This short story is part of The Expanse series, providing the backstory for Amos Barton in a Baltimore-noir setting. Being a backstory, it doesn’t really add to what we know about Amos or his character. It does tell us something new about Earth’s darker culture.
It does provide Amos’ history, coming-of-age in a crime-ridden part of Baltimore. It tells how he managed a crisis and came to get off-world. It doesn’t go back enough to explain his skills or personality.
Caliban’s War is the second book in the Expanse series. In this book, some of the protomolecule is found outside of Venus. Holden accuses Fred of releasing it since he has the only known piece. This gets him fired, so he went free-lance. After contracting with Prax to find his daughter he finds himself pulled into a political struggle.
This book introduces Sgt. Roberta “Bobbie” Draker, a gunnery sergeant in the Martian marines, Avasarala, a senior politician with the UN, and Prax, a botanist from Ganymede.
Although Bobbie appeared in the last book, she becomes a major character in this volume. Her viewpoint provides a quick threat analysis of situations and creates an unstated threat to other characters.
Avasarala has a strong personality and provides an excellent political backstory to large-scale events taking place. This gives the storyline a lot of complexity. She hires Bobbie as a bodyguard and general aide. This creates tension for Bobbie, who now has allegiance to opposing sides in the war, Earth and Mars.
Prax provides a focus for the crew of the Rocinante to find his daughter. Being an expert biologist, he reveals that Ganymede’s environmental system is collapsing and that the people there cannot survive.
Through the book, the threat of Venus keeps turning up. The reader is reminded periodically that something is going on and that threat is increasing. The end of the book is a cliff-hanger with events taking place on Venus.
The relationship between Holden and Noami evolves threatening the crew of the Rocinante since Noami is a critical engineer for the crew that cannot be replaced. She also ups the tension between Holden and Fred Johnson, bringing it to a peak when Holden confronts Fred on the issue of the protomolecule.
The book is well-written. I found the narration good and fitting to the respective characters. It is very easy and pleasurable to read.
Tripping the Universe is the story of two women who gain superpowers from an accident involving a quantum-based experiment. The women, Jade and Antigone (Anti), are science journalists attending an experiment to create a quantum tunnel. The tunnel opens a hole to alternate worlds and give the two the ability to shape change and the ability to find the portals.
Jade and Anti are quested to find someone who disappeared into another dimension during the experiment. After returning home, they find things are subtly different and need to find a way home.
Through their adventures and an instinct that things are not as they seem, they uncover an interdimensional criminal that is destabilizing our dimension. This starts a self-induced quest to hunt down the criminal, wandering among the different dimensions.
The book has a few problems. It feels like minor characters just appear to explain things to the two adventurers. This leaves the book with a deus ex machina feel.
The author uses too many adjectives. Quite often she uses two adjectives and a noun, sometimes more than once in a single sentence. This reads awkwardly and sometimes suggests incidental items have more importance to the story than they actually do.
The pacing of the story felt off. It is always moderately fast-paced. But there are times when it should be slower. A changing of pace would help the story.
Some of the dialog didn’t feel natural. The subject changes too quickly.
The narrator used Anti’s full name at the start of the book. After Anti mentioned her nickname to Jade, the narrator suddenly changed it’s references. Except in one instance the narrator referred to her as Antigone, but there was no rhyme nor reason for that instance.
In their first trip to a foreign dimension, they had to split up. Jade took their universal translator, but Anti was able to communicate without it.
Generally, I think the book could use a stronger editor, especially with continuity.
In spite of these issues, I did enjoy the book. When Anti and Jade were in alternate dimensions, the extra adjectives helped to describe the unique locations. Each place they visited felt odd and unique. The reader will get an immediate feel for unusual cultures and people.
The experiment itself was described in terms of modern technology dropping recognizable terms. This worked well with a suspension of disbelief to help the user get into the story.
When you add interesting minor characters and situational humor, the book becomes an enjoyable and light read. I suspect the author targeted a younger audience, but I will enjoy reading the next installment.
Leviathon wakes is a space opera taking place in the near future. Man has colonized Mars and the asteroid belt populated by Belters. There is a lot of political tension between the three populations.
The book follows two men. James Holden is the executive officer of a small ice-mining ship. Josephus Aloisus Miller is a small-time detective at a space station.
The story starts with Holden and crew responding to a distress signal. They find a dead ship, when a stealth Martian ship arrives and destroys their ship. This leaves him in command of a small crew and pulls him into a political power struggle for the Solar System.
Miller is given an assignment to find Julie Mao, the daughter of a wealthy Earthman. His orders are to kidnap her and ship her home. His early investigation reveals that she was involved with Belter rebels – and leads to his being pulled from the investigation and ultimately fired for not dropping the investigation.
Miller finds Julie Mao dead, she dies of an unknown and apparently dangerous virus.
Someone is setting up Eros as an experiment with the virus. Miller recognizes a bugus radiation alert and mercenaries acting as herding authorities, Miller find Holden to gain his expertise on the ships and docks, then manages to herd them both safely to Holden’s ship using back areas of the station.
From here, the story involves an alien virus, a large corporation trying to control and dominate it, Mars and The Belt trying to get their own samples.
The story is very readable, mostly an adventure novel with a bit of noir mystery thrown in.
This book tells the story of several people inhabiting a skyscraper in New York City in the year 2140. Global warming has raised the ocean level to the point of flooding lower-elevation buildings in the city. Some people live below the high-tide level. Below sea level in poorer sections of town.
One plot line involves elderly man who studies old maps and two young boys. The man believes he’s discovered the location of an old shipwreck that had been carrying gold. The two boys take it on themselves to look for it.
Two hackers trying to unbalance the current government, which has become more oppressive and has concentrated money and power in smaller numbers. They have created some code to disrupt Wall Street. This is the underlying theme of the book, money is the main social problem and bringing down the finial system is a way to free it.
The building janitor lives, by choice in an under-high-tide apartment. He seems to be part of the story mainly to explain some features of the technology and find tools.
A reality tv start who lives aloft in a large balloon is trying to save endangered species. A couple of other characters who’s main purpose is to provide ideas and access to equipment.
The story is told as an adventure story. It ultimately brings all the characters together to focus on changing the world. I found the book a little preachy at times. I think Kim Stanley Robinson has better books, but this one is good.
This is the first in a series by Martha Wells. The book has won numerous awards including a Hugo and Nebula.
Murderbot is a self-given name of a security robot. It is a hybrid of cloned organic and inorganic parts that include weapons, armor and communications equipment. He has no sexuality. And the story is told in first person from his point of view. His internal dialog feels alien.
This one had a problem with its control module and was able to bypass it, giving it a certain amount of autonomy.
The story involves a science team surveying the flora and fauna on a planet. When they discover parts of the maps of the world are blank, they investigate, to discover another team that was killed by their security bots.
The planet was home to a dead civilization, someone wants to keep that secret, profits provide the motive. Murderbot comes up with a plan to keep the scientists alive, who purchase his contract and give him his freedom.
The story is short, well-told, and not predictable. It makes the me look forward to the next book.
This is a story from each of the first 12 doctors, one story for each. Each story is written by a different author in a different style. It isn’t readily clear which doctor is represented by what story, some are obvious. It seems they are in chronological order.
I felt that each story is too independent, it might have been nice if something tied them together more.
Some of the stories are good, some are weak. Overall, they are enjoyable.
Red Moon is an adventure story of two people thrown together and running for their freedom.
Fred Fredericks is an American businessman who sells secure quantum communications equipment. He flew to the Moon to meet with a Chinese gentleman who is poisoned during the meeting. The Chinese man was killed during the meeting and Fred detained by Chinese authorities.
The other is Chan Qi, the pregnant daughter of a rich and influential Chinese politician that leads the finance ministry. She is also taken by the authorities for her ideals about returning power in Chine to the people from the Communist party.
From here, it turns into an adventure story taking the two from the Moon to Hong Kong and back to the Moon. They survive by their wits, Qi’s friends and some unknown influences.
I found the book enjoyable up to the end where several plot points didn’t sit well with me.
First, the whole situation was explained by a US government agent who appeared and, after enabling their rescue, felt the need to explain what was going on.
Second, a woman who didn’t know the aforementioned agent, listened to an explanation of how the two (Fred and Qi) were to be extradited, they were rescued, someone is trying to kill them and then accepted the story and agree to cooperate without asking any questions or worrying about her own life.
Third, the story ended too soon. They escaped the Moon a second time in a programmed ship with no idea where they were heading. It felt like little was resolved, although there is plenty of information to find your own resolution.
I enjoyed the book, it is told well, the writing is enjoyable, but the end felt weak.
This is the story of Han Solo prior to the movie saga. It start with his life on Corellia. It goes through his first encounters with Chewbacca and Lando, getting into his smuggling career and his acquisition of the Millennium Falcon.
The book is an action story. Han goes from one event to another. Parts of the book really bothered me, character actions didn’t seem quite right, some events seemed to be just plot points. Some of Han’s schemes didn’t seem quite reasonable, even if they failed, it seems he could come up with a better bluff or idea. It wasn’t particularly bad, it just should have been a lot more.
The story is well-known, but differs from the movies. The story is mostly about Dr. Frankenstein’s reaction to his creation, it is verbose but well-written.
The first parts of the book seemed long and slow, it gets bogged down in long Victorian dialogs. I almost gave up on it. But once the monster is created, the story improved dramatically.
It is all about the relationship between the monster and Dr. Frankenstein. It is a love-hate relationship on part of the monster, and repulsion from Dr. Frankenstein. This gave me some problems as Frankenstein started as a scientist with a purely rational approach to the work. Once the monster is created he became immediately repulsed without getting to know or understand the monster, he is completely driven and consumed by his emotions. It felt out of character given the first part of the book.
Unlike the movies, the monster is very intelligent and capable. He learns to survive on his own, then teaches himself language. Driven by the cruelty of man, his one goal is to find love. I found the monster much more interesting than Frankenstein. He eloquently tells his tale and wins he heart of the reader, but not of Frankenstein who continues his revulsion to the monster.
It is an interesting read. Like many books of the day, in my opinion, it would do well with an update to the characters and dialog. But it is worth the read.
Powered by WordPress