The Sci Fi Guy

On rare occasions a book shows up in the mail from a publisher or publicist. I am always grateful when they do, because at least I know someone came to the website! But I also like to make sure that you the reader understands when something has been provided to me so that you can judge whether or not I’m being biased. Well, lo and behold, one publicist discovered Scifi-Guy.com and noted that I’m an Orson Scott Card fan (which is definitely true) and she was kind enough to send me a copy of The Authorized Ender Companion.

When it arrived, I was first struck by the sheer size of the book! At 429 pages, this is about twice as long as the original Ender’s Game novel itself. But, it proved to be well worth the depth. There is a bounty of information contained within this companion, and it provides an amazing review of all things Ender.

The core of the book itself is an alphabetical listing of the characters, settings, features, and basically any nouns that exist within the Ender-sphere, noted as the “Encyclopedia”. It ranges from ansible to Xenocide, from Jane to Ender himself, and allows a singular place to reference virtually anything related to any of the books that have been written to date.

In addition to the encyclopedia, there are also some other sections of the book, including a breakdown of the technology Card uses thoughout his novels, as well as a short essay regarding the creation (or, ahem, lack thereof) of an Ender’s Game movie. All told, even for this hard-core Ender aficionado, there’s a lot to consume. It’s an amazing compilation of work, and it’s a tribute to Card’s imagination that a book like this even can exist, let alone fill as much shelf space as this one does.

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my ultimate reaction to the book. It’s a strange reaction, but bear with me. It shouldn’t exist.

This isn’t to say that the material contained within isn’t valuable – far from it. Author Jake Black has done a wonderful job of summarizing every detail and character imaginable from this universe. What I mean by that statement is that the book itself is ultimately the wrong format for this material. Perhaps it’s the “wiki” in me, but an alphabetized encyclopedia seems like a step in the wrong direction. However, the flip-side of the coin is obvious; there’s no medium available as of yet for a book like this to exist, profitably but without annoying advertising and sponsorships, on the Internet today. When I say that the “wiki” in me is frustrated, what I mean is that just like the Ender stories and characters, everything is interconnected. In a flat alphabetical structure, the material suffers because those interconnections cannot be revealed; or at least struggle to be maintained. And the ultimate curse befalls this format as well: If Card writes a new book, this collection of resources that Black has assembled becomes less relevant, or even potentially wrong. What if Card suddenly decides that the buggers are actually an off-shoot of another species which is now invading populated space, but operates on a whole different set of rules than before. I’m not saying that these are likely, but the same value placed in print (the fact that its a fixed medium) upsets the value in a book like this (which would fit much nicer in a dynamic environment such as the web).

So here’s the final word. This is a valuable book in and of itself. Jake Black has done a great job condensing the Ender-verse in to merely a few hundred pages (considering the thousands upon thousands that Card has crafted, this is hardly a small feat). If you are a fan of the Ender novels, or the Bean novels, or the various short stories also circulating about Ender and this universe OSC has generated, you may find great value in having this companion nearby. There are references to far-flung characters and clarifications of complex character developments that took several books to complete, and these resources are remarkably well written and complete. That all being said, I still wish it were a website, or somehow dynamic in nature. I know authors cannot pay mortgages with website traffic (sometimes), and it fits outside of the model traditional publishing has been built upon for a hundred and fifty years… But a SciFi-Guy can wish, can’t he?

I’ve enjoyed Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child as authors in the past. The movie adaptation of Relic was probably their most notable mainstream success, but this author pairing has managed to punch out hit after hit of science-fiction meets ancient relics. They premise Indiana Jones-like stories with an FBI agent. Think Mulder meets Indy.

The Wheel of Darkness is one of their more recent paperbacks, and I picked it up to take with me on a quick trip out of town. Overall, it was a good read – a page turner with mystery, suspense, vivid sets, and an internal struggle between main characters. The ship becomes a central character too, as mysterious dangers emerge while steaming across the Atlantic ocean. Like I said, it’s a page turner. My only complaint in the book really centers in the fact that there’s too much of this book that feels like the movie Titanic. There’s the no-BS captain that feels archetyped from years of naval movies and books where the crew subverts the captain thinking that he’s out of line. It just felt typical.

However, don’t let a couple nagging characters bring down an otherwise enjoyable trip book. It’s not a spectacular piece of literature with some deep moral or moment of insight. What Wheel of Darkness will give you is a good, complete novel.

Traveling is one of my favorite pasttimes, but almost as much as the destination matters to me, the journey oftentimes provides me the unique time to actually open a novel and relax. Over the last couple years, I’ve realized that perhaps my favorite form of science fiction is actually the short-fiction style. Maybe it’s me being a greedy reader, but I enjoy the fact I can sit down and bounce from universe to universe, storyline to storyline, character to character, without necessarily having to spend hours to get the jist of what the author is trying to say. And more often than not, I catch myself appreciating how the author formulated his or her story in a way to make it compact yet enjoyable.

I wanted to share some impressions from the book that I recently picked up titled, Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 2. This is a completely original anthology of work, featuring a range of topics and writing styles.

The first story is iCity by Paul Di Filippo, an intriguing tale of high-speed, web-enabled urban planning. The most notable part about what Mr. Di Filippo did in this story is that he jumped right in to the story, then backed out with the background process of how a city can actually be upgraded and downgraded on a whim, and also managed to tell a pretty interesting character story as well.

The third story is The Line of Dichotomy by Chris Robertson, which features a war-torn planet on the brink of peace and terraforming. Perhaps I read this too quickly after watching the movie rendition of Screamers (a Philip K. Dick story), but the setup of the setting seemed damned similar. However, that doesn’t make it an interesting read, and the climax at the ending is enough to make you wonder whether or not we’ll ever be wise enough to give up violence for coexistance with each other.

Not to berate any of the other stories in this fine collection, but my favorite so far (and I admit I haven’t finished the book yet), is Sunworld by Eric Brown. This is definitely an author that’s been influenced by Arthur C. Clarke. It begins as one story and then slowly becomes another – with a climax that’s well worth the journey to get there.

I’d also note that Shining Armor by Dominic Green is another worthwhile story, but only if you grew up enjoying Robotech and other mech-related science fiction like I did. Essentially the story revolves around the notion that you should never underestimate someone – not everyone that appears strong is as strong as they appear.

Odds are I’ll finish the last few stories this weekend, and hopefully find some more good gems in this collection. I’ve already been so impressed by this 2nd edition that I went ahead and ordered the 1st volume from Amazon. Once that arrives, I’ll be sure to share those with you too.

I just recently read Niven’s Ringworld for the first time, and was really enthralled by both the concept (a ring-world surrounding a sun that provided everything a planet can provide in absolutely absurd quantities) and the novel itself. Given my great experience with that book, my interest was piqued when I saw Destiny’s Road. The premise of the novel is fairly interesting – a colony world that features a unique “road” that was put in place generations ago by the founders of the colony.

The story follows the character of Jemmy, who throughout the story has to assume numerous names and identities to keep himself safe from the suspecting eyes of the merchants that he fears will have his head if they know his real secret – and his real past. Destiny’s Road is an enthralling tale, featuring a unique planet similar to Earth but with numerous challenges that face those living on the planet Destiny. Fundamentally, it’s a travellers story – Jemmy journeys from one end of the “Crab” (the region populated by the colony settlers) to the other. In between, Jemmy experiences not only the growth from boy to man, but also the discovery that everything is not as it seemed to him as a child growing up in Sprial Town.

The story centers around a few key concepts… A road has been carved in the planet that is essentially impenetrable. There is “settler magic” – energy-based technology that the current survivors on Destiny cannot repair (that is starting to degrade). There is a species of sentient and intelligent creatures that are able to communicate but are unable to take some of the most basic steps outside of their own realm. And most importantly, the humans on the planet are involved in a collosal feud with the planet’s natural ecology. Potassium-withdrawl makes for some intriguing science fiction, I can tell you that much.

Destiny’s Road has some interesting plot twists, but it does take a little time to actually get in to the rhythm of the story. The protagonist is pretty straightforward (Jemmy) but the antagonists – the things he’s running from – are more complicated than meets the eye, and in many situation he actually has to discover that the people he’s surrounded by are less ally than adversary (or vice-versa). At some points, I found myself wondering why Jemmy was making the decisions he was – not because they were bad decisions but because the motivation for his action didn’t seem apparent at the time. The story also spans a significant chunk of time – essentially Jemmy’s entire adult life. If you’re looking for quick resolutions, don’t count on ‘em!

Overall, Destiny’s Road is a great read – fast paced and with a great range of characters, settings, and challenges that Jemmy encounters. Niven is obviously a writer of exceptional talent that has thought through all the aspects of the world he’s creating. I’ve done a little digging and I’m amazed to discover there’s no sequel to Destiny’s Road nor an alternative story (perhaps prequel or same-world, different characters) written. There’s plenty of material inside here to write an entire series of novels.

I’m writing this post to tell you about the posts I’m going to post. Get it?

Anyways, I’ve enjoyed a great couple of weeks of SciFi-ness, and I’ve got plenty of things on the horizon. I can tell you I’ve just broken in to the world of Phillip K. Dick, and I’m amazed. I was given a copy of his 1962 Hugo Award winning novel, The Man in the High Castle, and devoured it within a weekend. I’m such a huge fan of alternative-history stories, and frankly I’m amazed it took me this long to be shown this extraordinary work. I’ll have a full write up soon. I turned right around and purchased a Phillip K. Dick collection of short stories (a “Reader” as the cover leads you to believe) – including numerous short stories that have inspired films such as Total Recall, The Minority Report, and Paycheck. Even the stories that didn’t seem to find their way to Hollywood are great.

I’ve also picked up another Larry Niven book that I haven’t gotten a chance to start – but I was really blown away by Ringworld (which is, alas, another book that I’ve read recently but haven’t had the chance to review). And to top it off, I Am Legend is out on DVD, I just watched Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001, and I still don’t know if I want to bother seeing Jumpers (which I’ll have to wait for on DVD anyways). And just for fun, I also snuck in a re-viewing of Star Trek IV – the one with the whales and San Francisco in the early 90’s. There’s some great comedy mixed in there – proving once again that the best SciFi is the stuff that captures the humanity of the genre. (”Well double-dumb-ass on you!”)

On the TV front, Lost is a brief hiatus which is probably a good thing – this season was going quickly and I think I want a little time to soak it all in. Michael still sucks, and I still can’t figure out what to think of the current Locke persona. Good guy, bad guy? [spoiler] And we’re killing off the French chick? Ouch. She waits 16 years to meet her daughter and then gets caught in some crossfire. The fact that it’s returning in a few short weeks is great news – I’m glad the writers strike has been resolved and things can return to normal… Jericho also wrapped up another short season – I hope CBS decides to hang on to this little underdog.

Well, like I said, there’s plenty of work laid out for me to get to in the days and weeks to come. I hope you’re all enjoying a fine weekend!

A couple weeks ago, I received an email from a company called ChooseCo, which are the publishers of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. They asked that I take a glance at a new book that will be released in April, 2008, titled The Golden Path by Anson Montgomery, so of course I accepted. I can barely describe the joy I experienced when I started flipping the pages, once again, of a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

As a child of the 80’s, Choose Your Own Adventure books were a staple of my youth. They provided a unique and interactive way of reading, and empowered the reader to make decisions and face the consequences of those choices. Of course, the best part about CYOA books probably comes in the fact that they were immensely re-readable, because the different choices can result in vastly different outcomes.

When opening up The Golden Path, I was amazed at the level of sophistication that this story enjoys. The premise is this (hijacked from the back cover):

It starts with a simple call in to the headmaster’s office on a perfect fall day. It turns into a search for your missing parents that takes you and your two best friends on a trip into the hollow Earth. Part thriller, part travelogue, part personal quest, The Golden Path: Volume One weaves a labyrinthine journey as you search for answers to the truth about your past and the clues to your future…

Some aspects of the book deal with some pretty sophisticated issues, such as a changed world order where government agents are on the lookout for anything suspicious, and where things like personal flying vehicles are par for the course. One interesting aspect of The Golden Path has to deal with the fact that this is obviously a book written to today’s youth… Where I grew up in a “Cold War” era, it’s interesting to note that this book deals with issues that might be much closer to home – government oversight, environmental calamity, and the emergence of technology as a standard part of kids’ lives today.

Reading The Golden Path reminded me of the joys of being in middle school and flipping open my first Choose Your Own Adventure novel. The intro-chapter is a little lengthy for my taste (I don’t remember having to go so far to get to a choice!) but it does the job to establish the world these kids live in. Some of the characters seem archetyped from the Harry Potter books (of which I haven’t read), but I think the effect is worthwhile as long as it gives kids something to ground themselves with – and gets them to read!

If you’re looking for a nice bit of nostalga, or you’re looking for a pre-teen “thriller” for a child in your life, I can definitely recommend jumping back in to this unique niche and giving The Golden Path: Volume One a try. Should be in stores on April 25th.

Orson Scott Card is one of my all time favorite science fiction authors, and so when I saw this book on the shelves I was a little taken aback. A contemporary action-thriller novel? With his name on it? Strange. I decided to give it a shot anyways, and it turns out Card is pretty good at writing along the lines of Tom Clancy. It’s not a perfect novel, and I’d venture to say it doesn’t feel as comfortable as his far future stories such as the Ender sagas or his fantasy stories.

The premise goes as this: We follow an elite Army Ranger and his lovable sidekick as they attempt to uncover the nature of a plot to assasinate the President. While the president himself isn’t named, it’s pretty obvious the charater was based on George W. Bush, the despiseable Texan Right-Wing bastard. And of course, what story couldn’t be complete without dozens of references to the insanity of both sides of the extreme right-and-left political bases. Nobody knows if the impending civil war is a right-wing consipracy to make things more right-wing, or a left-wing conspiracy to make things definitively not right-wing and return power that was lost after the 2000 election debacle.

Here’s the thing. Card’s characters are great, as always. Our hero is all-American, and delivers one-two punches to the badguys. His wife is every man’s dream wife; the mother of 5 that could be top aide to the president. Our sidekick is also great. In fact, there’s not the usual dose of Card’s character complexities. Each character is cut from an unusual mold this time around, where the heroes do what heroes do best – kick ass and take names.

Meanwhile, what does detract from the novel is the fact that the premise is so outrageous that even a completely biased reader like myself (biased in the sense that Orson Scott Card can do no wrong) ends up saying, “This seems a tad bit over-the-edge”. Do I doubt that there are militant forces within the US that might try to stage their own version of the civil war? Possibly. But I think unfortunately Card was issued an ultimatuum from a video game manufacturer that said “We need a story that will pit the US in civil war. And we have mechs. And hovercycles.” I’m not making that part up, this book was the premise for a video game.

Card makes some legitimate points that our current fractures in society are along rural and suburban versus urban lines, but it doesn’t justify the fact that it would take a lot more than he gave credit for in order for the states to do what they did in this story. Again, not saying there’s anything fundamentally wrong with Empire, but it doesn’t jibe and it doesn’t feel complete. It feels forced.

Empire is a decent read, and it does read quickly. However, this Scifi Guy will hope that in the future, Card sticks to more extreme futures and pasts. He’s more comfortable there. And, oh yeah. Mr. Card. Please stop taking orders from video game designers. They haven’t had a good movie in forever, it’s not surprising that the novel can’t do it either.

Have you ever seen previews for a movie, heard lots of good things about it, and didn’t wind up seeing it in the theaters. Then it hits the DVD store, and you still didn’t pick it up for years. Finally, you realize that you should rent it, so you do, but it’s been 4 years since the movie came out, and you can’t exactly go in to work tomorrow and say, “Hey, that Karate Kid movie was pretty good, huh?”

Well, Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama is the book equivalent to me. After years of wandering past the Clarke section in the bookstore, I finally decided to see for myself what the big deal was, and picked up the first installment for this series. I have to admit, I was really amazed that I hadn’t caught on to Clarke earlier, and after reading the first few chapters I was absolutely hooked. Fortunately, my coworkers at the water cooler don’t have to hear about this because I’ve got this handy blog here.

In a nutshell, Rendezvous with Rama is the tale of our future in which a giant space ship approaches the solar system. Humans realize it’s en route just in time to throw a last-minute inspection together to dock with this craft and try to understand its secrets. The story further complicates as the interior of this vessel is revealed to be a complete artificial world, filled with “cities”, rivers, and creatures that the humans sent to research this phenomenon can only begin to understand. Within the entire story, one thing is revealed: The Ramans do everything in threes.

I’ll admit I’m already halfway through the third book of the 4 book series, so I’m probably going to post up another article after I wrap the whole series. In the meantime, I’ve also discovered that Rendezvous is in film production as well, starring Morgan Freeman. Hopefully this will be a great film adaptation just like Clarke & Stanley Kubric’s 2001: A Space Odyssey set the bar for realism in space-based movies.

There’s science fiction and then there’s fiction about science. Artifact, by Gregory Benford, is the former. What Mr. Benford (himself a physicist) has tried to do is basically create a story around the concept of a new element and/or set of scientific standards.

The story opens with a young architect, Claire, working feverishly on an archaelogical site in Greece. The story itself is set in a very near future, where Greece has decided to revert to socialism and California somehow decides to chop itself in to two. Claire, meanwhile, is only interested in the unique finds she’s discovering, while simultaneously trying to hold off the Greece site controller (who is also one of the up-and-coming leaders of the social rebellion). Finally she discovers something that just shouldn’t be in the dig site, which sets off a series of events leading to the discovery of a whole new world of science.

I hate to say it – Artifact leaves the reader disappointed. I was eager to chew through an “aliens left something underground” story a-la Michael Crichton’s Sphere, but instead the story of this element is pretty tame. There are really 2 parts of Benford’s writing that are frustrating. For one, the dialogue is contrived and flows horribly. Characters in his story apparently aren’t comfortable conjugating. Secondly, he plays out the “New England versus the South” subplot between two main characters in a rediculous fashion. The setting that he contrives is one where Southern mathematicians and Northeastern archaeologists are from totally different worlds and stunned at the existance of the other. It just didn’t play out right, and left me saying, “Ok, get back to the super weapon!”

At the end of it all is an attempt at climax which, sadly, leaves the obvious nemesis to succumb to his inevitable fate, while the hero and heroine live out a happily ever after.

The story isn’t completely flawed. I give Benford a lot of credit for knowing a LOT more about the periodic table and other scientific stuff than I could ever grasp. But I think that’s sorta the problem – at the end of the story you realize that Benford knows his stuff, but the topic he was trying to convey is just a hair above the average science fiction enthusiast. I read sci-fi to be entertained, not confused and feeling stupid. A great author can take a complex mathematical or physics topic and convey it using ordinary concepts; sadly Benford may need a little more practice to make it worthwhile.

I’m spending a little more time on the Orson Scott Card Ender saga than anything else (well, except maybe for Lost) because honestly his books have really influenced how I read science fiction, and how they shape my opinions of other works within the genre. The first post that I wrote about was regarding the act of speaking, which is essentially like a funeral of truth. Card covers another interesting concept in Speaker for the Dead as well, which is the ability to observe something while trying not to change it.

In Speaker, the humans of Milagre are attempting to maintain an isolated living environment while observing the pequenos (more commonly called the Piggies). What turns out though, is that there’s really no way to get around the observer effect, which is to say that you can’t observe something without interfering with the outcome or the natural state of things before you started observing it.

As can be fairly easily predicted – once humans begin to intervene on the Piggy’s way of life, the social structure and community standards that were previously in place begin to change; but unfortunately the humans don’t exactly see how they’re changing things. Not only that, but the Piggy’s themselves seem to have strange heirarchies in their society that don’t fit human norms, and so the words they use don’t quite make sense (things like “father trees”, “mother trees”, brothers and wives…) The end result is the death of not one but two of the most prominent researchers (xenobiologists, actually) on the planet, which unravels to force the remaining humans to choose between their lives and the success of their mission. In the process, Ender himself is called by Novinha to speak the death of her surrogate father, Pipo. Well – once Ender shows up, you know things get interesting!

One thing that intrigues me about a story like Speaker for the Dead, and in fact many other alien discovery stories, is what would actually happen when we find them (er… if we find them). Another author, Ken Macleod, wrote a trilogy of books about a future where we discover alien creatures that are again fundamentally different – in both form and thought – to humans (and it’s a great series of books, I’ll be sure to cover them in the coming weeks). If we were visited by aliens tomorrow, I’d suggest we put a science fiction writer out front – they’ve thought out a lot of what happens when we finally meet alien kind.