Kim Miller
WPHPO
I think this is the debut novel from Bauer. It's the first of a series in a 'destroyed world' type of story. Climate change is freezing the world into a new ice age, only some people escape. The book suffers from having everything explained in terms of numbers: how many people can fit in this spaceship, how large a volume needs to be to hold this forest, how much space needs to be given over to food manufacture, etc. He has a wide array of characters drawn from around the world who face orchestrating a rescue in the face of a rapidly advancing catastrophe.
It seems that Bauer is looking for hard scifi but his process gets in the way. I'll watch out for the second book as i would like him to succeed, the world needs more Aussie authors.
I think this is the debut novel from Bauer. It's the first of a series in a 'destroyed world' type of story. Climate change is freezing the world into a new ice age, only some people escape. The book suffers from having everything explained in terms of numbers: how many people can fit in this spaceship, how large a volume needs to be to hold this forest, how much space needs to be given over to food manufacture, etc. He has a wide array of characters drawn from around the world who face orchestrating a rescue in the face of a rapidly advancing catastrophe.
It seems that Bauer is looking for hard scifi but his process gets in the way. I'll watch out for the second book as i would like him to succeed, the world needs more Aussie authors.
This novella follows on from Ashes of Man and is the best of the novellas in the series. It tells the story of Lorien Aristedes after he engineered the rescue of Hadrian.
It begins with Lorien already having been tried and entered into his sentence. The book starts out dark and gets progressively darker as Ruocchio strips Lorien of his dignity and ultimately his humanity. As Lorien is ground into the dust by his circumstances and the people around him the inner surety that has carried him in previous episodes also retreats from him. He is thrown into suffering and forced into performing actions that he would never have countenanced in his former life.
Next to Kingdoms of Darkness, this is the darkest story of the series so far and totally compelling. It was a two session read for me, and had I started it early in the day it would have been a single session to complete.
This novella follows on from Ashes of Man and is the best of the novellas in the series. It tells the story of Lorien Aristedes after he engineered the rescue of Hadrian.
It begins with Lorien already having been tried and entered into his sentence. The book starts out dark and gets progressively darker as Ruocchio strips Lorien of his dignity and ultimately his humanity. As Lorien is ground into the dust by his circumstances and the people around him the inner surety that has carried him in previous episodes also retreats from him. He is thrown into suffering and forced into performing actions that he would never have countenanced in his former life.
Next to Kingdoms of Darkness, this is the darkest story of the series so far and totally compelling. It was a two session read for me, and had I started it early in the day it would have been a single session to complete.
This is the best so far of the short story fill-ins of Sun Eater. The stories are sharper and add more into the overall drama of the main novels. Each story builds into some aspect of the whole.
Whether the story of a main character who was left behind, the story of a soldier who is confronted and transformed by an age-old god of the Cielcin, the story of a knight of the Empire who confronts the extrasollarians who build clones so that they can later use their body parts, or the story of a young woman who is growing into the true daughter of her exiled father, these stories merge into the Sun Eater series more perfectly than the stories in the other collections.
This is the best so far of the short story fill-ins of Sun Eater. The stories are sharper and add more into the overall drama of the main novels. Each story builds into some aspect of the whole.
Whether the story of a main character who was left behind, the story of a soldier who is confronted and transformed by an age-old god of the Cielcin, the story of a knight of the Empire who confronts the extrasollarians who build clones so that they can later use their body parts, or the story of a young woman who is growing into the true daughter of her exiled father, these stories merge into the Sun Eater series more perfectly than the stories in the other collections.
This is the final book in Baxter's Zelee Sequence but was recommended to me as a worthwhile stand alone book.
As the sun approaches heat death Earth's scientists work out that it's happening much too soon and something must be happening to it. The Zelee series deals with alien wars etc and space travelers also work out that other stars are also degenerating too quickly.
By sending a probe into the sun they find the problem and realise that it's non-repairable and it looks like the whole galaxy is threatened by the same thing.
As the book approaches the end they work out that the aliens with whom they were at war for so long are really the solution to a galaxy wide problem.
This is the final book in Baxter's Zelee Sequence but was recommended to me as a worthwhile stand alone book.
As the sun approaches heat death Earth's scientists work out that it's happening much too soon and something must be happening to it. The Zelee series deals with alien wars etc and space travelers also work out that other stars are also degenerating too quickly.
By sending a probe into the sun they find the problem and realise that it's non-repairable and it looks like the whole galaxy is threatened by the same thing.
As the book approaches the end they work out that the aliens with whom they were at war for so long are really the solution to a galaxy wide problem.
I went looking for something funny to read and this popped up. It started out wacky crazy insanity with lots of laughs. Then it turned to blood and guts everywhere comedic horror, although it felt like the author was trying for something higher. It hit a bit of a turning point at the 75% mark with a remembered tale of high school violence and I was close to DNF at that point. However, it improved in style and became a bit more cohesive as the protagonists realised they were about to save the universe. The closing sequence was very clever - the bit on the basketball court - where they (and us) realise that somebody else could have done a much better job.
I went looking for something funny to read and this popped up. It started out wacky crazy insanity with lots of laughs. Then it turned to blood and guts everywhere comedic horror, although it felt like the author was trying for something higher. It hit a bit of a turning point at the 75% mark with a remembered tale of high school violence and I was close to DNF at that point. However, it improved in style and became a bit more cohesive as the protagonists realised they were about to save the universe. The closing sequence was very clever - the bit on the basketball court - where they (and us) realise that somebody else could have done a much better job.
Black Milk
This is my first DNF for longer than I can remember. I bought what I thought was SciFi but was what started out a Victorian London era horror story. Very soon the protagonist was heading towards taking the life of a newborn baby so he could reanimate his recently deceased wife. That was enough for me to stop.
This is my first DNF for longer than I can remember. I bought what I thought was SciFi but was what started out a Victorian London era horror story. Very soon the protagonist was heading towards taking the life of a newborn baby so he could reanimate his recently deceased wife. That was enough for me to stop.
Young Kathreen has been captured in an interplanetary invasion and taken to another planet by her captors. Here, with other victims, she will work in the mines, digging out a dangerous and mysterious substance. Suddenly a chance opens up for her to assume the identity of the child of a noble. She takes it. Thus starts her journey of revenge.
The book suffers, in my estimation, from several graphic depictions of child abuse and torture. It is part of the plot structure in that we need to know what drives Kathreen's thirst for revenge and justice, but graphic violence towards children is a tricky subject to navigate.
The story arc of Kathreen is well thought out and developed and we see her rise in power to the point where she faces for herself the difficulty of maintaining power without becoming the next tyrant.
Young Kathreen has been captured in an interplanetary invasion and taken to another planet by her captors. Here, with other victims, she will work in the mines, digging out a dangerous and mysterious substance. Suddenly a chance opens up for her to assume the identity of the child of a noble. She takes it. Thus starts her journey of revenge.
The book suffers, in my estimation, from several graphic depictions of child abuse and torture. It is part of the plot structure in that we need to know what drives Kathreen's thirst for revenge and justice, but graphic violence towards children is a tricky subject to navigate.
The story arc of Kathreen is well thought out and developed and we see her rise in power to the point where she faces for herself the difficulty of maintaining power without becoming the next tyrant.
Updated a reading goal:
Read 50 books by December 30, 2024
Progress so far: 50 / 50 100%
Book 5 of Sun Eater. What a wild ride. #4 was a heavy hitter with Hadrian being captured by the Cielcin and tortured for years. In this book we see him trying to come to grips with what happened to him while still maintaining focus on the war.
If #3 showed him in shining glory and #4 shows him being crushed to nothing, #5 starts out like lush velvet depression before raising the stakes as he is sent headlong into another confrontation with the Cielcin prophet.
His 'gift' from The Quiet is apparently gone until one event sparks an intensity of rage in him and he reaches deeper into himself for an extraordinary outcome.
I'm continually impressed with Ruoccio's ability to weave a complex story over such a wide ranging galaxy. Each new novel reaches back into previous parts of the story, and in this one we find conversations and characters in the first book come home.
Book 5 of Sun Eater. What a wild ride. #4 was a heavy hitter with Hadrian being captured by the Cielcin and tortured for years. In this book we see him trying to come to grips with what happened to him while still maintaining focus on the war.
If #3 showed him in shining glory and #4 shows him being crushed to nothing, #5 starts out like lush velvet depression before raising the stakes as he is sent headlong into another confrontation with the Cielcin prophet.
His 'gift' from The Quiet is apparently gone until one event sparks an intensity of rage in him and he reaches deeper into himself for an extraordinary outcome.
I'm continually impressed with Ruoccio's ability to weave a complex story over such a wide ranging galaxy. Each new novel reaches back into previous parts of the story, and in this one we find conversations and characters in the first book come home.