If I was rating this book by the world-building alone, it probably would have gotten five stars. The idea of exploring Locked In Syndrome as a world-wide epidemic within a sci-fi framework is sooooo interesting to me. Lots of o’s to exhibit enthusiasm, there. I’m particularly interested in the ways that Scalzi, instead of focusing on the immediate effect of the disease itself, more uses it was a way to create a new social dynamic and class of people. See, due to the high profile […]
My first-ever cyperpunk novel, guys!
I am not–strictly speaking–a sci-fi reader. I had never heard of The Diamond Age until my sister recommended it to me. My sister is an awesome person. She has read so many books that I have recommended to her, including ones for my dissertation, that I thought it was long past time I returned the favor. So I picked up The Diamond Age. It starts with a man named Bud who buys an illegal skullgun, beats a man, and is then sentenced to death. The […]
Serialized novels are like, so retro, you guys.
Consider this experiment a success, I think. The Human Division is the fifth novel set in John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War universe, but it can be read on its own if you are so inclined (although I highly recommend reading the first three books–they are wonderful). The experiment I’m referring to is that The Human Division was initially released as thirteen separate ‘episodes’ at set intervals, and then collected together in ‘novel’ form and released as a hardcover. I say this was an experiment because it […]
I want to be Persis Blake when I grow up.
Here’s how I would break down 2014: BDF and ADF. That’s Before Diana Peterfreund (January – June), and After Diana Peterfreund (July- today). Back in July, while shopping for books to bring on vacation, my favorite book-seller recommended For Darkness Shows the Stars to me. She promised I would like it, and I was helping support a local author, so I picked it up AND IT WAS AWESOME. A futuristic, dystopian re-telling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, I ate it up and told everyone I knew about […]
A sci-fi adventure on the evils of imperialism
After reading and loving the Silo trilogy by Howey, I went back to look for others of his works, and found Half-Way Home to be a fascinating and well-done novel in its own right. It is the story of a group of 15-year-olds who had been raised in artificial wombs aboard a spaceship, one of hundreds of such missions sent out from a future Earth to find and colonize viable planets. Missions landing on nonviable planets were abruptly aborted by the artificial intelligence (AI) controlling […]
Oh, Jane, would it have hurt you to be just a bit more interesting?
Jane lives a pampered and privileged life, the only child of a wealthy and influential woman. She’s lonely, insecure and immature. She has no real friends, just people who mainly seem to take pleasure in bullying her. One day, she encounters a robot minstrel, one in a new line of highly realistic, artificially intelligent androids and her life is never the same. Though she is initially frightened by the robot, she’s also fascinated by him and can’t put him out of her mind. She runs […]
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