Category: SF&F Book Reviews

Science fiction and Fantasy book reviews by a classic sf&f fan

Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg – A Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Review

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A while back TomD gave me an SF&F book recommendation. He said that Silverberg’s Majipoor series was a combination of science fiction and fantasy.  At the time I couldn’t think of anything I’d read that fell into that category.  Well, my brain is old so I’ll plead that because after thinking about it awhile I remembered that Zelazny’s Lord of Light had aspects that fit both mythology and science fiction.  So I sent away to Bezos’s megamonopoly and received the three volumes in the series.  And of course it was interesting to see that on the cover of the first book (Lord Valentine’s Castle) that Zelazny had provided a positive blurb.  He said it was a picaresque tale.  And as it turned out, he was exactly right.  I’ll cut to the chase with the verdict.  I liked the story.  Now you’ll get the ponderous literary review.

So how can it be both a fantasy and science fiction? The story takes place on a planet called Majipoor.  It was a world colonized by humans via space travel more than ten thousand years before the story unfolds.  So there’s the science fiction.  And the humans seemed to have also brought along a number of sentient species to live on Majipoor from other planets.  These various species and the humans interact as good neighbors, for the most part, in a civilization of twenty to thirty billion souls that comfortably fits on the giant world of Majipoor.  Now here comes the fantasy.  This world is ruled by four beings designated, the Coronal, the Pontifex, The Lady of the Isle of Sleep and the King of Dreams.  The first two of these individuals performed much as the Augustus and Caesar of the later Roman Empire did, being a senior and junior king appointed to rule a gigantic state.  But the second two, the Lady and the King intervened in Majipoor by sending dreams to the inhabitants.  It is this dream life that lends a fantasy element to the story.  And just to lend a fantasy aspect to the surroundings most of the technology is more or less of a pre-industrial vintage.  But there are exceptions.  Beasts of burden pull the carts and wagons of the inhabitants but the wagons are actually placed on anti-gravity modules.  So, whatever power provides anti-gravity doesn’t also produce forward locomotion.  Very odd.

So this is the background. The narrative follows a very engaging fellow named Valentine who ends up on a journey to discover his past and his destiny.  He meets many interesting and amusing characters and even learns an interesting skill, juggling.  It sounds odd and doesn’t seem to have anything to do with either science fiction or fantasy but it makes for an interesting and entertaining read.  And that is the definition of a picaresque story.

Silverberg has invested a substantial amount of effort building up the background and scenery of Majipoor. He has given us the canvas.  There are several other volumes in the series and I like it enough to continue on to the next volume.  But I want to clarify a couple of things.  This isn’t the Lord of the Rings.  There is no solemn morality play underlying Majipoor.  It is a sunny world where the good guy gets the girl and the crown and juggling and wine are their own reward.  Read it for the inventiveness and the story.  No profundity impinged on my reading but it was fun.  Recommended for folks who like their fiction fun.

Back to the Future (Make That Back to Heinlein’s Future History)

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Back in the nineteen-forties and –fifties Robert A Heinlein was writing his “Future History” stories about the time period that currently is the recent past. And on his very impressive chart somewhere between the beginning of space flight and the beginning of a theocratic dictatorship in the United States was a period around the nineteen sixties that he called the “Crazy Years.”  You get a flavor for what he meant in a story called “The Year of the Jackpot.”  In this story social mores were unravelling.  Women would spontaneously strip naked in public without knowing why they were doing it and transvestite men and women would challenge the authorities with prosecution for daring to notice that they were queer.  Whether Heinlein was truly prescient or whether he just detected the beginnings of the curve and extrapolated it to its outlandish extreme is unknown to me.  But obviously he was being cautious.  No kidding, the current events that greet each of us as we survey the contents of our daily purveyor of fake news is well beyond what would have passed for science fiction or parody a few decades ago.  States are suing the federal government to prevent it from ascertaining if a census form is being filled out by an illegal alien.  A “woman” who used to be a man is marrying “man” who used to be a woman and we are supposed to believe that somehow now a man will be giving birth to the child.  A porn actor is suing the President’s lawyer for defamation of character.  Does a porn actor even have a character that can be defamed?  We’ve been laughing at these insanities for decades but none of it has gone away or even slowed the march to the brink of insanity.  Heinlein’s theocratic dictatorship is looking less and less like a nightmare scenario and more and more like a really good idea.  I’m really starting to wonder how much worse Sharia Law would be than the current politically correct straight jacket we currently endure.  At least under it there are easily recognizable roles for the traditional individuals most of us remember as normal.

 

Heinlein later in his career wrote a sort of spy novel with a female replicant heroine called “Friday.” In that universe the United States and Canada had balkanized into a number of smaller states.  Some of the states mentioned are Brit-Can, Quebec, the Alaska Free State, the California Confederacy, the Republic of Texas, the Vegas Free State and the Chicago Imperium.  This later novel is significantly less optimistic than his earlier works.  I definitely don’t claim that Robert Heinlein was particularly more skilled as a prognosticator than any other seers around but I begin to see a rationale for separating from behavior that keeps trending not only farther and farther from normalcy but even begins closing in on suicidal.  I still hope that the path forward is the majority of Americans rejecting the progressivist nightmare that is currently unfolding and at the least restore the conditions needed to allow a functional society.  But I have to admit I’m starting to worry that the Alt-Right may not be just making up their apocalypse.  I better get my passport stamped for the Republic of Texas, or should that be the Vegas Free State?

23MAR2018 – OCF Update

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Well, I’m back in the saddle at work again and catching up here on the site.  I’m halfway through Robert Silverberg’s Lord Valentine’s Castle (hat tip to Tom) and should have the review soon.  And based on the story so far, I think I’ll read the other two books at some point.  I have some movie and tv reviews coming up very soon.  I’ve got over a thousand photos from the Southwest to edit and rate so I should have a few photo posts coming up soon.  The political situation is like some kind of crazy kaleidoscopic nightmare.  It sounds like Ray Bradbury’s formula for his stories, “The trip—exactly one-half exhilaration, exactly one-half terror.”  And now we know just how many women are willing to admit to having sex with Donald Trump.  I guess he was right about them letting him grab them.  But they do seem to have been paid for the experience.  Trump truly believes in capitalism.  Well at least he wasn’t attacking them like Slick Willie.  Either way things seem to be going well.  The Republicans are afraid of losing the House, blah, blah, blah.  Well they are pretty lame so anything is possible.  But they really should embrace populism and try to show some backbone.  It is the smart move.  I still have to read some of the political columns I missed but whether there is something important to share remains to be seen.  From my point of view Trump needs to clean the stables and drain the swamp.  Then he can move onto policy.  And he needs to punish the sanctuary cities and send the illegals home.  And finally, Justice Kennedy, go away, now!

The Promethean – A Science Fiction Book Review

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I previously read Owen Stanley’s novel “The Missionaries.”  That was a satire about primitive people running up against the insanity of United Nations social engineering.  Because I enjoyed his writing I figured I’d give “The Promethean” a whirl.  This book takes place in the same world as “The Missionaries” but since the subject involves humanoid robots and human-level artificial intelligence I’ve slightly stretched the definition by including it in science fiction.  But it also could be called a social satire or a social comedy.

The title is an echo of the full title of Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus.”  In our case Dr. Frankenstein is represented by Harry Hockenheimer, a depressed American billionaire approaching forty and feeling like a failure.  The mundane source of his vast wealth left him scientifically unfulfilled.  He desired to create a scientific marvel and what he decides on is a robot so advanced in mind and body that it can fool all even the most intelligent audience.

The story proceeds from his plan to secretly build his man in England to the adventures of his creation, Frank Meadows interacting with modern British society in its various facets, from a small town pub, to appearing on a day time reality television show, to a University faculty dinner, and finally to an invitation at 10 Downing Street.

Along the way we meet several interesting characters who represent various facets of society and various philosophical bents including the scourge of our age, the Social Justice Warriors.  But from my point of view, the most interesting character is a Scotsman academic, Dr. Habakkuk McWrath, Reader in Extreme Celtic Studies.  His pugnacious and colorful speech inspires Frank to assert his humanity even in the face of the Three Laws of Robotics.

And the book concludes at its absurd climax.  And what is the lesson of this social satire?  I really don’t know.  Perhaps it is just that humanity has reached a point where a rational appraisal of modern life can no longer find a reason to continue.  The absurdity of what we do and why we do it has finally reached a point where scrapping the whole enterprise and starting over is the best way forward.  But that is just my guess.  Let’s just say it is a tale questioning the definition of intelligent life.  It’s a moderate length story, about 170 pages and moves right along.  I liked it but I will caution that it is a mild tale and cannot be mistaken for an adventure story.  More of a droll cautionary tale of the world we now inhabit.

 

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A Murder of Manatees by Larry Correia – A Science Fiction Book Review

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As noted earlier, Larry Correia has published a second installment of his Tom Stranger stories (A Murder of Manatees: The Further Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent[Audiobook] By: Larry Correia, Adam Baldwin, Audible Studios Sold By: Audible).

I have to admit.  This is a guilty pleasure.  The stories, such as they are, border on the ridiculous.  The plot is just an excuse to allow Tom Stranger and his friends and enemies to interact in an adventure that resembles science fiction in the same way that the old 1960s Batman tv series resembles Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies.

But I don’t care.  It’s fun.  Correia fills his little two-hour audiobook with good natured jabs at himself, modern politics, culture and the conventions of pulp science fiction.  There’s never any doubt that Tom and his associates will provide quality, excellent customer service and that the bad guys will get their comeuppance.

And we can also be assured that Adam Baldwin will continue to find ways of voice portraying whatever ridiculous characters Larry invents, no matter whether it’s a bubble gum snapping android from the Jersey Shore or a hard-tweeting U.S. President on the battle field of the Mar-a-Lago golf course.  Having only previously known Adam Baldwin’s acting skills from Full Metal Jacket, Firefly and Chuck I wasn’t prepared for his wonderfully hammy touch to this kind of goofy material.  He absolutely makes the most of the story and its characters.

I just finished it today and I enjoyed every silly second of it.  Bravo Larry and bravo Adam.  I only wish there were more.  And what I really wish is that Hollywood would wake up and make the Monster Hunter saga into a movie series (either tv or big screen).  And I think Adam Baldwin would be a natural as Agent Franks.

But that’s a rant for another day.  Meanwhile if you like goofy tongue in cheek pulp sci-fi or you’re a fan of Larry Correia or Adam Baldwin then I highly recommend A Murder of Manatees.  You could think of plenty of worse ways to spend two hours.

For Any Fans of Larry Correia’s Tom Stranger Audibook He’s Come Out With Another.

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Adam Baldwin (Firefly’s Jane Cobb and Chuck’s Colonel John Casey) narrates the continuing adventures of Tom Stranger, the most service oriented interdimensional insurance agent you’ll ever meet.   I’m a fan of Larry’s Monster Hunter series and I always like stuff that has Adam Baldwin in it.  And the fact that he’s right-wing guy doesn’t hurt either.

I haven’t listened this one yet but the first one was very entertaining, very funny.  And Adam does a very good job covering all the voices.  Of course I’d prefer if Baldwin could be playing one of Larry’s Monster Hunter characters (Agent Franks?) in a movie version.  But I’ll take what I can get.

So I don’t know if this second one would benefit from listening to the first one, first.  So I recommend getting them in order.

Tom Stranger 2: A Murder of Manatees AVAILABLE NOW!

Vox Day’s Alt-Hero Gambit

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Vox Day is an intriguing figure.  He is literally putting his money where his mouth is.  His right-wing entrepreneurial activities include (among other things) commercial endeavors in book publishing, video games and now comic books.  In just a few years he has impacted the cloistered and SJW infested world of the Hugo awards and spread the gospel of confronting social justice thugs with his books on SJWs.

His latest venture is the comic book kickstarter that garnered a quarter of a million dollars and has allowed him to hire some of the best talent from the pre-SJW converged past of DC Comics. (Chuck Dixon, the creator of Bane and Frank Fosco, a talented artist who has worked for DC and Marvel).  The effort will involve several separate imprints.  One imprint is called Alt-Hero and is explicitly aimed at combatting the politically correct conventions of modern SJW converged Marvel Comics with in-your-face right-wing heroes.  In addition, there is an imprint called Avalon which will be an entirely original work of Chuck Dixon chronicling the super heroes in his imagined city Avalon.  Dixon has said that Vox has given him free rein to create the Avalon universe according to his own creative vision.  And that is why I am very excited about this venture.

As I have stated previously, I’m in no way, shape or form a comic book enthusiast.  But I recognize how employing talented creators to work without the disabling effects of politically motivated orthodoxies has the potential of attracting the customers who have walked away from comics because of these very problems.  That is exactly what needs to be tried.  If it succeeds even on a limited basis it can act as a template for other areas of the culture that are currently strangulating under leftist control.  Vox’s Castalia House publishing business produces fiction and non-fiction that is unaffected by politically correct ideology.  I’ve enjoyed a number of these books.  And even though I don’t follow comics I did enjoy the Bane character in the third Batman movie (Dark Knight Rising).  He was wonderfully evil and an amazing agent of chaos.  I have to assume that Mr. Dixon has some amusing things to share in this Avalon story line so I intend to try it out when it becomes available.

My larger point is that Vox is demonstrating what needs to be done.  Look at the niches the converged industries provide for a right-wing alternative and give it a try.  The internet is the great leveler of all things entrepreneurial.  If you can imagine a thing that has a market you can market it there.  I’ll add Alt-Hero and Avalon to my list of Right-Wing Businesses.

Vox is an enormously polarizing figure.  But he is a trailblazer for anyone on the right who wants to be part of the solution to the vacuum that is all that’s left of right-wing cultural institutions.  Don’t like left wing news, then blog.  Don’t like the left-wing NYT Best Seller’s List, then patronize right wing publishers and authors.  Don’t want your kids to have to read about or go see a movie about gay Spiderman or transsexual Thor, then maybe buy a few of Vox’s comics for them instead.  To be consistent, I guess I’ll have to put my money where my mouth is.  Comic books?  Who woulda thunk it?

Legionnaire (Galaxy’s Edge) (Volume 1) by Jason Anspach & Nick Cole – A Science Fiction Book Review

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I read one of Nick Cole’s earlier books (CTRL ALT Revolt!) last year and liked it.  So, when I heard he was involved in a mil-sf series I figured I’d check it out.  It turns out it’s a dual authorship arrangement with Jason Anspach.  I ordered it (I like to read books on paper) and read it last week.

I like well-written mil-sf.  This is well-written.  The story chronicles an elite military unit involved in a supposedly routine diplomatic mission that devolves into a catastrophe.  It melds the feel of modern American military in the middle east (ala Black Hawk Down) with lineage going back to Rudyard Kipling’s India stories and translates it into a futuristic landscape of alien creatures, energy weapons and space cruisers.  But the technology is definitely beside the point.  The story is the camaraderie of men attempting to complete their mission and keep each other alive in an environment where bureaucratic amateur officers are just as dangerous as the enemy.

The protagonist (first person narrative for the most part) is an NCO in the “Legion.”  Through his eyes we see his comrades display various strengths and weaknesses and we observe the “regular army” that are combined with the legionnaires on this mission attempting to adapt to a combat role they are unprepared for.  And we observe non-combatants and the alien inhabitants of this planet at the “galaxy’s edge.”

If you like military science fiction you’ll probably like this book.  If you even just like war stories you might like this book.  It is volume one of a series but this book is sort of a stand-alone story.  The series chronicles the saga of the Galactic Republic through the eyes of the Legion as an elite force cleaning up the messes being perpetrated by an increasingly autocratic state over its subject worlds at the periphery of the galaxy.  Basically, it sounds like the Roman Republic devolving into the Roman Empire.  Or is it the American Republic?

As you can probably guess from my comparison with Black Hawk Down, it’s not a happily ever after kind of tale.  It’s a down beat story but if you like mil-sf then that’s probably no surprise.  If not be warned.

So, here’s my opinion.  This is a good stand-alone story.  The story develops and the action and the sub-plots unfold in natural way.  The characters are interesting and have enough development to allow you to cheer and boo the appropriate actors.  I can definitely recommend it.  For me the question is do I go forward with a longer series?  From what I understand the individual books are separated in time.  They document the history of this galactic civilization.  Implicitly this means none of the characters will carry over to the next book.  Can the authors generate enough new people to populate the series?  I think I’ll try the next book in the series and see how that works out.  I’ll report back on the next installment when I do.

 

Galaxy’s Edge – Galactic Outlaws – A Science Fiction Book Review

Vox Day’s SJWs Always Double Down – A Book Review

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If you’ve never heard of Vox Day then most probably you haven’t been following science fiction and fantasy over the last few years.  This is probably highlighted from the caption at the top of the cover of this book that quotes the Wall Street Journal as saying about Vox that he is, “The Most Despised Man in Science Fiction.”  And on one side of a partisan divide that is completely true.  But on the other side of that line he is a folk hero or maybe folk-devil.

For those who do not know him suffice it to say that he has been very active in the various campaigns by the alt-right (or some subset of it) against the forces of the SJW converged establishment.  He has been active in the campaigns against SJWs in Gamer-Gate, Puppy-Gate, Trump’s Election and lately in his launching of Alt-Hero to counter the SJW convergence of comic books.  He’s also an editor of his publishing company Castalia House.

In addition to his science fiction and fantasy books Vox has written several books on the culture wars.  To my mind the two most interesting are his “SJWs Always …..” books.  Let me clarify.  His first of these was the ground-breaking “SJWs Always Lie.”  Now he has added “SJWs Always Double Down.”  These titles are drawn from Vox’s “Three Laws of SJWs”

  1. SJWs Always Lie
  2. SJWs Always Double Down
  3. SJWs Always Project

The laws succinctly describe the behaviors to expect from SJWs.  The books are manuals on how SJWs behave and how you should and shouldn’t react to them.  I called the first one ground breaking and that’s no exaggeration.  They reveal the direction and progression of SJW encroachment and attack on normal people and normal institutions.  It was lavishly filled with examples that Vox drew from his own experiences and from things ripped from the headlines.  It was grim but valuable information.

With the publication of the second book, “SJWs Always Double Down,” Vox continues the lessons.  Once again, he illustrates his points with anecdotes from his experience and the real world.  And he brings us up to date on the latest events in the Gamer-Gate, Puppy Gate, Milo’s tour, the Trump Election saga and now the comic book wars.

For some one who has been involved in some of these events (albeit much more peripherally and much less actively than someone like Vox) I find his insights and background information pretty interesting stuff.  But just as with the first book, the more important aspect of the book is as a practical handbook of what to expect from SJW encroachment on every aspect of modern life.  Raising awareness of these problems and giving you practical advice and examples of successful tactics is literally priceless.

There may be some parts of this book that you won’t be interested in.  For instance, if you do not intend to debate SJWs you may be completely uninterested in the Aristotelian categories of rhetoric and their application in debate.  But if you are interested in keeping your job then the information on SJW tactics in the work place will be very interesting.

Full disclosure, Vox is on the far right in his politics and beliefs.  His beliefs may be completely incompatible with your own.  If that means you cannot read his book then that’s that.  But honestly, just because I’m much more of a moderate than Vox Day, I still recognize the validity of the observations he makes about SJWs and many other aspects of today’s various cultural crises.  His early recognition of Donald Trump’s viability as a candidate and his amazing abilities as a practical politician indicate that Vox is astute.  I believe you ignore his information to your own detriment.

And dammit some of his jokes are comedy gold.  Anyone who can see his insertion(!) of “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” into the Hugo Awards as a nomination for Best Short Story and not laugh out loud has a heart of stone.

I say that Vox’s SJW books are a national treasure for all on the right.  Highly, highly recommended.

Greg Bear’s Hardfought – A Science Fiction Book Review

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Hat tip to Tom (one of our most active site denizens) for recommending this story.  I knew of Greg Bear but when he was most popular my reading habit was curtailed due to SYFMS (struggling young family man syndrome).  After reading Hardfought I’m looking forward to reading some more of Mr. Bear’s stuff.

Hardfought has a pretty complex structure and several important plot elements are intentionally obscured.  This makes the beginning of the story confusing.  But hang in there.  It builds to a good effect.  Because of the structure of the story I can’t go into much detail of the plot without spoiling it.  Suffice it to say that this is a very interesting take on human-alien war.  I liked the way Bear uses the details of stellar evolution (lack of heavier elements in first generation star populations) to define the contrast between the human and alien characteristics.  The human characters appear strange to the reader.  Their environment and social structures are very unusual and so it takes a little bit of plot revelation to start to put their behaviors into context.  The alien protagonist’s behavior and motivation are intentionally inhuman but his interactions with his own species and with humans highlights several traits that make him useful to the resolution of the story.

The story is a meditation on the consequences of total war or war to extermination.  I think it is asking whether survival at any cost actually is surviving.  If what is left of you at the end is unrecognizable did you actually survive?  And I don’t think Bear is answering the question.  He is just illustrating the end of the trajectory.  It is obvious to the reader what has been lost but everyone gets to decide if the price is too high.

A very interesting read.  I’ll have to look through Bear’s other stuff and see what else I should try.  Thanks again Tom.