Eclipse One

Eclipse One edited by Jonathan Strahan
Reason for Reading: Sci fi experience
Rating: 2/5

The best part and the worst part of any short story collection is the variety. If a story doesn't catch your fancy on the first try, turn the page and perhaps the next one will. Rarely do I read a collection, though, where my reaction to almost every story is: "You call this science fiction/fantasy?"

My knowledge of contemporary science fiction is abominably lacking, so perhaps I am just out of the loop on what style of story is in fashion right now. But still, I had to really stretch it to consider some of these stories scifi/fantasy. The Last and Only or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French is about a man who inexplicably and involuntarily changes nationalities. It had the feel of a story that was some sort of large metaphor for somethingy or another, but I just didn't get it. Unique Chicken goes in Reverse about a possibly mentally disturbed child and the pet chicken she calls Jesus was really meh for me.

A few of the stories were definitely scifi/fantasy, but they just didn't hold my attention. If it takes me too long to get into the concept of a story, I'm not likely to enjoy it much, and there were a few that just took too long to get warmed up.

However. There were a few stories I genuinely enjoyed. The Transformation of Targ about a evil overlord who's lost his evil mojo and tries a visit to a evil consultant to get it back was absolutely fabulous. I laughed, I cried. Okay, I laughed until I cried. Because it was perfectly written. I also found myself thrilled by the hypnotic Larissa Miusov, which seemed to fit into the category of "this is scifi?" until I got further into it. But by the time I got to that point, I was already in love with the writing, so I didn't mind. Another excellent story that manages to hint at a well-developed fantasy world without forcing the reader into a lengthy introduction is Quartermaster Returns.

Should I read it? Do you have an itch for short stories? Go for it.

The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Reason for Reading: Sci Fi Experience
Rating: 3/5

The Martian Chronicles is pretty much a cornerstone of science fiction. In short stories that sometimes overlap, sometimes diverge, the history of human colonization on Mars is explored. From the first expeditions and their unsuccessful first encounters with the telepathic Martians, to their eventual dominance of the planet, to the nuclear holocaust on Earth that recalls most of them back. Private stories of survival, grander tales of adventure, this book encompasses the human experience on Mars.

I first read this back in middle school, and I picked up it up eagerly, only to find that some of the stories didn't really live up to what I remembered. I remembered loving Usher II, but rereading it, it seemed slapped into the collection, being hardly related to Mars at all, rather about a man and his Edgar Allen Poe-style revenge on the morality police who've destroyed all of his books. Book burning and the morality police come up nowhere else in the collection, odd since the rest of the stories hang together much more solidly.

The best stories in the collection are the first few, Ylla, The Earth Men, and The Third Expedition, all dealing with the disastrous first contacts between Earthling and Martian. I finished The Third Expedition with a chill running down my spine. When the Third Expedition of Earthling explorers arrives on Mars and encounters what looks to be a city snatched from 1950's America, populated with the dead grandparents, uncles, aunts and sweethearts, everything looks too good to be true.

Should I read it? It is a giant among science fiction collections. You may not enjoy every single story, but there's plenty of different subjects/styles, so you'll probably find at least one you like.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
Reason for Reading: Sci Fi Experience
Rating: 3.5/5

Jules is a young man barely a century old. He's lived long enough to see the cure for death and the end of scarcity, to learn ten languages and compose three symphonies.. and to realize his boyhood dream of taking up residence in Disney World.

How could I not pick up this book with an introduction like that? I have this thing for Disney World, science fiction, and especially funny science fiction. There was a lot to love in this book.

Disney World is ruled by a volunteer network of ad-hocs who keep the attractions running for the "whuffie" or good will they earn from tourists. In a utopian society, whuffie is currency. Whoever does the best job of keeping the guests happy gets the most whuffie.

You might be wondering that with all three of my favorite things coming together, why did I only give it 3.5 out of five?

While there honestly is a lot to like about this smart and funny read, the biggest con with this book is that Jules is not that sympathetic of a character. Okay, he's persistent in trying to prevent the Haunted House in the Magic Kingdom from being overtaken by a rival who wants to turn it into a new direct-to-brain interface. But the depths that he sinks to in order to get his way, including downright sabotage, start to alienate him from everyone else. And sometimes I had to sympathize with everyone else.

However, that didn't put me off enough that I wouldn't go for more Cory Doctorow in the future. I liked his concept, I liked imagining Disney World in the future, I liked the exploration of how life becomes so meaningless without death that most people voluntarily die in order to skip out on a couple of weeks, months, or years and see if things are cooler in the future.

Should I read it? Do you like sci fi? Do you like Disney World? Then yes.

Soon I Will Be Invincible

Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
Reason for Reading: Sci Fi Experience
Rating: 4/5

Doctor Impossible - evil genius, diabolical scientist, wannabe world dominator - languishes in a federal detention facility. He's lost his freedom, his girlfriend, and his hidden island fortress.

Over the years, he's tried to take over the world in every way imaginable: doomsday devices of all varieties (nuclear, thermonuclear, nanotechnological) and mass mind-control. He's traveled backward in time to change history, forward in time to escape it. He's commanded robot armies, insect armies, and dinosaur armies. Fungus army. Army of fish. Of rodents. Alien invasions. All failures. But not this time. This times it's going to be different...

I just had to start with the book's dust cover because I pretty much can't sum the book up any better than that. The book alternates between Doctor Impossible and Fatale, a cyborg addition to the Champions, AKA the world's best known superhero team. Grossman takes a similar approach to the superhero genre as The Impossibles by imagining all the genre stereotypes as a given. What's it like to have an island laboratory? What's the not-so-good side of being implanted with so much machinery there's not much human left? How's it really feel to share a high tech lab with the members of your superhero league?

The flaw to this book is because we're following the perspective of Doctor Impossible, the reader can't help but sympathize with him and cheer him along even as the Champions hunt him down, making his ultimate demise a bit of a letdown. Because you know there's going to be an ultimate demise.

The book is a clever quick read and if it sometimes couldn't decide if it was a parody or not, well then, I forgive it.

Should I read it? Do you love superheroes? Did you love the Impossibles? Then yes, by golly, you should.


With the theme of this post, I thought it would be a good time to mention another important topic: creating your own superhero. I created mine, The Mighty Flying Jones at The Hero Factory.

Her superpower appears to be flying and managing not to hit herself with that whip. Wanna try? Let me know when you've created your superhero so I can stop by and visit.

Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Reason for Reading: Sci Fi Experience-ish
Rating: 6/5 (Yeah I know)

This will be a real test as to whether or not I can write a mini-review and still manage to give a coherent report on what the review is about.

Okay, I'll do my best. Slaughterhouse Five is about a man named Billy Pilgrim, and we are introduced to him in this manner:

People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.

I've finished my war book now. The next one is going to be fun.

This one is a failure and it had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt. It begins like this.
"Listen, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

It ends like this:
"Poo-tee-weet"

Listen, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. I will never forget that opening line. Billy travels through all the moments in his life, from his birth to the purple nothingness that is death. He is in the cellar of a Dresden slaughterhouse on the eve of one of the greatest man-made disasters. He is on the planet Tralfamadore in a zoo with the famous Earthling movie star Montana Wildhack. He is getting married to the daughter of one of the finest citizens of Ilium, New York. He is preaching the message of the Tralfamadorians on the radio, which is that there are four dimensions, the fourth dimension being time. All moments past, present and future have always existed and always will exist, and death means nothing more than that a person is alive in the past. It is an illusion that one moment follows another.

This book is hard to describe because yes, it is science fictiony, but it is also about tragedy. About how to comprehend what is almost incomprehensible. The Tralfamadorians, with their ability to see the fourth dimension, give Billy a way to make sense of life. When someone dies, they say, "So it goes."

Billy's wife dies in a car accident. So it goes. The city of Dresden is wiped off the map by firebombs. So it goes. A fellow POW is killed for stealing a teapot. So it goes.

This was supposed to be a mini-review. So it goes.

Should I read it? Why are you reading this review? Go pick it up!!

Ender in Exile

Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
Reason for Reading: Sci Fi Experience
Rating: 2/5

I have so far read two of OSC's most famous books, Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. This not quite prequel, not quite sequel seeks to fill in the missing years between when Ender defeated the formics, saving the world, and when he discovered the Formic Queen on a distant colony world.

There are other loose ends being tied up in this book, from books in the Ender series I haven't even read yet, and it doesn't really offer much new to the series. To add a bit of tension, there is a ship's captain who thinks he is going to take Ender's job as governer when they arrive at the colony world, but of course Ender is much cleverer and quickly outwits him upon arrival to the colony.

There are some new characters, but none of them became as substantial or memorable as characters from the two previous Ender novels I've read. And then to make this story flow properly, it contradicts several details from Ender's Game, because of course when Card wrote Ender's Game 20 years ago, he wasn't planning to write this type of sequel.

I was most disappointed by the fact that Ender's brother, Peter was not given more ink in this novel, considering the fact he goes on to take over the planet in Ender's absence. Now that might have made things a little more interesting.

In the Afterword, Card admits to having to rely on fansites and companion guides to his Ender series to write this novel, because, "there was no way I had the time or the inclination to reread all those books. It would just depress me to notice all the things in all those books that now, being a better or at least more experienced writer, I would like to change."

And so, the result feels stale, like a few follow up stories that would have read better as short stories or even entries into an official Ender encylopedia.

Should I read it? Maybe if you are a diehard fan. If not, don't bother.

Sci Fi Experience Wrap-up

The very first book challenge (or experience) I entered as a blogger was the Sci Fi experience, and it got me hooked into book blogging. So I have to say thanks to Carl V for hosting!

If I had all the time in the world, I'd probably read scifi nonstop, but real life intrudes, so here is how far I got:

I started with The Handmaid's Tale, a fascinating look at a dystopian future where women are kept in near slavery and reading is outlawed.

My next book happened to be scifi as well. Feed was a look into a future that, while not as bleak as The Handmaid's Tale perhaps, was sure not all sunshine and daisies. Everyone worth anything is connected to a feed in their brain which allows them to chat and access the next generation internet. But things are not always what they seem....

And finally, I found a new favorite author in Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game was a great read - thought-provoking, interesting, enjoyable.

Carl, I hope you host this challenge again. I could always use an excuse to read more scifi.

Ender's Game

Author: Orson Scott Card
Challenges: YA Challenge, Sci-Fi Experience, Margaret A. Edwards Challenge
Rating: 4.5/5

Ender is a gifted kid. Really, really gifted. How gifted? At the age of 11, the fate of humankind rests on his ability to command an army.

This book is a study in army psychology as Ender is recruited at the tender age of 6 for the elite Battle School, where children are trained to fight against the Buggers, insectoid aliens who have twice invaded Earth and nearly wiped out humanity.

Ender is a genius among geniuses. Being prepped to be the commander of an army means that he is constantly up against mind games and impossible odds meant to force out his brilliance. His happiness is never is a part of the equation, so Ender spends a lot of time lonely, suffering, and in pain.

Ender has to fight for acceptance in his peer group, and before he has even had to time to enjoy the tenuous new friendships before he is promoted ahead of his classmates to one of the Battle School's armies, where he has to fight to prove himself yet again. Eventually, he is promoted to the commander of a new army, where he the rules are constantly changed to make the battles nearly impossible for Ender to win.

Large parts of the book are taken up by detailed descriptions of the null gravity battles that the students spent their times fighting. For this, and other reasons, this book reminds me of one of my favorite sci-fi classics, Starship Troopers. (Other similarities: Bugs in ST, Buggers in Ender's Game, similar philosophies about warfare).

For example:

He slid forward along the star, hooked his feet on the lip, and flipped himself up to the top wall, then rebounded down to E toon's star. In a moment he was leading them down against the south wall. They rebounded in near perfect unison and came up behind the two stars that Carn Carby's soldiers were defending. It was like cutting butter with a hot knife. Rabbit Army was gone, just a little cleanup left to do.

I really really enjoyed the majority of this book. I was hooked into it (it kept up me up reading late the other night). Ender is a interesting character, and the way he develops into a leader through his many trials is fascinating. The mind games they play on him are relentless, and even when forced to do things he finds abhorrent, he finds a way to keep himself from losing his humanity.

My only quibble came with the ending. In my head, I had the ending all worked out, and then I felt kind of let down by the direction it ultimately took. Despite that, I will be picking up the sequels at some point, because I want to see what happens next to Ender.

... Yet More Resolutions

The beginning of the year is a fabulous time to get interested in book challenges. There are so many starting right now that I felt like a kid in a candy store browsing around and picking which ones I wanted to join. Since I started this blog (a few short days ago) I've been dipping my toes in the pool of book challenge goodness, and now I'm taking the plunge (so to speak).

So here goes. I'm joining 7 challenges so far this year, and I hope it will actually become more!

Sci fi Experience

I have already posted about the , but here's my reading list so far (almost all books mooched from the parents):

Books/Stories by Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly
Our Friends From Frolix 8
Paycheck
The Minority Report
The Man in the High Castle
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon
Radio Free Albemuth

Books by Ray Bradbury
The Toynbee Convector
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Quicker Than the Eye
The Illustrated Man

The Planet That Wasn’t by Isaac Asimov
Transition by Vonda McIntyre

Short Story Challenge

For this challenge, I have choices between 10 short stories during 2008 or 10 short story collections. I haven't finished my reading list, but this is the start:

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman (collection)
Old Times on the Missippi by Mark Twain (story)
Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? By Philip K Dick
The Overcoat by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

I'm planning to keep up to date on this one by participating in the discussions on A Curious Singularity

The Mythopoeic Award Challenge

I really like this one. I get to pick 7 titles from the books which have contended for the Mythopoeic Award. I might have to add more as I get more into this one:

Little, Big by John Crowley
Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

In Their Shoes Challenge

For this one, I'm reading however many books I want to that are autobiographies, memoirs, or biographies:

Eat, Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Candy girl: a year in the life of an unlikely stripper by Diablo Cody.
The year of magical thinking by Joan Didion
Paula by Isabel Allende
Ten Thousand Sorrows by Elizabeth Kim

Young Adult Reading Challenge

For this one I'm reading 12 Young Adult Books. I haven't had the time to quite finish this list either, but I figure I'll browse the library as I check out new books. Now that I've finally figured out where the YA section is:

Feed by M.T. Anderson
House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
Esperanza rising by Pam Mu~noz Ryan
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Chunkster Challenge

For this I was a little apprehensive... 4 books in 2008 that are 450 pages or longer. But then I realized I already have a chunky book that I've started on, and another I'm planning to read for the Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge. So... easy peasy:


War and Peace
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

My Year of Reading Dangerously

The point of this one is to read books that are challenging, or at a minimum ones you don't normally read. This one comes with an official list, which I'm going to stick with so far. The one that sounds the scariest for me is Great Expectations. Hope I can find all of these books in the library! If not, there will be some substitutions.

January: Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
February: The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison (African American)
March: Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood (Atwood for Atwood's sake)
April: Transformations, by Anne Sexton (Poetry)
May: Other Voices, Other Rooms, by Truman Capote (Southern)
June: Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (Russian)
July: The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier (adolescent)
August: Maus I and II, by Art Spiegelman (Graphic Novel, Pulitzer winner)
September: The Secret Lives of People in Love, by Simon Van Booy (Independent)
October: The Human Stain, by Philip Roth (Contemporary/Jewish)
November: A Month of Classic Short Stories, Various
December: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (Dusty)