Books: Giveaways, Scalzi, Reynolds

The Complete Uncle by J.P. Martin

I helped Kickstart this book, despite not being familiar with the stories, on the strength of reviews. About halfway through the first story, I've decided it's not for me. It's no secret that the conflict between the rich, benevolent Uncle and the poor, filthy Badforters is a satire of English class struggle, but it's a satire where all the sympathy lies with the rich, and in this day and age, I find that unsettling. It's going in my giveaway pile.

24 Frames Into The Future by John Scalzi

This is a collection of a hundred-plus columns, by Scalzi, on science fiction film, written for a website between 2008 and 2011. It suffers a lot from being collected in one volume, alas. For starters, there were only so many SF films over that period, so Scalzi ends up talking about the same films over and over. And, because the columns were written weeks apart, he needs to assume that his readers have forgotten stuff he said previously, so he says the same things over and over. Individually, each column is breezy, sometimes informative, and insightful. In a collection, it's like listening to a pop song on endless repeat. I like Scalzi a lot, but I can't imagine needed to return to this book, so it goes in the giveaway pile.

Agent To The Stars by John Scalzi

We've got a bit of a theme of Scalzi and Hollywood, here. In this volume, our protagonist is a Hollywood agent who's hired to help aliens integrate with society. The oddness of the premise is much commented upon, by our hero, who is also disheartened that the aliens are smelly blobs. A lot of the novel is the agent dealing with his conventional clients, but it all dovetails quite neatly in the end, and it seems an interesting look into the Hollywood machine. Recommended.

Redshirts by John Scalzi

Our heroes are crew on a Union spaceship, the Intrepid, an Enterprise clone under the command of a Kirk clone, etc. And they can't help but notice that things don't make a lot of sense, and they don't make sense in a way that routinely gets them killed. The fourth wall is eventually rent asunder amidst much philosophical angst. Shares some plot points with Agent, but worth it, in its own right.

Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds

In this novella, the world's ecology is shutting down. The only thing that can possibly save it is a supply of seeds from the past -- but the seed banks collapsed years ago. Time travel could solve the problem, but the only time machines can't bring physical things forward, and can't send anyone back unless there's a time machine waiting on the other end. Fortunately, there are tricks to solve those problems, but time is running out in the grim Russian winter. Recommended.

The Iron Tactician by Alastair Reynolds

Another novella, a space opera, which I read long enough ago that the details have escaped me, but as I recall it's about someone clever scamming a less-clever civilization to gain a Precursor artifact. I recall liking it, so: Recommended.

Books: Trek, Wars, And Others

Star Trek: The Wounded Sky by Diane Duane

An older Trek novel in which the Enterprise tests a new FTL drive, which has extremely unfortunate side effects. Some bits of the plot don't make a lot of sense, but you're mostly here for the crew banding together in the face of ultimate weirdness. Has some well-rendered alien crewmembers, including the (per back cover copy) "pretty alien scientist" -- who is a very pretty glass spider. Mildly recommended.

Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn

Set in two time periods, this recent Star Wars novel covers Thrawn's first meeting with Anakin Skywalker, during the Clone Wars, and a much later team-up between Thrawn and Darth Vader, in which Thrawn politely pretends he doesn't know Vader's secret identity. Practically any Thrawn novel by Zahn is a delight, and watching these two very proud men carefully work around each other's egos is entertaining. Recommended.

The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum

They say Weinbaum would be remembered in the same breath as Asimov and Heinlein, if he hadn't died of cancer, terribly young, after less then two years in the business. This is a fine collection of his shorter works, most of them still quite readable, though they obviously burned brighter in the cheesy pulp days of the 1930s. Recommended.

Niels Bohr by Ruth Moore

A biography of the famed physicist who formed much of our modern understanding of the atom. It's readable, not terribly exciting, and I confess it's mostly staying on my shelf because it came from the library of my grandfather, who got it autographed by Moore.

Marvel Masterworks: The Savage She-Hulk, Vol. 2 by Kraft, Vosburg, et al

While I can't honestly call these good stories, they're interestingly different from the standard fare of the time. The issues involved are often social, there's an overarching plot which ascends from political corruption to cosmic and Earth-threatening, and She-Hulk's personal problems (like, her dad thinks she's a murderer) are handled interestingly. She's also in an odd polyamorous relationship, where Jennifer is dating one man, and She-Hulk is dating a different man, with attendant friction. Very mildly recommended.