Brief Book Reviews

Science fiction is good. I have learned more about politics, economics, history, religion, sociology and plenty of other subjects that I otherwise hated in school because they were intensely boring, by reading science fiction.

Brief reviews of ten books, mostly science fiction novels

Next scheduled update in October.

Title
Author/editor
ISBN
©date
Publisher
Summary

the Golden Age
John Wright
0-312-84870-6
2002
Tor/Tom Doherty Associats
Phaethon discovers a rather large chunk of his memory is missing, and that he has agreed to having it deleted. This would be annoying enough, but as the story goes on he finds that it was done for some contrived embarrassment, and that he must not try to regain the memories. Then, many different beings are trying to manipulate him and coerce him into regaining his memories. They finally succeed, and when he recovers those lost memories he is shunned and exiled. But that just leads way to the sequel. Intrigue and cyber bullshit abounds, with some emotional tripe.

the Reformer
S.M. Stirling, David Drake
0-671-57804-9
1999
Baen/Simon & Schuster
Hundreds of years after unifying Bellevue, Raj and Center have been uploaded into the mind of a young student. Adrian Gelleck and his brother, the dashing games champion Esmond, first fall in with Vandbert espionage. But when it goes wrong they flee to the Isles and there the King grants them leave to pursue the technological advances that will help bootstrap the fallen society to the stars. Gunpowder, cannon, and trebuchet are just a sample of the mayhem they unleash on the enemies of the Isles. After winning a major stroke against Vandbert, the two decide it's best to leave before the King considers them a real threat. Plenty of death and destruction with cooley retro-tech.

Rogue Berserker
Fred Saberhagen
0-7434-9873-9
2005
Baen/Simon & Schuster
Harry Silver is a space merchant who has had more encounters with berserkers than he wanted. Winston Cheng is a tycoon who’s family has been kidnaped by a berserker, and wants Harry to help rescue them. Harry refuses the offer, but reconsiders after his own family is also taken. When he joins the crew, he finds an old rival among them. As the mission approaches, Harry finds more and more reasons to believe that things are not quite what they seem, and that maybe his rival is involved somehow. Then all hell breaks loose, and Harry is abducted by another berserker – one who’s primary mission of assassinating Harry has been set aside to destroy this rogue berserker that does not kill life as it's suppose to, but instead keeps it alive to study it. After much death and destruction, the truth is revealed and most of the good guys survive and most of the bad guys perish. Plenty of intrigue and death.

the Life of the World to Come
Kage Baker
0-765-31132-1
2004
Tor/Tom Doherty Associates
2004
Alec Checkerfield is the third incarnation of an experiment to build a more compassionate Enforcer. He is the product of genetic engineering, made from DNA of a long extinct hominid. In his early life, he reprograms a toy, to become his life companion and cyber assistant as a pirate captain. With the help of this cyber pirate, he amasses great wealth and tries to influence the world for the better, while flouting prohibitions with his piracy and smuggling. After the death of his most faithful servant, he embarks on a mission of revenge, vowing to undo the organization which created him. Along the way he meets Botanist Mendoza, an immortal cyborg who has been marooned in time, and he vows to recover her as well. Adventure and intrigue, with cyber crapola and a little sex.

the Ship Who Sang
Anne McCaffery
0-345-33431-0
1969
Helva is born defective, there is no way to cure her twisted body. Rather than euthanasia, her parents opt to have her trained as a ‘shell person’, kept to a small size intentionally, she is encased in a titanium shell, with which she learns to interact with the outside world. she receives schooling and training, and opts to be a ‘brain ship’, an interstellar patrol craft directly controlled by her. Her missions serve the Central Worlds, and along the way she gains a reputation as a competent ship, and a good singer. She suffers loss and achieves triumph, and in the end has a whole future of adventures opened to her. Tame adventure with plenty of emotional tripe.


the Ophiuchi Hotline
John Varley

1977
Dial Press/James Wade
The Ophiuchi Hotline really has little to do with the book, it’s an information source, presumably 70 light years away. The book is mostly about Lilo. she was convicted of messing with DNA, which carries a penalty of permanent death. BUT he is saved by Boss Tweed, a former politician, now turned radical, who needs her talents for his project to attack the Invaders, the mysterious beings who wiped out Earth and took over Jupiter some 500 years earlier. She dies and dies again and other copies get made. One copy takes a spacecraft out to where the Ophiuchi really are, and learn the fate of tool-using life across the galaxy. Another copy takes over and asteroid and pushes it out of the solar system. A convoluted mess of adventures, cooley tech, and some emotional tripe.

the Myriad
R.M. Meluch
0-7564-0279-4
2005
Daw/Penguin
Captain Farragut and the crew of the US Merrimack bring aboard a Roman ‘patterner’ as intelligence officer in their joint effort to stop the Hive, nasty evil space insectoids bent on eating everything human. They come upon inhabited planets in a globular cluster called the Myriad and also discover wormholes that lead into the past when traveled through. A League ship full of do-gooders shows up to cause problems, but then the Hive shows up to cause more. After battling the Hive, the Merrimack returns to attempt to preserve the present by stopping a Myriad ship from crossing into the wormhole. It fails, bringing a new present devoid of the Hive, and strange parallels are revealed. Battles, adventure, and some emotional tripe.

Wind in the Ashes
William Johnstone
0-8217-1947-5
1986
Zebra/Kensington
General Ben Raines leads an army of Rebels in postapocolyptic America. In this episode, he destroys outlaw biker gangs and then defeats his arch foe mercenary. Then he chases the crazed Russian out of the U.S. and into Canada. This book reads like a reactionary gun nut’s wet dream. The General uses his military cunning and brute force to impose his law wherever he goes. Kind of like Hitler in post WWI Germany, only instead of ethnic clensing the General goes after the underclasses. Not realy sci-fi, more of a kill-em-up adventure with plenty of death and an affinity for child rape.

My Name is Vladimir Sloifoiski
Gerald Alper

1970
Curtis Books
In the 22nd century, a world government controls everything. One great project is to recreate cultures of the past, and one of those is New York 1967. Here is where Vladimir Sloifoiski awakes. He has been captured by Rolo Bumeleaven, one of the bad guys, and after escaping learns a few things about himself and the world, yet he cannot remember them. He is recaptured by another agent, Philip Atio – a transvestite with an artificial arm that shoots napalm. Phil shows Vlad that much of the world is really a kind of zoo, where people are brainwashed into thinking they are Romans, New Yorkers, or whatever the interest is. After rescuing an experimental victim (who Phil later kills), Vlad succeeds in thwarting the plot to turn the Romans into devil worshipping heathens, and later assassinates Philip and Rolo. He is then restored to his full self as his reward, after fucking the ice maiden. Tedious like Delany and not quite as paranoid as Dick.

the Collected Stories of
Vernor Vinge
0-312-87373-5
2001
Tor/Tom Doherty Associates
What it says. Most of the short stories and a few longer ones, including a new one for the book. Some nice ones include “the Ungoverned”, anarchists fight off a government in the Bobbleverse; “Long Shot”, interstellar spacecraft finds a habitable planet and fulfills its mission; “Gemstone”, about a very special rock; “the Blabber”, about a cute alien pet and all the trouble it causes. There’s also “Fast Times at Fairmont High”, about how future students use advanced technology to do their homework. Mostly good with cooley tech, but some are a little tedious.