Science Fiction Books - Page 15

Philip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik

Philip K. Dick

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Known in his lifetime primarily to readers of science fiction, Philip K. Dick (1928-82) is now seen as a uniquely visionary figure, a writer who, in editor Jonathan Lethem's words, "wielded a sardonic yet heartbroken acuity about the plight of being alive in the twentieth century, one that makes him a lonely hero to the readers who cherish him." Posing the questions "What is human?" and "What is real?" in a multitude of fascinating ways, Dick produced works-fantastic and weird yet developed with precise logic, marked by wild humor and soaring flights of religious speculation-that are startlingly prescient imaginative responses to 21st-century quandaries.

This Library of America volume brings together four of Dick's most original novels. The Man in the High Castle (1962), which won the Hugo Award, describes an alternate world in which Japan and Germany have won World War II and America is divided into separate occupation zones. The dizzying The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) posits a future in which competing hallucinogens proffer different brands of virtual reality. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), about a bounty hunter in search of escaped androids in a postapocalyptic future, was the basis for the movie Blade Runner. Ubik (1969), with its future world of psychic espionage agents and cryogenically frozen patients inhabiting an illusory "half-life," pursues Dick's theme of simulated realities and false perceptions to ever more disturbing conclusions. As with most of Dick's novels, no plot summary can suggest the mesmerizing and constantly surprising texture of these astonishing books.

True Colors (Star Wars: Republic Commando, Book 3)

Karen Traviss

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Traviss raises the bar for SW novels 5 out of 5 stars.
20 of 22 people found this review helpful.

True Colors is what most SW books are not: intelligent, dramatic, internally realistic, and morally complex.

A sequel to the previous Republic Commando novel, Triple Zero, True Colors follows Delta and Omega Squads as they seek to capture scientist Ko Sai, the master geneticist of the Republic's clone army. Having fled Kamino with records of the cloning program, she's now being hunted by Palpatine and other commercial cloners eager to appropriate her work. But where these parties are motivated by commercial and political potential, Delta and Omega Squads have a more personal interest, to coerce the scientist into prolonging their lives by slowing down the quick-aging process built into their genetic code.

It's a fairly simple story made complex by attention to character and theme, something most Star Wars writers glance over if they think of it at all. Many employ a comfortable shorthand in which certain kinds of characters or characteristics are good, others bad, and the situations in which they find themselves clear cut. Traviss, though, paints in shades of gray, in which heroes have faults, bad guys are sometimes good, and the choices they have to make rarely easy.

The clone soldiers struggle to comprehend the enormity - and irony - of their burden, to die for a Republic that claims to defend freedom and liberty but values its clone warriors less than machines. Though content to do that for which they have been bred, the clones begin to resent being taken for granted, especially by their Jedi generals, men and women who through their relationship with the Force claim to have a wider and deeper appreciation of life in all its forms. The Jedi are painfully aware of their responsibilities to the clones, but find themselves trapped by tradition and circumstance serving the Republic, setting aside the rights of their soldiers to first fight the greater threat posed by the Separatists.

With no one to look after their interests but themselves, the clone commandos and their Mandalorian trainers set in motion a plan to free themselves from the tyranny of genetics and societal neglect, to give themselves an opportunity to live a life of normal men. But to do that they have to go against their breeding and training to disobey orders, aid deserters, deceive trusted comrades, kill fellow clone troopers and Mandalorians, and put civilian associates at risk. Complicit in their schemes are two Jedi commanders who discover first hand the dangers of attachment to loved ones and the equally dangerous detachment from avoiding difficult decisions.

In the end the commandos and the Jedi find that by looking closely at the thing you hate, you begin to understand it, to see that it exists much the same as you, as the expression of conditions that brought you into existence. Ko Sai is from a society that as a result of ecological disaster had to euthanize weaker members of its species to survive. For the Kaminoans the universe is a cold and harsh place that demands difficult choices, choices other species seem unable to take, but from which the commandos do not shy. In taking extraordinary measures to protect their own kind, in not being able to depend on the help of outsiders, the clones and Ko Sai find they have something in common. And in a universe in which many see the clones as little more than crude fighting machines, the Jedi begin to see that what they might have considered brutish behavior is as much a result of breeding as it is the tasks the Jedi and the Republic call upon the clones to perform.

This is the finest Star Wars novel ever written. Where Triple Zero was weighed down by excessive detail on weaponry, technology, and Mandalorian culture, True Colors pulses with the warmth of life and the honest portrayal of human conflict. There is no SW novel that can compare in depth of character and ethical complexity (though Matthew Stover's novels come close). On the one hand I'm glad Traviss wrote it. It was a fine read and shows that licensed fiction need not be hackneyed product. On the other, I despair of reading anything as fine until Traviss' next Republic Commando novel.

If you enjoyed True Colors, then by all means check out Traviss Wess'har series, which covers much of the same thematic ground.

#

Editorial Review:

As the savage Clone Wars rage unchecked, the Republic’s deadliest warriors face the grim truth that the Separatists aren’t their only enemy–or even their worst.

In the Grand Army’s desperate fight to crush the Separatists, the secret special ops missions of its elite clone warriors have never been more critical . . . or more dangerous. A growing menace threatens Republic victory, and the members of Omega Squad make a shocking discovery that shakes their very loyalty.

As the lines continue to blur between friend and enemy, citizens–from civilians and sergeants to Jedi and generals–find themselves up against a new foe: the doubt in their own hearts and minds. The truth is a fragile, shifting illusion–and only the approaching inferno will reveal both sides in their true colors.

The Man in the High Castle

Philip K. Dick

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 168 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

PKD has written far better... 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful.

PKD's recent literary resurgence has led to a (long overdue) reconsideration of his work. The Man In The High Castle won the Hugo Award, and is often sighted as among his best novels. And while the premise is certainly intriguing, the book is exceedingly poorly written - and not in a pulpy, so-bad-it's-good kind of way. PKD was a great risk taker as a writer and he deserves credit for that; he has written some fantastic, delirious and chaotic books that defy easy categorization (A Scanner Darkly is a great place to start), but this isn't one of them.

Editorial Review:

It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. the few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some 20 years earlier the United States lost a war--and is now occupied jointly by Nazi Germany and Japan.

This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to awake.

By Schism Rent Asunder

David Weber

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 62 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The world has changed. The mercantile kingdom of Charis has prevailed over the alliance designed to exterminate it. Armed with better sailing vessels, better guns and better devices of all sorts, Charis faced the combined navies of the rest of the world at Darcos Sound and Armageddon Reef, and broke them. Despite the implacable hostility of the Church of God Awaiting, Charis still stands, still free, still tolerant, still an island of innovation in a world in which the Church has worked for centuries to keep humanity locked at a medieval level of existence.

But the powerful men who run the Church aren’t going to take their defeat lying down. Charis may control the world’s seas, but it barely has an army worthy of the name. And as King Cayleb knows, far too much of the kingdom’s recent good fortune is due to the secret manipulations of the being that calls himself Merlin—a being that, the world must not find out too soon, is more than human. A being on whose shoulders rests the last chance for humanity’s freedom.

Now, as Charis and its archbishop make the rift with Mother Church explicit, the storm gathers. Schism has come to the world of Safehold. Nothing will ever be the same.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick

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Total reviews: 212 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world."
--John Brunner
THE INSPIRATION FOR BLADERUNNER. . .
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was published in 1968. Grim and foreboding, even today it is a masterpiece ahead of its time.
By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . .
They even built humans.
Emigrees to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in.
Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.
"[Dick] sees all the sparkling and terrifying possibilities. . . that other authors shy away from."
--Paul Williams
Rolling Stone

Y: The Last Man Vol. 2: Cycles

Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The plot thickens and the fun continues 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The first book in Brian K. Vaughan's Y: THE LAST MAN set up the premise: all the males in the world of every species have died except for loser named Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand. In the chaos that follows American society is oppressed by totalitarian Amazons, who are marked ideologically by an intense detestation of all things male (in later books they will even try to tear down structures they imagine are male) and by their ill-informed attempt to mimic Amazons by cutting off one breast (actually, there is no good evidence that the mythical Amazons removed a breast so as to be better archers, and I've been told by women who are actually good with a bow that there is no physiological reason to need to do so).

In this book Yorick, Ampersand, the mysterious Agent 355, and Dr. Mann begin their continent wide journey to Mann's San Francisco genetics lab, where she hopes to find a cure for the plague that has killed all males. Along they way they are pursued by the Israeli military, stay awhile in a small town filled with escaped prison inmates, and encounter a group of Amazons, including Yorick's sister Hero.

If you push the book very hard, all kinds of problems arise. I choose not to push the book very hard. But let me indication the ways someone so inclined might push. First, Vaughan depicts an entire society that has collapsed almost completely. The implication is that society is not merely male-dominated, but male-driven. One fantasy I have whenever I go on vacation is that when I return, my office will have collapsed into chaos. Instead, when I return, things are pretty much like I left them. I believe much the same thing would be true were all men to suddenly vanish. Yes, there would be interruptions, but none total and complete. Second, no one seems to sense the need for either Yorick or Ampersand to play any kind of active role in replenishing their species. This is just silly. If I were placed in such a role, I would feel it incumbent to help any way I could (and I truly do not mean that in any kind of salacious way). That Yorick would feel it possible to maintain a relationship exclusively with his girlfriend Beth is incredible. Third, are the Amazons in any way believable? Can we possibly believe that mass groups of women would delight in the disappearance of all males? I could go on, but I tend to read Y: THE LAST MAN like I watch HEROES: I avoid any tough questions. This is why for me Y: THE LAST MAN fails to stand up to the very best long graphic sequences, like Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN or why HEROES fails to measure up to BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER or BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: neither can stand up to the hard questions. Still, taken with your critical eye blinded, this is enormous fun.

Editorial Review:

The series that has taken the US by storm comes to the UK in the second of an all-new Titan graphic novel series! From writer Brian K. Vaughan (Swamp Thing, The Hood) and up-and-coming artist Pia Guerra comes a view of a dystopian society where suddenly - and without warning - a mysterious plague kills every living creature on the planet with a Y chromosone...in other words, no more men! Except one. Yorick Brown has somehow survived. It's now a very different world, and his unique status is far from privileged. He finds himself on the run from a coven of Amazons who want him dead...one of whom is his own sister!

Y: The Last Man Vol. 4: Safeword

Brian K. Vaughan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good, though not quite as good as what came before 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Warning! Spoilers ahead!

This struck me as not quite as good as previous books mainly because not quite as necessary. The series at this point is tracking the journey of Yorick and his entourage from Boston to California and it is as if Vaughan decided he had to create events at the Great Divide and in Arizona to pass time before finally arriving at Dr. Mann's lab. The section where Agent 355's former colleague tortures Yorick as a form of suicide intervention is easily the worst segment of any part of the series to this point, with the possible exception of every mention of the Amazons (as a historical note, the myth that the Amazons cut off a breast in order to aim a bow more efficiently is not a part of the early progress of the Amazons). And I definitely didn't care for the ultra-right-wing Sons of Arizona that occupied the second half of the book.

Still, there were some major new revelations. Let me enumerate. 1) We learn that Dr. Mann is gay and may have an attraction to Agent 355. 2) There are members of the Culper Ring who have a different agenda than 355 and are ruthless in pursuing it. 3) Hero hasn't gone away, but is searching for her brother. 4) The pregnant astronaut from Book 3 has given birth to a son. 5) Dr. Mann did not clone her nephew, as she previously told 355 and Yorick, but herself.

While not as good as previous books, this is still a worthy contribution to one of the most compelling long series in graphic art. It is highly recommended because the series as a whole is highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

Guided by the outstanding writing talents of Brian K. Vaughan (Swamp Thing, Ultimate X-Men) and rising star artist Pia Guerra, this acclaimed, genre-busting and controversial series continues apace! After a devastating plague, Yorrick Brown is the last man left alive in a world of women. On the run from Amazon extremists who would be happy to see him dead, his friends leave him in the care of Agent 711. But 711 is not the tragic woman she seems to be and Yorrick is propelled into a drug-fuelled nightmare of blood and sadism. Stretching the graphic novel envelope again, the fourth volume in the series shows why this title continues to be held in such high regard.

Mother Night

Kurt Vonnegut

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Total reviews: 99 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Kurt Vonnegut is a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America’s attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as a “true artist”* with Cat’s Cradle in 1963. He is, as Graham Greene has declared, “one of the best living American writers.”

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.

*The New York Times

“A great artist.”—Cincinnati Enquirer

“Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer…a zany but moral mad scientist.”—Time

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection (Year's Best Science Fiction)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Worth the price of admission 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I have several of Dozois' collections, and this one is--as reviewer Brad Schorr also said--above average. I didn't love every one of its thirty-two stories, and I couldn't even bring myself to finish two of them, but that's par for the course. In my experience, about 25 percent of a decent edited volume is really enjoyable, 25 percent is a chore to read, and the middle fifty percent falls between "blah" and "not bad." In this collection, I'd say that only the two aforementioned stories were really a chore to read, and though several stories were "blah," most fell between "not bad" and "pretty good". That's not too shabby if you subscribe to Sturgeon's Law ("Ninety percent of everything is crap").

I'm not going to run down all of the stories since Brad Schorr's done that for us already, but I do want to point out that there's plenty of room for disagreement with his take on them. Two stories that Schorr graded "A" -- "Roxie" and "The Skysailor's Tale" -- were the two that I couldn't read, the former because it was so drippingly sentimental, and the latter because it was so mannered and slow. Most of the stories he graded "C" fall into my "not bad" category, including Ken McLeod's "Lighting Out", which is a decent if pretty standard McLeod/Stross "singularity" tale, and McDonald's "Sanjeev and Robotwallah," which is a craftsmanlike near-future piece about how new technologies disrupt traditional life in the underdeveloped world. On the other hand, we agreed about several of the stories, including Chris Roberson's "The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small," a subtle alternate history piece that appears to be the most anthologized story of the year.

Bottom line: If you're in the mood for some stories and you don't need them all to be absolutely amazing, this collection is a good deal.

P.S. If you've read Dozois' THE NEW SPACE OPERA anthology, you should be aware that three of the stories collected here are drawn from there ("Saving Tiaamat," "Verthandi's Ring," and "Glory"). On the other hand, if you haven't read that anthology, I recommend it. Don't judge the book by the quality of those three stories -- they are NOT the best of the bunch.

Editorial Review:

In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year’s Best Science Fiction Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world.

This venerable collection brings together award winning authors and masters of the field such as Robert Reed, Ian McDonald, Stephen Baxter, Michael Swanwick, Paolo Bacigalupi, Kage Baker, Walter Jon Williams, Alastair Reynolds, and Charles Stross . And with an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation has become the definitive must read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre.

The Sirens of Titan

Kurt Vonnegut

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 157 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

amazing 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

i loved it! it makes you re-think your religion and some of your morals. because somehow, you end up sympathizing with an immoral character like malachi!

The Meaning of Life.... 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

How does one even begin describing this book? Can you even sum up the plot and do it justice? Talk of Malachi and his adventures/mishaps or Beatrice... Do we follow Roomford as he appears and disappears as the earth rotates? Do we talk about the invasion from Mars? Or the years spent on Mercury? How do we discuss the plot when in reality the plot is only a vehicle to get the reader to the destination, the realization that Vonnegut is trying to make us come to. The best summary that I can come up with is that we follow Malachi/Unk through the end of his life... starting from his receiving a prediction that he would go to Mars, Mercury, back to Earth, and then to Titan... and ending at the end of his life and his journeys.

So what is this book even about? Well there's religion, and the sense that God is not responsible for us, or our futures, rather we survive in a series of random accidents. Then there is the meaning of life, and the futility of the search for it. We have the satirical take on family, business, politics, and war. Then we have the long and involved satire of our purpose, and being used as humans toward a purpose that is both completely beyond our mental grasp, and not something that we would be happy to know about in the first place.

I personally cannot stand sci-fi so I put off reading this book for quite a while, even through I LOVE Vonnegut. In the end, the Sci-Fi aspect did not bother me because Vonnegut never spent all that much energy on that aspect. Sure they were on Mars, and Mercury, and Titan... and there was an alien life form or two and some spaceships... but as with the plot, the sci-fi aspect of this book is merely a vehicle to drive the reader to the proper conclusions. People are often upset that one cannot classify a Vonnegut book into any one genre; I find that this is because he is a philosopher who is wiling to take you to any extreme in order to open your eyes to what he views as reality. And what is Vonnegut's reality? Simple - Life is a series of accidents, both good and bad. The Creator is off doing what he does best - Creating, not guiding our every movement and desire. And finally, that we shouldn't put too much stock into our purpose, instead focus on just being nice, and being happy in the life that you have.

Even if you are not a fan of Sci-Fi I highly recommend this book. True it is not Vonnegut's seminal work, nor is it his most humorous, but it has so many important themes running through it that it should be required reading in school. The number of discussions that can be had after reading and truly dissecting this book are amazing. The Simple line stated by Boaz on Mercury when he makes his decision, the true purpose of the Martian attack, the over all meaning of life. The ending of this book is a truly joyous, utterly ridiculous and yet so profoundly meaningful revelation that the reader cannot help but sit back and shake their head in both disbelief and astonishment, both appalled and amused, and most of all, completely unable to keep from wondering... is that what it really IS all about? Something so..... Now I don't want to spoil it for you!

Though this book is only just over 300 pages, it took me longer than normal to read it, because you really don't want to skim. The language is brilliant, and the satire is sometimes so deeply laced into what is being said that it can be easy to miss if you aren't paying attention. As I said before, I highly recommend this book.

Editorial Review:

The richest and most depraved man on Earth takes a wild space journey to distant worlds, learning about the purpose of human life along the way.