Martha Wells: Network Effect

The fifth story in the science fiction Murderbot series.

Publication year: 2020
Format: print
Page count: 350
Publisher: Tor

This is the first full-length novel in the series. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the novellas and enjoyed this book just as much. Murderbot is the first-person narrator of the book, just as it has been in the novellas. It is a cybernetic organism who just wants to be left alone and view media. (Don’t we all??) It’s a SecUnit, built to protect humans but it had no free will and was built to be disposable. Until it freed itself. Humans are usually scared of SecUnit, apparently mostly because media has only stories about free SecUnits going on a rampage. I love Murderbot’s cranky and cynical voice and it’s as clear as ever in this book. Well, perhaps it’s starting to adjust to living with humans instead of being a disposable tool.

The story continues from the end of the last novella, Exit Strategy. Murderbot is protecting a group of humans but this time it’s not a slave obeying orders, but has chosen to go on the space mission. Of course, pretty much everything goes wrong. Doctor Mensah is the only human Murderbot trusts, but she’s not on the mission. Her daughter Amana and brother-in-law are and Murderbot feels strong obligation to help them, even though it dislikes the brother-in-law. Right from the start, Murderbot must save the stupid humans from marauders. After it has done that, a research vessel appears and starts shooting, so things go worse. A lot worse.

The action is fast from the start and doesn’t really let up, despite several flashbacks to Preservation space, which is apparently the only community where people live free. Most live in spaces dominated by corporations and must earn a living, some of them literally as slaves. Oh and some talks about feelings, which Murderbot just hates.

Most of the human cast was left pretty vague but Murderbot has no interesting in knowing them, so it was OK. I loved the AIs… except for some specific things and some of the, er, ending which I won’t spoil here.

Preservation space quickly became one of my favorite places in fiction, right alongside Bujold’s Beta Colony and Star Trek’s Federation. Can we all just live there already, please?

 

Jacqueline Carey: Santa Olivia

The first book in the urban fantasy series Santa Olivia. Can be read as a stand-alone.

Publication year: 2009
Format: Audio
Running time: 12 hours 51 minutes
Narrators: Susan Ericksen

I freely admit that I had pretty high expectations from this book. Based on reviews I expected it to be an unconventional superhero book. The ideas were good but unfortunately, it didn’t really work for me.

The main character, and the third person narrator, is Loup Garron who was born and raised in the small town of Santa Olivia. It’s set in a future (or alternate reality from ours) where there is a demilitarized zone between Mexico and Texas. Santa Olivia is in that zone and it’s inhabitants are prisoners in their own town: they can’t leave and their access to the outside world is limited. The US military controls the town. Apparently, the rest of the world don’t even know that town exist and the town’s name was even changed to Outpost number 12. The only entertainment they really have are boxing matches. Sometimes the town’s champion can box against the military champion and if the town’s man wins, he wins a ticket out of the town. Nobody has ever won. Oh, and US doesn’t have female soldiers anymore.

The story starts before Loup is born, with her mother Carmen as the POV character. She has flings with some guys, essentially living off them because her waitress job doesn’t really pay enough. She falls in love for the first time and the man dies, leaving her with a little boy, Tommy. Six years later she meets and falls in love with a deserter, Martin, who turns out to be a genetic experiment. He has really dense muscles and he doesn’t know fear. For a few months Carmen hides Martin and they have mind-blowing sex. Martin is supposed to be infertile but isn’t. In the end, a jealous local turns Martin in and he must flee. Carmen stays in town with Tommy.

Before Martin left, he told Carmen and Tommy that they must keep Loup safe. She can’t do it herself because she won’t know fear. She will also be faster than humans and stronger. Throughout her childhood, Loup must always be on guard to hide her abilities.

Carmen raises the two kids but she dies when Loup is fourteen. Tommy is old enough to get a job and also practices boxing so that he could take Loup out of Santa Olivia. Loup goes to the local orphanage where she has a hard time keeping her secret.

This is essentially a coming-of-age story and focuses on the people around Loup, on overcoming hardship more than actual fights. It only has a few fight scenes. A couple of times Loup and her friends act like vigilantes against men who have wronged the townspeople. But mostly it deals with her growing up: getting friends, dealing with her mom’s death, her awakening sexuality. Through it all, Loup must keep her secret or the military will drag her away. It has romance, especially near the end but the romance isn’t the focus of the story.

To me, Loup felt a very composed character. She rarely has strong emotions. Her main motivation is to keep the people around her safe and herself out of trouble. Of course she makes mistakes, she’s a teenager. She knows that she’s different from everyone else and dreams of escaping the town and finding her father.

The book has an interesting cast of characters. Loup’s big brother Tommy is very protective of her but he’s also single-mindedly focused on winning the boxing championship. I quite liked him but didn’t like what happened to him, but I guess it was inevitable. Another strong secondary character is the boxing teacher who is an older man and apparently knows the military commander quite well.

A larger cast develops when Loup goes to the orphanage. I found them to be an interesting mix and enjoyed them a lot.

 

Claudia Grey: Leia: Princess of Alderaan

A stand-alone Star Wars book.

Publication year: 2017
Format: print
Page count: 409
Publisher: Disney Lucasfilm

This is set a few years before A New Hope. Leia has just turned sixteen and she’s ready to take on the responsibilities of the heir to the throne of Alderaan. To prove herself, she must go through the three Challenges: of the Mind, of the Body, and the Heart. To get ready for the Challenge of the Body, she joins Pathfinders who practice survival in different places on different planets. She has already been helping her father Bail Organa in his duties as a senator but now she joins the Apprentice Legislature to represent her home planet there. For the Challenge of the Heart, she will take on missions of mercy around galaxy.

But her biggest concern is that she senses a growing rift between her parents and herself. She’s been very close to them but now her father rarely talks with her and her mother, the queen, hosts seemingly endless dinner parties where Leia isn’t welcome. She doesn’t have real friends; her status has always kept her apart from Alderaan youth. But in the Legislature and among the Pathfinders, she meets other youths and one special young man who is also from Alderaan. The young people in the Legislature are from wealthy classes and some of them will become senators. The same people are in the Legislature and the Pathfinders.

Leia knows that the Empire is hurting people and she tries to help in her own way, but she soon realizes that good intentions alone aren’t enough. She also wants to know what her parents are doing and digs into that.

This was a good novel about young Leia. She’s growing to be the fierce woman in the movies. But she’s already thinking of ways to oppose the Empire, in her own way. She makes mistakes; of course, that’s the only way to learn. She must also face her own very privileged life; she knows abstractly that not everyone lives as sheltered life as she has but it’s another thing to really see it. She learns from bitter experience to think of the consequences of her actions. We also get to see more of Alderaan’s culture.

I liked Leia’s romance interest but of course I knew it was doomed from the beginning. As far as I know, the character hasn’t appeared anywhere else.

The book has several references to the prequel movies and introduces one character in their youth who appears in the Last Jedi. We know, of course, what the Organas were doing. I had the impression that Leia was involved with the Rebellion from early age, rather than her parents trying to hide everything from her, though.

We got a couple of scenes with Grand Moff Tarkin and he steals every scene. I also through enjoyed Mon Mothma in the few scenes she had. I would have loved to see Tarkin and Mothma meet!

I mostly enjoyed the book but it does take liberties with Leia’s youth.

 

Jacqueline Carey: Starless

A stand-alone epic fantasy book.

Publication year: 2018
Format: Audio
Running time: 21 hours 44 minutes
Narrator: Caitlin Davies

This fantasy book has a lush, rich history and deep characters. The writing style is also lush and beautiful, much like in Carey’s Kushiel books. However, it doesn’t have any sex scenes, unlike the Kushiel books.

This is a world without stars: only one sun and three moons are on the sky. However, once the world had stars who were also gods. But the gods grew rebellious against the four original gods and were cast out. Now they live among humans and on occasion walk among humans. The world has also several cultures, some of them sea-fearing, other living in desert.

As long as he can remember, Khai has known his duty and his destiny. He was born at the same moment as the youngest member of the house of the Endless, Princess Zariya, and so he’ll train to become her bodyguard, her Shadow. He is reared among the Brotherhood of Pahrkun (the god of the Scouring Wind) who are warrior monks. When he, and the Princess, will turn sixteen he will journey to Zarkhum’s capital and start his duty. He will also then meet the Princess for the first time.

Khai trains hard. At the age of seven, when the book starts, he’s already an accomplished warrior. The book has several parts but it’s clearly divided to three: one follows Khai until he’s sixteen and meets the Princess. In the capital, he will live with her in the women’s quarters among scheming and gossiping which are alien to him. The final third of the book is a more traditional epic fantasy.

Khai never wavers in his duty; never questions it. However, there is a twist which I didn’t know about and won’t spoil here. It’s a good one, though. Zariya is quite a different character than I expected but I really enjoyed reading about her, too.

The biggest drawback, I think, is that all three parts of the book have a different cast of supporting characters. I also felt that each of the casts was larger than the one before it. It was a bit harder to follow who is each character as the story when along. The first part has the all male Brotherhood. I was surprised how different they were from each other. While some of the monks come to the monastery of their own will, or presumably like Khai sent there at an early age, they also have another tradition: any man convicted of a crime so hideous he would be executed, can instead choose to take the Trial of Pahrkun. He fights three of the Brotherhood’s members in the Hall of Proving. If he survives them, his sins are forgotten and he joins the Brotherhood. Three of the monks are quite memorable.

The second part is set in the city with both male and female members of the royal court. Because Zariya and Khai live in the women’s quarters, many of the cast here are women. In the third part they travel away from the city and gather a ragtag gang of accidental heroes around them. However, each of the casts stand surprising well, a testament to Carey’s skills with characters.

Yet, I didn’t feel as connected with the third or second group as I did with the first group of characters. It’s been too many years since I read Kushiel to really compare Carey’s writing style here but it felt similar with the lushness and some repetitions. The book does have quite a lot of tropes: Khai is literally the Chosen One, better at what he does than adults, he has a clear destiny, and we get a Prophecy, too, which they follow in the last third of the book. Still, Carey used them well and they were fun.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. The characters were great and I adored Khai and Zariya and their developing relationship. The world was also vivid.

 

Jack Vance: the Pnume

The fourth and final volume in the Planet of Adventure science fantasy series.

Publication year: 1970
Format: Audio
Running time for the whole box set: 23 hours 3 minutes
Narrator: Elijah Alexander

The previous book ended when Earth man Adam Reith and his two companions, barbarian teenager Traz and renegade Dirdirman Ankhe at afram Anacho, captured a shady businessman Woudiver who sold them out to their enemies. Even though Woudiver is their captive, he manages to signal the fourth alien race on the planet, the Pnume, about Reith and arrange his kidnapping. Reith is captured and taken to the vast underground tunnels where the aliens and their human slaves live. He manages to free himself but now has the task of avoiding the Pnume and their human slaves, the Pnumekin, and finding a way to the surface. To do that, he in turn captures a young Pnumekin woman and forces her to show him the way.

This time the book has distinctive two parts: the first part is set in the underground tunnels exploring the Pnumekin culture and the other is set on the surface where Reith must educate the woman about the surface culture. For me, the first part was more fun: I like characters sneaking around and it wasn’t easy to make several chapters of it fun.

The Pnumekin were weird. The Pnume strip them of personality and sexuality with culture and drugs. The woman Reith kidnaps doesn’t even have a name; he calls her Zap 210 based on the area where he found her. Her growth has been stunted with drugs and she has no knowledge of human sexuality or how different genders behave toward each other. She calls it “boisterous conduct” and doesn’t want to even hear about it. Reith must educate her and while he’s considerate enough, I found myself rolling my eyes at the scenes.

The Pnume themselves are curious and collect samples of life, including humans.

Still, this was a good ending to the series, even if the wrap-up was pretty abrupt.

 

P. Djèlí Clark: The Haunting of Tram Car 015

A stand-alone fantasy / steampunk novella.

Publication year: 2019
Format: Print
Page count: 130
Publisher: Tor

The story is set in an alternative 1912 Cairo. Around 1860, djinns were set loose on the world and the world hasn’t been the same. Egypt is now an independent republic and their representatives are about to vote if women should get the vote.

Against this backdrop, senior agent Hamed al-Nasr and his fresh off the academy partner agent Onsi, both from the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, are handed a case of the haunted tram car. Hamed is convinced that the culprit isn’t a ghost but an irate djinn. But when Ramses Station’s superintendent refuses to pay for the agents’ services, Hamed and Onsi must come up with something different than the usual exorcism.

This was a charming short book. The background is fascinating and I’d love to read more stories in this world. Happily, I haven’t yet read the first short story, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, so I have that to look forward to. I’m a fan of Amelia Peabody books so one fictional Cairo is somewhat familiar to me. Clark describes the city and the people vividly.

Hamed is an experienced agent and while he at first resents his new partner, he quickly realizes how necessary it is for Onsi to get more field experience. Onsi is also a useful agent and not just there to wonder what’s going on. Both are very rational agents, used to dealing with magical beings.

The suffragette side plot runs parallel to the main plot and introduces us to many colorful female characters. Novella length was perfect for the story.

 

Jack Vance: The Dirdir

The third book in the science fantasy series Planet of Adventure.

Publication year: 1969
Format: Audio
Running time for the whole box set: 23 hours 3 minutes
Narrator: Elijah Alexander

Human Adam Reith from Earth was stranded on the alien world Tschai in the first book “the City of the Chasch”. He’s still trying to get a space ship and return to Earth. However, that’s very difficult. He’s failed twice and now he’s going to build a space ship from scratch. His previous adventures have brought him to the attention of the Dirdir, panther-like aliens who hunt and kill men for sport. They’ve taken exception to Reith’s successes and his claim that humans originate from another planet. So, they’ve sent a murder squad called the “Initiative” after him. Reith manages kill them but his friend, and a renegade Dirdirman, Ankhe at afram Anacho tells him that more will come.

Reith needs a lot of money for the spaceship and what better place to gather them than where the crystals, from which the local money is made, grow. However, that place is the Dirdir hunting preserve where they hunt the men who try to get the crystals. So, Reith, Anacho, and teenager Traz, who is a former barbarian chief, head to the preserve. They, in turn, do what the local humans thought would be impossible: hunt and kill the Dirdir and take the money they’ve gathered from their victims.

However, Reith still needs to build the spaceship. They go to a huge city and engage the services of an unscrupulous businessman Woudiver who doesn’t miss a chance to squeeze every penny out of them. Woudiver also threatens to give them over to the Dirdir who are now furious at Reith.

The first half of the book is pretty solid, if violent, adventure with Reith and his two companions fighting Dirdir and their henchmen. However, the rest of the book is quite different, mostly Reith dealing with Woudiver.

Most humans regard Reith insane because he claims that he, and humans in general, come from another planet. This time Reith doesn’t encourage the various human societies to revolt against their alien masters, but he claims that humans are superior to the aliens.

We don’t actually get to know much about the Dirdir. Anacho tells us that they have multiple sexes of both males and females. Not all of them are compatible. We also know that they hunt in packs despite being a space faring species. They also think of men as subhumans who can be killed and exploited at will and they keep the Dirdirmen in thrall by telling them that they might be able to become actual Dirdir some day. But most of this was explained in the previous books, so not much is new. The Dirdir seem to exist just to be the enemies. At least they look impressive:

“impressive creatures, harsh, mercurial, decisive. They stood approximately at human height, and moved with sinister quickness, like lizards on a hot day. Their dermal surfaces suggested polished bone; their crania raised into sharp blade-like crests, with incandescent antennae streaming back at either side. The contours of the faces were oddly human, with deep eye-sockets, the scalp crests descending to suggest nasal ridges. They half-hopped, half-loped, like leopards walking erect.”

 

Pick&Mix reading challenge for 2020

I’m again joining the Pick&Mix reading challenge but my initial goal is only 10 books.

I’ve quite a few books for the Mount TBR challenge so I’m aiming to read less from the library. However, any new audiobooks or ebooks will go to this challenge, too.

Books read:
1, Jack Vance: The Dirdir
2, P. Djèlí Clark: The Haunting of Tram Car 015
3, Jack Vance: The Pnume
4, T. Kingfisher: The Wonder Engine
5, James S. A. Corey: Nemesis Games
6, Claudia Grey: Leia: Princess of Alderaan
7, Martha Wells: Exit Strategy
8, Jacqueline Carey: Starless
9, Jacqueline Carey: Santa Olivia
10, Martha Wells: Network Effect