Science Fiction Books - Page 6

Extras (Uglies)

Scott Westerfeld

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Fame

It's a few years after rebel Tally Youngblood took down the uglies/pretties/specials regime. Without those strict roles and rules, the world is in a complete cultural renaissance. "Tech-heads" flaunt their latest gadgets, "kickers" spread gossip and trends, and "surge monkeys" are hooked on extreme plastic surgery. And it's all monitored on a bazillion different cameras. The world is like a gigantic game of American Idol. Whoever is getting the most buzz gets the most votes. Popularity rules.

As if being fifteen doesn't suck enough, Aya Fuse's rank of 451,369 is so low, she's a total nobody. An extra. But Aya doesn't care; she just wants to lie low with her drone, Moggle. And maybe kick a good story for herself.

Then Aya meets a clique of girls who pull crazy tricks, yet are deeply secretive of it. Aya wants desperately to kick their story, to show everyone how intensely cool the Sly Girls are. But doing so would propel her out of extra-land and into the world of fame, celebrity...and extreme danger. A world she's not prepared for.

Courageous (The Lost Fleet, Book 3)

Jack Campbell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 51 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The Lost Fleet moves on! 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Background to this book: John Hemry, writing under the pen-name Jack Campbell, began the series by introducing readers to a universe, far into our future, where humanity has spread out into space, colonizing many planets, and eventually separating into two main camps, The Alliance and the Syndicate. Competition and contrasting political structures result in conflict. In the first book, The Lost Fleet: Dauntless, the Alliance fleet is lured into an ambush, where it suffers great loss, especially in the upper military echelons. The command of the fleet falls to its most senior surviving office, John "Black Jack" Geary, who had long been thought to be dead, but who had just been rescued from an escape pod, where he had spent a century in cryogenic sleep. Black Jack Geary had become legend, for sacrificing himself to save his ship during the first outbreak of hostilities involving the Syndicate, and now he was seen as a hero, returned from the dead, to rescue the Alliance from a near-total massacre and a seemingly-endless war.

In this third book of the Lost Fleet series, Black Jack Geary faces the choice of either continuing to try to fool the Syndics, as the Syndicate fleet is called by Alliance military people, or making a quicker dash back to Alliance space, that could easily lead to another disastrous ambush. Through the first two books, Geary has successfully outguessed the Syndics, and has inflicted heavy losses on the enemy. This as caused further belief in the idea that John Geary is a resurrected hero, sent by the ancestors of the Alliance, to save the fleet. Geary has tried to avoid embracing the mythical hero role, that brings the impression of infallibility with it.

While trying to damage the Syndics and bring the fleet back to Alliance space, Geary also has to deftly deal with a subtly growing contingent, in his own fleet, of those who fear Geary and want him deposed as Fleet Commander. Another contingent idolizes Geary, almost fanatically, and want him to seize the mythos of Black Jack Geary and be much more than Fleet Commander.

For the first two-thirds of this book, it strongly resembled its predecessors, to the point that I was beginning to fear that the author had exhausted his supply of originality and creativity. The only real differences between the predecessors and the earlier parts of this book, was that the Alliance fleet was experiencing more resource shortages, and they were starting to get outmaneuvered at times, as the Syndics seemed to have caught on to some of Geary's tactics, and were becoming better at anticipating the next move and countering it.

Then, as Geary began to despair, he got what he needed, from two of his internal allies and, surprisingly, from an old internal opponent. In a thrumming crescendo, the last third of the book builds tension, then moves to rapid-fire action, complex military strategy and maneuvering, and shocking brilliance and boldness that will make John Geary the man into a legend, separate from the century-old Black Jack legend. Geary's last decision in this book is stunning, and creates an incredible cliffhanger that makes it impossible for me to not read the next book in the series.

Jack Campbell's writing is crisp, even when the story begins to feel repetitive, early in the book. It feels almost like John Geary's funk, and the advice that helped him pull out of it, also helped the author remember what made the first two books excellent reading, and writing those pep-talk passages had the same effect on Campbell that it had on Geary. The characters in this book, as in its predecessors, were varied, credible, and three-dimensional. The brilliant ending certainly ensured by continued interest in the series.

Those who enjoy these books, will also likely enjoy Old Man's War by John Scalzi, and its sequels.

-- Chris McCallister, author of Coming Full Circle

Editorial Review:

The Lost Fleet continues its perilous journey home.

Badly damaged and low on supplies, the Alliance Fleet is raiding Syndic mines for raw materials-and Captain "Black Jack" Geary hopes they can continue to remain one step ahead of their enemies. But the Syndics are the least of Geary's worries when he learns of the existence of aliens with the power to annihilate the human race.

Fearless (The Lost Fleet, Book 2)

Jack Campbell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Rip Van Winkle in Space - Part 2 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is the second book in the Lost Fleet series and it does not disappoint. The space battles are presented in crisp clean prose, with believable attention to physics. The hero, John "Black Jack" Geary evolves and changes under pressure and even, with due discretion, acquires a girlfriend. There's stronger speculation about the existence of aliens as a driving force for the 100 year old war.

My biggest complaint is structural. Book One: Dauntless and Book Two: Fearless could have been combined in a single volume. The story arc would have been a lot stronger that way and a certain amount of repetition designed to bring the out-of-sequence reader up to speed could have been eliminated. As it is, I feel that the overall arc of the series has just barely crept forward. And the author is not really exploring the psychological complexity of his characters. Some of the dialog is just daft (Scottish dialect for whacko) instead of striving for depth.

But I love the way Jack Campbell writes his action sequences. He manages to capture some of the agonizingly slow motion imposed by the vast distance of space and combine it with an ability to keep the reader on the edge of the chair. I'll keep reading and hoping for more. In some ways, Jack Campbell is the science fiction equivalent of Dick Francis in the mystery genre: he's a slick stylist with a knack for action.

Editorial Review:

Captain John "Black Jack" Geary tries a desperate gamble to lead the Alliance Fleet home-through enemy-occupied space-only to lose half the Fleet to an unexpected mutiny.

Oryx and Crake

Margaret Atwood

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 299 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Oryx and Crake, a science fiction novel that is more Swift than Heinlein, more cautionary tale than "fictional science" (no flying cars here), Margaret Atwood depicts a near-future world that turns from the merely horrible to the horrific, from a fool's paradise to a bio-wasteland. Snowman (a man once known as Jimmy) sleeps in a tree and just might be the only human left on our devastated planet. He is not entirely alone, however, as he considers himself the shepherd of a group of experimental, human-like creatures called the Children of Crake. As he scavenges and tends to his insect bites, Snowman recalls in flashbacks how the world fell apart.

While the story begins with a rather ponderous set-up of what has become a clichéd landscape of the human endgame, littered with smashed computers and abandoned buildings, it takes on life when Snowman recalls his boyhood meeting with his best friend Crake: "Crake had a thing about him even then.... He generated awe ... in his dark laconic clothing." A dangerous genius, Crake is the book's most intriguing character. Crake and Jimmy live with all the other smart, rich people in the Compounds--gated company towns owned by biotech corporations. (Ordinary folks are kept outside the gates in the chaotic "pleeblands.") Meanwhile, beautiful Oryx, raised as a child prostitute in Southeast Asia, finds her way to the West and meets Crake and Jimmy, setting up an inevitable love triangle. Eventually Crake's experiments in bioengineering cause humanity's shockingly quick demise (with uncanny echoes of SARS, ebola, and mad cow disease), leaving Snowman to try to pick up the pieces. There are a few speed bumps along the way, including some clunky dialogue and heavy-handed symbols such as Snowman's broken watch, but once the bleak narrative gets moving, as Snowman sets out in search of the laboratory that seeded the world's destruction, it clips along at a good pace, with a healthy dose of wry humor. --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.ca

WALL-E (Little Golden Book)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

The Little Golden Binding is Falling Off 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The last few little golden books that I purchased from Amazon have had the golden binding sticker falling off the book when they were delivered. This one immediately fell off on taking it out of the box and I had to glue it back on. Oddly enough, I have had this problem with the Golden Books made in the US, and not with the Golden Books made in China. The quality control at the US plants and Amazon must be very poor for this to be the case.

The book itself is okay. Just the basic outline of the Wall-E story. It is made in the same style as the Pixar 'Cars' Little Golden Book.

Simple overview but kids like it 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Got it because my kids liked the idea of WallE, who they call Fred. They didn't see the movie, just trailers and online at disney.com.
Tells the story simply and my daughter,6, can read it to the other ones.

Editorial Review:

WHEN A LOVABLE, lonely robot named WALL•E falls in love with a sophisticated female robot named EVE, he follows his heart all the way into outer space! Young fans will enjoy this Little Golden Book retelling of Disney•Pixar’s newest film, WALL•E.

Speaker for the Dead (Ender, Book 2)

Orson Scott Card

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 408 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A step behind the first novel... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

...but an excellent follow up. Worth reading and some excellent concepts explored. Highly recommend it.

There are other better options 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I've read a lot of Orson Scott Card's books, and have always found myself coming away from them a little frustrated. The ideas always seem to be interesting, but end up getting lost in mediocre storytelling. Card dwells on the same unique ideas so persistently, going back to the same well so often, that by the end of the book what I had originally found unique now just seems hackneyed. And now that I've found out Card is so outspoken politically with such (literally) fascist and discriminatory views, I don't even want his books in my house. I've sold them online and donated the money to a worthy charity.

If you find Card's story ideas at all interesting, I'd suggest the following authors for a more satisfying storytelling experience:

Neil Gaiman. Gaiman has the same unique flavor to his ideas, but he also has the execution to deliver an incredible story as well. His work is more on the fantasy side, like Card's Alvin Maker series. The only problem is that Gaiman writes so few books that I find myself becoming incredibly impatient waiting for his next story to come out.

Stephen Baxter and Isaac Asimov. Asimov's works can sometimes be a little less accessible then Card's, but Baxter's are not; they are just as easy a read. Both men are visionaries scientifically, and tell gripping, page turning stories. Both are sci-fi based, like Card's Ender Series.

Stephen King. Most people groan when I say how much I love King's writing, but universally I come to find out that those people have never read his Dark Tower series, just his horror. The seven books that comprise the Dark Tower story, widely considered King's Magnum Opus, are a truly unique blend of equal parts fantasy, sci-fi, and western. Note these are not in any way like King's horror writings, though once you've read the Dark Tower you'll see characters from it turn up in ancillary roles in many of his other books. The Dark Tower, like the Alvin series, is set is a world that is kind of our world, kind of not. The Dark Tower series is hands-down the best series I've ever read. Period.

I hope this helps some readers find some great stories they may have otherwise not found. Happy reading!

Editorial Review:

Ender Wiggin, the hero and scapegoat of mass alien destruction in Ender's Game, receives a chance at redemption in this novel. Ender, who proclaimed as a mistake his success in wiping out an alien race, wins the opportunity to cope better with a second race, discovered by Portuguese colonists on the planet Lusitania. Orson Scott Card infuses this long, ambitious tale with intellect by casting his characters in social, religious and cultural contexts. Like its predecessor, this book won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Unmanned (Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1)

Brian K. Vaughan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 64 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

No Greater Wrath..... 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Plague? Black Magic? Terrorism? Act of God? Could / would something simultaneously kill every mammal possessing a Y chromosome? Even unborn mammals in the womb? Well, according to Y: The Last Man, on July 17, 2002, that's exactly what happened...with the exception of one male human being and one male Capuchin monkey.

Volumes 1 through 5 of Y: The Last Man chronicle the life of Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand as they are thrust into a female-only society. And society is in chaos. The realization that the planet is doomed without a reproducing, intelligent species is not lost on its inhabitants. Some accept their fate; some fight to find a way to reverse the annihilation; and some even denounce any fight to survive as opposition to God's will.

Hence, to some, Yorick Brown is the ultimate opposition to God's will....A sole human male survivor. So when Yorick teams up with a government agent and a genetic scientist on a journey across the country to get to a laboratory to find out 'what makes him different', or to try to discover if there's a genetic 'solution' to this disaster, you can bet the band of travelers run into some hostile forces.

The stories in Volumes 1 through 5 (of 10 so far) are very well told, exciting, twist-filled and keep you pressing on for Volume after Volume. Y: The Last Man, Volume 10: Whys and Wherefores comes out June 24th, 2008.

Rumor has it (according to [...], 1/29/2008, A chat with ... 'Y: The Last Man' director D.J. Caruso by Whitney Matheson) that a movie adaptation will come out in three films...the first of which could be released as early as 2009 (with Shia LaBeouf as Yorick).

The storyline is not without some controversy....Well, I see no controversy, but I'm sure that certain narrow minded groups might view the nature of a population unable to civilly function without men a bit 'controversial'. Hopefully, Hollywood will maintain the integrity of the series and not dumb down the fabulous tale that the authors created.

Breakfast of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 250 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane." So reads the tombstone of downtrodden writer Kilgore Trout, but we have no doubt who's really talking: his alter ego Kurt Vonnegut. Health versus sickness, humanity versus inhumanity--both sets of ideas bounce through this challenging and funny book. As with the rest of Vonnegut's pure fantasy, it lacks the shimmering, fact-fueled rage that illuminates Slaughterhouse-Five. At the same time, that makes this book perhaps more enjoyable to read.

Breakfast of Champions is a slippery, lucid, bleakly humorous jaunt through (sick? inhumane?) America circa 1973, with Vonnegut acting as our Virgil-like companion. The book follows its main character, auto-dealing solid-citizen Dwayne Hoover, down into madness, a condition brought on by the work of the aforementioned Kilgore Trout. As Dwayne cracks, then crumbles, Breakfast of Champions coolly shows the effects his dementia has on the web of characters surrounding him. It's not much of a plot, but it's enough for Vonnegut to air unique opinions on America, sex, war, love, and all of his other pet topics--you know, the only ones that really count.

Storm from the Shadows

David Weber

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Editorial Review:

Rear Admiral Michelle Henke was commanding one of the ships in a force led by Honor Harrington in an all-out space battle. The odds were against the Star Kingdom forces, and they had to run. But Michelle’s ship was crippled, and had to be destroyed to prevent superior Manticoran technology from falling into Havenite hands, and she and her surviving crew were taken prisoner. Much to her surprise, she was repatriated to Manticore, carrying a request for a summit conference between the leaders of the two sides which might end the war. But a condition of her return was that she gave her parole not to fight against the forces of the Republic of Haven until she had been officially exchanged for a Havenite prisoner of war, so she was given a command far away from the war’s battle lines. What she didn’t realize was that she would find herself on a collision course, not with a hostile government, but with the interstellar syndicate of criminals known as Manpower. And Manpower had its own plans for eliminating Manticore as a possible threat to its lucrative slave trade, deadly plans which remain hidden in the shadows.

Praise for the Prequel, The Shadow of Saganami:

“These hugely entertaining and clever adventures are the very epitome of space opera. . . . Weber . . . remind[s] the reader that a hero can be anyone who does his or her job with honor, commitment and skill.” —Publishers Weekly

“The Shadow of Saganami may be military science fiction great David Weber’s best tale in the Honorverse . . an action packed tale with a fully developed multiple cast. . . .” —The Midwest Book Review

The Last Centurion

John Ringo

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Ho Hum 1 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

All "hard" SF authors write at least one book where they propose and go into excruciating detail of their Utopian society, or at least what leads to their Utopian society. Heinlein pulls it off - Ringo does not.
These type of books are usually so message heavy that they loose in readability. This book would dent the table it lies on... Incredibly hard to read, and even tougher to skim in a desperate search for readable non-message pages.
Wait for the next Ringo to come out, and skip this one...

Editorial Review:

In the second decade of the twenty-first century the world is struck by two catastrophes, a new mini-ice age and, nearly simultaneously, a plague to dwarf all previous experiences. Rising out of the disaster is the character known to history as “Bandit Six” an American Army officer caught up in the struggle to rebuild the world and prevent the fall of his homeland—despite the best efforts of politicians both elected and military. The Last Centurion is a memoir of one possible future, a world that is a darkling mirror of our own. Written “blog-style,” it pulls no punches in its descriptions of junk science, bad strategy and organic farming not to mention all three at once