6 posts tagged “br: scifi”
Cleolinda Jones condenses ten blockbusters into hilarious 15-minute (or, in the case of LOTR, probably a bit longer) parodies. My personal favourite was Star Wars Episode 2, but they all had me laughing. This book's definitely worth checking out, just as bit of humorous, light reading for when you don't have time to read something more serious and in-depth. If you liked this, or want a flavour of her style before buying the book, check out her online parodies. Troy and V for Vendetta made my sides hurt.
My rating: 5 / 5
The book is set at the end of time, a decadant future where the few remaining humans possess the power, created by their ancestors, to do precisely what they want. There are no more technical innovations because everything has happened in the past; rather, they spend their time having fun, shaping parts of the world to suit their tastes, and collecting menageries of time travellers, aliens and prominent people from history.
Jherek Carnelian is one of these people, unusual for having been born the natural way but otherwise totally normal. That is, until he decides that he is going to fall in love with a time traveller from the late Victorian era, Mrs Amelia Underwood. He has to travel through time, witness the end of time and learn a heck of a lot before, at the end of the book, they are together.
What I like about the romance in the book is that it felt realistic. Mrs Amelia Underwood, a proper Victorian woman, refuses to succumb to Jherek's advances because she knows she should return to her era and be with her husband - even though she doesn't particularly like the guy. She doesn't instantly love the decadance and immorality of the end of time (they slept with anyone - Jherek tells her he slept with his mother first because she was the closest), but resists it right til the end. It made her a far more believable and interesting character. Jherek, meanwhile, has to understand the full range of human emotions, and comes to realise that love isn't a game. At the end, I felt they deserved to be in love, that they had been through enough and come to respect and understand each other enough to earn the label 'love', unlike in some books where a bit of bickering, a hug and some passionate sex means twoo lurve.
At times the book was a touch too silly for my tastes, but overall I really enjoyed it. It's definitely worth reading as a taste of something a little bit different.
My rating: 4.5 / 5
Bellis is a fantastic character. As someone I know said, the prose doesn't present her with a resounding chorus of 'you must love this woman'; on the contrary, I wouldn't fault anyone for disliking her. She's frigid, cold, sullen, hates Armada and everyone in it, and is used by two characters for plots that she only realises the truth of after they've occurred. Though she distinctly isn't, it feels like she is driving the plot because she thinks she is. She's gritty and real and one of the best characters I have ever encountered.
The other characters are great too. The Lovers are totally fucked up, Uther Doul is probably one of the deepest, darkest assassin-type characters ever written, Tanner Sack is less interesting (in my personal opinion) but no less real, Shekel is kinda cute, and so on... As for the plot - well, that's fucking awesome. I won't say any more on it, so as not to ruin it for anyone. This book is a testament to everything that the fantasy genre can be but usually isn't, and I recommend it to everyone who's sick of the usual clichés and wants to experience what fantasy should be like.
A resounding 5 / 5
Ganking the amazon summary: "In New York, 1893, society portrait painter Piero Piambo is feeling jaded, endlessly subordinating his art to capture the likenesses of the nouveaux riches. Then comes a commission he cannot refuse. He is offered a fortune to depict the mysterious Mrs Charbuque, but is not allowed to see her."
To gain an impression of her likeness, he asks her questions about her past. She helped her father examine snowflakes for portents of the future, until he found a pair of identical snowflakes and gave them to her. They whispered visions of the future to her, and she became the Sibyl, relating those visions to others from behind a screen. At one point she married, but she wouldn't allow her husband to see her and this eventually drove him into a murderous rage. His return to New York complicates things somewhat for Piambo, as a series of strange murders spread through the city.
At times the narrative style was a little too heavy and rambly for my taste, but overall it did the job well despite being the dreaded first-person. The plot is little more than already described, though there's a good twist at the end. I found the narrator (Piambo) likeable enough: I understood his dilemnas and approved of his ability to make mistakes when he should have known better. All in all it was an interesting book.
My rating: 4.5 / 5
Having recently moved into a new house, Coraline decides to go exploring - and finds a doorway into a strange likeness of her house with a sinister Other Mother who wants to be her real mother. With the help of a black cat, Coraline must free her parents from the Other Mother's snare.
The fact that this is a children's book did not detract from my enjoyment fo it. The plot is simple but effective, the delivery is good, the characters are interesting. In fact, I think the delivery is perhaps Gaiman's most effective. He often has a slightly simplistic style, and in a children's book it worked really well whereas in his adult books it occasionally grates on my nerves. I think my only complaint about the character of Coraline is her awareness that children want what's not best for them - that, in my opinion, is a very mature awareness. Her age is never given but I assume it's in the region of 8 or 10; I don't think children that age possess that kind of self-knowledge. But other than that she acts her age, so I can forgive her that one fault.
A brief, enjoyable read: 4.5 / 5
A typographical error produced the word 'Alsiso' and a bunch of authors were invited to create short stories around that word. Obviously the genres vary, though the majority of them are fantasy/scifi. And, as with any short story collection, there are some that I thought utterly fantastic and others that I struggled to finish.
My favourites are one where a woman must get pregnant in order to locate precious metals, one where an expedition to another planet meets an interesting fate to the background of 'alsiso' birdcalls, one where the word 'alsiso' has been tucked away in historic paintings, one where saying the word will result in a hideous death, and a few others I can't quite recall right now. I also liked KJ Bishop's brief one about the word's passage through history. In all, this was an interesting collection, and worth getting if you're into short stories or fancy a change of pace.
My rating: 4 / 5
The Saga of Seven Suns just keeps on going. Mum picked up book five recently, which I had thought from the summary was going to be the last one, but in his little author bio at the front it says he's working on book six. My brother suggested that there might be seven books, because of the seven suns in the series title. *sigh* This is the only series I have time for, as it's very very good. Other than that, I'm a standalone book gal.
My brother is now getting moody because he wants to read book five but I've currently got it. (Note to self: WHY did I get my family hooked on my series? Stupid mother and brother bent the spines of my books 1 to 4 to hell and back. I crease the spines but keep them flat, not curvy; apparantly mum and my brother think there's no need to respect my books. On the plus side, I didn't have to buy book 5.) He got annoyed when I took it to work yesterday to read on my break, because apparently he had to spend four hours in our house doing nothing because there were workmen doing stuff in the study, which is where the internet is. I have no sympathy. "Aww, you poor thing, you had nothing to do with our SHELVES OF DVDS and MYRIAD COMPUTER GAMES and YOUR UN-WRITTEN ESSAY. While I have so much do to in our EMPTY CREW ROOM." We do have a TV in there but I don't watch TV, and especially not the daytime terrestial crap.
I stayed up til 1am reading book 5 yesterday and am now halfway through, so I've told my brother to stop whingeing and wait just a couple more days. *is in love with the Saga*
In other book news, I recently read something called The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. I spotted it while walking past the children's section in WHSmith, and it certainly is a children's book in format: Reasonably big font, chasm-like margins, double-spaced text and fewer than 200 pages. I read it in an hour. The content, though, is more mature - this is a young adult book, not a little 'un book. I picked it up because I studied the Odyssey at school and I was intrigued by this slant on the story. Sadly, this was kind of a let-down. Penelope's point of view was pretty much as I'd expected, with the only 'twist' being that the twelve maids who got hanged were actually in her service but she didn't have time to tell Odysseus this before he ordered their deaths. I was expecting something fresh and new, but I didn't get it. It was interesting, sure, but not brilliant. I give it 3 / 5.
In writing news, I've been working a bit of my contest entry. I worked out the snake's motivations for what it does in the story (which is always a good thing) and wrote about another page. Getting there... I also CCd two chapters of Rhi's story, which was fun both because I like her story and also because I like editing. Guess it's more proof I'm going to head down the right career path for me.
Heh. My brother wandered in and saw what I wrote about him above. I think I crushed his soul. Or something.
Title: Dune
Author: Frank Herbert
Genre: Science fiction
Length: 605 pages (inc. appendixes)
Read: July 2006
Rating: 5 / 5
Summary on the Back:
A blood feud between two noble houses has reached a climax. The honourable Atreides have been sent to govern Arrakis - a brutal desert planet with little water, but rich in a spice that can give everlasting life. Meanwhile the Harkonnen, ambitious to restore the wealth to their own house, plant a traitor within the Atreides court and plan their attack.
My Comments:
This book druly is deserving of the acclaim it has received since its publication back in the Sixties. It has everything: believable politicking; a young hero who is interestingly righteous and courageous, not whiny and annoying; a prophecy with a realistic origin; strong and interesting female parts (I absolutely love the final line of the book); fascinating and in-depth worldbuilding to the point that Arrakis is pretty much a character itself and the Fremen are a well-rounded society in contrast to the Atreides and Harkonnen, who are also different; bad guys who, though not flawless, have at least read the Evil Overlord list; easy-to-follow action scenes; and last, but not least, a great plot.
Science fiction as it should be. Some books will forever remain classics.
Title: Midnight Robber
Author: Nalo Hopkinson
Genre: Science fiction
Length: 329 pages
Read: July 2006
Rating: 5 / 5
Summary on the Back:
It’s Carnival time and the Caribbean-colonised planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance and pageantry. Masked ‘Midnight Robbers’ waylay revellers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. But to young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favourite costume to wear at the festival—until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgivable crime.
Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Here Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth—and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen’s legendary powers can save her life… and set her free.
My Comments:
In essence this story is a Bildungsroman (a growing-up story). It is the story of Tan-Tan and how she escapes her father's sick attentions on New Half-Way Tree, how she finds strength in herself and, eventually, how she stands up for what she did. As such stories go, it's very very good.
At the same it's inescapably a story set in different worlds, and Nalo Hopkinson handles the science fiction / world-building element brilliantly. Both Toussaint and New Half-Way Tree are excellently crafted settings. On Toussaint we see some recognisably scifi elements: the Granny Nanny web (sometimes referred to as the Anansi web), a benevolent system designed to look after all inhabitants and keep things peaceful, with implants in all citizens; eshus, which are basically AI house-servants; and the dimension-jumping machine which takes Antonio and Tan-Tan to New Half-Way Tree, which is a version of Toussaint in a different dimension. New Half-Way Tree is a much more low-tech setting, of a level found in fantasy rather than scifi. Here N.Hopkinson brings Caribbean folklore to life with great flair, in particular when showing the lifestyle of the douen - sentient creatures, some of whom are willing to help Tan-Tan.
What makes this book even more interesting is that it's written in patois (Caribbean dialect); the unique voice gives it a wonderful flow, as if someone is whispering the story into your ear.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants a taste of something different to anything they've ever read. It's a fine example of how an old idea (the Bildungsroman) can be spun into a fascinating and new story.
Title: Cowl
Author: Neal Asher
Genre: Science fiction
Length: 469 pages
Read: July 2006
Rating: 5 / 5
Summary on the Back:
In the fourth millennium, the Heliothane Dominion rules triumphant in the Solar System. But some of its enemies have escaped into the past, where they are still capable of wreaking havoc across time. By far the worst of them is Cowl, an artificially forced advance in human evolution—more vicious than any prehistoric beast.
Innocently embroiled in this galactic conflict and fleeing for her life, Polly finds herself dragged back through time, era by era… towards the very dawning of life on Earth. Meanwhile her relentless pursuer, Tack, discovers that the ‘tor’ fragment imbedded in his wrist is of crucial value to the mysterious Heliothane—a truth that is soon brought home to him with bloody abruptness. As a twenty-second-century, vat-grown, programmable killer employed by U-gov, he is no stranger to violence, but his harrowing journey into the Heliothane’s lethal universe is only just beginning…
All the while, the torbeast, Cowl’s pet, is growing vast and dangerous and shedding its scales wherever its master orders. Scales that are themselves organic time machines designed for bringing human samples from all ages back to Cowl.
Then the beast can feed…
My Comments:
Most of the book is taken up by Polly being dragged back through time by the tor scale on her wrist, and Tack being dragged backwards and forwards through time by both Heliothanes and Umbrathants (the two kinds of future-humans), becoming embroiled in their plans. And the ending has enough twists and turns to, I expect, surprise and delight many readers.
Neal Asher's characters are very good. Polly, despite being only fifteen, is a great heroine. She's flawed enough to be real and strong enough to survive what she goes through. Tack is weak enough to be a tool but interesting despite that. Where N.Asher really shines, though, is in his portrayal of the future-humans and their society. Without wanting to ruin the revelations within the book, let me say that how they came to be is fascinating and well thought-out.
The system of time travel is equally clever and sounds totally plausible. In fact, everything about this book has clearly been thought-through carefully, resulting in a good, fun read - not a pinnacle of literature, but a clever piece of braincandy.
Because this journal is, I've already decided, superior to livejournal, I'm going to use it for my book reviews and anything else I feel like as well as a writing log. Any future reviews will be cross-posted to LJ for a while, but eventually I'll just be using this one.
Rather than bring every old review over here, which I've figured will take too long and I'm too lazy, I'll provide a list of links to the relevant posts on LJ.
All links to the products themselves are to amazon.co.uk .
Books Reviewed thus far:
The Fall of Lucifer by Wendy Alec
The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach
The Religion War by Scott Adams
Soul Corporation by Robert Collins
Gemutations: Mercenaries and Angels by Denise Randall
Homunculus by Hugh Paxton
Crusader Gold by David Gibbins
