Elizabeth Moon
Ofelia is a colonist on another world. She loves spending her time in the garden and doesn't really have much patience for the youth of the world, including her own grown children. When the corporation that runs the colony decides that it is no longer viable (i.e. profitable), they decide to relocate the colonists to another world and try again. But Ofelia is not interested in doing this again. And because of her age, the corporation decides she is not an actual valuable colonist and plans to charge her son an additional baggage transfer fee to bring her along to the new world. Ofelia hides, and stays behind... alone. Moon has created a character with the resilience and stubbornness to survive, the patience to enjoy the solitude, and with just enough curiosity and practicality to thrive. And when Ofelia meets the locals, her role on the planet changes dramatically, whether she feels too old or not. I love the exploration that we are able to do with Ofelia, both external around the village, and internal through her memories and identity. I love the pushing against an ethnocentric worldview, even though is is brutish and obvious. Maybe that is what it takes (a bit of caricature) to get the average reader to see it. I love the evolving picture that we get of the locals, that it doesn't all just come at once. Really a fun exploration of exploring and living and being.
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Thursday, March 29, 2018
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Dragonfish
Vu Tran
This is a really interesting genre mixup. On the surface, it is a crime thriller, with Oakland cop Robert Ruen getting involved in the search for his missing ex-wife. She has moved to Las Vegas to work in the casinos as a dealer and has suddenly disappeared. We get a little bit of backstory in the telling of how Ruen finds out about the disappearance, and then are jumped in to the Vegas scene, gambling and crime, the glitzy strip and seedy off-strip reality. In many ways a traditional crime detective novel to race through and then leave on the shelf during your next vacation.
But wait, there's more. The detective-thriller is all just a container for the storytelling. Tran is really giving us a story of the immigrant experience, particularly that of southeast Asians coming to the US after the Vietnam war. It is a story of mental illness, trauma, the loss of culture and relationship (and even the ability to communicate) between the 1st and 2nd generation, and the long term tragic effects of violence and lack of place or home. Tran captures the full emotion of every character, and as you might expect, there is not much happy. Very memorable.
Read
This is a really interesting genre mixup. On the surface, it is a crime thriller, with Oakland cop Robert Ruen getting involved in the search for his missing ex-wife. She has moved to Las Vegas to work in the casinos as a dealer and has suddenly disappeared. We get a little bit of backstory in the telling of how Ruen finds out about the disappearance, and then are jumped in to the Vegas scene, gambling and crime, the glitzy strip and seedy off-strip reality. In many ways a traditional crime detective novel to race through and then leave on the shelf during your next vacation.
But wait, there's more. The detective-thriller is all just a container for the storytelling. Tran is really giving us a story of the immigrant experience, particularly that of southeast Asians coming to the US after the Vietnam war. It is a story of mental illness, trauma, the loss of culture and relationship (and even the ability to communicate) between the 1st and 2nd generation, and the long term tragic effects of violence and lack of place or home. Tran captures the full emotion of every character, and as you might expect, there is not much happy. Very memorable.
Read
Monday, March 26, 2018
Obsidian Mirror
Catherine Fisher
Time travel, mystery, fantasy creatures. All the things I like. Jack Wilde is at a posh private school, but is angry and the world since his dad disappeared last year. He will do anything to find him. Oberon Venn lost his wife several years ago and it was his fault. The man with a scarred face had his Obsidian Mirror stolen, and in the process was sent into an exile of sorts. Piers is a man who wants his freedom, Summer a Shee who wants her lover, and Sarah a girl who simply wants the world not to end. Lots of characters, each with their own motivations, some clearly written by Fisher, others intentionally withheld, revealed or guessed at as we traverse this first book in a trilogy. Tying the entire plot together is the mirror, which is not completely understood (hence Jack's dads disappearance), that allows time travel. One thing I love about this is the idea of the replicant. Most time travel storylines avoid at all costs the mixing of timelines. If you "see yourself" the timeline implodes. Here, Fisher has created a scene where traveling back to a time before you left just creates a copy of yourself, a replicant. It raises the question of identity and soul, but she doesn't let that stop her from making replicant creation become somehow central to at least one of her storylines. This is very clearly a trilogy, so the entire world must be worthwhile before getting a recommendation. After only one installment, we have to wait.
Wait
Time travel, mystery, fantasy creatures. All the things I like. Jack Wilde is at a posh private school, but is angry and the world since his dad disappeared last year. He will do anything to find him. Oberon Venn lost his wife several years ago and it was his fault. The man with a scarred face had his Obsidian Mirror stolen, and in the process was sent into an exile of sorts. Piers is a man who wants his freedom, Summer a Shee who wants her lover, and Sarah a girl who simply wants the world not to end. Lots of characters, each with their own motivations, some clearly written by Fisher, others intentionally withheld, revealed or guessed at as we traverse this first book in a trilogy. Tying the entire plot together is the mirror, which is not completely understood (hence Jack's dads disappearance), that allows time travel. One thing I love about this is the idea of the replicant. Most time travel storylines avoid at all costs the mixing of timelines. If you "see yourself" the timeline implodes. Here, Fisher has created a scene where traveling back to a time before you left just creates a copy of yourself, a replicant. It raises the question of identity and soul, but she doesn't let that stop her from making replicant creation become somehow central to at least one of her storylines. This is very clearly a trilogy, so the entire world must be worthwhile before getting a recommendation. After only one installment, we have to wait.
Wait
Sunday, March 18, 2018
23 Minutes
Vivian Vande Velde
Zoe is a teenage girl who has had a rough life. She has lived in the foster system for quite some time, and most recently has had difficulty with medical diagnoses that she doesn't agree with. Zoe has the ability to playback time to 23 minutes ago. She can replay that 23 minutes up to 10 times and since she remembers, she can cause different outcomes. The problem is that most times, the changes she makes result in worse outcomes. This story is really about Zoe trying to save lives. She is playing back the 23 minutes around a bank robbery where people are killed. How do you get help or tell someone your ability (hence the schizophrenic medical diagnosis) without getting committed? This is a well done treatment of time travel and adolescence.
Read
Zoe is a teenage girl who has had a rough life. She has lived in the foster system for quite some time, and most recently has had difficulty with medical diagnoses that she doesn't agree with. Zoe has the ability to playback time to 23 minutes ago. She can replay that 23 minutes up to 10 times and since she remembers, she can cause different outcomes. The problem is that most times, the changes she makes result in worse outcomes. This story is really about Zoe trying to save lives. She is playing back the 23 minutes around a bank robbery where people are killed. How do you get help or tell someone your ability (hence the schizophrenic medical diagnosis) without getting committed? This is a well done treatment of time travel and adolescence.
Read
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Tripwire
A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child
Reacher is working in south Florida, trying to earn some money and it is not too long after his departure from the service. When a detective comes looking for him, he plays coy, and when that detective comes up dead, and a couple of goons are also looking for him, Reacher does Reacher. He travels to New York, gets reconnected with an old crush, and then gets mixed up in a loan sharking business that is clearly hurting someone military (or Reacher wouldn't be involved). Pieces of the Reacher are shown that become standard fare later, and the development of the person are definitely worked through.
Read
Lee Child
Reacher is working in south Florida, trying to earn some money and it is not too long after his departure from the service. When a detective comes looking for him, he plays coy, and when that detective comes up dead, and a couple of goons are also looking for him, Reacher does Reacher. He travels to New York, gets reconnected with an old crush, and then gets mixed up in a loan sharking business that is clearly hurting someone military (or Reacher wouldn't be involved). Pieces of the Reacher are shown that become standard fare later, and the development of the person are definitely worked through.
Read
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
The Power
Naomi Alderman
Historical fiction, written from sometime 5,000 years in the future (which means it is a story of what is about to happen in our time). Written as fiction because from the point of view of future humans, the descriptions of what life is like now is so outside the norm of their reality, that a true history would be seen as crazy and false. The story follows a series of women who are on the forefront of an evolutionary change in humanity where women are born with an electrical skein, or a reservoir of electrical static charge. These women use the ability to change the male/female power dynamic to the point that from the future, the mere idea that men could be soldiers, or violent, or powerful, or leaders is unimaginable. I see that one point of this telling is to turn traditional gender roles on their head so dramatically that the reader begins to think about stereotypes and biases in a new way. What I like is that woven into the story about gender is the more important story of power, and empire. We get to explore the human condition, seeking to understand, regardless of gender, the effects of seeking and finding power. And in that way, it is truly frightening and depressing. Alderman does not have a pleasant view of the truth of humanity and we can only hope that she is wrong in her assessment. A necessary read.
Read
Historical fiction, written from sometime 5,000 years in the future (which means it is a story of what is about to happen in our time). Written as fiction because from the point of view of future humans, the descriptions of what life is like now is so outside the norm of their reality, that a true history would be seen as crazy and false. The story follows a series of women who are on the forefront of an evolutionary change in humanity where women are born with an electrical skein, or a reservoir of electrical static charge. These women use the ability to change the male/female power dynamic to the point that from the future, the mere idea that men could be soldiers, or violent, or powerful, or leaders is unimaginable. I see that one point of this telling is to turn traditional gender roles on their head so dramatically that the reader begins to think about stereotypes and biases in a new way. What I like is that woven into the story about gender is the more important story of power, and empire. We get to explore the human condition, seeking to understand, regardless of gender, the effects of seeking and finding power. And in that way, it is truly frightening and depressing. Alderman does not have a pleasant view of the truth of humanity and we can only hope that she is wrong in her assessment. A necessary read.
Read
Monday, March 5, 2018
Running Blind
A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child
Reacher once again, out of his own sense of justice, gets in trouble by trying to do the right thing. His favorite restaurant is getting hit up for protection money. So he goes and knocks the protectors around. In the process, gets picked up by the FBI and ends up getting entangled with their psychological profiling division to try to find a killer. He is tangled because apparently he fits the profile of the killer. So instead, he does his own thing and works with his agent babysitter/partner to solve the crime. The crime (on the surface) being to kill the women in the service who came forward with harassment claims and won. A bit of hokum with the hypnotism (but I will chalk that up to early Lee Child before he figured it all out). I also think the struggle of Reacher is interesting as he is really searching for whether he can be a normal guy (homeowner, girlfriend, job, etc.)
Read
Lee Child
Reacher once again, out of his own sense of justice, gets in trouble by trying to do the right thing. His favorite restaurant is getting hit up for protection money. So he goes and knocks the protectors around. In the process, gets picked up by the FBI and ends up getting entangled with their psychological profiling division to try to find a killer. He is tangled because apparently he fits the profile of the killer. So instead, he does his own thing and works with his agent babysitter/partner to solve the crime. The crime (on the surface) being to kill the women in the service who came forward with harassment claims and won. A bit of hokum with the hypnotism (but I will chalk that up to early Lee Child before he figured it all out). I also think the struggle of Reacher is interesting as he is really searching for whether he can be a normal guy (homeowner, girlfriend, job, etc.)
Read
Friday, March 2, 2018
Echo Burning
A Jack Reacher Novel
Lee Child
Reacher is picked up by a woman who needs help in southwest Texas. He is convinced that she is a victim of abuse, and the offending husband is getting out of jail next week, having served his IRS tax evasion time. Overlay this with the south Texas, white v. mexican cultural conflict, and throw in a couple of assassins. Perfect. As always, fun to read, not everything is as it seems (which is exactly what you expect), and Reacher comes out none the worse. This is maybe a bit more interesting as an early book in the series in that it is the first book that Reacher has truly embraced his vagrancy.
Read
Lee Child
Reacher is picked up by a woman who needs help in southwest Texas. He is convinced that she is a victim of abuse, and the offending husband is getting out of jail next week, having served his IRS tax evasion time. Overlay this with the south Texas, white v. mexican cultural conflict, and throw in a couple of assassins. Perfect. As always, fun to read, not everything is as it seems (which is exactly what you expect), and Reacher comes out none the worse. This is maybe a bit more interesting as an early book in the series in that it is the first book that Reacher has truly embraced his vagrancy.
Read
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