Dean Wesley Smith, John J. Ordover, Paula M. Block ed.: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

A collection of Star Trek short stories written by Star Trek fans.

Publishing year: 1998

Format: Print

Publisher: Pocket Books

Page count: 457

This is the first fan fiction collection that Pocket Books published. It spans four Trek series: Original, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. The stories are written for people who know and love Trek. The writers also clearly love the shows.

Original Star Trek

Landon Cary Dalton: A Private Anecdote: Christopher Pike is in a wheelchair, unable to say anything else than yes or no. He thinks about his past and if any of this is real.

Keith L. Davis: The Last Tribble: Cyrano Jones was caught smuggling tribbles. He’s been working for twenty years cleaning the station of them. Now, the last tribble is almost in his hands.

Phaedra M. Weldon: Lights in the Sky: Years ago, Shahna was a drill thrall on the planet Triskelion.

Now, she’s the ambassador from her planet. She’s come to the Federation to negotiate aid after a Romulan attack on her planet. She also wants to meet Kirk again.

Dayton Ward: Reflections: Kirk is dying on Veridian III. Two figures manifest in his mind. They show him how things could have gone differently if Kirk had made a different choice.

The Next Generation

Dylan Otto Krider: What Went Through Data’s Mind 0.68 Seconds Before the Satellite Hit: Data’s first-person report to Starfleet.

Jerry M. Wolfe: The Naked Truth: Reg Barcley is leading an away team for the first time and he’s nervous, not surprisingly. Worse, the Enterprise must leave and the small team is on its own.

Peg Robinson: The First: Picard encounters a woman who is the first one on her planet to build and fly a spacecraft. She’s even built an engine that leaves Geordi scratching his head. Unfortunately, the Federation is at war with the Dominion, so the woman and her people must stay on their planet, for their own good. Picard wrestles with his conscience and the Prime Directive.

Kathy Oltion: See Spot Run: The Enterprise is due for an inspection in just a couple of days. Normally, that’s not a problem but lately strange malfunctions have appeared all over the ship. Right now they’re minor but could escalate. Also, Data’s cat Spot manages to slip out of his quarters and cause havoc.

Bobbie Benton Hull: Together again, for the first time: The relationship between Captain Picard and Guinan stretches through centuries. Now, they meet for the first time, kind of.

Alara Rogers: Civil Disobedience: The Borg have destroyed the Earth. Q isn’t happy about that, but the Continuum has ordered him not to interfere.

Franklin Thatcher: Of Cabbages and Kings: All of a sudden, the Enterprise finds itself without its crew. It must try to find out what happened and also survive when mechanized ships attack.

Deep Space Nine

Christina F. York: Life’s Lessons: Cadet Nog had come to visit from Starfleet Academy and he notices that Mrs. O’Brien, his former and most beautiful teacher, is sad. His Ferengi instincts take over and he plans how to take advantage of the situation. Keiko O’Brien thinks that her husband Miles might be falling for Major Kira Nerys. Kira is pregnant with the O’Briens’ son and Keiko starts to think Kira will take her place in the family. Keiko is heading down to Bajor for a conference but misses her flight. Nog manages to borrow a runabout and takes Keiko down. He plans to take make his move on her on the planet.

Vince Bonasso: Where I Fell Before My Enemy: U.S.S. Defiant is on a navigation test run when it encounters another Federation ship in distress. Moments later, the other vessel explodes with everyone inside. Captain Sisko pursues the small ship that is responsible but all is not as it seems.

Voyager

Patrick Cumby: Good Night, Voyager: Suddenly the main power of U.S.S. Voyager goes out, leaving the crew in darkness and without gravity. The crew, of course, starts to repair and investigate what happened.

J.A. Rosales: Ambassador at Large: Three Mondasian ships are pursuing a small vessel. Voyager interferes and beams the only life form aboard. To everyone’s surprise, the pilot turns out to be a human and over a hundred years old. He’s friendly but evades most questions about how he’s in the Delta quadrant.

jaQ Andrews: Fiction: Voyager crash-landed on a planet four years ago. Chakotay has made a new life for himself there, but Janeway won’t give up. She feels that something isn’t right.

Jackee C.: I, Voyager: A sentient life form is fascinated by Janeway and her crew. It studies them.

Craig D.B. Patton: Monthuglu: Voyager enters into a strange new nebula to cut a little time off their journey. However, as soon as Voyager enters the nebula, the main power goes offline. Soon, the crew experiences strange things and small things start to go wrong. The story is told through logs.

Because We Can

Two more short stories from two of the editors. They don’t conform to the competition guidelines.

John J. Ordover: The Man Who Sold the Sky: A man is on his deathbed when six familiar people appear around him.

Paula M. Block: The Girl Who Controlled Gene Kelly’s Feet: Enterprise’s psychologist interviews yeoman Minnie Moskowitz who is bored with her job. The ship will soon land on the amusement park plant, so the psychologist suggests that Minnie take a holiday.

This was an entertaining collection. Some of the stories aren’t as polished as from professional writers but the appreciation of the characters, the setting, and the heart of the show comes clear.

 

James S. A. Corey: Babylon’s Ashes

The sixth book in the Expanse series.

Publishing year: 2016

Format: Print

Publisher: Orbit

Page count: 536

Babylon’s Ashes picks up right after the shocking end of the previous book, Nemesis Games. It also has a lot more POV characters than the previous books. Holden and Captain Pa get most chapters but we also get brief glimpses all over the solar system, from Doctor Prax Meng in Ganymede to the Belters on the Medina Station on the other side of the Ring. War has spread everywhere.

After the devastating blow that the Free Navy leader Marco Inaros gave to Earth, Earth and Mars have reunited against the Belters. Hunger threatens everyone when the biggest resource in the solar system can’t support much life anymore. The Free Navy is raiding colony ships heading toward the Ring and the alien planets on the other side.

Still, Mars and Earth are suspicious of each other and the more peaceful Belters hate all the inner planets’ people. Inaros tells about his grand plan to his inner circle. For now, it means giving ground to the inner planets and leaving Belters to their mercy. Captain Pa disagrees and splits off. She plans to still raid the colony ships and supply all Belters with their resources. The inner planets call on Captain Holden and the crew of the Rocinante.

Meanwhile, the Free Navy is increasing its hold on the neutral Ganymede that producing a lot of food. Doctor Meng finds a way to increase food production but is forbidden to help Earth. At Medina Station, people are also getting paranoid, even looking for traitors among themselves.

Holden realizes that the Belters and the Earthers don’t see each other as human beings but rather as faceless enemies. He decides to humanize Belters to the other humans. I can understand his reasoning. However, it seems to me that the Belters are the ones demonizing Earth and Mars people. After all, Belters are the ones who killed billions of people on Earth. Holden should have been humanizing Earthers to Belters, as well. Of course, Holden is from Earth.

Some familiar characters return as POV characters: Alex, Amos, Naomi, Bobbie, and Avasarala. I especially enjoyed Avasarala’s POV. Prax Meng’s POV also illuminates the increasing paranoia of Ganymede when the occupation continues. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as impressed with the others. Filip especially was an annoyance and I skimmed his self-centered, angsty teenage POV. He’s a murderer and doesn’t have a bit of remorse. On the contrary, he’s proud of his part in killing Earth. I also didn’t really connect with the Medina Station people. The big bad in this book didn’t work for me. He’s a caricature and the only way he’s climbed to his current position is by manipulating others. I did like Michio Pa.

This was a very different book from the previous one, following the spreading war and the politics being it. Sadly, it abandons the protomolecule and the new planets. Of course, the planets have been rather a MacGuffin to fight over rather than interesting places to explore.

This was the lowest point of the series to me. In fact, I’m not sure if I’ll continue.

 

Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith: Colliding Worlds, vol. 1

A collection of SF short stories, novellettes, and one novella. The first in an SF anthology series.

Format: ebook

Publisher: WMG Publishing

Page count from GoodReads: 506

Publishing year: 2021

The theme of the collection is cities. The stories are quite varied, including a terrorist’s manifesto, a detective story, and romances. Three are set in the Seeders universe from Smith which deals with survivors living after most of humanity has died. Rusch has also one survivor story. Most are set on Earth but a couple are set in alien worlds and one is on a space station.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The City’s Edge (2016), a novelette: Petras’ wife is dead. To cope with her death and to continue to be a father to their two children, Petras needs to see her body and see where she died. He also tries to understand why she died.

Dunyon (2011): The story is set in a remote outpost that is a resort for the very rich. But now it’s also the last stop for desperate refugees. The main character runs a bar and hears all sorts of things. Then one customer claims that the MC knows how to get to Dunyon, a safe haven. But the MC has never even heard about it. When more people demand to be taken to Dunyon, she investigates before things get out of control.

One Small Step (2008): Nyalou is the newest member of the Tranquility Base’s Council on the Moon. The others intimidate her. But when the richest member starts to say that the Arrival Monument and the footprint must go so that the land can be sold for huge profit, Nyalou disagrees, to her own surprise. She hasn’t gone to the Monument since she was a kid. But she agrees to find out if people still go to see Armstrong’s footprint.

Earth Day (2013): The main character’s mother was obsessed with Earth Day and saving the planet. The MC is obsessed with his mom and in her memory, he will save the planet.

Snapshots (2014): When Cleavon was ten years old in 1955 Chicago, he saw for the first time a murder victim, a black boy just like himself. Years later, he fled the city to raise his family in peace. But to his horror, his daughter gets a scholarship and is returning to Chicago despite his objections.

Voyeuristic Tendencies (2014), a novelette. Maggie keeps herself invisible because of her talent and because of the money she makes using her talent. She’s a telepath who can only read minds, not influence them in any way. She uses the information she gets, usually about cheating spouses, and makes good money. But when an old man approaches her claiming he had the same talent, he says that she will go insane when she’s forty.

Coolhunting (1998), a novella: Steffie Storm-Warning is a coolhunter, searching for the next trend. It’s lonely work but she loves her independence and anonymity. The trend is a human doing something cool or wearing something cool. The trend can last a couple of days to a few weeks. Steffie has a honed sense of what would be cool. She records the subject and sends the recording to companies that can use them. She had a strange and difficult childhood which is the reason why she prefers to be anonymious but now her family needs her.

Story Child (1990): Michael was left behind in the Abandonment. Every child and many adults just disappeared overnight, including his wife and child. The people left behind are plagued by unknown illnesses. For two years Michael has been the only doctor in town, fighting to keep people alive and fighting against his exhaustion and helplessness. Then, the story child appears hovering in a skimmer.

Sing (1987): The nameless main character of the story is a native of her planet. One day a human tells her that he wants to record her singing. But she doesn’t know what that means. Her culture has no words for music or anything related to music. She’s suspicious.

Dancers Like Children [Alien Influences] (1991) a novelette: Dr. Justin Schafer specializes in both alien and human psychology. However, ten years ago he made a horrible mistake and hasn’t been practicing since. He’s been called to the Bountiful colony on an alien planet because someone is brutally killing children inside the colony dome. The locals are convinced that the killers are the local aliens called Dancers because the kids had been murdered in a way that mimics a Dancer ritual. Justin takes the job reluctantly, hoping he won’t make mistakes this time.

Dean Wesley Smith

Playing in the Street (1995) a novelette: In 2030, Moscow, Idaho is a dead town. People died instantly. The main character returns there in protective gear to look at his dead parents. He knows what happened to the town and it all started back in 1913.

Keep Hoping for a New Tomorrow (2017): Martin Knight runs a popular talk show Here and Now where he interviews people stuck in time. And there are a lot of people to interview: everyone on Earth. For 7,987 times everyone on the planet has been experiencing the same 66 minutes over and over again. However, their minds have not been affected. They know it’s happening so they can change what they do after the time loop starts repeating again.

A Bad Patch of Humanity [The Seeders Universe] (2015): Four years ago, an electromagnetic pulse killed off every human who wasn’t underground. The survivors have rebuilt a few cities. Angie Park is looking for survivors and telling them that other humans still live. Most people she meets are first afraid but then relieved. But the small group she meets this time is quite different.

Nostalgia 101 (2006): A thousand years ago, humanity used nanites to prolong their own lives. When the sun started to cool, humans built domes. Now, a group of relatively young humans is looking to pass Nostalgia 101 class. Because boredom isn’t the threat. Nostalgia is.

Out of Coffee Experience (2013): Arrington is a time-artist: he goes back in time and captures a split second of a split second so that people from his time can come and view the moment as art. He also hates coffee so he decided to make his newest, and no doubt most popular, piece of art in a coffee shop in 2004.

Remember Me to Your Children (2014): Part of the Seeders universe, this is also a story about people who survived the Event. Tammy and Hal are part of Respect project, looking into homes so that they can record the names and lives of people who lived there and lay the bodies to rest in a new cemetery. This time Tammy and Hal find something unexpected.

Neighborhoods (2013): Big Ed is a self-made millionaire who is used to solving problems nobody else can. But living in Chicago he can’t help but hear all the time about gun violence and children dying. Nobody seems to be able to do anything about it. But Big Ed comes up with a crazy plan.

To Remember a Single Minute (2015): Mike Hanley has lived a full life but now he’s facing a disease that will take his memories from him. However, Remember Incorporated will guarantee that he will always remember one minute of his life.

He Meant No Harm [Bryant Street] (2016): Dennis Phipps’s grandmother has passed away and he returns to the old family house on Bryant Street, to clean it up. The other houses seem to be abandoned, too. He finds something that reminds him of his childhood and wants to try it out again.

Shadow in the City [The Seeders Universe] (2003): Carey has been living alone since the Event happened four years ago. She hiked from dead Portland, Oregon to the coast. Now, she’s returning to Portland with the faint hope that someone else might have survived, too. Hopefully someone still sane.

I’ve read two of Rusch’s stories before, Coolhunting and Dancers like Children. I enjoyed them again and I enjoyed all the stories.

 

Donna Leon: Friends in High Places

The ninth Commissario Brunetti mystery.

Publishing year: 2000

Format: Print

Finnish publisher: Otava

Page count: 272

Finnish translator: Kristiina Rikman

Commissario Guido Brunetti from Venetian police is enjoying his free Saturday when a young official from Officio Castato, the registrar of buildings in Venice, comes to tell him that they haven’t found any building plans for his apartment on the top floor of one of the oldest buildings in San Polo. Since the apartment doesn’t exist officially, it’s possible that it will be torn down. At least Bruentti most likely must pay high fines. Brunetti, of course, isn’t happy.

In real Venetian style, Brunetti thinks about any contacts he has who can help. But months go by and he doesn’t hear about the registrar’s office. Then he sees an article in the newspaper that the official fell and is in a hospital, in critical condition. He goes to the hospital but the man has died. The man’s death feels off to Bruentti so he starts to investigate.

The case leads him to money laundering and drug dealing and also the high level of corruption in Venice.

The pace of the story is leisurely but the threat feels very real when Brunetti digs into the dealings of powerful people in the corrupt Venice. Brunetti himself isn’t above corruption, no matter how much he loathes the rich and powerful using the unofficial system: “At no time did it occur to him, as it did not occur to Paola [his wife], to approach the matter legally, to find out the names of the proper offices and officials and the proper steps to follow. Nor did it occur to either one of them that there might be a clearly defined bureaucratic procedure by which they could resolve the problem.“

Leon manages to capture the beauty of the city while also bringing to light the many problems. I love the interplay between Brunetti and his wife Paola.

 

George R. R. Martin and Garder Dozois ed.: Dangerous Women 2

As I understand it, the original hardcover edition was split into three paperbacks.

Publishing year: 2014

Format: Print

Publisher: Tor

Page count: 403

About half of the stories are set in the writer’s larger universe and one is a shared world. I had no trouble understanding the stories but unfortunately, I didn’t feel that they were very compelling, either. Most of the women are politically or socially dangerous.

Lev Grossman: The Girl in the Mirror: set in his Magicians world, the story follows Plum. She’s the leader of a secret society of students, the League, in a magical university. One student has stepped over the line and the League must discipline him with an elaborate prank.

Sharon Kay Penman: A Queen in Exile: 1189 Germany. Constance de Hauteville hears that her nephew has died. That means that Constance will be Queen of Sicily and her cold and ruthless husband the Holy Roman Emperor will also be King of Sicily. But a bitter battle for the crown must be won first.

S. M. Sterling: Pronouncing Doom: Machines don’t work anymore and society has fragmented. In this town, Wiccans rule. It’s the heavy duty of Juniper Mackenzie to sentence an evildoer.

Caroline Spector: Lies My Mother Told Me: Set in the Wild Cards universe, the main character Michelle Pond is a major superhero called Bubbles. She and her adoptive daughter Adesina are in a Mardi Gras parade when zombies attack. Michelle knows that her friend Joey, the Hoodoo Mama, is the one who controls zombies but why would Joey attack the parade and her? Turns out someone stole Joey’s power. And that’s just the beginning.

Sam Sykes: Name the Beast: Kalindris’ people are silent, watchful. They hear the Howling. But her daughter is nothing like that. Kalindris has grown to resent the man who sired the child and she also resents her daughter. When it’s time for the child to kill a beast and blood her hands, Kalindris goes with her because she’s sure that the child isn’t up to the task. The other POV is Senny. Senny’s Mother and Father are arguing. A beast killed Senny’s older sibling and the family is on the run.

Nancy Kress: Second Arabesque, Very Slowly: In a world, where a virus made 99% of women infertile, civilization has fallen. In Northern USA, people are either hunter-gatherer packs or farmer communities. The first-person POV main character Nurse is in a hunter-gatherer pack. She’s already past 60 and knows that when she can’t keep up anymore, she will be shot. But for now, she does her best to nurse the women and men of the pack. The women are valued for their fertility or if they have special skills.

Diana Gabaldon: Virgins: A novella set in her Oulander setting but before the books. Jamie Fraiser has just fled Scotland and joins a mercenary group where his best friend Ian is a member. Because Jamie and Ian understand Hebrew, they are entrusted with a mission to bring a Jewish girl, her maid, and a priceless dowry to Paris for her wedding. Of course, things go wrong.

 

Geoff Trowbridge, Keith R. A. Candido, Chris Roberson: Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Echoes and Refractions

The book has three alternate universe Star Trek novellas.

Publishing year: 2008

Format: Print

Publisher: Pocket Books

Page count: 501

Each of the three novellas is set in a different universe, so they aren’t related.

The Chimes at Midnight: in this novella, Spock died as a young boy. Kirk’s best friend is an Andorian named Thelin. Thelin is a passionate and impatient man so this throws the Kirk-Spock-McCoy trinity off kilter. McCoy is the logical one here. The story starts near the end of Wrath of Khan and continued with the Search for Spock and the Voyage Home.

Admiral Kirk and a crew of cadets face the Genesis device. Thelin and David Marcus manage to shield the Enterprise so it remains in one piece, if only barely. When Carol and David Marcus return to Earth, Starfleet wants to employ Carol as a civilian scientist to research the Genesis planet. However, David volunteers.

Aboard the Grissom, he meets the half-Vulcan, half-Romulan Saavik who is a diplomat and a civilian scientist. They transport down to the Genesis planet to find out whatever they can before the planet disintegrates. However, someone attacks and destroys the Grissom. The culprits are renegade Klingons and they take the two hostage. When the Klingon commander Kruge realizes that David is Kirk’s son, he blackmails Kirk to get the Genesis device.

Meanwhile, Kirk thinks that his son has died. When he finds out that David is alive, he recruits his old friends (Thelin, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and McCoy), steals the Enterprise, and is off to rescue his son at any cost.

However, soon after the Enterprise leaves, Starfleet notices a huge alien probe going toward Earth. Kirk decides to continue to meet Kruge.

While this story isn’t as dark as the next one, it did get quite dark about halfway through. Except for that rather graphic torture scene which didn’t feel like Star Trek to me. David and Thelin are the main POV characters. Unfortunately, this meant that we didn’t see much of Kirk-Thelin-McCoy banter which I was rather looking forward to.

A Gutted World: the darkest of these stories. Bajor is still under Cardassian rule but the ore mines are depleting. Kira is the last surviving member of her resistance cell and she has knowledge that the rest of the galaxy needs to know. She decides to turn to the Federation. However, it’s not easy to steal a mining shuttle and drive it to Federation space.

Meanwhile, the great powers of the galaxy are near total war. A Romulan ship attacks and destroys a Klingon outpost without warning. The outpost commander’s kin attacks Romulans in retaliation. The Cardassians have engulfed the Ferengi. The Enterprise-E has just returned from the past where they stopped the Borg from assimilating the Earth. The ship is in a bad shape and many crewmembers died. However, the Enterprise is ordered to reinforce the Klingon Defence Force against Romulan retaliation. Captain Picard is tired of war but has no choice but to obey.

The story starts with multiple POV characters ranging from the Romulan ambassador to the Klingons, the Romulan Praetor, and a journalist in the Federation. However, the major POV characters ended up being Worf and Kira.

This is one of those dark alternative realities where we get to see the characters we love dying. The world is fascinating, though. Since the Cardassians still hold Bajor, the other powers don’t know about the wormhole. Voyager didn’t end up in the Gamma Quadrant. Commander Sisko builds starships, Odo has vanished from Terok Nor, and Quark has bought himself his own planet.

Brave New World: my favorite of the stories. In this world, Soong didn’t create just a couple of androids: he created hundreds of them. Federation created thousands more and they’re serving aboard spaceships and space stations, on colonies and homeworlds. Ten years ago, the androids received citizenship as sentient beings. Well, not quite a full citizenship: they can’t reproduce. When that decision became public, Data and thousands of other androids left without telling why or where they were going. Now, Data has sent an urgent message to Picard asking the Enterprise-D to come to a planet on the Romulan Neutral Zone. Picard is curious and agrees.

In this story, Romulan-Klingon Alliance is the strongest faction in the Alpha Quadrant rather than Klingons allying themselves with the Federation. Commander Ro Laren is Picard’t tactical officer, LaForge is his first officer, and Wesley Crusher is the chief engineer. In addition to androids, the story has also people who have uploaded their minds into android bodies (Ira Graves from Schizoid Man was successful), in essence becoming immortal.

I enjoyed all of these tales, even though the Gutted World was darker than I’d like. I wouldn’t mind reading more stories set in these worlds, but that’s not going to happen.

 

Catharine Ingelman-Sundberg: The Little Old Lady who Struck Lucky Again!

The second book in the humorous heist book series the League of Pensioners.

Publishing year: 2014

Finnish publication year: 2017

Format: Print

Finnish publisher: S&S

Page count: 363

Finnish translator: Outi Menna

Märtha Anderson and her friends want to rob a Las Vegas casino and give the money to worthy causes in Sweden, such as the downsized schooling system and privatized elderly homes. So, they plan and execute a heist. However, their paths cross with another gang and suddenly Märtha and her friends have stolen diamonds in their hands. They decide to return to Sweden rather than wait for the bigger criminals to sniff them out. They smuggle the diamonds to their homeland in a golf bag.

They’re still wanted from their previous heist so they use made-up names and social security numbers. But things go wrong: they lose the golf bag, and the diamonds, in the customs. Then they realize that a hacker has redirected the money they wanted to donate. So, they need to do another heist and, of course, try to find out just where their stolen money has gone.

To make matters more interesting, their neighbors are two large men in a motorbike gang. Their other neighbor is a Tarot-reading younger woman (in her sixties) and one of the League members becomes very attracted to her, bringing friction to the team.

This was a fun and quick read with plenty of twists and no violence. The writer also criticizes modern privatization and downsizing trends. It’s similar to the first book, so if you liked that one, you’ll probably like this one, too.

Of course, their antics aren’t believable. Too bad, because I wouldn’t mind spending my old age like this.

 

Philip Pullman: La Belle Sauvage

The first book in the fantasy series the Book of Dust.

Publishing year: 2017

Format: Print

Finnish publisher: Otava

Page count: 687

Finnish translator: Helene Butzow

This series is a prequel to the His Dark Materials series.

Eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead’s parents run an inn called the Trout in Oxford. He’s a studious boy who likes to help people both in the inn and out of it. He’s also very observant. When three strange men come to the inn and ask Malcolm about a baby who is in the care of the local nunnery, he thinks it’s very strange. He hasn’t heard about it and tells them so. Later, when he’s on the Thames in his canoe, La Belle Sauvage, he sees a man looking for something. His daemon Asta thinks she saw where the man dropped the item. But before they can help the man, he’s arrested. Malcolm and Asta go and retrieve the item: a wooden acorn. They manage to open it and find inside a secret message. But they don’t know where to take it, so they keep it.

Later, when Malcolm goes to the monastery, he asks about a baby and much to his surprise, a nun tells him that they are caring for a baby. She’s called Lyra and nobody is supposed to know that she’s there.

The first half of the book is building tension when Malcolm slowly realizes the depth of the secrets he has stumbled upon. We also get to know Dr. Hannah Relf who interprets the alethiometer at Oxford University. She’s also part of a conspiracy against the Magisterium, the religious organization that wants to control the world. We also meet some other conspirators. When the action starts to roll in the second half of the book, everything is in place. Well, mostly. The second half has scenes and magic that felt very random to me and they weren’t explained. Also, compared to the first half where the only magic are the daimons, the second part seems disjointed. Also, the main bad guy, Bonneville, seemed very strange.

Malcolm can feel quite a passive character who only reacts to events, but he’s just 11 and doesn’t know much about the larger plots. This can frustrate readers who are expecting a more Lyra-like main character. For the first half, Malcolm runs errands, spies for Hannah, and just talks with people building tension for the rest of the book and series.

It’s been a couple of decades since I read His Dark Materials series but I recently watched the first season of the TV show so I remember it well. I loved the daemons, again. Malcolm’s Asta still changes form at will and the adults have stable daimons who reveal a lot about their personality.

Some characters from the previous series appear. However, we already know what happens to Lyra so there’s no tension about what ultimately happens to her. Of course, I don’t read books to find out how the main characters will die, so this didn’t really bother me. Overall, I enjoyed this book and it’s a fine beginning to a new series. I just hope Pullman has some explanation for the random things that happened.

 

Jane Yolen: Dragon’s Blood

The first book in the YA SF/fantasy series Pit Dragon Chronicles, but it can be read as a stand-alone.

Publishing year: 1982

Format: Print

Publisher: Orbit

Page count: 243

Austar IV is a backward planet that has only one thing going for it: dragons. Specifically, dragons fighting each other. Some Austarians own, train, and breed such dragons.

The Austarians have been divided into two classes: those born free and those born into bond slavery. Also, some free people are forced to sell themselves, or their children into slavery to survive. A bondslave must always carry his or her bag of coins around their neck so everyone can see that they are a bonder, as they are called.

Jakkin is one of the latter. A feral dragon killed his father when Jakkin was very young and his mom sold herself and Jakkin to bond slavery. Now, Jakkin is 13 and working in a dragon Nursery. He cares for the male dragons, the studs. But he dreams of stealing a dragon egg and training it to fight. That way he could get a lot of money and buy his freedom. He has two friends among the other bonders, boys his age. However, the supervisor (also a bonder) hates Jakkin.

Jakkin is determined to steal an egg: he has even found a secret place where the dragon can grow and Jakkin can train it. However, an accident with one of the most temperamental male dragons leaves him in a bad shape. How can he now pursue his dream?

For a children’s or a YA book, this story has lots of very mature elements. Jakkin is a slave even though he’s called a bonder and not a slave. Granted, his master isn’t a harsh one and he’s allowed Bond Off days, essentially days free of work. He isn’t beaten or starved. It’s more a plot device: he wants to become the trainer and owner of a fighting dragon because he wants to be free. Also, because he likes dragons a lot. Also, the world has Baggeries where the bonders and free men go. They’re bordellos and it seems that a lot of free women work there. One of the significant secondary characters is a weed smoker. Also, some of the characters believe that some men are simply born into bondage and can’t survive free.

Children probably won’t even notice these things, though. (I hope.)

Otherwise, this was a fast-paced, exciting read. Jakkin is single-minded in his goal to get and train the dragon. Unfortunately, it can make him look stupid. But he is only 13.

The book has only two named female characters. One is an older woman, the cook. The other is Jakkin’s age and was clearly created to be a mysterious teenage girl for Jakkin to pursue. The world-building is, unfortunately, quite sexist.

The dragons themselves are interesting. They’re herbivores but still fight each other so much that before humans started to train them, they were nearly extinct. They live in stables, males and females in different buildings. The females are also referred to as hens. So, I got the impression that they’re horse-like. However, their blood is acidic and burns a human. A dragon can form a mental bond with a human. However, that’s not common.

We don’t actually see the dragons fighting until very near the end.

This was a fun, if somewhat peculiar read. Unfortunately, I can’t really recommend this for kids.

 

Andy Weir: Project Hail Mary

A stand-alone science fiction book.

Publishing year: 2021

Format: Print

Publisher: Penguin

Page count: 476

The main character wakes up alone in a room, with only two mummified corpses for company. He doesn’t remember even his own name or where he is or why. Soon, he realizes that he’s not on Earth but on a spaceship that should be beyond current tech to build. So, this must be important. If only he could remember…

I don’t want to spoil anything, although even the GoodReads summary will tell you more.

This is very similar to Weir’s first book, the Martian. One man, a scientist, working alone. The MC has a similar sense of humor as Watney, but with less swearing. If you liked the Martian, most likely you will like this one, too. However, Project Hail Mary does have elements that aren’t strictly science even though they’re common to science fiction. Also, about half of the book is flashbacks when the MC starts to remember how he got here.

I really liked some of the elements but I don’t want to spoil them. I very much enjoyed this scientific adventure tale.

Quotes:

“I feel like Sherlock Holmes. All I saw was “nothing,” and I draw a bunch of conclusions! Conclusions that are wildly speculative and with nothing to prove them, but conclusions!“

“Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies.”