Tag Archives: scifi

Book Review of “Hauser’s Memory” (1968)

hauser

Photo credit: James Pyles

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I finished my re-read of Curt Siodmak’s classic novel Hauser’s Memory a few days ago but this is the first chance I’ve had to write about it. I know I originally read the book some decades ago but remembered very little. I also watched the 1970 made-for-TV movie starring David McCallum and Susan Strasberg, but remember just a little more.

This book wasn’t part of my local public library system so I had to buy a used hardback. The copyright says 1968 so I imagine it could be a first edition, especially since the page stock is so wonderfully thick. I really love old books.

What strikes me about this novel more than anything else is the writing. Normally, when I review a piece of science fiction, I’m assessing (among other things) the quality of the science fiction writing. In Siodmak’s case, his writing is that of a wonderful author and storyteller regardless of genre. Taking out the SciFi aspects, his knowledge of humanity is wonderful. I could read his descriptions of even the most mundane aspects of the lives of his characters and still be fascinated.

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Book Review of Joe Haldeman’s novel “Camouflage” (2004)

cam joe

Photo credit: James Pyles

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I just got done reading Joe Haldeman’s novel Camouflage. I used to read Haldeman a lot back in the day. I loved classics such as The Forever War and All My Sins Remembered. It was after reading his novel The Accidental Time Machine that I said I’d never read him again (more on that later).

But a friend suggested giving him another try, so I found “Camouflage” at my local public library.

It’s generally a good book and a very easy read. I shot through it in just a few days. In spite of the title, the protagonist is an alien being simply called “Changeling.” We find out early on that Changeling came to Earth from over 10,000 light-years away and evolved in a very different environment. Apparently life is rare in the galaxy and Earth is where it found life.

Its ship landed in the Pacific Ocean, specifically the Tonga Trench about a million years ago. The narrative made it seem that Changeling is a subset of the life form in the ship that separated itself to explore. For the vast majority of that million years, Changeling was various forms of sea life swimming around, primarily an Orca and a Great White Shark.

But by-the-by, Changeling started observing human beings on ships and became curious. It came on shore in California in 1931 and superficially imitated a human being.

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The Anthology “One-Way Ticket” is Selling Great!

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Screenshot from Amazon.

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That’s right. The Starry Eyed Press science fiction anthology One-Way Ticket is selling great guns on the free kindle market just now.

one

Cover art for “One-Way Ticket”

Here’s what it’s all about:

Space, with its infinite possibilities, calls us to explore, but makes no promises of returning home for those brave or foolish enough to test its resolve.

Starry Eyed Press proudly presents One-Way Ticket, a collection of fourteen science fiction tales of action, adventure, suspense, mystery and terror. Follow hopeful explorers, observe new settlers and terraforming efforts, meet sentient planets, witness lethal attacks, and discover alien species beyond your wildest imagination.

This one-way ticket takes you forward in time to a place where technology, infinite possibility and the vastness of the galaxy itself combine.

Embark upon this journey to new worlds, new possibilities and unforgettable adventures.

It’s also getting some great reviews but still needs more (hint, hint).

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Book Review of “Cowl” by Neal Asher

cowl

Photo © James Pyles

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I just finished reading Cowl (2004), a science fiction novel by Neal Asher. Of the seemingly endless supply of books he’s written, I chose “Cowl” because A) it is a stand alone novel where most of his works are bound to series and B) it was available through my local public library system.

Okay, the third reason is that it is specifically a time travel story, and I’m a sucker for time travel stories.

Most of the books of Asher’s I’ve read thus far (the reviews are elsewhere on my blog) are set off Earth, well outside the solar system, and so far in the future that anything that even vaguely refers to Earth is incredibly removed.

So it was odd to start out with the protagonist Polly, a teenage prostitute and drug addict in the 22nd century. Through an association with the sister of a soldier who had access to odd technology, she ends up in the crosshairs of a “U-gov” assassin named Tack. She sees the soldier Nandru killed by something called the Torbeast while Tack is trying to kill her.

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Book Review of “Second Stage Lensman,” Book Five in the Lensman Series

Cover art for “Second Stage Lensman” by E.E. “Doc” Smith

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It has been almost a year-and-a-half since I reviewed E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Gray Lensman the fourth book in the “Lensman series” following Triplanetary, First Lensman, and Galactic Patrol.

Today, I’m reviewing Second Stage Lensman. While the Lensman series of books was first published in mass market paperback in the mid to late 1960s when I was in Junior High (and when every boy I knew was reading them), as a hardback book, it first came out in 1953. It had been published serially in “Astounding Science Fiction” from Nov 1941-to-Feb 1942.

Keep that in mind for the entire series since it is not only absolute classic science fiction and the emergence of the “space opera” but it really old.

That part is important, especially if you are used to more contemporary works “updated for modern audiences.” The 21st century progressive SciFi industry has little tolerance for it’s own past.

In this case, as with the others in the series, I can sort of see it, at least a bit.

For instance, slang. After all, from the 1940’s perspective, this is the future, but how would “future people” express themselves, especially when excited and agitated? How about:

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Book Review: “Pines” (2012) by Blake Crouch

pines

© James Pyles

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I found out about the SciFi/Mystery novel Pines by Blake Crouch when I was looking up something totally unrelated. I had watched (again) the pilot episode to the 1966 Irwin Allen TV show The Time Tunnel and was wondering why the government would want to invent time travel.

Time travel, contrary to popular fiction, isn’t easily weaponized. If you want to change the past and say prevent anyone else besides the U.S. acquiring nuclear weapons, it would be incredibly complicated. Unforeseen variables could cause all kinds of unanticipated results, assuming you could change your own timeline at all.

It gets complex and it’s not the focus of this review. In one article I read, Blake Crouch said that changing time would most likely not be possible. If you tried to, as in the Back to the Future movies, prevent Marty’s Mom and Dad from meeting in 1955 so they couldn’t get married and ‘make” Marty, time would find another way for them to get together and sustain history.

I became curious about Crouch and looked up his books, finding the Wayward Pines novel series. My local library had a copy of “Pines,” so I checked it out.

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Coming June 26th: “Summer of Speculation”

summer

Cover art for the anthology “Summer of Speculation, 2023”

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It’s finally happening. The Cloaked Press anthology Summer of Speculation 2023 is available June 26, 2023. This year’s theme is Sidekicks.

My contribution to this work is the short story “The Apprentice.”

I didn’t want to do some superhero sidekick story so I went with a “diamond-in-the-rough” apprentice to a Master, but one with particular skills. It’s set in the same futuristic cyberpunk world as my short story “Dollface” which you can find in the anthology Surge.

Pin is a girl who has grown up in the slums of the Under, the ancient remnants of cities built centuries ago which are now dwarfed in the shadow of the sky-spanning megapolis. Recruited by the mysterious “Mr. Chandler,” Pin must leave behind everyone she has ever loved for an uncertain future training as a Paladin. But is Chandler the Practitioner her savior or the catalyst of a life leading to danger and ultimately death?

Here’s a short sample:

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Book Review of “Ancillary Justice” (2013) by Ann Leckie

justice

Cover of Ann Leckie’s novel “Ancillary Justice”

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I first heard about An Leckie’s flagship novel Ancillary Justice by reading an article at Tor called Power, Responsibility, and Revenge: Ancillary Justice Ten Years On by Adrienne Martini. The book is now ten years old, but I’ve never been known as being on the bleeding edge of whatever’s new and fresh in science fiction.

This part of the article got my attention:

In that early scene, Leckie efficiently sets up one of the key features of this world: the Radchaai language doesn’t gender people. Breq defaults to she/her pronouns for everyone unless she is speaking the language of the colonized. We only know Seivarden is a “he” because a bartender on Nilt refers to him that way. Frequently, Leckie shows Breq struggling with finding the right pronouns for the languages that require them.

Oh, good grief. If there are two words associated with this novel that are bound to set my teeth on edge, it’s “justice” and “gender,” both of which have taken on rather magnified meanings in the 2020s, at least in social media.

Martini gushes glowing praise upon Leckie’s book. In fact, her debut novel has the distinction of having won a Hugo Award, Nebula Award, BSFA Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, and Locus Award for Best First Novel. That’s some novel.

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The Galaxy Coloring Book

coloring

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

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I stoked the fireplace while contemplating the unusual coloring book I bought at the Flea Market last Sunday. I was referred to the vendor rather mysteriously. She suggested that I would find this particular book especially interesting.

I thought I’d reserved my “coloring between the lines” behavior for playing with my grandchildren, but this wasn’t a child’s plaything.

I had retired from my career in astronomy years back, but my childhood fascination with the universe never left me. If I colored the lines according to instructions, Earth’s gateway to a people and their far distant star would finally become known.

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Science Fiction Featuring Commentary vs. Commentary Disguised as Science Fiction

ancillary

Cover art for the novel “Ancillary Justice”

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Oh good grief.

I signed up to receive email notifications from Tor.com because they occasionally offer free downloads of books that I (or someone) think I should read. I opened up one such email this morning and discovered this article: Power, Responsibility, and Revenge: Ancillary Justice Ten Years On.

Whenever the word “Justice” is used in a title or text of a work, and given Tor’s obvious political bent, I start to make assumptions. In this case I wasn’t wrong. Here’s a couple of quotes from the article by Adrienne Martini:

With her first book, (Ann) Leckie recombined the DNA of a space opera into a surprising work that captured all of the gee-whiz of empires in space while at the same time interrogating what such empires were good for.

And…

In that early scene, Leckie efficiently sets up one of the key features of this world: the Radchaai language doesn’t gender people. Breq defaults to she/her pronouns for everyone unless she is speaking the language of the colonized. We only know Seivarden is a “he” because a bartender on Nilt refers to him that way. Frequently, Leckie shows Breq struggling with finding the right pronouns for the languages that require them.

And…

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