Books shelved under “Science Fiction”

So we begin the Second Age—dare I say, the Silver Age?—of Animorphs with The Secret. Applegate combines one of the ongoing themes of environmentalism with a personal look at the tolls this secret war takes on Cassie, the most empathetic of the Animorphs.

See what I did there? These titles, simplistic though they might seem, are always multi-faceted. The eponymous secret could be so many things. It could be the Yeerk invasion. It could…

I seem to remember reading some or all of Stephen Baxter’s Manifold books when I was much younger. Those also involved a future sentience/intelligence at the end of the universe reaching back in the history of the universe to alter events through weird, inexplicable phenomena. So I guess this is a thing for him. Proxima starts its life as a straightforward tale of enforced penal colonization of another planet before gradually sprawling into a parallel…

The Alien represents the end of the First Age of Animorphs. It is Ax’s first time as narrator, and so with this book, all of the six Animorphs have had a chance to tell their story. As with the introductions to each of the human Animorphs, this book lets us hear in Ax’s own words why he is fighting the Yeerks. Thanks to his knowledge as an Andalite, he also allows Applegate to share more…

Feed is not a comfortable novel, nor is it comforting. I seem to be on a string of these sorts of YA novels lately—not mention my Animorphs re-read. I feel strongly that these types of books are valuable for young people. There is something to be said for escapism and the reassuring, but somewhat inaccurate, message that some of the most popular dystopian YA is giving that “youth can fight the power.” But I am…

Time to dig into some solar-system colonial fiction with Red Mars, the first in Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy about settling and terraforming our nearest planetary neighbour. First published over twenty years ago, the book holds up well despite the scientific advances two decades’ worth of rovers and satellites have provided. Robinson combines his ecologically-aware vision of the Earth’s future difficulties with a semi-realistic vision for planetary colonization. Throw in an ensemble cast of believable…

Seven books into the Animorphs series, and K.A. Applegate has a problem. The series is popular. Too popular. See, it’s so popular that its sales are already so high that any improvement is not only unlikely but mathematically impossible … unless she can come up with some way to make the series even bigger, even crazier. Something so wild that it transforms a horizontal asymptote on that time versus sales graph into a vertical one.

…

Marco finds the location of the main Yeerk pool. (It’s underneath the Gap, guys! We don’t have a Gap in Thunder Bay any more. But I remember when we had one—in the nineties.) It’s too difficult to destroy the pool, but if they can find the Kandrona that emits the rays the Yeerks need to live, then they can deal a serious blow to the Yeerks. Don’t worry, the Animorphs have a plan ……

Are you ready for this?

Guys, are you ready for this?

It doesn’t matter what you answered. You are not ready for this. None of the preceding five books could prepare us for The Capture.

See, the Yeerks have built a shiny new hospital that they have staffed with Controllers. That way, they can infect the people who go there for treatment—including powerful people, like the state governor, who might one day be the…

It didn’t take me long to understand why this book received such acclaim and is still regarded as a classic. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is an emblem of political science fiction. Robert Heinlein manages to take the idea of a penal colony on the moon and turn it into a romantic story of political revolution. This is an idea that has been explored repeatedly since this novel was published, but those stories almost…

We arrive at the last of the introductions to the original five Animorphs: Marco, no last name (as usual). He is, in our Animorph boy band, the Funny One (not the Pretty One, though he might try to sell you on that). (Debate which of the other Animorphs are which boy band stereotype in the comments!) He has spent the past four novels providing comic relief, sometimes at the most inopportune times, and generally…

It’s common to accuse a writer of writing the same thing over again. In many cases this merely means the writer sticks to variations on a theme. Sometimes, though, it feels like each novel is another installment in an iterative process designed to get at a central idea. As I continue to read William Gibson’s novels, I continue to get a better idea of the novel he is trying to write. Mona Lisa Overdrive mixes…

Why is it Ursula K. Le Guin always makes my life as a reader and reviewer difficult? Her books can’t be nice, straightforward stories—no, she has to create lyric, moving pieces of experimental literature that transcend our ordinary definitions of form and genre. I have a problem with Always Coming Home, but that problem is entirely independent of the book itself. It is, rather, a result of me and my particular biases…

One of the highlights of re-reading this series is the intense 1990s nostalgia it’s bringing back. These books have aged so much, and it’s no one’s fault but the march of time and technology. In The Visitor, Rachel talks in code by inviting Jake over to listen to a new CD. And here in The Message, Jake produces a VCR tape of a nightly news show—kids, I won’t bother explaining what…

So, I enjoyed The Warrior’s Apprentice, and The Mountains of Mourning made me cry. How I would react to The Vor Game was anyone’s guess, but I knew that this last story in the Young Miles omnibus would not disappoint me.

Indeed, with this book, Lois McMaster Bujold hits it out of the park. I totally get why this won the Hugo Award in 1991. It is bold and brash but has a deeper…

The Last Colony was the triumphant conclusion to the trilogy of John Perry and Jane Sagan vs. the Universe. Reluctant leaders of the new Roanoke colony, John and Jane manage to stave off a couple of deadly attacks and do an end-run around the Colonial Union brinksmanship that would otherwise have proved deadly for the colony in the long term. And they do this all while being the adoptive parents of a sixteen-year-old who is…

One of the most important parts of designing a magic system, or a set of superpowers, or anything that allows characters to defy the ordinary laws and assumptions of our universe, is deciding what the costs will be. You can’t get something for nothing, and if you break the rules, you have to pay a price. For the Animorphs, it’s a two-hour time limit. If you stay in a morph longer, you’re stuck there. No…

We continue my epic re-read of the Animorphs series with book 2, because I’m boring and read series in order, OK?

Animorphs resembles an after-school kids show: each book is like an episode of the show in which the kids have an adventure while learning an important life lesson. In The Invasion the lesson was, “Yes, your principal is an alien bent on enslaving humanity.” The Visitor is about the harsh effects of marital strife…

So I’m on a relativistic shuttle, waiting for you…. I never found anybody else and I don’t want anybody else. I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty. If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse.

Hey kids, you know how people keep using that word allegory, and you’re never really sure what they mean, and they probably aren’t even sure what they mean?

This. This is an allegory.

If…

ANIMORPHS!!!

That’s it. Review done. Go home.

What else do you want me to say? This was my series growing up. Sure, I read Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew—and someone was still writing new volumes in those series, too, updated for the modern 1990s. (I’m sure there is an entire PhD thesis devoted to tracing the ways those two series have been revised and rewritten and re-released throughout the twentieth century—and if there isn’t,…

The Warrior’s Apprentice was, by all metrics, fun, but I didn’t think it was especially substantive. Miles blunders his way into and out of a problem, succeeding more on luck and determination than any particular flash of brilliance on his part. (There is nothing wrong with luck and determination, of course. These are valuable qualities to possess!) I enjoyed the book, but it’s not going to keep me up at night.

The Mountains of Mourning…