Book Blog
June 5, 2022
es, the trilogy covering The Three Body Problem are all big books and I’m enjoying them immensely. But good things take time and I have a weekly review to run. Sooooo I’m pulling in another short story from The Expanse novella collection, Memories Legion, specifically Gods of Risk. Not quiet sure why this (or any of the books) are named as they are. Asides, it’s a novella (and a bit of a long one) from the POV of Gunny Draper’s (i.e. Bobby’s) brother David. We know from the show that he got involved with cooking for a pusher and ended […]
May 29, 2022
his was an interesting science fiction book I picked out of a curbside library somewhere. And the last page was interesting enough that I’m going to comment at length (and possibly with obscenities) in the next Dog Ear. Nothing against the writer, just… something. Anyway, yes, The Cure. So, the story starts in a future human society, 2400 AD or so, where every chance of emotion or love or anger has been removed. This includes sex, music, and even facial expressions (everyone wears masks day and night to hide their true faces). Calming drugs are openly given to them (in […]
May 22, 2022
losing out the Vanguard trilogy in Christopher Nuttall’s third series in the Ark Royal universe is We Lead, or (as it could be known as “A woman and her Battleship”). Yes, we had the Yamato-like story of the armored carrier that won the first war, and then the heavy cruiser that thumped the Indians, and now we’ve seen weapons develop with Battleships forming the backbone of the new navy. The story is simple – a deep raid using new FTL technology puts Vanguard and her formation deep behind enemy lines. The idea is to thump the alien homeworld and get […]
May 15, 2022
little short story by author N.K. Jemisin, and interesting point-of-view tale that unfolds as you read it, like a flower or an onion. Whatever. So there is a human settlement out there, the Founders, who escaped Earth before it collapsed into total environmental ruin. From the clues, you get to understand that they are male, white, and don’t like women much (too emotional). Now they run a freakish society on some other world where the reward is a full growth of skin (so you can move about and bask in white privilege, I suppose). The “soldiers” under them can also […]
May 8, 2022
efore we review this short story, let’s just say how thankful I am for paperback anthologies. I’m currently re-grinding through The Three Body Problem (hey, you don’t even need to wait for the review – HERE it is!) But I don’t want to lug that hardcover monster around so instead I’m reading a little collection I got from a local bookstore, Star Destroyers (that’s the name of the anthology, not the shop). So anyway, I had this collection of stories about big star ships in my back pocket as I went for my long walk. Stopped in a Cindi’s Cafe on Orange […]
May 1, 2022
o, the war that got started in Vanguard heats up with Humanity and the Tadpoles against another pair of races, foxes and cows, who have the advantage of FTL communications. Captain Susan Onarina has been absolved (with stern warning) of the charge of mutiny (when she turned a stunner on her panicking captain) and saved ship and fleet from destruction. And Midshipman George (Georgina) Fitzwilliam has her own troubles, namely four new middies under her and challenges to her authority. So the Vanguard and the human fleet proceeds to a borderline planet, Unity, to smoke out the aliens and, of […]
April 24, 2022
anguard is the lead-off book for the third cycle in the Ark Royal series. First we had the supper carrier that pulled Space Battleship Yamato stuff with an evil race that boiled out of the black at us. And then we had Warspite, the experimental cruiser with the heavy plasma gun that fought the Indian nation in the colony worlds and blasted and Indian carrier. And now we have Vanguard, the first Earth battleship, built strong and built to last. But will that be enough? Our story opens with yet another alien race discovered. Without knowing anything, Earth sends a […]
April 17, 2022
nother quick review out of the Memory’s Legion collection of Expanse tales. This one concerns Fred Johnson, Soldier for Earth who ended up as levelheaded spokesman for the Belt, running Tycho Station and repurposing the Mormon’s generation ship out from under them (and, good for that since it turns out they would have been literally wasting the time of generations). So there is a side story about Johnson, how he was involved in a massacre on a belter station. As I remember, the show has the belters attempting to surrender and Fred ordering them in. Well, it wasn’t quite like […]
April 10, 2022
ound this in our little corner bookshop, an old textbook which i stained with coffee and Tabasco as I read it over many mornings at Juniors. But it’s a fascinating and very detailed account of the development of the steamboat. And if you think that Robert Fulton did it all alone in some sort of vacuum of engineering, no, he didn’t. When you think about it, the steamboat was one of the most technologically amazing crafts men of the time could envision. Think about it – America had just gotten through its revolution. The wilderness still besieged the coastal seaboards. […]
April 3, 2022
his one comes from the collection of short stories in The Expanse universe, all balled together in Memory’s Legion. It’s a collection of all the short stories and novellas the two writers who make up “James S.A Corey” have published in various platforms. But I’d not wanted to buy them for a device – I wanted paper. And now, thank God, I’ve got it! So Drive is the story behind Solomon Epstein and the creation of his ship drive that allows humans to spread out across the solar system in an easy and economic way (and not the months and […]