I knew as soon as I stumbled across this book online that we were destined to be together. A chunky book about a time-travelling government department attempting to reinstate magic? Yes please. DEFINITELY yes. So when I accidentally stumbled across a signed copy in London's Forbidden Planet, I honestly didn't shut up about it for days. I got home, read it immediately... and still haven't shut up about it. Sorry everyone (but not that sorry).
Plot summary:
1851 England
The Great Exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace has opened, celebrating the rise of technology and commerce. With it the power of magic – in decline since the industrial revolution began – is completely snuffed out. The existence of magic begins its gradual devolution into mere myth.
21st Century America
Magic has faded from the minds of mankind, until an encounter between Melisande Stokes, linguistics expert at Harvard, and Tristan Lyons, shadowy agent of government, leads to the uncovering of a distant past.
After translating a series of ancient texts, Melisande and Tristan discover the connection between science, magic and time travel and so the Department of Diachronic Operations – D.O.D.O. – is hastily brought into existence. Its mission: to develop a device that will send their agents back to the past, where they can stop magic from disappearing and alter the course of history.
But when you interfere with the past, there’s no telling what you might find in your future…
I loved this book. Loved, loved, loved this book. I always knew I was going to, but I feel like it defied even my highest of expectations.
It's almost like a way more detailed and technical version of The Chronicles of St Mary's series - I always complained that the concept was great but it was hugely lacking in detail - and now we have The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. In this book, we get to see the creation of the organisation from the ground up, as the machines are invented and the concept of D.O.D.O. (Department of Diachronic Operations) comes together. It could be boring, but it's not. It's time travel and so I will suck up every scrap of detail and love it.
It's told through a variety of different formats, but not so many that it becomes wearing (I'm looking at you, Illuminae). We mostly see mission reports and journal entries, but there's the odd internal company memo or policy briefing to add a dry and fun sense of humour. I wasn't over keen on the letters from Grainne O'Malley (a 16th Century witch) as I really didn't like her and they dragged on a bit but, looking back, they probably were necessary to the overarching plot, so I won't complain too much.
Ohhhhhh, the plot. It's ingenious. A lot of time is spent on setting the scene and I loved every second. However, the actual over-arching point of the novel is deeply hidden and quite subtle, so that you start to feel genuine little twinges of anxiety before you even really know what's going on. It's hard to pinpoint, but it's there. When it really gets going, towards the end, my stomach actually hurt, I cared so deeply about the characters. It's honestly a masterpiece.
Of course you get some detail of their time-travelling exploits - what's the point of a time travel book otherwise!? I loved Melisande travelling back to bury a rare book, and managing to navigate the 16th Century slightly better every time she headed back. I'd probably have liked more of that, but not at the expense of the amazing plot so I'll pipe down. There's a reasonable amount there anyway, in fairness.
I can only imagine how long it took Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland to plan this book. Not only the set-up of D.O.D.O. but the intertwining threads of narrative that come together to make absolute sense. It is time travel, after all - it's not meant to be simple. This is the only book I've read by these authors, but I've already added a few more to my wishlist.
The only problem with The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. is that I was torn between frantically needing to read it, but then not wanting to read it because then I'd have finished it and couldn't read it anymore... *breathes into a paper bag*
Visit Neal Stephenson's website here, or find him on Twitter.
Nicole Galland can be found here.
NOW READ THEIR BOOK.
So one day I roll up to work without a book, which is quite a distressing situation considering I work about an hour away by public transport. Naturally I go to the library to grab a book (or four, actually, but that's a whole other issue) with which to entertain myself on the way home. One of these, and the book I actually started reading, was Sleeping Giants. I knew nothing about it going in but it turned out to be amazing.
Plot summary: Deadwood, USA. A
girl sneaks out just before dark to ride her new bike. Suddenly, the
ground disappears beneath her. Waking up at the bottom of a deep pit,
she sees an emergency rescue team above her. The people looking down see
something far stranger...
That
girl grows up to be Dr. Rose Franklyn, a brilliant scientist and the
leading world expert on what she discovered. An enormous, ornate hand
made of an exceptionally rare metal, which predates all human
civilisation on the continent.
An
object whose origins and purpose are perhaps the greatest mystery
humanity has ever faced. Solving the secret of where it came from - and
how many more parts may be out there - could change life as we know it.
But what if we were meant to find it? And what happens when this vast, global puzzle is complete...?
I think it's probably best to read Sleeping Giants without knowing too much about the plot, like I did, so I'm going to keep it vague. Suffice it to say that the story just flies past and I'd finished the book before I knew it.
It's not told in the standard, narrative prose. Instead, it's comprised of a series of interviews conducted by a myserious, yet ever present, figure. Part of the mystery is determining exactly who this individual is, and why he's so interested in the recently discovered rare metal. The interviews allow each of the characters to move the story on, but also to share their own views and opinions which are occasionally controversial.
It works really well - you never actually see anything happen, as you're told about everything second-hand, but it still somehow feels like an action-packed novel. It also means that you can feel the characters reactions more viscerally than if you were merely reading it from the distance of a third person voice.
The plot takes some quite dark turns, which demonstrate that it's clearly not meant for a younger audience. I think I might have actually gasped twice. It's a very odd experience, being shocked by an event that you're reading one person relay to another, and it possibly makes even more of an impact.
Sleeping Giants ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, but quite an obvious one. I did see it coming, but it's a twist that I feel positive about so I can't say I really mind. I've already reserved the next book, Waking Gods, at the library and I'm definitely looking forward to reading it.
I'd really recommend this book if you're looking for accessible, action-packed sci-fi with a dark twist.
I don't even know where to start with this book. It doesn't surprise me that it won the Baileys' Women's Prize for Fiction, and I'm also not surprised that I've seen a few reviews by men that hated it. The Power is, at heart, a very female book with a very clear Message, but that in no way detracts from what is also a very compelling story.
Plot summary: All over the world women are discovering they have the power. With a flick of the fingers they can inflict terrible pain - even death. Suddenly, every man on the planet finds they've lost control. The day of the girls has arrived - but where will it end?
So we've got a very basic premise - women can suddenly create sparks from their fingertips, via a skein that has grown alongside their collarbones. A sort-of explanation is provided for why this happened, but that's not really the point of the story. It's more about the societal, militarial, religious and political repercussions of men no longer being the physically dominant race.
What I particularly appreciated about this book is that it follows a different format than it would if the same concept were played out in a sci-fi novel. There's no slow discovery, long-winded explanations or sitting around talking about how weird it all is. We start at the discovery, but then jump forward two years, then four, five, nine and finally ten years, checking in to see how the world has changed in that time. It works so beautifully. The small gaps in time allow the reader to follow developments more objectively and watch as huge consequences unravel.
We follow several different characters throughout the novel:
- Allie, a runaway teen who becomes Mother Eve, the founder of a new maternally-centered religion.
- Roxy, the daughter of a criminal overlord.
- Margot, a female politician aspiring to reach new highs in her career.
- Tunde, a male journalist who is travelling the world and documenting the chaos.
Two further characters are added roughly two thirds of the way through, but that's slightly jarring and I'm not convinced of the need for them. However, on the whole, the changing point of view allows us to watch the consequences in multiple spheres at multiple points across the globe. Whilst I found Margot's perspective the most interesting, Tunde's experiences were incredibly moving at times, as he observed women who had been oppressed for decades finally free themselves and their sisters from their shackles.
"They do not let us drive a car here," she says, "but watch what we can do."
She puts her palm flat on the bonnet. There is a click and it flicks open.
...
There are young women advancing across the centre of the screen, each of them backed by the fire, each of them walking with the lightning. They are going from car to car, setting the motors revving and the engine blocks burning into a molten heat. Some of them can do it without touching the cars; they send their lines of power outfrom their bodies and they are all laughing.
Tunde pans up to look at the people watching from the windows, to see what they are doing. There are men trying to drag their women from the glass. And there are women shrugging off their hands. Not bothering to say a word. Watching and waiting. Palms pressed against the glass. He knows then that this thing is going to take the world and everything will be different and he is so glad that he shouts for joy, whooping with the others among the flames.
I almost cried at these parts. They really affected me and I read in a sort of stupor. The other parts that really made me sick were the reaction of the men to the new state of affairs. It's actually quite well balanced, in that the male gender isn't described to be generally stupid or or evil or even whiny, but the outward reaction of a few is fascinating and sickening. Much like the real world.
The CDC is hiding things from us, Tom says, that's what they're protesting. Have you seen some of that stuff online? Things are being kept from us, resources are being channelled in the wrong direction, there's no funding for self-defence classes or armour for men, and all this money going to those NorthStar girls' training camps, for God's sake - what the hell is that about? And fuck you Kristen, we both know you've got this fucking thing, too, and it's changed you, it's made you hard; you're not even a real woman any more. Four years ago, Kristen, you knew what you were and what you had to offer this network, and what the fuck are you now?
It's not a very subtle book and at times it is very sledge-hammery with the Point it's trying to make. That said, it is indeed a very good Point, and it's not like anybody who picked up a book where one gender develops power abilities really expected a subtle agenda.
The thing that really brought it home for me, was the fact that The Power is theoretically written many, many years into the future, where nobody can even imagine the world being any different. The concept of men wielding any sort of power is amusing to them, cute, even. Again, not subtle, but it works so, so well, as a lot of the language used echoed familiarily in my head as that usually used about women.
Surely it just makes more sense that it was women who provoked the war. I feel instinctively - and I hope you do too - that a world run by men would be more kind, more gentle, more loving and naturally nuturing.
Please read this book. It's important. It's enjoyable and accessible, yes, but it makes a very good point about the fragility of the gender identity perpetuated by society and the sledgehammer used to emphasise the point does not detract from the importance.
This book is the sequel to The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. I'd borrowed that book from the library on a whim and ended up absolutely loving it. It's a great, space-themed novel about a group of misfits of different space races on a long haul journey through space. It's great. Go read my review. A Closed and Common Orbit, whilst good, just didn't have the same punch to it for me.
Plot summary: 'Lovelace was once
merely a ship's artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new
body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has no memory
of what came before. As Lovelace learns to negotiate the universe and
discover who she is, she makes friends with Pepper, an excitable
engineer, who's determined to help her learn and grow.
Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that no matter how vast space is, two people can fill it together.'
The reason I loved the first book, for those readers who have neglected to read my review, is because of the characters. There's a full ship of people, all of whom are different species, races and genders, and all these people have their own POV chapters. They're distinctly separate entitities with personalities and flaws, and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is about how they interlink and their developing relationships. It's not really about space at all, it's about people and it's amazing.
This book, however, has more of a Point. An AI system designed to run a ship suddenly finds that she has a body to manage and she's struggling with the limits of her new human-shaped form. These chapters, which I'd say is the primary focus of the book, are alternated with the point of view of Jane, a genetically engineered human who was produced for an austerely run factory but is now struggling to survive in a wasteland with only an AI for company.
The thing is, there's no story really. There are circumstances - Jane needs to survive and Sidra/Lovelace doesn't like her body - but not much actually happens.
There's no people. There are no relationships. All those things that made the first book great just aren't present. Instead of six vastly different points of view, we essentially just get a human woman and an AI pretending to be one. Neither of these women interact with other people, to a large extent anyway, so it's mostly both of them musing inside their head about not a whole lot.
It's fine. It's written well, the prose is good and the dialogue flows well. The problem is that the over-arching plot doesn't really become clear until the final few chapters. When it appears, it's great. I loved it and I was really moved, but I think I'd have been more interested in the book as a whole if I'd have known what the end goal was - i.e. what Pepper trying to achieve.
It just wasn't very interesting, to be honest, not right until the end. I did like it, but I loved the first one so much that perhaps it was inevitable that A Closed and Common Orbit would be a bit disappointing.
I don't know how to start this review.
I read a book! It has science and space ships and disproportionate responses to hardship! Let's talk about that.
Plot summary: Six days ago, astronaut
Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's
sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly
kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark
finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal
Earth that he’s alive — and even if he could get word out, his supplies
would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he
won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving
environment or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him
first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity,
his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he
steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the
next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds
against him?
I bought this book as a result of a quick flick whilst standing in a charity shop (and also, it was £1.49 - that helps too). It looked like an interesting read; a bit sciencey but with what looked to be a lot of pop culture references thrown in to keep it light. I saw references to Poirot, The Dukes of Hazzard, The Bee-Gees... it looked quite fun. A bit quirky, maybe.
Nope. This book is very heavy with the science-shovelling. I'm sure it's correct science (actually, I'm not sure in the slightest but it bothers me not), however, it really does over-balance the story horrifically.
So we start out and Mark has essentially just been stranded on Mars with little equipment and enough food to last 400 or so 'sols' (an earth day plus an extra thirty minutes). Oh dear. So Mark has to re-jig the oxygenator, the filters, the... other stuff to support him longer than was originally intended, whilst attempting to contact Earth and also grow potatoes in a desolate, dust-ridden wasteland. Fine. But how he does this is told in excruciating detail that, to be honest, I just didn't understand.
I've tried to draft that sentence in a way that doesn't make me sound stupid, but it's the truth - I didn't understand. I don't know if it's because I admittedly didn't try very hard to understand, or I just didn't care... but either way, I still have no idea how Mark Watney stayed alive on Mars other than 'grew potatoes, created water and fixed stuff.'
Every twenty hours, I'll have 10 liters of CO2 thanks to the MAV fuel plant. I'll vent it into the Hab via the highly scientific method of detaching the tank from the MAV landing struts, bringing it into the Hab, then opening the valve until it's empty.
The oxygenator will turn it into oxygen in its own time.
Then
I'll release hydrazine, very slowly, over the iridum catalyst, to turn
it into N2 and H2. I'll direct the hydrogen to a small area and burn it.
As you can see, this plan provides me with plenty of opportunities to die in a fiery explosion.
I have a Masters in Biotechnology Law and a Graduate Certificate of Engineering and I still had to google a GCSE revision site to figure why the above = potential explosion.
The pop culture references that pulled me in aren't really present. Mark just rifles his colleagues' computers for music and TV shows to alleviate the boredom and makes a few quick comments about what he's found. I do like the tone of the book - Mark's voice is very dry as he mocks his situation and tries to thwart the many new and surprising ways in which Mars is trying to kill him.
On that note, there's just no emotion here. He never seems particularly bothered about the fact that he's stuck on Mars and he isn't all that fussed about the prospect of rescue either. No sense of terror, achievement, anxiety... nothing. I mean, this could be explained away by the fact that he's writing all this onto a computer log that he's aware might be published one day, but still. I found it very difficult to care about what happened to him as a result. How can I care when he doesn't!?
The way The Martian is structured works quite well. It's primarily Mark's log, as I said before, so it's told in the first person perspective. After about a quarter of the way through, we start to get the third person perspective of the individuals on the ground at NASA as they realised what's happened and try and put a plan together to save Mark. I actually liked their perspective more. It was more real, more emotional and a lot more interesting than a guy in a desert sarcastically lecturing me about potatoes. Honestly, if the entire book were that, I would have been happier. There were even a few 'gasp!' moments. I mean, I gasped. I assumed Mark just shrugged and raised an eyebrow.
Sigh. Alright then, it's time. This is the crux of it. This is the mean reason why I didn't like this book and you're all going to hate me. My boyfriend is going to wave his little black flag sadly, the way he always does when I'm being Unreasonably Cynical, and also Why Do You Hate The World, Hanna.
I just don't buy it. In this book, NASA (and the Chinese government and several other organisations around the world) spend tens of billions of dollars trying to rescue this one man and I would argue, logically and rationally, that that is not particularly proportionate. Planned launches that would have advanced science were delayed, the lives of other astronauts were risked, taxpayers' money was wasted... for one person. I'm not saying they should have left him to die and waved merrily from distant Earth, but come on. There has to be a point where you draw the line and back off a little. What would bringing him back achieve, other than a warm fuzzy feeling? Would it achieve as much as all that money, resources and manpower could have, otherwise? Would it!?*
The world united in desperation over Mark Watney; there was a 'Mark Watney Segment' daily on CNN... Really though? Fine, people would have been appalled to begin with, but this book takes place over several years. There is no way, no way, that one person's plight could sustain the public interest for that long. I know it's fictional, but it genuinely annoyed me how I was supposed to root for NASA to rescue Mark when, actually... well. Proportionality and all that.
I didn't hate The Martian, but I was disappointed. It was too fact-heavy and too lacking in emotion, and had an irritating main character of whose rescue I was not particularly in favour. I might give the film a go, but it's unlikely I'll feel the need to read this again.
*No. It would not.
This was another of my recent lunchtime library hauls. I'd gotten to the point where I was actively skimming blogs just for books I could request at the library. It's not like you pay for it (well, a 90p request charge, but my purse can handle it - just) and therefore why not be adventurous!? The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is by far my favourite book I've picked up so far - it's unique, fun, light and a great page-turner. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Plot summary: When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The Wayfarer, a patched-up ship that's seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past.
But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer. The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix, the friendly reptillian pilot, to Kizzy and Jenks, the constantly sparring engineers who keep the ship running. Life on board is chaotic, but more or less peaceful - exactly what Rosemary wants.
Until the crew are offered the job of a lifetime: the chance to build a hyperspace tunnel to a distant planet. They'll earn enough money to live comfortably for years... if they survive the long trip through war-torn interstellar space without endangering any of the fragile alliances that keep the galaxy peaceful.
But Rosemary isn't the only person on board with secrets to hide, and the crew will soon discover that space may be vast, but spaceships are very small indeed.
That's actually quite a misleading blurb. It sounds like Rosemary is a criminal stowaway and ends up on a ship full of other people with dark secrets, all trying to keep their past hidden at any cost... Ugh. Thankfully, no. When Rosemary does make her way onto the Wayfarer, she finds a crew of unique and loveable characters, with whom I'd love to spend a day just getting to know. They all have their own sub-plots and histories, and definitely do not feel that 'spaceships are very small indeed.' I do wonder if blurb-writers have ever even read the book in question...
The book is more about those little sub-plots than the overarching storyline about building the hyperspace tunnel.They embark upon a long journey across space to get to where construction can begin, and that is more the subject of the book. We stop off at secret hacker planet for semi-legal ship modifications, visit the home planets of the some of the crew and deal with moral issues relating to medical treatment and consent. It's way more interesting than a travel tunnel!
It's actually really well thought out. I imagine it can't be easy to come up with a whole galaxy of different races and planets, and then create some political turmoil to add to the mix. And that's before you dream up some sub-plots based on which races don't like other races and the legal jurisdiction of Council legislation! Having said that, it does remain light-hearted and very easy to read throughout - it's a nice juxtaposition that works very well.
I love the atmosphere in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, but then I'm a sucker for fictional friendships. Romance doesn't interest me much but I do love a good bit of platonic companionship. Friendships are tested to breaking point and allegiences are called into question, but the crew always stick together throughout their differences. Rosemary isn't quite sure where she slots into this to begin with, but the gradual change into acceptance gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling.
If I had one complaint, and I am nit-picking here, I'd like the relationships to be a little more... demonstrated. We're told that various crew members feel this way about each other (and that varies more than you might think), but we're never actually shown it. I'd just like to feel it a little more, I think. There's a plot point that's meant to be quite moving and upsetting at one point, but it just didn't bother me, and I think that's because I wasn't really emotionally invested. I was academically and narratively invested, but not emotionally.
To conclude, read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, even if the little does sound like a preachy non-fiction about the importance of recycling. It's so much more than I expected - great characters, perfect world-building and a completely unique plot. I'll be buying my own copy so I can reread it again and again.
Read Rinn's review of The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet at Rinn Reads.
I've been reading Winter for a while, alongside The Crimson Petal and the White as part of the read-a-long at Lit Addicted Brit. That's partly why it's taken me such a damn long time to get through a YA fantasy novel, but it's also due to its 750 page length. As one of the YA series that I've actually manage to complete (and fairly speedily too), I have to admit that Winter is a fitting conclusion to the Lunar Chronicles series.
Plot summary: Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.
Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend—the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.
Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?
First off, just let me say that this book is unnecessarily long. The other books are two thirds of the size and work perfectly well. I don't mind long books if it's for a reason, but in Winter the tension keeps sort of ebbing and flowing. The revolution finally happens, and it's all exciting and you reach the final boss battle... but then it all goes away again, only to start again in 100 pages. I wish that the author had just chosen a path and stuck to it.
Because of that, I never really felt any particular desperation to get back to reading this book when I'd put it down and when I did read it, I found myself getting distracted and faffing on my phone instead. That's not to say it's not good, but I feel that it could do with being a little faster-paced.
Despite my fears about not liking where I thought the story might go (it didn't, I'm fine), I thought it was actually a pretty fitting conclusion. Not as simple as it could have been, which I give Marissa Meyer full credit for. I've said it in my previous of reviews of this series - it's a good plot. There's a convulted political history and intricate delicacies that stop juuuuuuust short of being too much. You can keep everything straight in your head without feeling like you're being spoon fed. It's unique and interesting and I really like it.
I'm less impressed with her desire to have everybody neatly coupled off at the end, rambling about their love. They're sixteen to eighteen, Good Lord. I like Cinder and Winter's respective relationships, everybody else needs to read some Jezebel and get a grip.
Oh, Winter! I love everything about Winter. She's my favourite character, aside from maybe Cinder. Her purpose and her little quirks are so well-thought out and her background is perfect. And That Thing She Does Near The End just fits in with the plot so wonderfully neatly. Honestly, she might be one of the best, most unique things about the Lunar Chronicles series.
On that note, what's the purpose of Scarlet, exactly? I mean, she's fine, but Cinder, Cress and Winter all have purposes and unique personalities. Scarlet not so much. If anything, the second book should probably have been called Wolf, considering he contributes more to the story than she does, but I guess that would detract from the strong female role model-y thing we've got going on.
THE FAIRYTALE THING. I can't believe it's taken me this many paragraphs to start my fairytale rant. I've said it already in every other review, but I've reached new levels of irritation. IT IS NOT NECESSARY. Winter's fairytale link was so forced that I actually had to skip two whole pages just so I didn't have to see it happen. It reads like Ms Meyer had a vague idea of fairytale-dom in the first book and decided that she was going to carry it through, and just became stuck with the concept in later books.
I feel like I'm nit-picking here, but I think it's probably because I like this series so much. I know that sounds silly, but sometimes when something you love is so close to being perfect, it makes all the little niggles stand out more. This is a really good series with a fitting conclusion. It's maybe a little drawn-out and the coupled-up-ness is slightly irritating, but it's nowhere near enough to put a damper on my affection for these books.
I've been waiting for Armada to be released ever since I fell in love with Ready Player One in January. I was so excited that I didn't have long to wait until Ernest Cline's next book came out and it was actually the second book in my entire life that I pre-ordered (the first was Heir of Fire). You could argue that the weight of my expectations damaged my opinion of this book, and I might concede if I were only mildly disappointed. The fact is, though, that I actually disliked this book and therefore the shoddy novel itself has to take the blame for at least some of that.
Plot summary: It’s just another day of high school for Zack Lightman. He's daydreaming through another boring math class, with just one more month to go until graduation and freedom―if he can make it that long without getting suspended again.
Then he glances out his classroom window and spots the flying saucer.
At first, Zack thinks he’s going crazy. A minute later, he’s sure of it. Because the UFO he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada―in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders.
But what Zack’s seeing is all too real. And his skills―as well as those of millions of gamers across the world―are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it. Yet even as he and his new comrades scramble to prepare for the alien onslaught, Zack can’t help thinking of all the science-fiction books, TV shows, and movies he grew up reading and watching, and wonder: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little too… familiar?
I'm perfectly aware that it's not really fair to judge a book by its predecessor, but as I imagine a lot of people will be reading this off the back of Ready Player One, I'm going to do it anyway. This book is not like that one. There are no geeky references (aside from references to one 80s music playlist), little in-jokes or nods to pop culture - instead it's pretty much just a straight sci-fi novel.
I don't actually object to this in principle as I quite like sci-fi. It's just that the plot... well, it's not good. The basic gist is that films like Star Wars, Star Trek, Independence Day, etc, are all propaganda funded by the government to familiarise us with aliens so we don't panic when contact is eventually made. Similarly, there are two games (one of them the titular Armada, and the other is... something else. I want to say Titan Fall, but that's an actual game) promoted by the government to secretly train gamers into being able to control military drones when the invasion occurs.
It's silly. The thing is, for sci-fi and fantasy plotlines, for them to be believable, the only thing that can be unrealistic is the existence of aliens (or whatever the theme happens to be). Our willingness to accept the fictional only goes so far. Asking readers to believe in an alien invasion is fair enough, but suggesting that we'd be totally calm about it because we've seen fricking Star Wars is pushing it and makes zero sense.
Within minutes, it seemed like the same newscasters who had delivered the news were now reporting with total confidence that most of the world's civilian population was already responding to the EDA's call to arms, and that hundreds of millions of people all over the world were already mobilising themselves by logging on to the EDA's online operations servers to enlist and then receive their combat drone assignments and take up arms and defend their planet. Several networks were showing clips of people abandoning their cars in traffic to run into electronics stores and libraries and coffee shops and Internet cafes and office buildings, thousands upon thousands of people, all in a mad dash to get somewhere with Broadband Internet access.
Okay, no. First off, you're just not going to convince 'hundreds of millions of people' to play the same game, whatever that game happens to be. Secondly, and most importantly, you can't really be saying that if an alien invasion happened, we'd all be totally cool with it because of the sci-fi movies we've seen? This is set in our own world, after all. There would be riots and looting and general panic, not instant, staid determination to calmly traipse to the nearest computer.
Unfortunately that kind of lazy writing is prevalent throughout. Characters don't react naturally, in the way that normal people would - they overreact or underreact, whenever the plot needs to be forced in a certain way. The ending also feels like an incredible cop-out as it seems very anti-climactic and a super easy way out.
Even if you could get on board with the plotline and weren't ridiculously annoyed with the ending, as a standard sci-fi novel, there's still nothing special about Armada. There are thousands of other books exactly like it, and therefore the only aspects that stand out are the negative ones. It reminds me a lot of Ender's Game... which I didn't even finish.
I feel slightly traitorous writing this review but this book took me two whole weeks to plough through and I almost gave up on it multiple times. I wasn't just disappointed, I actually disliked this book, especially the ending. I'll still read anything Ernest Cline writes, but my expectations will be infinitely lower next time.
I bought this off the back of Ready Player One, which I loved and I've been trying desperately to find something similar ever since. I haven't quite managed but I have found some really interesting books along the way. Redshirts is one of them and definitely one of the best - I completely fell in love with its geeky sci-fi tone and little nods to pop culture.
Plot summary:
Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It's a prestige posting, and Andrew is even more delighted when he's assigned to the ship's Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn't be better ... although there are a few strange things going on:
(1) every Away Mission involves a lethal confrontation with alien forces
(2) the ship's captain, the chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these encounters
(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.
Suddenly it's less surprising how much energy is expended below decks on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned an Away Mission. Andrew's fate may have been sealed ... until he stumbles on a piece of information that changes everything ... and offers him and his fellow redshirts a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives ...
So I'm going to sit here with my blue hair, my large black glasses and my 50s dress and cringe a little as I talk about how 'totally meta' this book is. Apparently I've morphed into a fully-fledged hipster and I now loathe myself a little bit. Still, there's no getting around it - Redshirts is meta, I do love it and I am going to talk about it.
I love books like this. The Thursday Next books, Between the Lines... books where you're involved in the storytelling or where the creation of the book is part of the whole plot. I was instantly, totally and absolutely hooked about three pages in.
Essentially, it's a sort-of-but-not-really parody of Star Trek and those other futuristic sci-fi shows, where dramatic events continuously unfold but every episode is always self-contained. There are four people, main characters, who always survive, possibly injured, but they recover ridiculously quickly and then there are the redshirts. The expendable crew members, a few of whom die every episode just to point out to you how dangerous the mission is. Redshirts is their story.
Let me just say first of all that you don't need to have seen Star Trek to love this book. You only need to know what I've just said - that the main characters always survive and and someone expendable always dies. Oh, and there's usually some dubious science kicking about as well. It's self-explanatory and I assure you it it's hardly a difficult concept anyway.
As befits the genre it's parodying, it does sometimes take a second or two to work out the 'science.' I mean, the writers of Star Trek didn't exactly put a lot of effort into making their sci-fi logical or rational (and it was fine, it worked regardless) so a similar style has been recreated here. Either that or I'm giving John Scalzi too much credit and his knowledge of physics is just rubbish!
I admit that it lost me a little bit when I reached the epilogues. Well, they're called 'codas,' but they're essentially epilogues. Which I hate. I have incredibly mixed feelings about these chapters. First, I accepted their existence as they do sort of add something new to the story, although I wasn't sure if they quite fit the theme. Then I basically turned into Hanna Hulk because one of them is written in the second person and this infuriates me. Then the last one is quite deep, quite philosophical and I really enjoyed it and started wondering if maybe I just hated them on principle? Confusing.
Redshirts is so much more than a parody. It's funny, clever, occasionally philosophical and really made me care about characters I expected to be two-dimensional and flat. I loved this book an awful lot more than I expected to, and I can't recommend it highly enough, regardless of whether you've ever seen a Star Trek episode in your life.
Read Katie's review of Redshirts at Katie Who Can Read.
I honestly believe that one of the best feelings in the world is being five pages from the end of a truly amazing book. When it's 2am and you desperately want to finish it, but then you also don't want to finish it, because then you'll have finished it and what will you do with your life? When you want to whimper at just how good that book is. When you have to pause after every last page to give yourself time to process. Ready Player One gave me that feeling. This book is unbelievable.
Contains strong language as I completely fail to control myself.
Plot summary: It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We're out of oil. We've wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS - and his massive fortune - will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that the riddles are based in the culture of the late twentieth century. And then Wade stumbles onto the key to the first puzzle.
Suddenly, he finds himself pitted against thousands of competitors in a desperate race to claim the ultimate prize, a chase that soon takes on terrifying real-world dimensions - and that will leave both Wade and his world profoundly changed.
See, I knew none of that. The blurb of my copy just shrugs its shoulders and half-heartedly gives you five lines of vagueness about 'the greatest quest in history' and 'the fate of humanity.' I think it kind of worked for me though - going into the book knowing so little meant I was able to be more thoroughly impressed with its ingenuity.
I didn't even want to read the damn thing. I bought it on a whim last week because I couldn't find anything else in Waterstones, and then read it only as it seemed like the best of a bad bunch. I am an idiot. I could have read this book two years ago if I'd only looked on the right shelves. Because HOLY FUCKING GOD THIS BOOK IS AMAZING.
*breathes into a paper bag*
Let's start with the world that Ernest Cline has created. In typical sci-fi style, it's set in the future and there's all kinds of new technology. More specifically, there's a virtual reality society called OASIS that the majority of people spend their lives within. Almost like the Matrix, except they're aware they're plugged into the system. It's hardly a new idea, but the detail that's gone into it is nothing short of astounding.
He's considered exactly how such a world would work and explained it to us in meticulous (yet fascinating) detail. It's not just the technology though. He's also thought out the economy, communication, the bartering process, the transport system... it's unbelievable.
It's partly the world-building that really makes Ready Player One. Or, worldS-building, considering there are so many of them. The OASIS system allows users to travel from world to world, which Wade does frequently. Each one is as vivid and brilliant as the last... and some of them will be familiar to you.
GSS had also licensed preexisting virtual worlds from their competitors, so content that had already been created for games like Everquest and World of Warcraft was ported over to the OASIS, and copies of Norrath and Azeroth were added to the growing catalog of OASIS planets. Other virtual worlds followed suit, from the Metaverse to the Matrix. The Firefly universe was anchored in a sector adjacent to the Star Wars galaxy, with a detailed re-creation of the Star Trek universe in the sector adjacent to that. Users could now teleport back and forth between their favourite fictional worlds. Middle Earth. Vulcan. Pern. Arrakis. Magrathea. Discworld, Mid-World, Riverworld, Ringworld. Worlds upon worlds.
As you can see, there's a dash of Thursday Next here. But oh, can you imagine? Being able to pop over to Ankh Morpork or have your holiday in Rivendell? What you will also notice, is that it's not just games that are referenced in Ready Player One. Far from it.
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| Excuse the handwriting. It was 2am. |
This book has been carefully crafted to appeal to everyone. Do the references to obscure 1970s arcade games go over your head? Fine, you'll probably get the 80s rock band references then. Music not your thing? You can amuse yourself with the epic fantasy novels or the cult films then. There are so many references to so many things which means that there's something for every reader. They drink Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and drive DeLoreans emblazoned with Slimer motifs. Every single name-drop felt like a quick 'ding' of triumph when I recognised the origin.
It's all real too. Certain games, books, music and films are given a fair amount of air-time as Wade has to complete a challenge within their boundaries. ZORK, for example, a 1970s (I think) text-based adventure game, plays a huge part... but every aspect of it is accurate. I know this because I played it when I was eleven :) Logically, this means that Ernest Cline has actually played/watched/read these things, which explains the aura of geekery that prevails throughout the novel.
I should probably actually mention the plot at some point. There is one, you know. Ready Player One isn't some silly excuse to mention as many niche games as possible in the space of 372 pages. Like I said before, I didn't actually know what the plot was before beginning, but it's very, very good. Very unique.
Not only that, but the author is actually talented at writing as well. It hardly seems fair. Certain scenes are imbued with such atmosphere and tension that I had to pause reading after every page to allow myself time to take in what I'd just read. There are plot twists that literally made me gasp and even the characters are likeable.
I never say this, ever.... but... there is nothing wrong with this book.
I hate that I never again get to have the experience of reading it for the first and it also bothers me that I have to wait a whole year before I can include it in the Best Books of 2015 list. Which I will be doing. I finished the novel with a tight, happy feeling in my stomach and the knowledge that I will buy everything that Ernest Cline writes.
I haven't researched any negative reviews as I think they may make me cry tears of pure rage, so go visit Laura and Katie's equally glowing reviews of Ready Player One.
