Books shelved under “Science Fiction”

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…

Miles Vorkosigan has a mixed bag. On one hand, he’s the Barrayaran heir to a title. He has parents who care about him and have given him a first-class education. When he travels off-world to Beta Colony, he gets sweet diplomatic immunity and a tough bodyguard. Then again, the bodyguard is there in case someone tries to kill him. That’s the other hand. Exposure to a toxin in the womb has left Miles with weakened,…

Seeing the future is still never a good idea.

Over two years after I read the first book, I finally read Mockingbird, the second in Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black series. Miriam is trying to move on after the life-altering events of the first book, but she isn’t having much success. “Lying low” is a difficult concept for her, and soon enough she finds herself drawn back into the fine art of messing with destiny.

…

Centuries after the events of The Fall of Hyperion, and three and a half years after I read that book, Endymion takes place and I read it. I had actually forgotten that there was a book between this one and Hyperion; I described this as the second book in a series when friends asked me what I was reading. Oops! And it has been so long since I read the first two that…

Huh, so it appears I’m not the only one to liken this to The Handmaid’s Tale. So there goes that idea for a review.

I guess I’ll just have to talk about young adult literature and dystopian fiction and how not liking this book means you hate women.

Just kidding about that last part.

Sort of.

In addition to reminding me of Atwood’s novel about fertile women being the property of men who believe…

It has been ages since I read The Ghost Brigade and over a year since I read The Human Division, which chronologically takes place after the events in The Last Colony but doesn’t spoil a lot of it. I guess it’s a testament to my terrible memory (and the reason why I write these reviews) that I remembered almost nothing about either books when I started reading this one. I couldn’t really recall who…

Some books are better if just don’t expect them to make sense. The Sirens of Titan actually surprised me in how accessible it was for a Vonnegut novel. For the first few chapters, everything was pretty mundane. Weird, yes—but I followed everything that was going on. It’s not until about Chapter Four, when Malachi ends up on Mars, that everything gets super-strange. From there it’s just deeper down the rabbithole as Vonnegut spins layer upon…

Yes, it’s another review of Saga, this time of Volume Three, the last of three volumes I bought for a friend. It’s hard to think of original things to say, having read and reviewed the first two in quick succession. So let’s look at the journey Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples are taking us on after nearly twenty issues of this incredibly story.

I’m impressed at the complexity of the supporting cast. Kiara,…

I was a little harsh on Robopocalypse. I said its subtext was spread thinly; it’s a thriller in a science fiction setting that seems to be bagging for a Michael Bay adaptation. I stand by those words. And Robogenesis isn’t much better. But it is better. Daniel H. Wilson throws in a few twists and expands on some of the characters, and the result is a more entertaining, slightly deeper, slightly more thought-provoking novel…

Now, I am a lucky and spoiled person who is reading Saga collected in volumes, rather than reading each issue as it is released like a chump—er, I mean, true fan. I guess it’s comparable to binge-watching a show after the entire season has been released rather than watching it week-by-week. In the end, you get to the same place. But the experience is totally different.

Saga, Volume Two raises the stakes after Volume One…

Saga first came onto my radar last year when it was nominated for a Hugo Award. (Volume Two was nominated this year!) In fact, I’m pretty sure that it was included in the Voters Packet.

I didn’t read it.

I don’t read many graphic novels. I understand why people like them, and part of me wishes I read more—but obviously that’s not a big enough part, or else I actually would. Simply put, I am…