The Science Fiction Review

This review for King’s Test will have a few spoilers for The Lost King. If you haven’t read The Lost King yet, stop now and check out that review, which is pretty much spoiler free. Continue reading »

I’ve said here many times that Isaac Asimov is my favorite author. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I read “The Last Question,” Asimov’s favorite short story written by himself. Last night I stumbled across a story called “The Last Answer.” At first I thought, “hey, I’ve read this before,” then did a double-take. It was “Answer,” not “Question.” This story focused on the afterlife instead of entropy. They are both good stories, however I agree with Asimov in his opinion that “The Last Question” is better. I highly suggest reading them both, but I’m not sure what order to recommend. I’ll list the links in order of publication, so you decide. Read both stories before looking at the comments on either one, because they are filled with spoilers.

“The Last Question” – Isaac Asimov (1956)

“The Last Answer” – Isaac Asimov (1980)

I am always open to suggestions when it comes to discovering new authors. By new, I mean to me, not new to writing. For example, I discovered Isaac Asimov a few years after his death, when he had already written over 400 books. Recently, one of my friends suggested I read the Star of the Guardians series by Margaret Weis. He had read it a long time ago, but was rereading the series again. I figured if it was good enough for him to read twice, I should give it a try. Weis offers an eloquent introduction to the series by first clarifying the genre her books fall into. Many fantasy readers might recognize her name as a co-author of many of the Dragonlance books.

If Fantasy is a romance of our dreams, then Galactic Fantasy is a romance of our future
…
Galactic Fantasy is certainly not science-fiction. Sci-fi often deals with the romance of plastic and chrysteel; our love and worship of technology.
…
I believe that man will reach the stars. When he does, the ‘science’ of how our spaceship gets from place to place will ultimately be less important than how we, as people, act when we get there. Galactic Fantasy explores how we deal with our own fears, ambitions and passions as we soar among the heavens—not the technicalities of getting there.

It is my understanding that George Lucas did not intend to write hard science fiction, but rather Galacitc Fantasy in Weis’s terms. Another word that has been used to describe Star Wars is “Space Opera.” I think either of these would be suitable descriptions.

Why do I mention Star Wars? As the first few chapters unfolded, I noticed quite a few familiar themes. I detected obvious influences from Star Wars and Dune very early on. For example, the Guardians seemed to be very similar to Jedi. They are an elite group, loyal to protecting their leaders. Their weapon, for example, is the bloodsword.  There is selective breeding for the “Blood Royal” kind of like in Dune, however it is combined with genetic research and with a slightly different goal. There are a few others that I won’t mention because I consider them to be spoilers. Continue reading »

I just got a Stumble to Pharyngula’s science blog that has a link to a YouTube video of Isaac Asimov. He is speaking about what he thought the top science story of 1988 was. I like running across videos of him speaking because it is nice to put a voice and face to my favorite author. The video goes out of sync about half way through unfortunately. Check it out!

Via Pharyngula

Black Market memories is a story about a settlement many light years away from Earth named Jamestown. The residents can be individuals that had crippled bodies of some sort, then were given the opportunity to be “free” in a Stellar Unit (SU). The brain is scanned over a period of time then digitized and placed into a mechanical body. I would not classify these as cyborgs, but essentially AI that controls a ship of sorts. Some use the settlements as a base for research trips to find new worlds. Continue reading »

This book was my first experience with writing by Kurt Vonnegut. His writing, at least in this book, is very original and unconventional. The “Timequake” according to the dust jacket is an event where on February 13th, 2001, everyone is thrust back to February 17th, 1991. Vonnegut treats this as a contraction of the Universe, not simply time travel in the traditional sense. In many time travel stories, the characters look for ways “to put right what once went wrong,” a la Quantum Leap. Vonnegut doesn’t give the characters in this story that opportunity. Everyone is forced to live their lives on autopilot, doing the exact same things they did before, but with the knowledge of what was to come. Continue reading »

If I remember correctly, I saw Contact (the movie) in the theater when it came out. I enjoyed it and always wondered how it compared to the book. It turned out that my future wife owned the book, but I didn’t get around reading it until now. Of course movies rarely ever measure up to the novels they are based on, and this was no exception. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was good, however it just scratched upon the surface of what the novel contains. Continue reading »

A while back a co-worker of mine gave me A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller. It sat on a shelf for a few years until I recently got around to reading it. I didn’t really know much about the book when it was given to me, but since then I’ve seen it on a few “Best of SF” book lists. It also won the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. There are three parts to the book, each taking place a few hundred years apart.

The setting of the first part takes begins in the 26th century. At some unspecified time in the past, the world all but destroyed in a global nuclear war. Almost all the secrets of modern technology were lost in what would later be described as a purge. The mob of humans left alive banded together to destroy all knowledge that could lead to another nuclear war. There were book burnings and hangings of scientists. The story follows group of monks that have built an abbey in the desert to house the Memorabilia as they refer to books, technical manuals, and other bits of information that are uncovered over time. Their patron is a man by the name of Leibowitz, who was hung during the purge just after the first nuclear war. Continue reading »

Nobody is sure when exactly Isaac Asimov was born due to poor record keeping. January 2nd, 1920 was the day Isaac Asimov decided to celebrate his birthday. Along with creating the Three Laws of Robotics, Asimov also unintentionally coined the term robotics. It was first used in print when his short story “Liar!” was published in 1941. He was constantly writing in just about every area of literature. I have primarily read his Science Fiction, but he has done textbooks, humor, mystery, non-fiction, and more.

My first exposure to Asimov’s writing was when my father gave me an old worn out copy of I, Robot. I tucked the book away for a few years and eventually got around to reading it. I was so enthralled with the robots that I eventually read every robot book by him and other authors. This naturally led me to read the Foundation series which I also enjoyed, but I’ve always preferred the robot series. The Robot and Foundation books make up the biggest reading project I have ever completed. Aside from those, I’ve read a bit of his autobiography and plan on sampling some of his other writing in the near future.

By the time I discovered Asimov, he had already died. I wonder how much more he could have written had he not contracted HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart surgery. He died of myocardial and renal complications on April 6, 1992, but the true cause of his death wasn’t publicized due to the stigma of HIV/AIDS at the time. His work has greatly influenced my love of Science Fiction, and for that I am thankful.

For more information on the life of Isaac Asimov, please visit the official Wikipedia post

One thing I like to do before I review a book is to look up some Wiki pages and other reviews to get a feel for how others reacted to the book. First of all, the Wikipedia entry for this book was no help at all, so much so that I’m considering updating it myself. I’m glad I took some notes while I was reading. I ran across some very harsh reviews on Amazon that had I read beforehand, I might not have picked up this book. Quite a few of the die-hard fans said to read just the first third of the book and stop. After that point, many of the reviewers pointed out that it is fairly obvious that Lindskold deviated from Zelazny’s quick and witty formula.

I, however, loved Donnerjack. It is probably one of my favorite reads in the past few years. About seven years or so ago I enjoyed reading The Great Book of Amber by Zelazny. It was also one of my first exposures to fantasy along with the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Later on I went on to read Lord of Light, also by Zelazny, which I also loved. I’ve also read This Immortal and finally Lord Demon, which is the other book of Zelany’s that Lindskold helped finish. Lord Demon was good, so I didn’t think twice before grabbing Donnerjack. I’ve also not read any Zelazny in the past 3-4 years, so I can’t say I was as aware of the change in writing style as others were. With that said, there was definitely a noticeable difference between Part I and Part II. Thinking back, I would almost say that they could have been split into two different books. Continue reading »