Andreas Rosboch's Blog, page 5
August 9, 2023
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk and Robot II) – Becky Chambers
With Dex’s ostensible quest to the Hermitage in the wilderness completed, they and the robot Mosscap venture into human lands, where a robot has not been seen in generations. They are met everywhere with curiosity and wonder as Mosscap asks anyone he meets what they “need”. But the answers are not what it is expecting.
As in the first novella, the characters are on quests that lead them to unexpected places. The second book bookends the story neatly, with the robot as a stranger among humans, while the first book was about the human as a stranger in the wilderness. The story further explores how wonder at the nature of the Universe and existence seem universal regardless of what form consciousness takes. The reader is left feeling happy and full of ponderings.
August 7, 2023
A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot I) – Becky Chambers
On the moon Panga, human society is a well-ordered, pleasant, and supportive idyll. Part of a monastic order, Sibling Dex finds themselves yearning for something more, something wild. They obsess over cricket sounds. They abandon the order to become a “tea monk,” traveling around Panga, dispensing tea in return for listening to people’s concerns, fears, and thoughts. A sort of traveling therapist, shoulder to cry on, or friend-on-call. But the wild still calls to Dex, who decides to strike out into actual wilderness. Here he encounters a robot. But robots haven’t been seen in many generations, after they were freed and subsequently left human society entire to live in the wild.
This novella isn’t one of great action or momentous events, but instead an exploration of what it means to be human, and in a wider sense to be alive at all. The interactions between Dex and the robot Mosscap are sublime, as they traverse from awkward metting to awkward companionship to tentative friendship, all the while discussing and debating what it means to be natural versus manufactured, and the purpose of existence. A feel-good story that makes the reader sense a deeper meaning.
August 6, 2023
Roadkill – Dennis E. Taylor
Jack Kerrigan has been expelled from MIT for something he did not do, and now he’s back in the small rural midwestern town where he grow up, working in his father’s general store. On a delivery run, he hits something with his pickup truck. But he can’t see it, as it is invisible. It turns out that Jack has hit an alien wandering across the road. As things unravel, Jack and his friends find themselves embroiled in a plot involving aliens meddling in humanity’s future, as well as the interstellar political implications.
While the premise itself, apart from the starting incident, is not terribly original, the story is great fun. An adventurous romp with many funny moments and often hilarious dialogue. The dynamic between the three childhood best friends turned young adults is fabulous, elevating the story from what the tired “aliens among us” to something much more engaging.
July 23, 2023
Time Trials – M.A. Rothman & D.J. Butler
Linguist and Egyptologist Marty Cohen has been pushed out of academia for spurious reasons and now runs a custom furniture store. An old colleague begs him to come to a new dig in Egypt where very curious writing has been found. At the dig, Marty and a few of the team are transported back to pre-dynastic Egypt. But things take an even stranger turn as mythical creatures turn out to exist, at least in this version of the past.
The novel is a serviceable and enjoyable Alternate History adventure, especially if you have some interest in Ancient Egypt history. It never becomes really epic, focusing instead on the dynamics of the small group of time travelers.
July 13, 2023
How It Unfolds (The Far Reaches I) – James S.A. Corey
Ray Court is part of an experimental programme, in which his mind, and those of the other programme members, will be scanned and sent out to candidate planets in the galaxy. Machines will construct habitats and then copies of Ray and the others, scattering humanity amongst the stars.
The concept of this novelette is simple, but the execution is both clever and thought-provoking. Complicating things, Roy’s ex-wife is also one on the programme, and he believes he may be able to win her back in “another life”. Multiple copies of Roy and the others end up in different circumstances, with different biomes, and their choices are sublty or greatly different. The story rapidly grows from small personal themes to awe-inspiring and humbling ones involving the deep future.
Critical Mass (Delta-V II) – Daniel Suarez
In the sequel to Delta-V, James Tighe and his companions are back on Earth, trying to figure out how to save their two friends still stranded on asteroid Ryugu. A relatively simple problem requiring an increasingly complex plan involving bootstrapping a space economy by building a mass driver on the Moon. The mass driver can launch resources extracted from the Lunar regolith at a fraction of the cost of launching them from Earth, enabling construction of a rescue ship. National and corporate interest on Earth try to get in on the economic and geopolitical frontier, while humanity and Earth suffers increasingly acute social and economic issues due to worsening climate change.
While Delta-V is a more straightforward space thriller, the sequel expands the context, posing important questions such as how to prevent space from becoming just another exploited colonisation boundary for the powerful, while most of humanity remain have-nots. The pace is slower, but the payoff ties it all together. The protagonist as something of a naif in context is a nice detail, illustrating how most people live their lives, even lives doing great things, with little understanding of the bigger picture.
June 9, 2023
He Who Fights With Monsters (He Who Fights With Monsters I) – Travis Deverell, a.k.a. Shirtaloon
Jason Asano, an Australian with a Japanese parent, is magically summoned to a different world, and finds himself, without warning, naked, in a cage. After much initial confusion, and after escaping a cult that is trying to use him as a blood sacrifice, he makes some friends and starts establishing a name for himself as a beginning “adventurer” in the city of Greenstone. The world in which he has landed works, at least for him, like a role-playing game, inclusive of magical storage, character statistics, attributes, and ranks.
The trope of a human taken from Earth and put in an unfamiliar world is hardly new, but the role-playing wrinkle is interesting. Jason as a character is almost stereotypical of the trope. He was something of a misfit on Earth, and now has the chance and the boldness to shine based on his unconcern for social hierarchy, his innate cleverness, his charm, and his often infuriating wit. Nevertheless, it is hard not to root for Jason, especially given the wry humour infused in much of the dialogue.
March 31, 2023
The Shattered Skies (The Cruel Stars II) – John Birmingham
In the sequel to The Cruel Stars, Princess Alessia, Commander Lucinda Hardy, Admiral McLellan, and L’trel make their way into Javan space. Their self-imposed mission is to find more survivors of the Sturm attack. As they arrive in a system where they believe allied forces may be operating clandestinely, they discover that criminal elements aboard a freeport habitat have conspired to capture warship crews. Furthermore, the surviving Javan foces have entered into an uneasy alliance with the corporate Combine. The Sturm is fast approaching, and in the face of this threat Admiral McLellan takes command, while L’trel attempts to rescue the prisoners on the freeport. The makeshift task force soon falls apart in the face of the enemy, and L’trel’s crew seems to have bitten off more than they can chew. Mayhem ensues.
With the main characters now well established, this second installment contains many fine action scenes and stellar dialogue like the first book, while keeping a sharp focus on the characters. Alessia is maturing quickly, under the tutelage of Lucinda, L’trel, and Admiral McClellan. McClellan himself, and his artificial intelligence foil Hero, continue to be as profane as they are hilarious.
March 3, 2023
Fall or, Dodge in Hell – Neal Stephenson
Billionaire video game designer and tech magnate Richard “Dodge” Forthrast dies while having a routine surgical procedure. Unbeknownst to his family and friends, he has long since signed up for cryopreservation, then probably forgotten about it. His will contains detailed instructions about possible reanimation when the technology exists. As it turns out, waking the dead in a computer-generated virtual reality seems to be the way forward. After many power struggles and discussions, Dodge finally wakes in a primitive computer-generated world, soon starting to shape and mould it to his desires. At first a trickle, and then a flood of other dead begin to join him, many with their own ideas about the virtual afterlife, in conflict with Dodge’s own.
There are some significant connections to other works by Mr. Stephenson. Richard Forthrast and his adoptive daughter Zula are prominently featured in Reamde, whilst Enoch Root was a character in Cryptomonicon, as well other works. Those were good novels. This is not. After a promising start, most of the action moves to the virtual world, and it is really boring. From Dodge’s initial efforts to shape the world to his desires, to his building of a pantheon with himself as the prime god, to his downfall at the hands of a rival, it is mainly a tedious slog to read. The final part is written as fantasy, and is slightly better, but by this point I just wanted it to be over, and skimmed large parts.
The concept itself is very interesting, and I had high hopes the plot would continue along the lines of the first quarter. However, the shift to the virtual world kills all interest in the main characters, and for that matter in the concept itself. At that point, it’s just a creation myth that has no need for its own backstory. It is a real shame, because there are so many interesting ideas to explore at depth, not least the societal impact of humans being able to live on, in a certain form at least, after death. The ending is mildly satisfying, but the journey to get there is not, especially as this book, while not overly long by Stephenson standards, is a solid tome by any other.
December 31, 2022
Holdout – Jeffrey Kluger
Astronaut Walli Beckwith is conducting an experiment on the International Space Station when an imminent collision leads to an evacuation order. Walli, however, refuses to leave, for reasons unknown to her two crewmates. As they return to Earth, she remains as the sole occupant on a damaged station. Meanwhile, in the Amazon, her niece is conducting aid work in response to a humanitarian crisis. The Brasilian government is ruthlessly chasing native populations from their lands in order to make space for industrial farming and deforestation. The Amazon is on fire.
The plot soon evolves into a very competent action-thriller. Most impressively, Mr. Kluger does not take any drastic shortcuts on realism; events are solidly underpinned by existing science and technology. The characters do feel a bit flat, unfortunately, but this is a page-turner nonetheless.
