Author Archives: Keith West

More Androids with a Dash of Grandmother

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iD
Madelaine Ashby
Angry Robot Books
UK Print
Date: 4th July 2013
ISBN: 9780857663108
Format: Medium (B-Format) Paperback
R.R.P.: £8.99
US/CAN Print
Date: 25th June 2013
ISBN: 9780857663115
Format: Large (Trade) Paperback
R.R.P.: US$14.99 CAN$16.99
Ebook
Date: 25th June 2013
ISBN: 9780857663122
Format: Epub & Mobi
R.R.P.: £5.49 / US$6.99

I reviewed the initial novel in this series, vN, last year and was quite impressed by it.  It held my interest when I wasn’t able to read it for days at a time.  As a result, I was looking forward to the sequel.

Unfortunately (for me, at least), the sequel didn’t live up to its predecessor.  Part of that is because the viewpoint character in this one is Javier rather than Amy.  Javier doesn’t interest me as much as Amy and her grandmother Portia do. Portia isn’t dead, BTW.

The setup is basically this.  Amy and Javier have built an artificial island in the middle of the ocean.  After repelling an attack by unknown assailants, they’re visited by a human representative of the church that created them.  (Recall that the androids were originally created by a sect so that those not raptured will have companions.)  The guy arrives on a supply boat which was forced to transport him to the island to allegedly investigate the raid.

This is where my suspension of disbelief begins to break down.  Amy and Javier don’t trust him, but they let him have free reign of the island.  Some of this is intentional, and some isn’t.  The guy deliberately puts himself in danger by going into a restricted area.  Why he wasn’t restricted to the boat he came on, I don’t know.  It’s obvious no one wants him there.

He also rapes Javier and forces him to do something that destroys the island.  The rest of the book is about how Javier tries to reverse the damage he’s done.  Javier travels about blowjobbing doing whatever he feels he has to in order to accomplish his objectives. 

SPOILER ALERT:

Where the story really went off the rails for me was in the final confrontation.  Having found some of his children, Javier discovers that his daughter, whom he’s never met, thinks highly of the man who started the whole chain of events (He’s caring for two of Javier’s children.) and despises him.   Yet in just a few sentences Javier is able to completely switch her allegiance.

Also, androids have a built-in failsafe mechanism that causes them to shut down whenever a human is threatened or hurt.  A big deal is made of this throughout the book.  It’s the failsafe mechanism that allows Javier to be manipulated initially.  I found Javier’s rationalization around the failsafe in the final confrontation a little too convenient.

END SPOILER

On the positive side, Ashby’s writing, which was quite good to begin with, has improved.  The story moves along smoothly and quickly.  The pacing is superb.  The dialogue reads like people talking, not words put in characters’ mouths by an author.  The flashback scenes of Javier’s childhood were handled well and didn’t detract from the story.

This book won’t be for everyone.  vN was from the point of a four year old.  As such, there wasn’t a lot of sex, and no graphic sex, in the book, although the violent content was high.  iD is very different.  There’s plenty of graphic content, both sex and violence, with more of the former than the latter.  (Or maybe I’m just desensitized to violence.)  If you’re easily offended, or if you’re squeamish, you might want to give this one a pass.  Of course, everyone’s tastes are different, and your mileage may vary.

One thing that did intrigue me were the hints Ashby dropped about generation ships and space travel.  There’s clearly a war between vN and humans coming.  I’m wondering if the solution is going to be the vN leaving Earth.  We’ll have to wait for the sequel to find out.

I’d like to thank Angry Robot Books for the review copy.

RIP, Jack Vance (1916-2013)

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The science fiction and fantasy world is saddened to learn that Grandmaster Jack Vance passed away on May 26 in Oakland, California.  Vance was 96.

Locus Online has an obituary that summarizes Vance’s life, plus there’s the Wikipedia entry linked to in the above paragraph.  I’ll not repeat what they’ve written.  Rather, I want to make this a more personal reflection.

I’ve read a bit of Vance’s work over the years, but I’ve never really jumped in with both feet. No particular reason, really, other than there were so many other books competing for my attention.  I started reading the Planet of Adventure Series a couple of years ago and examined the first and second of the four volumes in that set.  It was my intention to finish the series later this summer.  It still is.  Since most of my reading of his oeuvre has been science fiction, I’m posting this tribute here rather than on the main blog.

I read “The Last Castle” and “The Dragon Masters” in high school, as well as a few other titles here and there.  Subterranean Press has published a number of omnibus editions of Vance’s work as well as his autobiography over the last few years.  Most of these titles are out of print.  I’ve got all of them, and have dipped into them a little.  They’re not slight volumes.

The series Vance wrote that has most stuck out in my mind isn’t The Dying Earth.  I’ve not read that one yet.  It’s on the list.  What really impressed me was the five novel sequence known as The Demon Princes. 

The backstory is that a group of five intergalactic criminals wipe out the population of a colony planet to prove what badasses they are and that they aren’t to be messed with.  The five are known as the Demon Princes because they’re so evil.  One man and his nephew survive.  The man raises the nephew to be the ultimate hunter and killer.  In each of the five books, he goes after one of the Demon Princes.  The first three books were written in the 1960s, and they’re quite good.  As good as anything being written at the time, and better than most space opera that’s been written since then.

But the last two volumes, The Face and The Book of Dreams, were written in the late 70s and early 80s, and they’re the real standouts in the series.  They’re completely different from anything that was being written then or now.  And they’re completely different from each other.  Each of them has an ending that has stayed with me for decades.  It’s a rare book that can do that.  Usually the ending is the first thing I forget while the opening of a book is what sticks in my mind.  Of the two, I prefer the ending of “The Face” a little more simply because of the joke that Vance has spent a goodly portion of the book setting up, and setting it up so that it’s a natural extension of what’s happening all along.

The Demon Princes series was reprinted a while back by the SFBC in a two volume edition. Tor did the same around that time as well.  It’s a series worth tracking down.

Jack Vance was unique, a one of a kind writer, a master of the English language.  We shall not see his like again any time soon, a conclusion others will no doubt reach in a more elegant manner than me.  Rather than what I had planned to work on, I’m going to read some Vance this evening to honor his memory.

Rest in peace, sir.

Out on the Galaxy’s Edge

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Galaxy’s Edge
Mike Resnick, editor
Published bimonthly
paper edition $5.99 Amazon  Barnes and Noble
ebook $2.99 direct from publisher Amazon Barnes and Noble
online free

I posted an announcement that this magazine was coming over on my companion blog, but since most of the contents are science fiction, I figured this would be the more appropriate place to review it. 

The format is one that we’ve seen before.  Stories are posted online for free over the period of an issue.  Subscriptions or individual issues are available for purchase.  Just off the top of my head, other practitioners of some variation this model include (but may not be limited to) Nightmare, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Apex.

That’s pretty good company.  So how does Galaxy’s Edge stack up?

Short Answer:  Well, it’s edited by Mike Resnick, so how do you think it stacks up?  It’s top-notch.

Long Answer:  It’s a strong contender for the best debut of the year.  While I recognize that the year is young, there isn’t much on the horizon to compete for the title, the exception being Fiction River, which is a different model of publishing all together. 

Here’s what you get.  There are nine pieces of fiction plus a serial.  On top of that, Resnick relates some of the famous, or rather, infamous incidents in science fiction’s history in his entertaining and highly readable style.  Barry Malzberg has a column, as do Horace E. Cocroft (on economics as a tool in worldbuilding) and Paul Cook (book reviews).  The columns were all interesting, but Resnick’s was by far the most entertaining, although I knew all the stories he told, having heard them over the years.

The fiction is divided between reprints and new stories.  The reprints are by Robert J. Sawyer (“The Shoulders of Giants”), Kij Johnson (“Schrodinger’s Cathouse”), Jack McDevitt (“Act of God”), and James Patrick Kelly (“Think Like a Dinosaur”).  The original stories are by Nick Di Chario (“Creator of the Cosmos Job Interview Today”), Lou J. Berger (“Just a Second”), Alex Shvartsman (“Requiem for a Druid”), Stephen Leigh (“The Bright Seas of Venus”), and Robert T. Jeschonek (“The Spinach Can’s Son”).

I found the reprints to be a little stronger than the new stories.  Or maybe I found the reprints to be more core genre science fiction.  The new stories displayed a wider range, including fantasy (Shvartsman) and what I would call slipstream (Jeschonek).  As such, some of them fell more towards the edges of my taste range rather than in the center.

All of the stories are professional level, both in execution and concept.  I enjoyed them all, even if some of them weren’t quite the sort of thing I’d normally seek out.  If Resnick can maintain this level of professionalism along with this diversity, he’s going to have a winner on his hands.  It usually takes a few issues for a new venue to discover its editorial voice, even in the case of a well-known editor.  I’m eager to see what Galaxy’s Edge is going to look like this time next year. 

The serial is part of a novel published in 1961, Dark Universe by Daniel F. Galouye.  Now, as a rule, I’m not a fan of serials.  I tend to forget little details such the names of many of the supporting characters.  This usually results in a great sense of frustration when I pick up the next installment.  (For the record, I have the same problem to a lesser extent with novels in series, but since I read the whole novel rather than a portion, it’s easier to remember who’s who among the second stringers.)

Anyway, I decided to give this one a try.  In the introduction to the story, Resnick mentions Dark Universe was nominated for a Hugo Award and lost to Stranger in a Strange Land by only two votes.  It’s very much a product of its time, and that’s not a bad thing.  This is science fiction extrapolated from what at the time were current trends.  Maybe I’m not reading in the right places, but I haven’t seen much of this type of thing in a while, and most of what I have hasn’t been logical extrapolation so much as political tracts.

The setup is the far future, where the remnants of humanity have hidden in caves to escape the fallout from a nuclear war.  They’ve been down there so long that most of them have gone blind, although some seem to have developed the ability to see in the infrared.  Most of the people have highly developed hearing, to the point that they use echolocation just like bats.  An elaborate society has evolved with its own legends and beliefs as well as expressions and figures of speech that invoke hearing rather than sight.  There are two groups of humans in the caverns, and they depend on hot springs to survive.  Only the springs are drying up.  If that weren’t enough, there’s a monster on the loose.

I don’t know how many parts this serial will run, but I enjoyed it more than I expected to.  The setup has been logically thought out, with enough details given that the reader has to put some of the pieces together.  That was half the fun.  I am looking forward to the rest of it.

The stories are free and available here at the Galaxy’s Edge website.  Check them out.  And if you like what you see, consider getting a subscription.  Authors deserve to be paid if they do their jobs and entertain you.  A year’s worth of issues is only $9.99.  That will go a long way to guaranteeing there will be more issues to come.

Coming Home to the Moon

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Apollo’s Outcasts
Allen Steele
Pyr Books
Hardcover, $16.95, 330 p.
ebook  $9.99 Kindle Nook

Jamey Barlowe was born on the Moon, in the lunar colony Apollo, but has lived almost all of his life on Earth.  For his sixteenth birthday, he’s going back.

He doesn’t know this, and it’s not the sort of birthday surprise you want to have.  Jamey’s father works for the International Space Consortium.  Dad has just become a wanted man along with a number of his coworkers.  They signed a petition protesting a position taken by the Vice-President.  The President has just died, allegedly by assassination, and the new Commander in Chief is rounding up her political enemies. 

Jamey and one of his sisters, along with the children of several ISC employees, are hurriedly evacuated.  Jamey’s other sister gets bumped from the ride to make room for a girl named Hannah. 

Jamey doesn’t realize just how much his life is about to change, nor how much he’s about to be forced to grow up.  None of the kids do.

Jamey has been unable to walk on Earth; it’s a common result of being born on the Moon.  His legs aren’t strong enough to support his weight in terrestrial gravity.  Once he gets to the Moon he makes up for lost time.

Apollo’s Outcasts is a what we used to call a juvenile but these days is known as YA.  It’s very much in the vein of the classic Heinlein juveniles, and that’s a good thing.  We could use some more of that type of science fiction. I was at times reminded of “The Menace from Earth”, Space Cadet, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.  To name a few.

Steele does an excellent job developing Jamey’s character as well as that of his friends.  They all grow and mature, and usually not without cost.  More than one will not live to the end of the book, and the survivors have to learn to cope with death and grief.  The story moves along at a good clip, and there’s enough gosh-wow moments to keep things interesting when the action slows down.

There’s also plenty of action, especially when the political situation deteriorates to the point that the rogue President sends troops to the Moon to take over the colony.  By this time, Jamey is a member of the Rangers, and while they weren’t intended to be a military force, they take on that role.

Steele has done his research on what a lunar colony would probably be like, which lends an air of verisimilitude to the book.  In fact, the only place I had a problem was in Jamey’s disability on Earth.  I would have thought that if he couldn’t walk on Earth, he would have had greater difficulty learning to walk on the Moon.  For that matter, I would have thought he would have been more handicapped on Earth than he was shown being.  But I’m not a physiologist, I’m a physicist, so I might be missing something.

I’m not sure if there are sequels planned or not.  Most of the major plots threads are tied up neatly.  I’m not really sure where the story could go.  Regardless, I enjoyed this one immensely, and I hope sales are good enough that we see more of this sort of novel from Steele and/or Pyr.

I would like to thank Meghan Quinn of Pyr Books for providing me with a review copy of Apollo’s Outcasts. 

Ruby Serenades the Creative Fire Home

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The Creative Fire:  Book 1 of Ruby’s Song
Brenda Cooper
Pyr Books
Trade paperback, 351 pg $17.95
ebook $11.99 Kindle Nook
Cover art by John Picacio

Every now and then events conspire to keep you from accomplishing simple tasks, such as reading a book.  This one took me exactly a month.  Normally, I could finish a book like this in days.  But it’s been one of those months.  Days have gone by when I haven’t been able to get any reading done, and much of it was due to pesky little stuff that had to be dealt with so it would go away.

It wasn’t because I didn’t enjoy the book.  I did.  Revolutions on generation ships are a staple going back to Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky.  It’s a narrow subgenre, but one I enjoy.

The basic set up is this:  The Creative Fire is a generation ship that is heading home to the planet Adiamo.  The crew has grown into a caste society in which the castes are delineated by color of uniform.  Ruby Martin is a grey, one of the workers on the lowest levels of the ship.  One of the disenfranchised.  She and her friends Onor and Marcelle are about to graduate from school and become adults.

Ruby is in a garden when the sky literally opens and a man falls down from an upper level.  The Creative Fire is beginning to show the strain of centuries in space.  This particular pod on the ship is breaking apart.  The man, Fox, is a blue.  Ruby knows they exist, but until now the only other color she’s seen are the Reds, security forces which are junior league gestapo.

Her conversation with Fox makes her want more than a life of drudgery enough to challenge the status quo.  Although much of the ship’s history has been deliberately hidden from the greys, Ruby knows she won’t be the first to fight for freedom.  She hopes unlike some of her predecessors, she lives to enjoy that freedom.

At first, Ruby’s actions and intentions are peaceful.  Ruby has an exceptional voice, one that can move people on large and small scales.  She starts out by singing songs that are rather subversive.  Unfortunately, those she’s challenging won’t hesitate to use force and violence to preserve their positions.  I don’t have to tell you that things escalate.

This book is essentially YA, although I’ve not seen anything marketing it as such.  Don’t let that stop you from reading it.  It’s a well told tale.  The cast of characters is broad, and because I kept getting interrupted there were a few times I had trouble keeping track of them.  In addition to Ruby, her friend Onor is also a viewpoint character.  He’s an effective foil and provides a different perspective on what happens.  Cooper does a good job of crafting the characters as individuals, and most of them have their roles to play in the resistance and revolution.

The promotional material says this book was based on the life of Evita Peron, a woman about whom I know very little other than the basic facts.  Because of this, I’m sure there are a number of aspects to the story I missed.  Even though I’m unfamiliar with the inspiration for this book, Cooper  made the story entertaining and engaging for me.

And there are enough unanswered questions to make me want to read the next book.  Such as, if the home planet of Adiamo isn’t Earth (and nothing was stated to make me think it is), then how was that planet settled.  The Creative Fire is a generation ship.  Was Adiamo settled by generation ships?  Or was FTL technology lost at some point?  What are things like on Adiamo, and what will the crew of  The Creative Fire find when they arrive home?

And isn’t the cover by John Picacio outstanding.  Picacio is a fantastic artist, and I think this is one of his best pieces.

I’d like to thank Jill Maxick at Pyr Books for sending me the review copy and offer my apologies for having taken so long to finish it.  Unfortunately this delay has thrown me behind on some other Pyr titles I have in the stack.  I’ll get them read and reviewed, I promise.

A Look at the First Issue of Waylines

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I discovered a new online magazine today, Waylines.  It bills itself as a magazine of speculative fiction and film.  There was a promotional issue last month, which I missed.  I think the publication is bimonthly, but I never found anything that said explicitly what the publication schedule is.  I base the previous sentence on the fact that it does say edtior David Ress-Thomas will be writing a bimonthly editorial.

I want to take a look at the first issue.  This one contained an editorial, interviews with some of the writers, artists, and filmmakers, plus interviews with Cat Rambo and Christopher Barzak. 

Rather than start with the fiction, like I usually do, let’s examine the films. 

The first is Grounded, a haunting piece about a spaceship crashing on a distant planet by Kevin Margo.  It’s the longest of the three films and winner of a number of awards.  The second is Francesco Calabrese’s Lovely Monster.  This one concerns a young woman who is some type of monster.  This film wouldn’t load correctly, and the sound and video weren’t in sync.  Near the end, when we’re supposed to be finding out what type of monster she is, the video went black until the last few frames.  Some of that is probably due ot issues with my computer, but I’m not sure how many.  My favorite was the third film, The Maker by Christopher Kezelos.  I loved the twist on the end of this one.

I think the fact that Waylines is featuring films in each issue is a great thing.  A number of online publications are incorporating some type of podcast, but this is the only one that includes films regularly.  At least as far as I know.  This approach looks to be a way for the publication to stand out.

There were three pieces of fiction.  Now I prefer science fiction to speculative fiction, namely because I’ve seen too many examples of speculative fiction where the author was lazy and didn’t bother to get the science right and then proceeded to justify such poor workmanship as “It’s speculative fiction, not science fiction.  The science isn’t what it’s about.”  Not every story has to be a nuts-and-bolts hard science tale, but if your story contains elements that clearly violate known science and you don’t care, you’re lazy.  I realize not everyone can get the science 100% correct 100% of the time, but at least make the effort.

But I’m getting on my soapbox.  There’s a lot of good so-called “soft” science fiction that goes by the label speculative fiction.  The magazine’s editorial policy states that it’s looking for science fiction, fantasy, and weird stuff.  I’m okay with that.  So let’s examine the fiction.

First,  “An Echo in the Shell” by Beth Cato.  This was a strange sort of blend of science fiction and fantasy about a world in which a hippie environmental group in the 60s put a curse on some labs so that the workers would turn into what they experiment on.  It’s the tale of a teenage girl whose grandmother was the mail carrier for this laboratory complex.  Now she’s turning into something else.  This one is dark and tragic.

The next story, Jeremy Sims’ “Fleep“, is a science fiction piece about the owner of a hotel in southeast Asia who is struggling to pay the bills when a group of aliens check in.  The owner of the hotel and his partner talked in a type of pidgeon English that I found annoying.  It spoiled what was otherwise been an amusing story.

Grayson Bray Morris turns in “The Message Between the Words“.  This was the most science fictional story in the issue.  It’s about a pilot who lives a life of regret until she gets an opportunity to send a message to her younger self.  I liked the character development, even if I didn’t entirely like the character.  And while I found the mechanism through which she is able to send a message a bit contrived, I liked this story best of all.

So, overall, I think Waylines is off to a good start.  The films are a nice change from the usual online magazine fare.  The stories weren’t all my cup of tea, but that’s fine.  The editors have to please a diverse audience to be successful.  The fiction pieces were well written.  This is one publication which shows promise.  I’ll be checking the next issue.

A Sneak Peak at Eclipse Online: "The Contrary Gardener" by Christopher Rowe

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Over the last few years, Nightshade Books has published four volumes of an anthology series titled Eclipse, edited by Jonathan Strahan.  Now that series is going online, with new stories published on the second and fourth Mondays of every month.  (The press release says first and fourth, but an email from the editor to me said second and fourth.  Since the premier is on October 8, I’m inclined to go with the second and fourth.) 

Anyway, Mr. Strahan was kind enough to send me advance copies of the two stories he’ll be publishing in October.  One is a fantasy by K. J. Parker which I’ve reviewed over at Adventures Fantastic, and the other is a science fiction by Christopher Rowe, the subject of this review. These are short stories, so the review aren’t going to be as long as the ones I write for novels.

“The Contrary Gardener” is a quiet, thoughtful piece of relatively near future science fiction set in what appears to be Kentucky, although it’s somewhat hard to tell how near future it is since no dates are given.  It’s the story of a young woman, Kay Lynne, who is a gardener in a society in which genetically grown fruits and vegetables are the main source of not just food but ammunition.  All of this is strictly regulated by the government. As are most aspects of daily life, including how father and daughter greet each other.

Kay Lynne is something of a nonconformist and has a strained relationship with her father, who grows beans for the military.  There’s some sort of war going on, with the usual propaganda.  The beans are used as ammunition.

In addition to advanced bioengineering, there are advanced machines, which are taking the place of people in a number of jobs. 

As a consequence of her nonconformity, Kay Lynne is pretty apolitical.  At least until something happens that forces her to make some uncomfortable choices.

That’s all I’ll say about the plot.  The two principle characters, Kay Lynne and her father, are well drawn, especially for such a short tale.  The world they inhabit is well-thought out and detailed.  I’ve read somewhere (and don’t ask, because it’s been so long I have no idea where) that good world building is like an iceberg.  The reader only sees the tip of all the work that went into it.  I got that impression from reading this.  Rowe has definitely done his homework here, for his world is rich in detail.  I’d be open to seeing more of it.

This story in many ways had a pastoral feel to it, not unlike the work of Clifford D. Simak.  I consider Simak to be a neglected master, and it was nice to read something reminiscent of his work.

With the story and it’s companion, Strahan has set the bar high on his initial choices to launch Eclipse Online.  He’s going to have his work cut out for him to keep the quality this high.  If I were a betting man, I would lay my money on his being able to do it.  Check this publication out.  It’s going to be good, and I’ll be surprised if the stories we see here don’t pick up some award nominations as well as a few awards.

The Android That Ate its Grandmother

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vN
Madeline Ashby
Angry Robot Books
448pp trade paperback
$12.99 US $14.99 CAN
448pp B-format paperback
£8.99 UK
ebook $4.89 Kindle $6.01 Nook

This book took me over two weeks to read, but please don’t take that as a negative comment on the book.  It’s actually a high compliment.  Life was happening at the time, and the fact that the book could hold my attention when I wasn’t able to read it for literally days at a time speaks highly of the author’s ability to tell a compelling story.

Normally, I don’t get excited about the whole androids who act like humans subgenre, partly because I got enough of it with ST:TNG and Commander Data.   I like Data, but the whole trope gets old after a while.

Fortunately something I read in a blurb by Joe Lansdale on a novel by Christopher Golden years ago is true:  There are no boring genres, only boring writers.  Madeline Ashby is not a boring writer, and vN is anything but a boring book.  This one surprised me several times by the direction it took.

The situation is this:  in the near future a wealthy cult develops sentient androids so that those who aren’t raptured will have someone to talk to, interact with, and have sex with.  That’s not a setup you see everyday.

Some people marry androids and have children with them.  Both genders of androids can reproduce.  Depending on their intake, androids can grow quickly or slowly.  Amy Peterson is the android daughter of a human father and android mother who is growing slowly because her parents want to raise a “normal” child, or at least as normal as an android child can be.  (Androids have their own food since they can’t eat human food.)

When androids reproduce, the offspring has all the features of the parent.  Also when androids see a human about to come to harm, they are programmed to shut down.  I’m not sure why that it.  I would think some variation of Asimov’s Three Laws would come into play, but that’s how it happens.

Amy’s grandmother, whom she has never met when the book opens, has a flaw in her programming.  She not only doesn’t shut down when a human is about to come to harm, she’s capable of actively harming humans.  When Grandma shows up at Amy’s kindergarten graduation, kills one of Amy’s classmates, and engages Amy’s mother in mortal combat, Amy doesn’t shut down.  She eats her grandmother.  Literally.

This sudden intake of nutrients (remember, androids have a special diet, which can include other androids) causes Amy to go from a six year old body to that of a fully mature adult woman in only a matter of hours.  It also leads to a life on the run. 

I won’t go into any more detail, since I found the path Amy’s life takes from this point to be one of the strong points of the book.  This book impressed me.  Like I said earlier, it held my attention when I wasn’t able to read it for days.

One of the strong points of the book is how well Ashby gets into Amy’s head.  She handles the fact although Amy is now a grown woman physically, she’s still a child emotionally very well.  This is where the attention the author pays to details really shows.

I said this book surprised me, and it did.  There’s more to come, because the cover copy says this is volume one of a series.  I have no idea where Ashby is planning on taking the next book.  I just know I’m going to be there for it.

vN is a Featured Book at Adventures Fantastic Books.  Below is an excerpt of the first 48 pages.

A Review of Mary Sisson’s Trust

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Trust
Mary Sisson
Various ebook formats:  $2.99
Amazon, B&N, Smashwords

I reviewed the first book in this series, Trang, not too long ago. It was the author’s first novel, and I found it to be enjoyable.  Now, Sisson’s sophomore effort is available.  It’s more enjoyable than the first, which is as it should be.  Authors, especially those early in their careers should be learning and improving with each new work.

There are some mild spoilers for Trang in what follows.  No way to avoid them, really, if I want to talk about this novel, since picks up shortly after the previous one ended.  

During the huge battle  at the end of Trang, the Cyclopes narrowly missed being destroyed by the super powered alien known as the Magic Man as punishment of their attempted invasion of the Host home planet.  If not for the intervention of Phillipe Trang, they would have been wiped out.  Now Trang learns that no good deed goes unpunished. 

When the book opens, the Cyclopes still on the station are starving.  No one on their home planet has sent any food.  That’s because no one is running the government.  They’re all too afraid of offending the Magic Man after he killed most of the previous government, so no one wants to step up and take responsibility for anything.  When Trang tries to find a solution to the problem, the Magic Man appoints him as interim head of the government.  Which is a rather awkward position for a diplomat from Earth to find himself in.

Oh, did I mention that advancement in the Cyclopes government is by assassination?

The cast of characters is still there, with some new ones added, both human and alien.  This is where Sisson’s greatest strength lies, creating believable characters.  They’re interesting, unique, and while you wouldn’t want to bring some of them home to dinner, they are always up to something.  This includes the humans and the aliens.

The focus on the aliens in this novel is the Cyclopes.  I’m not too sure how stable a government based on assassination would be, but it’s fun to read about.  And yes, there are assassinations and assassination attempts.  The most intriguing parts of the book are when we get to see things from the point of view of the Cyclopes.  There are two more volumes planned in this series, and I hope we get a closer look at some of the other alien societies.

Which is not to say that all of the focus is on the Cyclopes.  There’s an ongoing game of laser tag involving several of the alien species on the station which will have major repercussions.  Along with that, there are some shenanigans going on in Earth politics as well involving Union Intelligence taking a more than healthy interest in Trang..

I found this second novel to jump into the action more quickly than the first one, to be more complex, and to flow more smoothly than its predecessor.  If Sisson continues to improve, and there’s no reason to think she won’t, this will definitely be a series to keep up with.  I just wish the next volume would be ready before the release date of 2014.

If you’ve not read Trang, it’s currently available for free through Smashwords through July 1.  There’s a coupon code on the author’s website, along with links to all editions of both books.

Clarkesworld Issue 69 is Now Available

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Clarkesworld Issue 69
monthly
free online or available by subscription in various ebook formats

Clarkesworld has gotten some high profile attention in the last few years, having won the Hugo for Best Semiprozine in 2010 and 2011.  I’ve had subscription for the past six months or so.  Time constraints have kept me from finishing all of the issues, but based on everything I’ve read so far, it’s been a good investment. 

This magazine provides a good balance of fiction and nonfiction, and the new issue is no exception.  Here’s a closer look at the contents:

“Immersion” by Aliette de Bodard is set on a space habitat in which the inhabitants are long lived.  Tourism is a large part of the economy.  The culture on the station is so different from that of Galactic society that people wear immersers, which help them navigate the customs of the other culture.  This is basically the story of two women, one trapped in her immerser and the other longing to escape hers.

An Owomoyela’s “If the Mountain Comes” was my favorite story in the issue.  It’s the tale of a young woman whose father is wealthy due to the fact that he controls the only water supply for miles.  And he’s ruthless about keeping that control, and by extension, control of his neighbors.  Then one day a man shows up from outside who promises to make the local river, currently dry, flow again. 

Last, but certainly not least, is “You Were She Who Abode” by E. Catherine Tobler is the most complex story in the issue, requiring the reader’s full attention.  It’s also the most technically accomplished.  It concerns a woman who is a veteran of a horrible war in which children were combatants.  Due to her injuries, she’s had an implant to help her maintain her memory.  Only the implant isn’t working correctly.

In the nonfiction, we have an essay by Stephen Gaskell, “Energizing Futures:  How SF Fuels Itself“, discussing the various methods of energy production throughout the history of science fiction.  I last reviewed Stephen’s work here.  The interview (“Neither the Billionaire nor the Tramp: Economics in Speculative Fiction) is a round-robin discussion of economics featuring Elizabeth Bear, N. K. Jemisin, Dani Kollin, Brian Francis Slattery, Charlie Stross, and John C. Wright conducted by Jeremy L. C Jones.  There’s lots of good advice for writers in this one.  Daniel Abraham discusses “Assimilation, Multiculturalism, and Me“.  Finally, editor Neil Clarke turns statistical in “Clarkesworld by the Numbers“.

All in all, I thought this was a strong issue.  The fiction was professional quality and just as good as anything in the main publications such as Asimov’s, Analog, or F&SF.  The nonfiction was interesting and thought provoking.  It’s easy to see why Clarkesworld has won the Hugo in its category for the last two years.