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.

I found this angle quite troubling at first, because how boring would it be to have to live almost 10 years all over again without free will? Vonnegut does quite a bit with it by adding a few more twists. In the prologue, he explains that one of the main characters, Kilgore Trout, is his alter ego. Apparently, this character shows up quite a bit in his writing, however in this book, Vonnegut is a character as well. To top it off, the book supposedly started out as a first draft that was scrapped then rewritten to be finished in the final form. I’m not certain if that really happened, or was just part of the book. Confusing right? He covers this in the prologue under the guise of explanation, but looking back I think it was just a successful attempt to keep me off balance.

The final part of the book is about what happens when free will kicks back in. Can you imagine being a puppet with yourself as the puppet master suddenly able to do whatever you want? Kilgore Trout is one of the few, if not only, people that can cope with the situation. Most people freeze up, not able to decide what to do next. So that is the basic plot of the book, all laid out on the dust jacket and the first couple pages that make up the prologue. What is the point of reading it then? For me, the story really didn’t seem to be the focus of this book. It was just a framework for Vonnegut to use as a way to talk about random topics ranging from why semicolons suck, how electronic books don’t measure up to physical ones, or why Chicago is better than New York.

A lot of these observations are just thrown in randomly, confirming my belief that Vonnegut’s goal is to keep the reader off balance. For example, chapter 43 begins with this:

Question: What is the white stuff in bird poop?
Answer: That is bird poop, too.

With himself as a character, the lines between fiction and real life were sufficiently blurred. I really didn’t know much about Vonnegut, so I found myself looking researching at random points to see what was fiction or what was real. The other characters were interesting as well, but I found myself fascinated by how Vonnegut used Trout poke fun at himself. I didn’t realize until writing this review that this was actually the last fiction novel written by Vonnegut. I’m not sure that was the best way to get exposed to a new author, but I’m definitely interested in reading more by him, so it worked out for the best after all. I enjoyed this book, and would highly recommend it. If you’ve never read anything by Vonnegut, it wouldn’t hurt to start with this one.

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.

The main character, Ellie, is a radio astronomer that eventually becomes part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). One night the project stumbles upon an unmistakably non-random signal. Initially, it just seems to be that the signal is just a repeating list of prime numbers. Upon closer inspection, scientists uncover many layers to the signal by calculating wave modulation and other ways that I don’t remember. Anyway, the movie skips over many of the steps leading up to the discovery that the message really contains instructions to make something.

One of the more interesting themes is the selfishness of the U.S. government. The officials are worried that other countries might gain some type of military advantage if they build this “Machine” first. The scientists already determined early one that decoding the message was impossible without worldwide cooperation due to the origin of the signal and rotation of the Earth. The government hesitantly cooperated with the “Machine Counsel” in piecing the message together, but they wanted to keep the nature of the message secret as long as possible.

One interesting thing to me about reading Science Fiction is how often new ideas become a reality. In this story, a man named Sol Hadden developed a technology called Adnix. This chip would mute the sound on the TV when commercials appeared. It detected the increase in volume that many advertisers built into their ads. This book came out in 1985, and I’ve looked around to see if such a thing was in use back then, but haven’t been able to. I know for a fact that today there are software programs that can detect and automatically remove commercials from recorded TV. Sagan might not have been the first person to think of this, but he was definitely ahead of his time.

I thoroughly enjoyed Contact, and don’t think that the book was spoiled for me by seeing the movie first. Carl Sagan did a good job of walking me through all sorts of mathematical and scientific concepts some of which include black holes, relativity, number theory, pattern recognition, and cryptography. He also eloquently addresses some of the economic, political, religious ramifications of the worldwide goal to make the Machine. Sagan is an excellent writer, and I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.

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.

The book opens with Brother Francis out in the desert on a vigil of solitude for Lent. He encounters a wanderer that through some odd circumstances leads to the discovery of a fallout shelter. He finds a box full of items, two of which are what appear to be a grocery list and an electrical schematic. Francis excited because he suspects the box belonged to Liebowitz. Once the abbot heard of the events, he was more interested in the pilgrim. Rumors take off, and eventually people claim that the wanderer was actually Leibowitz. I kept looking forward to finding out what was actually in the fallout shelter, but that mystery was basically shoved into the background.

Miller instead focuses on the politics of how New Rome scrutinizes the account of Francis and the “Wanderer.” I was a bit disturbed by the cruelty of the abbot and inquisitor. Francis is eventually deemed credible, but not before quite an ordeal. The rest of this first part follows Francis in his appointment to the copy room and eventual creation of an artwork based on a “Circuit Diagram by Leibowitz.”

The second part starts at year 3174 with the scientific community gaining some momentum. A few new discoveries have taken place, and word of the cache of documents at the abbey of Leibowitz catches the attention of one of the best scientists. He puts in a request to have a good portion of the Memorabilia sent to New Rome for examination, but the reigning abbot refuses on grounds of keeping the records safe.

The third part is starts at year 3781 with humanity having many space colonies. They rediscovered nuclear power, and with that nuclear weapons. The threat of nuclear war is very strong. The order of monks is prepared to send the good portion of the Memorabilia away from Earth if war breaks out, because New Rome is certain the next war will utterly destroy the world. War does resurface, and the abbey becomes the focal point of a humanitarian effort for fallout victims.

Most of this last section is a commentary on euthanasia. The current abbot learns that one of the aid workers might hand out “red tickets,” government sanctioned approval euthanasia. They are good for entrance to a mercy camp for those deemed to be the worst cases. Otherwise, they are doomed to suffer a horrible and painful death by radiation sickness. The abbot makes the worker promise not to hand one out or else he will not allow the aid workers to use the abbey. Of course the worker breaks his promise and the abbot flips out when he sees a mother and daughter walking away with red ticket. It becomes his mission to convince the mother not to take the child to the camp. Eventually she does goes anyway, but not without a strong fight by the abbot.

As a science fiction novel, I found this book to be a disappointment. There were some minor elements of SF, but mostly the focus was on church policies and political struggles. I had a very hard time relating to the main characters, because I couldn’t understand why anyone would put up with such torture. I don’t see why serving a higher power needs to involve so much pain and suffering. Overall, the book was quite a bit depressing and frustrating. I kept wanting it to get better, but it never did.

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.

Anyway, I can best describe this book was a very intriguing blend of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Cyberpunk themes. Since I’ve read all three of these genres recently, this was a very satisfying experience. I need to start out by giving a little background:

Verité (real world): This is much like our world today, with the exception that tourism has almost entirely shifted to visits to Virtù rather than actual physical destination. A decent percentage of jobs revolve around the maintenance of virtual businesses that are needed inside of Virtù.

Virtù (virtual reality): Picture Virtù as a massive World of Warcraft server, but infinitely more complex. The main difference is that this world wasn’t programmed in detail by humans. From what I gather, the groundwork was a vast network of interconnected systems, which at one point “crashed” in what was called the Genesis Scramble. This is essentially the Big Bang but in electronic form. Out of this massive crash and subsequent reorganization, several hierarchies of AI developed.

People interface with Virtù through intricate VR seats equipped with force fields for bio-feedback, feed tubes for nutrition, allowing visits of weeks or more. Think of these stations like the battery pods in The Matrix, but much more comfortable and people actually choose to use them. People can have avatars that look like themselves, or choose from just about any combination of features imaginable.

The main character for the first part of the book is John D’Arcy Donnerjack, one of three pioneers of Virtu. He fell in love with an AI named Aradys that eventually died. AI in Virtù have life cycles, much like real people. They can reproduce and fall in love. Everything that dies in Virtù is destined for the Deep Fields, ruled by Death. Donnerjack travels to Deep Fields to bargain with Death for the return of his beloved Aradys. Donnerjack agrees to design a master palace for Death, and his first born child. Assuming that reproduction with an AI is impossible, Donnerjack doesn’t consider the implications of the last part of the bargain.

This is where the fantasy part comes in. Death reassembles Ayradys from her fragmented code, but she doesn’t appear to remember fully what she once was. Death instructs Donnerjack to take her along a path that at the end will make her whole again. Somehow when they make it to the end, they cross into Verité, and she is transformed into a real person. They don’t consider that they could possible reproduce, and eventually Ayradys becomes pregnant with a sun. Donnerjack then sets out to protect his son from Death.

The bulk of the novel focuses on Donnerjack’s son. Given the circumstances of his conception, he has a very important role to play. The events I’ve described so far are mostly laid out on the back flap summary. I really can’t go into much more detail without spoiling the plot of the book. This was definitely a page turner for me. I normally just read my books on my lunch breaks, but toward the end I had to take this one home to finish up over the weekend. I highly recommend this book to anyone that has interest in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, or Cyberpunk. If you like more than one of those genres, you’d most definitely be in for a treat.

In 1992, the year of his death, Isaac Asimov was awarded the Hugo Award for best novella for writing Gold. This story, along with many others was published in 1995. Along with 14 other short stories, there are collections of essays called “On Science Fiction,” and “Writing Science Fiction.” Interestingly enough, I found the essays much more interesting than the stories themselves. I think this is partly because I have read a TON of his fiction, but haven’t got around to reading his non-fiction.  I’ll give a brief overview of the essays, saving the stories for later.

On Science Fiction

Here, Asimov gives us a brief history of the roots of Science Fiction. He also describes the origins of the robot concept, tracing the roots back to the eighteenth book of Homer’s Iliad. Also, he goes over very early books like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Asimov also describes the evolution of Science Fiction in media, from the early magazines (of which he was an avid reader), to books, movies, and TV. Some of the names he listed were completely foreign to me. I think at some time in the future, I’ll look up some of his favorite authors of the time and check them out. He also talks about Science Fiction’s effect on technology and gives a couple examples of some technologies that he is attributed to predicting.

Writing Science Fiction

As I was reading the essays, it felt like he was talking to me, and in turn I was getting to know him as a person, not just a writer. His writing style is very smooth and easy to read. I believe it is a testament to his claim that when he writes, he just writes. At several points he congratulates himself on his ability to simply write with very little revision, essentially just correcting grammar and word placement once everything is done. After all, being one of the most prolific writers his time, or any time for that mater, he did have the right to have a strong sense of self-esteem.

One tidbit that I found very interesting is that Asimov had never really made use of outlines when writing stories. He would usually just work out an opening, and an ending, and make everything up along the way. Simply put, his characters would take on a life of their own. Another fact, which I already was aware of, is that he heavily relies on dialogue between characters, and there is very little “action” along the way. His books, at least to me, seem to be more cerebral than many others I have read.

The Stories

The title story, Gold, is an interesting one, especially around these times of economic turmoil. Gold, today in the real world, is topping $1000(US) an ounce while digital money has lost much of its value. A relatively unknown author seeks the help of a world famous director to produce a compu-drama from his book. These compu-dramas were basically movies heavily reliant on technology, interestingly enough much as our current movies are evolving into. I won’t spoil the plot, but the book in the story is very reminiscent of The Gods Themselves. The author admits that he is just an average writer, but wants to be immortalized by having his book made into a compu-drama. The director, on the other hand, is already one of the most famous figures in the entertainment industry. The author has everything to gain, while the director has everything to lose. Why then, should the director take the risk of taking on this new project? Gold was the offer, nearly impossible to find, having an equivalent value in credits, but with the sense of tangibility, not just a number on a computer screen.

Gold was a very interesting story, well worth anyone’s time to check out. As for the other stories, there is a diverse mix of plots present. They include science experiments, space exploration, artificial intelligence, and time travel to name a few. Of these remaining stories, my favorites include Cal (which I’ve read previously), Alexander the God, and Kid Brother.

I highly recommend this book as a must have for any Isaac Asimov fan, or Science Fiction fan for that matter. Also, the final section can serve as a general starting point for those interested in writing.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve read Dune. I found my way to this interesting conceptualization, Sietch Nevada, through my regular StumbleUpon clicking. For those not familiar with Dune by Frank Herbert, please check it out! It is an excellent novel, as described in my review. I find it interesting how many ideas are drawn from Sci-Fi. Everyday technology like cell phones, video conferencing, and robots (well maybe not everyday yet), were hinted to by authors long before they were developed. I find the Sietch concept intriguing because I lived in Phoenix, AZ for many years. A few years after I left, I started hearing about how Lake Powell, fed by the Colorado River, might dry up soon. I thought that it meant there would be no more water, but experts are referring to “dry” as unable to generate hydroelectric power. So, not only will water levels be low, but there could be power shortages as well!

About a year an a half ago, I reviewed The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. I never did get around to reading his slightly newer book, The Singularity is Near. I just ran across an article that quotes him as saying

I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogram our bodies’ stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, aging. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever.

He goes on to describe a number of medical advancements that seem unbelievable.  He doesn’t really expand on how many people, or rather WHO will have access to this technology.  We can’t very well have billions of immortal cyborgs running around for eternity, now can we? I think that those denied immortality, or at least extended life-spans, would wage war against those that would keep the technology for themselves.

Credit: Telegraph via Geekologie

Note: For those of you not familiar with Geekolgie, be sure to check that blog out.  I added it to my newsreader about 2 months ago and it keeps me entertained every day!

I’ve been meaning to read Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott for some time now. I’ve seen it lying around the house here and there for many years. My wife actually acquired this book as part of her required reading for a “Sensation and Perception” course in college. I ran across it again when packing up my Asimov collection to bring up to my sister in Minneapolis. It was a short read, which was refreshing after some of the longer books I’ve been tackling recently.

The main character, and narrator, is a Square in a 2D world dubbed Flatland. The basics of Flatland society are laid out in a rather matter-of-fact way that bleeds of satire. Essentially, the higher up in society, the more sides you have. Women of course are just lines (actually just VERY skinny squares), and the leader of Flatland is very nearly, but not quite a perfect Circle. In addition to the number of sides, the symmetry of angles is of utmost importance. It was amusing to read of dangerous operations that parents would subject their children to in order to correct some not so optimal angles, even though they could be fatal. The parents figured it would was best to be dead than “irregular.”

Utilizing humor and social satire, Abbot clearly explains the workings of this odd 2D world. I found myself coming up with questions about how such a world would work, then just a page or two later found them explained. He goes through the Square’s vision/dream of a land called Lineland, and again of Pointland. Soon after this, the Square is approached by a very peculiar circle that calls itself a Sphere from Spaceland. It tries to convince Square that he comes from a land of three dimensions.

It seemed natural that the logical progression of explanation could follow past to the fourth dimension and beyond. Abbot briefly extrapolates from previous explanations to touch on higher dimensions, but it seemed very hard to grasp. I think one of the main points of the book is to demonstrate how easily it is to understand lower dimensions, and also how hard it is to contemplate anything above our current experiences. Overall, I was very pleased with this book. The chapters are very short and well organized. I’d highly recommend this for any reader, especially those that like geometry.

After reading the Cobra Strike Trilogy, I was glad to be getting back to a more recent book by Timothy Zahn. Angelmass is about a small group of human worlds on the edge of the Galaxy dubbed “The Empyrean” that sprouted up near a very peculiar black hole. They eventually discover that this no ordinary black hole, if it is one at all. They named it Angelmass because it emits “angels” that when harvested can affect the behavior of humans that are near them. They make humans act honorably, when otherwise they might have tendencies otherwise. Soon the government requires that all politicians wear an angel around their neck so that everyone knows they will be trustworthy.

The largest human Empire, the Pax, was content to leave the Empyreans alone until they learned about the angels. They started to view the angels as an alien influence that must be stopped. They recruited Jeriko Kosta, an accomplished academic, to infiltrate the well known Angelmass Institute to find out more details on the nature of these angels. The book opens with Kosta boarding the Komitadji, the largest Pax warship in existence. It is the pride of the fleet, much larger than any other ship. I would compare this to the Darth Vader’s Super Star Destroyer, the Executor.

Zahn creates a rather interesting approach to space travel. Ships travel through hyperspace across long distances, but with a twist. He goes into quite a bit more detail than just putting a simple hyperspace drive inside ships. The hyperspace travel in this book is done via “catapults.” They are essentially groupings of space stations that focus a field that envelops a ship and sends it across space. The ship is then pulled out by a similar arrangement of ships at the other end called a “net.”

Kosta is ejected from the Komitadji in a ship disguised as an asteroid. The Komitadji is catapulted to a distant star system by Empyrean defense forces. Kosta’s mission begins and the Pax commander begins preparations for the real invasion. On his way to the Angelmass Institute, Kosta encounters the other main character, Chandris Lelasha. She is a 16 year old girl, and professional con artist, running from a crazy ex-boyfriend from Earth. Jeriko and Chandris part ways when arriving on Seraph, the planet that hosts the Angelmass Institute and the main base of operations for “angel” harvesting. Separately, Arkin Forsythe has been elected as High Senator, but is very skeptical of angels. He arranges to have a fake angel made so his actions aren’t influenced. He is convinced that angels are making humans too passive.

The three main plot lines of Jeriko, Chandris, and Arkin run parallel for the most part, but intersect at various points. I appreciated how Zahn shifts around through the different characters. He doesn’t spend too much time in one place, and the chapters are rather brief. This suited me well because I do most of my reading on my lunch break. I really hate having to stop in the middle of a chapter, so this book was perfect in that respect. Also, it seems that I’m not the only one that feels this book is rather similar to Manta’s Gift. In both books, the main character is thrust into another culture/alien society and finds his allegiances tested. The true nature of his mission is not clear until the end.

I would rate this book about as high as Icarus Hunt and Manta’s Gift. All three were very enjoyable, and in my opinion much better than the Cobra Trilogy. Zhan has definitely improved his writing over the years. I’m considering re-reading the Thrawn Trilogy sometime after I get through the rest of my “new” books waiting on my shelf for me to finish.