Reading in Science Fiction, July 2022

[Westy]

I got an early read of Neom by Lavie Tidhar - it's set in the same universe as Central Station, in the city of Neom where robots are leftover relics from an old war. One robot feels called to a place in the desert and digs up a "golden man", which could have dangerous consequences.

This book had a wonderful mix of old world location - sand, markets, traditional dress, and future tech - a spaceport with shuttles to various locations in the solar system, digital entities, cyborged humans. It also had the vivid imagery that's become familiar with the author - the sights and smells of the markets, the desolation and heat of the desert. The characters are ordinary, relatable people going about their lives in this unique setting, and there's a philosophical side when one discussed their outlook on life with a robot.

Another great read from this author for me.

 

[cgw]

I am so far behind with that series, PD. Last one read here - Cibola Burn. I enjoyed it a great deal, but am having to space them out a little though. Have heard that they pick up by the end.

Cibola Burn is next for me. I decided after the last one to space them out. One a year. They would be a good vacation read.

 

[Raf]

Finished Benford's and Niven's "Bowl of Heaven". Can always count on Niven for these gigantic constructs in space. But this concept is pretty cool. A constructed bowl the size of the orbit of Mercury with using a G-type star held in place by planet sized magnetic coils and funneling that energy into a directed plume for propulsion. Traveling through space for tens of millions of years.


The "Bowl" was stumbled onto by an terran ramscoop ship making it's way to a new world. A sleepship with thousands of colonists and usually a small crew that maintains the ship along its' voyage of several hundred years. The ship is not performing to spec and it's likely that they will run out of food well before they reach their destination.

Coming upon the "bowl" offers them a chance to salvage the voyage and save the colonists. But the owners of the bowlworld might have different ideas.

The caretakers of the the construct are an ancient avian race. Though whether they are the builders or something else was never clarified in this book. So maybe in the following books?

The human exploratory crew is attacked by the bowl caretakers and split up. Half the party is taken by the avian and the other half escapes. The book continues with new discoveries as the cultural differences with with the avian and the humans clash.

It's was a decent read. But a little over my price point for ebooks. The following 2 novels are at that price point too. So, I may come back to it later.

 

[Agent Cormac]

Great North Road

When a body is pulled from the River Tyne in Newcastle, the investigation gains pace after the victim is identified as one of the members of the influential North family. The trouble is, all the North family members are accounted for, and the manner of death matches another North family killing that took place twenty years previously - a killing claimed by a witness to have been done by an alien.

This takes place in 2143 at a time when instantaneous gateways have been established to other planets, much like in some of Hamilton’s other books. The Newcastle gateway links to St Libra, a planet thought to have no sentient life and settled mainly by people working for the planet’s bioil industry. As a result of the recent and second North murder, the Human Defence Alliance mounts a military expedition to St Libra to find evidence of alien life.

Although there are many, many characters in the story, it mainly centres on Sid, who leads the murder investigation in Newcastle, and Angela, who was convicted of the earlier murder and imprisoned but is then released to assist with the expedition to St Libra. Early on the murder investigation does tend to plod along and I found that part of the story a bit slow going and not easy to warm to. Sid was a likeable enough character, but the lack of significant progress in the investigation made me wonder when things would start to pick up. Thankfully, Angela’s story was much more engaging - especially the flashbacks, which had the twin effect of filling in her backstory and driving the main story forward. As a story it is probably overlong and in my opinion could have been streamlined by editing out several hundred pages, which would have still left a hefty lump of paper but would have given more impetus to the unfolding events. It’s a decent story though, probably not one I will return to in the future, but worth a read.

 

[Windshadow]

Thanks, AC This looks interesting.

Great North Road - Kindle edition by Hamilton, Peter F.. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Great North Road - Kindle edition by Hamilton, Peter F.. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Great North Road.

www.amazon.com

 

[T77]

Finished Light Chaser by Peter F Hamilton. I thought it was very good. My only complaint was that I wished it was a full-length novel instead of a novella.

I've read all of his books and now must wait for the third Arkship book.

 

[dannymcg]

Just started a new book by Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Plot
I'm only in the opening chapters so it's a bit early to form an opinion

The Icarus Plot

There wasn’t much money to be made as a Trailblazer, searching out new worlds for possible development. Still, it was safer than the bounty hunter career that had cost Gregory Roarke his left arm six years ago. And thanks to his Kadolian partner Selene’s ultrasensitive sense of smell, they...

www.baen.com

 

[Raf]

I used to read a lot of Zahn years ago. I remember liking his early "Cobra" series back in the 80's. But lost track of him over time. Looks like he has been busy, so I need to check out his later stuff.

 

[krisbslick]

Just started a new book by Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Plot
I'm only in the opening chapters so it's a bit early to form an opinion

I read the Icarus Hunt a few years back. It was hard one for me to complete - I couldn't really get into it and didn't really care about the plot or characters. I might be in the minority though, because it has a lot of great reviews.

Looks like this is set in the same universe with different(?) characters. Be interested to hear your opinion.

 

[suciul]

Finished Of Tangible Ghosts by Le Modesitt, the first in his Ghost trilogy of the mid to late 90's and early 00's; I read parts of this book years ago, but never really got seriously into it for some reason, but reading the author's latest novel Councillor (awesome and best book of 2022 for me so far), there was the mention of one Johan Eschbach authoring a work of history (or maybe fiction, the issue is still undecided by the end of Councillor as the main characters who read together the book as relaxation in their free time, got around only to maybe a third so far - same device used by the author in the series about Quaeryt and the book about Rholan), and I vaguely remembered that Johan Eschbach is a character in one LE Modesitt's earlier books, though of course Of tangible Ghosts is set in an alt-Earth, while Councillor is set in a fantasy universe...

My review below and will get to book Ghost of the Revelator soon:

Entertaining first-person action-adventure interspersed with a lot of college politics and teaching stuff (which will definitely be better appreciated if one had to deal with that), set in the 1990s of an alternate universe where ghosts exist, the geopolitical situation is quite different as is technology.

Former secret service (SPAZI) operative and assistant minister, Johan Eschbach, hit by tragedy when losing his son to some kind of accident that probably wasn't, then his wife to a terrible disease that could have been at least attempted to be cured in an enemy nation, but with the government refusing to allow it and finally fired from his official duties and retired from his unofficial ones when the opposing party took power, is now teaching environmental politics at a state university in the town of New Bruges, a heavily Dutch settled town in the far northeast of the nation of Columbia - a sort of US-Canada, though more Anglo-Dutch as for example New Amsterdam is still that and not New York, though Washington is still the capital etc, but without the territories taken from Mexico in the 1800's as in this version of history, Mexico- now the New France empire under a Franco-Austrian dynasty, but currently led by Marshal de Gaulle in the name of the young emperor, won.

Johan is now dating Lysette Dubois, a French opera diva, now barely scrapping an existence as a poorly paid music instructor at the New Bruges college, who after being imprisoned and tortured barely escaped the conquest (and devastation) of her country by the Austro-Hungarian empire which dominates large parts of Eurasia here, as the Japanese (another of the great powers of the day) ambassador secured her release and departure to Columbia as he was a big fan.

When one day a colleague of Lysette is murdered and Johan sees her ghost, things start happening as sleepy New Bruges becomes the center of conflict in the covert war about psychic research into the nature and use of ghosts, so between trying to deal with his annoying department chief, with the domineering college dean, with the laziness and lack of dedication of his students and with navigating the many hidden mines in his relation with Lysette, Johan will also have to think quickly and act even quicker to stay alive when his former bosses decide that he will make a convenient scapegoat for all those happenings

Energy, lots of irony and a page-turner.

 

[Hobbit]

Finished Of Tangible Ghosts by Le Modesitt, the first in his Ghost trilogy of the mid to late 90's and early 00's;

Picked up a secondhand copy of this a couple of months ago, Suciul. Haven't got around to reading it yet, but your thoughts reminded me to read it!

 

[dannymcg]

I read the Icarus Hunt a few years back. It was hard one for me to complete - I couldn't really get into it and didn't really care about the plot or characters. I might be in the minority though, because it has a lot of great reviews.

Looks like this is set in the same universe with different(?) characters. Be interested to hear your opinion.

I went halfway through but DNF -too dull

 

[AtramentousFlux]

Benford's and Niven's "Bowl of Heaven"

I parked everything else for a bit to start this one, as it sounded fun and interesting.
It's not fun and interesting though, and it's straining both my ability to suspend disbelief and my ability to tolerate bad writing. I can see a DNF coming.

Great North Road

This one however, is very good, at least as far as I've read.

 

[Raf]

I parked everything else for a bit to start this one, as it sounded fun and interesting.
It's not fun and interesting though, and it's straining both my ability to suspend disbelief and my ability to tolerate bad writing. I can see a DNF coming.



This one however, is very good, at least as far as I've read.

It gets better...but it is definitely not Ringworld.

 

[Ropie]

I started the month with Accelerando by Charles Stross. I remember reading one of the stories from this collection many years ago and quite liking it. However, reading Lobsters (the first story) in 2022 I found it too silly and tech-y in an unappealing way. I love computers and technology but writers like Stross and Stephenson don't really make a good case for technology in science fiction, IMHO... Anyway, I have put it down for now. I might try again later in the year.

I re-started this yesterday. Quite enjoying it now. I did always say that the mood of the reader has as much influence as anything on how enjoyable a book is

 

[Hobbit]

I did always say that the mood of the reader has as much influence as anything on how enjoyable a book is

Agreed.

 

[dannymcg]

Strange Company by Nick Cole.

Basically space marine mercenaries who've been lab modified to have esp powers

 

[Diosces]

Reading Velocity Weapon by Megan O'Keefe.
Its good, Sanda the pilot is likable and well developed the spaceship AI concept is nice but Biran the twin brother so far is kinda meh..
Goodreads and some other review sites say its worthwhile read as the author hones her ideas and writing in the sequels, Chaos Vector & Catalyst Gate

 

[pogopossum]

Great North Road

When a body is pulled from the River Tyne in Newcastle, the investigation gains pace after the victim is identified as one of the members of the influential North family. The trouble is, all the North family members are accounted for, and the manner of death matches another North family killing that took place twenty years previously - a killing claimed by a witness to have been done by an alien.

This takes place in 2143 at a time when instantaneous gateways have been established to other planets, much like in some of Hamilton’s other books. The Newcastle gateway links to St Libra, a planet thought to have no sentient life and settled mainly by people working for the planet’s bioil industry. As a result of the recent and second North murder, the Human Defence Alliance mounts a military expedition to St Libra to find evidence of alien life.

Although there are many, many characters in the story, it mainly centres on Sid, who leads the murder investigation in Newcastle, and Angela, who was convicted of the earlier murder and imprisoned but is then released to assist with the expedition to St Libra. Early on the murder investigation does tend to plod along and I found that part of the story a bit slow going and not easy to warm to. Sid was a likeable enough character, but the lack of significant progress in the investigation made me wonder when things would start to pick up. Thankfully, Angela’s story was much more engaging - especially the flashbacks, which had the twin effect of filling in her backstory and driving the main story forward. As a story it is probably overlong and in my opinion could have been streamlined by editing out several hundred pages, which would have still left a hefty lump of paper but would have given more impetus to the unfolding events. It’s a decent story though, probably not one I will return to in the future, but worth a read.

Thanks for your review AC.
If you don't mind I will in the future steal your phrase "A hefty lump of paper" to describe tomes of some weight. The Honorverse books occur to me---.

 

[AtramentousFlux]

Benford's and Niven's "Bowl of Heaven"

I've decided to continue with this, rather than DNF, as an exercise to see how many more errors there are. This work appears to not have been edited at all, and the impression I get is that Benford and Niven sometimes both wrote versions of the same paragraph and somehow both versions got included. Which might be OK if things didn't happen differently in the different versions.

For authors of this reputation to produce a load of cobblers on this scale is astonishing.

From one of the reviews on Goodreads that I completely agree with:

Honestly, this book is definitively, and I’m being serious here, the most poorly crafted professionally produced novel I’ve ever seen.

I dare you to find its equal.

It really is that bad.