Blindsight by Peter Watts

This is a book that I have heard about from time to time over the years. It is described as a superb hard science fiction novel that explores philosophy and what it means to be human. That tends to be my favorite kind of science fiction. And with all the high praise for this book, I was excited to read it. Perhaps the reviews were a little overdone for me.

The story is one of first contact with a limited cast of characters. It takes place hundreds of years in our future where all of those on the mission are enhanced in some way, physically. The ship is also a character being a sentient AI. They are sent to encounter a large object nearly the size of Saturn. When they arrive, they find some sort of ship in orbit around the object. The bulk of the novel is their attempts to communicate with and figure out what exactly it is.

The writing is a bit too much hard science. I read this on an ereader and was glad for it. I had to look up the meaning of many words to understand them. The context did little to help with that. The story is also told in a manner that made it feel almost a little confusing to me. I got the main thread but couldn’t help but feel like I missed a lot. That said, it really delivered on the philosophy and the human condition. Overall, I enjoyed it.

My rating: 3.5/5

Wrong Place Wrong Time by William Morrow

I heard about this book on the podcast What Should I Read Next?. It intrigued me because of its unique time travel element as well as the emotional aspect of a mother trying to save her son from doing something terrible that would change his life in ways he could never undo.

As the book opens, a mother is waiting for her teenage son to return home. He is running late and she is nervously looking out the window looking for him. Soon, she sees him walking toward the house. He is joined by another person. They seem to talk briefly. Then her son takes out a knife and stabs the man. The rest of the night involves the police and her son going to jail. In the wee hours of the morning she finally gets home to get some sleep, intending to get him a lawyer and start sorting all this out the next day. But when she awakes, it is the day before the murder. And every time she wakes up, it is a day or more before the day she just relived.

I couldn’t put this book down. The mother is at the center of the story as she attempts to unravel what happened, why her son would stab someone, and how she can prevent it from ever happening in the first place. Through some help from other characters, she uncovers more and more that she didn’t know about her own life. The story is filled with surprising revelations artfully spun. The mother’s emotions are an underlying thread as she finds out things about her son and husband that she never knew. And the writing pulls at the heartstrings in a way that fits perfectly with the story without pulling you out of it. A well-written and evocative mystery that effectively uses time travel and makes it feel almost normal.

My rating: 4.5/5

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

I have been a subscriber and reader of Locus Magazine for over a year now. It is the monthly magazine of science fiction, fantasy, and horror and includes numerous book reviews in each issue. The February issue included various reviewers’ best of 2023 books. One such favorite was this book. The book was also longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2023. The premise sounded interesting, so I gave it a go.

The review that interested me in this book states in part that “it serves as a technical demonstration of how to continue asking big science-fictional questions while starting from the world as it is, rather than as we’d like it to be.” The book is told in the first person and starts with a rather lengthy description of the main character’s childhood and eventual decision to study marine biology. She eventually gets the opportunity to go on a scientific expedition to a place in the mid-Atlantic where there is a trench much deeper than ever measured in the Atlantic before. Odd things start happening that begin to move the plot forward at a less slow pace.

This book is well-written and filled with thoughtful ideas. At times it reminded me of thoughtful science fiction books like Contact and 2001: A Space Odyssey. And while I enjoined both of those books and movies, I found this book to be way too much prose and not engaging enough with the story. Even the ideas are barely hinted at. I enjoyed the contemplation of the ideas raised in this book, but it was as much an exploration of childhood trauma and its affects on the main character’s future. Sometimes it felt that was the main point of the book rather than exploring the science fictional elements of the story. That may be what others want in their literary science fiction, but not me. Give me Rendezvous with Rama any day over this dry, almost pretentious, over literary book.

My rating: 2.5/5

Saga, Vol. 11 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

I learned about the comic/graphic novel series Saga many years ago. Every time a new volume in the series is released, I immediately put it a request for it at my local library. Not too long ago, my request for volume 11 came in. Quick warning, minor spoilers ahead for the action that took place prior to volume 11.

Volume 11 picks up after Marko has been murdered and Alana and Hazel (their daughter) are stranded when their spaceship is destroyed. They continue to be hunted by both sides of a war because Marko and Alana, representing a union of adversaries, and their daughter are perceived as a threat to the ongoing conflict that others are ideologically or financially committed to. This volume continues the stellar artwork and storytelling of the previous volumes.

If you haven’t yet read any of Saga, I highly recommend it. Just be aware that its themes and artwork are very much aimed at adults and therefore definitely not safe for work (NSFW).

My rating: 4/5

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

I am fascinated by storytelling. It is a large part of why I read so much. I also love to learn about the art of storytelling and writing. So much so that I listen to a podcast called Writing Excuses. What is it? In their words, “Writing Excuses is a fast-paced, educational podcast for writers, by writers. Our goal is to help our listeners become better at their craft. Whether they write for fun or for profit, whether they’re new to the domain or old hands, Writing Excuses has something to offer. We love to write, and our listeners do, too.” In their latest season they have been talking about “world building” and using the Hugo-award-winning novel A Memory of Empire by Arkady Martine as their text.

I had thought about reading this book many times but always decided to pass. On the cover is a prominent quote that, in part, refers to it as “space opera“, not one of my favorite types of science fiction. I didn’t really relish reading about war in space. But as I listened to this season of the podcast, I discovered that this novel is less about space war and more about culture, language, diplomacy, colonization, and empire. I became very interested in reading this book and finally picked it up.

The story centers on a young woman named Mahit who grew up on a small space station on the edge of the empire. When suddenly the empire requests a new ambassador from the station, Mahit is sent. She has studied the empire and its language and culture almost her entire life. She is fascinated by it as well as troubled by its power and threat to her home station. When she arrives, she learns that the former ambassador is dead, possibly murdered. With little knowledge of what happened to him and almost no one to help her, she sets out to discover what happened to him and protect and represent her home.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved that it delves into the culture of the empire and how it both fascinates and troubles Mahit. One of the episodes in the podcast is an interview with the author. In it I learned that she combines aspects of the Byzantium and Aztec empires to develop the empire in the book. The world building happens in the context of telling the story so there is little exposition about the empire or the world. It all happens organically in an intriguing story that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and takes you along for the ride with Mahit as she struggles to navigate this new world that she loves and fears and has for so long wanted to be a part of. But as the story unfolds she starts to wonder if that will ever be possible. A unique look as colonization and it effects on the colonizers in the shape of a compelling story that is hard to put down.

My rating: 4.5/5

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

I’ve had this book on my To Be Read pile for almost three years. Last week it caught my attention when I was considering what to read next. I finished in less than a week.

The story takes place on a future Earth where a way has been discovered to travel to alternate universes. This allows Earth Zero (the one that discovered and developed the technology) to begin a brisk trade with alternate Earths. The challenge of traversing, as its called, to these other worlds is that you can only do so to worlds where the alternate version of you is no longer alive. The main character is valuable to the company employing those who traverse because she is dead in more alternate worlds than anyone else. But what happens when she is sent to a world where her alternate self isn’t actually dead? That happens, kicking off a fantastic thriller of a novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has everything. A likable but mysterious protagonist. A driven plot with multiple twists that are hard or impossible to see coming. Character development that happens in line with the plot and provokes considered thought about the human condition. And a love story that feels as genuine as possible in a complex and dangerous world. I found this book un-put-down-able.

My rating: 4.5/5

Hum by Helen Phillips

I learned about this book from the Summer Reading Guide on the What Should I Read Next? podcast. It won’t be published until August 6. I was able to read it early by getting an advance reader copy from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review.

The story is about a mother in a near future where AI robots called “hums” and public surveillance are everywhere. The first part of the book is a depressing litany of the living poor in a high tech world succumbing to climate change and slowly losing jobs to automation. After being let go, the mom gets paid to have a procedure to make her face unrecognizable to facial recognition. She uses the windfall to pay back rent and for a vacation at the Botanical Gardens with her husband and two children. While there, a crisis with her children is the event that sets off the main conflict of the novel.

This tale is well-told and realistically evokes the everyday struggles of the working poor trying to raise a family in a world that seems to keep them down at every turn. Additionally, it explores the struggle of parents to raise their kids to be well-rounded adults with all the distractions that technology affords. Unfortunately, I found the balance of the story to be off a bit too much for me. The bleakness heavily outweighs the message. It reminds me of an episode of Black Mirror on Netflix. It gives me that same vague horror of something that could really happen but never should without the same storytelling punch that series delivers.

My rating 3.5/5

Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

With the recent release of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, I decided to read the book that started the movie franchise that now includes a total of ten movies. The original novel was published in 1963 in French by Pierre Boulle with the English of Planet of the Apes.

The story starts out with a couple doing some solar sailing through space when they come across a bottle floating in their trajectory. Upon retrieval, they discover that the bottle has a short manuscript in it. With the exception of the final chapter, the rest of the book is the manuscript of a mission to the Betelgeuse system where the astronauts find a planet called Soros that is populated by sentient apes and savage humans unable to speak.

I liked this book, but I definitely felt its age. The twist is clever and different than that of the movie. That surprised me. But the ending in the book in much more thought provoking. The rise of apes and the fall of man on Soros was due to man numbing himself to his surroundings. In that way it reminds me of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley or The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.

My rating: 3.5/5

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishigura

I picked up this book because of its themes. I enjoy speculative fiction that explores the ideas of identity and the human condition in general. I particular enjoy it when these themes are explored without giving straightforward answers. Life is complicated and such simple answers don’t generally exist. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro explores these ideas in a fascinating way as one would expect from a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Unfortunately one aspect of the plot ruined for me what was an otherwise wonderful novel.

The book is the story of Kara, an Artificial Friend, a type of robot companion for children. She waits in a store to be purchased and fulfill her purpose. When she finally gets a home, she is companion to a girl who has been “lifted”, who is genetically modified to be smarter. This process is not always successful, and it is unclear if it will be for this girl. She has a boy as a neighbor who she is very close with. We learn about all this in bits and pieces through Klara who tells the story from her perspective. Klara seeks to help all those connected with the girl. And this is the part that spoiled the book for me.

While in the store, Klara gets the idea the Sun (always capitalized in the book) bestows “his special nourishment” on someone to heal them. At a some level this makes a certain kind of sense. After all, Klara is powered by solar energy. On the other hand, it is completely absurd. A robot built on logic and algorithms that thinks the Sun is some kind of god to be bargained with in exchange for healing? Very human but not very robot-like. It just kept pulling me out of the story and making me shake my head. I couldn’t buy into it. Ultimately, this aspect of the story spoiled for me what was an otherwise excellent book exploring what it means to be human and care for another.

My rating: 3/5

The Toll by Neal Shusterman

This is the conclusion of the Arc of a Scythe trilogy. It centers around the climax of the second book and how the world reacted. Its hard to say much more without spoilers.

I have to say that I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the first two. The action takes place over three years but it isn’t always clear what order things happen in. The story is not sequential. Some action is told toward the end of the three years, then it moves to right after the second novel concluded. It is made explicit the first time, but after that you pretty much have to track it on your own. And there is a lot more happening with more characters in more places. I liked the focused nature of the first two books better.

That said, I still enjoyed this book. There is a lot of action and introspection by the characters deciding who they are and what they are about. I have to admit that I saw in part the end coming, but even so, I found it satisfying.

My rating: 3.5/5