Science Fiction
The science fiction genre can be difficult to define, but the most common qualities include a reliance on technology in a futuristic setting.
The creative exercise in this book is the cheap and easy creation of
human 'dittos', copies of one's mind complete with a body, albiet one
that only lasts 24 hours. Once the life of a ditto is nearly
over, its creator can inload its memories, effectively allowing people
to experience multiple lifespans. Even the poorest people can
create at least one ditto a day to earn a wage as an unskilled
laborer. Others do more interesting things with their copies,
anything from selling them as specialized courteseans, to experiencing
thrills much too risky for a real body, to creating a team of
hyper-focused detectives.
The latter is the MO of Albert Morris, whose various selves
independently stumble onto some disturbing happenings that seem to be
unrelated at first - but when the creator of the primary dittoing
technology, his chief scientist, and the scientist's daughter are all
involved, things get interesting quickly.
Like Brin's other works, Kiln People starts at a reasonably fast pace
and maintains it for the entirety of the story. This is
especially impressive since his four first-person points of view are of
Albert and his three dittos, and the entire book only spans a handful
of days. The book is also nice and long, the paperback weighs in
at a meaty 567 pages. Brin continually delights with little
details of how dittotech has impacted society, though his prose is
nothing special and I was not particularly attached to any of the
characters. All in all, a good solid speculative work of science
fiction.
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The blurb on the back cover by the San Francisco Chronicle describes
this stand-alone novel as "Michael Chrichton meets Robert Ludlum, with
a big scoop of The Manchurian Candidate thrown in for good measure....
[it] will keep you guessing." Well, it certainly kept me guessing
- among other things, I still can't figure out why Bear switched his
first-person point of view midway through the book to a different
character, after 196 pages (paperback) of solid writing with the
primary character. It may have been the only way to tell that
particular part of the story, but it felt incredibly awkward, and the
quality of the story went nowhere but downhill after this point.
The viewpoint switches a few more times throughout the book.
If Michael Chrichton ever met Robert Ludlum, it would be in a dark
alley, and Ludlum would clock Chrichton upside the head for not being
able to write decent endings, among other things. Vitals does
have some of the weird science aspects of Chrichton, but it also shares
Chrichton's annoying tendancy to write himself into a corner towards
the end. Vitals does not, in any way, shape, or form, compare
even remotely to Ludlum's mastery of espionage. In the first half
of the book we are tantalized with the possibility of the main
character getting trained to avoid assasination, but it falls
through. The rest of the book is like this - possibilities of
interesting things just around the corner, but the author never takes
us there.
Vitals certainly has its creepy moments, and the first 196 pages are
excellent. But overall, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone
other than a die-hard sci-fi fan, and even then only if they were stuck
in an airport for five hours with nothing else to read. It will
pass the time. There is certainly a lot more sci-fi out there
that is drastically worse; I can't complain about Bear's prose, though
it also has nothing outstanding about it either. But there is
certainly a lot more sci-fi out there that is obviously better.
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It seems that there's an effort underway to build support for season 2 of Firefly. If you'd be interested in such a thing, sign up, because the networks have already demonstrated that they won't support anything as libertarian as this.
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Coyote Rising
In my earlier review of Coyote, I described it as a fairly normal interstellar colonization story with a hint of politics in the background. Coyote Rising,
the sequel, makes those politics somewhat more explicit, but they are
still far short of actually driving the story in a manner similar to,
for example, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. That's not a good
thing when the point of the story is supposed to be the politics.
The original colonists on Coyote were rebels, political dissidents who
stole their spacecraft from the dictatorial tyrrany that built
it. They had years to settle into life on their new world, but
the government on Earth (no longer the same one they had fled, though
it's replacement is similarly collectivist) has used those years to
build more colonization craft.
When those craft begin to arrive, they bring with them a corrosive
ideology and the soldiers to enforce it. The original colonists
are forced to flee their homes and live in hiding, scratching out a
living from the harsh and unfamilar planet while looking for a way to
reclaim their planet from the new arrivals. It's a perfect
settling for a retelling of the American Revolution, and the author
makes a good attempt. But the traditional weaknesses of science
fiction writing are poor characterization and difficult in telling an
emotionally moving story, and this book suffers from those flaws in
spades.
That said, it's by no means a failure. It's just not a smashing
success. If you enjoyed Coyote you'll enjoy it's sequel, and it's
easy to pass a few hours in the reading without regretting them.
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Coyote
Imagine a socialist paradise that bankrupts itself to develop a single
interstellar spacecraft, the USS Alabama, designed to escape the solar
system and colonize a new world, called Coyote.
Imagine that the colonists for this new world have been carefully
selected by the government, emphasizing political loyalty as much as
scientific knowledge. Imagine that in this dystopian society,
dissidents who remember the dream of Liberty are regularly rooted out,
arrested, and shipped to reeducation camps in cattle cars. And,
finally, imagine that the captain of the USS Alabama, one Robert E Lee,
is just such a dissident -- as yet undetected, and leader of a
conspiracy to seize the Alabama, replacing her crew on the eve of launch with a new set of colonists. Colonists who remember freedom.
If you can imagine that without straining your suspension of disbelief,
you'll do just fine with this novel, which presents a fairly normal
interstellar colonization story with a hint of politics in the
background. It's not a story that will make a vast emotional
impact; in fact, many of the events which might be expected to have
such an impact are downplayed. Don't come into this story hoping
for a rousing tale of freedom versus oppression; it will not deliver
that, and does not try. (That attempt appears to be reserved for
the sequel, Coyote Rising).
While the book will hold your interest, it does not rate special
notice. Colonization junkies will be disappointed by the lack of
detailed challenges to be overcome related to the new world, and
political junkies will be disappointed by the lack of rhetoric or
emotional impact. If the book has a strong point, it would be
interpersonal relations, and even that aspect is too weak to carry the
whole story.
The only reason I can see to read this novel is to set up the sequel.
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The Wilding
I was first introduced to CS Friedman's work with the Coldfire Trilogy,
an excellent exploration of the consequences of introducing humans into
a world where magic is shaped by belief -- and thus gives life to our
worst nightmares. I quickly located her other extant works, The
Madness Season (with which I was similarly delighted) and In Conquest
Born... which was a story with potential, but which ultimately
disappointed me.
The Wilding is a follow-up to In Conquest Born, and the results are similar.
The known universe for both books includes two warring empires, the
Braxins and the Azeans, both human-based races with substantial changes
to the base. The Braxins focused on physical prowess, producing
warriors of great strength, great skill, and greater ruthlessness; the
Azeans produced telepaths. In Conquest Born pitted the greatest
of both races against one another, with unexpected results; The Wilding
picks up centuries later, with the consequences.
Unfortunately, the tale fails to compel. In the first novel, it
could be argued that the two empires were an elaborate storytelling
device designed to represent the tension between the sexes that results
in such powerful emotions as love... and hate. Even though the
novel failed to clearly make that case, and ended up without anything
useful to say, The Wilding completely abandons it; instead relying on a
simple adventure tale to carry the story. That, too, falls short,
but not disastrously -- except in that the elements of the plot rely
for their greater meaning almost entirely on the events of the
first.
Unfortunately I cannot recommend either novel. But if you liked
In Conquest Born, and have some emotional investment in the results, it
might be worth reading the followup. If not, don't bother.
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Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me
There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me...
Serenity goes into general release today. Do not miss it.
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The second novel in the Tales of the Continuing Time series, TLR is a
masterpiece of the science fiction genre that is difficult to summarize
in a few paragraphs. Moran has done some brilliant technological
and political speculation set in the late 21st Century. His
characters are very real and alive, and the writing is rich and
fast-paced. TLR has the most cohesive plot of the three books in
the series so far, and if you're a new reader, I actually recommend
starting with it rather than Emerald Eyes.
TLR picks up seven years after the massacre of the Castanaveras genies,
most of whom were telepaths. Three children escaped and have been
pursued by the UN Peaceforcers, but without success. Trent lives
in what used to be New York, dancing on the Infonet and pulling off
heists just below the radar of
the authorities. His routine, if it could be called that, is
interrupted by the arrival of Denice, who sparks off a chain of events
that forces Trent to make his run.
On his way out of the clutches of the PKF, Trent will tangle with Elite
cyborgs, hop spacecraft and space stations, crash on the moon,
infiltrate a PKF base, and reach lunar orbit by the most unusual means
- but he won't escape until he's made a daring opening move in striking
back at the Unification. Throughout all of this, we get hints at
forces operating behind the scenes, and glimpses of things to
come. TLR stands on its own, but is very much a part of a larger
tale.
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Across known space, Humanity is a rare example of a species that
achieved sentience and a starfaring civilization without the evident
help of a Patron race. In the eyes of some aliens, this makes
them unique; in others, it makes them outcasts. Humans have
earned themselves a tenuous status in Galactic society, however, as
they had already Uplifted two other races - chimpanzees and dolphins -
by the time of First Contact.
With the gift of alien technology, Humans are exploring the environs of
Sol itself. Drawn into the Sundiver project by an alien friend,
the scientist Jacob Demwa soon finds that the sun may harbor the secret
behind Humanity's apparent lack of Patronage. But strange
behavior from everyone involved - Earth natives and aliens both - puts
the entire project at risk, and Jacob has the opportunity to sort
things out - if he can get his own fractured mind to cooperate with him.
Sundiver is a lovely mixture
of the hard sci-fi and mystery genres. The writing is solid, if
rarely evocative, and the primary character is lovingly fleshed
out. Secondary characters lack depth but work fine as they are.
The creative exercise of the setting - chains of Patron and Client
races, each with their own (sometimes hidden) agendas, flowing around
the 'orphaned' Human race, the latter still struggling with social
issues on a grand scale, opens up lots of possibility for future
works. The mystery element will keep even the sharpest of readers
guessing. Combined with hard sci-fi, this book was a very
enjoyable, relatively quick read. Fortunately, Brin has seen fit
to grant us several more titles set in this universe.
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Startide Rising picks up about 200 years after Sundiver left
off. The first mostly-dolphin starship crew is assembled and sent
on a survey mission. Uopn finding a huge derelict fleet of
unknown origin and sending a message home about it, several hostile
races hound the small survey craft until she crashes in the ocean of a
metal-rich waterworld.
Apparently, the hostiles are all quasi-fanatacial races who believe in
the eventual return of the Progenitors, the race or races who began the
practice of Uplift. It soon becomes clear that the fanatics think
the derelict fleet is a sign pertaining to the Progenitors, and they
want the location of that fleet badly.
The Earthlings struggle to repair their ship and escape before the
hostiles find them, but the untried crew must first face internal
treachery as well as the mysterious hazards of the planet. They
also encounter a number of oddities with the Library, the supposed sum
total of all sentient knowledge, that was made available to Earth races
by the Galactic civilization.
The overarcing plot of Startide Rising is
fairly straightforward; it's the subtleties of the crew's struggles
that make up the meat of the story. Brin continues with his
engaging writing, and the closing sequence of the books is composed of
wonderfully concerted episodes of action that make for a rousing
finish. Brin spreads out his character development this time, so
we have many more points of view to consider.
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- The Chanur Saga
- Chanur's Homecoming
- Chanur's Legacy
Hilfy Chanur has taken on the role of merchant-captain on her own vessel, following in the footsteps of Pyanfar's career. But the shadow of her former captain is always visible, and intrigue never far off.
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The Pride of Chanur
This is an introductory novel to the universe, capable mostly of standing alone. In it, the reader is introduced to the Hani, a race of spacefaring, vaguely humanoid felines, and the Chanur, a powerful family of hani; also to the kif, vaguely-humanoid nocturnal predators; the mahendo'sat, vaguely-humanoid and difficult to characterize; and Tully, a lone human trying to survive in interstellar space. As is typical for Cherryh, this is a first-contact novel from the inside out, with the viewpoint resting squarely upon the hani, providing a view of humanity from alien eyes. The Compact races, including all of the above except humans, are thrust into a first-contact situation themselves by the arrival of Tully.
Tully, of course, is a valuable commodity, as the only available representative of a new spacefaring race capable of trade. But after he escapes from his kif captors and sneaks aboard the Pride of Chanur, the hunt is on. Can he trust the hani? Who can the hani trust as allies?
Chanur's Venture
Following the adventure of the prior novel, the Pride of Chanur has just barely gotten itself back on its feet, but still has debts to pay. So they are understandably wary when Goldtooth offers them a present in the form of Tully, the human who brought them so much trouble the first time around. But the lure of trade is enough to overcome reluctance, and once more the chase is on.
If The Price of Chanur is an introductory novel, this is the first novel of a trilogy, and it shows: problems go unresolved and the whole thing ends on a cliffhanger. But it's an exciting roller-coaster ride nonetheless, and as usual, Cherryh somehow manages to deliver a high level of tension with a minimum of shooting. We begin to catch glimpses of hani politics, mahendo'sat menuverings, and kif psychology, as the hani are drawn deeper into the intrigues they had previously ignored.
The Kif Strike Back
In The Kif Strike Back, we learn that the kif have no intention of allowing their opponents to dictate the rules of the game. Quite the opposite, in fact. With Tully and Hilfy held captive to force Chanur's hand, one faction of kif seek to corrupt another ship as before they corrupted Tahar's Moon Rising. The only way out for the Pride of Chanur is to go deeper in, to learn the intricate web of kifish politics, and hope to learn fast enough to win back their crew and their escape. And the mahendo'sat continue to plot in the background, manipulating events to their own ends.
Although all three books do not hold the complete story, this compilation volume is an excellent introduction to the universe and will surely leave little doubt about picking up the fourth novel, Chanur's Homecoming.
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Coolhunting
She was a coolhunter with forty different legal identities. Her job: to drive fads; to find the "next cool thing" five to ten times per week. She was one of the best. Entire corporations rose and fell under her influence. But then some really uncool things started to happen...
From the description, this sounds like an adaptation of the idea first pioneered by Connie Willis in Bellwether. Although I haven't read this adaptation, I have read other works by this author, and most of Connie Willis' work; between the two, Connie Willis is the better author, but even in good hands it makes for little more than an interesting intellectual exercise.
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The Wreck of the River of Stars
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There are many reasons for this. The writing is extremely awkward at times; unfocused and peppered with authorial asides and pointless digressions. The characters and their interactions with one another are complex, but unrealistic, bordering on the dysfunctional even before things start to go wrong. Subplots meander about the novel with little connection to one another and little conclusion by the end. But perhaps most damning, the tale promises at least a temporary glory, a romantic ideal of a ship sailing the solar wind, yet fails even to deliver that. The entire exercise is tawdry and futile.
The premise is simple: ships fly between the planets by means of a traditional "fusion torch" or the somewhat more elegant "solar sail" (formed with a ring of superconductive material and a magnetic field). The sailing ships harken back to the days of ships sailing the oceans of earth, complete with islands to avoid, currents to navigate, and rigging to tend... and just like the steamships on Earth, ships with the "fusion torch" drive rendered the entire technology obsolete.
The River of Stars is a hybrid vessel, carrying both a solar sail and a retrofitted fusion torch drive. The ship was once well-known, the most famous of the solar sail spacecraft, but the new drive system brought about a dramatic reversal of fortune; with its sails permanently stowed, the River of Stars limps from port to port, slowly descending into obsolescence.
Until the fusion torch drive fails midway to Jupiter.
While the chief engineer struggles to repair the fusion torch, the token solar sail crew plot to unfurl their sails and ride into port upon the solar wind. They hope that one last, desperate gesture will save their lives and restore the glory of their ship in its day.
It's a compelling summary, but unfortunately the implementation doesn't reach any of those lofty heights. This one's not worth it.
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Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace
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Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was almost universally panned by fans of the original trilogy, and deservedly so. Hopes, and expectations, were high following the smashing success of the earlier films and the intervening two-decade improvement in technology. What the fans received was not what they had desired: a children's movie that replaced many of the most popular elements with a cute kid and a racist portrayal of a repulsive amphibian.
But there is one redeeming virtue: Darth Maul's lightsaber duels.
That's all that needs to be said. They are that good.
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I, Robot (Widescreen Edition)
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"I, Robot" is based loosely (the movie terms it "suggested by" in the credits) upon a collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. It's been a while since I read the book, but I remembered the basic elements of Asimov's universe and the questions he raised in the book. Based on that recollection, the movie version successfully captured the flavor of Asimov's work, raising many of the same questions, but doing so in a single coherent action-adventure rather than a short-story format that would have translated poorly to the screen. (On the other hand, that format could work very well as a TV series -- movies are expected to have an overarching plot, TV series can get away with an episodic format).
The plot is rather more complex than the standard action-movie ideal. It's fairly well thought out and has a number of twists and turns. Most of them were mildly predictable but not obvious. The tension between the main characters was well-handled, but wasn't terribly subtle in the area of robotic behavior and psychology -- I think that was a concession to the audience. The SF fans already know the subtleties, and the general public would be bored by them. Most of Asimov's themes and concepts are there or at at least briefly referenced, but not dealt with in-depth.
The CGI robots are absolutely stunning; smooth, detailed, expressive, and both human and not human at the same time. Most of the fight scenes are well done -- not exceptional, since they aren't the focus of the movie, but very well presented. The director abandoned the usual "slice and dice visuals" for this movie, presenting instead a number of long, detailed sequences -- each one complete in itself. Gone was the choppy, confusing, distorted feeling far too many films have embraced; give me the slow lingering shots with a beginning, middle, and end please! There was one particular fight between two robots, hand-to-hand, that was absolutely perfect and reeked with authenticity.
The only somewhat disappointing part of this film was the politics. There wasn't a lot, and it was fairly subtle, but there's a moment in the film when it is clearly obvious that the villian is speaking lines from the Bush administration's War on Terror, and the protagonist's struggle to resist is intended for the public to identify with. I don't disagree with the message, I just think that it was intended to BE a message, and that grates a little bit. It's a minor sin and it fits into the movie perfectly, though, so I'm not too worried.
On a more subtle note, there was a noticable lack of firearms in the hands of anyone other than the police, even in situations where most people would have pulled out the shotgun in the closest or the like. The police are running around with fully-automatic weapons that never need reloading, of course.
Some minor flaws... There were two absolutely, completely, totally blatent product placements. They don't detract from the movie, really, but they are awkward moments clearly placed there for commercial opportunity. There's a car chase scene that temporarily shattered my suspension of disbelief.
Whether you're an Asimov fan or not, go see the movie: it's very well done and very much worth it.
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Ghost in the Shell
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Ghost in the Shell is an anime that has already attained classic status. It merges the potential for beautiful visualization of anime with a powerful storyline exploring philosophical questions. The resulting mix is a very impressive experience, and undoubtedly one of the best examples of the anime art form.
The original dialog is, of course, in Japanese. The translation has some awkardness and occasionally renders the details of the plot hard to follow, but not in a manner that detracts from the really interesting element: exploring the idea of the soul in a world where humans are gradually replacing more and more of their bodies with machines, and even brains can be hacked and reprogrammed.
This is definitely not an anime for the light-hearted and carefree. I highly recommend it.
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Star Trek - The Animated Series
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None of the editors of speculativefiction.org have seen this, yet based merely on the title, we are all scared of it. There's something about the Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, and so on in anime that me want to run screaming.
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Stand Alone Complex
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Innocence
Innocence is a sequel to the popular anime Ghost in the Shell. And it's a sequel that gives the lie to sequelitis: Innocence may even surpass it's predecessor.
Fans of Ghost in the Shell will recognize Batou, who returns in the sequel as the solemn, philosophical cyborg cop. Since the disappearance of the Major, his partner, he has withdrawn further and further into himself. He's assigned a new partner and put on a case involving robots that are killing their human owners and committing suicide.
As you might expect, this is used as an opportunity to explore some of the same themes as before. When we learn to manipulate the senses and memories of other human beings, how can you really know what's real? What is it that makes a person human, if their body is merely a biological machine? What happens when the machines stop acting like machines, and start acting like humans?
The deep thoughts are so thick in this one that the characters engage in an extended conversation about Descartes at one point. They aren't self-conscious about it, but they really are wrestling with the questions themselves rather than just going through the motions.
For that matter, those of you who have not read any of Descartes' work would be well advised to glance through the cliff-notes version so you can understand what the relationship to the story is. For some works, expecting a basic familiarity with philosophy might come across the wrong way, or as grasping too hard for meaning, but here it works.
Innocence is out in theaters. I will link to the DVD version when it becomes available.
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