The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye by David Lagercrantz (Millennium #5)

The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye by David Lagercrantz (Millennium #5)

Lisbeth finds herself in prison but for doing something right! She then starts to stand up to the prison bullies and ends up defending a young woman from being murdered in prison. She is also desperate to get internet access as she is not allowed any in prison as she has uncovered something about herself and her twin sister. Why and how they were separated at an early age but the story actually follows two brothers who were separated at birth.

I think this is probably the poorest of the Millennium books and although I would certainly read another if it were to be written, I think Lagercrantz has taken the story of Lisbeth as far as he can. This is at times very slow and laboured with a meandering storyline that felt far too forced. I can understand why the author and publishers want to keep this going, the original books were a sensation! It now feels like they are cashing in and not really taking the reader too seriously.

It is a must read for completists (like me) but you would have to have read all the others before you open this one.

Secret Harmonies by Paul McAuley (400 Billion Stars #2)

Secret Harmonies by Paul McAuley (400 Billion Stars #2)

This can be read independently of the first book in the series but they do share a similar background theme.

Elysium has been colonised by humans, most of the first colonists where from Australia so the wilderness beyond the human inhabited areas is the Outback. The indigenous population of near human looking creatures are called Aborigines and going out on your own into the Outback is called ‘going dingo’.

Port of Plenty, the first city to be built by the colonists has strict laws about where new colonists can go, build and even what they can and cannot do. All the towns around Port of Plenty are mainly there to supply food, labour and anything else the citizens of Port of Plenty might need. Of course there has been rumblings among these outer communities about the way the authorities run everything. Underpinning the authorities is an AI called Constat that monitors every detail of human life on the planet.

Every few years a colony ship arrives from earth with new colonists. Everyone is gathering to celebrate the expect arrival of the latest colony ship but it does not arrive as expected. A civil war breaks out after no news is heard from Earth about the lost colony ship.

The story follows Miguel who has ‘gone dingo’ who survives in the Outback by scavenging food where he can and Richard who is a university DR. Their lives seem very separate. Miguel has been taken over and controlled by something he calls the blue brother. It guides him to do his bidding. Richard finds himself enrolled in the city volunteer defence force, a position he really does not like.

Secret Harmonies is another cracking read by McAuley. All the SF you could want without being overwhelming. A strong storyline with well rounded characters. A civil war that seems unfathomable to comprehend until the final 50 or so pages when a lot becomes clearer yet you do not feel as if you missed out by not knowing earlier.

A very good read.

My review of 400 Billion Stars (400 Billion Stars #1)

Building Harlequin’s Moon By Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper

Building Harlequin’s Moon By Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper

After a mass exodus from Earth after AI’s had taken over, one group find themselves marooned light years from their destination because of mechanical failure (so I simplified a bit). They have to build a new planet from surrounding moons which takes thousands of years, this is not a real problem as they can be ‘iced’ for millenia and ‘warmed’ as necessary.

They eventually have a planet that would suit their needs while they build a collider that will in turn get them the anti-matter they so desperately need to continue their journey. They also need labour so once they have terraformed the planet to sustain life, they seed it with their own children who they then plan to leave behind once they have the anti-matter.

This is a great story about morals as well as exciting SciFi. The children end up becoming slaves and start to fight back after one of them becomes educated by the on-ship AI and a couple of sympathisers.

A good read. I recommend it.

Acadie by Dave Hutchinson

Acadie by Dave Hutchinson

‘Duke’ is the president of a utopian colony that has escaped from the tyranny of the rest of humanity. The ‘habs’ they live in are the perfect dream. Illness and even death is overcome. No-one needs to

work and life is great. The only thing they have to worry about is being discovered by the rest of humanity.

After three hundred years their security misses a probe but it is captured and disarmed by a pilot of a mining ship. ‘Duke’s security team cannot understand why the probe was missed and they make plans to move their society on to a new location.

Considering this is a measly 112 pages long, this story could easily cover a trilogy yet it is complete. The characters are likeable, the world is one we would all hope to live in and I think we would all want to defend that life in a similar way.

I love a good short story and Acadie is certainly that. Well written, well thought out and perfectly executed. Fantastic read!

Thanks to Tor Books and Netgalley for the free digital version to review. I always give an honest and unbiased review

Austral by Paul McAuley

Austral by Paul McAuley

Anticipated Publication Date, October 15, 2017

Before I go any further I want to say that I really enjoyed this. I read it in four chunks of time over the course of five days. I could have probably read it over a shorter timespan but there is so much within this that makes you sit back and think that I had to do just that!

Austral is a genetically modified human living in the not too distant future. A future where climate change is slowly wrecking our planet (recognise anything?). The ice caps are melting at tremendous rates and Antarctica is now inhabitable. She is the child of environmentalists that are attempting to make Antarctica inhabitable and a place where wildlife can flourish.

There is no mention of the Northern Hemisphere whatsoever but even countries like Australia, Argentina and Chile are much smaller because of the rise in sea levels.

After all the ecological good Austral’s family and those like her have tried to do, money, greed, capitalism and the desire to have goods, the Antarctic government decide that these environmentalists are outlaws. They get hunted down and sent to an island where they can barely sustain life, but they do.

The story is Austral’s attempt to tell her daughter her story. We see things through Austral’s eyes, her emotions and motivations. At times it is meandering stream of conscious thoughts, at other times it is almost a thriller as life continues.

Much of the internal story is quite relevant and is one possibility of where humans and the planet could go if something on a planetary scale is not done to try and slow down, maybe even reverse the ecological disaster that looms in this future. It is not a very happy story either, the ending has hope but little more.

This is going to be hard to categorise but it is sort of an eco-scifi-dystopia, not one or the other but all three.

Definitely gets my recommendation!

I would like to thank Gollancz and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this digital galley version for review

The Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov

The Complete Robot by Isaac Asimov

As the title implies, this is an almost complete collection of Asimov’s robot short stories. 31 shorts that cover just about everything that Asimov covered in his robot stories.

I have read a majority of these before but they are so worth reading again! Stories like Sally, a car with a positronic brain, Robot AL-76 Goes Astray, Segregationist, Robbie, Liar and the simply beautiful Bicentennial Man make this collection worth your money alone.

If you have yet to read any of Asimov’s robot stories, this is definitely the place to start.

Asimov is surely the master of the robot!

A list of the shorts inculded:

A Boy's Best Friend

Sally

Someday

Point of View

Think!

True Love

Robot AL-76 Goes Astray

Victory Unintentional

Stranger in Paradise

Light Verse

Segregationist

Robbie

Let's Get Together

Mirror Image

The Tercentenary Incident

First Law

Runaround

Reason

Catch That Rabbit

Liar!

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Lenny

Galley Slave

Little Lost Robot

Risk

Escape!

Evidence

The Evitable Conflict

Feminine Intuition

…That Thou Art Mindful of Him

The Bicentennial Man

Broadcast by Liam Brown

Broadcast by Liam Brown.

Publication date estimated 15 September 2017

David is a rather shallow person but has become something of a personality because of his continuous vlogging. He shares just about every experience of everyday with his followers and he is doing very nicely from his inane posts.

Along comes a tech guru that offers him the opportunity to broadcast to his fans, live by direct feed, all he has to do is accept the terms and conditions, have a small implant and he is within days vlogging 24/7.

The journey David then goes on is one that starts off as curiosity, going through realisation that he can hide no thought from anyone to downright despair. Things like credit and debits cards are no longer things he can use because he would instantly tell the world his PIN. Anything needing a password cannot be accessed, again because his password would be broadcast to the world. Obviously there are good things too, like when he is hungry, all he has to do is think about that food and within an hour or so it arrives.

Eventually this all becomes too much for David and he attempts to escape from what has turned into a nightmare.

I really enjoyed this pre-distopia type story. Although it is relatively short it is full of insights into modern society, things like celebrity, fame, Reality TV and so on. The desire to be rich and famous outweighing almost every other desire.

If you like your Science Fiction relevant and with not much tech-talk I think you will really enjoy this one.

Thanks to Legend Press and Netgalley for a free digital prepublication copy

Stark by Ben Elton

Stark by Ben Elton.

Nearly 30 years since publication this still has a lot of very current themes running through it. I hope Elton's finale is very different to the one humanity will see. Stark is all about waste, pollution, chemical waste and generally how humans are ruining this beautiful planet we live on. How we all blame the manufacturers of the waste we throw away yet never really stop to thin that we have the power to stop them making these pollutants just by not buying them or the products they make!

Firstly, the Eco Warriors. They are what most of us would have expected to see in the late 80’s, hippy types who simply by their lack of purchasing power are complaining about all the waste and pollution. I know that view has changed over the years but 30 years ago we all held different views on what we thought Eco Warriors were. Not one of them is particularly likeable but I did find Zimmerman the best of them. An Ex Vietnam soldier that served with the mainly forgotten Australian forces that were alongside the US Army. He is certainly deranged but in a friendly sort of way and always puts others in the group before himself whereas the other members seem quite selfish at times.

Stark are the moneyed elite of the world. The 0.1% that own 99% of everything on the planet. Egotistical, greedy, self serving and generally obnoxious. I’m not sure that in reality these people are like this but for the purposes of the book it is a pretty good stereotype. They have discovered that the planet is dying, rapidly, and have a way of escaping but because of their self serving greed, they don’t want anyone else to know so they design a plan to build their escape in the Australian Outback.

From here we have this adventurous and at times riotous journey through to the completion of the Stark Project and the end of the world.

As always, I enjoyed Elton's style with his meandering slightly off topic in the same way that the hippies wonder off topic in their discussions. There is more than enough humour mixed in with the real mess we are making of the planet, even a couple of proper laugh out loud moments!

Great read and I highly recommend it.

Mistress Of The Empire by Raymoned Feist & Janny Wurts (The Empire Trilogy #3)

Mistress Of The Empire by Raymoned Feist & Janny Wurts (The Empire Trilogy #3)

There is something unnameable that is within all fantasy that I’ve read so far.

You get wizards. magicians, strong characters, evil enemies, dwarves, elves and a whole plethora of weird and wonderful animals, dragons and the like. And, no matter how much I enjoy in all this world and society building it all boils down to political intrigue and posturing. Yet I still read and thoroughly enjoy fantasy!

I’ve really enjoyed The Empire Trilogy, almost as much as I enjoyed The Riftwar Saga. Loads of adventure, discovering new peoples and societies, the world building is pretty complete. Most of the characters are easily recognised and positioned to be either good or bad, one or two change sides but essentially there is little mystery within the factions.

In this finale, everything builds towards almost an anti climax because as the sides are drawn together it becomes pretty obvious how it will end. Which is a bit of a shame when the book is 500+ pages. The thing I find with fantasy though is that I just HAVE to carry on reading. If it were a crime thriller/political thriller I might be tempted to just lay it down to gather dust but for some unknown emotion, I just cannot do it with good fantasy writing.

I’m not saying much more as I’ve not written about the first two in the trilogy other than to say if you have yet to discover Feists Riftwar Cycle, I would get a start on. The whole series is a measly 31 books short.

400 Billion Stars by Paul McAuley

400 Billion Stars by Paul McAuley.

Dorthy is an empath and she can read minds. After going to a special school where they have implanted a controlling device that prevents her from being bombarded by everyone's thoughts she goes on to train as an astrologer. Her empathic talent can only be activated by a pill she takes if necessary.

The human race has expanded to cover several systems and is now at war with an enemy that evades capture to the point of destroying ships and even worlds if it looks like they will be captured. In its ever expanding search for new planets, the space navy discovers a new and rather oddly located planet which for the most part looks uninhabited but lower life forms are discovered. Again after much scientific research, nothing is discovered about this seemingly harmless lifeform.

Dorthy is conscripted into the scientific team to see if she can gain any new insight through her empath talent as some theories seem to point to this lifeform might be an ancestor of the humans enemy. She does not want to be there and hates it but gets on with her job.

Although rather slow this is a brilliant story of human civilisations expansion, discovery of other worlds and lifeforms. There is some good hard science fiction as well. The human characters aren’t easy to like whereas the newly discovered lifeforms seem to simply exist with no real meaning to their lives, so they gender no emotional feeling in this reader.

This is the first of the 400 Billion Stars trilogy by McAuley

The Omega Theory: A Novel by Mark Alpert

The Omega Theory: A Novel by Mark Alpert

David Swift, our hero, is a science historian and his wife Monique Reynolds is a quantum physicist, so you already know this is going to be full of science based fact and fiction. In the first book, The Final Theory, David is the one doing the running as he evades the FBI who accuse him of murder. This time around David is the one doing the chasing. His adopted autistic son has been kidnapped because he has a mathematical mind and knows the code for The Final Theory from the first book.

In this book, two scientists on opposite sides of the world have invented a machine that can spot disturbances in space-time and they discover such a shift after a nuclear test in Iran. This all points to someone else knowing The Final Theory. David's son is then abducted and the chase begins.

We are taken on a rollercoaster ride from North America to Israel, Iran and Turkmenistan as David evades insurmountable odds to rescue his son but eventually all the baddies get killed and David and his small team of helpers save the day though miraculously David, Monique and their adopted son are 3 of not many more survivors.

The science is almost overwhelming yet Alpert manages to make it all understandable and the storyline is gripping, a real edge of your seat page turner. The baddies are religious and believe they are saving the world and everything on it and for the most part, the goodies seem fairly non-religious. Though a lot of the action takes place in the Middle East, the baddies are American that have managed to co-opt other nationals to their cause.

This is good fun to read as long as you take none of it seriously, otherwise certain people may be upset by the stereotypes that are used throughout the book.

One interesting geological fact within the story is the piece set around the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan. I had to check if this was a real place and sure enough I found the Wikipedia entry. Alpert also mentions it at the end of the book.

The Power by Naomi Alderman

The Power by Naomi Alderman.

Some slight spoilers, nothing major

What a thought provoking read! Woman in control of men!

I have to say I really enjoyed this book. It gave me plenty to think about. To start with, the author seems to think that eventually nothing would change if women had the upper hand in politics, business etc. Apart from birth giving very little would change at all, one half of the species would be dominated by the other half. Now none of us ‘educated’ people really wants it to be this way but sadly it is and I have to say I see nothing wrong with everyone being equal. Afterall we are all human…...aren’t we?

Then there is the religious aspect. For the most part the author blames (if that’s the right word) religion for many of the problems that women faced before the cataclysm. I think she could easily be right too. I can’t think of any modern religion where women head the respected high positions. She then turns this on it’s head so that religion is still the major mover and motivator in her society yet now men are the ones who are mutilated or killed at birth as being seen as unwanted and undervalued. Not a totally different society, just a society run totally opposite to the one before the cataclysm.

I enjoyed how the book was presented in terms of short excerpts from the characters lives but each excerpt was an important part of them coming to terms with the new society. Allie, the abused teenager becoming a ‘messiah’. Roxy, a child that had seen her mother murdered, whose father was a gangster and how she had been drawn into the underworld but eventually saw how everything she was doing was wrong and benefited no one. The others also went through life changing moments.

The finale was a little surprising, I suppose the cataclysm did have to happen and society did have to rebuild from the stone age. I imagine it could never really happen any other way.

A definite read in my humble opinion.