Reviews :: Book Genre :: Science Fiction :: Page 27

LITTLE FUZZY (Amazon), the Hugo-nominated novel by H. Beam Piper, has been getting a lot of attention recently since fan favorite author John Scalzi wrote a novel-length, Tor-published piece of fan-fic rebooting the series. Scalzi has said repeatedly that he hoped that his reboot would in turn send attention back to the original works and that people would read those books that Scalzi himself loved.

For me it worked. The book LITTLE FUZZY is available for free from multiple sources online (Amazon Kindle free version) and since I had pre-ordered Scalzi’s book FUZZY NATION (EBR Review), I thought it would be fun to read the original work and have a kind of book double-feature reading experience.
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FOR THE WIN (Amazon) is Cory Doctorow‘s novel from last summer. If you have read and liked Doctorow’s work in the past, then this book will be just right for you. If not, then I don’t think this book will push any buttons that Doctorow’s stuff missed in the past. Basically this is the typical Cory Doctorow novel.

The novel is about a bunch of online gamers forming a union.
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Every once in a while I come across a book, or series of books, that totally yanks the carpet out from under me. I don’t expect more than the ordinary when I pick ‘em up (other than, perhaps, noticing the amazing cover art). I plop myself down in a chair, open the thing up, and quite simply just get to it. Then it reaches out, smashes me in the face with its awesomeness, and says, “You love me!” Leaving me with naught to do but obligingly respond, “Yes. Yes I do.”
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There is a scene in the show Deadwood that has stuck with us for years. A preacher has a seizure that ravages his brain. He can’t do anything about it. He can’t see straight. Can’t hardly walk or talk. It gets to the point where he can’t do anything. Enter Al Swearengen, the owner of a whorehouse, and an extremely unlikable fellow. It is one of the few moments in the show where Swearengen’s exterior is stripped away and we are left seeing the anguish he feels at the preacher’s condition. In a heart-breaking scene, Swearengen does what no one else is willing to do.
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THE QUANTUM THIEF (Amazon), by Hannu Rajaniemi, is a Hard SF book packed with ideas, twists and turns. It is difficult. It is confusing. I don’t think I understood the whole thing. I also loved every minute of it.
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I found this book in the most unusual way. I went to the bookstore and saw it on the shelf. I know, weird right? I didn’t see it on some blog, or see it in some random post from another site. It wasn’t recommended to me by a friend or any of that. Nope, I was just at Barnes & Noble one day and thought I would check out what was new and what looked interesting–and there it was, calling to me. I then did the only sensible thing and I went home and ordered it off of Amazon.

I’m glad I did.
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Isaac Asimov was an author of ideas. In the case of his Foundation series, it’s about the possibility of using science to predict the fall of a Galactic Empire far in the future. Hari Seldon is the brainchild behind mathematical sociology, aka psychohistory: predicting the future based on the actions of a large population. Unfortunately, the future is bleak, with a thirty-thousand-year dark age on the horizon. But Hari also predicts that it’s possible to close that gap to only a thousand years by safe-keeping human knowledge using his Foundations.
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WARNING! PATHFINDER (Amazon) is not a fantasy book, it is science fiction. I repeat. PATHFINDER is not a fantasy book, it is science fiction.

I know what you’re thinking. Wait a minute. It totally looks like a fantasy book. Yep. I read the premise, it sounds like a fantasy book. Yep. Doesn’t it take place in a fairly medieval setting? Yep. You know, horses and wagons, swords and magical type stuff happening? Yep. I mean doesn’t it even have a sword on the cover for Pete’s sake? Yep. And you still think it’s a science fiction book? I do.
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You know what I’m getting tired of? Book covers that have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the book. I get the whole “first impression” bit. I understand the very essential concept of getting a potential buyer to just pick up the book. I also know that publishing books is a business. But honestly? The amount of false advertising present on book covers today just ticks me off. Then again, I have no idea what kind of cover might have persuaded me to pick this book up in the first place had it had only dealt with the concepts presented therein, and not been entirely based on a metaphor of the story instead. So, a quandary for you: False-advertising? Or no sales? Option number three, if you ask me.
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Miles Vorkosigan is reliable. Reliably clever. Reliably entertaining. Reliable at finding trouble. But does reliability equal excellence? For Miles it does because he’s reliably awesome, but for Lois McMaster Bujold, who can and has written better, CRYOBURN (Amazon) is merely better-than-average entertainment.

Something’s rotten on the planet Kibou-diani, and Miles is trying to sniff out the secret. Known for their use of cryonics to preserve the ill or aged until medicine advances enough for a cure, the crybobanks pretty much run the planet and are looking to expand and provide services for a new population on another planet. But there’s more to it than a business making money, and Miles is determined to get to the bottom of it–even if it means breaking a few rules and stretching beyond his own diplomatic immunity.
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