Short story set in the Confederation universe. Hamilton builds worlds well as usual but this story it not very memorable. It does, however, serve as a tiny piece in the background for The Void Trilogy.
Abandon in Place – Jerry Oltion
In this short story, ghost rockets, seemingly identical to the Saturn V Moon rockets, begin launching from Cape Canaveral soon after Neil Armstrong’s death. One astronaut is chosen to board one of the rockets before it launches.
Cute little love story declaration for the Apollo program, but really nothing special.
The Last Centurion – John Ringo
This near future novel starts with a major plague that wipes out over half the planet’s population. Then there’s global cooling as the Earth enters a mini ice age. Our hero Bandit Six, who tells the story from a first person perspective, is a US Army Captain with a farming background. He becomes stuck in Iran (invaded by the US before the story started) with one company of infantry guarding an enormous amount of supplies left behind as US forces pull out. Meanwhile, the US is crumbling due to the global disasters and inept political leadership. Bandit Six has to pull of a heroic extraction of his men to get back to civilization, but he becomes more than that. A symbol of hope in a “time of suckage”.
Right up front, I should tell you that this novel is right-wing, very pro-America, racist (but only if you misinterpret it), anti-liberal, pro-military and littered with the f-word. Bandit Six tells the story in the first person, using a blog style tone. In your face doesn’t even begin to cover it. Bandit Six is old school conservative (not the same as “modern Republican”). He truly believes in good old Americans and good old American know how and perseverance. He believes that people should be treated like adults and not be coddled. Liberals, the press and “tofu-eaters” (organic food eaters who don’t want to know where their food comes from) are roundly criticized for being short sighted and just plain stupid. Now, I may not be as right wing as Bandit Six, but I have a hard time disagreeing with most of what he says. His theses are well argued. He is right about a lot of things. Ringo does his usual great job of using dry humor to tell a story. And it is a very good story. Gripping, exciting, humorous despite the enormous tragedy and suffering suffusing it. The Centurion metaphor, setting America as the new Rome, a beacon of civilization in a barbarian world, with the military defending it, is well done. Even if you don’t agree with the book’s views, do read it. The salient points are better argued than what you will hear on the conservative news or by conservative politicians. That alone makes it worth it.
Much of the story is based on Xenophon’s account of the “Ten Thousand” and their march back to Greece in 401-399 BC.
Noble House – James Clavell
The sequel to Tai Pan is set in the early 1960s, a time when Hong Kong had come into its own as an economic powerhouse with liberal laws allowing huge fortunes to be made and lost. The story focuses around Struan’s, the company founded by Dirk Struan from Tai Pan. The company is in trouble from several fronts, and both inter-company and political intrigue play a part.
Struan’s is rather obviously based on real life company Jardine Matheson, still one of the most important corporations in Hong Kong. while Tai pan was exciting and had a great setting, Noble House reminded me too much of one of the 1980s soaps Dallas and Falcon Crest. Ruthless, scheming rich people bickering and fighting. I read about a quarter of it but became terribly bored and gave up. Despite the really interesting snapshot of Hong Kong life in the 1960s, on the cusp of modernity, I couldn’t make myself care about the plot or the characters.
Tai-Pan – James Clavell
This massive novel dramatizes the events surrounding the founding of Hong Kong. Our hero, Dirk Struan, is a merchant prince, head of his trading house. He is known by the Chinese expression “Tai-Pan”, meaning “supreme leader”. The book chronicles his efforts to found and develop Hong Kong as a way to both open up trade with China and ensure that the West be exposed to Chinese influence.
The book is skillfully written and a page turner. The characters are larger than life. Great fun all around. Clavell shows a keen eye for the way different people are motivated based on ethnicity and culture, sex and social position. The many action-filled twists do not seem confusing, but drive the story forward without seeming like just pointless noise.
Dune Roller – Julian May
A 1950s short story about a terrorizing creature that lives in a big lake.
Cute story with nice characters. It is very interesting to read something that is not only from the 1950s, but is also SET in the 1950s. Just the whole ham radio thing was quirky from a contemporary viewpoint. May wrote this with skill, foreshadowing the great things that were to come for her.
Eye of the Storm – John Ringo
After having spent quite some time on side stories, the “Legacy of the Aldenata/Posleen” universe finally gets back to the central core of the story, if you will. Peace is at hand, but there is trouble as the Darhel keep trying to screw humanity over in a sort of grand plan for their own domination of all races. Pretty soon, all that falls by the wayside as a new threat is looming. The Darhel now have to come to terms with the fact they need those pesky humans. However, unlike during the Posleen War, humanity is well aware of what is going on, and can dictate terms. Mike O’Neal is brought back from disgrace (he was framed) to lead.
One thing I loved about this novel was how many of the main protagonists from both the central Posleen War stories and the side stories were brought together. It was like a Greatest Hits album with only cool songs. The reunion of Cally and Mike O’Neal, with the latter being unaware that his daughter was even alive, was entertaining as hell. And any excuse to bring back the SS troops from “Watch on the Rhine” is a good one. Like the early books in the Posleen War series, this one focuses on preparation, leaving a cliffhanger as the main action finally begin. Looking forward to future installments.
Contact with Chaos – Michael Z. Williamson
Set in the “Freehold” universe, this novel is about first contact with a planetbound race that has almost no metals. They turn out to be quite advanced in ceramics, steam and other sciences, all developed without metals. Humanity, in the form of a joint Freehold/UN mission, makes efforts not to expose the race to metals. This inevitably causes tension.
While not as action packed as other Williamson novels, I found this highly enjoyable. The plot is both smart, entertaining and clever. The characters are perhaps somewhat unoriginal, but do the job adequately. I did have a hard time keeping track of some of the secondary characters. A dramatis personae would have been great. Williamson is at his best when describing the effects of weapons and other technology. Many other authors would have turned this book into a boring scholarly piece, but Williamson manages to keep the technology discussions both entertaining and fascinating. The story has many interesting twists to keep it going.
Coyote Horizon (Coyote IV) – Allen Steele
The fourth book in the Coyote series seems a bit scatterbrained. Various linked stories about a group who “find god” and others.
I got about half way through, then couldn’t finish it. Boooooooring!
The Five Fists of Science – Matt Fraction & Steven Sanders
This graphic novel sees Mark Twain join forces with Nikola Tesla and Bertha von Suttner, using technology to bring about peace. The antagonists are J.P. Morgan, in this book a demon-worshipping wizard by night, Thomas Alva Edison and Guglielmo Marconi.
This is a fun little piece. A bit too short perhaps, but not atypically so for the genre. I did find the art, while gorgeous, a bit too dark and often hard to decipher. The action scenese in particular were somewhat confusing.
Deception Point – Dan Brown
NASA discovers a meteorite in the Arctic ice pack. It holds a wondrous discovery. But does it? Rachel Sexton, daughter of a the presidential challenger, is caught up in a web of conspiracies while she races to find the truth.
Did the last paragraph sound like the blurb for an over the top action novel? That’s because this one is. Dan Brown is fine at creating intricate plots full of action and suspense. This time, however, he went way too far. So much stuff is just “too much”. He has an annoying tendency to get people out of sticky situations with deux ex machina. The right tool or idea for the job seems to pop out of thin air just as it is needed.
I dislike it when authors state in an introduction that all the technologies described already exist, then write military technicalities in completely inaccurate ways. Case in point: The Delta Force operatives int he book are painted as inhuman robots who never talk about a mission after they have performed it. Really? No after action reviews? That seems absurd. There are plenty of other examples where the tech just seems a bit too “neat”.
Part of the central premise of the story itself, that if NASA were disbanded and lost its monopoly private contractors could undercut by factors of two or three, seems quite implausible to me. If nothing else, NASA only has a monopoly in the USA. If NASA is so protected by legalities, why aren’t space companies simply shipping their operations abroad? In conclusion the book is a semi-decent diversion but not much more.
Digital Fortress – Dan Brown
An NSA cryptographer tries to find a solution when someone has supposedly created an uncrackable encryption algorithm.
Dan Brown’s first novel is much like his future efforts: An action and intrigue packed thriller with myriad twists. This one is actually not “as bad” as some of his later writings. The twists are not as implausible. It is like reading an over the top action movie script, albeit a pretty decent one.
