Book Review: The Callahan Chronicals

Based on how often I post here, you'd think I had stopped reading and taken up some other hobby... such as drinking to excess. Incorrect!

The Thanksgiving season makes me thankful for the love of my life and the finest friends I could ask for. Without them I'd surely turn to boozy self-medication, which I'd otherwise regard as a deeply mistaken approach to problem solving.

Spider Robinson presents a sci-fi version of the place where everybody knows your name. Even if your name is Txffu Mpwfs, the world-destroying cyborg from the short story "The Guy With The Eyes". This weekend I finished the short-story collection of Mr. Robinson's: 'The Callahan Chronicals'. (I love the wrap-around cover! (Shown Here) It turns out there are only 6 characters I can't name on it. Five if the cat reaching for the cash is Pixel from Heinlein's 'The Cat Who Walks Through Walls'.)

Mr. Robinson is previously known to me peripherally as the guy who co-wrote 'Variable Star' with Robert Heinlein's ghost. Long-time readers of my blog will know that book very nearly topped the list of my favourite books of the noughties. My manager Chris gets a great big thank-you for loaning me some of Mr. Robinson's earliest books and magazines (including early printings of the Hugo winning Telempath and Stardancer stories). But Spider Robinson is arguably most famous for Callahan's Place, which spawned great fan love online as the Interwebs were first being spun, and that love continues today. The Place is the kindest, most psychologically sympathetic bar you've ever heard of. At Callahan's the wretched and the weird discover 'shared pain is lessened, shared joy is increased'. I appreciate the bad jokes and the good intentions. This is some darn fine writing. I'm looking forward to continuing the series.

Oh, and if you have just under 4 minutes, here's Author/Music Man Spider Robinson performing his own The Drunkard's Song.

Book Review: STAR WARS A New Dawn

So! The Disney Corporation swallowed the Star Wars and Marvel film franchises whole- and all I got was this Darth Vader digital watch. But what else can I do? NOT watch all the stuff I like? There's every probability that the good folks at Disney can throw money and talent at things until they're good again. (Speaking of which, I don't remember why I didn't like Disney in the first place- ever seen 'Phineas and Ferb'? It's pretty great.)

Where was I? Yes. I had a great time watching 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' and I have every expectation that I'll enjoy 'Star Wars: Rebels' this October. To that end, I borrowed 'Star Wars: A New Dawn' as a preview. This novel features an Evil Empire getting a foothold and beginning to seriously creep people out (about 8 years after Palpatine took the reins and everybody seemed o.k. with it- except for all those Jedi jerks he shot in the back to preserve the peace).

Hera Syndulla is a clever woman with a plan to put things right, and Kanan Jarrus is a tough guy who would rather nobody noticed him (just in case tough guys raised in religions starting with "J" are still being singled out as rancor chow). With the aid of a disgruntled Imperial snoop called Zaluna (a Sullustan who's easily my favourite character here), they team up with a paranoid explosives expert to break Murdock out of the asylum again and stop the crazy murdering middle-management cyborg Vidian before he shatters a moon in the name of efficiency.

Much praise to author John Jackson Miller. To be completely candid, I enjoyed Miller's 'Kenobi' more but the difference between 5 stars and 4 stars is only the difference between 'awesome' and 'really good'.

Also I see on his website that Mr. Miller wrote a Star Trek book, I should really check that out sometime, too.

Book Review: DOCTOR WHO Engines of War

Aww, yeah! I've been looking forward to a novel about the Last Great Time War since I first heard of it in 2005. What's the Last Great Time War, you ask? This probably isn't the blog for you! But, in a nutshell, it's the fictional many-fronted final genocidal planet-cracking time-warping battle to extinction between the mighty Time Lords and the hate-spewing Daleks.

Now with John Hurt!

I pre-ordered this book the very minute I saw the cover back in July. It arrived Monday. And I finished it just now. It takes place "4 centuries" into the Time War, one century into the unofficial ninth life of the Time Lord "renegade" formerly known as The Doctor, and shortly before the TV episode "The Day of The Doctor".

It's the story of Cinder, a girl from planet Moldox, a beautiful world fallen long since beneath the hovering heels of the cyborg Daleks. And it's the story of the choices of the crusty old alien Cinder teams up with to prevent the alternative reality mutants known as Skaro Degradations from their latest scheme to erase all other forms of life. With his own people willing to go to appalling lengths to end the war, our hero has no moral high ground and only his feelings to guide him. Especially his crustiness.

Author George Mann has a real ear for the dialogue of Doctor Who, and a ripping good action yarn it turned out to be. No complaints from me- this is a story with a cannon made out of moons!

So read it already!

Tales of Trenzalore

Despite the cool cast and premise I don't have it in me to pay much further attention to SyFy's "Battledogs", so instead you get a semi-spoilery book review of "Tales of Trenzalore: The Eleventh Doctor's Last Stand". Aren't you lucky?

I'm actually MOST excited about the "Eighth" Season of Doctor Who which premiered two days ago... but you may not have seen it yet. Thus... this.

It's four short stories about the town called Christmas on the planet Trenzalore: a low-tech land of perpetual snow and darkness with pleasant inhabitants. (Not unlike Canada, really.) Trenzalore has been under siege for nine centuries, yet remains steadfastly defended from alien invaders by an alien invader called the Doctor.

Each anecdote is worthwhile, quick jaunts in the impossible life of the 1500-year-old Time Lord forced by conscience and circumstance to defend everyone with his wits. In these specific cases, defending them with the added hobbling of a wooden leg, encroaching bodily decrepitude, and a Truth Field that demands total honesty.

Justin Richard's 'Let it Snow' provides a heart-warming story of frozen Martians and avalanche. 'The Dreaming' by Mark Morris offers the mental menace of the Mara. Paul Finch brings an explosive tale of tundra and plastic bullies in 'Strangers in The Outland'. My favourite was 'An Apple A Day' by George Mann. It features the carnivorous avocado known as the Krynoid, whose origin story 'The Seeds of Doom' from 1976 was, for me, most memorably horrifying.

Second item of good news for me: George Mann is the author of 'Engines of War', a Doctor Who novel I ordered a month ago sight unseen. I'm pretty much bound to love it!

Book Review: The Nerdist Way

I didn't think it was possible. Nothing since school used to make me exercise has EVER made me want to exercise.

This heady combination of geeky humour, indefatigable optimism, and exuberant cursing is amazing. Or to use the vernacular: AMAZEBALLS.

Chris Hardwick of G4 Tech TV and Web Soup speaks exactly my language and I'd like to own this as an e-book for future reference.

"The Nerdist Way" was in the bookstore humour section, but it was also a surprisingly insightful life guide. Likening oneself to a role-playing or video game character and gaining experience to improve one's lot is preferable to the bilge I have had filtered to me about so-called self-help books where the UNIVERSE hands out wishes. No offence.

While the Universe may not be actively malevolent, I have a hard time believing it doles out blessings and splendour to the people who pray the hardest. Sorry.

Focusing one's obsessive behaviour on tricking your brain into helping you make better choices? That I can believe. Incremental change and planning? Sounds about right. And I'm inspired because it worked for the author first.

More than anything, (and there's a lot of clever thoughts in this) I wanted to hear: 'Go easy on yourself'.

Not as in, 'let yourself slide' but as in 'take a break from self-loathing'. Call a halt to attacking yourself from inside. That's DISTURBINGLY GOOD ADVICE.

The man's like a foul-mouthed wizard. Way to be, dude!

If you're a nerd, read this book. If you like to laugh, also read this book. Otherwise, well, still read this book, but with an ironic sneer of disdain. That'll show them!

Book Review: The Lost City of Z

** (2 stars out of 5)

I'm in a book club full of delightful nerds that meets at a reasonably priced local eatery each month, and this one was no exception. We read and discussed David Grann's 'The Lost City of Z'.

Non-fiction is not my usual read, and I wouldn't ever have explored this one on my own, but it's well-researched so I can't give it one star, even though I dearly want to. For me, it is a tenuous "O.K.".

LCoZ relates the tale of Col. Percy Fawcett, an ultra-manly jerk-off who vanished in the Amazon in the nineteen-twenties. He took his kid and about a hundred other people who went looking for them over the years with him to their horrible graves. Nice job, ass! Also, it's about the lost city he didn't find.

Spoilers: it's a mystery story that remains a mystery, and I really dislike that sort of thing. The only answers I got were: DON'T abandon your wife to hack your way through deadly bug-infested nothingness, DON'T enslave or genocide the locals, and El Dorado probably existed... but it was probably biodegradable.

I want to call this The Lost City of ZZZs- I fell asleep about a dozen times while reading it.

Since you are not me: why not? You're only going to lose your time, not your skin, sanity, or safety on a pointless quest for fortune and glory. If you're that interested, just watch Indiana Jones again... maybe the one with the aliens and nuclear explosion fridge and that Transformers kid.

Book Review: Miracle Monday

It's even better than author Elliot S! Maggin's previous novel 'Superman, Last Son of Krypton'. There's no origin story to slow things down, and Luthor is significant but not the primary villain. "Miracle Monday" is amazing Superman material.

Superman's character is seriously tested in ethical and physical battle with the demon prince of the netherworld. The demon is called C.W. Saturn. (Hmm, CW... coincidence that the hell-spawned 'Smallville' would later run for an eternity on the CW???)

Also, it's got time traveling historians! Specifically, Kristin Wells, gutsy 29th Century scholar studying Superman while disguised as Lois Lane's anachronism-spewing assistant. (The character would briefly appear in the comics as Superwoman, an apparent darling of Maggin's. She's pre-Crisis, and vanished from comics so completely afterward that I've never heard of her till this week.)

Time travelers AND demons? What the what? The unholy marriage of sf and fantasy works beautifully. It's a high compliment for me that this reminds me of Douglas Adams' stuff; off-the-rails impossible and still internally logical. A sweet thing to behold.

Absolutely more fun than 'Downbelow Station', which won the Hugo Award for the year 1981.

So I hope DC paid the author well, or that it satisfied him to write it, or both. Elliot S! Maggin deserves to be remembered until 2857 and beyond.

Book Review: Superman, Last Son of Krypton

Elliot S! Maggin did right by me back in 1978 when he wrote this! I gave it 4 stars out of 5 on goodreads.com.

So, yes, in my world it deserved the Hugo award more than 'Dreamsnake'.

This novel was recommended by favourite author Mark Waid in a podcast sometime back. Despite the movie tie-in cover it's an original novel set in the Superman comic book world of 1978.

Here Superman can zip across time and space under his own power, and Clark Kent is a TV news anchorman. It features his reluctant team-up with jailbird genius (and hero?) Lex Luthor.

I thought it was a fascinating look at the history of their antagonistic relationship as they struggle to save the entire galactic arm from an alien corporate takeover together. Also starring Albert Einstein and very possibly God.

It's funny and moving. It's a realistic take on arguably the most outlandish version of Superman: the Pre-Crisis Superman. Go big or go home, I say!

I've read or seen Supes' origin story so often that I feel this novel deserves special mention; it has something original to say with what must have seemed (even then) like tired, dated characters.

I started the sequel 'Miracle Monday' right afterwards, and I hope to read more from Maggin in the future. Shouldn't be too hard to find some: he wrote Superman for about ten years in the seventies and eighties.

The Hugos: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

I took a pretty long break from Hugo-winning novel reviews, but like a dog with a bone or a Holmes IV neuristic computer with self-awareness I've returned to my obsession and I'm sharin' it with you!

So, first off, I like Robert Heinlein's books a lot. The 1967 Hugo award winner 'The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress' is no exception.  Therefore, if you want me to tell you it's a flawed depiction of revolution from the mind of a kooky patriot who glorified war and despised all governments just a smidgen, then, I won't.  It is really very thoroughly enjoyable and amazing.  

You can keep handing your Vernor Vinge with his big concepts and his awful, listless characters these Hugos, but I'll never quite believe he isn't sleeping with someone on the committee.  Or maybe offering to NOT sleep with them.  One of those things.

Because I LOVE Heinlein's characters!  Yes, they expound a lot and they're stock characters (here we have Manny the Comptent Man, Professor Bernardo the Wise Old Mentor, Wyoming the Gorgeous Woman, and Mike the lovable young AI troublemaker who runs the joint (Mike is short for Mycroft Holmes; the HOLMES IV computer).  And they're very awesome.  

They live in the moon in 2076, a frontier colony descended primarily from convicts Australia-style.  The Loonies are troubled by increasingly greedy demands from Earth for more hydroponic foodstuffs that the moonfolk can ill afford to lose: Mike predicts cannibalism before the decade is out.  A plot to throw off the shackles of Good Ol' Earth's despotism is hatched, involving dropping BIG FRICKIN' ROCKS on those jerks with all their OXYGEN and their outdated COUPLE marriages!

 (Pictured here: Mr. Heinlein and Ginny the Gorgeous Redhead to whom he was married.  They're on the moon, but not involved in a polyamorous or mixed-race marriage like all those moonfolk.)

The Professor in particular has a lot to say on the subject of 'rational anarchism', a philosophy that a appears to boil down to doing whatever the heck you want and staying out of other people's Bid-ness.  If other people don't like it, DROP A FRICKIN' ROCK ON THEM.  Repeat as needed.

But nothing is ever that simple, as the phase made famous by this book implies: TANSTAAFL... 'There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch'.  True freedom and independence are not easily forthcoming and sacrifices must be made.

It's an action-filled, funny, and moving tale and I gave it 4 moon rocks out of 4.  Suck on that, Flowers For Algernon!

Good Reads

Apart from new tasks at work and new bandages at my arm, this week brought me a new web site to devote all my time to...

And it has very little nudity! (I know, I know, then who cares, right?)

At the behest of the inestimable DoctorTeeth I joined goodreads.com. There you can keep track of all the books you've read, compare them with friends (assuming you can find any friends apart from books), and rate them out of five stars. (Your books, not your friends. Your friends do not want to be rated out of five stars.)

The rating system is very cool- point the cursor at the number of stars and from 1-5 you get an emotional vslue: didn't like it, it was o.k., liked it, really liked it, and it was amazing. That makes rating books easy and fast! Also, (though I haven't done this yet) you can write reviews. Reviews are cool! And I've read a lotta stuff! (MOSTLY COMICS)

Learn new things today- such as that DRTEETH doesn't like Ferris Beuller! I didn't even know that Ferris HAD a book! I give that notion 3 stars... and DRTEETH 5 stars. He's AMAZING!

Book Review: The Green Hills of Earth

I have 142 unread books on my shelves. And that doesn't include comics.

I am not proud of this, I only mention it because with only one Hugo novel left on my agenda I'm now tucking in to what I estimate at three years to read my own modest library. Faster if TV continues to be its usual monotonous drivel. Thundercats, indeed!

What happened to the nearsighted, antisocial boy I was who devoured books like it was going out of style?

It's books for me from here on out, yessir!
(Don't mind me, TV, nothing to see here.)

First up from a favorite author of mine, was 'The Green Hills of Earth', copyright 1951, by Robert Heinlein, a collection of some of his short stories. It's a swell book, and in no danger of leaving my library for trade value or donation.

Heinlein drew up a timeline to keep all his sci-fi stories straight, and it's included with most of his works. Good old uncle Robert postulated the half century between 1950 & 2000 as interplanetary expansionist, with thriving human colonies on the moon, Mars, & Venus, pioneering the mighty void of space with courage despite many grave accidents and disasters.

His future world is one of personal helicopters for all, and women dressed in six ounces of fabric! All very well, but those two elements alone seem designed for trouble:
(helicopter engine): wuwbwuwbwuwb...
Jones: Zowie, Harriman, how 'bout the propellant tanks on her?
Harriman: Hoo, hoo! I bet a dame like that would... LOOK OUT!
(helicopter collides with 3 other helicopters, explodes): KRAKABOOM.

Speaking of women turning heads, the first story in the collection; 'Delilah and the Space Rigger' takes a light-headed look at sexism in the space workplace. I maintain that although space stations aren't as commonplace as Heinlein hoped, he knew a metric crapload about how people behaved and still behave today. He saw the sexual revolution coming a mile off, and either regarded it as a change in everyone's best interests or knew womenfolk are impossible to hold back. If our kind goes out there, it'll be two by two, or at least shoulder to shoulder.

In 'The Long Watch' and 'The Green Hills of Earth' brave spacemen die horrible and heroic deaths by radiation to save their fellows. So far, there hasn't been much of this outside sci-fi, either. No atomic-powered spaceships means no blind accordion playing space jockeys. Knock on wood. Also commercial space travel is 60 years behind Heinlein's projections and is still little more than a novelty for the ultra-rich. But on the bright side, we don't have indentured slaves dying of fungal infections in the swamps of Venus, either. Well, maybe NEXT century. As long as we engineer the fungus ourselves, and also bring the swamps and slaves with us.

'We Also Walk Dogs' featured a global interconnected telephonic company called General Services whose multitudinous employees offer nearly anything, at tremendous speed, for a price. It may not be organized and driven enough to provoke reclusive scientists into spontaneously generating anti-gravity (as in this tale), but we've got that very connective technology these days. And, who knows? Link enough blogs together, sift through the gibberish and the porn, and, just imagine what all of us might think of... together!
Just keep your eyes on the skies when you're flying your cars, brothers.