Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2015 novel is out of this world...literally. The multi-winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards takes us and 2,122 people on a trip out of our solar system to the single star, Tau Ceti. It’s 11.9 light years away. It will take 170 years and seven generations of people to get there. They are going to the moon, Aurora, orbiting around Planet E. They believe they can quickly terraform Aurora to support their human colony. The story (466 pages) goes through many stages such as: the arrival, the mystery of Aurora, the quarrels and fights between the different factions on board, the cryogenic freezing and ultimately... the final solution. I thought that the author generally kept my interest except when he deemed it necessary to give the reader too much technical information. If you have a Starship and an AI computer running the ship, that’s all I need to know. I’ll never understand all the scientific jargon anyway...so just tell your story, which for the most part, he did. All the main characters were kept to a minimum with everybody in the story having a mononymous name like Devi, Badim or Freya. This style of no last names led to no confusion in the who’s who category.
Anyway, the story centers around Devi (the unofficial chief engineer of the Starship), her husband, Badim (a member of the security council), and their daughter, Freya (the eventual protagonist). As they get closer to their destination, Devi asks the ship’s computer to narrate their journey. “Make a narrative account of the trip that includes all the important particulars.” So far they have traveled for 159 years, 119 days with the ship moving at a rate of one tenth the speed of light. They are purposely slowing down. “The deceleration will therefore be complete in just under twenty years.” Animal and human zoo devolution (things are reverting back to primitive forms) have begun in the ships twenty four self-contained biomes (large nature settings that depicts real countries on Earth). The IQ level of the new born children is dropping. Bacteria is starting to eat at the ship’s seals and crops are starting to fail. These are some of the many problems that Devi faces. The ship’s population is starting to get antsy as they near their destination. Since the ship needs to keep the population down to the original amount, some couples are not allowed to have a baby. Those couples are not happy. Suddenly Devi comes down with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma before they get to Aurora. She has been talking to the computer that runs the ship for twenty four years. Devi is dying.
Devi “taught ship (aka Pauline, or we). She talked to ship, like no one else in the 169 years of ship’s voyage had. Why had the others not? What was ship going to do without her? With no one to talk to, bad things can happen. Ship knew this full well.” After Devi had a sudden bad headache, ER people rushed her to the clinic. Badim and Freya sat tight in the clinic’s waiting room...then there were three doctors standing over them. “We’re sorry. She’s gone. Looks like she had a cerebral hemorrhage.” After the memorial service for Devi was over ''Preparations continued for their descent (they arrived!). Down to Aurora, down to Greenland (the name for the landing site), down to their new world, their new day. They were ready. They wanted down.” It was a “New beginning of a new history, new beginning of time itself: Day One, Year Zero. A0.1.” In ship time, 170.040. “Freya’s friend Euan was in the first landing crew...crews had been selected by lottery from among those trained to the various landing and setup jobs.” I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to tell you. This is where the story skedaddles to a thought-provoking ending. The next 350 pages are exhilarating! By the way, did you notice that the author asked most of the questions that I normally would ask in this paragraph?
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: I’ve been reading a lot of sci/fi lately, mostly because authors have been sending me their space opera, or space odyssey to read and review. Kim Stanley Robinson is a different case altogether. He is a preeminent sci/fi writer and I wanted to read one of his classics. But I also want to read his award winning Mars trilogy: Red Mars (1992), Green Mars (1993) and Blue Mars (1996). Lastly, I would like to read his novel, 2312 (2012). It’s about a colony living in Terminator City on Mercury that suddenly gets attacked by a meteorite. Sadly, I’ll never have the time to accomplish that undertaking.
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Thursday, November 15, 2018
THE VIKING THRONE
The author sent me an autographed copy of his novel to read and review:
What would you do if a giant sperm whale swallowed you? That’s just one of the obstacles JB Michaels’ protagonist, James Henihan, has to overcome in this swashbuckling novel. It’s JB’s first adult fantasy as he shifts away from numerous bestselling YA novels. It’s not an easy task. In any event, the path from YA to adult fantasy seemed a little cumbersome for the author. As I read the novel, more chapters seemed to be written in YA prose than chapters employing adult language. The killings were too fast without enough time for the reader to say to himself, "Way to go!" He needs to elongate the violence like Bernard Cornwell does, the king of death in battle. My two other piddling complaints are that the reader didn’t get any background on what happened during The Great Calamity (global warming?) or where the mages came from and how they made some humans into sirens. Did I enjoy this story? Yes, but with a glitch. I’m reviewing this novel essentially as an advanced YA novel with sporadic adult situations (if that makes any sense).
Earth is now a “blue planet of vast roiling seas.” Somehow mages turned some of the population into sirens, who now populate the oceans. The story opens with siren James Henihan (a little hungover) realizing that his daughter, Maggie, is missing after she warned him of someone wearing scuba gear swimming outside their home. Maggie gets captured as James and his wife, Imogen, give chase. Maggie and Imogen disappear. James gets captured and locked up in a underwater tank. Behind James were more tanks with captured sirens. With a communicating device on the tank, a man in the incarcerating vessel above them speaks, “I am Admiral Montgomery (Monty). You will be taking orders from me now...if you cooperate willingly, then rewards will be due...should you act the belligerent brute as you are now, punishments will be inflicted upon you.” Apparently, while James and the other sirens slept, scuba divers attached an electric shocking device to their necks. Monty shocked James with his remote to prove his point. What does the Monty want from his imprisoned sirens?
It soon becomes obvious...Monty wanted the captured sirens to fetch for him underwater treasures, “Dear sirens, you have been chosen for your unique skill sets and knowledge of the deep. You will swim to the submerged grounds of the Donington estate and salvage the physical monies stored below. It is my estimation that there is a vault of gold and silver bullion.” Monty had no thoughts of releasing the men after they secured the treasure...there are more valuables to be recovered from inundated cities. James takes up with three other sirens who were also caged and reluctantly diving to retrieve treasure for Monty: Jacob, William and Pierce, who along with James, belonged to the Siren Guard. This goes on for months on end. James is riddled with guilt, “What happened to Maggie and Imogen? What had I, James Henihan, done to lose my family? I’d failed to protect them. To see to it they were safe. I had failed. What good was I.”
During their many dives for treasure they will come up against banshees (“they float in wispy robes and scream until one goes deaf”), an extinct underwater dinosaur, giant whales and squids, et cetera. On page thirty three, James swims into a underwater cave and sees signs of an epic Viking battle. He finds a Viking boat. “The contents of the boat were evermore impressive. In the center of the boat was a throne. A throne with two spires and a raised headrest that shined in the beam of my torch. I carefully swam closer to the Viking throne to examine the shiny object. It was a green stone inlaid into the throne itself. The color was vibrant in the light, and the inside of the stone seemed to swirl as if the stone contained magical properties.” Okay, you had a thirty three page taste of JB's novel, now go out and buy your own copy.
The writings of JB Michaels (see my review of 12/09/2017 for his novel The Elixir) reminds me of another excellent YA author, Rick Riordan (see my review of 2/10/2013 for his novel The Lightning Thief). They both have a young protagonist in a series of novels. JB has Bud Hutchins and Rick has Percy Jackson. Now, would I like to see more of JB doing adult novels? Yes, the problems that I found in The Viking Throne are very fixable. They might not even be a problem for another reviewer. But I sensed the YA genre trying its best to squeeze into JB’s Viking novel. I highly recommend this rousing first novel of a new series.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
Comment: Are there authors who have written in more than one genre? Yes indeed! Quite a few actually:
J.K. Rowling, the children’s and Harry Potter legend also released her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy in 2012 to mixed reviews.
Stephen King writes in many genres, for example: horror novels (It and Carrie), mysteries, (The Colorado Kid) and gothic fantasies (The Green Mile).
Neil Gaiman writes in many genres including poetry. Examples of his novels are children's (Chu’s Day), poetry (Blueberry Girl), and adult (The Ocean at the End of the Lane). And I almost forgot sci/fi (InterWorld).
The list also includes noted writers; such as, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, and Anne Rice.
What would you do if a giant sperm whale swallowed you? That’s just one of the obstacles JB Michaels’ protagonist, James Henihan, has to overcome in this swashbuckling novel. It’s JB’s first adult fantasy as he shifts away from numerous bestselling YA novels. It’s not an easy task. In any event, the path from YA to adult fantasy seemed a little cumbersome for the author. As I read the novel, more chapters seemed to be written in YA prose than chapters employing adult language. The killings were too fast without enough time for the reader to say to himself, "Way to go!" He needs to elongate the violence like Bernard Cornwell does, the king of death in battle. My two other piddling complaints are that the reader didn’t get any background on what happened during The Great Calamity (global warming?) or where the mages came from and how they made some humans into sirens. Did I enjoy this story? Yes, but with a glitch. I’m reviewing this novel essentially as an advanced YA novel with sporadic adult situations (if that makes any sense).
Earth is now a “blue planet of vast roiling seas.” Somehow mages turned some of the population into sirens, who now populate the oceans. The story opens with siren James Henihan (a little hungover) realizing that his daughter, Maggie, is missing after she warned him of someone wearing scuba gear swimming outside their home. Maggie gets captured as James and his wife, Imogen, give chase. Maggie and Imogen disappear. James gets captured and locked up in a underwater tank. Behind James were more tanks with captured sirens. With a communicating device on the tank, a man in the incarcerating vessel above them speaks, “I am Admiral Montgomery (Monty). You will be taking orders from me now...if you cooperate willingly, then rewards will be due...should you act the belligerent brute as you are now, punishments will be inflicted upon you.” Apparently, while James and the other sirens slept, scuba divers attached an electric shocking device to their necks. Monty shocked James with his remote to prove his point. What does the Monty want from his imprisoned sirens?
It soon becomes obvious...Monty wanted the captured sirens to fetch for him underwater treasures, “Dear sirens, you have been chosen for your unique skill sets and knowledge of the deep. You will swim to the submerged grounds of the Donington estate and salvage the physical monies stored below. It is my estimation that there is a vault of gold and silver bullion.” Monty had no thoughts of releasing the men after they secured the treasure...there are more valuables to be recovered from inundated cities. James takes up with three other sirens who were also caged and reluctantly diving to retrieve treasure for Monty: Jacob, William and Pierce, who along with James, belonged to the Siren Guard. This goes on for months on end. James is riddled with guilt, “What happened to Maggie and Imogen? What had I, James Henihan, done to lose my family? I’d failed to protect them. To see to it they were safe. I had failed. What good was I.”
During their many dives for treasure they will come up against banshees (“they float in wispy robes and scream until one goes deaf”), an extinct underwater dinosaur, giant whales and squids, et cetera. On page thirty three, James swims into a underwater cave and sees signs of an epic Viking battle. He finds a Viking boat. “The contents of the boat were evermore impressive. In the center of the boat was a throne. A throne with two spires and a raised headrest that shined in the beam of my torch. I carefully swam closer to the Viking throne to examine the shiny object. It was a green stone inlaid into the throne itself. The color was vibrant in the light, and the inside of the stone seemed to swirl as if the stone contained magical properties.” Okay, you had a thirty three page taste of JB's novel, now go out and buy your own copy.
The writings of JB Michaels (see my review of 12/09/2017 for his novel The Elixir) reminds me of another excellent YA author, Rick Riordan (see my review of 2/10/2013 for his novel The Lightning Thief). They both have a young protagonist in a series of novels. JB has Bud Hutchins and Rick has Percy Jackson. Now, would I like to see more of JB doing adult novels? Yes, the problems that I found in The Viking Throne are very fixable. They might not even be a problem for another reviewer. But I sensed the YA genre trying its best to squeeze into JB’s Viking novel. I highly recommend this rousing first novel of a new series.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
Comment: Are there authors who have written in more than one genre? Yes indeed! Quite a few actually:
J.K. Rowling, the children’s and Harry Potter legend also released her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy in 2012 to mixed reviews.
Stephen King writes in many genres, for example: horror novels (It and Carrie), mysteries, (The Colorado Kid) and gothic fantasies (The Green Mile).
Neil Gaiman writes in many genres including poetry. Examples of his novels are children's (Chu’s Day), poetry (Blueberry Girl), and adult (The Ocean at the End of the Lane). And I almost forgot sci/fi (InterWorld).
The list also includes noted writers; such as, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, and Anne Rice.
Friday, November 9, 2018
STAR RIDERS
The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:
Can any novel or film be busier than Rick A. Allen’s first novel? I doubt it. Okay, Star Wars books and films are busy, but they come up for some air now and then. In Allen’s novel, every page is loaded with action...sometimes a little corny but always moving forward. It’s a space opera’s space opera. It includes action on six of the eleven planets of The Nodal Community. What’s that? It’s a union of planets light years apart that try to help each other by sharing the latest technology. By the way, Earth is part of the Nodal Community but doesn’t know it yet. If you liked all the unusual aliens that roamed around in Star Wars movies, you will love the warped vision of aliens in Allen’s novel. In Star Wars we meet Pau’ans, Clawdites, Tusken Raiders, and the Gamorreans to name a few (look them up, they’ve all been in the Star Wars films). And my personal favorite (Jabba the Hutt’s pet) is the Kowakian monkey-lizard. This being said, the author did an amazing job keeping the main characters down to about six humans and four aliens. Even with all the characters involved, I had no problem remembering who was who.
In Star Riders, the reader meets in order of appearance: a Shren, a very tall alien with long white hair covering his body; the Emdannen species, short Meerkat-like looking aliens who “make their homes in the ground and build downward not upwards”; the Throngans, “They’re black-furred, they run on four legs, walk on two, and have a pair of short arms between the legs.” Haha, I mentioned that the author has a warped mind! And lastly, we have a Pallun, a very large bison-like alien with huge lips and one nostril. You are probably asking yourself...how do aliens from all those planets communicate? They have tharsh plants! If you are having a mixed alien meeting...then make sure there are tharsh plants in the room. The tharsh plant enables everyone to understand each other. Good stuff. The little co-hero, Moovik (a emdannen), reminded me of Rocket, the raccoon-like bounty hunter in the 2014 and 2017 Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
The novel was not without its flaws. Besides some corny lines, the prose was kinda fledging (normal for a first-time author) and the story, while very busy, was too easy to predict. The novel missed an opportunity to garner an attention-grabbing effect because things happened too fast. The author needs to calm down...slow the pace. The story is about one man’s attempt to find his brother, who is presumed dead during a multi-planet civil war over technology. However, let’s talk about the Star Rider, itself. What is the Star Rider? It’s the real star of the novel. It’s a strange purple and yellow ship that lays black disks in a chain around suns. It somehow gets energy from those spots (no one knows for sure because we never meet the aliens piloting the ship). Nothing seems to hurt the ships (there are at least two), nor can you make it change its routine. It’s like the ships are building a galactic highway to connect the eleven planets of the Nodal Community. I’m sure we will find out in the ensuing novels. Good first novel...just curb your enthusiasm (sound familiar?)
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
Comment: Barnes & Noble asks, “What makes a science fiction story a space opera? Well, it needs to take place in space obviously, though not necessarily all of the time. Hanging out solely in an arcology on a climate-blasted Earth, or even in a domed city on Mars, doesn’t cut it. Actually, the more space the better; though there are certainly exceptions, a good space opera should span a galaxy or two, or at least a solar system. And an opera has to be grand and dramatic-battling empires, invading aliens, mysterious ancient technology, and grand, sweeping story arcs.” I agree with one exception: if any part of the story is spent on Earth, it’s no longer a space opera. It’s okay to mention Earth...just don’t spend any of time there.
I’ve been reviewing quite a few sci/fi novels lately. So, you already know my favorites, but one that I’ve never brought up is John Scalzi’s 2005 novel, Old Man’s War (see my review of 11/21/2010), which spawned five other related novels. A B&N editorial review says, “When John Perry turns 75, he does two things: he visits his wife’s grave and he joins the Colonial Defense Force. The CDF’s enlistment contract is incredibly tempting. When a person reaches retirement age, all they have to do is give up all their worldly possessions and promise never to return to Earth. In return, elderly recruits get to take advantage of the Colonial Union’s secretive therapy, which somehow reverses aging. In essence, the soldier’s exchange a few years of military service for a new life on one of the Union’s many colony planets. Without the faintest clue of what he’s really getting himself into, Perry realizes quickly that he has just signed up for ‘an all-expenses-paid tour of hell.’ With a brand new, tank-grown, super-modified body--green skin, cat’s eyes, built-in-cranial computers, etc.-- Perry and his ultra-human cohorts travel from planet to planet leaving dead aliens in their wake.”
John Scalzi won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel with Redshirts (see my review of 02/03/2016).
Can any novel or film be busier than Rick A. Allen’s first novel? I doubt it. Okay, Star Wars books and films are busy, but they come up for some air now and then. In Allen’s novel, every page is loaded with action...sometimes a little corny but always moving forward. It’s a space opera’s space opera. It includes action on six of the eleven planets of The Nodal Community. What’s that? It’s a union of planets light years apart that try to help each other by sharing the latest technology. By the way, Earth is part of the Nodal Community but doesn’t know it yet. If you liked all the unusual aliens that roamed around in Star Wars movies, you will love the warped vision of aliens in Allen’s novel. In Star Wars we meet Pau’ans, Clawdites, Tusken Raiders, and the Gamorreans to name a few (look them up, they’ve all been in the Star Wars films). And my personal favorite (Jabba the Hutt’s pet) is the Kowakian monkey-lizard. This being said, the author did an amazing job keeping the main characters down to about six humans and four aliens. Even with all the characters involved, I had no problem remembering who was who.
In Star Riders, the reader meets in order of appearance: a Shren, a very tall alien with long white hair covering his body; the Emdannen species, short Meerkat-like looking aliens who “make their homes in the ground and build downward not upwards”; the Throngans, “They’re black-furred, they run on four legs, walk on two, and have a pair of short arms between the legs.” Haha, I mentioned that the author has a warped mind! And lastly, we have a Pallun, a very large bison-like alien with huge lips and one nostril. You are probably asking yourself...how do aliens from all those planets communicate? They have tharsh plants! If you are having a mixed alien meeting...then make sure there are tharsh plants in the room. The tharsh plant enables everyone to understand each other. Good stuff. The little co-hero, Moovik (a emdannen), reminded me of Rocket, the raccoon-like bounty hunter in the 2014 and 2017 Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
The novel was not without its flaws. Besides some corny lines, the prose was kinda fledging (normal for a first-time author) and the story, while very busy, was too easy to predict. The novel missed an opportunity to garner an attention-grabbing effect because things happened too fast. The author needs to calm down...slow the pace. The story is about one man’s attempt to find his brother, who is presumed dead during a multi-planet civil war over technology. However, let’s talk about the Star Rider, itself. What is the Star Rider? It’s the real star of the novel. It’s a strange purple and yellow ship that lays black disks in a chain around suns. It somehow gets energy from those spots (no one knows for sure because we never meet the aliens piloting the ship). Nothing seems to hurt the ships (there are at least two), nor can you make it change its routine. It’s like the ships are building a galactic highway to connect the eleven planets of the Nodal Community. I’m sure we will find out in the ensuing novels. Good first novel...just curb your enthusiasm (sound familiar?)
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
Comment: Barnes & Noble asks, “What makes a science fiction story a space opera? Well, it needs to take place in space obviously, though not necessarily all of the time. Hanging out solely in an arcology on a climate-blasted Earth, or even in a domed city on Mars, doesn’t cut it. Actually, the more space the better; though there are certainly exceptions, a good space opera should span a galaxy or two, or at least a solar system. And an opera has to be grand and dramatic-battling empires, invading aliens, mysterious ancient technology, and grand, sweeping story arcs.” I agree with one exception: if any part of the story is spent on Earth, it’s no longer a space opera. It’s okay to mention Earth...just don’t spend any of time there.
I’ve been reviewing quite a few sci/fi novels lately. So, you already know my favorites, but one that I’ve never brought up is John Scalzi’s 2005 novel, Old Man’s War (see my review of 11/21/2010), which spawned five other related novels. A B&N editorial review says, “When John Perry turns 75, he does two things: he visits his wife’s grave and he joins the Colonial Defense Force. The CDF’s enlistment contract is incredibly tempting. When a person reaches retirement age, all they have to do is give up all their worldly possessions and promise never to return to Earth. In return, elderly recruits get to take advantage of the Colonial Union’s secretive therapy, which somehow reverses aging. In essence, the soldier’s exchange a few years of military service for a new life on one of the Union’s many colony planets. Without the faintest clue of what he’s really getting himself into, Perry realizes quickly that he has just signed up for ‘an all-expenses-paid tour of hell.’ With a brand new, tank-grown, super-modified body--green skin, cat’s eyes, built-in-cranial computers, etc.-- Perry and his ultra-human cohorts travel from planet to planet leaving dead aliens in their wake.”
John Scalzi won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel with Redshirts (see my review of 02/03/2016).
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
LIGHTS on the SEA
The author sent me a copy of his novel to read and review:
Wow, what an opening! A raging thunderstorm in the fictitious town of San Remo de Mar on the island of Brent knocks Harold and Mary Rose Grapes’ house off a hundred foot cliff into the ocean.Yes, that’s right. It slides all the way down into the ocean and sails off. Why didn’t the house sink? Because the house took some of the landscape with it and that was mostly porous volcanic rock, which floats. Sometimes I wonder how some authors come up with these ideas. Anyway, most of house took on substantial damage...but it floated on. The irony of the situation was that the house was scheduled to be knocked down the very next day. Why? Because over the last thirty-five years, the house was inching closer and closer to the cliff’s edge and was a threat to the beach below. As we follow the Grapes on their voyage, we find that they lost their only son, Dylan, in a similar storm thirty-five years ago.
Harold and Dylan (eight years old) were building a ship at an old shipyard with freebie wood when the storm struck. The row boat they were using to get home capsized. “It took Harold mere seconds to resurface. Coughing up salt water, he tried to shout, frantically looking all around, but all he could see was blackness. He managed to grab a piece of lumber that had fallen out of the boat, but he didn’t see any sign of the boat itself. Or of his son." Harold was rescued by a fishing boat...they never found Dylan’s body. Mary Rose never forgave her husband, Harold. Harold never forgave himself. Not for nothing, didn’t the couple ever hear the term, out of sight, out of mind? I know that sounds callous, but it becomes a vital point when the Grapes meet an inuit family later in the story. Anyway the boat they were building (which was going to be their home) was taken apart to build the house on the cliff.
So as the storm hit their house thirty-five years later, the Grapes had some bad memories, “If anyone in San Remo unable to sleep because of the storm had looked out their window toward the cliff, they would have seen something truly unbelievable. A three-story house tilted at a thirty-five degree angle toward the sea, suspended as if by magic. The yellow house, along with a section of garden attached to the foundation, began to free-fall toward the white-capped sea. The impact was brutal.” As the Grapes tried to fix all the holes in their floating house, The prime question asked between them was, “are we sinking?” and the answer was always, “I think so.” Many problems occur during their housewrecked odyssey, but I will not say anymore...buy your own copy to find out what transpires. The author, Miquel Reina, already an established filmmaker and graphic artist, did a credible job on his first crack at a novel. His character development was first class, as was his ability to elicit empathy for his characters.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
Comment: I’ve done a few shipwreck reviews before, but this is my first housewreck (don’t bother looking that up, there is no such word) review. I do have two shipwreck reviews in my blog archive. The first one is Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe (I’ll bet you didn’t know that novel was written 299 years ago!) and the second one was Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, Life of Pi. The Robinson Crusoe review can be seen on my 1/1/2016 blog and the Life of Pi review can be seen on my 3/18/2013 blog.
Pi Patel survives 227 days stranded on a small boat with a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker, while Robinson Crusoe survived two shipwrecks before ultimately spending 28 years as a castaway on a tropical island.
Wow, what an opening! A raging thunderstorm in the fictitious town of San Remo de Mar on the island of Brent knocks Harold and Mary Rose Grapes’ house off a hundred foot cliff into the ocean.Yes, that’s right. It slides all the way down into the ocean and sails off. Why didn’t the house sink? Because the house took some of the landscape with it and that was mostly porous volcanic rock, which floats. Sometimes I wonder how some authors come up with these ideas. Anyway, most of house took on substantial damage...but it floated on. The irony of the situation was that the house was scheduled to be knocked down the very next day. Why? Because over the last thirty-five years, the house was inching closer and closer to the cliff’s edge and was a threat to the beach below. As we follow the Grapes on their voyage, we find that they lost their only son, Dylan, in a similar storm thirty-five years ago.
Harold and Dylan (eight years old) were building a ship at an old shipyard with freebie wood when the storm struck. The row boat they were using to get home capsized. “It took Harold mere seconds to resurface. Coughing up salt water, he tried to shout, frantically looking all around, but all he could see was blackness. He managed to grab a piece of lumber that had fallen out of the boat, but he didn’t see any sign of the boat itself. Or of his son." Harold was rescued by a fishing boat...they never found Dylan’s body. Mary Rose never forgave her husband, Harold. Harold never forgave himself. Not for nothing, didn’t the couple ever hear the term, out of sight, out of mind? I know that sounds callous, but it becomes a vital point when the Grapes meet an inuit family later in the story. Anyway the boat they were building (which was going to be their home) was taken apart to build the house on the cliff.
So as the storm hit their house thirty-five years later, the Grapes had some bad memories, “If anyone in San Remo unable to sleep because of the storm had looked out their window toward the cliff, they would have seen something truly unbelievable. A three-story house tilted at a thirty-five degree angle toward the sea, suspended as if by magic. The yellow house, along with a section of garden attached to the foundation, began to free-fall toward the white-capped sea. The impact was brutal.” As the Grapes tried to fix all the holes in their floating house, The prime question asked between them was, “are we sinking?” and the answer was always, “I think so.” Many problems occur during their housewrecked odyssey, but I will not say anymore...buy your own copy to find out what transpires. The author, Miquel Reina, already an established filmmaker and graphic artist, did a credible job on his first crack at a novel. His character development was first class, as was his ability to elicit empathy for his characters.
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars
Comment: I’ve done a few shipwreck reviews before, but this is my first housewreck (don’t bother looking that up, there is no such word) review. I do have two shipwreck reviews in my blog archive. The first one is Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe (I’ll bet you didn’t know that novel was written 299 years ago!) and the second one was Yann Martel’s 2001 novel, Life of Pi. The Robinson Crusoe review can be seen on my 1/1/2016 blog and the Life of Pi review can be seen on my 3/18/2013 blog.
Pi Patel survives 227 days stranded on a small boat with a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker, while Robinson Crusoe survived two shipwrecks before ultimately spending 28 years as a castaway on a tropical island.
ZOMBIE SCARE
Halloween short provided by Pat Koelmel, Rick’s Reviews guest contributor:
💀 ZOMBIE SCARE 👻
💀 ZOMBIE SCARE 👻
Flashlight in hand, Harley lay underneath his bed reading.
The story terrified him.
Yet he couldn't stop turning the pages.
“HARLEY!” screamed his mother as she entered his room. “Are you under the bed reading those horror stories about zombies again?”
Harley jumped at the sound of her voice, hitting his head on the bed frame. “Ouch, you scared me,” whined Harley.
“It’s no wonder,” said his mother. “Anybody would have the jitters reading about zombies getting their brains shot out.”
Harley crawled out from under the bed. “Are they true … the stories?”
“Of course not,” she said.
Just then a gust of wind whipped through a tree outside Harley’s bedroom window. The branches scratched at the window pane.
It sent a shiver down Harley’s spine. He asked again, “Ma, are the stories true?”
His mother sighed. Then she took a long, hard look at her son. “I guess you’re old enough to know the truth.” She nodded yes.
Harley’s stomach lurched.
“Now you understand the dangers that face us,” said his mother. “Why Dad and I have never let you go outside. We had to protect you until you were ready.”
“Ready for what?” croaked Harley.
She gazed outside into the darkness. “Survive out there on your own.”
Harley gasped. A cold sweat covered his lanky body. Then he trembled with both fear and anticipation.
Suddenly, he felt a hunger like never before.
His mother grinned. "It's time boy. Time you caught your own dinner."
His mother grinned. "It's time boy. Time you caught your own dinner."
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
TILT
The author sent me an autographed copy of his novel to read and review:
Is it too difficult to get one of the five major publishers to publish your novel? From what I’m reading...it is very tough. So thank God for the Indies, because I just read one of the best original sci/fi novels that I’ve scrutinized in a long time. How can an author get the reader to root for the citizens of Tilt (the planet's name) and it’s attackers (the Swarm coming from light years away) at the same time! Well, first time author Todd Simpson did it...at least for me. This scenario reminded me of the 1961 Twilight Zone episode named The Invaders, starring Agnes Moorehead, who hardly said a word during the entire show. It’s the classic catch-22 paradoxical situation: Do I side with the attackers or the citizens of planet Tilt? The citizens believe their planet is only 590 years old because that’s all they remember. The attackers, called The Swarm, said they were on Tilt 750 years ago. Who does the planet belong to? Are they telling each other the truth?
Why do the citizens of Tilt believe either a spark or a God (the Creationist) or a Reboot (the Continuist) started their planet? These two theories caused a lot of angst on Tilt. And what about the Central computer that controls life on Tilt? Where did that come from? Is it like Arthur C. Clarke’s computer, Hal, who controlled the spaceship, Discovery One, in 2001 A Space Odyssey? The Swarm turn out to be humans, just like the ones being grown by the Citizens of Tilt. Where did the citizens get human DNA? And what’s goo, the only food the citizens serve the human clones? And how and why do the citizens recycle some of the home grown humans? These are only a few of the question you will ask yourself as you read this brilliant novel. One of the few mistakes the author made was not having enough (just a few near the end of the novel) cliffhanger chapter endings. With all that goes on in this novel, it should have been a paramount goal. The other minor dislike for me was the somewhat annoying tech talk between tri-protagonists Ayaka, Millicent, and Brexton near the end of the novel (if you are rooting for the home team).
I personally had a soft spot in my heart for four of the cloned humans on Tilt...Blob, Grace, JoJo, and Blubber. There are many characters, but the reader doesn’t get confused as to who is who. You would think there should be a roster of characters in the front of book, but no...it wasn’t needed. I don’t want to tell you too much about this novel because I want you to go out and buy your own copy. I’ll leave you with these facts. The Swarm (a group of spaceships) were spotted many years ago and were heading directly for Tilt. The citizens of Tilt and the Central computer didn’t know if they were friendly or hostile. After many years, the Swarm is finally close enough to contact the citizens of Tilt. “A virtual screen popped up in front of Ayaka...the screen flickered slightly as the signal was locked on.” As you can imagine the citizens were shocked…"How was it possible that entities (Stems) that we had grown in our labs were broadcasting from a ship more than one light year distant?" A Stem is what the citizens called the DNA cloned humans on Tilt and the people on the spaceship looked exactly the same as Tilt’s Stems (were they?) “They were so similar that the odds of them coming from anywhere else were almost zero.”
The Swarm's opening salutation to Tilt was on video: “System FJ-426. Greetings. A Stem covered with strange cloths was looking directly at us and speaking - in English! We’ve been traveling a long time, and a long distance, towards you. We hope that we find you well, and that your experience on FJ - 426 is a pleasant one. It’s been many years since our last contact, and we are eager to catch up on new developments. With your permission, we’ll refine our trajectory to directly intersect with you, whereupon we can discuss topics of mutual interest. Please signal your consent. My regards. Remma Jain, Captain. Signing off.” Tilt’s Ayaka, Millicent, and the Central computer are stunned. “But...this is impossible,” Millicent said “We’ve only been growing Stems in the lab for a few hundred years (Tilt’s lab personnel believe Stems lack intelligence and speed). To my knowledge, we’ve never sent a Stem into space, let alone a Swarm.” Okay you got a review of the first 45 pages of this near brainiac sci/fi novel...I highly recommended.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: I have so many favorite sci/fi novels that it would impossible to rank them in any order of fondness, but here are three:
Larry Niven’s 1970 novel, Ringworld, winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards. The novel spawned eight other related novels. A expedition of some very strange characters are sent to investigate the gigantic artificial ring that is a million miles wide.
Arthur C. Clarke’s 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards. A group of explorers are sent to study a thirty four mile long and twelve mile diameter cylindrical starship that entered the Solar System. Three other related novels were generated from the original Rama.
Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel, Cat’s Cradle. The children of one of the developers of the atomic bomb, the late Felix Hoenikker, possess their father’s invention of Ice - Nine, which freezes water on contact. And you can guess what happens to the world’s oceans. Ouch!
Is it too difficult to get one of the five major publishers to publish your novel? From what I’m reading...it is very tough. So thank God for the Indies, because I just read one of the best original sci/fi novels that I’ve scrutinized in a long time. How can an author get the reader to root for the citizens of Tilt (the planet's name) and it’s attackers (the Swarm coming from light years away) at the same time! Well, first time author Todd Simpson did it...at least for me. This scenario reminded me of the 1961 Twilight Zone episode named The Invaders, starring Agnes Moorehead, who hardly said a word during the entire show. It’s the classic catch-22 paradoxical situation: Do I side with the attackers or the citizens of planet Tilt? The citizens believe their planet is only 590 years old because that’s all they remember. The attackers, called The Swarm, said they were on Tilt 750 years ago. Who does the planet belong to? Are they telling each other the truth?
Why do the citizens of Tilt believe either a spark or a God (the Creationist) or a Reboot (the Continuist) started their planet? These two theories caused a lot of angst on Tilt. And what about the Central computer that controls life on Tilt? Where did that come from? Is it like Arthur C. Clarke’s computer, Hal, who controlled the spaceship, Discovery One, in 2001 A Space Odyssey? The Swarm turn out to be humans, just like the ones being grown by the Citizens of Tilt. Where did the citizens get human DNA? And what’s goo, the only food the citizens serve the human clones? And how and why do the citizens recycle some of the home grown humans? These are only a few of the question you will ask yourself as you read this brilliant novel. One of the few mistakes the author made was not having enough (just a few near the end of the novel) cliffhanger chapter endings. With all that goes on in this novel, it should have been a paramount goal. The other minor dislike for me was the somewhat annoying tech talk between tri-protagonists Ayaka, Millicent, and Brexton near the end of the novel (if you are rooting for the home team).
I personally had a soft spot in my heart for four of the cloned humans on Tilt...Blob, Grace, JoJo, and Blubber. There are many characters, but the reader doesn’t get confused as to who is who. You would think there should be a roster of characters in the front of book, but no...it wasn’t needed. I don’t want to tell you too much about this novel because I want you to go out and buy your own copy. I’ll leave you with these facts. The Swarm (a group of spaceships) were spotted many years ago and were heading directly for Tilt. The citizens of Tilt and the Central computer didn’t know if they were friendly or hostile. After many years, the Swarm is finally close enough to contact the citizens of Tilt. “A virtual screen popped up in front of Ayaka...the screen flickered slightly as the signal was locked on.” As you can imagine the citizens were shocked…"How was it possible that entities (Stems) that we had grown in our labs were broadcasting from a ship more than one light year distant?" A Stem is what the citizens called the DNA cloned humans on Tilt and the people on the spaceship looked exactly the same as Tilt’s Stems (were they?) “They were so similar that the odds of them coming from anywhere else were almost zero.”
The Swarm's opening salutation to Tilt was on video: “System FJ-426. Greetings. A Stem covered with strange cloths was looking directly at us and speaking - in English! We’ve been traveling a long time, and a long distance, towards you. We hope that we find you well, and that your experience on FJ - 426 is a pleasant one. It’s been many years since our last contact, and we are eager to catch up on new developments. With your permission, we’ll refine our trajectory to directly intersect with you, whereupon we can discuss topics of mutual interest. Please signal your consent. My regards. Remma Jain, Captain. Signing off.” Tilt’s Ayaka, Millicent, and the Central computer are stunned. “But...this is impossible,” Millicent said “We’ve only been growing Stems in the lab for a few hundred years (Tilt’s lab personnel believe Stems lack intelligence and speed). To my knowledge, we’ve never sent a Stem into space, let alone a Swarm.” Okay you got a review of the first 45 pages of this near brainiac sci/fi novel...I highly recommended.
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: I have so many favorite sci/fi novels that it would impossible to rank them in any order of fondness, but here are three:
Larry Niven’s 1970 novel, Ringworld, winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards. The novel spawned eight other related novels. A expedition of some very strange characters are sent to investigate the gigantic artificial ring that is a million miles wide.
Arthur C. Clarke’s 1973 novel, Rendezvous with Rama, winner of the Hugo and Nebula awards. A group of explorers are sent to study a thirty four mile long and twelve mile diameter cylindrical starship that entered the Solar System. Three other related novels were generated from the original Rama.
Kurt Vonnegut’s 1963 novel, Cat’s Cradle. The children of one of the developers of the atomic bomb, the late Felix Hoenikker, possess their father’s invention of Ice - Nine, which freezes water on contact. And you can guess what happens to the world’s oceans. Ouch!
Wednesday, October 10, 2018
HOWARDS END
I did enjoy E. M. Forster’s 1910 classic novel, but it was kind of a sleepyhead read. It’s written in a way that makes the reader reread a lot of paragraphs...and sometimes this literary critic still didn’t get the crux of what the author was saying. This has nothing to do with the author’s known love of symbolism, per se. Although I never did find out what the "wych elm tree" with pigs teeth stuck in the trunk (at the Howards End estate) was meant to represent. “Do you think that the tree really did cure toothache, if one believed in it?” “Of course It did. It would cure anything...once.” While Forster used less descriptive writing than most authors of his era, his prose was impeccable, although I would have preferred less circling of the wagons and more of let’s get to the point style of writing. Forster was known to like writing about social class differences and hypocrisy (posturing and deceit) especially from the rich man towards the poor man, and his humanist attitude is full-blown in Howards End. Every so often, the author tried his hand at the English dry sense of humour, but unfortunately it came off as deadpan. I am aware that I’m playing a cat and mouse game (love that idiom) with a big time writer, who also published two other bestsellers: A Room with a View in 1908 and A Passage to India in 1924, besides Howards End (all three were adapted into films). My friendly taunting aside, I liked this novel that Wikipedia said compared thoughtless plutocrats (the Wilcoxes), bohemian intellectuals (the Schlegels) and the struggling middle - class aspirants (the Basts).
The novel is set in the turn of the century England when automobiles and horse and buggies still shared the muddy road. The focal point of the novel wasn’t about who owned the Howards End estate (for me anyway), but how three different classes of people interacted. By the way, I don’t use an apostrophe between the d and s in Howards End because the author didn’t use it in his novel. Anyway, the wealthy family is represented by Henry and Ruth Wilcox and their children: Charles, Paul, and Evie. Business is pure capitalism to Mr. Wilcox...It’s a variation of “it’s my way or the highway.” They have several places to live, but Mrs. Wilcox prefers her inherited property, Howards End. Next, meet the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, and their younger brother Tibby. They are sometimes advised by Aunt Julie Munt. You never find out what happened to their parents, or how they get 500 to 600 pounds each per year. They live in an apartment they call “Wickham Place” in London and enjoy the operas and artsy things of London (they belong to the famous Bloomsbury Group). They meet the downtrodden Leonard Bast, who is trying to get to the middle class from the repressed class, at (of all places) the opera. Leonard is trying to bone up on the musical and literary world in order to move his station in life up one notch. Leonard has his umbrella taken by Helen Schlegel in error at the opera’s end and follows the sisters home to retrieve it. The Schlegels take a liking to Leonard, but he is too overwhelmed and self-conscious to stay for tea. Are you excited yet?
The Wilcoxes and the Schlegels met while touring Germany (the Schlegels father was German, but was naturalized in England). While in Germany, Helen falls in love with Paul, but the brief encounter falls apart when Helen visits Howards End later in the year. We will meet Leonard’s mistress (not married yet), Jacky, later in the novel. I only bring her up, because on page 48, the reader gets his first look at Forster’s descriptive writing. “A woman, of whom it is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was awesome. She seemed all strings and bellpulls - ribbons, chains, bead necklaces that clinked and caught - and a boa of azure feathers hung round her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double row of pearls, but her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again be detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was flowery, resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we sowed with mustard and cress in our childhood, and which germinated here yes and there no. She wore it on the back of her head. As for her hair, or rather hairs, they are too complicated to describe, but one system went down the back, lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for a lighter destiny rippled around her forehead. The face - the face does not signify. It was the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth were not so numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly not so white.” Okay, so he is a descriptive writer after all (haha).
The story is too complicated to tell you any more. It is boring at times and full of surprises at other times. If you are working on building up your knowledge of early 1900s English novelists...then this is the kind of book you want to read. I highly recommend this novel, but have your sleeping cap nearby (haha).
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: Besides the three novels I mentioned that were adapted into film, there are four other E. M. Forster works converted to film: a 1945 short film, A Diary for Timothy; 1987’s Maurice; 1991’s Where Angels Fear to Tread; and 1998’s Plug.
As I said in the above text, E. M. Forster was known for surprises and symbolism in all of his novels. One major question is always: “Howards End, the place, is clearly of value for other reasons than its material actuality. It stands for something. How would you describe what it stands for?” Unfortunately, I thought about that throughout the novel and couldn’t come up with an answer (same as the wych elm tree).
Nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 16 different years has to be an exercise in futility. E. M. Forster died on 6/7/1970 at the age of 91 in Coventry, England.
The novel is set in the turn of the century England when automobiles and horse and buggies still shared the muddy road. The focal point of the novel wasn’t about who owned the Howards End estate (for me anyway), but how three different classes of people interacted. By the way, I don’t use an apostrophe between the d and s in Howards End because the author didn’t use it in his novel. Anyway, the wealthy family is represented by Henry and Ruth Wilcox and their children: Charles, Paul, and Evie. Business is pure capitalism to Mr. Wilcox...It’s a variation of “it’s my way or the highway.” They have several places to live, but Mrs. Wilcox prefers her inherited property, Howards End. Next, meet the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, and their younger brother Tibby. They are sometimes advised by Aunt Julie Munt. You never find out what happened to their parents, or how they get 500 to 600 pounds each per year. They live in an apartment they call “Wickham Place” in London and enjoy the operas and artsy things of London (they belong to the famous Bloomsbury Group). They meet the downtrodden Leonard Bast, who is trying to get to the middle class from the repressed class, at (of all places) the opera. Leonard is trying to bone up on the musical and literary world in order to move his station in life up one notch. Leonard has his umbrella taken by Helen Schlegel in error at the opera’s end and follows the sisters home to retrieve it. The Schlegels take a liking to Leonard, but he is too overwhelmed and self-conscious to stay for tea. Are you excited yet?
The Wilcoxes and the Schlegels met while touring Germany (the Schlegels father was German, but was naturalized in England). While in Germany, Helen falls in love with Paul, but the brief encounter falls apart when Helen visits Howards End later in the year. We will meet Leonard’s mistress (not married yet), Jacky, later in the novel. I only bring her up, because on page 48, the reader gets his first look at Forster’s descriptive writing. “A woman, of whom it is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was awesome. She seemed all strings and bellpulls - ribbons, chains, bead necklaces that clinked and caught - and a boa of azure feathers hung round her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double row of pearls, but her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again be detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was flowery, resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we sowed with mustard and cress in our childhood, and which germinated here yes and there no. She wore it on the back of her head. As for her hair, or rather hairs, they are too complicated to describe, but one system went down the back, lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for a lighter destiny rippled around her forehead. The face - the face does not signify. It was the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth were not so numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly not so white.” Okay, so he is a descriptive writer after all (haha).
The story is too complicated to tell you any more. It is boring at times and full of surprises at other times. If you are working on building up your knowledge of early 1900s English novelists...then this is the kind of book you want to read. I highly recommend this novel, but have your sleeping cap nearby (haha).
RATING: 5 out of 5 stars
Comment: Besides the three novels I mentioned that were adapted into film, there are four other E. M. Forster works converted to film: a 1945 short film, A Diary for Timothy; 1987’s Maurice; 1991’s Where Angels Fear to Tread; and 1998’s Plug.
As I said in the above text, E. M. Forster was known for surprises and symbolism in all of his novels. One major question is always: “Howards End, the place, is clearly of value for other reasons than its material actuality. It stands for something. How would you describe what it stands for?” Unfortunately, I thought about that throughout the novel and couldn’t come up with an answer (same as the wych elm tree).
Nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 16 different years has to be an exercise in futility. E. M. Forster died on 6/7/1970 at the age of 91 in Coventry, England.
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