John – Page 2 – Robert Raymond’s Blogtorium

May 16, 2021

Titan (Review)

ell, blogkids, after spending a couple of weeks reading meh books from the 70s, I finally turned away from the used bookshop piles and pulled something off my favorites shelf. And there it was, one of my old beloveds from my VPI college days, John Varley’s Titan. Okay, so Titan begins with a deep space mission to Saturn with a handful of astronauts. As they near the ringed planet, they discover a body never glimpsed before, a pinwheel-shaped form slowly spinning in its orbit, the radar returns indicating it as hollow, filled with air and life and obviously artificial. It […]

May 23, 2021

Wizard (Review)

he second book of the Gaea Trilogy, the mid-point of the sprawling saga about this huge space-going alien with a world inside her. And now the world is at war. Cirocco Jones, the Captain of the wrecked exploration ship to Saturn and stairmaster of the greatest uphill climb the world has ever seen, has confronted Gaea, the God of this spinning hub, and accepted the job as Wizard. It seemed like a good idea at the time – it sounded like some sort of roving repair woman – it turn turned out to have consequences. Like, one big one – […]

June 13, 2021

Demon (Review)

nd now we are at the third and final book of the Gaea Trilogy, Demon, the last of John Varley’s famous scifi work from the late seventies/early eighties. I’ve brought you Titan and Wizard, and now this. So Cirocco Jones, one time space captain, one time wizard for the floating bio-wheel Gaea, has finally gotten herself cleaned up and back on the rails. And Gaea, living goddess, she is descending into madness, now taking on the role of a fifty-foot tall model of Marilyn Monroe. Yes, it’s come down to this. Gaea now lives in a fortified film lot, Pandemonium, […]

October 3, 2021

The Collapsing Empire (Review)

oor Cardenia, She’s just a nobody living on Hub, the imperial world that controls a network of forty-eight planets connected by the flow, a physics anomaly that allows space ships to travel (slowly) between worlds. Everything is fine and she likes her life. But then the heir to the throne dies in a car racing accident and the current Emperox succumbs to old age. And suddenly, unprepared and maybe a bit unwilling, she it suddenly thrust into the role of the new Emperox. It is a lot to take in for her (as the ruler of an empire for which […]

November 7, 2021

The Consuming Fire (Review)

kay, i’m way behind on my reviews. However, I can still remember that the second book of John Scalzi’s Interdependency series was as sharp as the first, The Collapsing Empire. So, yes, let’s give this a shot. To avoid spoilers, I’m just going to mention that the only danger in this book is that that Kiva Lagos, a secondary character behind the Emporox Grayland II, continues to outshine all the other characters with her foul tongue and action-figure manners. Of particular delight is when a rival house attempts to assassinate her and shoots her lover instead. In retaliation, Kiva beats the […]

November 21, 2021

The Last Emperox (Review)

or this review, I’m going to avoid spoilers. It’s the last book of the The Interdependency Trilogy. I won’t tell you who lives and who dies. However, the flow passages between the planets of the Empire are shutting down, entire habitats with billions of souls dependent on trade will die, and the only planet (End) with a natural biosphere that could keep humans alive is controlled by evil Noble House Nohamapetan, and even if they lifted their blockade the planet would be overrun by billions of displaced people. So it’s pretty grim. We see Emperox Grayland II trying to mature […]

December 5, 2021

Redshirts (Review)

love John Scalzi’s writing – enjoyed Old Man’s War and The Collapsing Empire. And I’ll admit I was looking for a light-hearted book, a lampoon of sorts of Hollywood sci-fi franchises and the characters who are in them. Expecting nothing more than a reheating of Galaxy Quest, I dove into Redshirts. So Ensign Andrew Dahl of the Universal Union has just been assigned to the Intrepid, flagship of the fleet. Since it is a forward exploration and combat vessel, one would expect casualties. But, as the nerd joke goes, the security forces (i.e. the “redshirts”) suffer appalling losses. And they die […]

March 27, 2022

OpsLog – VSW – 03/26/2022

he third ops session in a week (starting with Night Ops last Saturday and Club Ops Wednesday), a great run of John Wilke’s massive and amazing Virginia SouthWestern. So this was an effort to get Orlando N-Trak to get out of its tiny clubhouse and into the larger world of Central Florida layouts. John was nice enough to open his layout for us; still, all sorts of problems, scheduling conflicts, people dropping out, a truck with three of us nearly breaking down on the side of the highway, everything going wrong. But once we got there, what a session! We […]

October 16, 2022

Zoe’s Tale (Review)

his book, Zoe’s Tale, is the fourth book (and opener for the second 3-part set) of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series.Now, I’ll tell you that I loved the first set, the entire idea that when you get older, you can trade your old broken-down body (trust me on this – regardless of all the exercise and diet you work on, it still breaks down) and get a new body. The trouble is, this new super-body is yours if you work for the Colonial Defense Forces and fight for years. And never come back to Earth. Once you are all […]

December 18, 2022

The Human Division (Review)

‘ll admit that I was sorta meh about the first book of the second series of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series. After all, Zoe’s Tale told things from a slightly different perspective, true, but it really didn’t add that much to the storyline. in this, I went off and read other things so that I’d get back into that Scalzi-mood. So when I picked up Book Two, The Human Division, I wasn’t sure what I’d get. First off, the title is cute. I thought it would be about some sort of military formation of humans, right? Well, it wasn’t, […]