Kim Miller
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.
Vonnegut here is like a shaman who throws a bunch of knuckle bones in the air, sees how they land, and tells the client what they mean. The novel is a crazy ramble through whatever Vonnegut had tucked away in the absurdist corner of his mind. It's dark and dangerous, reaching past satire to the edges of savagery.
SciFi author Kilgore Trout appears again alongside other Vonnegut regulars. He's been invited to an arts festival where one of his books about a lone human on a planet of robots sparks a psychotic episode in a paticipant. The narrator has made many references to 'bad chemicals' effecting human behaviour, but the assumption has been drug references. As the story progresses we see that he means the chemicals our brain makes for itself. Humanity is little more than a bunch of robots being controlled by our own chemistry.
To add to his theme, the narrator becomes a character in the book towards the end, demonstrating how he can make any character in the story do whatever he wants them to do. It's a weird flex that adds to the feeling of insanity that threads its way through the whole story.
Vonnegut here is like a shaman who throws a bunch of knuckle bones in the air, sees how they land, and tells the client what they mean. The novel is a crazy ramble through whatever Vonnegut had tucked away in the absurdist corner of his mind. It's dark and dangerous, reaching past satire to the edges of savagery.
SciFi author Kilgore Trout appears again alongside other Vonnegut regulars. He's been invited to an arts festival where one of his books about a lone human on a planet of robots sparks a psychotic episode in a paticipant. The narrator has made many references to 'bad chemicals' effecting human behaviour, but the assumption has been drug references. As the story progresses we see that he means the chemicals our brain makes for itself. Humanity is little more than a bunch of robots being controlled by our own chemistry.
To add to his theme, the narrator becomes a character in the book towards the end, demonstrating how he can make any character in the story do whatever he wants them to do. It's a weird flex that adds to the feeling of insanity that threads its way through the whole story.
Vonnegut here is like a shaman who throws a bunch of knuckle bones in the air, sees how they land, and tells the client what they mean. The novel is a crazy ramble through whatever Vonnegut had tucked away in the absurdist corner of his mind. It's dark and dangerous, reaching past satire to the edges of savagery.
SciFi author Kilgore Trout appears again alongside other Vonnegut regulars. He's been invited to an arts festival where one of his books about a lone human on a planet of robots sparks a psychotic episode in a paticipant. The narrator has made many references to 'bad chemicals' effecting human behaviour, but the assumption has been drug references. As the story progresses we see that he means the chemicals our brain makes for itself. Humanity is little more than a bunch of robots being controlled by our own chemistry.
To add to his theme, the narrator becomes a character in the book towards the end, demonstrating how he can make any character in the story do whatever he wants them to do. It's a weird flex that adds to the feeling of insanity that threads its way through the whole story.
Vonnegut here is like a shaman who throws a bunch of knuckle bones in the air, sees how they land, and tells the client what they mean. The novel is a crazy ramble through whatever Vonnegut had tucked away in the absurdist corner of his mind. It's dark and dangerous, reaching past satire to the edges of savagery.
SciFi author Kilgore Trout appears again alongside other Vonnegut regulars. He's been invited to an arts festival where one of his books about a lone human on a planet of robots sparks a psychotic episode in a paticipant. The narrator has made many references to 'bad chemicals' effecting human behaviour, but the assumption has been drug references. As the story progresses we see that he means the chemicals our brain makes for itself. Humanity is little more than a bunch of robots being controlled by our own chemistry.
To add to his theme, the narrator becomes a character in the book towards the end, demonstrating how he can make any character in the story do whatever he wants them to do. It's a weird flex that adds to the feeling of insanity that threads its way through the whole story.
Following on from The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet where the Wayfarer has been almost destroyed in an alien attack. The AI that runs the ship has been blitzed and when it was rebooted it reverted to a brand new install, having lost all it's memories and relationships with the crew.
In this book the AI has been transferred to a body kit and the story from here explores the difficulty of the transfer from ship to body. Running parallel is the story of Jane, a ten year old girl who was artificially bred to be a factory worker. Chapters alternate between the cloned human working out her life and the AI in an artificial body working out her life. Their respective struggles are intermingled with the strange relationships between various aliens that populate the planet.
It's the cozy scifi of Becky Chambers with the same sense of optimism of the Angry Planet story. This time she deals with themes of identity and acceptance in a deeper way. It got a bit bogged down in the expository stuff in the middle but suddenly sparked up again once we got back to characters instead of concepts.
Following on from The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet where the Wayfarer has been almost destroyed in an alien attack. The AI that runs the ship has been blitzed and when it was rebooted it reverted to a brand new install, having lost all it's memories and relationships with the crew.
In this book the AI has been transferred to a body kit and the story from here explores the difficulty of the transfer from ship to body. Running parallel is the story of Jane, a ten year old girl who was artificially bred to be a factory worker. Chapters alternate between the cloned human working out her life and the AI in an artificial body working out her life. Their respective struggles are intermingled with the strange relationships between various aliens that populate the planet.
It's the cozy scifi of Becky Chambers with the same sense of optimism of the Angry Planet story. This time she deals with themes of identity and acceptance in a deeper way. It got a bit bogged down in the expository stuff in the middle but suddenly sparked up again once we got back to characters instead of concepts.
Book 2 of Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun' series.
The medieval seeming world of Severian starts to open up to a bit of SciFi. In this book there are conversations that mention a time when people flew between the stars, and one (time traveler?) character recognises and disappears in what seems a remnant "beam me up Scotty" device that is kept in a castle as a piece of forgotten history.
It's still a bonkers ride through Wolfe's world and still somewhat of an acquired taste. However, I love bonkers stuff and this series is keeping my mind running happily through his labyrinthine prose.
Book 2 of Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun' series.
The medieval seeming world of Severian starts to open up to a bit of SciFi. In this book there are conversations that mention a time when people flew between the stars, and one (time traveler?) character recognises and disappears in what seems a remnant "beam me up Scotty" device that is kept in a castle as a piece of forgotten history.
It's still a bonkers ride through Wolfe's world and still somewhat of an acquired taste. However, I love bonkers stuff and this series is keeping my mind running happily through his labyrinthine prose.
Severian continues moving through his mad world, gradually rising in social standing if only he didn't find it so easy to make enemies.
Severian continues moving through his mad world, gradually rising in social standing if only he didn't find it so easy to make enemies.
This volume 4 of Sun Eater is such a heavy hitter. Ruocchio has a great talent as a story teller but this book takes that talent further than the first three in the series. Hadrian has been through some 'stuff' in those books, but this time Ruocchio throws him to the wall. At the 40% point Ruocchio stomps on Hadrian, and then does it again and again and again. This is not merely a crisis moment, for hundreds of pages Hadrian is pounded deeper and deeper into suffering. I found it a painful thing to keep reading, but the writing is so good and the story is so imaginative that it kept me glued to the page.
We know that Hadrian is writing this way into the future so he has to survive, but I could not fathom how Ruocchio was going to get him out of the fire this time.
There is a long denouement in this story and it's the first time for as long as I can remember that a book has brought me to tears.
This volume 4 of Sun Eater is such a heavy hitter. Ruocchio has a great talent as a story teller but this book takes that talent further than the first three in the series. Hadrian has been through some 'stuff' in those books, but this time Ruocchio throws him to the wall. At the 40% point Ruocchio stomps on Hadrian, and then does it again and again and again. This is not merely a crisis moment, for hundreds of pages Hadrian is pounded deeper and deeper into suffering. I found it a painful thing to keep reading, but the writing is so good and the story is so imaginative that it kept me glued to the page.
We know that Hadrian is writing this way into the future so he has to survive, but I could not fathom how Ruocchio was going to get him out of the fire this time.
There is a long denouement in this story and it's the first time for as long as I can remember that a book has brought me to tears.
I saw the Tarkovsky movie many years ago but his movies are so slow and dreamlike it was difficult getting into the story. I chased up the book but the English translation had come from the French translation and everybody bagged it out. This direct to English translation by Bill Johnston came out in 2011 and this was the one i read. Now I've got to go back to the movie, I'm sure it will make more sense.
It's a book that deals with mankind's inability to handle failure, and with no hero in sight.
I saw the Tarkovsky movie many years ago but his movies are so slow and dreamlike it was difficult getting into the story. I chased up the book but the English translation had come from the French translation and everybody bagged it out. This direct to English translation by Bill Johnston came out in 2011 and this was the one i read. Now I've got to go back to the movie, I'm sure it will make more sense.
It's a book that deals with mankind's inability to handle failure, and with no hero in sight.
Free-Wrench
This is #1 in a Steampunk series that the author started as a NaNoWriMo project - National Novel Writing Month. This is an international endeavour where people undertake to spend November writing as much as they can of a novel. When I was writing a few years ago I participated in NaNoWriMo so it has a natural attraction for me.
Nita is a general duties mechanic, a Free Wrench, in the boiler room of a power plant built into the side of a volcano. Yep, steam powers everything. In a fit of impulsiveness she finds herself trying to fit in with the crew of smugglers of a steam powered airship. And so the adventures begin.
This is a free-wheeling story that reads as a YA novel. It's a bit swashbuckling pirate, a bit "find the mole in the crew", a bit "how do these people even get along?, and a bit "I know this will all turn out OK because the author is too nice to his characters".
This is #1 in a Steampunk series that the author started as a NaNoWriMo project - National Novel Writing Month. This is an international endeavour where people undertake to spend November writing as much as they can of a novel. When I was writing a few years ago I participated in NaNoWriMo so it has a natural attraction for me.
Nita is a general duties mechanic, a Free Wrench, in the boiler room of a power plant built into the side of a volcano. Yep, steam powers everything. In a fit of impulsiveness she finds herself trying to fit in with the crew of smugglers of a steam powered airship. And so the adventures begin.
This is a free-wheeling story that reads as a YA novel. It's a bit swashbuckling pirate, a bit "find the mole in the crew", a bit "how do these people even get along?, and a bit "I know this will all turn out OK because the author is too nice to his characters".
Rod Moss is an Alice Springs (Australia) artist and author. His work mostly features life in the red centre. In this book he travels to the coast.
Blue Moon Bay is a coastal town filled with comedic but weird characters living out their weird lives. Some of the characters are people, some are animals, some are puppets, all are grotesque. The book is a celebration of absurdist comedy with Moss's artworks peppering the text.
If this ever found its way to Florida they would ban it.
Rod Moss is an Alice Springs (Australia) artist and author. His work mostly features life in the red centre. In this book he travels to the coast.
Blue Moon Bay is a coastal town filled with comedic but weird characters living out their weird lives. Some of the characters are people, some are animals, some are puppets, all are grotesque. The book is a celebration of absurdist comedy with Moss's artworks peppering the text.
If this ever found its way to Florida they would ban it.
Not much needs to be said about one of the iconic works of American fiction. I first read this not too long after it came out as one of those university students who thought they were so cool for being abreast of modern literature. Or, as Vonnegut once said about his writing, "It's all just horseshit." Or something close to that.
Vonnegut gathers all his chaotic black humour into one place for this book. Billy Pilgrim's time jumps scatter his story back and forth, from childhood to the day he will die, from being abducted to another planet to watching his interplanetary lover in a porn film in a New York adult book shop, from running scared through a German forest before his capture to being a wealthy optometrist in the US.
It's an insight into Vonnegut's state of mind following his return from war and surviving the Dresden bombing, well before the term PTSD was coined or the condition even understood.
Not much needs to be said about one of the iconic works of American fiction. I first read this not too long after it came out as one of those university students who thought they were so cool for being abreast of modern literature. Or, as Vonnegut once said about his writing, "It's all just horseshit." Or something close to that.
Vonnegut gathers all his chaotic black humour into one place for this book. Billy Pilgrim's time jumps scatter his story back and forth, from childhood to the day he will die, from being abducted to another planet to watching his interplanetary lover in a porn film in a New York adult book shop, from running scared through a German forest before his capture to being a wealthy optometrist in the US.
It's an insight into Vonnegut's state of mind following his return from war and surviving the Dresden bombing, well before the term PTSD was coined or the condition even understood.
The second collection of short stories that fits between the Sun Eater novels. This is a mix of Marlowe stuff and minor characters who don't appear in the novels. The final story concerns Crispin, the follow up from The Lesser Devil novella. Getting a bit more family info bumps this book up a half star.
The second collection of short stories that fits between the Sun Eater novels. This is a mix of Marlowe stuff and minor characters who don't appear in the novels. The final story concerns Crispin, the follow up from The Lesser Devil novella. Getting a bit more family info bumps this book up a half star.