Category: Aa

Numbercaste — Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

By 5t4n5

Numbercaste -- Yudhanjaya WijeratneThis is a super good story, especially considering the way data is currently being used and what it all might mean in the future.

I’m sure there are people who would read this and think it’s a great idea because they’d assure themselves that they would just work hard to get a high number and be a great success, but every system that creates winners, by necessity, has to create losers.   There’s only ever 100% of the pie and if the top 1% take 50% of that pie then what exactly will be left for the bottom percentages after all the middle people have had their slice?   Changing the system so that you have a different 1% is not going to ever solve the problem.

The world is full of people who think they can solve the problem called Homo sapiens, but the reality is that Homo sapiens can’t be fixed.   The problem called Homo sapiens will only be solved when Homo sapiens becomes extinct.

In the meanwhile we have to endure this death-by-a-thousand-cuts inflicted upon us by the top 1% and their sycophants.   Hopefully not too much longer until we arrive at Armageddon.

So yeah, good story, let’s hope it doesn’t become too prophetic for most of our sakes.

The next book in Yudhanjaya’s timeline is Deep Ocean Blues.

Yudhanjaya’s Page

#scifi #yudhanjayawijeratne

The Salvage Crew — Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

By 5t4n5

The Salvage Crew -- Yudhanjaya WijeratneThe big evil corporation sends an AI controlled drop ship with 3 humans to grab some salvage from a colony ship that crashed onto a planet.

The planet is supposed to be unclaimed by others, uninhabited and safe for the humans and drop ship.   But as with most evil corporations, the truth isn’t exactly on the menu when they want to recruit people for the job.

So the AI ends up with 3 humans that the AI is supposed to look after and control, but who have other ideas, especially when things don’t go according to plan.

At the heart of the story is Yudhanjaya’s favourite theme of literary AI’s/machines, and what happens when two AI’s evolved enough to be poets meet each other and how they deal with the meat puppets that are problematic for their way of communicating.

All in all, another fine story from Yudhanjaya, and if you haven’t got around to reading any of his work yet, i do humbly suggest you give it a try, you may be rather pleased to discover a wonderful talent in a quirky corner of sci-fi hitherto not explored much.

I did like snippets like this:

Humans react to shock in all sorts of unexpected ways.   Hysteria and numbness are the most common patterns.   Given a world that terrifies them, people either scream at it or stop caring.   But there are other patterns. Anna seems to have gone through her scrubbing phase into what we call hypercompetence—adopting a set of behaviors that [or so the human thinks] will give them the greatest chance of survival.   Some of the most famous survivalists in known space, for example—Wolf Bjorn, Dana Jayawardana—all had some deep, traumatic incident in their childhood that turned them into the kind of mad person that will happily land on a desert planet with no tools except their own fingernails and proceed to survive there for six months while making a reality-TV show out of it.

This story is followed up by Odysseus, which is set in the same universe.

Yudhanjaya’s Page

#scifi #yudhanjayawijeratne

Seven of Infinities — Aliette de Bodard

By 5t4n5

Seven of Infinities -- Aliette de BodardSuper good Xuya story from the Scattered Pearls Belt orbitals.

This time we have a mindship that’s a master thief (with principals and ethics of course) going up against some exiles who have no principals or ethics whatsoever, and thrown right in-between a not so innocent teacher and her student.

I most certainly advise not to bother reading this story if you haven’t read all the rest of Xuya and have fully grasped overlays, mem-implants, bots and all the rest of the mindship stuff because it’s all in this one story, we even have sex between a mindship and a human: oooooh!!!

The next book in the Xuya time line is Rescue Party.

Aliette’s Page

#scifi #aliettedebodard

Madame Burova — Ruth Hogan

By 5t4n5

Madame Burova -- Ruth HoganI was rather excited to get Ruth’s latest book.   But it had a lot to live up to after the first three books: did it manage it?

Yes.

Just like the previous three books, we’re treated to a wonderful set of diverse characters and taken on a roller coaster rides of highs and lows, finishing with a most excellent bittersweet ending.

As to the story, it becomes pretty obvious to anyone paying attention who Billies’ mother is, the cheque gave it away.   And i did think i knew who the father was about the same time, but i realised i was wrong and picked the right one about 80% in.   It certainly didn’t ruin it because the characters were so wonderful and it was still totally enjoyable to see how everything plays out, how Billie finds out and then how everyone reacts to the truth when it finally arrives.

Ruth has such a great way of telling a wonderful story.   If you haven’t tried any of her books yet, do so soon.

Please Ruth, never stop writing.

Ruth’s Page

#lgbtq #ruthhogan

The Elegance of the Hedgehog — Muriel Barbery

By 5t4n5

The Elegance of the Hedgehog -- Muriel BarberyThe Elegance of the Hedgehog is Muriel’s second book after Gourmet Rhapsody, and is actually the bread on a Gourmet Rhapsody sandwich.   The Elegance of the Hedgehog is set in the same building as Gourmet Rhapsody and begins shortly before the death bed of Pierre Arthens, and quickly passes by his death with a simple thought from a 12 year old girl in another apartment:

Pierre Arthens for sure was truly nasty.   They say he was the pope of food critics and a worldwide chapion of French cuisine.   Well, that doesn’t surprise me.   If you want my opinion, French cuisine is pitiful.   So much genius and wherewithal and so many resources for such a heavy end result … And so many sauces and stuffings and pastries, enough to make you burst!   It’s in such bad taste … And when it isn’t heavy, it’s as fussy as can be:   you’re dying of hunger and before you are three stylized radishes and two scallops in a seaweed gelee served on pseudo-Zen plates by waiters who look as joyful as undertakers.

As a classically trained chef myself, i couldn’t agree more.

Once Pierre is dead, the story quickly moves on as Pierre’s apartment is soon taken over by a new, wealthy occupant.

So while Gourmet Rhapsody is certainly a good starter, you don’t need to have read it beforehand to enjoy the main course of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, you could actually read it when the Pierre’s death is spoken about in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, or even afterwards, as a desert, if you so wish.

But whether you read Gourmet Rhapsody or not, i highly suggest you read The Elegance of the Hedgehog.   At it’s heart is Muriel having some fun with the juxtaposition of the poor concierge on the ground floor with the wealthy inhabitants of the apartments above; peeling back the curtains to see what’s really going on behind these closed doors, throwing in some great little rants, ideas, and wonderful, philosophical, food-for-thought concerning the disparity of rich and poor in society; and how each tend to live in completely separate universes, oblivious to each other, hopefully never having to meet on the stairs.

As i’ve previously mentioned in Night Train to Lisbon, i do enjoy philosophers who write novels, and if i had real books i’d happily put Muriel on the shelf next to Pascal.

Super good, and next up from Muriel will be The Life of Elves which i’ll be sure to get around to reading in the not too distant future.

Muriel’s Page

#murielbarbery

One Good Dragon Deserves Another — Rachel Aaron

By 5t4n5

One Good Dragon Deserves Another -- Rachel AaronStill the same feeling that i was getting with Nice Dragons Finish Last, in that the pacing is still annoying me a bit.   I think it’s totally to do with there being so much going on in these books with so many great characters that sometimes the story takes one away from something that one really doesn’t want to be taken away from, leaving one chomping at the bit to get back to that one character’s story line, thus giving the impression that everything’s suddenly going slow and plodding along when it actually isn’t.   And then, when you find youself back at that one character’s story line you’ve been aching to get to, you’ll more than likely find that you’re now chomping at the bit to get back to another character’s story.

But — guess what — you keep-on-reading-and-a-reading because these books are really, really good with plenty of really, really great characters.

Which, you guessed it, left me chomping at the bit to get started on No Good Dragon Goes Unpunished.

Rachel’s Page

#fantasy #rachelaaron

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway — Una McCormack

By 5t4n5

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway -- Una McCormackI’ve been looking forward to reading this for quite some time now but just haven’t gotten around to it until now.   And i’m glad i finally did.

Admittedly, this book will only be for those of us who totally loved Star Trek Voyager and it’s brilliant captain and crew.   If you do fall into this niche market and you haven’t yet read this book, then please do so, i can’t imaging anyone who loved the series would be disappointed with this lovely book.

My only gripe, is that we had to wait for so long for it to be written and published.   I would have loved to have read this before, during and after the series, it would have been a wonderful companion for every viewer.

But, it is what it is, and it was wonderful to be taken back in time to relive a few memories of the series, and also to find out lots more about Kathryn and her life before and after.

And i just found The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard, and it certainly won’t be long before i read that.

Una’s Page

#autobiography #scifi #startrek #unamccormack

Mother of the Year — Rachel Aaron

By 5t4n5

Mother of the Year -- Rachel AaronAs usual i check the loc points when i open a book on my Kindle.   This one said 800, so was obviously a short, but i was rather disappointed when it suddenly ended after 242 loc points and i find the rest is just a marketing exercise for a future book in the series.   It’s a very short, short masquerading as a normal short.

But, ho hum, it was free for signing up to the mailing list so maybe i shouldn’t moan too much.   But just as you’re getting into Bethesda’s character and you’re really looking forward to the other 3/4’s of the 800 loc points being filled with even more revealing stuff, you realise you’re not getting what you hoped so much for.

So what’s the 242 loc points about?   Bethesda gets interviewed on another dragon’s chat show.

Sadly, only a little bit of background into Bethesda’s character, and her attitude towards her children, before moving onto the rest of the series: i so wished there was more.

Rachel’s Page

#fantasy #rachelaaron

Nice Dragons Finish Last — Rachel Aaron

By 5t4n5

Nice Dragons Finish Last -- Rachel AaronAll mostly very enjoyable.   My only moan is that some passages are a bit tedious: it’s like you just really want the pace to keep going but instead it slows right down to tell you what someone is thinking, or some long winded conversation, right in the middle of a load of fast moving chaos that you want to be enjoying in a fast pace way.   I admit that i only felt like that a few times, so it’s not like the book is like that all the way through, and that’s probably why those few passages stand out so much as the rest of it is really on a good pace throughout.

So, yeah, that’s my only moan.   Other than that, i really enjoyed it and i’m looking forward to more, and there’s certainly plenty more books in this series.   Rachel really has done something wonderful with dragons in this dragon centric story, placing them in a dystopian capitalist environment as totally psychopathic creatures, essentially, the ultimate capitalists.   And the dragon clans’ internal and external politics that get explored are really good.

Basically, everything you wanted to know about dragons but were too afraid to ask.   Now doesn’t that sound like fun?

Rachel’s Page

#fantasy #rachelaaron

Tales from the Cafe — Toshikazu Kawaguchi

By 5t4n5

Tales from the Cafe -- Toshikazu KawaguchiI soooo enjoyed Before the Coffee Gets Cold so i was really looking forward to some more tales.

And i wasn’t disappointed.

One thing that really stood out in this book was that all the niggly little questions that the first book raised got answered along the way: i won’t say what as it may spoil things.   So it was rather good that as i started the book and i had questions in my mind that as i went along all the questions got dealt with.   I imagine that Toshikazu had quite a few people asking these questions after reading the first book and it’s good to see that they all got answered.

Other than that, it’s pretty much more of the same as the first book whereby we have four people wanting to travel in time to make something right with someone.   We also get to know the cafe staff and regulars a lot more along the way.

So yeah, great sequel and i really hope that Toshikazu thinks up a few more in the future and keeps the cafe going: it really is a good stage within which to fit stories into.

I continue to add my gripe from the first book, in that, there’s a cat on the cover but no cat in the book whatsoever.   Toshikazu, if you ever read this, please put a cat in the next book.

Toshikazu’s Page

#scifi #japan #toshikazukawaguchi