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Books Read 2018: April-June
04/03 The Last Colony, Scalzi (rr)
04/07 All Systems Red, Martha Wells
04/10 The Human Division, Scalzi (rr)
04/13 The End of All Things, Scalzi (rr)
04/17 The Philosopher’s Flight, Tom Miller
04/21 Old Man's War, Scalzi (rr)
04/23 The Ghost Brigades, Scalzi (rr)
04/26 Zoe’s Tale, Scalzi
05/03 Clarke County, Space, Allen Steele
05/04 Space Doctor, G. Harry Stine as Lee Correy
05/06 Manna, G. Harry Stine as Lee Correy
05/11 Mindbridge, Joe Haldeman
05/18 Chimes At Midnight (#7), Seanan McGuire
05/20 Once Broken Faith (#10), Seanan McGuire
05/21 The Flowers of Vashnoi, Bujold
05/24 Tool of the Trade, Joe Haldeman
06/04 The Collapsing Empire, Scalzi (h)
06/11 New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson (h)
06/13 Six Wakes, Mur Lafferty (h)
06/16 Raven Stratagem, Yoon Ha Lee (h)
These twenty books brings total books read for January-June to 36. I completed Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series and started the 2018 Hugo nominees (four). No physical books in this quarter, though that’ll be changing in next. A total of five re-reads for nine this year thus far, that were all John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series – turns out that I hadn’t read Zoe’s Tale! As many times as I’d read those books, and for as long as I’d owned Zoe’s Tale, and I’d never read it! It is a definite read if you like the Old Man’s War series. Anyway, on with the book comments.
Old Man's War I’m going to take these slightly out of order and put all the Old Man’s War books in one group, which I also read somewhat out of order. First off, the book Old Man’s War. The basic premise is simple: Earth has joined the greater alien multiverse, but if you’re an American, the only way to get in to space is to join the Colonial Defense Force when you turn 75. That’s right, half way between 70 and 80. If you’re from some place like India, you can get off-planet by joining a colony group. Regardless of how you leave, you’ll never come back. John and his wife Kathy sign up for the CDF over a decade before they reach 75, but Kathy has a fatal stroke a few years later. John has his birthday and leaves the planet, facing changes and adventures he never could have imagined. In The Ghost Brigades, well, actually later in Old Man’s War, John meets Kathy again – sort of. He finds out what happens when you sign your enlistment papers but you die before you turn 75. In The Last Colony, John and his new wife and their adopted daughter, Zoe, and her two alien protectors Hickory and Dickory, they set out to found a new colony, expecting not only to be attacked by aliens, but that the CDF will protect them. Except that’s like statements and reality is like expecting a used car salesman to tell you the full truth. Zoe’s Tale retells the story of The Lost Colony, except from the perspective of Zoe, John’s adopted daughter. Turns out she’s doing things that John and his wife, as colony leaders, have absolutely no idea what she’s up to. Excellent read. With The Human Division, things are getting more than a little strained between the CDF and Earth, and since the CDF is entirely dependent on Earth for a continuous supply of recruits and colonists, this is not good. Someone is working hard to sabotage the political relationship between the two, and it isn’t just aliens. The End of All Things brings the everything to a head and reveals what exactly is going on. I can’t say it all ends on a happy note, but it ends on a logical note that has a chance of moving forward in a positive direction. At this point Scalzi is stepping away from the Old Man’s War universe and working on another science fiction universe – for now. The first book of this new universe, The Collapsing Empire, is in this year’s Hugo nominees.
All Systems Red, Martha Wells. Ah, the Murderbot series. This first installment, also a 2018 Hugo nominee, tells a story from the perspective of a securitybot who managed to remove his governor module and could easily ignore commands from those he’s been assigned to and kill them all, but that would take time away from watching episode 397 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. He’s rented to a scientific survey on a remote planet when things go bad, i.e. another scientific survey group has been murdered, and it looks like the securitybots have been hacked and did the killing. Good read, the second Murderbot story is out, I believe two more are scheduled for this year.
The Philosopher’s Flight, Tom Miller. Set early in an alternate 20th century USA, philosophers are almost entirely women who can use magic. Robert Weekes is an exception: his mother is one of the strongest philosophers in the world, a veteran of World War I, the Spanish war in Cuba, etc. Robert helps her manage rescue flights and other errands and gets a contingency scholarship to Radcliffe College, one of the few token men admitted. Trouble is brewing with the Trenchers, a nation-wide movement of Evangelicals that believe women should be barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen, not off fighting wars and flying all over the place. Robert not only foils more than one Trencher plot, but [REDACTED]. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the rest of the series. I gave my spousal unit a copy and just this weekend she was bugging me for the release date for the next book, which apparently will be June next year. The author is an emergency room doctor and this is his first book.
Clarke County, Space, Allen Steele. I am a big fan of Allen Steele’s science fiction as he writes very plausible space: very gritty, very dangerous. In Clarke County, a space station is the location of: a woman fleeing the head of a criminal cartel unknowingly carrying the data that can destroy the cartel, a ruthless hitman pursuing said woman, a conman heading up The Church of Elvis who promises that Elvis is about to be reborn, a Native American chief of security trying to capture the hitman while protecting the fleeing woman and keeping the space station from being destroyed. While this is not my favorite Steele book, it is perty darn good.
Space Doctor, G. Harry Stine as Lee Correy. While recommending Steele to a friend whom I’d worked with designing a space station fiction setting 20 years ago, he recommended two Lee Correy books. Sorry, I’ll take Steele. Space Doctor was kind of cool, it was focused on the development of a space habitat and everything on earth was sited out of New Mexico, so it was neat seeing familiar territory. They even referenced a restaurant that I’m very familiar with. The doctor in question is not only setting up medical facilities for space workers, but is effectively developing a new branch of medical science and practices, basically charting a new frontier, as no one has done this. It was interesting.
Manna, G. Harry Stine as Lee Correy. Manna felt a lot like some of L. Neil Smith’s libertarian science fiction. You have a spacer, continuing directly from the habitats and environment developed in Space Doctor falling in with what is effectively an advanced libertarian African country, a Wakanda printed in 1984. Many countries don’t want it to succeed as they threaten their capitalist models and have no problem attacking it with proxy mercenary armies sent from bordering countries under their sway. While it was fine in and of itself, it didn’t do much for me as it felt a little Mary Sue-ish and a bit Dirty Old Man-ish like late Heinlein.
Mindbridge, Joe Haldeman. An organization has a space teleporter capable of sending people vast distances to other planets. They assemble teams to do surveys in advance of terraforming expeditions. On one such survey a tiny little creature is found, and to touch it is to gain a limited form of telepathy! Soon the race is on to find more such creatures, but then problems ensue. Big surprise. I really like Joe Haldeman as an author, but this was not, for me, one of his more memorable books.
Chimes At Midnight (#7), Seanan McGuire. Like Old Man’s War, I’m going to talk about these two books together. Somehow, I don’t know how, but in my reading of the October Daye series, I skipped Chimes At Midnight! I have no idea how that happened on my iPad in my Kindle Reader app. Very weird. I noticed in books 8 and 9 that there were references that just didn’t make sense, so I pulled up the series in Wikipedia and started reading story summaries and found that I hadn’t read number 7, so I went back and read it. In McGuire’s world of Fae, there’s something called Goblin Fruit. For those of pure blood, it’s a narcotic that gives you a pleasant high, and that’s about it. While it can be abused and eventually lead to an addiction, it has no immediate harmful affects. But if you’re human or half-blood, it’s a different story. For those of non-pure blood, it’s immediately highly addictive and quickly deadly. October is a knight of the realm, but as she was born a half-blood, she gets only grudging respect. She hates the existence of goblin fruit, and complains to the Queen about it. Well, it turns out that the Queen is the one responsible for supplying it TO the half-bloods – after all, the half-bloods are signs of weakness among the Fae and should be weeded out. At least that’s the Queen’s opinion, and does anyone else’s opinion matter? And since Toby just insulted her, let’s just exile her. Three days to leave the kingdom, returning is a death sentence.
So Toby, being a detective, starts looking in to things in what little time remains before she has to leave, and discovers that this Queen is an usurper. When the last King died during the Great San Francisco Earthquake, she swept in to the throne, and the High King just wanted stability and let her have it. It turns out that the King had two illegitimate children who are still alive, also the King did not die in the quake – he was murdered, poisoned. And poison is a signature of the current Queen. Toby is on the case! And then she’s ambushed in a parking lot by a clown, a person in an actual clown suit, who smacks her in the face with a pie. Not just any pie – a goblin fruit pie. Remember the instant addiction part? So Toby now has two clocks to race against – be out of town before the three days ends, and fight against the addiction, AND dethrone a Queen.
In Once Broken Faith (#10), previously when Fae went to war, they would shoot each other with Elf Shot, an arrow or bolt coated with something concocted by one of Oberon’s children that causes Fae to sleep for 100 years, and a century later you would wake up, hopefully in the home of a friend or ally. This was created as a workaround to Oberon’s Law that Fae could not kill Fae: the only death sentence allowed. Originally the sleep was dreamless, but the formula was corrupted by alchemists to provide nightmare sleeps and other perversions. In a previous book, Toby’s friend Walter created an alchemical cure for Elf Shot that would instantly wake anyone so affected, but this threatened the balance of power. If the cure was tightly controlled, then political favoritism could be played and unrest would ensue. If it was widely distributed, then chaos could ensue with nothing to prevent mass attacks. A tricky situation. Finally the High King and Queen stepped in and announced that the cure could not be applied at all – that a conclave would be held with the king and queen or representatives of all kingdoms in North America to discuss the issue of what to do with the cure. Toby is commanded to attend as being part of the problem. And then to add to the problems – one of the kings of a local kingdom is murdered. Not elf-shot, actually murdered.
The Flowers of Vashnoi, Lois McMasters Bujold. Bujold has been doing lots of novella-length stories of late, this time she’s turned her attention back to the Vorkosigan universe and to the wife of Miles. Nice story, a tale of trying to use modified bugs (remember the butterbugs?) to reclaim the Vorkosigan capitol that was nuked during the Cetegandan invasion. Very interesting stuff.
Tool of the Trade, Joe Haldeman. I freely admit I’m a Haldeman junkie. In this story, a Russian double-agent living in America, discovers a secret weapon that commands absolute obedience when used on people. The Russians learn of it and want him back in the USSR, he wants to use it on the President of the United States – but to what end? Good story.
The Collapsing Empire, Scalzi. Now we’re in to 2018 Hugo nominee territory. This is John Scalzi’s first major non-Old Man’s War space opera. Here we have a galactic empire that learns that the technology that allows it to travel between stars is about to change, and not for the better. Meanwhile, political intrigues threaten the new Queen of said empire. Very different than the OMW series, I liked it. I don’t think it’s the best of the Novel group for Hugos, but I liked it.
New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson. Set a century from now, New York is now a city of skyscraper islands due to global climate change and rising sea levels. Many high rises were lost, others were saved through coffer dams and other measures, with even more extreme defenses being actively worked to ensure that they don’t flood and topple them. People take water busses to work if they can’t afford their own private boats. The story revolves around a small group of people trying to get by, ranging from a stock broker slowly developing some ethics, the super of the main building in question, two water rat kids, some old codgers, a social worker, a woman in an AI-controlled dirigible who flies around the world rescuing animals, etc. Lots going on including vast conspiracies and horrible weather. Interesting stuff, but one thing really bugged me: no change in language in a century. While language doesn’t change radically over short periods of time, I think there would be perceptible change in 120 years.
Six Wakes, Mur Lafferty. Very interesting book. I’ve known of Mur for years, but haven’t read anything by her. This book was wonderful: a murder mystery in space! A generation ship is going from Earth to Planet X, loaded with people in cold sleep, along with a server of clones to be printed and have their brains reloaded upon arrival. The crew? Clones. Whenever they’re about to do something dangerous, like an EVA, they back themselves up in case they’re killed. If they are, they print a new body and reload. And you normally back yourself up frequently anyway. Well…. the entire crew (of six?) wakes up in the clone chamber along with their previous bodies – except for two – and the previous bodies have been murdered. And their last memories are of the going away party from the night before the ship launched. None of the stars are familiar, so clearly they’ve been cruising for some time now. And all of their personal backups have been erased! I loved this book.
Raven Stratagem, Yoon Ha Lee. Lee’s previous book in this series was nominated for a Hugo last year. The second book continues the adventures of the ghost of the most dangerous mass-killer general in the history of the empire, who was decanted to deal with an insurrection and put in the body of an officer who was volunteered for this mission. An attempt at the end of the previous book to deal with the ghost was less than successful, and now he’s off, on his own, to deal with an alien invasion. Obviously there is much more here than meets the eye. I love Lee’s universe of calindrical magic and math giving an edge to one side or the other in battle and war, very interesting concept. While it is described beautifully, he doesn’t bog the reader down in details or formulae, so you don’t need a degree in advanced calculus to understand the books. Very enjoyable read, I can’t wait to see how the next book turns out.
04/07 All Systems Red, Martha Wells
04/10 The Human Division, Scalzi (rr)
04/13 The End of All Things, Scalzi (rr)
04/17 The Philosopher’s Flight, Tom Miller
04/21 Old Man's War, Scalzi (rr)
04/23 The Ghost Brigades, Scalzi (rr)
04/26 Zoe’s Tale, Scalzi
05/03 Clarke County, Space, Allen Steele
05/04 Space Doctor, G. Harry Stine as Lee Correy
05/06 Manna, G. Harry Stine as Lee Correy
05/11 Mindbridge, Joe Haldeman
05/18 Chimes At Midnight (#7), Seanan McGuire
05/20 Once Broken Faith (#10), Seanan McGuire
05/21 The Flowers of Vashnoi, Bujold
05/24 Tool of the Trade, Joe Haldeman
06/04 The Collapsing Empire, Scalzi (h)
06/11 New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson (h)
06/13 Six Wakes, Mur Lafferty (h)
06/16 Raven Stratagem, Yoon Ha Lee (h)
These twenty books brings total books read for January-June to 36. I completed Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series and started the 2018 Hugo nominees (four). No physical books in this quarter, though that’ll be changing in next. A total of five re-reads for nine this year thus far, that were all John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series – turns out that I hadn’t read Zoe’s Tale! As many times as I’d read those books, and for as long as I’d owned Zoe’s Tale, and I’d never read it! It is a definite read if you like the Old Man’s War series. Anyway, on with the book comments.
Old Man's War I’m going to take these slightly out of order and put all the Old Man’s War books in one group, which I also read somewhat out of order. First off, the book Old Man’s War. The basic premise is simple: Earth has joined the greater alien multiverse, but if you’re an American, the only way to get in to space is to join the Colonial Defense Force when you turn 75. That’s right, half way between 70 and 80. If you’re from some place like India, you can get off-planet by joining a colony group. Regardless of how you leave, you’ll never come back. John and his wife Kathy sign up for the CDF over a decade before they reach 75, but Kathy has a fatal stroke a few years later. John has his birthday and leaves the planet, facing changes and adventures he never could have imagined. In The Ghost Brigades, well, actually later in Old Man’s War, John meets Kathy again – sort of. He finds out what happens when you sign your enlistment papers but you die before you turn 75. In The Last Colony, John and his new wife and their adopted daughter, Zoe, and her two alien protectors Hickory and Dickory, they set out to found a new colony, expecting not only to be attacked by aliens, but that the CDF will protect them. Except that’s like statements and reality is like expecting a used car salesman to tell you the full truth. Zoe’s Tale retells the story of The Lost Colony, except from the perspective of Zoe, John’s adopted daughter. Turns out she’s doing things that John and his wife, as colony leaders, have absolutely no idea what she’s up to. Excellent read. With The Human Division, things are getting more than a little strained between the CDF and Earth, and since the CDF is entirely dependent on Earth for a continuous supply of recruits and colonists, this is not good. Someone is working hard to sabotage the political relationship between the two, and it isn’t just aliens. The End of All Things brings the everything to a head and reveals what exactly is going on. I can’t say it all ends on a happy note, but it ends on a logical note that has a chance of moving forward in a positive direction. At this point Scalzi is stepping away from the Old Man’s War universe and working on another science fiction universe – for now. The first book of this new universe, The Collapsing Empire, is in this year’s Hugo nominees.
All Systems Red, Martha Wells. Ah, the Murderbot series. This first installment, also a 2018 Hugo nominee, tells a story from the perspective of a securitybot who managed to remove his governor module and could easily ignore commands from those he’s been assigned to and kill them all, but that would take time away from watching episode 397 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. He’s rented to a scientific survey on a remote planet when things go bad, i.e. another scientific survey group has been murdered, and it looks like the securitybots have been hacked and did the killing. Good read, the second Murderbot story is out, I believe two more are scheduled for this year.
The Philosopher’s Flight, Tom Miller. Set early in an alternate 20th century USA, philosophers are almost entirely women who can use magic. Robert Weekes is an exception: his mother is one of the strongest philosophers in the world, a veteran of World War I, the Spanish war in Cuba, etc. Robert helps her manage rescue flights and other errands and gets a contingency scholarship to Radcliffe College, one of the few token men admitted. Trouble is brewing with the Trenchers, a nation-wide movement of Evangelicals that believe women should be barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen, not off fighting wars and flying all over the place. Robert not only foils more than one Trencher plot, but [REDACTED]. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to the rest of the series. I gave my spousal unit a copy and just this weekend she was bugging me for the release date for the next book, which apparently will be June next year. The author is an emergency room doctor and this is his first book.
Clarke County, Space, Allen Steele. I am a big fan of Allen Steele’s science fiction as he writes very plausible space: very gritty, very dangerous. In Clarke County, a space station is the location of: a woman fleeing the head of a criminal cartel unknowingly carrying the data that can destroy the cartel, a ruthless hitman pursuing said woman, a conman heading up The Church of Elvis who promises that Elvis is about to be reborn, a Native American chief of security trying to capture the hitman while protecting the fleeing woman and keeping the space station from being destroyed. While this is not my favorite Steele book, it is perty darn good.
Space Doctor, G. Harry Stine as Lee Correy. While recommending Steele to a friend whom I’d worked with designing a space station fiction setting 20 years ago, he recommended two Lee Correy books. Sorry, I’ll take Steele. Space Doctor was kind of cool, it was focused on the development of a space habitat and everything on earth was sited out of New Mexico, so it was neat seeing familiar territory. They even referenced a restaurant that I’m very familiar with. The doctor in question is not only setting up medical facilities for space workers, but is effectively developing a new branch of medical science and practices, basically charting a new frontier, as no one has done this. It was interesting.
Manna, G. Harry Stine as Lee Correy. Manna felt a lot like some of L. Neil Smith’s libertarian science fiction. You have a spacer, continuing directly from the habitats and environment developed in Space Doctor falling in with what is effectively an advanced libertarian African country, a Wakanda printed in 1984. Many countries don’t want it to succeed as they threaten their capitalist models and have no problem attacking it with proxy mercenary armies sent from bordering countries under their sway. While it was fine in and of itself, it didn’t do much for me as it felt a little Mary Sue-ish and a bit Dirty Old Man-ish like late Heinlein.
Mindbridge, Joe Haldeman. An organization has a space teleporter capable of sending people vast distances to other planets. They assemble teams to do surveys in advance of terraforming expeditions. On one such survey a tiny little creature is found, and to touch it is to gain a limited form of telepathy! Soon the race is on to find more such creatures, but then problems ensue. Big surprise. I really like Joe Haldeman as an author, but this was not, for me, one of his more memorable books.
Chimes At Midnight (#7), Seanan McGuire. Like Old Man’s War, I’m going to talk about these two books together. Somehow, I don’t know how, but in my reading of the October Daye series, I skipped Chimes At Midnight! I have no idea how that happened on my iPad in my Kindle Reader app. Very weird. I noticed in books 8 and 9 that there were references that just didn’t make sense, so I pulled up the series in Wikipedia and started reading story summaries and found that I hadn’t read number 7, so I went back and read it. In McGuire’s world of Fae, there’s something called Goblin Fruit. For those of pure blood, it’s a narcotic that gives you a pleasant high, and that’s about it. While it can be abused and eventually lead to an addiction, it has no immediate harmful affects. But if you’re human or half-blood, it’s a different story. For those of non-pure blood, it’s immediately highly addictive and quickly deadly. October is a knight of the realm, but as she was born a half-blood, she gets only grudging respect. She hates the existence of goblin fruit, and complains to the Queen about it. Well, it turns out that the Queen is the one responsible for supplying it TO the half-bloods – after all, the half-bloods are signs of weakness among the Fae and should be weeded out. At least that’s the Queen’s opinion, and does anyone else’s opinion matter? And since Toby just insulted her, let’s just exile her. Three days to leave the kingdom, returning is a death sentence.
So Toby, being a detective, starts looking in to things in what little time remains before she has to leave, and discovers that this Queen is an usurper. When the last King died during the Great San Francisco Earthquake, she swept in to the throne, and the High King just wanted stability and let her have it. It turns out that the King had two illegitimate children who are still alive, also the King did not die in the quake – he was murdered, poisoned. And poison is a signature of the current Queen. Toby is on the case! And then she’s ambushed in a parking lot by a clown, a person in an actual clown suit, who smacks her in the face with a pie. Not just any pie – a goblin fruit pie. Remember the instant addiction part? So Toby now has two clocks to race against – be out of town before the three days ends, and fight against the addiction, AND dethrone a Queen.
In Once Broken Faith (#10), previously when Fae went to war, they would shoot each other with Elf Shot, an arrow or bolt coated with something concocted by one of Oberon’s children that causes Fae to sleep for 100 years, and a century later you would wake up, hopefully in the home of a friend or ally. This was created as a workaround to Oberon’s Law that Fae could not kill Fae: the only death sentence allowed. Originally the sleep was dreamless, but the formula was corrupted by alchemists to provide nightmare sleeps and other perversions. In a previous book, Toby’s friend Walter created an alchemical cure for Elf Shot that would instantly wake anyone so affected, but this threatened the balance of power. If the cure was tightly controlled, then political favoritism could be played and unrest would ensue. If it was widely distributed, then chaos could ensue with nothing to prevent mass attacks. A tricky situation. Finally the High King and Queen stepped in and announced that the cure could not be applied at all – that a conclave would be held with the king and queen or representatives of all kingdoms in North America to discuss the issue of what to do with the cure. Toby is commanded to attend as being part of the problem. And then to add to the problems – one of the kings of a local kingdom is murdered. Not elf-shot, actually murdered.
The Flowers of Vashnoi, Lois McMasters Bujold. Bujold has been doing lots of novella-length stories of late, this time she’s turned her attention back to the Vorkosigan universe and to the wife of Miles. Nice story, a tale of trying to use modified bugs (remember the butterbugs?) to reclaim the Vorkosigan capitol that was nuked during the Cetegandan invasion. Very interesting stuff.
Tool of the Trade, Joe Haldeman. I freely admit I’m a Haldeman junkie. In this story, a Russian double-agent living in America, discovers a secret weapon that commands absolute obedience when used on people. The Russians learn of it and want him back in the USSR, he wants to use it on the President of the United States – but to what end? Good story.
The Collapsing Empire, Scalzi. Now we’re in to 2018 Hugo nominee territory. This is John Scalzi’s first major non-Old Man’s War space opera. Here we have a galactic empire that learns that the technology that allows it to travel between stars is about to change, and not for the better. Meanwhile, political intrigues threaten the new Queen of said empire. Very different than the OMW series, I liked it. I don’t think it’s the best of the Novel group for Hugos, but I liked it.
New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson. Set a century from now, New York is now a city of skyscraper islands due to global climate change and rising sea levels. Many high rises were lost, others were saved through coffer dams and other measures, with even more extreme defenses being actively worked to ensure that they don’t flood and topple them. People take water busses to work if they can’t afford their own private boats. The story revolves around a small group of people trying to get by, ranging from a stock broker slowly developing some ethics, the super of the main building in question, two water rat kids, some old codgers, a social worker, a woman in an AI-controlled dirigible who flies around the world rescuing animals, etc. Lots going on including vast conspiracies and horrible weather. Interesting stuff, but one thing really bugged me: no change in language in a century. While language doesn’t change radically over short periods of time, I think there would be perceptible change in 120 years.
Six Wakes, Mur Lafferty. Very interesting book. I’ve known of Mur for years, but haven’t read anything by her. This book was wonderful: a murder mystery in space! A generation ship is going from Earth to Planet X, loaded with people in cold sleep, along with a server of clones to be printed and have their brains reloaded upon arrival. The crew? Clones. Whenever they’re about to do something dangerous, like an EVA, they back themselves up in case they’re killed. If they are, they print a new body and reload. And you normally back yourself up frequently anyway. Well…. the entire crew (of six?) wakes up in the clone chamber along with their previous bodies – except for two – and the previous bodies have been murdered. And their last memories are of the going away party from the night before the ship launched. None of the stars are familiar, so clearly they’ve been cruising for some time now. And all of their personal backups have been erased! I loved this book.
Raven Stratagem, Yoon Ha Lee. Lee’s previous book in this series was nominated for a Hugo last year. The second book continues the adventures of the ghost of the most dangerous mass-killer general in the history of the empire, who was decanted to deal with an insurrection and put in the body of an officer who was volunteered for this mission. An attempt at the end of the previous book to deal with the ghost was less than successful, and now he’s off, on his own, to deal with an alien invasion. Obviously there is much more here than meets the eye. I love Lee’s universe of calindrical magic and math giving an edge to one side or the other in battle and war, very interesting concept. While it is described beautifully, he doesn’t bog the reader down in details or formulae, so you don’t need a degree in advanced calculus to understand the books. Very enjoyable read, I can’t wait to see how the next book turns out.