Triggers
Posted: May 22, 2012 Filed under: Book Reviews | Tags: future, science fiction, thriller Leave a comment »
Triggers, by Robert J. Sawyer
In near future Washington, D.C., president Seth Jerrison is giving an anti-terror speech at the Lincoln memorial on the eve of a secret military operation. At a nearby hospital, researcher Ranjip Singh is conducting a memory modification experiment with a young Iraq War veteran. When a bomb goes off, no one dies, but a group of people, including the president and Secret Service agent Susan Dawson, are linked in a chain, each able to access the memories of another person. Dawson and Singh rush to find out who has access to the president’s highly classified memories. Parts of the books are thrilling; Sawyer is quite a storyteller. The reactions and interactions of the memory linked people are fascinating, but to me the ending was not quite as good.
While this is science fiction, I think thriller fans would enjoy this book. Find out more about Canadian writer Robert Sawyer here.
Brenda
Intruder
Posted: March 22, 2012 Filed under: Book Reviews | Tags: science fiction Leave a comment »
Intruder, by C.J. Cherryh
Intruder is the 13th book in the Foreigner universe. C.J. Cherryh is an award-winning author of many science fiction and fantasy books. This is a good place to jump into the series, which began with Foreigner. Humans landed 150 years ago on an occupied world, and now live on the island continent of Mospheira, while the native Atevi occupy the mainland. Atevi are very tall, traditional, and concerned with numbers, manners, and alliances. Bren Cameron is the paidhi-aiji, or human interpreter and ambassador, gradually releasing to the native Atevi advanced human technology. He is allied with the Atevi ruler, the aiji Tabini. Tabini’s powerful grandmother Ilisidi sends Bren on a diplomatic mission to the new lord of the Marid, young Machigi. The Marid, a rural, conservative group, are offered alliances, new communications technology, and the possibility of trade, especially in their fine porcelain. But knowing who to trust can be very difficult with the Atevi. Ilisidi once tried to poison Bren, for example.
Meanwhile, from a different perspective, Tabini’s young son Cajeiri is feeling restricted in a high-security apartment with no windows in his rooms. When his father gives permission for Cajeiri to visit the family storerooms and decorate his suite, he opts for tapestries with animals, lots of green plants, and a large brass cage that could house a monkey-like pet called a parid’ja. Unfortunately, he doesn’t ask his pregnant mother before acquiring the pet he names Boji. Cajeiri enjoys spending time with Bren, his great-grandmother, and getting into mischief.
This book is mostly about politics and diplomacy, and about Cajeiri’s gradual coming of age. Other books in the series have more action and danger, on the planet and in space, but all are excellent reading. The Atevi are just alien enough to be fascinating and the reader never knows just what will happen next.
Brenda
Ready Player One
Posted: December 27, 2011 Filed under: Book Reviews | Tags: dystopian fiction, future, science fiction Leave a comment »
Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline
Children of the 80s, this one is for you. Despite taking place in 2044 and mostly in a completely immersive online simulation called the Oasis, this is really a tribute to the culture (popular and otherwise) of the 1980s. The Oasis is the creation of Richard Halliday—a videogame programmer who used music, movies, TV, books, and videogames to escape his dysfunctional home. His expertise and desire to escape lead him to create an online experience that becomes the escape for most of the population. The glimpses Cline gives of America in 2044 are bleak—resources like gasoline have been depleted so everyone lives in cities since they can’t travel and the poorest people live in trailers that have been stacked to form dangerous towering units. The Oasis provides them with a nicer, more hopeful world. Part of that hope comes from the hunt for Halliday’s Egg. Before he died, he hid three keys and three gates in the Oasis and left clues for egg hunters (nicknamed “gunters”) to find the first one. Whoever finds all the keys and makes it through all the gates will gain control of the Oasis. Millions of people studied the things Halliday was obsessed with to try to figure out the clues. Teenaged Wade Wilson is the first gunter to find a key. His fellow competitors Aech, Art3mis, Shoto, and Daito meet him along the way and sometimes offer help and camaraderie while trying to find the keys themselves and fending off the evil Sixers that want to gain control of the Oasis for their own profit. The plot is familiar but the setting and Cline’s love of the 80s makes this a fun read. You don’t have to be familiar with all the references and the really important ones are explained but you may find yourself wanting to dig out your old cassettes or find Family Ties on DVD.
Ernest Cline has a mix tape with all the songs mentioned in Ready Player One but some of them are spoilers
His blog is also full of 80s geekery.
There’s also a pretty rad fansite set up to look like the channel Wade Watt’s Oasis alter ego Parzival runs.
Denise
Anne McCaffrey, 1926-2011
Posted: November 22, 2011 Filed under: Authors | Tags: science fiction Leave a comment »
Science fiction author Anne McCaffrey died in Ireland on November 21, 2011. She was an award-winning writer for teens and adults, best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series. More information can be found here. I first read her books in college, discovering them at my college bookstore. The first book in the Pern series is Dragonflight.
