Henry L Lazarus
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Science Fiction for April 2014
by Henry Leon Lazarus
There is a transition going on between e-books
and printed books. The question that occurs with Fantasy and Science
Fiction is the drawings, drawings which e-books rarely do well. The
real question is do you want a huge, thousand-page epic with
interesting drawings or do you want to hold something much lighter
to your eyes.
If George R. R. Martin died before
completing his massive epic that is also a HBO show, the person most
likely to finish the tale is Brandon Sanderson. He is a very
prolific writer who most likely will complete his massive The
Stormlight Archive. Words of Radiance (hard from Tor)
mainly follows Shallon who had been mentored by the Princess Jasnah
until a ship wreck leaves her stranded and she has to reinvent
herself and come to turns with her growing powers. Kaladin, one-time
slave turned king’s bodyguard has to decide whether protecting a bad
king is worth the effort. Both have to say the Words of Radiance
(hard from Tor) to find themselves and their place in the growing
future problems of their world. Roshar is a very strange world
filled with non-human intelligence and creatures that survive with
the power of stormlight. This is an intense read and Isaac Stewart’s
20 illustration greatly add the read. Highly recommended to epic
readers who don’t mind huge volumes.
Marie Brennan’s second tale of Lady
Trent’s second expedition to study dragons in a Victorian Age world
sends her south of The Tropic of Serpents (hard from Tor) to
deep jungle inhabited by hunter-gatherers who know their
environment. The drawings here by Todd Lockwood are as wonderful as
the prose. Mrs. Trent, with her two companions, has to deal with
strange cultures, and new languages to find the secrets of the swamp
wyrms. Add in yellow fever, leaches, malaria, and a small war, and
she really has her hands full, especially when she glides with a
glider made of dragon wings. Lots of fun.
Sara King’s tale of Comander Zero’s
Return ( ebook from Parasite Publications which I bought) has
him facing Earth’s apocalypse. The Congress that governs the
galaxy has only a few rules. Genetic modifications of intelligent
species is not allowed. Earth being a minor, and unwilling member
decides to challenge that rule with secret labs that cull the bad
results. When discovered , Congress acts by destroying all
power generators, military installations, and anything else that can
contribute to civilization. Then they drop Kreenit monsters to kill
most of the pupulation. Finally they shut the planet from
civilization for seven centuries. Of course they return all troops
drafted in to the Congressional Army. Zero finds himself trying to
protect escaped laboratory specimens including one brainwashed to
think she is a fearsome Jreet with powerful telekenic abilities, a
women who can created food out of sand, and a telepath that can kill
with a thought and hates killing. The group also hates wearing
clothes. Alas this is only the first half of the tale. Absorbing and
impossible-to-put down.
Anne Charnock tells of a utopian future
where crime has been abolished through genetic alternation. Jayne is
a synthetic human living A Calculated Life (paper from
47North). Her generation of synthetics have been made more human and
as a result some are being recalled. She has been leased to a
predictive agency Mayhew McCline, who are impressed with her
ability to link trends, but her interaction with the human staff
lead her to areas very dangerous for synthetic humans and to love.
Fascinating.
Ramona Wheeler tells of Three Princes
(hard from Tor) in an alternate present in which Julius Caesar
married Cleopatra 1877 years before and set up a permanent empire.
They deal with the Russians, Prussians, and some empires in South
America. Scott Oken, fourth in line to the British throne is a spy
for that empire as is his friend and Mentor Makel Mabruke who has
retired from running the spy school. When rumors that the Inca,
ruler of Tawantinsuyu is building a rocket to send a man to
the moon, they are sent as envoys across the Atlantic by Aeroship, a
pretty sight navigated with intelligent parrots. There they meet
Viracocha, second son of the Inca. The Inca’s oldest son is the
problem and soon all three find themselves in a Incan temple waiting
to have their heart cut out. Add in a scheming Otto Von Bismark who
has other plans for those rockets and you end up with a fun, James
Bond type adventure where the background is neater than the standard
plot. Fun.
Thirteen-year-olds can be much wiser than
their age. Penelope Akk might say Please Don't Tell My
Parents I'm a Supervillain (paper from Curiosity Quills Press)
because her parents are retired super-heroes. As Richard Roberts
tells this fascinating tale, Penelope inherited her talents for
building impossible gadgets from her father who actually understood
what he was building. However when her talent first appears, her
parents tell her it will take a few years for her to successfully
master it. But she starts building things anyways, with a lab
that her friends Claire and Ray help build in a deserted lair that
Claire’s mother, another superhero, knows about. The Claire doesn’t
make the cheerleader squad so Penelope makes a serum to make her
stronger and Roy drinks so much of it that he becomes super strong.
Then Claire gets a zero on her science fair project because the
judges don’t believe she made it herself and Ray wants to trash the
exhibit. Before long she has gadgets for her friends, cool weapons
that like like giant toys. But the head of the supervillains,
Spider, wants her and her friends for a master caper blackmails her
into helping. Lots of fun. I couldn’t put it down.
The monster on the cover of Rober
Buettner’s third tale of the Orphan Legacy series is one of the
heroes. Mort is very intelligent and a super telepath and a
great help to Jazon and Kitt when they go to Yavi to meet the dying
woman who raised Jazon. The Yavi authorities have let the midwife go
in the hope of drawing in Jazon and his parents who have the secret
of ftl travel the Yavi’s desperately want. Yavi is a heavily
overcrowded planet where child murder is acceptable and the human
worlds would be at a Balance Point (trade) if Earth’s secret
were shared. Lots of light fun.
Rjurik Davidson has a neat world where
Thaumaturagical magic has brought back an age of steam after a
cataclysmic destruction that destroyed their gods. The magic comes
with heavy price that includes warping those who use it
heavily. Under an Unwrapped Sky (hard from Tor) tells
of a revolution in the city of Caeli-Amur ruled by three families
who use horrible magic against those who fight them. Boris
originally worked in the tram works but has been moving up the
hierarchy in one of the families as those above him are killed in
the struggle. His wife long dead has left him lonely, so has fallen
for a siren opera singer. Kata is a philosopher-assassin who
infiltrates the revolutionists. Maximilian has found himself as a
revolutionist but wants to lost thaumatical knowledge buried in
Caeli-Amur’s sister city deep in the ocean. Somehow it all comes
together when the revolt occurs, leaving one of the three dead and
the city at the mercy of other cities surrounding it. More of the
tale will come. This is almost too dark for my tastes, but I kept
reading.
Revolution is the problem facing the new
federation GI Cassandra Kresnov has returned from Torahn with two
hundred GI’s and three children used to surviving on the streets.
The capital world of Callay is supposed to be a safe environment for
the children, but information leaked from the Guild has the
potential of start a new league-federation war, something a group of
delegates, who also distrust GI’s don’t want. So they launch Operation
Shield(trade from Pyr) to control the Federation
Government and kill Cassandra’s friends. As usual Joel Shepherd has
an exciting tale that’s hard to put down. Fun.
About a decade ago Stephen Coonts told
about a flying Saucer (paper), 140,000 years old, discovered
in the Sahara. Rip Cantrell discovered it, got it working, and with
test-pilot Charlotte Pine gets away from an evil rich man. In
Saucer: The Conquest another saucer in Area 51 is stolen by a
bad man and ended up deep in the pacific. Now in Saucer: Savage
Planet (paper from St. Martin's Griffin ) we are introduced
to a 1300 year-old pilot marooned on Earth and looking quite human.
The whole world wants the medicine that keeps him from aging, some
actually trying to capture him. Other aliens are on the way. This is
the conclusion of a fun series. It’s a bit light, but still fun.
John C. Wright is a difficult writer who
is best mined for the endless ideas he throws out. Menelaus Montrose
was on the starship Hermetic which brought back not only anti-matter
for cheap energy, but also news that Earth was going to be invaded
seven thousand years later. Menelaus had injected himself with a
serum that made him both mad and a genius, allowing him to translate
the information left by the galactic civilization at the star. His
madness was cured on their return when the starship crew conquered
Earth with the new technology they brought. Then his wife left him
to go to the Galatic center to get help from Earth. Melenlaus put
himself to sleep in a collection of tombs as eight different
versions of humanity rose and fell. In the third volume of this
trilogy Menelaus has been awakened on a dead earth covered with ice
and snow, by Archeologists digging up the tombs looking for The
Judge of Ages (hard from Tor). His main enemy Ximen del
Azarchel has had as much to do with the various species of humanity
as Menelaus has. So Menelaus has to discover what is going on and
survive the various attempts on his life. But each reveal allows a
bigger counter reveal until my head spun. This book is unreadable
without the previous two books in the series.
Michael R. Underwood has a short
geekomany tale of Ree Reyes who is having an especially bad
Saturday night at her job at Grognards when the bar,
magical-gathering place is attacked by hordes of trolls, a Minotaur,
and one pissed off witch who wants them all dead. In Attack the
Geek (ebook from Pocket Star) the action doesn’t stop and is
as much fun as the books in the series. It will help to have read
Geekomancy (ebook) first.
Baen has reprinted A. Bertram Chandler’s fifth
John Grimes collection Upon a Sea of Stars (paper); two
Andre Norton tales Children of the Gates (paper); and
Robert A. Heinlein’s classic Waldo and Magic, Inc. (Trade).
The Nebula Award nominees are: We Are All
Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler (Marian Wood); The
Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow; Headline
Review); Fire with Fire, Charles E. Gannon (Baen); Hild,
Nicola Griffith (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); Ancillary Justice,
Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK); The Red: First Light, Linda
Nagata (Mythic Island); A Stranger in Olondria, Sofia Samatar
(Small Beer);and The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker
(Harper). I’ve read and reported on only three.
The Science Fiction Society will have its next
meeting on The Science Fiction Society will have
its next meeting on April 11, 2014 at 8 p.m. at International house
on the University of Pennsylvania. Campus,. Steve Vertlieb
and Craig Ellis Jamison of the online Gull Cottage Sandlot
movie magazine will speak . As usual Guests are Welcome. As usual
Guests are Welcome.
Dr. Henry Lazarus is a local Dentist and the
author of A Cycle of Gods (Wolfsinger Publications) and Unnaturally
Female (Smashwords).