Science Fiction / Fantasy

[Frybabe]

Science Fiction / Fantasy

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Welcome to the whole universe!  This is where we gather to share our experiences in science fiction and fantasy.  We like everything, from Gregory Benford to Stephanie Meyer—hard science to magic and fantasy. Come in, sit down with us, and tell us what you are reading or have read, what you like or dislike.

Links: Fantastic Fiction, bibliographies of 30,000 authors

Discussion Leader:  PatH

He committed suicide at age 30 in 1936. As you said, Steph, a long time ago. Here is is extensive bibliography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Howard_bibliography Doesn't he look very detectivish or gangsterish in the photo? And he wrote poetry too.

[Steph]

I knew the poetry. He is very collectible and in my used book store, I save the paperbacks since I had a collector who would buy all of them.

[PatH]

That's a very detailed bibliography.  He wrote a lot more different things than I realized.

[Frybabe]

Yes, someone did a lot of work putting together Howard's bibliography. He apparently wrote a lot that never made it to print or he started stories that were never finished. The Biblio says some were finished or reworked after his death. I can picture an office or workspace cluttered with notes full of ideas or bits that he never got around to working on. He also wrote some under a pseudonym, Patrick Ervin. I'd like to see what he did with his Bran Mak Morn and Turlogh Dubh O'Brien short stories as well as some of the ones of the pirate, dark ages, and El Borak stories.

[Steph]

I never understood the attraction, but to this day, he is considered collectible and people look at him very hard since it is believed he wrote more than we know about.

[Frybabe]

I've given up on Jo Walton's, The Rebirth of Pan. After putting it on hold for a week, I went back to it and decided it wasn't worth finishing. Not my kind of story.

Now I have started something called Frontera by Louis Shiner. I downloaded a pdf of it a little over a year ago from somewhere. This was, according to my research, Shiner's first book, written in 1984. One comment I saw said that at the time it was one of the first to postulate big corporations running the show rather that governments. At the beginning of the book we see a crew of astronauts making an insertion into Mars orbit. So far I am only a few pages in.

Odd that I never paid attention to the names of the Martian moons, Deimos and Phobos. In mythology, Deimos and Phobos were the twin children of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite. They accompany their dad around the battlefield. Deimos is the god of dread and terror, while Phobos is the god of fear and panic.

I found this interesting website, now bookmarked, put up thy the Theoi Project; this is Ares' page:
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Ares.html If you scroll down to encyclopedia, you will find an interesting paragraph on the distinction between Ares and the other gods and godesses that have a role in war.

[Frybabe]

I've finished Frontera, another good book. I wonder why I never ran across Louis Shiner before. What the book is about is essentially a tale of corporate race to an abandoned Martian colony originally thought not to have survived after communications broke off seven years previous. We have an American corporate crew and a Russian corporate crew who are in a race to get to the colony once one of the colonists clandestinely contacts the American corporation with news of a discovery that she hopes will get her a ticket back to Earth. And, of course, the Russian spies got wind of it and were right on their heals. We have a corporate head who is arrogant with power and a corresponding governor on Mars who is controlling, power crazed and is slowly going nuts with paranoia. We have murder, betrayal, a little lust/sex (not much), mistrust, and the threat of war. We also have the inventions (transporter, antimatter drive) that the smart but deformed children of the colony, working on their own, develop.

[PatH]

Frontera reminds me of two books by Ben Bova I read recently:  Moonrise and Moonwar.  The family that's the main force of an American corporation is determined to keep the moonbase and make it more profitable, though their main motive is love for the whole thing.  They are hampered by rival companies, politics other nations trying to take over profitable parts of the moon, and religious fanatics who object to nanotechnology.  The books are good, but there are so many characters, factions, alliances, plots and counterplots, switching of romantic attachments, that after a while you get weary.  I skipped and skimmed in the second book, trying to get the main points, and see who was still alive at the end (Bova has a higher tolerance than some for killing off characters, and the story lasts for two generations).

[Frybabe]

You know, Pat? I don't believe I have ever read Ben Bova (unless it was a forgotten short story).
Well, what do you know, another Pennsylvanian.

[PatH]

I never had either until half a year ago, though he's been around long enough--a year older than I am.  Then I spotted Rescue Mode on the New Books shelf at my library.  I talked about it here--a Mars mission is damaged by a meteor, leaving it with too little fuel to complete a flyby and get back to Earth, so they land at the partly completed moonbase and figure out how to survive while back home scientists try to figure out figure out how to rescue them, and politicians argue whether they should do a rescue.  It's kind of like The Martian, with slicker writing, fuller character development, and less science.

Then I borrowed a just out book of his short stories, which I'm about to return (overdue).  I didn't read all of them.  They're good, but too much alike to read all at once.

[Frybabe]

It looks like we have plenty of Ben Bova at the library including Rescue Mode. He has a "Grand Tour" series that looks interesting. Wikipedia lists them, but not in publication order. According to the article, Bova suggests reading them in order of chronology. So, Powersat is now on my library wishlist along with Rescue Me.

http://www.benbova.com/index2.html

BTW, I finished off an ebook called Beautiful Red by M. Darusha Wehm. It was a moderately good book about a security officer who tries to track down some hackers and equipment thefts. The ending was a little surprising to me. Although it was a good ending, it left me a little unsatisfied, I think because I wanted or expected a "better" outcome for Jack.

[Steph]

Bova used to be in all of the monthly magazines.. A lot of the older authors were.

[Frybabe]

I never read the SciFi magazines, Steph. My sister used to get Omni before it died.

Heads up: Jack Campbell's next Lost Fleet book will be out May 5. Can hardly wait.

[PatH]

Yay!  The summary makes it look good.  A new way to make Geary lose a lot of ships.

I grew up on SciFi magazines. My father was a fan, and subscribed to just about all of them, and I gobbled them up as soon as I was old enough to make any sense of them.  So I saw some of their golden age.  After I got married in 1955, I read much less  SF, but still subscribed occasionally, and read them when visiting my parents.  In the late 80s or early 90s I subscribed to Interzone for a while.

[Steph]

My Dad gave me subscriptions to several of the magazines and the Science fiction book of the month club when I was 12 and over. So I grew up on the magazines in the early 50's.

[Frybabe]

What fun Status Quo by Drew Wagar turned out to be. I had expected little of the book, but was pleasantly surprised.  http://www.drewwagar.com/

Background: Elite, a computer game, was born in 1984; Oolite was born in 2004. Both were single player trader/space combat games. Elite holds the distinction of being the first game to use wire-frame 3-D graphics. Both games have been updated throughout the years and are still played. Elite: Dangerous was released as a multi-player game last fall. I can't find an official website for it, but here is the one for Oolite: http://www.oolite.org/

The book: Set in the Oolite universe, the story line was of an accidental discovery that could be used as a weapon and the discoverers' efforts to keep the weapon from being developed and used. If you remember references to Q-bomb, this is where it started. It was fun to read the references to old (but probably still used) programing terms like hex-editing and wire-frame. The 'blue screen of death' made a showing too. Notables who got mention in the book included Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynman, and Anne McCaffrey and her "Dragonic raiders". The whole Oolite saga series is in free e-book form: EPub, Mobi, PDF, and LRF (whatever that is). If you don't understand Quantum Theory, not to worry, I don't either. Just read and enjoy.

[PatH]

I just learned of a Chinese sci-fi author totally unknown to me--Cixin Liu.  (I have trouble deciding whether to write Chinese names last name first or first name first.  Liu is his last name.)  He seems to be partly responsible for a revival of interest in China, to be hugely popular, and to have gotten a number of awards.  The first book of his trilogy, The Three Body Problem, has been translated into English, so I've got a hold on it at my library.  Here's the publisher's description:

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

That sounds like something that's popular because the government thinks it's OK, but the New York Times liked it.  I'll find out.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/c/liu-cixin/

[Frybabe]

The title sounds like a Sherlock Holmes doesn't it? The problem is a very real one; which side do you take if invaded by an outside source. Amazingly, my library system has it also. I've added it to my wish list for now because I already have to others books on hold: Halo: Mortal Dicta by Karen Travis, War Dogs by Greg Bear. Now reading Jack McDevitt's Going Home.

[Steph]

Let me know if you like it Pat.. I suspect if the government let it be published, it might be the party line.

[Frybabe]

I just finished Coming Home.  The search was on for early space flight artifacts. The action was centered at various places on Earth. While I can't say this one is my favorite, it was the most thought provoking. Lots of mention of lost books, fragments of old books and documents, a second Dark Age that disappeared the Internet and all it's online records and e-books only, that made tracing the lost objects extremely difficult for Alex and Chase. At least one very funny reference to a character from a book. No, I'm not going to tell you; it would spoil the fun. You'll know it when you see it. Also, the wrap up leads me to wonder if this will be the last Alex Benedict novel. Big bummer if it is. As I recall, he wrapped up the Priscilla Hutchins (mention given in this book) Academy series with Starhawk.

PatH, when you read the book, let me know what you think. I have to go back and reread or skim the first books, but I could almost swear that it was mentioned in one of them that Alex liked going to parties and other functions because he got to network with potential clients. In this book, Chase mentions that he doesn't really like parties. 

Checking out Jack McDevitt's Fan Club, I saw that just two days ago someone posted info that he will be receiving  the Robert A. Heinlein Lifetime Achievement Award at Balticon this year. It is being held Memorial Day weekend. Balticon is held at Hunt Valley, MD, just below the Maryland line and only an hour or so drive from here (depending on traffic and the ever present road work). Sue and I considered going, but then didn't. I checked the Balticon website and see absolutely no mention of McDevitt or the Heinlein Award as yet. Jo Walton is listed as Guest of Honor this year.

[Frybabe]

Some more interesting news for fantasy lovers. Jack Campbell is doing a series for Audible called The Pillars of Reality.  The Dragons of Dorcastle is the first one out. Someone on GoodReads has it under Steam Punk, Amazon Australia has it under Epic Fantasy. I'm not particularly interested, but if anyone listens to it, I'd like to know if you think is is good. Campbell's military SciFi is one of my favorite series.

[PatH]

Campbell's military sci-fi is topnotch in my books.  I'll fight my way across the galaxy with him anytime he asks.

I don't know about fantasy; I'll have to see what he's like--doesn't seem like his kind of thing.

[Steph]

Different strokes.. With the exception of Miles, I do not like military sci fi.. But I do love Miles.

[Frybabe]

I am about half way through War Dogs by Greg Bear. It is simply written; no complicated science or technical stuff in it, no complicated twists or turns. I am undecided whether it is written for teens or those who don't have a high reading level (it isn't listed as a teen book), or if it is written to show the narrator is simply a "grunt" without a lot of advanced knowledge or education beyond what is needed to get his job done. Not unintelligent mind you, just not in a position that needs a lot of academic training.

Brand names that popped out at me are Michelin (lot's, as this is the nickname of one of the characters), Dyson (interesting brush contraption used in the airlock to remove dust from suits before the wearer enters the habitation units), and Under Armour (men's underwear). I'd be interested to know if Dyson is actually working on such a system for the Mars mission.

The story itself is not too bad. So far, no actual fighting; they haven't even seen the enemy yet. After a disastrous drop, only a few troops survived. The story is about these few men and their quest for undamaged supplies (especially a machine that collects water and produces breathable air) and equipment, and any other survivors. All but one satellite is destroyed so they have no instructions on what their mission is/was or where they are supposed to be going. The only instructions they had beforehand was not to interact with the native population, former Earth colonists and descendants who were pretty much abandoned by Earth after economic collapse. They are there just to fight aliens on behalf of the alien group (called Gurus) that "befriended" Earth and who provided technological advances to them. Payback time. Now Earth provides troops to battle their enemy.

Bear's acknowledgments go to ground troops throughout several wars, so my guess is that he had input from many low level troops in situations like being behind enemy lines, cut off and trying to survive without much, if any, leadership or guidance.

[Frybabe]

Okay, one more comment about War Dogs. I can't believe it took me 3/4 of the way through the book to realize that the narrator is going through PTSD or something close to it. He is just back from combat and trying to get his head back on straight. The story is being told as he ruminates over the events of his last tour of duty on Mars.

[PatH]

Frybabe, that insight will help me to get a good start if I read WarDogs.  Give us a final rating when you're done.  Bear is a good reliable writer.

I picked up the Cixin Liu today, but it'll be a week or so before I can get to it.

[Frybabe]

PatH, I liked the story and cared about the characters. The ending (with some interesting twists) left me with a 'what happens next' or 'what happened to' feeling. Wonder if Bear plans a sequel which, I think, is not common for him.

I realized that Halo: Mortal Dicta is the third of a series, so it is going back unread. I have reservations about reading Karen Traviss' Halo books. She has a habit of not paying much attention to the previous story lines and tends to turn an essentially military series into a social one. I've also seen complaints about this Kilo Five series including comparisons between Dr. Halsey (character) and Dr. Mengele as well as other social ills. Having said that, this series is supposed to be an 'after the war' series to flesh out what happens between the Halo 3 and Halo 4 gaming series, so maybe a focus on social ills is not all that inappropriate. The main thrust, though, is supposed to be undercover ops to destabilize certain former Covenant allies and keep them from forming a new coalition. Traviss' first book for the Halo series also got lots of criticism, including mine.

Not sure what I am going to start next, SciFiwise. I think I have settled on The Lost Starship for my Lending Library selection for the month, but I may end up selecting something else. At this point, most of the SciFi books I'd like to read are not on the Lending Library list or I am caught up on the author's books.

[Steph]

Greg Bear, I have read at least one of him, but he was not a favorite.

[Frybabe]

I settled for something called Fluency for my Kindle lend this month. Not sure when I will start reading it.

At the library, we have a book called Archetype by M. D. Waters. I thought it was a kind of fantasy book, but it is more like a dystopian book. The blurb on Amazon leads me to think A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I wasn't far off. Here is a review from The Masters Review https://mastersreview.com/book-review-archetype-by-md-waters/ The Kirkus Review is short with no stars.

[Steph]

The Handmaids tale is a favorite of mine. A brilliant book, that forshadows the current muslim stupid behavior.. Atwood is a favorite writer of mine.

[PatH]

I agree, The Handmaid's Tale is brilliant, and Archetype does seem to have a resemblance.  Are you going to read it, Frybabe?

[Frybabe]

Not right away Pat. But I've put in on my library wish list along with about 30 others. Sigh! My library wish list is looking like my hardcopy TBR piles, and my book downloads not yet read. Big Sigh!

[PatH]

Well, at least it doesn't take up as much space as a TBR pile.

[Steph]

Ah, but I love to sit and gloat over my tbr pile.. Makes me reassured I will not run out of books..
Finished the 7th volume of the Cassandra Clare series.. Way too long, but good. I see it is going to veer into the fairy kingdom and their revenge.

[Frybabe]

I think I will be like Thrusday Next's grandmum (was it or mother or aunt?) who refuses to die before she has read the world's most boring book. Actually, I plan to be here when the first human steps foot on the red dust of Mars. George isn't allowed to kick over first, so we will be absolutely ancient when the event occurs. 

[Steph]

Mars.. hmm, I want to see self sustaining life on other planets myself.

[Frybabe]

I am actually puzzled by why the US is pushing Mars over a more permanent presence on the Moon first. A possibility is that they will need Mars as a staging area for a push out to Europa and environs. Europa has been a target, whether in Scifi (2001:A Space Odyssey for ex.) or actual science. Here is the latest on NASA's mission to Europa. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/nasa-mission-europa-search-extraterrestrial-life/story?id=28719191

I finished Fluency. It bogged down once or twice with explanations (nothing technical), but the story is interesting. While I can't say disliked any of the characters, each had a few unlikable characteristics. Just when you think the author is wrapping up the ending, she abruptly stops. A huge hang. That leads me to believe she is going to write a sequel. A very talented Linguist is recruited to decipher or try to communicate with any aliens aboard what appears to be a derelict space ship. There is one survivor on board who communicates telepathically. The linguist the only one that can pick up the signals, leaving the rest to either believe the Linguist or decide that she is going nuts. This, even though they all knew that telepathic communication was a possibility. Throw in a mysterious "virus" that killed off all the original crew but one and space slugs (vermin, like rats on a ship). The single survivor of the original crew reminds me very much of the navigator on the TV Series, Farscape.

I'll be picking up two more books at the library today. Neither one is a SciFi.

[Steph]

our sci fi section of the book sale is not a good one. mostly vampires, etc

[Frybabe]

It's been quiet in here for a few weeks. Anybody reading anything good?

I gave up on one a few days ago called Bringing Stella Home (or some such). One of the three primary characters, the youngest of three siblings, is off on a quest to rescue his older brother and sister. Some of the story is interesting, but I was put off a little by so many men being described as having white or gray goatees (petty of me, I know, but I am not fond of goatees), the idea of a warship with a harem for the commander (complete with silk draped walls and ceiling) and a permanent home for the crew's families, a father who wasn't overly upset at losing two kids nor was he interested in trying to find out if they were dead or alive somewhere, and the youngster who annoyed the h out of me.

Haven't settled on my next SciFi yet. Archetype is still unavailable at the library.

[Steph]

I still have several Pratchett hidden away.. I need them for bad days or weeks.