Kim Miller

The place where it all started. Gibson throws his unsuspecting readers into the gritty world of cyberspace. If only we'd been warned. Ironically written in 1984, Gibson's view of the future is dark and dangerous. It's a world of cyberhacking into the brains of others and neural enhancements for those who can afford it. And running underneath the human drama is the goal of an artificial intelligence that is becoming sentient and wants to merge with the only other AI that can match and complete it.

Yep, the humans want computer enhancements built in, and the computers want to be humans. OK, I didn't get that a bit quite right. The computers want to be greater than humans.

This book demands a lot of its readers, but pays off in the end.

I read this at the recommendation of a friend who likes it so much that he buys copies to give away to friends. However, MacDonald's language is to archaic for me to really appreciate his style of literature.

Lilith was a mythical figure and Adam's first wife, created from dust as was Adam, but she wouldn't submit to him and was banished so God then made Eve from Adam's rib.

Lilith continues in some mythical stories as a rebellious temptress. But MacDonald asks, can Lilith find redemption? Long story short, she does in the end. And that's it from me.

This is the final book in Baxter's Zelee Sequence but was recommended to me as a worthwhile stand alone book.

As the sun approaches heat death Earth's scientists work out that it's happening much too soon and something must be happening to it. The Zelee series deals with alien wars etc and space travelers also work out that other stars are also degenerating too quickly.

By sending a probe into the sun they find the problem and realise that it's non-repairable and it looks like the whole galaxy is threatened by the same thing.

As the book approaches the end they work out that the aliens with whom they were at war for so long are really the solution to a galaxy wide problem.

Imagine a man living a lonely life on the family farm. Nobody knows how old he is, it's as if he's always been there. In reality, he's been there since the American Civil War.

When he got back from the war and became the last one of his family an alien visitor arrived. The alien asked if he'd like to host a way station for interplanetary travelers. As long as the way station was underneath his house he would hardly age, but they didn't want the surrounding people to know about it.

One day something happened that brought people to his door.

The story maintains a sense of the deep humanity of Enoch, the farmer. When everything might easily collapse around him he manages to hold fast to some quality that his neighbours lack.

Remember The Artful Dodger from Dickens' Oliver Twist? Here he is in Pratchett's delightful story of a teenage boy living in the back streets and underground sewer tunnels of Elizabethan London. After an eventful day where be becomes a hero he meets a journalist named Charles Dickens. And the plot thickens.

This book has Pratchett's characteristic sense of fun and the absurd but far from Discworld.

Book 3 of The Bromeliad.

Remember the few Nomes who set out to find a new place to live? They have come across somebody named Arnold, yep the guy from the old store. He's been given an award and is off for the presentation. It's in some place called Florida. They hide in his stuff and accompany him all the way.

Right from the first book the leader of the clan has had a black box that they've called The Thing. Nobody knows what it's for but it's an heirloom to be preserved for some reason. Once in Florida it starts flashing lights and humming. in the distance they can see a tall cylindrical tower with some flying machine attached to it. There is lots of activity and steam or smoke around the tower. The Thing wants to get closer.

As they approach the shuttle The Thing really starts to go off, as if its talking to the shuttle, or through the shuttle to something else. And as a black shadow descends over them they realise it's a communication device that has called a space ship down to itself.

And that's enough spoilers.

This is book #1 of The Bromeliad Trilogy. It's really a kid's series but worth it as a lighthearted adult read. The story is about a group of Nomes (no G) who live in a hedgerow outside an English city. They face being trodden on by humans or eaten by foxes, In a severe winter and with too many of them eaten they sneak on board a truck at the motorway service centre. It takes them to a department store in the city.

And there they find other Nomes living in the store. Neither community knew the other existed. City Nomes and Country Nomes have to find some way to get along.

Disaster strikes when they find out the store is to be shut down and they all have to find somewhere else to live. So they engineer some planks and ropes and teach themselves how to drive the truck and escape the store, which they accidentally set alight as they leave.

It was an extra delight for me when the truck dropped the Nomes at Arnold Bros department store. Pratchett names a street alongside the store. Arnold's department store in Great Yarmouth was started by my ancestors and that same street runs past it. So the Nomes were sheltering in my families old business. Arnolds was later bought and renamed by Debenhams.

Book 2 of The Bromeliad. The Nomes have driven the truck until they crash it and are forced to run into the wilderness again. They come across an abandoned quarry and take refuge in the manager's hut. Once again, disaster as the quarry is about to reopen.

Some of them take off to explore and find a permanent place for the community to live.

The men arrive to get the quarry into action again and the Nome need a quick escape plan. Having once driven a truck they decide to take a digger from the quarry and to an old barn up the hill behind the quarry. Everyone gets loaded into the front scoop and the 'drivers' get coordinated again and they drive the digger out of the yard with the workers running after them in the muddy field.

This is book #2 of Chambers' Monk and Robot books. I was so impressed with #1 that I got into this the next day. It doesn't have the consistency of #1 as it tends to drag a little at about the 75% mark. However is finishes well and the ending explains a bit of those slower parts.

Tea Monk Dex and Robot Mosscap met in the wilderness as Dex was in a time of crisis. Mosscap proved to have greater understanding of Dex than Dex did. In this book they continue as travel companions, now out of the wilderness and visiting villages along the road. Mosscap's goal is to find out how the humans are doing with the question, "What do you need?" As they travel the two companions go more deeply into their own responses to that question.

Where book #1 dealt with personal identity and meaning, #2 deals with community, family, and friendship. Once again the deeply human is opened up by Chambers to try to understand why these fundamental relationships can be so difficult.

This book is a total romp - if you are a Deadpool fan. If Deadpool is not for you then this book will be a real turn-off. It starts with a content warning of depictions of violence, sexual content, and explicit language.

A bonkers mix of the time loop of Groundhog Day, the foul language, sarcastic humor and death recovery of Deadpool, and an Earthling magicked to a world of orcs and furries.

Davi has lived through hundreds of lives, and every time she dies, usually from torture, she awakens in the same pond of freezing water and the same wizard hails her as the one to save them all. Trouble is, she keeps on dying instead of saving. So this time she decides she will become the Dark Lord from whom everyone needs to be saved.

This book is a total delight. It is the second I've read of this author and has what I imagine is her characteristic quirkiness coupled with a deeply optimistic humanity.

The setting is a far post-robot future. The robots did not take over the world but have left to live their own lives and the humans have them only as a distant history.

Sibling Dex is a Tea Monk who travels around nearby towns and sets up shop, listening to people's troubles and blending them soothing tea. Dex has no gender - Sibling replaces Brother or Sister. Dex is restless and decides to travel to a distant pilgrimage shrine that might no longer exist. Somewhere along the abandoned road a robot approaches and says, 'What do you need?'

And so begins an unexpected friendship. The genderless human and the robot who sees itself as an 'it'. Without any socially constructed identities and in an abandoned shrine the troubled Dex learns to listen to himself and find inner peace. The monk learns meaning in life from the robot and the robot's first question, 'What do you need?' is not so strange after all.

A collection of short stories that sit between books #2 and #3 of the Sun Eater series. These stories lack the fire of the novels and this collection is not up to the level of previous novellas, The Lesser Devil (set parallel to book #1) and Queen Amid Ashes (set after book #2).

There is a long time gap between novels #2 and #3 and Ruocchio has set Queen and these short stories into the gap to explain some of the intervening time. I've been reading them before I get into book #4 and they recede too far into the past, but the way they've dealt with piecemeal events has been frustrating when compared to the power of the main series.

This is one of the filler novellas sitting after Book#2 of the Sun Eater series. Hadrian Marlowe has been made a Knight of the Empire and given a high class space ship and sent off to mop up after a Cielcin invasion of a distant planet. The Cielcin fleet has been blown apart by Empire forces and their main worldship has disappeared into hyperspace.

He finds the planet devastated and the main city burnt to ashes. The Baroness who rules the planet is hiding with many thousands of her retainers and general population in underground tunnels.

It is when he is clearing out the remaining Cielcin that he makes a horrifying discovery and in that moment his whole purpose on the planet has changed. Hadrian has to take his newly given authority as a Knight of the Empire to an expected level as he seeks to give the planet a new future.

The story ends suddenly at the 75% mark and the rest is back-matter. There is a long history of the Marlowe dynastic line with a reference to the erroneous claim by some that they are descendants of Christopher Marlowe the English playwright of the 1500s. Coincidentally, Hadrian's new space ship is called the Tamerlane, similar to the original Marlowe's play 'Tamburlaine the Great'. Some characters in Hadrian's story are similarly named after characters in that play.

Other back-matter sections are various personae and a thesaurus of Ruocchio's terms.

In Empire of Darkness, book #1 of the Sun Eater Series, we meet Hadrian Marlowe and his priggish younger brother Crispin. Hadrian leaves their home planet and Crispin is lost to the story. In this filler novella that sits between #1 and #2 of the series, Crispin is given space to fill in his own story.

An enemy from the past emerges with a new threat and Crispin is thrown into the head of the battle. He proves to be a much more rounded person, a competent leader, and a man of mercy and integrity, attributes that were nowhere to be found when we first met him.

This is runaway bonkers stuff. Set in a far distant future (millions of years) as the sun is starting its heat death process. The culture is medieval with swords, witches, guards that close the city gates at night, hand pulled wagons etc. The protagonist grows up in a strange monastic community that lives in a tower, but as the first book progresses there are hints that it's actually the remains of an ancient space ship standing on its end. Severian is being trained to be a torturer / executioner and the whole monastic thing is at odds with the hints of space ships etc.

The book is written as a memoir by the aged Severian and there are references of things to come that sometimes demand a bit of back tracking to sort out context etc.

Wolfe's terminology for weapons etc is often ancient and cryptic. You have been warned.

It's the first of four books (or five if we count the explanatory sequel) that are generally sold in pairs, Books 1 & 2, and then 3 & 4.

This is the second book I choose from among the many books being banned in US schools. I'm Australian and have limited understanding of how the US school system works. But I don't like what I see when any person can have books banned from school libraries even though they have no children in that school, and even from out of state.

Flamer is based on the author's own experience. Aiden is fourteen, part Asian and a bit chubby, and he's at Scout camp for the summer. He's about to move from middle school to high school and is scared that the bullying he's already receiving will get worse.

SPOILERS from here.

Even worse than the bullying is that living for weeks in close proximity to other boys he's starting to have new feelings for his best friend with whom he shares a tent. The conversations and repartee between this bunch of teen boys is already packed with sexual innuendo and open comments about various girls at school etc, and in this highly charged environment Aiden's thoughts are running wild.

One of the leaders is gone from the campsite and conversations focus on the possibility that he was gay and therefore evil. Aiden sinks into depression under all the assumptions that flood the meal table. He writes a goodbye letter, takes a pocket knife and heads for the lonely chapel on the hill. His favourite Marvel character appears in his mind and reveals inner strength that he didn't know he had.

This is an extraordinary book. I have gay friends who have spoken of how hard they found their life when all they hear is accusations and threats. It can be a teenager's nightmare. Rather than ban this book I would suggest schools promote it. I found it very moving and see the very real possibility that it might save some teen's life.

Four residents of a senior living village decide they want to investigate unsolved murders. Luckily they represent a range of backgrounds and abilities that seem to fit together like a Tetris game. With a bit of manipulation they recruit the community liaison Police officer who comes to teach them to lock their doors at night. And the game is on.

This is a 'cosy detective story' in the tradition of The Number One Ladies Detective Agency series by MCall Smith. The people are delightful, if somewhat one dimensional. The police vacillate between dismissive and accommodating. The murders are many and varied and the investigation is highly intuitive but ultimately successful. And the amateur sleuths retain secrets at the end that the police won't uncover.

Osman has a way of story telling that is engaging and funny. We start out loving the characters and we still love them when their flaws are revealed. However, I was left with the feeling that murder is OK as long as the victim deserved it.

Book 1 in the Firefall series. A far future spaceship ride with rollercoaster energy.

Siri Keeting has severe epilepsy as a child. He undergoes surgery that removes one hemisphere of his brain to control the seizures. Many years later he crews on a spaceship as an observer/reporter because his unique brain function means he can stay emotionally distant from unexpected strange events. And those unexpected events keep piling up. The crew are all augmented in some way, as Siri has also been (after all he's got half a skull they can put stuff into), The ship's captain is inbuilt AI, the nominal commander is a resurrected vampire (so able to make harsh decisions), the linguist has four people's swapable intelligences in her brain, another crew member is in love with one of her personalities, and then there's some rather dangerous aliens. Perhaps I should have mentioned them earlier. Watts increasingly focuses in on what it means to have intelligence vs self awareness. The pace of the action speeds up as the story progresses into a frightening conflict, as does Watts' demands on the reader as his arguments deepen.

One caution. I got about fifty pages into the book and had to look up the Wiki page to sort out who these characters were. The writing is very dense and the people tend to get a bit submerged.

A giant space ship leaves Earth to colonise a distant planet. After 250 years and several generations of the community of 18,000 people, the planet is near. Of course, it's all going to go as planned, isn't it? Come on, you all know it isn't. An autocratic Governor of the community, a ship's captain who seems to be nowhere, a security officer trying to climb to power, a dedicated project scientist trying to be heard, and a bunch of misfits who have won the lottery of being alive at the final approach. But what if the planet has other plans? And remember HAL from that other movie? Yeah, don't worry about that.

In the 1800s a sailing ship named Demeter is among the icebergs up the coast of Norway, looking for something. There's a serious accident. Next chapter it starts all over again. A steam ship named Demeter is sailing up the coast of Patagonia, looking for something. There's a serious accident. Next chapter it starts all over again. Early 1900s, a Zeppelin named Demeter is exploring a giant ice rift in Antarctica, something goes very wrong. Dr Silas Coade is the ship's physician each time, and he's the only person who remembers that 'we've been here before'.

Also, when does the scifi start? I didn't sign up for some sea captain shipwreck story. Reynolds is a master at telling a tale that circles a high stakes crisis while keeping the heart of the story hidden as we inch closer to the truth. This one caught my imagination so that I could not put it down. It was finished in less than two days.

Book 2 of Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun' series.

The medieval seeming world of Severian starts to open up to a bit of SciFi. In this book there are conversations that mention a time when people flew between the stars, and one (time traveler?) character recognises and disappears in what seems a remnant "beam me up Scotty" device that is kept in a castle as a piece of forgotten history.

It's still a bonkers ride through Wolfe's world and still somewhat of an acquired taste. However, I love bonkers stuff and this series is keeping my mind running happily through his labyrinthine prose.

This is a short story compilation that scatters through his Xeelee Sequence novels and stories. His stuff is always a good read although this one loses its grip at times with characters and story lines not being as sharp as expected. However, covering about five billions years of cosmic history is no mean feat.

This is the coda novel of the series, 'Book of the New Sun'.

It is mostly SciFi content but skinned in the fantasy world of the protagonist Severian. In this final book he is doing crazy time jumps back into events set through the first four books, and some of the strange elements of the original story start to find explanation. The whole thing demands concentration as it's easy for important things so slip by. On the other hand, I was sometimes scratching my head to remember the characters that appear in the final book from their original settings. And when I did remember them I realised that much of the story is hidden by Wolfe's technique of hinting at things as if he wants to have the last laugh, "Ha! I knew you would not get that bit." He's an evil genius author.

I saw the Tarkovsky movie many years ago but his movies are so slow and dreamlike it was difficult getting into the story. I chased up the book but the English translation had come from the French translation and everybody bagged it out. This direct to English translation by Bill Johnston came out in 2011 and this was the one i read. Now I've got to go back to the movie, I'm sure it will make more sense.

It's a book that deals with mankind's inability to handle failure, and with no hero in sight.

A barbarian turns up in a medieval tavern, gets into a fight with the locals, things turn bad etc.

This book has a weird history. It was written in 1970 by 16 year old Jim, who was a member of a zine club in his town. The zine was a stapled together collection of writings from members and produced on those old wax masters that we'd type on. The master was put onto the belt of the duplicator and the machine wound by hand. The technology of the day. The writing was all over the place with Jim using fancy words, often spelled badly and used incorrectly for the context.

The editor of the zine sent a copy to a zine friend in another city, not realising that the back page had come adrift from the staples. That guy read some of it at a zine conference, people fell about laughing, especially as the story had no ending page. So they passed the zine around the circle, each person reading until they started laughing, then the next person etc. Over the years it got copied and copied (still no last page) and became a zine conference comedy thing to read it like this. It got tagged with 'Is this the worst fantasy story ever written?'

Jim heard about it and was upset that he was being mocked for something he'd written as a youngster and said he'd never write anything ever again. Jim died in his forties. Then somebody found an original copy of the zine with the back page intact. Over time the story found its way onto websites for downloading. Taff.org.uk has the full ebook with notes on its history.

I feel for Jim. Had his original story received some simple editing before circulating as it did it would not have been the subject of ridicule that it became. And perhaps Jim could have written more.