Highlights and Lowlights - Mar 2023
I usually do this every two months, but the JanFeb post was too long
for my tastes, so to prevent that from happening again, I’m doing
March all by itself in this post.
There is one spoiler below, but it is well-advertised and well-labeled,
and is only located in a footnote at the very end.
Books are listed in reverse chronological order from how I read them,
using a very primitive rating system:
“+” are good, and more “+” are better
“-“ are not good, and more “-“ are worse
I’m happy to answer questions about anything on the list.
Highlight - Leviathan Falls - Corey [Expanse #9]
Lowlight - Probably The Stars Asunder - Doyle & MacDonald [Mageworlds #6]
Here’s a quick summary of what’s more in-depth below:
( ++ - - ) Shield - Poul Anderson
( + ) The Heirs of Babylon - Cook
( ++ ) The Best Science Fiction Firsts - ed. by Asimov, Waugh, Greenberg
( +++ - - ) Hellspark - Kagan
( ++ - - ) The Stars Asunder - Doyle & MacDonald [Mageworlds #6]
( ++ ) Pushing Ice - Reynolds
( ++ - ) Under Pressure - Herbert (aka The Dragon in the Sea)
( ++ - ) The Templar Treasure - Katherine Kurtz & Deborah Turner Harris [Adept #3]
( +++ ) Leviathan Falls - Corey [Expanse #9]
Now Reading:
Long work - Expendable - James Alan Gardner [Festina Ramos/League of Peoples #1]
Collection - Grimm’s Fairy Tales
===========================================
March 2023
( ++ - - ) Shield - Poul Anderson
This is okay, maybe even almost good. A US astronaut has successfully
worked with the reclusive, enigmatic Martians to create personal shield technology, and comes back to Earth with one prototype, only to find
that every military power in the world wants to capture him and possess
his device, including the US. Wacky hijinks ensue. The pluses are for
the neat science, both in explanation and extrapolation. The minuses
are for the unsatisfying and abrupt final two pages (which do come after
the climax & resolution, mind you), and for when Poul puts on his libertarian hat and monologues his way through an entire chapter about 3/4 of the
way through the book.
( + ) The Heirs of Babylon - Cook
Eh…not great, not awful. Cook is one of my favorite authors,
but this is his very first novel and it’s kinda well known to be competent-not-great. Earth, post nuclear- and bio-apocalypse,
but still a war setting, using falling-apart WWII-era technology,
now that the WWIII stuff is gone. Very much reads like WWII
naval warfare set in this post-apocalyptic future. <shrug> It’s okay.
( ++ ) The Best Science Fiction Firsts - ed. by Asimov, Waugh, Greenberg
As you’d surmise, the linking theme to this anthology is that these
are stories the editors say are the first examples of <Pick A Topic>.
The list of stories is here:
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?178493
There are 12 stories, ranging from 1839 to 1966, including authors such
as Leiber, Niven, Poe, del Rey, Leinster, Matheson, Asimov, and HG Wells. There’s a nice intro to the volume (including that they want to hear from people who know of earlier examples than what they chose); and each of
the 12 stories also comes with a 1-2 page intro that includes other early examples that weren’t quite the earliest. Mostly high quality stuff here,
and the intros are quite interesting, too.
( +++ - - ) Hellspark - Kagan
This book was almost great. This book was almost awful. It’s about
the multi-cultural crew of an interplanetary survey ship, in a very
intriguing setting, on a very intriguing planet, with at least two very intriguing mysteries. BUT… the execution is maddeningly inconsistent,
the two biggest flaws being 1) the long ramblings & over-emphasis on
languages & cultures, and 2) how naively/horribly these aspects are (mis-)handled by veteran (that’s v-e-t-e-r-a-n, veteran) crew members. Overall, the pluses surely outweigh the minuses, but…so close to
being awesome, and yet so far.
( ++ - - ) The Stars Asunder - Doyle & MacDonald [Mageworlds #6]
With one huge exception, this was “good, for a prequel”. Full
disclosure: I typically don’t like prequels, unless they’re so far in
the past that they have almost nothing to do with the non-prequels.
Anyhow, this one shares a character with the main novels, and gets
too cute with some of the back-filling; but the double minus is primarily
for the stupidest first-contact strategy I’ve ever encountered — spoiled
at the end below in footnote [1].
( ++ ) Pushing Ice - Reynolds
This is a very well done stand-alone, with a far future prologue and
epilogue sandwiched around the main story. Captain Bella Lind and
the crew of the ice mining ship Rockhopper pursue Saturn’s former
moon Janus which just up and left the solar system on its own accord.
Lind & company plan to study & learn as much as possible before
Janus gets out of range, but they get dragged into the whole mystery themselves. Somewhat surprising to me, in addition to the cool
science and ideas that consistently appear in Reynolds’ work, this
one also very much features the 100+ year relationship/story of Lind
and her opposing crew member Svetlana.
( + - ) Under Pressure - Herbert (aka The Dragon in the Sea)
The submarine parts were very good. The psychology stuff slides
downhill into a whole lot of BS and by the end it is rather distracting.
( ++ - ) The Templar Treasure - Katherine Kurtz & Deborah Turner Harris [Adept #3]
Okay/fine, and I don’t know if I’ll read #4. Still too detailed & tedious regarding Scotland. Adam Sinclair is a fine protagonist, but he’s
starting to collect power-ups pretty frequently and pretty easily.
The ending is sort of abrupt, especially when contrasted with the
long (and maybe too long) build-up.
( +++ ) Leviathan Falls - Corey [Expanse #9]
This was really good. It’s the series-ender, and it’s a great way
to finish. Plays fair with everyone, ties up the major threads while
leaving some things unfinished or uncommented on. The Rocinante
crew sees it through, and of course Holden plays a primary role in
the climax/resolution. Tanaka was a bit much in places, but never
quite crossed the line; very interesting Epilogue - not one I would
have expected, but it’s not at all out of line.
Now Reading:
Long work - Expendable - James Alan Gardner [Festina Ramos/League of Peoples #1]
Collection - Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Tony
[1] Spoiler for the stupidest first-contact strategy I’ve ever seen,
courtesy of Doyle & MacDonald in The Stars Asunder…
No, really, this is a major spoiler…
Okay, if you went this far, I assume you want to see it:
A ship belonging to Civilization “A”, which I charitably won’t refer
to as The Civilization Of Idiots, has occasion to make first contact
with a ship from Civilization “B”. They sincerely believe — as in, it
is played straight in the book that these people think this will be a successful way to establish relations to the mutual benefit of both civilizations — it will go best if they grapple/tether the other ship,
make a hole in their hull, and send an armed boarding party through.
.
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