The Moon Maze Game / Larry Niven, Steven Barnes

The Moon Maze Game
by Larry Niven, Steven Barnes

science fiction

copyright 2011
read in October 2013

rated 6/10: read to pass the time

The core of the story is a virtual reality game. The game theme is Wells' First Men in the Moon. With other book by Wells thrown in to add variation.

What is it with HG Wells rip-offs? Is it the season ? Is it his birthday ? Is it just coincidence that this is the second that I have recently read ? Moon Maze at least adds a more modern story round the rip-off. Not that it really helps.

First, the science sucks. Or does it ? Heinlein, in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, had people leaping through the vacuum of space. On Mars, Schwarzenegger's eyes bulged badly. In Moon Maze, vacuum will lead to instant death by boiling blood. Which is correct ? My money is with Heinlein.

Then, the game sucks. Okay, it's a virtual reality game, not a screen simulation. Still... My impression is that the authors have never ever played a computer game. The book makes me think of non-players trying to impress readers with their own rather weak extensions to something that they have read about but never actually tried. (Sorry about the length of that sentence ! )

Finally (?) the story is weak, the successes are questionable and the explanations are unclear.

Willing suspension of disbelief ? Try, willing suspense of critical faculties... If you can do that, you can read this book.

Sort of fun. Could be better.

====
Problems ? Solved

Fatal Revenant / Stephen Donaldson

Fatal Revenant
by Stephen Donaldson
Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (2)

fantasy

copyright 2007
read in October 2013

rated 4 / 10: bad but could be read

This is a book which makes Financial Accounting seem interesting.

I'm studying a financial accounting unit online. Less than half way into Revenant and I preferred to do a bit more study. Doesn't say much for the book, does it !

Okay, there's a lot of action. Meet a new character -- there will be a ludicrously over-the-top battle. Visit a new place -- it will be destroyed by the side-effects of the next battle. Stop for a picnic lunch -- and the picnic ants will be gigantic fire-breathing chitinous dragons.

Then there's the pseudo-suspense...

A super-powered being will appear. A member, probably, of a race that no-one has heard of before now. This new character plans to destroy the heroine -- but first, will answer any three questions... So the heroine asks something like, How long do I have to ask the questions ? What time is it now ? Did you say, just three questions ? Then kicks herself for wasting the three questions...

So the POV character, the heroine, does not know what is going on. Everyone else does but they won't tell. The reader is left in the dark. This is not suspense -- it's a cheap trick by the author.

In the second half of the book the heroine decides exactly what she is going to do. It's her POV, so the reader will get some information ? Nope. I know but I'm not telling, she says...

And when she finally acts... Everyone groans... There are cries of, You should not have done that... And the book ends.

This is a book of action-packed adventure with very little purpose. There's a feeling that Donaldson is trying to wrap up loose ends in the millennia-long history of the Land. With a plethora of new super-villains to plug the gaps. Is it worth the effort ?

So far, so tedious. The first book was readable. This second book really dragged. Perhaps... the third one's the charm ?

But...

I can't stop there. I must mention a problem with a key feature of these books, the "Falls".

The Falls are places where every instant of time is present, all at once. Like a food-processor for time... Step inside a Fall and you are hit by whirling bits of the Land, each bit from a different era...

So how can a Fall move ?!

The Fall is here, now. And it's hitting you with stuff from here, ten minutes ago. And with stuff from here, ten minutes in the future. So the Fall was definitely here ten minutes ago. And will definitely be here ten minutes from now... So it *was* exactly here and it *will be* exactly here.

So how can it have moved ?!

And if a Fall exists -- and stretches from the distant past into the far future -- then how can it be banished in the present ?! By definition, it exists in the future. Yet -- when we reach that future -- it is not there.

Too much angst and not enough explanation. I can't claim to have enjoyed this book.

But I will be looking out for the final (?) Thomas Covenant book. If only to see who lives, who dies... and who is brought back to live to provide a possibly happy ending.

====
Problems ? Solved

Warrior / Zoe Archer

Warrior
by Zoe Archer
Blades of the Rose (1)

fantasy, chick lit

copyright 2010
read in September 2013

rated 6/10: read to pass the time

This is chick lit for the woman who yearns to be swept off her feet.

Yes, the heroine is spunky, independent, tough. But she is clearly second fiddle to the incredibly tough, incredibly talented, natural leader hero. The heroine does her bit but the hero is always there to protect her.

Well fair enough. The book is, after all, called Warrior. And the warrior in question is the -- male -- hero. Still, it would be interesting to read Rebel, a later book in the series. There's a reasonable chance that the woman in question is the rebel. Is she in charge ? Or is she, also, swept off her feet by the strong and mysterious -- male -- stranger...

Warrior is in the same general genre as Close Contact: chick lit / romance, fantasy / science fiction. Warrior is the book that I started to read after Close Contact... and then decided I would rather re-read Close Contact.

Warrior is for the swooning maiden. Simple, fun, romance with explicit sex. Yet the plot seems to be a bit silly.

Okay, Close Contact is also silly ! But Warrior lacks the sense of fun. Warrior seems to take itself too seriously. Oh, and...

"Her thumb and forefinger could not meet as she circled him." Wow ! And this is a woman with, we are told, fingers which are long yet slender... Oooohh, no wonder the virginal heroine's eyes are watering !

It is just a book to read to pass the time... And it suffers, in my rating, by comparison with a far better book aimed at a similar target market.

Warrior is okay. But I have read better...

====
Problems ? Solved

Close Contact / Katherine Allred

Close Contact
by Katherine Allred
Alien Affairs (2)

science fiction, chick lit

copyright 2010
read in September 2013

rated 9/10: really, really good

Nine out of ten ? Really, really good ? Is this book really that good ?!?

Maybe not. But here's how it goes:

I read Close Contact and thoroughly enjoyed it. Started another book, read a few chapters... And decided that I would rather be re-reading Close Contact. So I re-read Close Contact -- and thoroughly enjoyed it -- again !

That, to me, is worth 9 out of 10 :-)

No, it is not great literature. I doubt that it will be studied by generations of graduate students of the fine arts. Yet it had most of the characteristics of "a good book"...

Great characters... Well, great character, singular :-)  With a supporting cast of very capable and generally likeable second-string characters.
 
The heroine is super strong, super powered, super hot. What's not to like about Echo Adams ?! And she does not take herself too seriously...

Walking into town, she munches on a Space Federation high energy snack bar. No way I could eat this awful stuff, she thinks. Except that it's covered in chocolate...

There's romance... Well, lust... Which quickly proves to be true -- and eternal -- love.

There's an intelligent, annoying but loyal spaceship. A cute pet dragon bird. And a remote planet where fighting is restricted to fist and blade. Swash and buckle in space !

The book is written first person by the heroine. And she is definitely the main -- strongest -- character. The hero is tough, intelligent, heroic -- but no more than an equal partner. Yes, Echo is swept off her feet. But no, this does not make her at all subservient.

A great heroine with a gently self-mocking sense of humor. A fun adventure with danger but no real threat of anything but a happy ending.

What's not to like ?

A really, really good book :-)

====
Problems ? Solved

The Runes of the Earth / Stephen Donaldson

The Runes of the Earth
by Stephen Donaldson

The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (1)
fantasy

copyright 2004
read in September 2013
rated 7/10: well worth reading

Absolutely over the top ! Guilt... suffering... heroic sacrifice ! Yes, the seventh major book of Thomas Covenant continues the tried and true formula !

Although -- now I come to think of it -- there is no real misery.

The characters suffer by choice. Bloody and bowed but unbeaten. Because their hearts are true.

Still...

The language is just as over the top. Poetic, almost: there is more meaning in the way in which the words are used than in the words themselves. What, for example, is an "indistinct nose" ? (Sorry, not an actual quote. Rather, a re-imagining of a noteworthy but unnoted phrase.)

And this book must set the record for number of times that an author has used the word "formication"... Donaldson used the word just one in his first book -- without explanation, I had to check a dictionary. This time, the meaning is given and the word is repeated... many, many times.

I have always had the impression that Donaldson writes with both dictionary and thesaurus to hand. He browses the reference books and attempts to use the longest words that he can find...

Anyway...

Runes continues the history of The Land. This time, with a focus on Linden Avery. Since Covenant himself is dead. Apparently. Thanks to a jump of several thousand years, threats to The Land are brand new and even more threatening than earlier threats.

I do have a problem with one threat, the Falls... or time-slips. If they are a turbulent mix of every instant at the place where they occur -- them how do they also allow entry at one point and exit at another ? Surely that means that the Falls must exist at every instant at all of the places between entry and exit ? Yet they don't...

Still, that's just a minor quibble... This is fantasy :-)  The Falls increase the threat to Time itself. And that is the central driver throughout the entire Covenant series.

Not a great book but a lot of fun. Well worth reading. Especially if you enjoyed the first six books...

Perhaps the third book of The Last Chronicles will actually end the saga... ?

====
Problems ? Solved

The Children's Hospital / Chris Adrian

The Children's Hospital
by Chris Adrian

copyright 2006
read in August 2013
rated 2 / 10: unreadably bad

Perhaps I was a bit under the weather. Perhaps I really needed some light relief. Perhaps my view of a book is coloured by my mood.

I totally failed to get into this book.

I read the first few pages. There's an angel telling the story... No, I have no idea why.

There's a hospital for the seriously challenged birthing. A separate hospital for the seriously challenged newborn babies. Separate buildings connected only by a pedestrian bridge. Birth and care of the newborn physically separate ? No, I have no idea why.

The main character is a trainee maternity nurse who does not enjoy her work. One birth for the day and she's had enough... She interrupts her boyfriend -- drags him away from helping save a baby -- to have sex in a spare bed.

The story (?) so far... interspersed with reference to blood, vaginas, deformity.

So far, so... What's the word I want ? Oh yes: So far, so bloody awful.

Not helped by the small print and dense, rambling -- jumping all over the place -- prose.

I gave up.

"Playful, very funny, moving", if you believe the cover. Or rather unpleasant rubbish. Take your pick.

====
Problems ? Solved

Altered Carbon / Richard Morgan

Altered Carbon
by Richard Morgan

science fiction

copyright 2001

read in August 2013

rated 9 / 10: really, really good

A fast-paced thriller with ultra violence... A detailed view of the future where good guys and bad fight with technology and less subtle weapons. A killer hero with a heart of gold...

Or is there more to this book than well implemented cliches ?

I can't speak for the author's intentions... but I see a possibility...

Science fiction begins with, "what if ?" Take one technological possibility -- or impossibility -- and explore the consequences. Is this what Morgan is doing ?

What if, technology allows us to preserve the mind (or soul, or character, or.. the essence of the person) in digital storage ? Being able to store implies being able to recover, to put the "person" back into a body. Back into the same body -- or into a spare, or a clone, or an artificial body...

Surely this is immortality ?!

Consequence one: Immortality -- for those who can afford it.

Consequence two: Organic damage -- up to and including total destruction of the body -- is no longer murder. As long as the "person" is still intact, in storage.

One what if -- and a host of logical consequences ! Classic science fiction.

Add good characters, complex plot, good versus evil, a satisfactory ending...

An excellent book ! Unless you do not enjoy extreme violence. At a classic cartoon level.

====
Problems ? Solved 

===

16mar18:

Read it again. same opinion.

Background: I wanted to watch a bit of tv. Found Altered Carbon, a new tv series. I watched a couple of minutes of titles, almost gave up. Then watched a couple have a shower. Sensuous, I suppose. Boring, really.

At 3 minutes 10 I gave up watching. TV is just so slooooow :-( Unvariable :-( The viewer is stuck at whatever pace is set by the director.

Then I picked up the book. Read it over the next couple of days -- at my own pace. Enjoyed it. Never did find (in the book) a two-person shower scene.

I prefer to read a book.