An angry little story about a possible future post-disaster on Earth. I liked the idea and the perspective but it all felt a little heavy-handed. Not An angry little story about a possible future post-disaster on Earth. I liked the idea and the perspective but it all felt a little heavy-handed. Not in a rush to finish this collection anymore....more
This Forward sci-fi collection is not really doing it for me. All the stories I've read are about an imagined dark future. This one focuses on AI. WhiThis Forward sci-fi collection is not really doing it for me. All the stories I've read are about an imagined dark future. This one focuses on AI. While I liked the excitement of the intro of this story I felt like it ended in the least interesting way possible....more
A little meditation on hope in the face of disaster. I didn't completely agree with the ending but I enjoyed the read.A little meditation on hope in the face of disaster. I didn't completely agree with the ending but I enjoyed the read....more
I love how Amor Towles writes so it pains me to rate this badly. While I think there was an interesting concept here of parents choosing possible futuI love how Amor Towles writes so it pains me to rate this badly. While I think there was an interesting concept here of parents choosing possible future children based on genetic engineering, this story just didn't gel for me....more
Got a deal on the classroom edition (minus all the swearing) and thought I'd give it a try but I was just not feeling the voice and since I already knGot a deal on the classroom edition (minus all the swearing) and thought I'd give it a try but I was just not feeling the voice and since I already know (and enjoy) the movie there was not much suspense to keep me reading. I see how it would have worked in a blog format with log entries being released one at a time but to sit down and read it all together is just not happening for me right now....more
Strangely enough this is not the first book I’ve read that features time travel on a pirate ship. Though in this case things progressed in a differentStrangely enough this is not the first book I’ve read that features time travel on a pirate ship. Though in this case things progressed in a different direction pretty quickly.
While this started out promisingly enough, I found it a real struggle to want to finish it. The excitement at the beginning fades and then it becomes a quest through portals looking for a thing with lots of tangents about emotions and I just couldn’t with it all. I wanted to like Etta and root for her on her quest. I wanted more about her music and her relationships with her mom and her mentor. I wanted more buildup to the love story and not just heat. (Nicholas was not a bad character, and the idea of the challenges a black man would face traveling in time could have been explored more.) I wanted more about the clashing families and the mechanics of it all. But things just rambled and never got deep.
I think the writing style was just not my favorite, it had shifting third person perspectives and probably would have annoyed me less if it was just a first person account told from Etta's POV. Instead it felt too casual and like it was written by a young person without the experience to ground it all. So even though I liked the premise I am in no hurry to pick up the second book. I would recommend the other time-trave-on-a-pirate-ship series though. Look for The Girl from Everywhere....more
I loved how this one started, it felt like a mix of an old time detective story with a sci-fi thriller. Eventually it got muddied and felt sort of IncI loved how this one started, it felt like a mix of an old time detective story with a sci-fi thriller. Eventually it got muddied and felt sort of Inception-like and I felt like it ended weaker than it began. Still a fun read.
Oh, anyone notice the nod to "Amor Towles, renowned architect of the big bend?" Has to be a reference to the Rules of Civility author, right?
"He thinks perhaps there's a reason our memories are kept hazy and out of focus. Maybe their abstraction serves as an anesthetic, a buffer protecting us from the agony of time and all that it steals and erases."
On a particularly nice moment: "an exhale in the midst of life's journey, between storms, where everything has settled into fleeting alignment."
Like the author's Dark Matter, I enjoy the mix of sci-fi with some philosophy/meditation on life and love, and in this case, memory. Interested to see what he does next....more
It seemed appropriate to be reading this book during the polar vortex of 2019 since it's all about a world where winters have turned so brutal that moIt seemed appropriate to be reading this book during the polar vortex of 2019 since it's all about a world where winters have turned so brutal that most people hibernate through them. For the first time, Charlie Worthing is going to spend winter awake and will have to deal with Nightwalkers, WinterVolk, and dreams that are literally going viral.
As usual, I like Jasper Fforde's bonkers imagination and rich worldbuilding. I did feel like this one took a long time to get going, but it really picked up about page 300. (I wish I could say I was kidding, it really took that long.) Some things were set up so well but man did they take a while to pay off. My favorite part was probably the dreaming, the slow reveal and repetition of them was fascinating and I think it also would have worked well in a different format, like repeated playing of a game, maybe in the interactive fiction genre.
I didn't love the Nightwalkers (a kind of different take on zombies) or understand the point of not ever specifying if Charlie was a man or a woman (I read him as male, but who knows the intent). The general slowness and less humor makes this one not my favorite Fforde. I think I like his Nursery Crime stories best of all. This was more in the feeling of his Shades of Grey series that has yet to be finished, but at least this was a standalone.
I had not read The Martian although I did enjoy the movie. I can see the comparisons about the main character here haFun caper story set on the moon.
I had not read The Martian although I did enjoy the movie. I can see the comparisons about the main character here having a similar personality and sense of humor. In the case of this book, Jazz may not be like a typical female, but given her life circumstances I was willing to cut her a little slack and picture her like a Starbuck type of character.
Honestly I wasn't looking at this as fine literature but as a breezy and exciting sci fi story it works. I wish there was less foul language, though.
So I got to a place in this book where I had read several hundred pages just to get to the point of the title and felt that all that massive chunk of So I got to a place in this book where I had read several hundred pages just to get to the point of the title and felt that all that massive chunk of the book that came before was just the elaborate pre-story to the bit the author really wanted to get to. That was an odd feeling.
This is a sweeping space epic which is supposed to be realistic although I'm not sure I can call it hard science especially given the way it ends up in a speculative and borderline fantasy story. Is that spoilery? I don't even know. There is so much going on here that it is hard to know how to review everything. But it did feel like it could have been split into two separate yet connected stories although I'm not sure either would have stood alone.
In general terms, the book looks at a catastrophe coming to Earth and tries to answer how humankind would react and how we could survive. (Although some very boneheaded mistakes happen along the way.) There were very intense and interesting scenes and also long periods of tedious technical writing. I liked some of the characters but questioned their actions on occasion. I didn't feel like the people in the space station had the most realistic reactions to the change in their mission, and I especially found the female characters lacking a bit in realistic responses and actions.
I also found it interesting that several characters seemed to be in the image of real people living now. For example, there's a guy who is very Elon Musk-y and a scientist who I was picturing as Bill Nye but who actually I think was supposed to be Neil deGrasse Tyson, and there's a politician who is not really Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin but perhaps some odd mixing of the two, and a girl who was maybe Malala-esque. And that's not to mention the other characters that seemed to be pulled from other science fiction, like an astronaut that I imagined as Tasha Yar and another guy that seemed kinda Kirk-like. While this worked for getting a quick picture of characters it did seem a trifle like derivative shortcutting.
I will say that I was fully engaged in the story throughout and that is a lot to say for such a long book....more
Great setup with a man who served in the Civil War living for a hundred years in a kind of stasis as he serves as a sort of caretaker for an alien wayGreat setup with a man who served in the Civil War living for a hundred years in a kind of stasis as he serves as a sort of caretaker for an alien way station stop between the stars.
Unfortunately the plot was so meandering and not much interesting was done with it. Had trouble making myself finish it. ...more
X-Men meets Heroes in a young adult setting. I liked some of the characters (Flicker and Anonymous especially) and found others annoying (I'm looking X-Men meets Heroes in a young adult setting. I liked some of the characters (Flicker and Anonymous especially) and found others annoying (I'm looking at you, Oh Great Leader). The powers these kids had were different and inventive but I wanted more on the cause of their abilities. While some mysteries were left for future books, I appreciated that it had a storyline that actually wrapped up in the one book instead of the usual annoying YA-trilogy-cliffhanger. I may check out future installments, but they aren't high on my list....more
This is sci-fi light, or maybe sci-fi for people who don't like sci-fi. The main character, Jason, despite being a supposedly smart guy, gets caught uThis is sci-fi light, or maybe sci-fi for people who don't like sci-fi. The main character, Jason, despite being a supposedly smart guy, gets caught up in events that wouldn't really be so baffling to him if he had ever watched Star Trek. (Like, basically any episode of Star Trek.)
While I found the scientific (and philosophical) stuff weak, the book did deliver on fast-paced thrills and saved a few surprises for the end. It got to a point where I was wondering where on earth it could possibly go, so that was kind of fun. And despite the trappings of scientifically based respectability, at its heart this book is a love story, with a dash of meditation on regrets and the road not taken. All at a summer blockbuster pace.
So maybe this is not a failure of the book but of my expectations. I thought this one just didn't quite live up to the hype.
Mixed feelings on the various stories and thus a middle-of-the-road rating. A wide variety of geek activities are represented here, everything from thMixed feelings on the various stories and thus a middle-of-the-road rating. A wide variety of geek activities are represented here, everything from the obvious Star Wars/Star Trek fans to LARPing (new to me) to theater geeks. Most of the characters seemed to be high school aged and there are a variety of YA authors contributing.
I didn't like the story about the pep squad girl who moves to Hawaii, which felt strangely non-geeky and too sketched out. I also thought John Green failed to write believably in a girl's voice for his story. And there were some disturbing moments in some of the other stories; particularly the Dino Girl one had a yucky conclusion and the Rocky Horror singalong one also gave me the creeps even though it was well-written. (Fair warning, too, there's drinking and some sexual situations happening, though not in an explicit way.)
One of Us (girl hires geeks to help her learn to relate to her geek boyfriend) and I Never (girls go to meet online friends) were both fun if predictable.
And my favorite stories were Secret Identity (about a teen girl who's pretended to be an adult online about to go meet a man at a Superhero convention) (which could have gone really bad but instead was fairly light, so don't be nervous) and The Stars at the Finish Line (a sweet story about school rivalry and astronomy).
Depending on your geek-level, your mileage may vary.
Beautifully written, haunting story of life both before and after a pandemic.
I loved that it included a traveling acting troupe in the after parts (bBeautifully written, haunting story of life both before and after a pandemic.
I loved that it included a traveling acting troupe in the after parts (because "Survival is Insufficient") and that it focused on a small group of characters all connected in one way or another to one specific actor.
It isn't a perfect book. While I appreciated that it only hinted at the worst of the darkness as civilization fell, at times it felt like a cop-out to not include more of the fallout the characters lived through. The sections with the prophet were the weakest, easy to predict what was happening there and while the resolution with that was realistic, it was also anticlimactic. I especially loved the sections surrounding the creating of the comic book but again thought there could have been more in the end with that. In a book full of coincidences I wanted just a few more to really tie it all together. I also think it should have ended with the chapter on the actor, just as it began. These are minor quibbles in a book I really enjoyed reading, though.
Transported me into its world and kept me thinking about it long after. One of my favorite reads this year....more
Well, that was quite a ride. This book is the third in the Pathfinders trilogy. I could not have imagined where the series would go when I began with Well, that was quite a ride. This book is the third in the Pathfinders trilogy. I could not have imagined where the series would go when I began with the first book (and to be honest it felt at times as though Card wasn't sure either) which was enjoyable during my reading as I liked the surprises, yet now that all is finished I feel the ending wasn't quite as satisfying as I had hoped due to the meandering. Still, I enjoyed the series overall, and liked this third book more than the second and about the same as the first one (but for different reasons).
On Visitors specifically: This book has possibly the best beginning catch-up of any sequel I've ever read. It speeds through the summation of what happened in the previous two books in an entertaining way and then gets right back into the story. (I'd still recommend reading the books in order; there's a lot of stuff happening by book three and you'd miss a lot of details and probably be pretty confused starting here.)
Unlike the last installment which had the characters traveling and working together (while sniping at each other the whole time), here our heroes split up for various reasons. (I suppose the following is slightly spoiler-y, although I doubt it will make much sense if you are coming to it blind, but anyway I came back in time to warn you about the rest of this paragraph.) Rigg and Ram go on a tour of the planet Garden to examine how civilizations have gotten on to determine if it will be safe to get rid of the various wallfolds separating the planet's peoples. The copy of Rigg, now known as Noxon, first works on time skills with his sister Param, then embarks on a trip through time and space to go to Earth on an important mission. And Umbo is off helping his changed friend Loaf to reunite with his wife and checking through time now and again to make sure things go right, as well as to right a few wrongs.
The sections with Rigg and Ram again felt very reminiscent of The Worthing Saga to me (in part because the underlying plot is so similar as well as the soft sci-fi mixed with fantasy feel), although Card's themes in that book were more meditations on suffering and here he's more concerned with issues of free will, human nature, cultural differences and the like. The sections with Noxon go more into evolutionary theories (which I found a bit odd from this author), and the whole book in general goes into philosophical ideas on foreknowledge due to the focus on time travel. (Ex: if you know a crime is going to be committed, can you go back and stop it or would punishing someone before they actually do something be right, etc.) Head-scratching stuff which is fortunately mostly hypothetical since we don't have the abilities of Rigg and his friends.
I liked how Card through the whole series changed some of the generally accepted rules of time paradoxes in fiction. In this book in particular he sometimes followed characters through actions that they would then go back and warn themselves against, but he also sometimes just skipped to the warning first, and then he even looked at what might happen to the characters in an abandoned timeline. I liked the variety of that even if it did feel slightly arbitrary which one we got sometimes.
The section with Umbo trying to make a big change in the past was very thrilling, though I thought he showed unusual stupidity in not thinking beyond a certain point. One of the visits Rigg made to a certain wallfold was especially haunting as his powers and the ethics of using them were put to a serious test. The sections in space, especially the conversations with some particularly untrustworthy characters got old to me, and the things that happened on Earth were not as interesting and felt like an unnecessary sideplot. The ending kinda petered out and some information that comes up at the end had me feeling like you do when you're watching a TV show and you realize they don't have time to wrap up the story so it's sure to be continued... but then the book does reach a conclusion and I don't think there is more to come (although I would read more in this universe for sure). The characters started losing their individual voices after a while but they always sounded like Card characters in the same way Aaron Sorkin's characters always sound like him. I thought Param especially got short shrift at the end, and the big confrontation that is set up from all the way back in the first book didn't have the finality I was looking for. Honestly just a couple more chapters could have done it.
The series as a whole I think suffered a bit from a lack of focus, endless bickering conversations, occasionally overly-long ruminations on time travel hypotheticals, as well as too much technobabble and bathroom humor. In other words, classic Card. Much better than the Ender's Game prequels on the Formic wars. Skip those and read the Pathfinder books instead.
I'll probably revisit these at some point too; it will be interesting to read them in quicker succession now that they are all available and see how that changes the experience (by that I mean, if more of the details stay in my head from book to book and make more sense).
This book is what I was afraid of when I saw Aaron Johnston's name on the cover for this series. I had tried to read a collaboration of Card and JohnsThis book is what I was afraid of when I saw Aaron Johnston's name on the cover for this series. I had tried to read a collaboration of Card and Johnston before and it was terrible. While I was happily surprised with the first novel in this trilogy, each book has gotten worse. Perhaps because Card's involvement has decreased along the way? I don't know. But it's highly unusual for me to put down a book halfway in, especially if it's part of a series, and I did just that with this one for several weeks and almost didn't return to it.
Why is it so bad? Let's see. The dialogue is laughable. Characters frequently address other characters by name repeatedly in a conversation. To remind us who is being spoken to, I guess, but nobody speaks that way in real life. The conversations also follow a formula over and over again with one person having an idea, another objecting, and the first person convincing the second why he is right. Tedious once you recognize it.
There is a battle section in the end which at least is more exciting than these repetitious conversations. But I found the battle not making total sense, with certain parts being dragged out and others skimmed over.
Slightly spoiler-y section: (view spoiler)[The series waits until the very end to give any clue of how things like the International Fleet and global government of Ender's world came about. And I just didn't buy it. A big rich corporation with scientists to spare come up with ways to fight the buggers? Special forces are going along with this instead of working with the military, or some nation's government somewhere? Hmm. Also they join up with space miners? One of whom knows everything about the Formic ship from one visit inside? They bring an aging female scientist along into the space battle too, because surely she can keep up with a special military crew? Hmm. And one little Chinese boy is supposed to be the Ender-type, highly intelligent and smarter than those bigwigs in the army? I suppose he's meant to be the inspiration for bringing children into the fight, but nothing he said or did matched his age or abilities and really nothing was THAT out of the ordinary about him. Grr. (hide spoiler)]
If you are looking for a series that goes from the first Formic attack up until the way things are by the time Ender comes along, this series will disappoint. The end of this THIRD book still is not the end of the war, and I'm afraid there will be another trilogy of the second invasion. If there is, and Johnston's name is anywhere attached to it, I am staying far, far away. ...more
Mixed bag as usual with short stories. Picked it up for Orson Scott Card's Mazer in Prison, which I liked, and for Yoon Ha Lee who I know from interacMixed bag as usual with short stories. Picked it up for Orson Scott Card's Mazer in Prison, which I liked, and for Yoon Ha Lee who I know from interactive fiction. Skimmed and skipped some others. Not much memorable here. ...more
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