Okay another even bigger batch of books. I really must try and get around to writing these up more frequently (as in eating an elephant in small bites!). Three more recommendations in this batch from Emily St John Mandel, Sue Burke and Adrian Tchaikovsky; the first two total failures and Tchaikovsky's just a bit 'meh.'
HardWired by Walter Jon Williams
I can’t believe I’ve only just got around to reading this classic of cyberpunk! Fast paced with plenty of action and all the dark drug and implant fuelled elements of the genre. Written a couple of years after the, probably, more famous Neuromancer I found this more accessible than Gibson’s book and ultimately more enjoyable, though maybe with a little less depth. There were elements that stretched credulity but that’s probably true of all cyberpunk. Still, lots of adrenalin fuelled action and tremendous fun! 4/5 stars
Ogres by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I’m not sure what I was expecting from Ogres, which resulted in me dragging my feet a little getting around to it, and it certainly wasn’t what I got, as it developed from an almost fantasy like start to a serious piece of science fiction with a hard punching and scary look at a possible solution to resource scarcity along side a condemnation of social inequality. Tchaikovsky does seem to like to mix his genres as well as introducing elements of social critique, yet he never quite overdoes it. An excellent though provoking short read; he does manage to pack an awful lot into his novella sized books! 4/5 stars
Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer
Hummingbird Salamander came recommended by Emily St John Mandel but I’m afraid I only managed around a third of it before I gave up. The prose is sound, but it turned out to be more of an eco/techno thriller than the near future SF I was expecting, which, in fairness, is not really the author’s fault. What is the author’s fault is the complete implausibility of the basic premise that a woman with a successful career and family would throw both away to chase a mystery presented to her by someone she never met and who was already dead with nothing more than a taxidermied hummingbird as sole clue and introduction. Everything that followed stretched my credulity until it finally snapped and I quit. 1/5 stars
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear
The blurb for this book gives the prospective reader an idea of what’s coming – a man is woken from deep sleep with almost total loss of memory into a vast colonisation starship in a state of total chaos – but no real idea of how far Bear is going to take that idea. Told in very close first person, the reader shares the main character’s utter confusion, and the reality of the situation is only revealed piece by piece as he discovers it himself. Brilliantly conceived and imagined, the reader can take nothing for granted and the twists keep coming right up to the end. This is a hard SF thriller tour de force and it kept me guessing throughout. 4/5 stars
Masters of Rome by Robert Fabbri
The story of Vespasian continues under the reign of Claudius as he takes part in the invasion of Britain before returning to Rome only to find himself once again embroiled in the politics of state. As ever, Fabbri’s historical research is evident throughout with all the fine detail of life in Roman times lending a great sense of accuracy. However, as always, I do find I have two major problems with his writing: he loves his gore with limbs and heads flying in all directions with single sweeps of Vespasian’s sword and he takes the supernatural elements just too far outside superstition and into reality for my tastes. This is an historical novel and not a fantasy so giving druids (and others) the levels of real magic that the narrative presents rather than just superstition simply grates with me. 3/5 stars
Architects of Memory by Karen Osbourne
This one came recommended by Sue Burke and, I’m sorry, but I simply found it appallingly badly written. Cliched slop as the main character moons around constantly boring the reader with her impossible love for the captain of her salvage ship whilst another member performs feats like taking out two fully armed soldiers with nothing but a scalpel after first cutting herself free from being tied up. No one behaved with anything close to credulity. With no improvement on the horizon after a hundred pages or so I gave up having wasted hours that I’ll never get back again. Drivel. The truly sad thing is that I bought it on the back of the recommendation and, only after I’d started it, did I realise I had previously previewed and rejected it on Amazon’s Look Inside feature! So really only myself to blame! 1/5
Seas of Ernathe by Jeffrey A Carver
Slightly disappointing this one. I have read and loved all the, so far, published volumes of Carver’s Chaos Chronicles series and so decided I’d take a look at his Star Rigger books in publication order. Of which this is the first and also his first published book and I’m afraid it felt rather like it. The basic premise of a kind of first contact is quite good and interesting but it suffers in the detail. For example, the sentient natives of the planet are called the Nale’nid and they are called that by themselves and the humans throughout and yet at the start of this book there has been no contact or communication with the humans, so how do they know to call them that? Okay so maybe a little picky but there are a lot of similar inconsistencies. Had this been my first Carver I’m not sure I’d have read more of his work and now I’m unsure about continuing with this series though in fairness the series has been written between 1976 to 2000 so I would imagine his writing has also developed over that time! 3/5
One Way by S J Morden
One Way was an Adrian Tchaikovsky recommendation and is something of a cross between The Martian and detective thriller; survival on Mars with no chance of help or rescue with a killer picking off the small pioneer team. An interesting idea and mostly good hard SF stuff with a couple of classic mistakes such as concern for the speed of the Martian winds damaging and blowing stuff around. However, the underlying plot that emerges throughout the books simply becomes ever more implausible the deeper we get into it. And the final solution to the murders becomes clear to the reader long before the narrative reveals it. So, this one was something of a ‘could have been good, should have been very much better.’ 3/5 stars
