.

This story reminded me of the recent demonstration of hacking into driver-less cars.  The author poses the question; what would happen if someone hacked into the propulsion systems of an inbound asteroid and changed its course?

This was an excellent story.

David D Levine's website - https://daviddlevine.com/

David D Levine

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