Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: science fiction

  • Book: Bones of Empire

    William C. Dietz is one of my second-tier authors, i.e. he’s not in my top five, but I’ll pretty regularly pick up one of his books.

    In Bones of Empire he continues the story previously told in At Empire’s Edge, and I actually found this book more engaging than the other. We get some politics, a very little bit of military, and a great deal of police work. The story moves along nicely. Dietz still engages in the use of incomplete sentences. All the time. It annoys me, but that’s a stylistic detail, and personal taste. I would think such incomplete sentences used as spice would be good. Used too frequently they distract me.

    I rate this book 4 out of 5.

     

  • NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

    I was amazed at how many I have read and how few I wouldn’t agree should be in the top 100. The list is here.

  • Book Note: Citadel

    I’ve enjoyed previous books by John Ringo, especially the Prince Roger series, so when I saw this book at my local public library I grabbed it and read. Of course, I was jumping into the middle of a series, which is generally a bad idea, but that happens to me quite often.

    The book starts slowly. In fact, I was beginning to wonder whether Ringo had abandoned action entirely. In the end, however, perseverance paid off, and things got more interesting. Not that the character building isn’t interesting. I’m just not used to having so much of it at the start. You will continue to see the early characters as the story develops.

    This is some good space opera with a “Terra über alles” feel to it. Though earth is the underdog in the story to all appearances, there is a clear human superiority going on as human ingenuity surprises the aliens. I rather enjoy that sort of story for a change, and Ringo does action rather well.

    I rate this 4 stars.

  • Fantasy in Death – and Reality

    I recently read J. D. Robb’s Fantasy in Death and enjoyed the advanced technology.  I told my wife when we had both read it that I felt that some of the technology described was at least possible and might well happen sooner than later.

    Well, it’s not nearly that type of capability–we’re still a long way from that, but we’re moving down the path.  Today in my gizmag e-mail I got an article on the Third Space FPS gaming vest that lets you feel the gaming action.

    Time marches on … sometimes faster than we want it to.

     

  • Book: In the Stormy Red Sky

    David Drake has, as expected, written another enjoyable far future action story with lots of military detail featuring Lt. Daniel Leary and Officer Adele Mundy along with a cast of varying characters.

    As this book begins, Daniel is promoted to Captain and sent on what should be a fairly simple mission as a sort of shakedown cruise. But things are not as they appear, which is quite usual, and Daniel is not willing to leave them as they are, and thus begins an adventure. There’s an annoying Senator, who nonetheless ends up being quite helpful. Adele and Tovera get more personality development in this one as well.

    Daniel’s scope is much greater as a Captain with a cruiser as his command, but as you might expect, this just means the enemies are bigger and nastier. He still must deal with situations that are proportionally as much greater as his resources have increased.

    Many series deteriorate over time. I think David Drake has nicely avoided the problem of escalation. This is another Daniel Leary story, not something even more ridiculously difficult than the last one. One can generally predict what Daniel will do, at least in outline, but that’s the nature of this sort of series. If he ceased to be Daniel Leary, what good would the series be?

    I continue to strongly recommend this entire series.

  • Review – Storm from the Shadows

    Storm from the Shadows is a sequel to The Shadow of Saganami, and as such advances the general history in the Honorverse only a little bit beyond the end of At All Costs.

    I had read some reviews that said that this book ended on a cliffhanger, but I had generally dismissed those. David Weber always leaves lots of interesting things to wonder about, which makes one wait eagerly for the next book. But I was wrong. This is, even compared to a normal Weber ending, a cliffhanger.

    Many times as I read a series I get less and less enchanted with the books as I go along. It seems that authors are so anxious to keep things exciting that later books often look like science fiction as it might have been written in their science fiction universe.

    In the David Weber’s case, and particularly in the Honorverse, while I think the situation has been escalating, it is not out of hand. I like the characterization, but even more importantly the development of cultures and backgrounds. If I were to have my choice in details, I probably would have had less conversations amongst the Manpower folks (or their even more secret higher-ups), but even that is well done provided one wants to really get involved in the universe as opposed to simply following a few characters for a story.

    This book remains five out of five starts for me. There were a couple of earlier books in the series that weren’t quite fives in my book, but they were still very good books, and there is no doubt that I will read every book in this series, some more than once.

    Storm from the Shadows follows Michelle Henke for the most part, and she is an interesting character herself. We do see some additional pieces of Aivars Terekhov, who is definitely a character worth watching, and Admiral Khumalo has a substantial role to play. We get passing glances at Abigail Hearns and several other interesting folks we have met in previous books.

    There is somewhat less fleet action and a bit more politics, but in my view, that balance can shift quite a bit through the series and I’ll still be happy. I disagree with reviewers I have read who don’t like the way Weber does politics. I do think he follows some improbable tracks, given his characters and background, but he doesn’t go out of the realm of possibility and do things that look ridiculous within the universe he has created.

    All in all, I think this is an exceptionally good continuation of an exceptionally good series.

  • Book: Odd Girl Out

    In this continuation of the Quadrail series, Timothy Zahn is in his normal fun and action form as he keeps Frank Compton and Bayta in a great deal of trouble. We learn new things about the ongoing war against the group-mind Modhri, and also about the Chahwyn who are Compton’s employers.

    Once one gets past the extreme difficulty of conceiving of the interstellar railroad, one can enjoy the background created by that odd system and just have fun with the stories and the characters. The background isn’t really all that deep, however. Largely this is action-adventure fun. I like to try to imagine ahead of time just how much twisted nastiness Zahn has planned for his characters. I never quite imagine it all.

    It’s either “nonetheless” or “because of this” that I really enjoy these books. Those who have read my fiction reviews will know by now that while I like deep, serious fiction under certain circumstances, I’m a bit of an escapist at heart, and if you keep me entertained, I’ll go ahead and enjoy any number of things that one might criticize otherwise.

    Zahn is a good provider for all of that.