BOOK REVIEW: Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan

Age of Myth is the first book in a new epic fantasy series written by Michael J. Sullivan, the author of the Riyria Revelations and the Riyria Chronicles. When the series was announced back in 2016 it was said to be five books but that has now been extended to six. I gave all three books (Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire, and Heir of Novron) in the Riyria Revelations 5 stars so I looked forward to reading The Legends of the First Empire series as well, which is set in a time period a couple thousand years before Riyria. Age of Myth is very different from Ryria, and, in my opinion, it is not as successful. Primarily this is because it is not as complex or compelling as the Riyria books. This could be because it is only half the size of any of those books and thus there is not enough space to produce an equivalent level of complexity as appears in the Riyria books. Despite this, I am not saying Age of Myth, is bad, just that it is not as flawless and enjoyable as those books. The three main characters are Arion, a Fhrey (elf) who is a master of the Art (magic); Raithe, a Rhune (human) who is known as the God Killer for showing that it is actually physically possible for Fhreys to be slain; Malcolm (a Fhrey-enslaved Rhune who is forced to go on the run with Raithe), Suri (a teenaged mystic and orphaned child who grew up in the forest) and Persephone (the widow of the chieftain of a Rhune encampment called Dahl Ren). Overall, my favorite characters were Suri and Arion. I definitely like that Sullivan does an excellent job with his female characters. One of the best features of Riyria was the camaraderie and humor of Hadrian and Royce and Sullivan tries to replicate this with Raithe and Malcolm but since they do not have as prominent a role in the book it doesn't work as well. Overall, I'm glad I read Book 1 of the new series and will definitely read the rest of the new saga. But I am looking forward more to reading Sullivan's other trilogy featuring Hadrian and Royce (the Riyria Chronicles) than the rest of the Legend of the First Empire.

Title: Age of Myth.
Author: Michael J. Sullivan.
Paperback: 432 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date Published: June 28, 2016.
Date Read: September 13, 2016.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★☆  (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Mermaids Singing (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan, #1) by Val McDermid

The Mermaids Singing is the first book in the long-running mystery series written by Val McDermid which features  Dr. Tony Hill (a psychologist and criminal profiler) and Carol Jordan (police detective) as the main characters. The series has been adapted for British television as "Wire in the Blood" (the  title of the second book) which ran for six seasons. 

This first book is a surprisingly gory but excellent entry in the British police procedural genre. The primary distinguishing feature between this series and numerous others I have read in this genre (Peter Robinson, Deborah Crombie, Elizabeth George all come to mine) is the chemistry between the leads (it doesn't seem to be romantic tension at this point, but I suspect that will change as the series continues). The dialogue is excellent, and we get first-person perspectives on the action from both Tony and Carol, which immediately illuminates how each views the other.

The main criminal in  The Mermaids Singing is a serial killer who is abducting and murdering men and dumping the bodies in the gay district of Bradfield, a fictional West Yorkshire city in the North of England. Mcdermid provides TMI (too much information) about the gory details of the vicious ways the serial killer dispatches his victims. Eventually, the reader gets access to the thoughts of the killer as well.

Two of the key character dynamics in The Mermaid Singing  are Tony's battle to have his work as a psychologist appreciated by the police and Carol's battle with ingrained sexism in the police force.

Overall, I was very impressed with the suspenseful nature of the plot and the level of details provided about the police activity in pursuit of the killer. Both Carol and Tony are very interesting characters and I look forward to reading more books featuring them.

Title: The Mermaids Singing.
Author: Val McDermid.
Paperback: 364 pages.
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperback.
Date Published: June 17, 2002.
Date Read: September 17, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★ (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Ink and Bone (Great Library, #1) by Rachel Caine

Really 4+ STARS.

Although it is ostensibly Young Adult (YA) fiction, and the primary characters are teenagers, Ink and Bone is still quite engaging and thrilling fantasy.

The premise is what the world would look like if The Library at Alexandria had never been destroyed and had instead somehow grown powerful enough to eliminate and prevent the development of the printing press.

However, in addition to monopolizing the archiving and distribution of information, The Library uses alchemy to magically move books from one location to another and is also able to design automatons (robots) to enforce their edicts that the private possession of books is illegal.

There were some aspects of the world which really don't make much sense (it's 2025 but there's no modern technology like machine guns or nuclear weapons or television or radio?) However, the author Rachel Caine does a VERY good job of putting the primary protagonist Jess Brightwell in repeated dangerous situations that are quite thrilling. Another compelling feature of the book is the strong group of companions that are going through the training to become scholars and join the Library with Jess. And several of these companions do not survive to the end of the book.

A very nice feature of the book is the diversity of the characters (there's a gay couple that is central to the plot, and there is a female character who always wears a head scarf and a big blonde Teutonic guy who is really smart (very good with his hands) and many of the characters are described as dark-skinned or "nut-brown."

Overall I'm glad I finally read this book and I am very much looking forward to reading the sequels!

Title: Ink and Bone (The Great Library, #1).
Author: Rachel Caine.
Paperback: 352 pages.
Publisher: Berkley.
Date Published: July 7, 2015.
Date Read: January 2, 2016.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Bobiverse Trilogy (We Are Legion, For We Are Many, All These Worlds)

The Bobiverse is a space opera trilogy consisting of three books (We Are Legion, For We Are Many, All These Worlds) written by Dennis E. Taylor.

We Are Legion is a pretty fun read. It is definitely space opera and based around an interestingly original premise: Bob wakes up and discovered he has basically been reincarnated as a machine intelligence (based on his original personality and brain scan). Bob basically gets hit by a bus walking back after he signs the contract to digitally preserve his brain after death.

The story moves forward with Bob becoming the animating intelligence for a spaceship that is exploring the galaxy looking for habitable planets for humanity. While this is going on Bob figures out how to clone (or more accurately, copy) himself. But these new copies are not identical to the original, and eventually the story splits multiple times as we start to follow what happens with these new Bob copies, who each get their own names and chapters.

I must admit the story gets a little bogged down in the minute details of space exploration at that point but here the fact that the author deliberately deploys humor (oftentimes quite nerdy in nature) is a key plus that kept me engaged in the story. I am curious to see how the story continues and concludes so I will probably read the sequels, eventually.

Title: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse, #1).
Author: Dennis E. Taylor.
Paperback: 383 pages.
Publisher: Worldbuilders Press.
Date Published: September 20, 2016.
Date Read: July 28, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

Interesting and fun space opera

For We Are Many is the second book in the Bobiverse series. The key idea is the premise that consciousness can be stored and replicated in an electronic format. Additionally, the plot involves the exploration of the Galaxy and the colonization of multiple planets by the remnants of humanity, steered by artificial intelligences who are copies of the original Bob.

Another key storyline in this book is based around the discovery of a primitive alien species called the Deltans that is basically in the Stone Age stage of development. Bob spends a lot of his time following the Deltans and begins to come to terms with the fact that he is basically immortal which means he will eventually outlive most of the people (and aliens) he has grown close to.  

In addition to the benevolent aliens known as the Deltans, we are also exposed to another species, this time one which is incredibly malevolent. The Others, as they become known as, are sort of like interplanetary locusts. They enter a star system and strip of it all metallic elements, and they also kill any alien life but, ominously, remove the bodies. Eventually we discover that they are using the metals to build a Dyson Sphere around their home star, and it is presumed they use the alien bodies as a food source.

Overall, it's really hard to think of this book as a distinct story separate from the first book that precedes it and the one that succeeds it. In some sense, the trilogy as a whole makes up one complex story.

Title: For We Are Many (Bobiverse, #2).
Author: Dennis E. Taylor.
Paperback: 321 pages.
Publisher: Worldbuilders Press.
Date Published: April 18, 2017.
Date Read: August 2, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A-/B+ (3.5/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A-.

All These Worlds is the third (and presumably, last) book in the "Bobiverse" series. The action follows seamlessly from the end of the second book For We Are Many. The premise of the Bobiverse is that an electronically replicated version of a human brain (which happened to have originally been in some dude named "Bob") is able to exist in perpetuity in computers. Bob has made multiple copies of itself and solved numerous technological issues to oversee the colonization of multiple habitable planets in our galaxy. The Bobiverse is the volume of space which copies of Bob (each of which is slightly different from the original Bob, and become their own individual personalities and computer-based intelligences) travel through. By Book 3 we have hundreds of Bob-copies running around the Universe, controlling ships and weapons. (Another key feature of the Bobiverse is the existence of 3-D printers, which can produce copies of many physical objects given the plans and the metallic resources, including making copies of 3-D printers!)

Humanity still exists, but it is trapped on an Earth which is slowly turning uninhabitable due to environmental changes (but too quickly for the .1% of humanity that remains barely alive on it). Some fraction of the Bobs spend a fair amount of their time managing the discovery, exploration and colonization of habitable planets in other star systems by humans, with the question of how to physically remove and save the remaining 16 million human beings marooned on our home planet becoming a central issue (colony ships can only hold up to 10,000 people at once, which means one need 1600 colony ship trips in order to save humanity).

Most of the time the Bobs find aliens that are technologically inferior to humanity and cause no problem but eventually they run into aliens whom they call the Others who are building their own Dyson sphere (a gigantic habitable structure which surrounds a star) and are basically pillaging star systems for the resources necessary to create their own home. They are definitely Bad Aliens and thankfully since space is pretty big, the humans and Bobs can mostly avoid them, until time comes when they can't and The Others decide to travel to our solar system.

Overall, apart from the existential question of what will be done about the Others, and whether humanity be saved (come on what do YOU think will happen?) there is not much dramatic tension in this (or, frankly, any of the previous books) but as a trilogy the three books are a pleasant diversion, especially if you are a fan of stories about space opera, first-contact with aliens or interstellar exploration.

Title: All These Worlds (Bobiverse, #3).
Author: Dennis E. Taylor.
Paperback: 282 pages.
Publisher: Worldbuilders Press.
Date Published: August 8, 2017.
Date Read: August 16, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.

2017 HUGO AWARDS: Jemisin Wins 2nd (Consecutive) Best Novel Award

The 2017 Hugo awards were announced last night in Helsinki, Finland and N.K. Jemisin, last year's winner for The Fifth Season, won again, for the second book in her Broken Earth trilogy, The Obelisk Gate. Jemisin, who last year became the first African-American woman to win the prestigious best novel award, has now won two in a row, the first time that has happened since Lois McMastr Bujold won in 1991 and 1992 for two entries in her longrunning Vorkosigian saga, which won the new category of Best Series this year.

When I looked at the Hugo award nominations for Best Novel this year, my choice for the win would have been Cixin Liu's At Death's End. However, Jemisin would probably be my second choice, so this is a happy result! Jemisin was not present in Helsinki to accept her award, so my childhood friend, Dr. Karen Lord, a successful science fiction writer in her own right, accepted on her behalf (see picture at the top of this post)!

Book 3 in Jemisin's Broken Earth series, The Stone Sky, will be released on Tuesday August 15.

BOOK REVIEW: Poseidon's Wake (Poseidon's Children, #3) by Alastair Reynolds

The third (and final) book in Alastair Reynolds' space-opera trilogy Poseidon's Children about the Akinya family is called Poseidon's Wake. It provides a conclusion to the story that began in Blue Remembered Earth and continued in On The Steel Breeze. The story is set in a world where climate change has made Nigeria a world power and it turns out that the family that runs the global mega-corporation that is helping humanity to explore the cosmos is Black and African. Swahili becomes the lingua franca of space travel!

By the time we get to the third book we are several hundred (possibly a few thousand) years in the future after the events in the first book and probably a few hundred have elapsed since the events of the second book. The main characters in Poseidon's Wake are Goma Akinya and Kanu Akinya. (Goma and Kanu are not technically related because in the second book, Chiku cloned herself and created three Chikus: Chiku Red, Chiku Yellow and Chiku Green. Goma is a descendant of Chiku Green while Ranu is Chiku Yellow's son. One thing which made On The Steel Breeze so interesting was the interesting adventures that each of the Chikus went on.

One aspect of Reynolds' writing that I greatly appreciate is that he likes to approach "big questions" in his books. One of the key ideas in the book is the nature of sentience. In all three books, uplifted elephants called Tantors, who are smart enough that they can communicate with humans, play a key role. Several key roles are played by artificial intelligences, from the panopticon A.I that prevents any kind of violence from occurring on Earth in the first two books, to the downloaded intelligence of original matriarch Eunice Akinya and the motley collection of evolved computer and robot-based intelligences that eventually take over Mars.

Time is another important element of the books, because since he is a real-life physicist (with a Ph.D. in the subject) Reynolds understands the complications of faster-than-light travel, so a key journey in Poseidon's Wake takes several hundreds of years to complete as most of the crew remains in "coldsleep" hibernation. Both Ranu and Goma take different paths to get to the star system (Gliese 163) where an interesting signal has originated that clearly demonstrates evidence of the existence of another intelligence. When we eventually meet the Watchkeepers, we discover they have been spacefaring long before humans evolved on Earth and have some curious theories about the nature of existence of all intelligent life in the Universe, as well as its ultimate disposition.

I don't want to give away important plot developments but there is an important confrontation between the Watchkeepers and the various intelligences that came from the solar system (human, elephant and A.I.) which, in my opinion was ultimately dissatisfying. Overall, I am glad that I read the entire series, but it was still not as emotionally resonant or intellectually stimulating as his Revelation Space which cemented his reputation as a space-opera author of note decades ago.

Title: Poseidon's Wake (Poseidon's Children, Book 3)
Author: Alastair Reynolds.
Paperback: 598 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date Published: February 6, 2016.
Date Read: February 13, 2016.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (3.5/5.0)

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Colson Whitehead Wins The Pulitzer For Fiction

Colson Whitehead, the author of The Underground Railroad, has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for this award-winning work about slavery. The commendation from the Pulitzer jury says Mr. Whitehead's win was:

For a smart melding of realism and allegory that combines the violence of slavery and the drama of escape in a myth that speaks to contemporary America.

Whitehead, 47, had previously won the MacArthur "genius" grant (in 2002) as well as a Guggenheim fellowship.  The Underground Railroad also won this year's National Book award.

There has been an announcement that Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning director of this year's Best Picture, Moonlight, will adapt the book into a limited series for Amazon.

2017 HUGO AWARDS: Nominations Announced

The finalists for the 2017 Hugo Awards were announced yesterday. In the category of Best Novel, the nominations are:

Best Novel (2078 ballots)

• All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor Books / Titan Books)
• A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (Hodder & Stoughton / Harper Voyager US)
• Death’s End by Cixin Liu (Tor Books / Head of Zeus)
• Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris Books)
• The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit Books)
• Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (Tor Books)

Last year's winner was N.K. Jemisin, for The Fifth Season, the first book in her Broken Earth trilogy, which continues with The Obelisk Gate. That, and Death's End, the third book in Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy which began with the Hugo-award-winning The Three-Body Problem, are the only two books on the list I have read. I tried to read Ninefox Gambit  and couldn't get past the first chapter. I read the first book by Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet but it didn't engage me enough to have a strong desire to read the sequel.

Charlie Jane Anders is probably the first transgender author to be nominated in this category but I don't really have an interest in reading All The Birds in the Sky, which is apparently about debates between science and magic and childhood. Too Like the Lightning is in my burgeoning TBR pile, but people seem to love or hate this ambitious work.

If I had a vote, I would probably pick Cixin Liu's Death's End, as an awesome end to an awesome hard sci-fi trilogy. We will get the results in late August, at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki, Finland.

BOOK REVIEW: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

I'm excited that I have finally finished my first Stephen King book (speed reading my sister's copy of Carrie when we were both teenagers doesn't count).

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of horror so I have generally stayed away from Mr. King's work previously.

However the premise of 11/22/63 fascinated me (someone goes back in time to try and stop the John F. Kennedy assassination) and even though I was a bit daunted by the size of the book I put it on my amazon wish list around Christmas time and was happy when it arrived.

11/22/63 is about a lot more than just time travel, but as a time travel novel it succeeds quite extraordinarily.

But 11/22/63 also succeeds as a love story, a thriller and as social commentary (about the 1950s and 1960s in America). I appreciated the fact that the protagonist gets sent back to 1958 and although there is a lot he likes, he also notices that for people who are not cis heterosexual white males like him, life in the 1950s was not so great (racism, antisemitism, homophobia, antediluvian attitudes about contraception and sexual activity are all brought up during the course of the novel). Maybe since a lot of the story takes place as the main character works as a teacher and I'm a teacher it strongly appealed to me, but I don't think so. I think this book has a pretty universal appeal.

It's definitely a bit slower than it needs to be but it also succeeds on its own terms and it totally deserves its excellent ratings by oodles and oodles of people on Goodreads. If someone understands the ending could they please explain it to me, especially the stuff about the various (Yellow, Red, Green and Ochre) card-carrying guys at the time portal. Even without that, I am glad that I read the book. I'm aware that Hulu has made a series based on the book starring James Franco but I don't feel like I need to see another version of the book.

This was the first Stephen King book I had read but is certainly not be my last! I don't think I'm going to run out and read The Dark Tower stuff (which is supposed to be a tale of epic fantasy). I have already read the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch), which I enjoyed tremendously since it is in the mystery-thriller genre. I look forward to reading books by Mr. King in some of my other favorite genres.

Title: 11/22/63.
Author: Stephen King.
Paperback: 880 pages.
Publisher: Gallery Books.
Date Published: July 24, 2012.
Date Read: July 2, 2015.

GOODREADS RATING: **** (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A

BOOK REVIEW: Death's End by Cixin Liu

Wow. The sheer scope and scale of what Liu Cixin has accomplished here with the concluding book Death's End of the award-winning Three-Body Problem trilogy (officially known as Remembrance of Earth's Past) is truly awesome, in the original sense of the word. It was hard to imagine how Liu could top himself with the wildly original ideas he displayed in the first two books (The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest) but I believe that he totally did. I remember sneaking peeks at other reviews of Death's End  which made the claim that the third book was even more original, intriguing and exciting than the first two and to be honest I was quite skeptical that could be true. If you are reading this before you have read the third book (and after you have read the first or second) trust me, you are in for a treat! It's difficult to discuss the details of the conclusion of the series because I don't want to give away the ending. However, I will say that the conflict between the aliens (whom we now call Trisolarians because of the three stars that surround their home world, partially explaining the title of the first book) and the people of Earth is resolved, in a way that is ultimately quite satisfying (to me, at least). It's interesting that each of the three books has a very different main character (protagonist) who is depicted in a very nuanced way, with real flaws. Of course, part of this is that the author puts his characters through extreme situations where they are often responsible for making decisions that can affect the survival of humanity itself and in many of these situations the "right" decision or course of action is not clear, but the story is never boring and it is VERY often quite surprising. In the third book that main character is Cheng Xin, a female scientist trying to assist with the defense of Earth from attack by Trisolaris. I think it's great that such a great work of science fiction like Death's End  has a female protagonist. And there's no question in my mind that this is a great work of science fiction. It's not an easy read (most worthwhile things are not easy!) but it is absolutely an enjoyable and engaging one. Awesome!

Title: Death's End.
Author: Cixin Liu.
Paperback: 608 pages.
Publisher: Tor.
Date Published: September 20, 2016.
Date Read: February 10, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ***** (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.08/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

2017 NEBULA AWARDS: Nominations Announced

The Nebula awards are one of the most prestigious awards in the genre of speculative fiction. The winners are voted on by members of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA), who are generally people who have published works of science fiction.

Last year's winner for Best Novel was Naomi Novik's Uprooted which was also nominated for the Hugo award, an award which is voted on by people who register for the World Science Fiction convention (WorldCon).

This year's nominees for best novel are:

Novel

• All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor; Titan)

• Borderline, Mishell Baker (Saga)

• The Obelisk Gate, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

• Ninefox Gambit, Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris US; Solaris UK)

• Everfair, Nisi Shawl (Tor)

Unfortunately I have only read one of these books N.K. Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate (which I quite enjoyed) and is the sequel to her Hugo award-winning The Fifth Season (which I liked even more).

BOOK REVIEW: City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett

A solid 4.0 stars.

I was somewhat ambivalent about the first book in The Divine Cities trilogy, City of Stairs, and as I stated in my review I almost quit reading the book (more than once), primarily due what I thought was the slow progress of plot developments. In my opinion, the most attractive aspect of the City of Stairs (and it is also an important feature of its sequel, City of Blades) is the intricate world-building and the atmospheric setting of the books.

In City of Blades the action starts almost immediately (really from the very first chapter). I never felt tempted to not finish the book, but it did take me longer to read than most books. I think it is slow going because the language Bennet uses is complex (and evocative).

The material of the books is about a fictional land where Gods (or Divinities, in the parlance of the book) have been vanquished from certain areas on the Continent and a colonialist government called Saypur has been able to take over the land which was once held in sway by these Divinities. Saypur is secular, and although the Gods once were very real now they are gone, and Continentals and Saypuris are both coming to terms with the new reality. Saypur mainly does this by trying to censor any mention of Divine phenomena.

The first book (City of Stairs) was about an incident in the ancient city of Bulikov where some suspicious behavior that appeared to be the act of some otherworldly power is investigated by our heroes Shara and Sigrud.

In the second book (City of Blades), Shara sends her erstwhile rival, General Turyin Mulaghesh (who was the Saypuri military commander responsible for Bulikov and who by the conclusion of the Bulikov affair ends up becoming Shara's ally despite beginning that book as her obvious antagonist) to another of the Divine cities, Voortyashtan. There Mulaghesh has to solve the mystery of what happened to a previous Saypuri envoy who was investigating suspicious phenomena and by local accounts seems to have gone crazy before she disappeared. Mulaghesh also becomes privy to a technological breakthrough that her former Saypuri commander (General Lalith Biswal) is hoping will have military applications but which appears to be too good to be true. Mulaghesh has a complicated relationship with Biswal because together they were complicit to a slaughter of civilians which led to a notorious Saypuri military victory.

City of Blades I think is simply a better book than City of Stairs (although I will confess I bought physical copies of both of them, something I don't always do). Bennett weaves in familiar themes from the first book (colonialism, religion/spirtualism, fanaticism, bureaucracy, cultural relativism, historical revisionism) while introducing new characters (Signe, Sigrud's daughter and Biswal, Mulaghesh's commander are standouts) and returning to ones we have seen before (Mulaghesh herself and, of course, Sigrid). Shara, the main character in the first book, has merely a cameo, in this one, but it is significant.

I am definitely looking to reading the concluding work in the trilogy, City of Miracles, next year!

Title: City of Blades (The Divine Cities, #2).
Author: Robert Jackson Bennett.
Paperback: 496 pages.
Publisher: Broadway Books.
Date Published: January 26, 2016.
Date Read: November 2, 2016.

GOODREADS RATING: **** (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse, #6) by James S.A. Corey

I still think The Expanse series is awesome but for the first time in my reading of the series I was not overwhelmed with enthusiasm when I finished the last page of the latest (sixth) book, Babylon's Ashes. (I have bought and read almost every book in The Expanse series on day-of-release and devoured them soon afterwards.) After the stakes for our home planet and the entire human race grew as large as they possibly could in Book 5 (Nemesis Games) there was bound to be a let down in this book, and there was (to me).

There is still a LOT of action in Babylon's Ashes (many space ship battles!) but after our characters survived ridiculous odds in Book 5 I never really believed for a minute that they would be killed in Book 6 regardless of how bleak the situation looked for our heroes. (And it was VERY bleak, MANY times!) So the suspenseful final action scene  in Babylon's Ashes wasn't really as exciting of effective as intended to me because I didn't really think that our heroes would die. I'm not sure why I felt this way, because the author (James S.A. Corey) did kill off some major characters in Babylon's Ashes.

A key feature of this book was the increased presence of political and philosophical discussions, primarily about the nature of evil and the limits of loyalty. I generally enjoyed and appreciated these aspects of the book.

Happily, some of my favorite characters in The Expanse books make pretty substantial appearances in this installment of the story: Avasarala, Bobbie, Naomi, Holden, and Amos. Even Clarissa Mao ("Peaches") is starting to grow on me. I'd love to get some more background on Said, Avasarala's assistant. Also, Michio Pa is an awesome addition to the  cast of first-person characters. 

The teenage angst of Fillip Inaro made my eyes itch and I felt like I should have cared more about Dr. Prax Meng's sub-plot but I didn't really.  I don't really understand why Meng was one of the few characters from Book 2 (Caliban's War) to re-appear  in a later book. Filip's dad (and Naomi's ex-husband) Marco Inaro is a suitably evil villain. It is sort of comically (and cosmically) poignant that the most evil person in the known galaxy just happens to be James Holden's girlfriend's ex-husband. I'm sure many readers can relate! 

All in all I'm still very much looking forward to Book 7 of the series (apparently titled Persepolis Rising) and am also very excited about seeing how Season 2 of SyFy's television adaptation of The Expanse turns out. To reiterate my overall impression of Babylon's Ashes: for the first time in my reading of the series I was not completely enthralled with this entry. Perhaps my expectations were too high but Corey had met them (and exceeded them) with all the previous books and I hope (and believe that) he will again.

Title: Babylon's Ashes (The Expanse, #6).
Author: James S.A. Corey
Paperback: 538 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: December 6, 2016.
Date Read: January 14, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: **** (4.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Nexus Trilogy by Ramez Naam

Ramez Naam's Nexus trilogy consists of  the books Nexus, Crux and Apex. The series takes place in the year 2040 and beyond. The central character is Kaden Lane, who invented a drug called Nexus which allows the human brain to be programmed and networked like a computer. Various books in the series have won multiple awards: the Prometheus award (2014), Philip K. Dick award (2015).
The first book Nexus in the series was optioned in 2013 by Paramount to be made into a film. The entire series is a heckuva fun ride; I inhaled all three books during Thanksgiving break last year. They are incredibly hard to put down once you start them. Beware!

Excellent SCIENCE fiction action-packed thriller!

I was skeptical at first about this book (there's a LOT of mumbo jumbo and touchy-feely language in the very beginning) but  I became increasingly enthralled since after the opening sequence Nexus hurtles along at a breakneck pace, introducing nuanced and interesting dilemmas for the characters as the story rushes forward.

Any STEM academic will recognize the cultural milieu in which much of the story in Nexus takes place. The main character is Kade Lane, a late-stage graduate student who has discovered a breakthrough to expand the Nexus operating system to enhance the duration and intensity by which human brains can interact with each other remotely. There is a lot of clever-sounding technobabble involving computational neuroscience, programming and biology that will appeal to most scientifically oriented readers.

Additionally, the world building of Nexus is top notch. The story is set in the mid-21st century and includes excerpts of documents which refers to (future) historical events which give a compelling sense of verisimilitude to the book. For example, one of the primary antagonists in the plot is Samantha (Sam) Cataranes, who works for the Emerging Risks Directorate (ERD) of the Department of Homeland Security. The ERD uses all sorts of technological forms of surveillance and weaponry to protect the United States from various technological advances that are perceived to be destabilizing or open to potential exploitation by evildoers. As someone who works inside a federal agency, the depiction of government action  (and inaction) appear to be right on point.

The plot follows Kade and Sam as they go to an international biotechnology conference in Bangkok Thailand in order to meet the world's leading scientist in the area of nanotechnology (who is going to offer Kade a postdoc position in her lab) and teach her more about how Kade's scientific breakthrough could change the world (and the humans who live in it). Of course there are people who are determined to maintain the status quo and they want to steal Kade's invention and use it for their ends (or suppress it's development). The struggle between these forces is thrillingly depicted in an exciting and suspenseful way by the author, Ramez Naam.

If you liked Marcus Sakey's Brilliance trilogy (and I certainly did), I'm confident that you will enjoy Nexus. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the Nexus trilogy and hope that it maintain's its quality and energy.

Title: Nexus.
Author: Ramez Naam.
Paperback: 460 pages.
Publisher: Bad Robot.
Date Published: December 18, 2012.
Date Read: November 23, 2016.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

Very fun technothriller!

The second book in the Nexus trilogy, Crux, extends the story begun in the first book, Nexus, by broadening the dilemmas encountered by the characters to even larger scale. At the same time Crux reveals ever widening conspiracies by government agencies as they grapple with the technological advances engendered by the widespread distribution of the drug Nexus which allows human-to-human brain communication and control.

Crux is pretty good but not as good as its prequel, Nexus. It's still very well plotted and also action-packed but to me the story itself doesn't really advance as far as the first one did. (This is a known common problem with middle books in trilogies.) 

I've seen in other reviews of the books that Naam has been called a "plot artist" instead of a writer and I think that is unfair, but I would agree that plotting and pacing are his strong suits and characterization and lyrical/lexical expression are not.

This is not to say that Crux is bad, it's just not as fantastic as the first book (Nexus) was. The series (so far) is at least as good as the Brilliance series by Marcus Sakey and the Tao series by Wesley Chu and occupies a similar narrative space (action-packed, techno-thriller set in the near future with SFnal elements).

Title: Crux.
Author: Ramez Naam.
Paperback: 512 pages.
Publisher: Bad Robot.
Date Published: August 27. 2013.
Date Read: November 25, 2016.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A- (3.83/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.

An awesome and exciting SF read!

The final book in the Nexus trilogy ratchets up the suspense, stakes and action to pulse-pounding levels.

The killer app (or key idea) of Apex (and the series as a whole) is the existence of Nexus, a drug which allows one to access and manipulate the human brain like a computer operating system. Additionally, Nexus-enhanced brains can communicate with other Nexus-enhanced brains similar to internet-connected computers. 

Ramez Naan takes this technological development and explores how the world would react were this to happen (roughly 25 years in the future), paying particular attention to the governments of United States, China and India. It is an exciting and frighteningly realistic portrayal of how events can be influenced by the decisions and actions by a few key people (the President, White House Chief of Staff, National Security Adviser, etc).

The main character we follow through all three books is Kaden Lane, who developed Nexus 5, which is much more powerful and longer-lasting than earlier iterations of psychotropic drugs. Kaden is flawed but we get to know him quite well, and he matures a lot as the story develops through the three books of the series. The Kaden of Book 3 is definitely NOT the same naive graduate student of Book 1. In addition to Kaden, we also follow the fortunes of Feng, a cloned biologically enhanced bodyguard who was tasked with protecting Kade but now treats him like a brother and Sam(antha) Cataranes, a Nexus-running, US government operative who was tasked with controlling Kaden to satisfy her mission orders but who has a change of heart when she meets a child exposed to Nexus in the womb in Book 2.

In addition to Nexus, Ramez Naan also posits other technological and sociological advances that greatly enhance the story. Overall, Apex is a near-future, hard sci-fi techno-thriller, and an excellent read.

Title: Apex.
Author: Ramez Naam.
Paperback: 608 pages.
Publisher: Bad Robot.
Date Published: May 5, 2015.
Date Read: December 3, 2016.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.