24 Sep, 2017
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
1967’s The White Mountains, 1968’s The City of Gold and Lead, and 1968’s The Pool of Fire constitute John Christopher’s Tripods trilogy.
A century after the coming of the Tripods, humans are few, backward, and well-behaved. It has been decades since any human posed a serious threat to Tripod rule.
That’s about to change.
(spoilers)
22 Sep, 2017
A Year of Waterloo Region Speculative Fiction
To quote his Wikipedia entry, Arthur Ellis award-winner Jon Evans was
(b)orn to an expatriate Rhodesian father and Canadian mother. Evans grew up in Waterloo, Ontario and graduated from the University of Waterloo. He has a degree in electrical engineering and over 10 years of experience working as a software engineer.
He’s also a former customer of mine, from the days when I owned a game store. Small world!
2011’s Beasts of New York won the Foreword Medal of the Year Award.
Patch son of Silver, of the Seeker clan, of the Treetops tribe, of the Center Kingdom, faces calamity, as do all his compatriots. Long winter means food stores are pressed to their limits and beyond. Instead of a meagre supply barely able to see Patch and his kin to spring, there is nothing. Starvation looms.
Patch discovers that his clan and kind face an existential threat that is far greater than a lean winter. The fate of the beasts of New York rests on the shoulders of Patch the squirrel.
20 Sep, 2017
Translation
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First published under the title Ginga Eiyu Densetsu, 1984’s Stratagem is the fourth volume in Yoshiki Tanaka’s Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Tyran Grillo’s translation was published by Haikasoru in 2017.
In any other era, military genius Reinhard von Lohengramm would have been just as successful at conquering the breakaway Free Planets Alliance as he has been at commandeering the reins of power in his native Galactic Empire. Fate was unkind to Lohengramm; the Free Planets have their own military genius in academic Yang Wen-li. Thus far, the Free Planets remain free.
Scheming merchants and disloyal aristocrats may be about to hand von Lohengramm the means to finally defeat the Free Planets.
19 Sep, 2017
Miscellaneous Reviews
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Molly Brooks’ 2017 Power Ballad is, in the words of its creator, a “lesbian superhero romcom” webcomic.
Meera Verma is the perfect personal assistant, so keen that it has taken her only two days to realize that her boss, talented musician Carina Peterson, is also Los Angeles’ two-fisted costumed vigilante, the Skeleton. As any respectable personal assistant would, Meera immediately extends her services to the Skeleton as well.
Meera has only one defect as an employee. She’s made the terrible error of falling hard for her boss.
17 Sep, 2017
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
1970’s Whipping Star is the third piece and first novel-length work in Frank Herbert’s ConSentiency series. I hope I’ve worked out how I am going to number Whipping Star by the time I post this review.
The ConSentiency spans the Milky Way. While faster than light drives exist, all are too slow for galactic travel. What made the ConSentiency practical was the jumpdoor. Jumpdoors allow people to step from the surface of one planet to the surface of another. Jumpdoors were so clearly useful that nobody questioned their enigmatic Caleban creators too closely about how exactly they worked.
Jumpdoors have some interesting undocumented features. For example, someone who knows their jumpdoors can use them to kill an astonishing fraction of the population of the ConSentiency in one go.
16 Sep, 2017
Miscellaneous Reviews
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2017’s Lightning in the Blood is the second in Marie Brennan’s Books of the Varekai series.
At the end of Cold-Forged Flame, Ree set out to help her new friend Aadet overthrow the tyrant of Solaine. With the tyrant deposed and rightful heir Enkettsivaane in power, that leaves the question of what to do with Ree, who is an archon, a being of great power. A useful ally, yes, but a dangerous next-door neighbour.
Every archon must follow its nature. Providentially for Enkettsivaane, Ree’s nature provides a solution that will keep his hands clean. Ree’s wanderlust compels her towards Solaine’s border, towards new lands and new adventures.
She very nearly makes it out of Solaine.
15 Sep, 2017
A Year of Waterloo Region Speculative Fiction
an IT consultant, a social justice activist (especially in regards to Haiti), a trans person, a writer and cartoonist, an sf fan, a pinko-commie feminist, a film-lover and a Canadian (eh?).
To date they have produced a small but diverse body of work. It includes non-fiction and fiction, graphic (in the sense of comic books) fiction, and spec-fic stories such as “Ghosts in the Machine,” “Glamour,” and the short work I’m reviewing, “The Riverbed of the World.”
13 Sep, 2017
Translation
Viz’ Fullmetal Alchemist (3‑in‑1 Edition), Volumes 13 – 15 includes Volumes 13, 14, and 15 of the original Japanese manga1. Story and art are by Hiromu Arakawa; English translation by Akira Watanabe; English adaptation by Jake Forbes; touch-up art and lettering by Wayne Truman. The original manga appeared in 2006.
I’m cheating somewhat here. No local source has the omnibus. I tracked down the individual volumes. That should suffice.
Edward and Alphonse’s cunning scheme has paid off beyond their wildest nightmares. The brothers and their allies have managed to capture the homunculus Gluttony.
But their triumph is brief.
Once free, Gluttony sets out to even the score for its fellow homunculus, who died in the flames sent by pyromancer Roy Mustang. Gluttony’s plan succeeds beyond all expectation. Gone: expendable Prince Lin, Gone: Edward and homunculus Envy. Oops.
12 Sep, 2017
Space Opera That Doesn't Suck
Ann Leckie’s 2017’s Provenance is either a standalone novel set in the same universe as the Ancillary books, or the first book in a series set in the same universe as the Ancillary books. I should find out which it is before posting this. Wonder if I will.
Oh, well.
Determined to prove her worth to her high-ranking foster-mother Netano Aughskold, Ingray Aughskold has invested most of her money in a very bold scheme, a scheme so well planned that it does not go off the rails until shortly before the book begins.
Ingray paid to have a very special person retrieved from durance vile. She did not expect him to arrive in a suspension box1. Nor did she anticipate that meticulously conscientious Captain Uisine would insist on talking to the man in the box to make sure that he wanted to be transported from Tyr Siilas to distant Hwae. Nor did Ingray foresee that the man in the box would deny being Pahlad Budrakim, the arch-criminal who is the key to Ingray’s cunning plan.
And then the real complications begin.
10 Sep, 2017
Because My Tears Are Delicious To You
Anne McCaffrey’s standalone SF novel Restoree was her debut novel.
Snatched by monstrous aliens, embittered spinster Sara wakes from nightmares to find herself transformed from an all-too-Semitic-looking woman whom nobody could possibly love to a beauty. Her current captors are using her as grunt labor in a mental institution. They regard her as semi-intelligent and unthreatening.
Her masters’ underestimation of Sara’s cognitive abilities will prove their undoing.