Ryan
This was a nice, short collection of retold myths about various legendary women. Anthony displays a clear love and respect of the original stories, and infuses them with a modern sensibility that gives the protagonists more agency and power than they had in many of the original versions of the stories.
A book that tries to answer the question that has been on the mind of many a Canadian over the past 18 months.
The short answer, obviously, is “Of course it could, and we need to remain vigilant that it doesn't”. Adams goes deeper than that, though, looking at why such right-wing populism is less likely to happen in Canada, looking at our history, demography, and stated values as reasons why it is less likely to happen here. It's an interesting, short read for people interested in Canadian culture and politics.
Wright does a great job here of linking together some of the metaphyics of Buddhism (or, at least, Buddhism as it is practiced in the West) with non-Buddhist thought. At times he seems a little too focused in on his personal favourites within both of those categories (mindfulness meditation and evolutionary psychology, specifically), but as long as you view this more of a personal narrative than a textbook, it's a quite enjoyable look at those topics.
This book shouldn't work as well as it does. There's so much randomly thrown together in this volume - Area 51, dinosaurs, time-displaced Algonquin warriors, the Bermuda Triangle, Grey aliens, Ambrose Bierce, satire of US militarism ... and on top of that, our heroes, the gregarious, immortal party guy Armstrong and his partner Archer, the deadly assassin raised by Christian fundamentalists and whom may eventually become the world's greatest spiritual leader.
As I said, there's a lot going on - so much that it's hard to describe it with a straight face. It's to Van Lente's credit that not only does it all make sense together, it all fits together seamlessly and with such a madcap sense of fun.
This was a fantastic, short little vampire tale! While reading it, you can definitely see a lot of the tropes common to more recent vampire stories, but seeing tropes being first established is something I always find interest. The narration of the story seems much more fresh and contemporary than most Victorian literature, and it was interesting to see such explicit lesbian content from an era that mostly frowned upon it.
I thought it would be difficult for Okorafor to top Binti, but this felt like an even more beautiful, more complete story that the last. In it, Binti returns to Earth with her alien friend Okwu, after having ended the war between their two species. This is ultimately a coming-of-age story; Binti is in many ways the archetypal university student returning home and trying to balance her new understanding of the world with the values she was raised in. The sci-fi elements of the story put an interesting twist on the story, and Okorafor stylistic excellence make it a refreshing and pleasant story.
A book that starts by quoting The Last Saskatchewan Pirate will always have my attention. A book that does that because it is, in fact, about a Saskatchewan pirate will have my love.
Jack, the pirate in question, lives in a world where pharmaceutical companies have increased their influence in the world and can offer people a cure to nearly any affliction - if the price is right. So, like any self-respecting pirate, she decides to start to reverse-engineer those drugs to provide them to those that don't have the means for them. This works fine for her until one of the drugs starts to work a little bit better than intended.
Part of what makes the dystopia of Autonomous so frightening is how realistic it seems. Drugs that make people addicted to work? Intelligent robots that can be kept as indentured servants? The destruction of nation-states, being replaced with zones of economic influence? Not only do these things seem possible, they seem like desirable goals for certain segments of the population. That depressing realism in Newitz's presentation of the fantastic helps keep the fiction grounded, as well as adding more tension to the plot.
The characters of Autonomous are likewise fascinating. It's a story full of characters that could easily be cliche - the pirate with the heart of gold; the soldier with the dark past; the robot who yearns to be free. Newitz fills these characters with enough emotional depth, though, that they become real and full people.
The cover blurbs on Autonomous describe it as a modern-day Neuromancer, and it's an apt comparison. The novel's look at biotechnology and pharmacology is refreshingly new, and it feels like a novel that will have a similar impact as Gibson's did in 1984.
This was a fairly enjoyable read, but I thought the background (ecoterrorists attempt to slow global warming, but accidentally create a new ice age in doing so) was more interesting than the actual main plot of Gabe scavenging through the frozen wasteland of North America. Not a poorly told story, but not the story I was expecting (or wanting) to read.
If I had to rate the novels in the Expanse series, I'd have to say this is probably the weakest one so far (which means it comes down to being only “really enjoyable” rather than “fantastic”).
The story deals well with the fallout of the last novel, and moves to establish a new status quo for the crew of the Rocinante and for the solar system. The post 9/11 metaphors felt a little heavy handed at times, but the character interactions remained enjoyable enough that the book was still a fun story on the whole.
The “last in a line of protectors against dark mystical forces” trope is a little cliche, I know, but it's also always been a favourite of mine. Tie that together with a superhuman character with an interesting take on his powers (bonded to a loa, Shadowman's powers only work at night-time), and you've got a fun character.
Valiant continues to pair people well with their characters - Jordan's got a very good sense of how to tell horror stories, and that's fundamentally what this is - a story of a superhero who's in a horror movie.
Elim Garak as the head of state for Cardassia? That stretches credulity for me (although I admittedly haven't read any of the other post-show DS9 books, so I don't know how he got there). Still, this is 350 pages of Garak at his most Garakesque, so one can't complain too much about that, even if it means putting up with Katherine Pulaski for an entire novel.
The main plot was enjoyable, as well. Castellan Garak is in the process of rebuilding Cardassian society in the wake of the crimes committed during the Bajoran occupation and the Dominion War, and in doing so has to look at the role that truth and reconciliation play as part of that rebuilding. Like all good Star Trek, it's a fundamentally human story, one that could find a great deal of echoes in our history.
(One last fan-related thought: the relationship between Garak and Bashir, which looms heavily over the novel, remains absolutely beautiful. It's still only subtext, but just barely below the surface and from Garak's letters to Bashir it's fairly clear how he sees the latter).
This was a lot of fun. Taylor retells some very entertaining versions of traditional sci-fi stories (the first contact story, the AI gaining sentience story, etc), but by telling them through the lens of First Nations communities, he is able to add a unique twist to those stories that makes them a lot fresher than many other versions I've read.
Stories about the future are rarely about the future; they're usually about here and now. That is also often true about first contact stories as well - they're about how we see ourselves, rather than about aliens, and have been since HG Wells wrote War of the Worlds. In Contact, Sagan seems to acknowledge both of those maxims, and tells a story imperceptibly into his future and featuring aliens that are mostly absent from the narrative. Instead, he tells a story about first contact and what it would do to our culture to learn, with absolute certainty, that we are not alone - how it would frighten us, but also inspire us to grow, and to appeal to us to put aside the differences that divide us and work together for a common goal. Perhaps that - the idea of Cold War enemies coming together in 1985 - was the most fantastical element of the story. Perhaps it still is.
This was beautiful and sublime in ways that I didn't expect. I knew the story of course (I loved the film that came out in 1997), but for some reason I had low expectations of the novel. Given that the world outside our windows feels chaotic and doom-filled right now, the message of optimism and hope was very refreshing for me.
I wanted to love this. Peter and Mary Jane were one of the greatest love stories in comics - I went so far as to stop reading Marvel for years after their marriage was demonically annuled. So seeing them back together (with daughter Annie in tow) was great. The Parker family bits of this were great to read.
However, there's a metaphor here that I'm deeply uncomfortable with. Mary Jane is given superpowers (because comics), and it's eventually revealed that when she uses those powers she's sapping Peter of his strength. The implication being that marriage weakens you, which is an unfortunate metaphor to have (whether it's intentional or not), and which undermines the whole point of having these characters together.
This was a fun travelogue and fish out of water story. Not that Bidini hadn't traveled before the book, but you get the feeling it was only within the niche of a semi-famous Canadian rock band going through North America. Seeing him dealing with not only being a solo act, but also with going out to areas of the world where his music was unknown provided interesting reading material.
The story's narration is a mixed bag at times. Bidini's obviously very passionate about music, and that shines through, but he also has a huge amount of punk rock snark about music. In small doses that's fine, but there's a reason most punk songs are so slow - stretching that snark out over hundreds of pages starts to tire a bit.
If you're a fan of the Rheos you'll love this; if not, it's a really interesting but not great read.
This is a prequel to Taylor's Black Jack Justice podcast series - and like most prequels, it's a bad starting point for the characters involved, but a fantastic study of the core nature of the characters if you're already invested in them. If you're one of those “already invested” people (and I am), then this is just gangbusters - all of the hardboiled drama and comedic banter of the series, an interesting enough mystery at the core, and two fun narrators in the characters of Jack and Trixie.
This was an absolutely brilliantly written work of speculative fiction, looking at a world where Britain and Germany reached a peace agreement in 1941, and the after-effects that that change might have. As you might expect from that premise, this provides rich soil for speculation on the toxicity of evil, on the compromising nature of politics, and on environments that allow prejudice and bigotry to thrive.
What makes Farthing stand above much of the rest of the crowd in the genre, though, is that while all that stuff is there, it's all in the background. Walton puts a murder mystery at the centre of the story, and while that plot intertwines with the thematic elements, it always stays interesting enough that our thoughts are always with the actions of Carmichael and the Khan family rather than getting too far into speculative navel gazing.
A series of murders rocks an oil rig the size of a small city, just as new owners take over the business. A bodyguard - one of the few people in society to no longer have biological implants - works to solve the mystery of the murders to keep her client safe.
This feels like a collary to Gibson's Law (“The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed.”). Usually that's thought of in terms of geographic location, but in Company Town Ashby looks at how that it's also true across social class. There's a lot to process here about ideas about how different types of labour are valued, how technology impacts our relationship to each other and ourselves, and how the future looks increasingly like a utopia for those that can afford it, and a dystopia for those that cannot. It is a Big Ideas book, and Ashby's thoughts on those ideas seem interesting and hopeful and terrifying. The downside to being a Big Ideas book is that the plot suffers from clarity at times, especially in the last act, but overall this was a great read and definitely influenced my thoughts on a few issues.
This was fascinating as a possibly unintentional allegory about international relations and the ways that people in different nations view the USA.
To recap: we see this story from the perspective of a nation (Atlantis) that has recently entered into normalized relations with the United States after years of antagonism. A US National launches a terrorist attack on that nation's embassy in an attempt to assassinate its head of state. He fails, but ultimately manages to escape custody. The offical US government response is to seize the embassy and arrest that country's king, depriving him of access to legal cousel and diplomatic resources. US special forces then attack an Atlantean military squad, and the White House itself attempts to assassinate the king of Atlantis.
Throughout all this, the American characters act like they're the victims because people who aren't Americans aren't following their rules.
Was Dan Abnett trying to present the USA as a rogue hegemonic state, operating completely outside established rules of diplomacy? I'm not sure. The resulting text is a fascinating look at that, though, whether intentioned or not.
This was a really fascinating read. The Russian Revolution is one of the most influential historical events of the 20th century, but it's one that rarely gets discussed in and of itself - most general history media looks either at what was happening before (Rasputin, the Tsar and his family) or after (Stalin's genocidal and totalitarian policies) with little time spent on the event itself. In this book, Mieville takes what is normally background and brings it to the foreground, and the result is an interesting read, especially given his quality storytelling expertise.
Amberlough is a spy thriller that takes place in an eponymous fantasy nation, which largely takes its aesthetic from early twentieth century Europe (if steampunk is based on Victorian England, maybe we could call this Belle Epunque?). It features a spy named Cyril, his lover, jazzy burlesque dancers, and the rising spectre of a fascist party that could threaten everything they hold dear. Amberlough was a fabulous, fantastic read that felt chilling and topical, with three-dimensional characters that weren't afraid to show you their ugly side.