Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Light Novel) Vol. 7 by Rifujin na Magonote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sad, ED Rudeus arc.

Oddly, I rather enjoyed seeing him suffer a bit, make a few new mistakes, be lonely and depressed. It really establishes him apart from that good ole Gary Stu complex. But then, he really DOES have a lot of faults and goes through a bit more than a lot of shit, so I guess I can't really call him that.

It's just so EASY to come to that conclusion with all the genius OP bits.

I can't wait to see him finally go to school! It's about damn time.

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無職転生 ~異世界行ったら本気だす~ 6 by Rifujin na Magonote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It feels like the story is moving faster now. And yes, the manga and the anime are following this prime story pretty much perfectly.

Another huge turning point in this one. Death is hardcore, after all.

They head off to save Rudy's half-sister and mother and fun story hell happens. ... and then Iris happens, too. Sigh.

I'm having a lot of fun in this series -- again. :)

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無職転生 ~異世界行ったら本気だす~ 5 by Rifujin na Magonote
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Paul versus Rudy. I guess every family has its spats, but I really do appreciate how both were equally right and wrong at the same time. The actual fight was awesome, too.

Very happy with this fantasy series. All the direction changes are smooth and obvious once we get to them.

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Weyward by Emilia Hart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you're looking for a 3-parter novel that follows different generations of "witches" across more than 300 years, you might want to check this out.

It has the requisite men-being-assholes, ruining women's lives. It has journeys of discovery, sometimes even validation and/or vindication. It even has the standard line that women are obviously naturally tied to nature and that makes the superior.

The structure of this novel flits from views of all three women and eventually shows how they're all related. It's not bad, and it's exactly in the same tone I've read many times. Witchy women will win. Unfortunately, it feels, at least to me, as if it's running over ancient ground. I won't say that isn't great for potential readers, but I've been reading things quite like this for over 30 years and it just seems to grow with more hate for men and even more with the 'women are only held back by men' storytelling.

I'm tired, boss. It's just another kind of propaganda, as if we aren't all responsible for the entire mess, together. So, yes, tons of bad men out there -- so maybe we should all work together for once in a moon? But then, maybe certain readers only want this outcome. Overwhelming the readership.

But for me? I'm a pretty sensitive guy. I love to immerse myself in so many different ideas -- but that's actually kinda hard when I'm represented, over and over, as the source of all of women's hardship.


So, even if I think this novel is technically pretty good and the three women have decent arcs, I find myself depressed and hating the world. And for that? I give it 3 stars. Maybe it's not fair, and maybe no men should have anything to do with this growing genre of literature -- not if they want healthy role models or any kind of self-esteem. Or for that matter, for women who might think it a good thing to challenge and correct the men in their lives to be better, to do better.

Most WOULD be open to it. We can't assume that all are like the loudest and stupidest in the media.

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無職転生 ~異世界行ったら本気だす~ 4 by Rifujin na Magonote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Solid fantasy light novel, but it should be said that it is the direct source of both the manga and the anime by the same name. (English speakers, please present Jobless Re-incarnation).

Fun? Absolutely. This kid is a horny but still ethical kid that just so happens to be a fantasy reincarnation of a dirty middle aged man. Sound icky? That's kinda the point. He LEARNS. It's pretty wholesome.

Beyond that, this fourth volume is focused on leaving the Demon Kingdom, while on the way home, hijinx ensues, with a good long look at the Beastman Kingdom. I like how there's a lot of friendship-building going on.

Again, not my favorite story-arc, but better than the last, and definitely a built-up for the good stuff to come.

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Möbius: The Timeless Artifact by Brandon Q. Morris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The good: fairly well thought out theory of time borrowing from Carrol's theories, but insisting on an eternal computational now that can run either forward or backward, depending on your instance.

Confusing? Not really. The novel spends a goodly amount of time explaining it, building up to aspects that flows into a somewhat interesting plot focusing on the exploration of the same concept.

Bonus points for the fascination with topology.


The bad: the plot is barely a vehicle for the concept and the characters and dialogue are well into the category of meh.

I'm glad I finished, but I was floating in a vast sea of average for a good deal of the book.



And yet, I DID like the focus on the science and the math. The research is real.

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Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood with Stops Along the Way at Murder, Madness, Mayhem, Movie Stars, Cults, Slums, Sociopaths, and War Crimes by J. Michael Straczynski
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read 5/13/24

So, I got my best friend to watch B5 and it not only was a big success, she became a huge fan -- so much so that she wanted to read Joe's autobiography. I said hell yes because Joe happens to be one of MY heroes. So, I'm reading this again and I'm amazed AGAIN at how much the man went through even before he struggled as a writer.

The rest is utterly fascinating to me, too, but trying to figure out what I like more? It's almost a toss up between the RL stuff and his fiction.

The title is Becoming Superman not because he's indestructible. It's because a good person has to live by their values no matter how hard it can be.

As an INFP, this is practically everything to me, too.



Original Review:

J. Michael Straczynski has been on my radar ever since Babylon 5 aired. Being a writer, myself, I liked to pay attention to stories and attach them to their creators no matter what the medium was, and Joe Straczynski had quickly become a superstar for me.

Honestly, I would have just read this book for all the cool projects he had been involved with, from a large handful of He-Man and She-Ra, to the first (good) season of The Real Ghostbusters, to Babylon 5, to his writing and short acting debut within Thor (being the first man to find the hammer), to his long comic runs of Spider-Man and Superman, to even Sense8. And all of this is included, and a lot more besides. I wanted to rage, cry, and whoop for joy with Joe. I STILL can't get over the fact that he's never seen a cent out of Babylon 5.

But this book, strangely enough, is NOT really about that or any of the other projects. There's a lot of detail, sure, and it was fascinating as hell, but the real story is Joe's life.

His LIFE is ONE HELL of a STORY.

I can't even really BEGIN to tell it. But suffice to say, he has gone through some major shit. His father was a real piece of work, and just let me mention this: I've read a LOT of books and this asshole ranks up there with fictional douchebags that are written AS sensationalized assholes.

I'm frankly amazed. By any normal standards, Joe should be a broken man taking the usual route of continuing the old tragedies, but he consciously used his parents as a model of what not to do and broke a completely new trail.

My words cannot do any of this justice. Joe writes one hell of a good story about his own life and backs it up with a lot of supporting research, but the spoilers are VERY hardcore. I can't just come out and SAY them because this was not just an autobiography -- it's a THRILLER.


Suffice to say, I think this book belongs on everyone's bookshelf. It not only demands respect in and of itself, but so does the man. He is a model of perseverance at all costs. He has NOT had very good luck, no matter how self-effacing he is in his prose. He's gracious, a good man, and not only is he an utter nightmare behind a typewriter, but he's also one of the most prolific writers out there. He wrote almost every episode of Babylon 5. But most importantly, he knew how to take a beating and NEVER BACK DOWN even when the big boys in the networks or the censorship brigades demanded that he change the basic story.

He never settles for less than the story he was made to write.

Of course, this strength had to come from somewhere. He went from having Superman in the comics save him as a kid to having saved Superman as an adult. I'm telling you, this man knows how to tell a FINE story. :)

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The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-read.

Oh lordy, where to begin with this one? It's only one of the earliest, most fantastic apocalypse, post-apocalypse SF novels, with lumbering, spitting, man-eating plants becoming the dominant species of Earth after the grand majority of humans get blinded by strange lights.

So classic, almost even timeless, Triffids is the de-facto template for so many great novels and movies. Sure, we could point to War of the Worlds, but that was mostly straight war, not bothering much with normal people having to survive a VERY changed world.

Triffids succeeds on all levels, giving us the lingering taste of middle-class gentility and attempted civilization as whole cities stink with the rot of corpses.

What's not to love? Hoards of blind people being led about by a handful of the sighted? (Ooooh the allegories.)

In the land of the blind... we are beset with the hungry green. :)

I love this novel every time I read it.

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Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food by Chris van Tulleken
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been reading on this subject matter for well over 20-25 years, with a continually increasing realization, over and over, that the real problem is in processed foods -- not so much fats, carbs, etc.

Here's the real deal. Shaming people for being overweight is becoming an increasingly stupid idea when greater and greater of percentages of people in certain parts of the world are in epidemic territory. It's not willpower. It's the FOOD.

When fresh foods made healthily are more expensive because they can't be kept fresh for almost indefinite amounts of time, when you can't mass produce them easily, both regular people and corporations have found it much more cost effective to use tons of chemicals to fake out a healthy meal, pretend to freshness, and seriously enhance, or even create a genuine addictive element, then we're running into the big, BIG problem of capitalism.

When we're faced with big corporations, be it Coke or the consolidated monsters of the aggro community, it's all about the bottom line. Constant growth, constant new profits. So, make the product addictive, process it to an inch of its life, make sure that people keep consuming.

The problem is multi-fold, of course, but the big one is the cycle that keeps the profit margin growing, be it massive advertising, squeezing out any and all alternatives, outright lying about the effects, whether in studies, marketing, or pushing deregulation and giving kicks to the government.

We know WHY it keeps going. But this book also goes into the SCIENCE and a full review of all the studies, including new ones, that point to the real facts: that these processing methods, including zero-sugar alternatives, flavor enhancements, spoilage prevention, all lead to very hard-core changes to our gut's biome. Sugar-free items do approximately nothing for weight loss. They're on the same level as sugared items. On the other hand, because so many of these chemicals are designed to make you feel like you could consume forever (or actually make you malnourished) then we're all constantly taking in a vast extra amount of calories despite being careful.

And this, in my humble opinion, is probably the most outrageous trap that we've all fallen into. Yes, all these processed foods are cheaper, but even while they might be considered neutral for your health, they are tricked, chemically, into making us want more and more of it. In a word, exactly like an addiction. A chemical addiction.

And THAT is fantastic for the bottom line. For them to replace all real food so they get rich. Cornering the market is more like creating a market of slaves.

And we let it happen to us. Fast food everywhere, plastic wraps on massively modified food products everywhere else. Chemicals that look like the ingredients on degreasers and shampoos, ingested hungrily despite decades of warnings against it.

And all because it is convenient -- and because all our safe alternatives are either hard-to-get or time-intensive to use.

We've all been had. We let it happen to us. All of us.

And let's make no bones about it: we ARE in an epidemic. None of these companies have any incentive to do the right thing. And we are forced into worse and worse choices.

Cook for ourselves? Sure. I'm doing it so much, too. But it isn't enough. Marketing will lie to all our loved ones, our children, and we few are like lone voices in the wilderness. We have to make a change, but big money won't be able to profit off it.

This book is great, by the way. It's VERY rage-enducing, but in a good way. I love all the focus on the science. It's a proper update for today.

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Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Light Novel) Vol. 3 by Rifujin na Magonote
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Probably my least favorite sequence in the series, it was still pretty okay. Running around in the Demon continent after the great shake-up, being protected and growing up with a master demon swordsman, and dealing with racism -- it was okay.

But honestly? I'm much more interested in all that comes after. :)

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Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Light Novel) Vol. 2 by Rifujin na Magonote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm reading the Light Novels well after having seen the anime AND reading the Manga. Why? Because I want to see if I'm missing anything! Also, when I get far enough in the series, I can lord over everyone else by knowing things nobody else knows.... maybe.

Ah, who am I kidding? I'm just enjoying the story again.

Turning point, here we go!

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The Causal Angel by Hannu Rajaniemi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read 5/8/24:

Post-singularity gods and a war in computational heaven. :)

As good on re-read, and so much better as the capstone of the full trilogy.

So much damn destruction. Just -- wow.

This is peak SF, right through each level. :)



Original Review:

I cannot recommend this trilogy enough. It's smart, has mind-blowing images, really fast pace, and ideas to absolutely kill for, and kill again, and even aim for a true death before causality does a flip and the spooky zoku decide that it's time to revoke my entanglements and I lose a few hundred gaming levels.

This novel really feels N-Complete. I'm satisfied in a way that I rarely get, and I have decided to plop these novels into my most favorite books of all time. Sure, there are flaws, but what is most brilliant about them are very, very brilliant, and I can't overlook the beauty of them. I'll definitely revisit all of these novels in the future. They all belong tightly entangled together, and it's so much more apparent now than it would have been by the end of the second novel, despite my faith in the series.

All I will say is, Prison, Prison, Prison, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom. What a gorgeous ride this has been.

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The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read 5/7/24:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this series has got to be one of my all time-favorite SFs ever.

If anything, the second book is better than the first. Or perhaps, I just LOVE story-within-story stories more than anything else.

But here's the real scoop: There's nothing about this novel that I don't love.

That's right. It feels like perfection. It has wild future tech and a post-singularity universe, but it feels like a glorious romance right out of The Arabian Nights while simultaneously being a continuation of a hardcore Arsene Lupin novel.

I love everything about the Earth here. The wild code, the stories, the great tragedies, the Wrath.

But the end? My god, it blew me away.

This is going to be one of those novels I will always treasure.


Original Review:

“On the day the Hunter comes for me, I am killing ghost cats from the Schrödinger Box.”

I luuuuurve this opening line. His craft is exquisite, so far.

Update: The imagery is almost better than anything I've read in either sci-fi or fantasy. If you took out the better and deeper images from all thee matrix movies, threw them up against the wall with jinn and fairies and the greatest heist mysteries, heavily spiced it with near-impossible mathematical concepts and theorems that really need some deep explanations you're not going to even remotely get in this text, (save S. cat, but he gives a quick explanation for this one, although its been done in sci-fiction a lot already), you stir in planetary intelligences, diamond cities that crashed to earth, slow and quicktime peoples, AND warring sisters, then maybe you've got the first gorgeous fifty pages of this book. And don't forget to keep a copy of your mind before you read, or you might just lose a copy of your prime iteration. I want to give this 6 stars. Have I been waiting for something like this all my life since Singularity Sky? Maybe. :)

A quote:

"So. Sightseeing instead. How about watching a transhuman mind have a Hawking orgasm? From afar."
Mieli smiles. A warm rush of relief washes over her.
"I bet you say that to all the girls," she says.


The entire novel is poetry and math and all told with brilliant imagery. I've decided to bone up on my quantum physics, too, just so I can appreciate the story more. I may be relatively unique in this respect, because I don't really believe that general readership of sci-fi novels just "decide" to understand quantum physics in order to more fully appreciate a novel they had just read. Well, to be fair, I've read popular accounts in the past and have enjoyed them immensely, even if I pick up on less than one-tenth of the math. Ok, maybe I'm not that odd after all in wanting a greater understanding. At least, in this case, I feel really justified and encouraged after reading this brilliant work of math/fiction.

So I finished it and I can only say: Wow.

Well, I can say a lot more, because wow doesn't do it a third of justice. Or even an irrational third of justice.
What I will say is that these two books have now jumped to my top ten favorite books list. Together, because I don't want to cause other injustices to stories, and I have a very great feeling about the next book.

While I ought to recommend this book to everyone, I doubt it will be to everyone's taste. But then does everyone like Blake, Shakespeare, Manly P Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages? Of course they should... But they are all very very different than this piece which might need to be its own genre from now on. I'm tempted to just transcend here and put an end to my misery.
Read em, peeps. Just read em, perhaps three times. You'll see.


Update, second read.

I laughed and I cried. I got more out of the whole story angle than I did the first time, all of the stories within stories, minds within stories, stories coming to life and eating your children, your children coming back from the dead to birth stories that would later eat the Earth and help the dead child become the God King of the Gogols? OH YES. Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times yes. He turned a fundamentally metafiction concept into a hypercube and spun it out with such verve and beauty as to kick my mind in its ass. I cannot say how much I loved this book. Again, much better the second time reading than the first, if possible, but I can't regret a single instant.

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The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read 5/6/24:

Now on my fourth read, and I'll be honest: few novels truly GET me the way this does. High speed plotting enmeshed in post-Singularity thievery that includes mind, time-theft, truly high-tech baubles, bodies, AI ships, and Game Theory.

Add that to truly erudite writing, clever confabulations of new words, and a truly fluid re-imagining of a society that not only can upload their minds, but can re-fashion a whole world and everyone's memories outside of their bodies -- and how it could so easily be used against them.

What I love most about it is the imagination. The exploration of themes that very well might come to pass for us if we're not careful. But most importantly, this is an exploration WELL beyond the technology we have today, done cleverly and terrifyingly.

But does this mean it's inaccessible? Hello no! It's full of Jean le Flameur, thief extraordinare, and his thief-taker always in tow. :) Funny, brilliant, and full of great truly high-tech mystery.


This late in the game, I'd kinda point fingers at Alastair Reynold's Prefect series and Bank's Culture series as similar titles... but truly, I love this best.




Original Review:

I am very surprised and delighted by this novel. I half-expected an idea or a theme from Stephen Baxter's Flux, but was thoroughly captivated by such a deeply thought-out world and a complex plot. I didn't find many issues with plot discontinuity, as such. There were quick scene changes that might have benefited by a more overt transition or two, but that is a minor issue compared to the tapestry of worlds within worlds that this author has written. Very enjoyable characters, and the twists are fully supported by the main premises. I found myself thinking of new twists that could be supported by his frame and was surprised by more that I hadn't thought deeply enough about. I think I'll enjoy reading this novel again, and not too far in the future. First, I shall read his second novel and see how much more craft he's crammed into his writing with such giddy fractal twirls.

I understand that this novel isn't for the general audience, but I'll tell you straight: IT SHOULD BE.

If you like this, then I recommend Charles Stross's Singularity Sky and Saturn's Children and especially Accellerando. Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash and Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon and Anathem. I would be remiss to leave out other cyberpunk masters, but let's face it: the good stuff is in the post-cyberpunk worlds, dealing with all of the complicated ideas and deeper developments.

The deeper exploration is where this novel really shines. From a strictly craft point of view, I loved the poetry in the techno-babble that verges on a simple techno-babel and almost teeters into complete cognizance. :) Actually, I lie. The quantum foam and Q-dots made me giggle. I loved every second of it.

Great book!

Second read was even better than the first, especially after getting to know all of the terms and players. I loved the poetry in the text, the visual imagery, the requirement for every reader to throw themselves and their souls into the story, only to come up, gasping for air, not quite realizing that the water was highly oxygenated and we could have been breathing it all along.

I laughed more times, this second read. I am almost to the opinion that everyone ought to read this book, or better yet, this trilogy, at least two times through before making a serious opinion of it. Only after thoughtful consideration have I finally come to the conclusion that this meta-tale, this monolith of story, this dire-light, this cutting of an epic gordian knot has got to be one of the classics of literature. It is dense. No doubt about it.

But it is ever so much more rewarding than I had ever expected it to be.

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Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a surprising novel. It's a western, foremost, but it slipped most naturally into witchcraft, demons, and took on many of the best aspects of, say Blood Meridian, while owning the dark fantasy.

A pretty great adventure, all told, with interesting characters and full of flight, chase, and discovery.

Definitely worth the read.

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The Rolling Stones by Robert A. Heinlein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Re-read.

1952. Heinlein YA, full of charming, curmudgeonly, lightly naughty SF adventure.

Nothing says wholesome quite this way -- uprooting the family, buying a spaceship, making a few risky trades throughout the Solar System, and most importantly: having a good time.

Here's the thing about early Heinlein. It's wholesome, snarky, charming, and more than a little devoted to good figures and good science. SF space adventure that isn't so dark, disruptive. No Body horror, no death or destruction.

There are hoodwinks and clever negotiations, exciting challenges in flight, and the general annoyance of people. In other words, it's clever, funny fiction from another time.


Believe it or not, THIS is true escapism.

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Under the Smokestrewn Sky by A. Deborah Baker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Honestly, I do think this is a rather expected end to Seanan's Improbable Road YA fantasy -- the one that that is referenced to heavily in Middlegame, etc.

The adventure ends satisfactorily, with all the proper reveals and sage wisdom, referring to the journey much more than the end.

So, while I was somewhat charmed by it, I have to admit that I wasn't blown away. It was decent. It gives me something to look forward to with the proper Alchemy references in the main series.

I don't know exactly why I feel a little let down, but I do, and I can't quite put my finger on why.

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Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read.

And yet, this will forever be a fantastic 4-part novel, neeeigh, a glorious satire.

Most of us have seen or heard of parts of Gulliver's Travels, but alas it is usually only in terms of a giant beset by little-minded little-people so stuffed up with self importance that they can never see the proverbial giant in their living room, or, in the second part, a little person trapped in a horrible commerce grinding machine filled with giants.

But to me, I'm a huge fan of the 3rd part: huge minds trapped in their own vices and certainties, living in floating castles in the skies, unable to see the truth under their feet.

But honestly? It's the fourth part, the place where the smartest, most wise horses, enslave the dirty, brutish, trashy Yahoos (humans) and the place where Gulliver finally succumbs to the worldview of his new masters that shines the brightest.

There is nothing more brilliant than the pride of self-hate, of decrying everything in yourself or your people, to bemoan the very sense of our own purity or goodness, to place the biggest capstone on this great edifice of satire.

What? Isn't it OBVIOUS that we're all the greatest dumbshits, assholes, backwards-minded, filth-wallowing, UNWORTHY species on the planet? -- Ahhh, neeeiiiiighhhhhh, you've been listening too long to these damn horses.

We are everything.
But that means, we're also better than we think.

But I also admit... the first time I read this, I, too, fell into the trap of the 4th. :) Careful! Some satires are STRONG. Neeeiiiighhhhh... brilliant. :)


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Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Light Novel) Vol. 1 by Rifujin na Magonote
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So, I'm kinda backwards on all this. I first watched the anime, then read the manga, and now, at long last, I'm reading the original light novels.

I don't mind all that much. I'm enjoying the story and the origins and the Rudeus's development as a man. The fact that he DOES grow as a character is the very best part of this, not the cool magic or drastic changes that hit like drumbeats through the series.

Funnily enough, there's practically NO major changes through any of the mediums. The core is the same throughout. That's actually kind of amazing.

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The Future by Naomi Alderman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I swing back and forth on this one. I want to really love the in-depth near-future worldbuilding and often do. I also sometimes enjoy the characters, the hide-and-seek aspects, the high-tech insertions, and the big "let's save the world from the apocalypse" concept piece.

I even didn't mind the techbros, even if I kinda always despised them and their wild shortsightedness -- but that's par for all we have now. Billionaires trying to save the world, huh?

Well, this novel has a bunch of the things that go wrong. Unfortunately, I sometimes felt myself losing interest in the some of the characters. I appreciate the chaotic mess of ideas on one level, but I had a hard time wanting to hold on when the somewhat weak romance fizzled in weak threads.

I'm sure others will get more mileage out of this. I DID enjoy the ambition, however.


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Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was just telling my good buddy reader how much I wanted to see something like Scavenger's Reign on my bookshelf, and here, lo-and-behold, it arrives!

Of course, there are a number of really great books that go the whole bio-punk route, but either way -- I really, really appreciate them whenever they come my way.

Here, we have an alien world, with tons of exploration, science, MYSTERY, more science, and a whole world of political, anti-authoritarian goodness. In my humble opinion, I think we need a whole lot more.

Wherever there is a boot heel on the neck of people, or specifically on scientists, artists, or any portion of the population that would naturally rebel against the CONTROL gets out of control, I do find it rather fascinating just how much the authoritarians go gaga over those rare scientists (or artists) who functionally sell themselves out to the boot.

Those who sell out aren't the majority. Most will reluctantly or angrily work within the system, or not at all, but then there are those who throw in with the boot -- dragging everyone else down to pavement.

Suffice to say, I would rather like to see mother nature (or mother alien nature) give us a potent tool against such CONTROL. It's the main reason I love this novel.

Such fascinating ideas.

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Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read 4/29/24:

Slow and easy into the fantasy trappings, only to realize it becomes -- as I've found out 3 other times before -- a hilarious police procedural that skirts the edge of satire and slams us in the face with sweet idealism.

Welcome to Ankh-Morpork. Watch for dragons.


Original Review:

Dragons and kings and cross-dressing night watch. What can go wrong?

Meet Terry Pratchett, who can turn anything, and I mean, anything, on its head. :)

On this re-read, what I remember to be a less funny book than the Watch novels that came after it suddenly becomes a rich and nostalgic ride including dwarf bread, or in this case, CAKE. Decent, law-abiding folk versus the deeply corrupt populace. And don't just ask Mr. Cut Me Own Throat. He's suspicious.

I love all the tropes and the way Pratchett deals with them. The whole novel is tongue-in-cheek and it's a slight bit more delightful (IMHO) than all the rest of the novels that came before it. Indeed, it's this one that sets the tone for all the rest.

And so the transformation of Ankh-Morpork commences. :)

Upping this by a star.

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Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read 4/28/24:

I think I said it pretty much straight in my previous review, but I really should mention that the totally un-elected sun will also rise.

And, truly, a kingdom always needs a camel much more than a king.

That being said, I just bumped my star rating up to a full 5 on this one. I guess the third one's the charm. Now, where can I find a GOOD carpet?



Original review:

I think I may have enjoyed this one a bit more the second time around, but not enough to change my rating. :) Indeed, I had a lot more fun with all the quantum irregularities surrounding the Pyramids out in the boonies of Discworld.

There's a lot of great ribbing for conspiracy theorists who go on and on about the dimensions of the real pyramids and the mystical importance, even going so far as to make these monuments (at least here) into time-recyclers. It's very funny and Death isn't pleased. Fortunately for Death, however, what he doesn't know won't kill him.

It was also rather funny seeing a "handmaid" who'd never "serviced" a king and an "assassin" who'd never killed anyone fumble around their conversations with one another.

But really, I think I had the most fun with the camels. They were a very nice touch. I always thought there was something of a math genius in all of them. Quantum accounting aside, I thought this was a very interesting and funny novel, giving us a nice background for the Assassin's guild while not precisely overburdening us (at all) with characters we'll grow to love later.

That being said, I had a good time and probably a bit more than the other one-off Discworld novels that came before it. :)

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I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Now that we have almost reached this stage of AI in our lives, it behooves us to revisit one of THE classics of short science fiction -- Harlan Ellison's sharp perfection of body horror and the glory of AM, the AI that killed almost all of humanity, leaving a bare handful behind to torture, endlessly.

Glorious. It also helps to listen to Harlan Ellison's own narration on youtube. So, soooooo much energy. :)

Right here.


But I should point out that I found a rare hint to AM's real genesis: Right here.

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Aftermarket Afterlife by Seanan McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've read a number of the Ghost novels so I'm pretty confident when I say this was easily one of the roughest ones on me.

Mary, the ghost babysitter, has the front row to this action, and boy is there a lot of action... and tragedy. The family really goes through the ringer.

Yes. I mean about the dead. I'm still raging about it.

But Mary's role is strong, and she's so protective. So much to sacrifice...

Grumbles.

But still, this was a good story.

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Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Quite enjoyable UF romp. It takes us through Europe, with lying, thieving, and backpacking (or running naked) in a Vampire-heavy road trip novel with werewolves close behind.

I think I liked this one more than the few others that preceded it. There was just something about it that I liked more. Nothing that I could quite put my finger on, but in terms of enjoyment, it was pretty solid.



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Camouflage by Joe Haldeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can't say this was an extremely exciting SF thriller if we go by regular SF thriller standards, but it does hit some good notes when it comes to using many, many cross-sections of human behavior across many different periods of time.

This is lent a lot of leeway by the fact that we're following alien shapechangers, chameleons, who learn about and impersonate not just us, but all kinds of life on Earth for a very long time.

My impression is that this is a slightly-veiled look at ourselves, our many failings, sexual hangups, and inhumanity, and I'm right, but there IS a distinct espionage hunter/hunted vibe to it that rounds out the tale.

I've always been a fair fan of Haldeman, and while this isn't nearly as good as some of his more well-known novels, it was still pretty solid.



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The Only Pirate at the Party by Lindsey Stirling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

To be entirely up front here... I didn't know anything about her, not her youtube performances or anything after... until I was well into this autobiography.

Now, why in the heck would I do this? Well, I was cajoled and heckled into joining a buddy read, so I thought: WHY NOT?

And I have, since I began reading, I BARELY squeezed in a listen or two to some of her work.

It's very performance arty, dance, violin, and costumes, with the focus on being perky and always on, with flashy lights and a Katy Perry ethic. Pretty okay stuff. It's the whole ball of modern performance art. The focus isn't so much on the music, but the whole experience. It has its good points. It's also not exactly my ball of wax.

Even so, this is a pretty okay biography with pretty standard things happening, including some eating issues, mental health issues, and a whole lot of trying to make oneself always look good for her audience.

And as far as that goes, it succeeds. Do I necessarily trust all that is presented here? No. Do I take it all with a grain of salt? Absolutely. It is pretty standard stuff, some joys, some failures, a bit of extras for the fans.

I'm probably 100% sure I would have gotten a lot more out of this if I had already been an uber-fan, but I wasn't. And there wasn't all that much else to hold me, either. Not a bad read, but it never really hooked me, either.

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Great Masters: Tchaikovsky - His Life and Music by Robert Greenberg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Tchaikovsky!

Easily one of my most favorite musicians. More than practically any other classical musician, he by far had the most, best, most absolutely memorable works.

I just LIKED them all so much more than the rest, on the whole.

Sure, I liked some other musician's works better, but I liked no other musician's total body of works more than Tchaikovsky.

This lecture gives us all a pretty awesome overlook on WHY that might be the case. I mean, sure, Tchaikovsky's EQ just poured into his music, making it so lyrical and memorable -- not just Nutcracker Suite, but 1812, Swan Lake, all the Dances, the String, the Symphonies -- instantly recognizable and celebrated -- it is utterly amazing.

Those old Russians knew their shit.

But specifically, Tchaikovsky was a special case. Gay, and more afraid of being outed than anything else, drove himself to that peculiar bout of societal madness. And for all of his depression and wild fantasies, he poured it all into his music, into his art. And in this way, it's also SO very Russian.

Suffice to say, I am and will always remain a total fanboy of this guy's work. So expressive, melodic, speaking directly to the EQ of me, there are hardly any other artists who are able to plumb my emotional depths so consistently.

This is also a great lecture, too. :)

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Stormwarden by Janny Wurts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A pretty decent epic fantasy that has lots of sea-related settings. I had no complaints except one -- and it isn't fair to the author. I've read a lot of fantasies like this. It's not bad, but it doesn't stand out above all the others just like it. And I include LeGuin in that company, so it doesn't compare poorly.

I did have a pretty good time with the novel. I just wish I had read it earlier on.

Standard fare, fairly interesting characters, conflicts, and good scope.

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The Life of Birds by David Attenborough
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Must love birds.

That being said, if you DO love birds and don't mind wallowing in nuts, seeds, marrow, and scraps of flesh, or jumping into the mating habits of many different kinds of avians, then stick around, pull up a refuse bin, and watch these excellent adventurers ultra-specialize in their diets far beyond our own average city-dweller slurping a Starbucks.

What? Do you think there's that much difference between us and them?

Bah, suit yourself, but don't blame me if you start preening and attract a mate in almost the same way.

Tweet. Tweet.

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Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-Read 4/19/24:

I have to say it's even better on a re-read. I think the trick is in my expectations. Stephenson has a weird way in his writings, pulling certain kinds of bait-and-switches that work extremely well for some of us -- especially when we're so tired of boilerplate plotting.

This isn't any kind of standardized novelization, and for that, I love it even more.

I think I got a lot more out of this, this time. I was now looking for parallels between methods of survival from the pre-and-post timeskip, of psychology, reliance on different technologies, and the most commonplace failings of humanity, itself.

There is a richness in the post-timeskip I don't think I truly appreciated the first time around. After all, after 5k years, that's an awful lot of recorded history on top of where we are now. Not so big as to be insanely out of reach, but seriously impressive if you consider technological necessities and advancements (or regressions).

From a purely world-building perspective, the novel is a true delight. In the pre-timeskip, it is an engineer's dream. I still believe it's a great two-for-one bargain. :)



Original Review:

I don't know what all those complainers are going on about. As far as I can see, I just got two novels for the price of one. The first 2/3rds is all hard science fiction, where science matters and the whole thing is tied together with plausibility. The last third is pure unadulterated speculative fiction with damn fine worldbuilding and extrapolation from the first 2/3rds.

Let me back up. I can honestly say that I loved the gigantic erector set that was the first novel, but I will admit that I wasn't head over heels in love with most of the characters, and the few that I really liked were at least two dimensional. This isn't a condemnation. A lot had to be covered to get us from a happyish world, through a blown-up moon, to a mad scramble to survive before the earth gets fireballed by our ex-moon. That means the International Space Station needs one hell of an upgrade. A lot happens, and it's tragic and heroic and beautiful. I've read a lot worse hard sf, and when I say it, it's not a condemnation, either. Hard sf is a lifestyle choice. It's hard to do and successfully pull off a great story with great characters against, say, any other novel that doesn't care about consistency and scrupulous attention to detail.

Mr. Stephenson pulls it off, and I'm not just touting him because I'm a lifelong fan of his writings. I'm saying the novel is solid.

Now on to the second novel. A lot of people have a problem with this one, going, "What the fuck?" Not me. This is where we stop being grounded and we let our imaginations fly. A lot can and will happen in 5000 years from the last hurrah of the plausible and likely end of humanity.

So I see another tradition being followed, one I like even more than the strict master of hard sf. I immediately got sucked into the imagery, the action, the curiosity, the mystery, and the unfolding of a brand new Earth. I don't need to bring up all the greats who have done hopeful and optimistic futures, although I will if anyone asks, but Mr. Stephenson has served up a beauty.

So much is bright and colorful about it, and I'm including the different human races, the flying, the landscape, and the revelations about what the people find down there. No spoilers, but suffice to say there's always a way to bring conflict in, even though the future is hopeful. It was a sheer pleasure to explore, and if the novel was NOT an extension of the first 2/3, I'm pretty sure that most of the haters out there would have thought it was an interesting tale on par with any of the classics. It's all about survival, rebuilding and restoring, genetic engineering, massive scale engineering, and the supremely toned-down idea that love endures.

It was very touching.

All right. I'll mention Brin. It reminds me of the best of Brin.

So that brings me back to the main question: Should these two novels be considered one? There's obviously ties throughout the second one, but I'll be honest with you, they could have been added long after the fact, just so the second novel could see print. That's a very negative way to view it, in my opinion, because I happened to love it for what it was.

Is it a sign of the times that old-style adventure novels set in the deep future can't get published any longer? I hope not. I'd love to see more, assuming the stories still kick ass.

But to answer my own question... Yes and No. The first novel could easily have turned into an ultimate bummer. The second novel could stand on its own. Left to itself, the first novel would have absolutely needed some sort of machinery of god or perhaps the triumphant return of the assholes who had raced to Mars. It would have needed something, anyway, to satisfy the readers. We aren't reading traditional fiction. It wasn't a character study. If the only way to give the reader what s/he wants is to give us a resolution that doubles as a whole second novel, then I say, "Hell yes!"

Because at least this way, I wouldn't have to wait a long time for a sequel when I wasn't satisfied with the first. Can you imagine, or do you remember when Hyperion came out and you got to the end and went, "Huh?" with no Fall of Hyperion to complete it? It's the same deal, although, I'll be honest, Hyperion is still better than this novel. (If you peeps haven't read it, then do so. It's still very high praise to be compared to it, even in a lesser capacity.)

Of course, Neal Stephenson has a whole catalog of some of my absolute favorite reading list, so I'm amazingly biased here.

Was this novel good? You betcha. Did it surprise? Absolutely. Do I recommend? Yes, for fans of the SFF genre with keen eyes and adjustable expectations.


Update 4/27/16

This has been nominated for 2016 Hugo for best novel!

While I think it's pretty awesome in retrospect for the ideas, the science, and the rather epic scope of both saving the race in the first part of the novel and the far-ish future ramifications in the last 2/3rds of the novel, there were also wide swaths of boring info-dumping, too. I might have gone hog-wild all over this novel as the biggest contender for the Hugo, otherwise, but that might also have something to do with how much of a fanboy I am for the author. :)

Unfortunately, this is isn't my first or even second choice for the Hugo winner for this year. Good promise, but the pacing was off.

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Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This really hit the spot. I won't say it is the most fantastic Noir I've ever read, or even the best SF Noir, but I had a great time, anyway.

The hook: I kinda thought it was going to be Titanium as in the metal. I was RATHER amused to find out it is more about TITANS. :) Or rather, about the special immortality treatments that make its users progressively larger and larger people every time they use it. The rich, of course.

So mix it all up with a murder mystery, with sex and violence, and it has all the earmarks of the most familiar and the joys of the unusual.

Amusing and fun, in other words.

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Solo Leveling, Vol. 8 by Chugong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This light novel truly threw me for a loop. All of the other 7 isekais followed a very comforting LitRPG progression, always throwing greater enemies at a stronger hero, but almost at the beginning of this one, it... finished. :)

The rest of the novel pulled off a great Superman storyline, fully grounded in regular life and became thoroughly nostalgic.

That, and it really speaks to those of us who love a good New Game + :)



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Solo Leveling, Vol. 7 by Chugong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Delicious continuation. I knew there was going to be a total invasion of the Earth by the Monarchs, and we got a few tastes right away, but the scale just started breaking like a dam and now the Earth is doomed.

This LitRPG/Isekai is really hitting the spot. It's just going to get so bloody, now.

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Solo Leveling, Vol. 6 by Chugong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very fun change in direction for the overall story-arc. We get to know the world-wide top hunters and finally get a showdown with the vengeful hunter that wanted to get some satisfaction for his brother.

But more than that, we're getting a great reveal about the rulers and monarchs and the epic war on our way.

Love the scope.

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Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While this is named Mammoths at the Gates, it ought to be renamed Memories at the Gates. It's really an honoring of a lost life, a funeral, and yes -- it's more of the signature story-within-story storytelling I've grown to love in the Singing Hills Cycle.

These novellas are very much worth reading -- if only for the altered focus in fantasy.



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Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This series is wonderful for its focus on story-within-story storytelling. This one, no less than the others.

Calm, understated, with a wonderful atmosphere and interesting characters, this is a fantasy series I always look forward to. It isn't flashy, but it does have depth.

Of course, that's not to say there isn't something a little wild about this. A piggy can be quite exciting. :)



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Solo Leveling, Vol. 5 by Chugong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I great return to where he began, stronger, more capable, and ready to ask the biggest question.

So OP now, but that's fine, because now the baddies are equally badass. :)

Really fun light novel/Isekai/LitRPG.

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Solo leveling - light Novel by Chugong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The slow buildup of real-world danger in the background finally explodes in this light novel.

But after quite THAT much solo-leveling, it's just a delight to see how the real stuff goes.

Of course, now that he's pretty much superman, I have to wonder where the other novels will lead.

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Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-read 4/11/24:

It's always a journey with these. Sometimes you never know why the author is taking us on these side-trips, but once you DO know, it tends to blow your mind.

I particularly enjoyed the mental-health focus of this particular book. Not just for Shallan, but for Kaladin, too. It's almost as if Brandon knew we'd need so much of that during '20. But truly, it's just as welcome now.

That's just a side note, however.

This novel is so much more than that, of course. It's adventure, epic-scope and epic-stakes fantasy, and the characters keep on growing.

Of course, by now, we have learned SO much about how the worldbuilding works -- and more importantly, how the Cosmere works. I'm loving it all.

I cannot WAIT until the next.



Original Review:

After reading this very long novel, there should be some kind of fatigue. I mean. I think it's longer than SK's The Stand. So a reader OUGHT to be drained by the attempt. But no. Not this time.

All these Stormlight Archives rage over me like the world-storms within the novel, recharge my heartstone, and make me utter all four oaths.

Seriously. There should be a warning label on this book. "Careless consumption will lead to fandom."

Okay, to be fair, I was already a huge fan of Sanderson for, like, forever. But ever since reading the last three books of WoT, carefully managed under his hand, I've known that he had all the chops. After reading almost EVERYTHING of his, since, and slobbering all over the place to get my hands on his OWN epic masterpiece since book one, to get the fourth at this point is something of a...

Okay, let me say it.

We're a cult. A completely mind-blown cult. We're all so invested in this story, have drunk ALL the kool-aid, and we're willing to walk off all the cliffs (or chasms, if you will,) to get the next one.

And it totally satisfied. Oh, not only that, but it twisted all our expectations (or at least mine) and tore me to shreds, and made me despair. And then it built me back up again, made me wonder how the hell they were going to get out of this for a long time before subverting all my new expectations yet again.

Let me just say this: Sanderson is a master storyteller. He knows what he's doing every step of the way. He keeps tossing that coin and tells us it's all a trick even while he's pulling yet ANOTHER fast one on us and we not only enjoy it, but we beg for more of this strange covenant.


Or I might just say that we're all addicts and the IDEA of Sanderson in our heads is on par with a huge bank. In our heads, we just know that it can never fail. And if it seems to, our confidence is so huge that we make SURE it doesn't fail, and then, when our heads catch up to what's actually going on, we realize, out of the blue, that it was ALL A RUSE and he played us all yet again.

Or maybe I'm just reading WAY TOO MUCH into this. :)

Suffice to say... WOW, WHAT A BOOK! :)

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Solo Leveling, Vol. 3 by Chugong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So solid. This isekai/LitRPG light novel continually surprises and expands into new directions.

S-Rank already, our solo-leveler is rapidly becoming a god even among gods, but better, the story is making it all that much more necessary.

It really helps that the whole setup might be really, really messed up. It's great to read this now, but I'm seriously going to love reading the manga later.

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Solo leveling - light Novel by Chugong
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So fun! It's very much LitRPG, but with all the added benefit of being popular as a manga and now an anime.

But for SOME people, like myself, I love to get the whole story right away in the original novel format, or, rather, the light novel format.

Our hero is getting SO powerful, now soloing high ranked dungeons all by himself, all the while hoping to keep his identity and true abilities hidden for as long as he can.

Unfortunately, many people want him. It's pretty great seeing an introverted protagonist. :)

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The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've always been rather impressed by Samatar's wordsmithing. And this new novella showcases a more SF case for lyricism tackling the chains of our society, our own minds, in a futuristic prison-mine that just happens to support a whole society.

The subtext is quite clear. On the backs of the broken is the world built.

I enjoyed this look across the divide. It is as hopeful as it is tragic.

Understanding is always the key.

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Solo leveling - light Novel by Chugong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I recently ran through all the animes for this one and was thrilled to hell about it. It's a total Isekai, or rather a full LitRPG story.

And since I just finished THAT, and was utterly bereft that I had no more story, I just had to skip even the manga and go to the light novel directly.

Great decision.

And now, I just figured out the entire first season is right here in this first Vol. *squeee*

Let's solo level and become overpowered! :)

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The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

So.

I'll just say that I AM a fan of Newitz, generally, and I really DID see a lot of potential for this book. I mean, here we are, far-future, likely all our animal cousins uplifted a-la Brin, and we might have a rollicking adventure with a moose sidekick across another world.

And with that, we DID get something like that.

But then we had to have a book that was more like Becky Chambers's style, with the warm fuzzies and systemic problems solved mostly by sweet-toothing our way through the adventure.

We have horribly invasive Homo Sapiens limiting the communication centers, sometimes the intelligence, of all these other animals. Between the strong-arm tactics, the invasive monitoring, the whole corporate-structure-is-evil feel, we get whole segregated communities exuding enough subtext to choke a moose.

And honestly? Because it's played so straight, without any true nods to just how close it resembles our world and just how closely we can read some of these species as races, it just feels -- icky.

It tries to pull off the feel-good, but instead, I feel like I've been wallowing in creepy animatronics-land. It didn't help with the pole-dancing mole-people.


Anyway, it just didn't work for me. At all. I guess I'm getting tired with write-on-editorial-demand Chambers lookalikes, too. I feel like this could have been pretty great if it was a much harder SF grounded in a harder ecology-fiction mode. Hell, that would have been extremely TOPICAL for today, too.

Instead, it was as soft an SF as you could ever desire.

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The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This one was a pleasant surprise. I expected a Wuxia-type fantasy, complete with some magical weapons, ancient Chinese-type martial arts, and that was what I got. Kung-Fu.

The quality is undeniable, too.

I was pleasantly reminded of Guy Gavriel Kay's fantasies and Ken Liu's Dandelion Dynasty as I read this, but if I am to be entirely honest, it didn't have quite the vastness or depth of worldbuilding of either. It DID, however, have a good, classical story of a scorned loyal warrior forced into exile and the safe arms of bandits, only to have to defend her new home against corrupt officials.

This kind of thing is an old, comfortable story, and this novel did it very, very well.

Fun stuff!

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Great Masters: Robert And Clara Schumann Their Lives And Music by Robert Greenberg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Robert Greenberg always delivers. His lectures on Musical masters never fails to enthrall and edify.

That being said, with no complaints about the lectures, I should say that I'm a bit... how should I describe this... ANNOYED with the whole Romantic ideology.

I'm not referring to modern romance. I mean the old, "Let's have it big and emotional and 'Oh, gosh' idealism." I'm talking about Percy Bysshe Shelly, but not Mary. One was AWESOME while one was Edgelord pretentious.

And so we get to Robert. Clara was pretty damn AWESOME while Robert, with his likely descent into Syphilis, had a decent enough pretentious career... where he eventually became a mentally-ill burden.

WHAT??? Am I dissing a mentally ill person? lol, no, but all things being equal, she was the one who wore the pants in the relationship.

Knowing what I know now about Brahms, I rather wish he had flitted away with Clara, leaving the Olympic masturbator Robert behind.

But then, maybe I'm just mean. It doesn't help that I was never that awed by any of Robert Schumann's works.

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The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I bounced. Hard.

I'm sorry, but DESPITE having a few concepts roll around in the novel that might have burrowed into my flesh OR a few passages that had some beauty, the grand majority of the text was nearly utterly ugly.

Why would I say such a thing?

Well, let me just describe it thus: Imagine Slaughterhouse Five without the time travel or the history, make it a universal mortification of the flesh and have everyone totally self-consumed with their lost, shriveled, stolen sexuality, turn it into an implausible SF that is more focused on clumsy literary metaphor, and the rest of the novel reads like a lowly trip through hell.

Sure, it's heavy on the feminism, too, but I hardly minded that.

You know what I minded? The fact that humanity would be nothing more than self-obsessed worms crawling around in the dirt bemoaning our lost sexuality. Like there's NOTHING more to us than that.

But then, maybe that's what some (or maybe even a lot) of people think.


So, I bounced. I kept trying and trying to find redeeming qualities, but it not only made me mightily uncomfortable in all the wrong ways, it even made me angry right down in my core, where that last inch of idealism cannot and will not be sacrificed.

Maybe I make too much out of this. Maybe I'm just saying it's a "oh hell no, it's not you, it's totally me", but in reality, I think the book is a bit of poison. Slow-working, agonizing, and soul-destroying.

So --no, thank you.

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Death's End by Liu Cixin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Re-read 3/30/24:

So. After re-reading the series, getting to this one... I *KNEW* it was going to destroy me. I *KNEW* it.

I should just mention here that some SF just goes above and beyond. Some goes WAY above and beyond. And then some just blow the fucking roof off the membrane of the universe and totally destroys us.

So, yeah, this one is of the latter kind.


I personally get a ton of satisfaction out of the fact that Liu Cixin manages to weave utter lows and ultimate hope together in a Hard-SF, real physics way. I understand the science and it just keeps -- destroying me. After Dark Forest, it was dark enough, but this just kept tying the rope around me to drag me through the mud again and again.

This one has ALL the scope, all the mud-dragging, all tragedies piled on tragedies.

And yet, it was also, at the end, a hopeful book.

I am in awe. Again.



Original Review:

This is one of those rare mind-blowing novels of such fantastic scope and direction that words just can't do it justice. It's the third book that started with the Hugo-Winning The Three-Body Problem, continued with The Dark Forest. They're all fantastic, but I have to honestly say that I loved this one more than the rest.

We've got the scope of some of Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence* going on here. I'm talking universe-spanning scope, going straight through time like a hot knife through butter and right on out into the expanding reaches of the imagination. The first book dives into the tiniest particles and higher dimensional spaces, the second deals with the apparent macro universe and the ongoing conflict between the Tri-Solarans and Humanity, and the third concludes with some truly and amazingly harrowing experiences, from the end of the stalemate, the near-genocide of humanity, and the grand realization that it's all gone even more wrong.

And things only get worse from there.

I'm properly flabbergasted by this book. There are enough fantastic ideas crammed in here for ten books, maybe even twenty. And even if it wasn't so idea-rich, from the extrapolated sciences, extremely well-thought-out consequences, and even further extrapolations from there, we even get some of the more interesting characters ever written in SF.

My appreciation of The Dark Forest only increases when set beside this one, and although I didn't consider that novel quite worthy of the Hugo as the first novel was, it was an amazing set-up for this last novel's execution.

The Dark Forest is an expression of the idea that the universe is an extremely hostile place. Any two alien species that meets is likely going to preemptively wipe out the other or face the reality of being wiped out. Such conflicts at such huge scales and high-technology and physics can be utterly amazing and one-sided, from start explosions to local space conversions between dimensions, such as turning a local three-dimensional plane of existence into a two-dimensional one.

Utterly shocking. Utterly amazing.

We even get to visit, early on, the tombstones of entire alien civilizations that escaped the Dark Forest by hopping into the fourth dimensional frame from the third dimension, only to discover that the great time-stream is shrinking, a bunch of big fish already having consumed all the small fish, and now the pond of existence is shrinking to almost nothing.

Each new discovery or option or hope is explored and dashed. The conflict, the Sword of Damocles, never leaves the tale. The Dark Forest is always evident, and it's depressing and awe-inspiring and a great story and I was honestly in awe of all the new directions it took.

I've read a LOT of SF. I've never seen anyone pull this off quite as well as this.

He builds on every new idea and makes a universe as frightening as it is amazing, and nothing ever stays the same.

And best of all, he leaves humanity as it is. Hopelessly outmatched. Always hopelessly outmatched. No matter what we do, how we advance and improve or build upon inherited technologies from our one-time friends, dark gods, and demons, the Tri-Solarans, there's always a new snag.

*shiver*

Honestly, there's no way to review this except to tell everyone out there that there's just too many great things to say about it, that it is a monumental undertaking, that it is an endlessly fascinating and impressive corpus of work, and that everyone should avail themselves of this trilogy.

It's just that good. I'm in awe.

Some things are just heads and shoulders above the rest. Well, perhaps, this one is a whole storey above all the rest, too. :)



*Correction ;)

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