Absolute Knowledge by Drew Cordell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This science fiction borrows from many dystopian mega-city traditions, but it begins and it finishes with a rather awesome focus on Thoughts.

No, no, not like the thought police, although there *is* a bit of that going on, but on the interesting concretization of thoughts becoming actionable and even becoming possessions that people can trade for basic living expenses in the slums. Let's hook you up and scan you, son. Any original thoughts? No? Oh well, you can get your basic living allowance as long as you tow the line.

Eeek. Not only timely and eerily like what we've already got now, the author takes it to new levels and lets the elite and the big computer that runs the society do some really interesting things... such as the pursuit of Absolute Knowledge... which, you should know, is pretty much a euphemism. :)

This is a dystopia with lots of clandestine and thrilling counter-culture elements, after all, and I can name at least 3 major and pretty awesome plot twists that I'm not going to spoil for your reading pleasure, but rest assured that the story is quite solid and interesting throughout, not just a pretty idea, but a character-driven thriller as well.

The book delivers. Are you looking for some clever SF with cyberpunk elements and a Hard-SF dystopia with a good MC that struggles, strives, against the machine? Look no further. :)

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Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was written in the early seventies for the dystopian youth market.

Wait... was there a dystopian SF youth market back then? Um... I guess so! I have this weird feeling like I just entered the twilight zone... but it must be true!

I'm used to 70's SF and Fantasy being very adult oriented and over the top. I think of Lucifer's Hammer or the other later classics of post-apocalyptic nightmares that came out later like The Stand and Swan Song and so many others, but here's the gorgeous bit:

This one scales down everything into a tight little pocket of a farm that escaped the devastation of the nukes leaving one teenage girl alone after the rest of the family goes off and succumbs to one of any number of perils. It's all about survival and she does a pretty capable job of it, but then someone arrives. A man.

The rest of the novel is all about them. The last letters in the alphabet. The last man and the last woman. It's scary when you see things for what they really are. The man takes, the woman either succumbs, herself, or she fights for her freedom.

Remember, this is a young kid, at one point just turning sixteen. There's plenty of thriller moments and plenty of getting along, too, but what it really boils down to is a microcosm of gender studies that's both magnified to extremes and extremely scary.

I felt it.

Sure, this is YA and it's rather mild by today's seedier YA standards, but what it doesn't have in glam it has in solid story and a depth of foundation that most can't even touch.


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Paragon.EXE by Drew Cordell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a good prequel and especially a good taste of some very nice world-building. My appetite for the novel Absolute Knowledge is whetted almost perfectly.

The fact that the action is split between programmers and a burgeoning AI in the 1960's and a 180 years in the future from that point doesn't leave me flat. It's a great way to get us interested in a way that's grounded and pique our interest in how the continuity is set up.

There's no real surprise that consciousness is uploaded here if we've read the blurbs for the proper novel, but that's just it: this is the setup, the taste-tester, the appetizer. :) It just makes me all the hungrier and now I've just got to wonder whether we've just been introduced to a hero or a villain. :)

Sweet! :)

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The Old Man and the Princess by Sean-Paul Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thanks to the author for a copy of this book!

I have to admit that I avoided the blurb on this one, and now that I've read the book I'm kinda glad that I did. I actually preferred going into this one blind and the results were quite satisfying.

The writing is quick and like all the best thrillers it moves along with some really great pace.

So what kind of book is this?

That's the real question, isn't it? I mean, it feels like a thriller, it smells like a thriller, and with all the great Irish and Scottish bits flying around the page, I have to admit I like this Old Man and the street-smart orphan he names the Princess after he "kidnaps" her.

Just what is going on here?

If you like books that mess with our heads as to whether this is a rather traditional SF tale about a Princess from Mars being spirited away before bounty hunters take her first, all the while feeling like we're on a really creepy kidnapping ride with a lot of seriously unanswered questions, (at least at first,) then I'm pretty certain you guys will love this.

I can easily call this a classic of psychological thrillers or a very-well-grounded SF adventure/mystery. Pick and choose. You'll still have your surprise at the end and I'm not gonna spoil it.

Besides, the writing it quite delicious and full of wry humor! :) Pure meat and potatoes for any good tale. :)

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Borderline by Mishell Baker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was an unexpectedly good Urban Fantasy novel with Fae and a differently-damaged protagonist that sets it apart from most by dealing with mental illness.

What? Mental illness? What kind? BORDERLINE Personality Disorder. :) Just think unstable and you've pretty much got it. It makes for hell on all her personal relationships, her professional relationships, and to make things worse, her suicide attempt took her legs from her.

Woah. She's got problems. It should make for some rather interesting reading in any normal circumstances, I'm sure, but it looks like she's just been selected for an untraditional work-therapy program... with Fae. :) It helps that this UF ties creative abilities with the Fae and we're in LA. I mean, everyone's fairly close to the borderline anyway and I'm sure no one would blink an eyelash when they were told that Hollywood is run by the Unselee Court. (OR some variation.) :)

The rest of the novel picks her up as an investigator which is pretty boilerplate but I didn't care in the slightest because of all the interesting twists and turns. Is it primarily a character-driven novel? Absolutely. Is it fresh? Absolutely. Did it renew my faith in UF? Absolutely. :)

The fact that the author took on a topic that is difficult and disturbing and wasn't afraid to let me actively dislike the main character while simultaneously making me search and find things to love about her is definitely a big bonus. :)

Bravo!

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Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I dallied with the idea of writing a very short review, saying pithy things like:

"I'm glad that's over."

or:

"Fuck."

OR should I go more eloquent: "I'm going to set this day as an anniversary to commemorate why I'll never read this book again."

But I think I'll just state that I think I just got post-moderned in the ass.


Or I could say some wonderful things about the novel, too, of which there are many, many wonderful things, such a great and funny commentary on WAR, Operant Conditioning, Drug Fiends, Erections, Scatophagy, Porn, Dirty Limericks, Porn, the Physics of rocketry and drug making, Porn, Orgasmo, Porn, and a great scene near the beginning that brought to mind Pink Floyd's The Wall movie with the buttcheeks over London mixed with a sampling of the BLOB and Bananas.

Do you think this was an easy book to read? You might think so with all the Porn. But no. It's a drug-trip with funny scenes that's very smart and it goes way beyond my tolerance level for being smug. Maybe all this 60's and 70's thing about making sure every penis and vagina is getting it on to shock the straights just isn't for me. I'd like a little story with my porn. Fortunately, there's a lot of story hidden right beneath the surface, here. It might be hiding right beneath all the SS or a few more Nazis or just behind that other Nazi, or is it behind this one?

Golly, it's kinda hard to find it. I know it's there. But at least there's yet another erection and girls everywhere are flocking to this inexplicable sex symbol... but wait! Yeah... I have to admit the nasal erection bit was funny as hell.

*sigh*

I've read better bricks. I've even had better bricks slam across my head.

Alas, this one was not a solid gold brick with a slice of lemon wrapped around it, but it *might* be just as crazy. (Thank you, Pan-Galactic Gargle-Blaster. I need you so bad right now.)



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Everfair by Nisi Shawl
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Unfortunately, this is a book full of flaws, but underlying all of those flaws is also a book I really, really want to appreciate.

Why? Because it's a story of the Belgian Congo under an alternate history banner that strives and reaches for its independence despite atrocity and thanks to technology. No more millions dead in unsung tragedy. Rather, we've got nation building in a rather fresh and ambitious undertaking.

Pretty, no? And the themes and the problems explored is also quite impressive, tackling head-on the issues of both racism and nationalism sometimes together and other times in stark contrast. Again, quite beautiful and quite exhaustively characterized, developed, and world-built. We've got a historian on board as well as someone firmly rooted in speculation in the author.

So what's wrong? Maybe it's just my poor brain, or perhaps it's just that the ambition is greater than the execution. I don't mind that we've got decades'-worth of world-building going on. I don't *theoretically* mind that we've got a literal ARMY of PoV characters.

I do mind when that army of PoV characters don't grab me emotionally, or I should say, some do, some don't.

I do mind when a lot of time passes and motivations change and we as readers are left in the lurch. Such things can happen off-page and can be quite interesting if we're either scholars pouring through the text OR we've been following a very limited cast over a long time, giving us the emotional investment to CARE why they change their minds. Unfortunately, I wasn't given either the investment or the pre-existing knowledge of the Congo's history or possible mitigating factors. It was left out of the book.

Are these deal-breakers? Not at all. The overriding sense of the nation is clear and I love the available kinds of interactions with America and the kinds of cross-cultural exchanges, learning, and even religious meshes that have developed over time.

All-in-all, it's a book worth appreciating... from afar. After the fact. As a purely intellectual exercise. My heart never quite got into it... and that's a shame because I wanted it to.

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