The Crucible of Empire by Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth

The Crucible of Empire by Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth

This is the sequel to The Course of Empire. During The Course of Empire, the Jao conquered earth. Partly this was because of human disunity. Now, the Jao have drafted humanity into fighting their ancient enemies the Ekhat. They have adapted both human and Jao technology to create a massive new spaceship the size of an aircraft carrier, the Lexington.

This story is partially about how technology changes when two cultures meet to make something far more deadly than the single culture can produce by itself. The Lexington with its combined kinetic and energy weapon technology, energy shielding and heavy armored plate easily destroys the Ekhat ships.

In The Crucible of Empire, the new human Jao alliance have to rescue a third alien race, the Lleix from the Ekhat. I liked how the different aliens were described with their strengths and weaknesses. The Lleix had a very interesting artistic flair to them. The Jao and the Lleix were described as being very different.

This book does an excellent job of worldbuilding and describing how alien worlds interact. It also does not assume human superiority which is refreshing. Humans are not the center of the universe. I am looking forward to the next book in the series. I hope they add a few more alien cultures to the mix.

Daily Thoughts 12/27/2009

Portrait of Emily Bronte by her brother Branwell Bronte

Daily Thoughts 12/27/2009

I was at Barnes and Nobles near my house. I bought a copy of the childrens book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See by Eric Carle. Eric Carle is a wonderful childrens author. His illustrations are full of color and his message is very simple.

I looked at the science fiction and fantasy section, but did not see anything which I wanted to get this time. A lot of the books are about demons and vampires with a touch of noire. Occassionally I don't mind fantasy noire, but most of the time I like my fantasy to be a little more lighthearted with princes and elves and such. I also like original military science fiction. Most of the stuff I am seeing coming out is long winded series. The Charlaine Harris section in the fantasy area is huge. She is very much a writer about vampires.

I took a look at the sample section of Baen Books yesterday and read the first few chapters of Live Free or Die by John Ringo. It reads a little bit like Heinlein, more so than his other military science fiction novels. http://www.webscription.net/chapters/1439133328/1439133328.htm?blurb There is more of a plot line with intrigue and trickery than his other books. The book is coming out in February of 2010. If they have an Electronic ARC, I will probably get it.

I had a chance to briefly look at the graphic novels section as well. Something I saw which looked really excellent was an oversize book called The Art of Osama Tezuka by Helen McCarthy. It is a big, beautifully illustrated book.

I read some more of Think Again while having a quiet day. I like to read on the couch. The book has a lot on how we make mistakes based on our past experience, prejudgements, self- interest, and in general how we tend to confirm our own biases at our own expense. It demonstrates lots of examples of this kind of behavior. I can easily see it in all kinds of situations.

I just learned that Year of the Flood is a sequel to the novel Oryx and Crake which means that I must read it. This surprises me a little bit, maybe Margaret Atwood will write a science fiction trilogy.

Her writing is literary enough that some people don't consider it science fiction. They like to call it "speculative fiction". This is the nice term for fiction that plays with reality. You can throw in William S. Burroughs, Doris Lessing, George Orwell, Lewis Carroll, Jorge Luis Borges, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez in speculative fiction. It speculates about reality. Magical realism speculates about reality. Of course Robert Heinlein and Neil Gaiman are here as well. The joy and semantics of fantasy literature.

Daily Thoughts 9/7/2009

Sherlock Holmes in "The Adventure of the Dying Detective"

Better to Beg Forgiveness by Michael Z. Williamson

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This is a military science fiction novel. An executive protection service has to protect an interim president during a planetary civil war. This is an action novel with lots of explosions, shooting, and narrow escapes. The point of the novel is the action.

Every other page, the mercenary bodyguards have to stop the president of Celadon from being killed. The locals attempt to shoot, blowup, ram, or dismember acting president Bishwanath. It eventually deteriorates to the point where the mercenaries have to get the president off planet.

Thus follows a series of daring escapes, hijackings, and intrigue. The good guys do not win in the end, but they do save their man.

The setting is the near future where earth has just begun colonizing the outer planets. The weapons are recognizable as things which we have today, machine guns, mortars, bombs, and explosives. The locals are decidedly low tech, coming from a back water world. The United Nations is still in existence and has sent peacekeepers and bureaucrats to keep things under control.

Plenty of action and lots of things get blown up. Plus, if you have a libertarian bent and don't like bureaucracy, you might like the politics in the novel. I read it for the action.

I have started reading a book called Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. It is a thriller featuring two U.S. Marshalls who are visiting a prison for the criminally insane on an island. One of the inmates has escaped. The book is being turned into a movie starring Leonardo Di Caprio coming out in 2010.