Kim Miller
A frozen planet but with mineral resources. The Company, ruled by The Algorithm, wants control, the locals want The Company gone. And born into the dregs of the world are two brothers who spend their lives trying to sort out whether the fierce energy between them is love or hate. It's dark, violent, gritty, dystopian and cyberpunkish, but most of all it's relentless in the telling of the story.
Yorick is awakened from torpor, suspended animation that resembles death. He realises he's on his home planet, Ymir, from which he fled decades ago. Coming back was not part of the plan. He's told he's been brought back to hunt a grendel, an almost invincible monster that lives in the mines, attacking and killing the miners. Yorick has a reputation of being the grendel killer.
In his childhood, he and his brother, Thello, played 'the grendel game', pretending to kill the monster. His relationship with his brother has always been tenuous. The two boys are poles apart in personality, Yorick is wild and tempestuous while Thello is calmer and thoughtful, and they are driven both together and apart by their mother's senseless violence. Yorick plans to leave Ymir but before he can leave he fights with Thello and Yorick's lower jaw is blown off. He's patched up by The Company's medical teams and vows never to return to Ymir.
Once he comes out of torpor he's fitted out by The Company with weapons and told he'll be sent into the mineshafts to find and kill the grendel. And that's where everything comes undone. He finds himself in the centre of a secret uprising against The Company and somehow his brother Thello is involved and in communication with the grendel.
It's a battle for supremacy between the local miners and the militaristic company officers and overseers. The grendel appears to have abilities that nobody knew of and Yorick and Thello are thrown together in what manifests as a battle of conflicting loyalties.
The pace of the story is constantly relentless. Larson manages to keep the stakes high and the steady revelations of what lies under the surface continue right to the end.
A frozen planet but with mineral resources. The Company, ruled by The Algorithm, wants control, the locals want The Company gone. And born into the dregs of the world are two brothers who spend their lives trying to sort out whether the fierce energy between them is love or hate. It's dark, violent, gritty, dystopian and cyberpunkish, but most of all it's relentless in the telling of the story.
Yorick is awakened from torpor, suspended animation that resembles death. He realises he's on his home planet, Ymir, from which he fled decades ago. Coming back was not part of the plan. He's told he's been brought back to hunt a grendel, an almost invincible monster that lives in the mines, attacking and killing the miners. Yorick has a reputation of being the grendel killer.
In his childhood, he and his brother, Thello, played 'the grendel game', pretending to kill the monster. His relationship with his brother has always been tenuous. The two boys are poles apart in personality, Yorick is wild and tempestuous while Thello is calmer and thoughtful, and they are driven both together and apart by their mother's senseless violence. Yorick plans to leave Ymir but before he can leave he fights with Thello and Yorick's lower jaw is blown off. He's patched up by The Company's medical teams and vows never to return to Ymir.
Once he comes out of torpor he's fitted out by The Company with weapons and told he'll be sent into the mineshafts to find and kill the grendel. And that's where everything comes undone. He finds himself in the centre of a secret uprising against The Company and somehow his brother Thello is involved and in communication with the grendel.
It's a battle for supremacy between the local miners and the militaristic company officers and overseers. The grendel appears to have abilities that nobody knew of and Yorick and Thello are thrown together in what manifests as a battle of conflicting loyalties.
The pace of the story is constantly relentless. Larson manages to keep the stakes high and the steady revelations of what lies under the surface continue right to the end.
The iconic story of contact with no contact. Rama passes through the solar system and totally ignores us. The ship Endeavour is sent to investigate and the crew spends several days inside Rama, trying to figure out what the strange craft is. As it approaches the sun and the Endeavour has to depart, they track Rama as it gives close to the sun to gain speed and exits the solar system as anonymously as when it arrived.
By not having aliens, Clarke maintains the sense of mystery and wonderment for the crew. On Earth, however, the diplomacy is going mad. And then it's discovered that the inhabitants of Mercury has sent a nuclear weapon to destroy Rama, not trusting the motives of its builders, forcing decisive action from the Endeavour. The crew of the Endeavour allow the majesty of Rama to captivate them until some unknown propulsion system initiates and Rama starts its shift in orbit.
The concept of Rama illustrates Clarke's comment, “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
The iconic story of contact with no contact. Rama passes through the solar system and totally ignores us. The ship Endeavour is sent to investigate and the crew spends several days inside Rama, trying to figure out what the strange craft is. As it approaches the sun and the Endeavour has to depart, they track Rama as it gives close to the sun to gain speed and exits the solar system as anonymously as when it arrived.
By not having aliens, Clarke maintains the sense of mystery and wonderment for the crew. On Earth, however, the diplomacy is going mad. And then it's discovered that the inhabitants of Mercury has sent a nuclear weapon to destroy Rama, not trusting the motives of its builders, forcing decisive action from the Endeavour. The crew of the Endeavour allow the majesty of Rama to captivate them until some unknown propulsion system initiates and Rama starts its shift in orbit.
The concept of Rama illustrates Clarke's comment, “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
A minor player in the control station of an orbiting telescope sees an anomaly. Something heads towards Saturn but it's also slowing down. Nothing slows down out in space except controlled space craft. Then it stops at Saturn. US space control hurries to convert a space station into a ship to go and investigate. The anomaly ship leaves Saturn and the flare from the drive system is picked up all over the world. China wants to investigate and rushes to convert its nearly complete Mars ship to long distance. And so a new space race begins. Two countries, two very different space ships, and the possibility of far future alien tech if they can bring it home.
Hard sci fi meets space adventure meets political thriller. Sandford is a thriller writer and I think this is his first Sci Fi. Ctein (pronouned K'Tine) is a famous photographer and print maker with a science background. He provided the science research and original idea for the book. This is his first novel, his other books are generally about restoring old photographs. The name comes from when his university magazine made a bunch of typesetting errors, got his name badly wrong, and he decided to keep it.
A minor player in the control station of an orbiting telescope sees an anomaly. Something heads towards Saturn but it's also slowing down. Nothing slows down out in space except controlled space craft. Then it stops at Saturn. US space control hurries to convert a space station into a ship to go and investigate. The anomaly ship leaves Saturn and the flare from the drive system is picked up all over the world. China wants to investigate and rushes to convert its nearly complete Mars ship to long distance. And so a new space race begins. Two countries, two very different space ships, and the possibility of far future alien tech if they can bring it home.
Hard sci fi meets space adventure meets political thriller. Sandford is a thriller writer and I think this is his first Sci Fi. Ctein (pronouned K'Tine) is a famous photographer and print maker with a science background. He provided the science research and original idea for the book. This is his first novel, his other books are generally about restoring old photographs. The name comes from when his university magazine made a bunch of typesetting errors, got his name badly wrong, and he decided to keep it.
Two boys meet, one a fast thinking savant and the other a psychopath, and as they grow they start taking over. They take over the two major crime organisations that spread their influence over several planets. And once in charge they spread their power over civic leaders, politicians, police forces. But as much as they are inter-dependent they are also suspicious of each other.
On another planet a writer is chasing down a story of multiple murders and discovers links to some dark story underneath. Out at sea a system of rigs like oil platforms are drawing a strange power source from beneath the ocean floor. It's dangerous work but one of the survivors the writer comes across is anxious to start work there.
This book takes us through the lives of a number of characters separated on different planets, but also, we later learn, separated by decades of time. Around the rig float hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stasis pods, each one holding a person in suspended animation, until they can be retrieved and their illness cured. It's a book of strange things that don't have anything to do with each other until the final chapters. And then it all starts to link up.
Apart from the frustration of Levy's decision to use silly words for certain things, religion becomes godery, computers become putery, monitors become screenery, it's an engaging mystery and an increasingly fast action story.
It also has a high body count. It starts with a fanatical religious community killing perhaps hundreds of people in a religious event, and ends with the main characters all fighting for their lives. Some of them survive. Along the way the brutality is constant as the two protagonists take over. It's not a book for the faint hearted.
Two boys meet, one a fast thinking savant and the other a psychopath, and as they grow they start taking over. They take over the two major crime organisations that spread their influence over several planets. And once in charge they spread their power over civic leaders, politicians, police forces. But as much as they are inter-dependent they are also suspicious of each other.
On another planet a writer is chasing down a story of multiple murders and discovers links to some dark story underneath. Out at sea a system of rigs like oil platforms are drawing a strange power source from beneath the ocean floor. It's dangerous work but one of the survivors the writer comes across is anxious to start work there.
This book takes us through the lives of a number of characters separated on different planets, but also, we later learn, separated by decades of time. Around the rig float hundreds, perhaps thousands, of stasis pods, each one holding a person in suspended animation, until they can be retrieved and their illness cured. It's a book of strange things that don't have anything to do with each other until the final chapters. And then it all starts to link up.
Apart from the frustration of Levy's decision to use silly words for certain things, religion becomes godery, computers become putery, monitors become screenery, it's an engaging mystery and an increasingly fast action story.
It also has a high body count. It starts with a fanatical religious community killing perhaps hundreds of people in a religious event, and ends with the main characters all fighting for their lives. Some of them survive. Along the way the brutality is constant as the two protagonists take over. It's not a book for the faint hearted.
Book 2 of the trilogy.
Ethan was being hunted at the end of #1, now he's been made Sheriff of the town. He's been charged with the job of finding those who are plotting against the town and out one night finds a dead body. The woman has been tortured but is lying naked and with no blood on here or on the ground around her.
He's told the woman is Pilcher's daughter and Pilcher thinks she's been murdered by the insurrectionists. Ethan delves into the secret meetings and doesn't believe those people had anything to do with her death. Further investigations bring the frightening reality home to Ethan, but how is he going to pursue the real killers?
This volume tells the story of less than a week and in that time Ethan has gone from being a fugitive to being the sheriff to being the one who is about to bring down the whole structure.
Book 2 of the trilogy.
Ethan was being hunted at the end of #1, now he's been made Sheriff of the town. He's been charged with the job of finding those who are plotting against the town and out one night finds a dead body. The woman has been tortured but is lying naked and with no blood on here or on the ground around her.
He's told the woman is Pilcher's daughter and Pilcher thinks she's been murdered by the insurrectionists. Ethan delves into the secret meetings and doesn't believe those people had anything to do with her death. Further investigations bring the frightening reality home to Ethan, but how is he going to pursue the real killers?
This volume tells the story of less than a week and in that time Ethan has gone from being a fugitive to being the sheriff to being the one who is about to bring down the whole structure.
