Entries Tagged 'Science Fiction' ↓

Reviewed By: The Goose

I didn’t want to read it. Refused to buy it. But, that cantankerous old monkey pulled a fast one and shipped me his copy. He knew I would then read it, that I wouldn’t be able to resist. For once in his benighted life he was right. Sneaky old trickster!

I have many reasons for not wanting to read this particular novel. First, I was seriously disgruntled with Card after I read that transcript on sff.com. Secondly, the early reports I had about Ender’s Shadow filled me with misgivings. Score one for intuition!

Right now, let me warn those of you monkies out there, whom-against our better advice-have not yet read Ender’s Game: DO NOT READ THIS ONE FIRST! It will ruin Ender’s Game for you on several levels.

Despite my misgivings about Card, he is still one of the most talented writers around today. So, I quickly fell into the story, which begins, innocuously enough, in the streets of Rotterdam where Bean is a very little urchin living on the streets.

However, he quickly organizes all the street kids of Rotterdam into a semblance of civilization (as Card puts it) and thus comes to the attention of the International Fleet (I.F.). So, of course, Bean is rushed off to Battle School.

This is where Card starts to fall off of his rocker, both scientifically and story-wise.

Generally speaking, Card has always grounded his theories in some sort of scientific fact. But, let me just say this: intelligence, and especially great intelligence, requires longer gestational and juvenile periods of development. This is a biological truth. It is never the other way around. And story-wise, it’s not that he deviates from the original plot, but more that he ruins or distorts some of the central assumptions and facts of that plot.

So, other than shattering the core of Ender’s Game and stepping off the scientific deep-end, this is a good story and an excellent tale of the life of Bean. If you have read E.G., you may be offended by some of the things Card has done here, but you will agree that it is still a good story.

P.S. Look up Deus ex Machinain your dictionary before you read this - see if you can pick out what Card has disguised his as!

Hardcover - 384 pages 1 Ed edition (August 31, 1999) Tor Books; ISBN: 031286860X ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.28 x 9.55 x 6.45

Reviewed By: The Blind Monkey
Monday, September 6, 1999

“First things first. Ender’s Game IS the best body of work Card has ever done.”

That was the introduction of The Goose’s February review, and it still holds true. But before I fall into any lame comparisons, let me tell you what Ender’s Shadow is all about.

This companion novel - or ‘parrallax’ novel, as OSC calls it - takes a whole new perspective on the invasion of the buggers by telling the story of Bean, the youngest and smartest kid in military training. Although it covers the same time period, this tale is told through Bean’s eyes as he lives in the shadow of the famous Ender Wiggin, who must outsmart the adults and figure out how to defeat the Formics.

The idea is pure novelty, and I was anxious to discover if Card was forging new ground with a fresh new literary strategy — or if he was simply out of ideas and grasping for the brilliance exhibited in his early career. Either way, I figured it would be fun finding out.

PHASE I: Elation

So — when I began Ender’s Shadow, I was elated! After all, Game was one of the greatest books of all time, and I have really been looking forward to revisiting Battle School through someone else’s eyes. Now I’m not a serious sci-fi freak or anything, but I recognized the genius in the original, and could only hope that ES would follow in it’s footsteps.

In the first 131 pages, I was not disappointed. These chapters chronicle Bean’s early years as an urchin struggling to survive on the streets of Rotterdam. They give us an idea of what was going on in the rest of the world while Ender was being recruited and prodded by Colonel Graff (the original title was, in fact, Urchin, but it was modified for bankability). This part of the story is dark, cynical, and filled with tormented characters with rich, complex motivations and clever ploys for survival.

PHASE II: Annoyance

The middle third of ES chronicles Bean’s quest to outmanuver the adults at Battle School, and to get everything he can out of his experiences to serve his long term goals. There are two characteristics about this section that truly, truly got on my nerves.

First, Bean deftly deduces some of the key underlying themes revealed at the end of Ender’s Game on page 132. Card then spends the rest of the novel making Bean try to prove or disprove these deductions. This is unbelieveably annoying, as Bean is set up throughout this whole section to be so incredibly sharp that Ender’s intellect pales in comparison.

Yeah, whatever.

The second thing that really got to me is that this section reads like a self-help management rag. Bean’s weakness is his size, and he spends most of his time analyzing the leadership style of the teachers, other commanders, etc. Now what he learns is extraordinary, but it is too heavy handed and takes absolutely no imagination to apply in every day life - which made me feel like it was aimed at readers of somewhat lesser intelligence than your typical Blind Monkey. It’s still good - but grates a bit.

PHASE III: Scepticism

Finally, Bean gets interested in the international ramifications of what the end of the war with the formics may mean on earth. This is intriguing, as political and psychological influences have always been one of Card’s strengths. But even though he spends the entire book explaining it - I never quite believed that Bean could have figured this stuff on his own. And finally, there is the moment where Colonel Graff reveals something that - even though I haven’t read Ender’s Game in a while - I am damn sure he didn’t know to reveal. Because - if he did - Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide would have turned out differently.

Residual Effects

As with all life experiences, people can’t help but bring their own moods, opinions, and personal situations to bear in everything they do. And this simple fact was at the forefront of my mind while reading Ender’s Shadow . I know alot more than I did the day I tore through Card’s original and slowly closed it’s covers with tears brimming over my eyes.

Yes, this book is a novelty. It’s good - but only because Card had so much to work with that it couldn’t possibly have gone wrong. It starts out brilliant. But after the first hundred pages or so, it loses it’s luster.

Still, if I am to step back and measure it on my normal scale, it’s better than most.

Hardcover - 384 pages 1 Ed edition (August 31, 1999) Tor Books; ISBN: 031286860X ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.28 x 9.55 x 6.45

Reviewed by: The Goose

Today, we are going to visit the works of Isaac Asimov–Father of modern Science Fiction. Most neophytes and dilettantes know him only for his Foundation series. The fact is that he was one of the most prolific writers of the modern era. I don’t have the exact numbers but it’s a lot. Dear old Isaac wrote about everything from science fiction to religion. He wrote about chemistry and biology and physics.

Asimov’s Science Fiction is not profound like Herbert or Dick. It is more driven by character interaction and plot. In a lot of cases his stories are intrigue and detective-like in style and form. Which brings us to this review. Last week BM was mouthing about another ‘Theme Week’ or whatever. This time the topic was to be international intrigue. As in Tom Clancy and the like. Well I don’t read much in that direction, but what about interstellar intrigue, and a murder mystery all wrapped into one? THAT I can do.

Some few hundred years after the first wave of Interstellar colonization Earth is the poor, red-headed, and left-handed stepchild of it’s children–The Spacers.

Earth is infested with Cities, overgrown and enclosed metroplexes. Earthborn Humans have an engrained agoraphobia from living in their encapsulated buildings.

Spacers are humans living on the 50 planets of the colonization, the most powerful of these is Aurora–the first planet colonized. The Spacers live aseptic lives. Having no naturally occurring natural disease or microorganisms they have an irrational fear of infection, especially from Earth. They live long lives, nearly 400 years. They have a city on Earth from which they control the Earth government.

Where Spacers are increasingly dependent on robots Earth is rejecting, often times violently, their electronic counterparts.

Elijah Bailey is a detective for New York City. He is long in the face and morose in character. He is a good detective whose superiors cannot see his worth.

Then it happens! There is a murder in Space Town! Someone has killed one of their most respected scientists.

Bailey is assigned the case, and a partner. The Spacers have required that the Earth-detective take on a Spacer Partner–R.

Daneel Olivaw. Elijah’s boss and his bosses have made it clear that Bailey is NOT to mess it up. If he does not find the murderer Earth will lose a whole lot to the Spacers. Daneel is the typical Spacer, well over six-foot, blond, incredibly calm and condescending.

He is also a robot. The first humaniform robot.

So, go along with Bailey and Olivaw on some wild rides on the ‘the belts’ of NYC and out into the horrifying open. Find out who killed the Spacer Scientist, and Why! Say Je-hose-e-fat (jehosephat) to yourself a hundred times so you don’t stumble over it when you read it on the page.

Paperback Reprint edition (December 1, 1991) Bantam Spectra; ISBN: 0553293400 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.79 x 6.84 x 4.16

Reviewed by: The Blind Monkey

Ender’s Back. And he’s so darn facinating that last week, after re-reading the Goose’s “Ender’s Game” review, I decided it was time to visit him again (Probably the 5th or 6th time I’ve read this book)!

So what keeps me coming back?? Well, there’s the interstellar politics. And the deftly described, magnificently executed twists of the plot. Or perhaps it’s the way he opens your mind and allows your simple little brain to conceive of other species in human terms. But I think it’s the fact that Card can address the most crucial of ethical and philosophical delimas, and still astound and entertain.

Xenocide finds our cast on the outmost colony of Lusitania. He’s saved the Hive Queen and helped the buggers begin the daunting task of rebuilding of their sentient race. And he’s helped billions to understand the pequininos by writing the Life of Human.

But Lusitania also harbors the devestating descolada virus. A virus that violently destroys the humans it infects, but that also enables the piggies to transform into the third life. Because of this threat, the Starways Congress has sent a fleet to use the ‘little Doctor’ to destroy Lusitania, and with it, the only two known sentient species known to man.

Xenocide will astound. It will provoke. It will beg the question - who is Ramen, and who is Varalese?

Maybe we’re the varalese. Maybe xenocide is built into the human psyche as into no other species. In Volume 4 of the Ender Quartet, Card asks if maybe the best thing that could happen for the moral good is for the descolada to get loose, spread throughout the human universe and break us down to nothing.

I highly recommend this book. Ender’s Game gave us action, and Speaker for the Dead gave us sociological exploration. But Xenocide turns a philosophical eye towards the nature of the human race and in the process, to origins of the forces that make us what we are.

It’ll make you think - I guarantee it!

The Goose Is COOKED!! 4/8/99

Well it seems as though Blind Monkey has forgotten (AHEM) a few of the most salient points in this novel. Barring some of the very fantastical and interesting theoretical physics raised. We must keep in mind two things.

FIRST: This book is the first serious journey into the mind of Ender and what he is made of.

SECOND: There are FOUR sentient species discussed here and the three already mentioned are the least interesting in this installment. I leave it to you to find the fourth and discover if I am right or wrong.

– The Goose

Mass Market Paperback Reprint edition (August 1992) Tor Books; ISBN: 0812509250 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.34 x 6.73 x 4.24

Reviewed by: The Goose

In writing the first draft of this review I came to a realization and it was this: My interpretation of Dune is colored by the fact that I have read almost the entire body of Herbert’s work. I’ve read just about everything he ever wrote. Books and stories that most haven’t even heard of. So, the ideas and themes that are mere seeds in Dune appear to me as full-grown. At first I tried to dissociate those insights from the review and tried to look at it from the view of the first reading. Quite predictably that was impossible. So as you read this and say to yourself ‘Where the heck does The Goose get THAT from,’ remember that I am forced to draw my ideas from ALL that Herbert wrote.

Besides being concerned with society, culture, environment and science Herbert is most interested in Sentience. Where it derives from how it develops, how it is handicapped and finally what it is. At first glance (read) you might say ‘where is this dialectic or discussion?’ Dune is a story on a grand scale. An empire millennia in the future. An oppressed people. A commodity of vast value and importance. A noble family. The most nefarious villain we can imagine. A jihad on a galactic scale. Fantastic creatures of the desert called Sand Worms. But nowhere is there a theme, a concern with sentience!

And I ask you: “Are you sure?”

For all its concern with politics and revolution and culture, who are the people that drive this story? There are the Mentat. Humans trained, from infancy, to be smarter and faster than an XMP. Guild Navigators who, with their minds, drive the great highliners safely through the galaxy. Bene Gesserit, women who strive, study, and meditate to bring mind, body and soul into harmony. Finally, the mythical Kwizatz Haderach a man of such mental strength, such total consciousness that he can see the past in his mind’s eye and so doing glimpse the varied paths of the future.

And this universe created on the premise of the Butlerian Jihad. A jihad in which the old technocracy is overthrown and outlawed. A species’ epiphany when it discovers that machines (computers) are a crutch. ‘Thou shalt not build a machine in the likeness of the human mind.’

So I ask again, “are you sure Herbert isn’t concerned with intelligence, with the mind, with human sentience?” It isn’t overt and it isn’t the major strand of this work, but it is the major concern of his entire body of work, and it started here.

————–

Dune is a great adventure. Follow family Atreides from Caladan, to Arrakis-Dune, Desert Planet. A planet on the edge of civilization yet more important than the Emperor’s own.

Meet the Fremen, a wild, untamed people who have great integrity and courage. Discover the Harkonnens - a most despicable and treacherous enemy.

Let’s not forget the Bene Gesserit. Working behind the scenes on their own agenda for generations. Or the Guild Navigators, dependent on Melange not only to guide the ships through space but for their lives.

In the middle of all this, a young man named Paul.

————-

Dune was first published as three novellas: “Dune”, “Muad’Dib”, and “The Prophet” in 1965. Shortly thereafter it was bound into a single volume and promptly won both the Nebula and the Hugo; Science Fiction’s most prestigious awards.

If you want to read more about this world read the rest of the series: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapter House Dune.

For those of you feeling brave enough to challenge Goose on his ideas, check out these titles: Destination Void, and The Jesus Incident. These are not easy reads and more than likely you won’t like or understand them very well the first time. These are the books where Herbert tried to tackle sentience head-on. Not an easy task.

If you took Blind Monkey’s suggestion and read The Dosadi Experiment then follow Xorj X. McKie in Whipping Star and “The Careful Saboteur” a short story in the collection The Worlds of Frank Herbert.

Hardcover (December 1965) Tor Books; ISBN: 0312850581; Dimensions (in inches): 1.15 x 9.48 x 6.43

Reviewed By: The Goose

First things first. Ender’s Game IS the best body of work Card has ever done. There are those out there that will argue one or the other of the sequels (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind) are better. PAH! They’re good, but not THAT good. The Goose will waste no time taunting them. All I will say is that they are WRONG!

***It doesn’t make BM’s top ten list by being okay, you know***

If you want to read a book that explores the cultural, and psychological impact of War on people forget about psychology and political science, this is the book for you. Imagine that your smarter than smart, smarter even than The Goose. What if your whole life you were programmed with the horrors that an alien force inflicted on the Human Race? (The Buggers (please set aside ANY British connotations) have attacked Earth twice. Twice Humanity was very, very lucky.)

Ender Wiggin is many things to many people, up to and including himself. Foremost, however, he is a child. That is something you should never forget as you read this book and increasingly identify with him. Born Andrew he adopted the name ‘Ender’ because his sister, Valentine, could not pronounce Andrew.

…At this point I must digress. Blind Monkey gets first crack at all my prose and the Monkey was definitely UNHAPPY with the original draft. BM said that the best thing about the book is that the end is a total surprise and that I was giving too much away. So, I hacked the review in half and started again. Hopefully, the review is still intriguing enough to spark your interest. I should say that I blindly trust BM’s judgement so if you have a problem take it to the Monkey…

This story is steeped in psychological drama. There is very little action, most of which takes place ‘off stage’ reminiscent of Shakespeare. What ‘onstage’ action there is pertains to the central plot. But it is the interactions between sentients and individual minds that drive this book. Blood and gore is not where it’s at.

The RELATIONSHIPS and CHARACTERS developed throughout the book are what drive it. They create the tension, the suspense, the overall EMOTION. This book is not for the weak-minded. It WILL make you question. It WILL take you to extremes. It WILL make you RE-EVALUATE. I won’t, CAN’T tell you what. It does not require or force a specific response. A specific answer. There is no RIGHT or WRONG only questions that we will find our OWN answers for in our OWN way.

It will surprise, it might enrage, or terrify. It will make you THINK. Which is why it is on BM’s Top Ten list… which I totally agree with and I’ve read a lot more than he has…

(PAH - says the Monkey! You wish. You’re just a lowly Goose.)

Mass Market Paperback Reissue edition (April 1984) Ace Books; ISBN: 0441172717 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.98 x 6.88 x 4.19