My father bought into the myth of Ronald Reagan like a dying man holding onto the promise of an after life. He spent his life in the military, and would talk about not having actual rounds to fire under Jimmy Carter because of budget cuts. But Ronald Reagan? He gave us our soul back. This country was reborn after Vietnam, and Watergate, and the Iran hostage crises. Ronald Reagan cut taxes, and ended the Cold War, and reigned in an out of control government. He […]
If Suppiluliuma were here, I wonder what he’d make of the Arab Spring.
In many ways, “the world” of 3200 years ago was vastly different from today. The Torah (or “Hebrew Bible”, if you’re so inclined) wouldn’t be written for another 600 years. If Homer existed, he wouldn’t be born for another 300 years (give or take). Elsewhere in the world, the ancient Puebloans of the American Southwest first formed. The 12th century BCE is as far removed from the formation of the Roman Empire as we are from the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. In short, […]
If you think you’ve been here before, you have.
First off, the rating. The Last Colony is a solid 4.5. I found the book delightful. Scalzi unpacked a little bit more of his universe, and ends the book with a punch, but not in a way that I felt suckered into continuing the series. It was just a final crescendo to a great adventure, and I was left wanting more. Which leads to my second point: Zoe’s Tale was fairly pointless. It’s a retelling of The Last Colony. Literally. It’s the exact same story, […]
I’m too old for this shit.
First off, I haven’t completely abandoned my presidential reading list. Sometimes, you just need a break. Mine started with Armada and has continued for four books (counting these two). Secondly, there are minor spoilers ahead. The universe of Old Man’s War and Ghost Brigades is familiar to science fiction fans. Humans have technology advanced enough to allow for interstellar travel and the colonization of other worlds. The races they’ve encountered are largely bent on humanity’s destruction, and a team of plucky individuals are probably going […]
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are on a Galaxy Quest
Thematic spoilers follow. The failure of Armada, for me, was the recursive and self-referential style of Ernest Cline, which ended up feeling like a crutch rather than an addition to the fairly straightforward plot. Unbeknownst to me, this book is in a similar vein to my previous read. Redshirts is about the “red shirts” from the original Star Trek series. They were characters used to create dramatic tension by dying early in episodes (typically on away missions). These were characters with no backstory, and the […]
I’m on board until someone mentions Zubaz pants.
In a vacuum, I think this book gets four stars. In a vacuum, I think the general opinion for the book is that it’s an engaging story with fairly likable characters that pays homage to numerous classic and iconic science fiction stories from past decades: from Ender’s Game to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In a vacuum. But this book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In the rich and dense atmosphere of Earth, this is the much anticipated follow-up to Ready Player One, which […]