Game Of Thrones In Space

Hola Readers, how are you all doing today?  I got a couple fabulous days off that were much needed and were used to my literary advantage...but more on that later.  One of the things I got finished was Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey, the second book in the Expanse series.  I loved the first one and was leery and excited to read the second one as more then once a series has disappointed in it's follow up.  Lucky for me I loved this book as much as the first one.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

At the end of the last book we left the crew of the Rocinante putting themselves back together after helping Detective Miller plunge the protomolecule ridden space station Eros into Venus.  If this doesn't make any sense...go read the book lol.  Anyways Holden and his crew are running around doing errands for Fred Johnson, the de facto leader of the OPA when they stumble across the aftermath of Ganymede.  Ganymede is a moon that has become the main food growing space for the Belt and it was attacked by an unknown monster like entity.  The attack wiped out all of the Earth and Mars marines stationed on the base except for one, our girl Bobbie.  The attack led to the very tense Earth and Mars factions shooting at each other and chaos reigns.  The ensuing violence pretty much decimates that Ganymede station and we meet Prax, a botanist who lives with his young daughter on the base.  Prax discovers his daughter is missing and kind of goes on a bit of a bender in his search for her.  Meanwhile back on Earth Chrisjen Avasarala, the under-secretary representing Earth in the UN is desperately trying to stay in the loop and maintain what peace she can between Earth, Mars and the OPA.  This is further complicated by people both above and below her pushing their own agendas.  Avasarala is particularly interested in keeping an eye on Venus and the energy spikes that seem to correlate with the monster attack.  Bobbie the Martian Marine is brought to the UN as the only survivor to show the video of the monster. Avasarala feels that there is more going on then meets the eye and hires Bobbie to work with her to find out what it is.  Back on Ganymede Holden and crew run into Prax and agree to help him find his daughter.  Their search leads to a hidden lab where Holden...who has had a much closer encounter with the protomolecule then anybody ever needs, realizes what it is they are seeing.  He get's everybody back to the ship and the heck out of dodge.  They fly back to Fred Johnson, where after a tiff, Holden and crew are once again free to take on any contract they want.  They set up a fund to find Mei, Prax's daughter and off they go.  Avasarala after some stuff realizes that one of the Generals is behind the whole "protomolecule as a weapon" thing and that he is trying to instigate a war.  She continues to play the political game, ending up with Bobbie out in space on a slow ship to Ganymede.  She contacts Holden and makes him an offer he can't refuse.  After they all get together on the Rocinante, Holden and his crew (Naomi, Alex and Amos...who are now equal owners of the ship and its profits), Avasarala, Bobbie and Prax pool their information and come to a horrifying realization.  Prax's daughter, along with many other children who have also gone missing, all had a very specific immuno disorder.  This disorder made it possible for them to infect the children with the protomolecule in an attempt to make a controllable weapon.  The problem with this is that they were never really controllable and one got loose and caused all the events from Ganymede and forward to occur.  We also get more info on Jules Mao...the father of Julie Mao from the last book.  We discover that his wealth and company are a huge part of what has made this atrocity possible.  Of course the biggest concern is if one of these monsters makes it anywhere where there is human in habitation...cause you know...it turns everybody into vomit zombies (still one of my favorite phrases).  Our people discover that lab base and fly there post haste.  After some political manuvering and a bit of threatening the crew make it.  They split up to accomplish various tasks and finally make it back to the Rocinante alive and with Mei and some of the other children.  Everybody goes to Luna to celebrate and reconnect with what family they have left.  Unfortunately the celebration is cut short when the news comes that Venus has spun off a comet size blast of protomolecule headed who knows where...and thus ends this second book.  Obviously there is a ton more as usual to this complex yet highly readable book, but as usual this is about the gist of it.

World Building - The series continues to build upon the last book.  This time however we get to visit some new places, namely Earth, Ganymede and plenty of various ships.  All of the careful world building and science of the last book were carried on in this book, making it a world that was easy to jump right back into.  I especially appreciate the little daily details that the authors pop in to remind us of the various environments our characters find themselves in, especially the different gravity types.  I really felt like I was hopping right back into a complete world.  Great job guys.

Story - I felt that this story really built on the completeness and simplicity (yet in a complete contradiction the complexness) of the first book.  I felt like the first story set us up to read through this story with complete understanding.  This story, with it's personal bits with Prax and his daughter, the larger political landscape and the even larger ancient alien threat to humanity all tied together in a whole that left me feeling satisfied while still wanting to hurry up and read the next story.  This is the kind of serial reading I like, where the story is not repetitive with the same formula over and over.  They are original stories that when all read together make an even longer overall story...very saga like.

Character -  We add a couple of new characters in this installment and I love each and every one of them.  In some ways, each character is a bit of an extreme version of a certain personality...on the other hand, each character also has various layers and motivations, making the more outlandish components of their persona's make sense.  I love the naturalness of the characters interactions with each other and how each one seemed authentic and genuine.  I also appreciated how the characters we already knew developed in a believable way considering the insane events of the first book.  Awesome characters.

Editing - The editing of this series is becoming on of my favorite aspects of these books.  These complex ideas, twisted politics, various characters and multiple places could very quickly become confusing, but between the authors and editors it is insanely readable.  Part of the ease of reading is that they use a trick that helps the Game of Thrones Series (hence the title...along with it is pretty much a similar feel...just in space...)which is each chapter belongs to a specific character and is labeled as such.  This takes the big crazy and funnels it through a single viewpoint...but more on that later.

Viewpoints - The first book in this series worked because we saw all the complexity funneled through two very distinct and two very different view points.  This book builds on what we learned in the first book and kicks it up a notch with FOUR viewpoints.  I like the characters they choose as they come from different places (Mars, Earth, Belt and Holden representing a kind of every man).  They are different personalities, different professions, different socio-economic classes...essentially every issue is shown to us from a sampling of who might be affected.  This expanded version of what we started with further enriches the world and story, yet still makes me feel like the book is readable without being overly bogged down.  I also feel like I am getting a mostly diverse view of events, not all one sided, no one planet or area is right, no one view is entirely correct...it's pretty open ended without being ambiguous...if that makes sense.

Micro to Macro - When a series is set in such an epic setting, I like it when they can focus on multiple layers, and this book does it beautifully.  I mentioned it before, but I like how we have the personal story of Prax and his daughter Mei, it puts an individual face on the impact of these vast and broad happenings.  I think even in real life we get so used to hearing these epic horror stories that we forget that individual suffer horribly because of these events.  We then expand to the politicol/soci-economic problems of Earth, Mars and the OPA.  This is a bigger issue, affecting more people and requiring a bigger and more complex solution, while still depending on the whims of individuals and their own prides and prejudices (see what I did their Austen fans?).  Then we expand into a universal concern as the protomolecule threatens EVERYBODY, doesn't matter where you were born, or where you work, or even how much money you have...this requires people to put aside individual concerns, patriotic alliances and work together in an unprecedented way to save humanity.  The various levels give the reader both somebody to root for and an epic horror to root against.

Names - Something I have noticed and loved as a bibliophile is the abundance of literary and historical references scattered through out the books.  In this book even the title has a Shakespearean origin.  Caliban is the twisted son of a witch who is a slave to the main character Prospero of the Tempest, until he throws off his shackles to disastrous effect.  This is paralleled in our book by the protomolecule/human hybrid monsters breaking the human constraints.  The names of the ships are especially fun to look up.  The Rocinante is named after the horse in Don Quixote.  The Barbapiccola is named after a philosopher and poet.  The Somnambulist is a pretty awesome word for sleepwalking and the Guanshiyin is a Hindu Goddess.  Pretty much anything with a name has some sort of cool story attached to it...jut another layer of awesome.

Overall - I am so excited that this second installment lived up to my love of the first book.  This is not always the case and I now have super high hopes for the next book.  I have been putting these books on my phone 'cause they are super easy to read a couple of pages inbetween calls and dealing with the monsters so they have been my go to books lately.  I give this book 8 out of 10 bulbs of coffee and am totally stoked to catch up on the tv show AND read the next book.  I recommend it to anybody who wants a solid scifi story, misses game of thrones and doesn't mind vomit zombies instead of white walkers or who read the first book and loved it.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Earth VS Mars VS The Belt

Hola Readers, sorry for the lack of posting, but 110 hours in 8 days on an ambulance makes this little bookworm a wee bit exhausted.  I have however gotten some sleep and finished an awesome book so lets ramble for a bit shall we?  The book is Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey...which is actually the pen name of two authors by the names of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.  It is the first book in the Expanse series which is a pretty epic story in space.  My Mamma recommended it and as always she knows what I like.  Let's dive right into it shall we?  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The book is pretty much divided between the perspectives of Detective Miller and Captain Holden.  Each chapter switches between the two characters and is labeled as such and makes the reading experience very clear and concise.  Before all that though we start with a proloug in which we meet Julie.  Julie appears to be a prisoner and we watch her escape onto an empty ship where she makes a horrifying discovery of her entire crew and her captors turned into a weird pile of sludge and still living body parts...pretty blechy if you ask me.  She makes her escape and our story starts.  On Ceres station, in an area of space called The Belt, Detective Miller is tasked with finding Julie Mao, the daughter of a wealthy business family who has run away to join the OPA (Outer Planet Alliance) a loosely formed group that runs the gamet between an advocacy group and out and out terrorists.  Essentially people who live outside the inner planet area (mostly Mars and Earth) feel that they are discriminated against by the inner planet folk.  I could really write pages about the politics, but I think this is enough for the current story.  Detective Miller starts his research and he and the reader start to get to know Julie through various means as he searches for any sign of her.  Meanwhile on a ship called the Canterbury XO Holden takes a group of people to check out a ship called the Scopuli which is giving off a distress signal.  While exploring a mysterious force destroys the Canterbury leaving Holden and his crew (Naomi, Alex, Amos and Shed) as the remaining survivors.  Holden makes a discovery that the equipment used to send the fake distress signal was of Martian origin and he sends out a broadcast to the universe to that affect.  This essentially sets of a war between the OPA and Mars.  Holden and his crew then begin a series of moves and discoveries that eventually coincide with Detective Miller and his search for Julie.  Holden and his crew end up on a station that specializes in construction and is run by Fred Johnson, a former military hero turned OPA leader in a "commandeered" ship that the crew now call their own.  They ally with Fred as he is willing to be reasonable and utilize his resources to get to the bottom of the whole mystery.  Eventually the crew meets up with Detective Miller on Eros station where they finally find the body of Julie Mao...after a pretty bloody fire fight.  The body is growing weird growths of various shapes, sizes and textures.  After this discovery, the station goes into lock down and the inhabitants are herded into various "safe" zones.  Miller and Holden get separated and discover that the lock down is just a ploy to get the people gathered so that this mysterious group can experiment on them...without their knowledge of course.  After much stuff and things we finally discover that an Earth cooperation had discovered a block of ice embedded with an alien virus that was meant to rewrite DNA long before humans came along.  The cooperation wants to find a way to modify the virus to rewrite human DNA for various means.  The cooperation is ended, but they are still left with the problem of Eros.  Video and audio feeds from Eros reveal a horror show of growths, human remains acting in unnatural ways, and the station itself reacting to all attempts to destroy it.  Eventually Miller realizes that Julie is still alive in some form and that the virus is using her experiences and mind to do its dreadful work.  Miller boards the station and makes his way through the haunting and terrifying situation to find what is left of Julie and convinces her to crash the station on Venus, a planet that is still inhabitable by humans.  There the virus starts to rework the planet.  The rest of the human inhabited universe learns what is going on and goes back to some semblance of normalcy and Holden and his crew fly off to further adventures.  Obviously a very abbreviated version of a fairly complex book, but it's the gist of the story if nothing else.

World Building - This book is set apx 200 years in the future, in a combination of space, ships, stations and planets.  The authors did a fantastic job in setting up a complex and sweeping universe without boring the crap out of anybody.  The "science" of things felt plausible, which for me is always a plus as when things get tossed in with no sense it takes me out of the world.  It was not overly explained, nor was information withheld just to try and up the tension.  I felt like I had a good grasp of the asthetics, politics, and society of this books worlds. While reading it was easy to get immersed in the world as it unfolded in a natural and complete way.  World building gets an A+++++ from me :-)

Story - I loved the story put forth in this book.  With all of the complex politics and world building it would be very easy to loose the story in all of the details that the author could have piled on us.  Instead we get a clear, engaging mystery that has a beginning, middle and end while still leaving tons of room for future stories.  I am always impressed, especially in hard core sci fi and an author(s) can produce a readable story that is as fresh and original as this one.  I think the fact that the authors pulled in elements of noir, horror, mystery and a the perfect amount of humor really brought this story into the realm of a great read.  In the end we are left with an intriguing mystery that has just the right amount of twists and reveals that also lets us learn about the characters and the universe.  Good show guys good show.

Characters - The characters of this book were spot on.  Each main character was full developed with their own stories, belief's, moral code and attitude.  I felt like I could walk up to any of them and know exactly who they were.  The interactions between the characters was superb, with each interaction adding to the story and the picture of each character.  Miller and Holden's interactions were my favorite as the authors used them to show both sides of almost every situation.  They would have discussions and arguments and by the time they were done, you could at a minimum agree that they both had valid points.  I love this because it made the book feel balanced and fair and that the authors were not trying to shove any sort of agenda down your throats.  I also liked how every character stayed in character...what I mean is nobody did anything wildly out of character just to further the story.  Character rocked it.

Editing - The way the book was set up, with each chapter focusing on a specific character that we got to know very well was the perfect format for this book.  It was easy to follow, engaging and we got all the information we needed to understand exactly what was going on.  Sometimes in these epic sagas I have to flip back a couple pages to make sure I understand what I am reading, but this book flowed so smoothly.  Considering that two separate authors worked on this book, makes this feat even more amazing.  Go editors!

Language - The use of language in this book added a lot to the clarification and understanding of the various places in the universe.  For instance the Belters have their own lingo, stringing together words and phrases in a way that would only make sense to a native.  The closer to the inner planets you get the more refined the language becomes.  The characters also have a habit of giving names to things they have never seen before.  My personal favorite is vomit zombies, which is what they call the inhabitants of Eros station that have been infected by the alien virus.  It has got to be one of the most descriptive yet simple labels I have ever heard and I now use it in my everyday vernacular.  Each character also has a distinct voice that the authors wrote to reflect each particular individuals background and life.  Overall the language of this book was used to enhance the world building to a very effective degree.

Julie Mao - I'm gonna give this character her own space 'cause for all that she is only physically present in the book for a couple of pages, her existence is pretty much the whole basis for this book.  I found it brave and interesting that the actions of this girl, who made choices and decisions that any of us would have made are pretty much the catalyst for so many things in this book.  I also like how well we got to know her as a person and how the characters also got to know her in their own ways.  This is all very crucial near the end, when this feeling of knowing...and in Detective Millers case, loving Julie, leads to the understanding of how the virus is controlling the station.  Julie is very much a present character through out the entire story despite her pretty much being dead from the beginning. She is important to us not only in the beginning, but through out the book as she becomes part of each step of the mystery and in particular what she becomes to Detective Miller.  It is a great way to add a bit of an unusual twist to the story.

TV Show - The Syfy channel has attempted to make this into a tv show called The Expanse and in all honesty it's not bad.  My biggest issue with it is that after the clear and directness of the book, the tv show actually feels overly complicated...which is weird 'cause usually I'm upset because they over simplify things.  That being said the show really tried hard, and in most cases succeeded in showing us the various places in the universe and their disparate societies.  It is visually stunning and the casting is pretty well done.  I know they are trying to get the politic and such across...I just wish they had stuck to the cleaner format.  I will however be watching the next season so there is that.

Overall Impression - In case you hadn't figured it out, I really enjoyed this book.  It is everything I want a science fiction book...well any book really to be.  It avoided many of the pitfalls that these sweeping epics tend to fall into and left me with a very readable, very enjoyable, very good book.  I am desperately hoping this quality keeps up through out the series and will without a doubt be picking up the next book. I give this book 8 out of 10 textured fungus skewers and recommend it to any fan of science fiction, epics, or just a great combination of story, world building and character.
Happy Reading Everybody!

Flinging Across Space

Hi Readers!  How was your weekend?  Mine was insanely busy...but what else is new :-)  I did however manage to blaze through a book, which I will now ramble about.  The book The Rowan by my favorite Anne McCaffrey is an old school sci fi book that is always a perfect go to book.  We have been watching The X-Files here at my house and it made me nostalgic for some of my old school reading so The Rowan was grabbed and read.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Rowan is about an orphan colonial child who is found to have great telekinetic and telepathic abilities.  In this future universe, people with any sort of mental abilities are called Talents and the people who posses the high level and rare combination of telekinesis and telepathy are called Primes and are invaluable to keeping the now space fairing human race going.    These Primes have the ability to fling any object, large or small across an set amount of space.  This includes ships, drones, packages and any other thing a new planetary colony may need.  The Rowan is the child rescued from a devastating mudslide on the colonial planet Altair.  She is deemed to be Prime material and is so trained.  We follow the Rowen as she grows from a child to a teenager, encountering many hardships, growing moments along the way.  She also develops her talents, showing a promise to become one of the most talented Primes alive.  The next part of the book shows the Rowan taking over her own Prime station.  She is adept at her job and continues to grow but she if very lonely.  Although she tries, any person under her high level of talent just is not comfortable spending too much time around her.  This is loneliness is made worse by her inability to leave the moon on which her station is built due to dealing with a traumatizing illness anytime she tries to leave.  One day while working, the Rowan is contacted by mind from the far away colonial planet Deneb.  The contact states that the planet is under attack and requests help.  After lobbing a few missiles Earth's way to demonstrate the sever danger the planet is under.  To save the planet the Rowen merges with the other Prime talents to give the Deneb mind a chance to defeat the aliens.  After the crisis is over, the mind of Deneb in the form of Jeff Raven appears, and thanks to the intense merger discovers that he and the Rowan are in love.  The two of them spend time together, but the Rowans inability to travel makes their new love difficult.  Jeff Raven heads back to Deneb and the Rowan resumes work.  the Rowan is devastated when she loses contact with Jeff and learning he has been gravely injured transports herself to Deneb to nurse him back to health.  Jeff eventually heals and he and the Rowan are officially a pair.  Jeff signs on the the FT&T which is the impartial and neutral company that employs the Primes and pretty much controls all the instantaneous transport within the scope of humanity.  The last part of the book follows the Rowan and Jeff as they start their family and cope with the new responsibilities given to them by FT&T.  This culminates in a son with a second child on the way for the happy couple.  the Rowan and her female talents start to feel a malevolent presence that turns out to be the same aliens that had attacked before, but with infinantly more power. The Rowan merges with all the other female talents and Jeff merges with all the male kinetics and hopefully ends the alien threat for once and for all.  The book ends with Jeff and the Rowan  continuing to build their family and the FT&T finally carving a life for themselves.

World Building - I feel one of the authors strengths is world building.  The universe in which this story is set is detailed and complete.  It is set in a future Earth era where humans have expanded into space.  The FT&T and Talent set up is pretty well explained and very consistent through out the whole book.  This is one of those worlds that stays with you long after you have finished the book.  It is also one you feel infinite stories can be told in.    I found it interesting that for the purposes of this series, it was a private company and in some ways economics that was the focus of this universe.  That being said, the author was good at keeping the setting aligned with the other parts of the book.

Story - The story was fairly cohesive, following the main character through several stages of her life.  While the Rowan, Jeff and the aliens provided a thread to follow, the story was more episodic then flowing, more a series of short glimpses to make a whole then a beginning to end story. This worked for this book, setting up a universe and characters more then any over all story.  It kept me engaged from beginning to end and lived up to it's premise.

Characters - I found in this book, that along with the world building, characters were a very strong point in this book.  The characters where varied. well written and well fleshed out.  They interacted with each other in meaningful ways and every character introduced had a purpose.  My favorites were Jeff's mother Isthia of the ear, Elizara the insanely talented medic and both Ackerman and Gerolaman the stationmasters all of whom had great senses of humor.  I did feel that the Rowan had a bit of the special snowflake syndrome, being the bestest ever at being a Prime, but felt it was tempered by the hardships and personal issues she had to endure.

Editing - The book was divided into four parts, and at times it felt like four separate stories strung together.  There was a bit of choppiness and disparities between the parts as well that sometimes took me out of the world to say to myself "um that is not what was said/happened in the last part".  Part of this is the fact that the middle part of the book started as a completed short story and that the rest of the book was built around that.  Overall though the pacing and flow of the book was very good.

Talents - I love love love the concept and execution of the talents in this future universe.  The author introduced the concept and followed through with it in a very scientific, yet understandable way.  She then continued to be consistant and varied with the various types, strengths and combinations a person could have.  She also made sure to have a structured environment where a talent can and would thrive, be useful and be accepted as a valuable member of society.  It would be very easy for the author to make a book about the "normal" people vs. the "talented" people, but instead she integrated them into a economic society.  I just really love the concept and execution of the concept.
The Love Story - Sooo... not really a fan of how Jeff just happened to appear and be a perfect match for the Rowan right when she was feeling the most lonely.  I guess I understand that if you merged your whole mind with somebody you would know pretty quickly if you loved them or not...but it still seemed pretty convenient.  I also was not a fan of the proprietary bossing around of the Rowan, especially when she was pregnant by Jeff, and also a few other's, but mostly Jeff.  It felt like since he loved her, he felt he could control her when he felt it was in her best interest.  On the plus side, the Rowan usually fought back against the imposed restrictions and overall Jeff loved and appreciated the Rowan for exactly who she was.

Personal Interactions - One of my favorite parts about this book, and the author in general is how the characters interact with each other.  The book has many characters and they all play a role with their own personalities, likes and dislikes.  Not one character is perfect, they all have their positives and negatives and they all deal with each other on different levels.  Watching these interactions gives an authenticity to the book that is phenomenal and really elevates it above a lot of other books.  It is nice to see an author have a grasp on true human interactions and work them so well into the book.

Complete Randomness - I just want to say I love the original cover of this book (the first pic on the post) the colors themselves just make me happy.  Also I have an old school paperback version of the book and it smells incredible!!!  So yeah...

Overall Impression - I love this book.  It definitely has it's flaws, but I go back to this story over and over again.  It is one of those that get's in my brain and stays there.  I feel this is mostly due to the amazing universe the author has created.  This is a great start to a great series and I will continually go back to it as both a nostalgia piece and just a good book.  I recommend it to anybody who wants to read incredible world building, sci fi with a more domestic bent or just really loves Anne McCaffrey.

Score - I give this book 8 out of 10 pukah's

That is today's rambling...not to bad considering I've taken care of and transported close to a ton of human flesh this week.  Happy Reading Everybody!!!!

Magic Space Christmas

To continue my foray into weird holiday moods I picked up an old school short story collection called The Magic of Christmas edited by John Silbersack and Christopher Schelling which is a collection of seven short stories that are either holiday themed sci fi or fantasy.  It was an interesting little read, with each of the stories having a various success in getting me in the Christmas mood.  Since there are only seven stories, here they all are.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Star of Wonder by Julian May - A people who have lost their home planet to a super nova search for a new one.  Meanwhile the captain, burying his wife on an unsuitable planet gets to witness the supernova of his home planet leading the primitive people of this little world to a child in a manger...yep an alien observes the oldest Christmas story.  I liked this bittersweet story that gave a new perspective on the Christmas miracle.

The Ornament by Dennis L. McKiernan - A cherished acorn ornament is the symbol of a special Chrismtas story.  A young boy is befriended by what can only be called elves and to reward him for his help one Christmas Eve an acorn is carved with the story.  The boy grows up and has a family of his own, passing on the fantastic story before he is taken by his childhood friends to live with them in their magical realm.  This is a perfect and sweet tale to tell by the fire side, I loved it.

A Very Dickensy Christmas by Andre Norton - For this tale the author takes the style of a Dickens ghost story and gives us a bit of a modern twist.  A girl with no family is hired to play the part of a ghost girl for the benefit of a wealthy group interested in a Christmas at an old family house.  Little does she know that the boy she is playing oppisite of is no actor, but a true ghost of the old family.  The atmosphere in this book is perfect and in the exact style of Charles Dickens and feels like an extension of his famous works.  Definitely a good one.

What Are We Going to Do With Grandfather? by Christopher Stasheff - Set on an astroid a titled family worries what to do when the patriarch appears to go a bit batty.  Turns out the guy is finally free of his duties and his need to be so formal with his noble peers.  It ends with the more tender and eccentric part of the family embracing the story that Grandfather is trying to impart...best part of this story is the way he makes it snow on the astroid for a Christmas gift for his daughter in law.   I like the mix of sci fi and fantasy in this one, it is the exact type of story and setting I like to read.

I Sing of a Maiden by Judith Tarr - A researcher studying the Canterbury Cathedral finds that she and the spirit/ghost/being of Thomas Becket can cross into each others worlds.  To be honest I did not really get this story that much, but it was still cool in it's own almost wistful way.  The only real Christmas part was the season in which the story is set. On a complete side note, I very much love the song I Sing of a Maiden that the title of this story is based on.  

Tidings of Comfort and Joy by Gael Baudino - Possibly my least favorite story in the collection as again, besides the season this story had very little to do with the holidays.  The story is about a Wiccan and a Catholic priest who come together to help a mutual friend who has died move on to the next world.  Not really my style of story, but I'm sure there is an audience for it. 

Holiday by Richard Christian Matheson - This is a super short, yet very well written story about a man who encounters Santa while on vacation.  The man gets to here from Santa's point of view on a couple of topics that seem to bug non-believers.  The perfect grown up tale.

Overall the book was a bit uneven with the actual holidays only really making an appearance in a couple of the stories.  I was hoping for something a bit more festive oriented, but there were still some great gems.  I give it 6 out of 10 Christmas foxes and recommend it for anybody who wants something a bit different for their holiday reading.  Happy Reading Everybody!

The Astronaut

Had a blast with my Bubby, his wife and my Hubbin this weekend, which included watching the phenomenal movie The Martian...based on the book The Martian by Andy Weir.  My Hubbin asked me try and hold off on reading the book before watching the movie 'cause I have a bad habit of being "that person" during the movie who compares it to the book the whole time...I tried...I really tried, but we had a long distance transfer at work which resulted in a long trip home...and the book was there...As always SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! (for the book and movie)

Mark Watney gets brutally ripped away from his crew during a massive storm.  Presumed dead by his crew mates (which makes sense 'cause his bio-readings show him dead) make an emergancy ascent to their ship the Hermes and head home.  Shockingly Watney survives his ordeal and is now stranded on Mars as the only living creature on the planet.  We follow Watney through his journal as he tries and plans on how to survive.  This is made a bit easier as he still has most of the equipment from the aborted mission at his disposal including potatoes which he plants using his own poo as fertilizer...I call them pootatos..get it...POOtatos hahahahahaha....ok...need to get back on track.  Watney realizes that everybody must think he is dead.  On a positive note, he also realizes that if he can survive long enough, the next Mars mission will be arriving in about 4 years.   Of course he not only needs to figure out how to survive that long, but how to navigate a ton of the planet to get to the new landing site.  Meanwhile back at NASA a series of satellite photos reveal that Watney is still alive.  This of course causes a huge stir and much discussing on the possibilities of his long term survival and the chances of rescuing him.  An unexpected boon happens when Watney gets a hold of Pathfinder and uses it to communicate with NASA.  They work together on several plans starting with a rushed probe to get him supplies.  This goes very wrong when certain variables are not accounted for.  Watney continues on his own with various plans, mishaps and revamping when things don't go his way...turns out he is a savvy botanist.  All hope seems lost when the Chinese reveal they have a probe that they are willing to donate to the cause in exchange for a spot on the next Mars expedition.  NASA plans on using this to send more food to Watney.  Meanwhile a kid named Rich Purnell figures that using the right calculations they can use the probe to resupply the Hermes the ship that the rest of Watney's crew is on and send them back to pick him up.  The problem is they only have one probe and must choose which plan to go with.  NASA director chooses the "safer" option of sending Watney food, only to be foiled when an anonymous person sends the plan to the crew of the Hermes who execute it without permission.  With no other option they go for the rescue plan and head back to Mars to pick up their missing crewman.  Back on Mars, Watney has overcome all kinds of stuff to finally get to the landing site where he is told how to strip pretty much everything off of the ascent vehicle.  After a couple of harrowing maneuvers the crew of the Hermes get their man back. And that is the  basic story.

For some reason, every time I refer to this book I call it the astronaut instead of The Martian...not sure why...but there you go. What the synopsis does not do is convey the sheer personality of almost every single character in this book, it is just amazing to me  how varied, detailed and authentic each person has, while still being a pretty scientific novel.  This combination of personality and science (well as much science as one can have in a slightly futuristic fiction novel) really makes this book readable for several types of readers.  I especially enjoyed the sense of humor in what could have been a very dreary and depressing story.  The voice of Mark (which is the dominant one in this book) is my favorite as you watch him cycle through emotions, then get on with keeping himself alive.  He is smart, but sometimes messes up, he is scared, but not helpless, he is funny, but no inappropriate. A lot of the strength in this book comes in part from the format.  About 2/3 of the total book is a first person verbal journal style of Mark Watney and his time on Mars.  This works well 'cause his stream of conscious style suits his predicament and gives him ample opportunity to just talk things out.  This also gives us a lot of the humor as he pretty much says whatever comes to his brain as he records.  We also get a kind of real time "technical" peek into exactly how he is surviving.  This first person narrative is peppered with random flashbacks and the normal prose at NASA.  In the end we get to see things from both ends, get to know things the other end doesn't and laugh when Mark refuses to cooperate in a PC manner when they finally establish communication.  Another strength (for me anyways) is the beliveability of this book.  It is set just far enough into the future that we can assume certain technology is in regular use, but not so far that we loose the sense of familiarity.  The author is pretty good at giving scientific, yet not overly smarty pants explanations on to why something should or shouldn't work.  This makes it very easy to stay in this world the author has created.  I am also very into Mars and follow news of it closely and even have the Curiosity Rover T-shirt so this book spoke to that very much.  I loved the tone of this book, I loved the world, I loved the characters, I just really enjoyed this book.  I also LOVED the movie...not quit as much as the book of course, but it was still awesome.  It followed the book fairly well, and with out a doubt, kept the flavor and spirit of the book.  I would recommend this book to just about anybody with any interest in well, pretty much anybody.  With the exception of some gloriously placed swear words, this book is even suitable for the slightly younger crowd.  I give this book 8 out of 10 Pootatos and wish I had the patience to put in all of the awesome little sayings and quotes that make me smile and laugh out loud.  GO READ THIS BOOK!  Happy Reading Everybody!

Space Faring Bureaucracy

To appease my summer SciFi appetite I finally finished reading the short story collection Federations edited by John Joseph Adams.  The editor says he took the inspiration for this collection from watching shows like Star Trek and Star Wars and reading book like those in the Dune series.  The common theme in all of the above mentioned is the interstellar government that spans the stars.  This inspiration has lead to book chock full of a myriad different stories, governments, worlds and organizations that come together to make for a very though provoking, page turning collection that makes me want even more stories.  Here are just a few of the stellar stories in this anthology.

Carthago Delenda Est by Genevieve Valentine - A being from deep space has sent out a vision to a select member of every race in the known galaxy.  The vision is powerful enough that when the being states it will only come if all the races stop warring with each other they all comply.  The story is set many many years after the initial contact and leaves one wondering if the fact that the wars have stopped is the whole point of the secret glorious mission.  Good story, very good story.

Terra-Exulta by S.L. Gilbow - This may be one of my favorite short stories of all time.  It explores the use of language and how labeling something in a certain way can change ones perception completely.  We get a quick glimpse of a man who using only words changes a galaxy's perception of a planet form thinking it is the most beautiful paradise to being disgusted with the whole endeavor.  The story is short, sweet, to the point and really gets the point of the power of words across in a direct and entertaining manner.

Twilight of the Gods by John C. Wright - Imagine a ship so large it feels like a world.  Now imaging the people on it have lived there for so many generations that the newest ones think Earth and any other planet is nothing more then a myth or fantasy.  This story turns our pre-conceived notion of a space ship and it's inhabitants on its head.  I love the idea that this decrepit space is all these people know and how it has shaped their culture and mind set.

Pardon our Conquest by Alan Den Foster - An entire empire is conquered with out so much as a shot being fired.  The premise of this story is made even more interesting by the perspective that it is told in.  Instead of the grand hero's swooping in and gallantly helping a backwards race, we see the story from the conquered empires point of view and understand their confusion when this new alliance actually seeks to integrate them into their federation (but only if they want to) while giving them complete freedom and autonomy.  This is a great story that gets you thinking long after you have finished it.

My She by Mary Rosenblum - This is the kind of short story I love.  A to the point, thought provoking tale about the line between an individual person and a tool.  The story is about clones of a very specific pair of humans that serve as an invaluable communication tool in the future.  The tale if further enriched by the presence of a anthropomorphic dog character that acts as a servant/guide.  If this story does not get you thinking about a myriad of different things...then I don't know what will.

The Shoulders of Giants by Robert J. Sawyer - A look at what happens when the present catches up to the future.  This story is another thought provoking look at life and what happens when the continues experimentation and exploration comes to a critical mass and all converges on one point.  I also like how this story in a very concise manner manages to convoy a story, characters, humor and a thought provoking premise all in a very limited amount of pages.

Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy by Catherynne M. Valente - Imagine my surprise, consternation and eventual delight when I discovered the author of my beloved September stories had contributed to what was an already awesome collection.  This super visual story was focused on interstellar wine as a way to convoy a story, a history, and a universe.  This story had all the trademarks of this authors insanely awesome image driven story telling with an adult twist...and wine...'cause wine is awesome...just go read the story.

In case you haven't figured it out I loved this collection.  One of the unique things about this collection is the little bit of editor commentary at the beginning of each story.  He obviously really enjoys the subject matter and has an enthusiastic and fairly concise insight into each story.  I enjoyed this collection immensely, it was varied, well edited and yet stayed easily within the identifiable confines of the theme.  I still keep picking it up, hoping more stories will magically appear because I just don't want to stop reading!  I recommend it to anybody who likes sci-fi, Star Trek, Star Wars or well written, varied, thought provoking stories.  I give it 8 out of 10 Galactic Senates and am going to go find ALL the collections edited by this guy 'cause seriously awesome stuff here.  Happy Reading Everybody!!!!

Fighting Fiction In Space

Hello all!  I think I have time for a quick rambling before I head back to the grind.  Today's book is Gulliver's Fugitives Star Trek: The Next Generation by Keith Sharee.  Summer by the pool always puts me in the mood for SciFi and I love Star Trek TNG so this sounded like a good idea.  Was it a good read?  First, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

First of all, I'm gonna just say I'm gonna write this like anybody reading it is already a Trekkie and knows the characters I'm talking about.  The books are written with the assumption that the readers, if not already fans of the show, at least have a basic knowledge of the cast and setting.  If you are not part of this group...well...it's on Netflix so you have no excuse :-)
Councilor Troi finds herself in a trance that seems to transport her mind to a world filled with fantastic beings.  She manages to wake herself up, but is disturbed and goes to the Captain with her feelings of concern about a possible alien presence.  Meanwhile the crew has discovered a planet where a lost ship may have crashed ten years earlier. The crew contacts the planet and they are told that a boarding party will have to come aboard the Enterprise to make sure that no contraband or instances of the dreaded Allpox are present.  Two men and a couple of machines beam on board and fairly quickly start freaking out.  Apparently, the planet (called Rampart) is populated by a human colony that left year many many many years ago and established a world built around a lack of any fiction.  To maintain this strict adherence to facts, the government uses a combination of filtering helmet's that filter out any supposed "fiction" and deadly machine's called one-eyes that pretty much shoot lethal blasts of radiation at anybody's who's brain waves register in the fiction zone.  All kinds of hell breaks loose when the one-eyes detect the ever present fiction that thrives aboard the varied enterprise, and considering that the people of Rampart believe that even aliens are a work of fiction, you can see how a ship that employ's various races and species is in trouble.  The Rampart crew captures Captain Picard and the one-eye's wreak destruction upon the Enterprise.  A landing crew consisting of Riker, Data and Troi goes down to rescue Picard and are immediately captured themselves.  All except Councilor Troi who falls in with the Dissenters, a group of people who take on the names and persona's of various fictional characters and rebel against the fictionless government. Picard and Riker are to be "blanked" a process in which people who suffer from the Allpox (which is what they call fiction) have their mind completely erased and a new personality is inserted.  This is the only way the government can work around killing most of it's population.  More chaos and crazieness ensue.  The Dissenters stage a major demonstration and Picard and company are rescued.  Geordi and Worf with some help from the crew save the Enterprise and it is revealed that one of the Rampart guys is actually the brainwashed captain and sole survivor of the missing ship.
Troi discovers her trances are a result of a strange movie she watched based on the mythologies of Earth and the crew moves on to their next adventure.

Soooooo...this book was stupid.  I can't think of a nicer way to put it.  I usually enjoy the Star Trek books, they let me explore a vast universe that I love in greater detail, but this book was very very juvenile.  I think what really killed it for me was the writing.  For most of the book the writing felt cliched, trite and stock.  The author only attributed the simplist of emotions or thought process to very well established characters, dumbing down people who have been shown over and over to be smart, making characters with great depth one-dimensional, attributing all kinds of insta-relationship emotions to characters who were only around for a short while.  It actually took me a really long time to read because I kept having to put it down to unroll my eyes.  The concept was ok I guess, even though we all know that humans are creative by nature, and the standards of fiction on Rampart are especially strict, though I will give it to the author that he acknowledged if the government killed all the dissenters there would be no one left.  I'm not going to spend a lot more time on this 'cause there was just not a whole lot to it.  Essentially I felt like I was reading a very very basic fan fiction version of a Star Trek story.  I give this story a 3 out of 10 Zen bows and am looking forward to reading a GOOD Star Trek story.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Introspective AI

I like to read Science Fiction in the summer, I actually like it any time, but for some reason I always classify SciFi as a summer genre.  In that vein I had saved Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie to read by the pool.  I picked it up because a whole ton of people who have similar taste in books as me gave it rave reviews.  I found it to be...very thought provoking and introspective, but first as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

I will do my best to give you the gist of the story, as it is laid out in a two separate story format.  In essence the story focus's around a piece of AI named Breq, except that it isn't about Breq per se.  It is about a being called The Justice of Toren which is a giant ship that is controlled completely by an AI who is able to...I don't know how to explain it...maybe fragment is the word, yeah I'll use that, who is able to fragment it's consciousness and use human bodies as ancillaries.  This means it take a human and submerge it's being into itself and essentially control, get input and be in many different physical places at once.  The AI organizes itself in a complex system that I am not going to go into, but it gets the point across.  In the flashback story The Justice of Toren and more specifically an ancillary designated as One Esk get caught up in a galaxy wide conflict with the head of the Radch, which is the giant empire that pretty much has taken over everything.  The head of the Radch is a being known as Anaander Mianaai, who has also fragmented itself and is now having some sort of internal conflict with itself, resulting in the destruction of The Justice of Toren all except a single ancillary which escaped.  This ancillary, that used to be designated as Esk One, now calls itself Breq and is looking for revenge for the death of her ship, and more importantly one Lt. Awen, with whom Breq as One Esk had bonded (are you completly confused yet?).  Along the way Breq meets up with a former officer, that it did not particularly like, but for some reason saves and brings along the adventure.  The whole story culminates in Breq hooking up with one aspect of Anaander Mianaai, who tells us that the entity it is part of is conflicted and one part is trying to bring about change, and another part is trying to preserve the status quo.  Breq picks a side (kind of) an chaos ensues and things happen and thoughts are thunk and Breq obtains a ship to sail off into the next story.

If the that did not make any sense I don't blame you, this book is full of intricacies and logic leaps that have to be read and thought over to be of any value, and a summation is not the place to do it.  There are several things that caught my attention in this book and I will go through them one by one and maybe my feelings, or the gist of the book, or whatever will become clear...or maybe not.  One of the first things that jumps out is the language choice the author made.  In her world the Radch do not use gender identification, so the only pronoun that is used is she.  While this is a very interesting choice, it gets a bit confusing, especially when it is still used even after a character is identified as male.  The other language choice the author made was to make it clear there were other languages that are used extensively, but they are never differentiated int the book, so it got really confusing sometimes.  The combination of these two choices made the conversations a bit hard to follow some times.  The biggest concept in this book was the AI and it's vastness.  The idea of this huge AI that could and did control everything in it's domain, and it's casual acceptance by the masses

was very well done.  The use of the human ancillaries was very very thought provoking, making me think of the various aspects of personality over and over.  I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that a being could essentially fragment itself and control the various aspects of itself completely independently, yet still always part of the whole, but that is not the authors fault, it is just a really complex and huge concept that I think is meant to be mulled over.  The other piece of the AI concept was the idea that it might be possible for a schism to happen within the myriads of facets of such a huge AI's consciousnesses, effectively putting it at odds with itself.  This is shown mostly in the facets of Anaander Mianaai and it's ability to hide what it was doing from itself.  Moving on, the Radch have a very inclusive religion that allows for conquered worlds to add their own deities to the pantheon of an almost Buddhist like structure, the concept of balance being the biggest tenet.  The religion is very intertwined in the day to day activities, customs, and even running of the government.  It is mentioned many times, and the local temples tend to be used as settings on many worlds that are visited during the course of this book.  There is also some sort of super strong alien presence that accounts for a treaty that is part of the schism in the governmental entity, but unfortunately this is not very well explained and for me adds to some of the confusion I had reading this book.  The flashback stories, the bits of history, and the current story are all well told, though I liked the flashback and history part the best.  As you can probably tell from the stunted, stuttering, stilted (yes I am in an alliteration mood today) review that this is not the most reviewable of books.  Overall I felt it was a book of idea's and concepts.  The characters were fairly interchangeable and the stories while good, seemed to be more of a backdrop or context of an idea the author was trying to get across.  I had a hard time following the nuances of the plot and conversations, and to be quit honest I'm still not sure if I actually understand the plot, but I loved the ideas this book posed.  I liked that it was fodder for many hours of thinking, of pondering, of hypothesizing, sometimes I really enjoy that kind of thing.  Overall I found it to be more of a philosophical idea novel then I did a scifi space tale.  I found it a bit confusing and wanted more information on certain things, but enjoyed being able to mull it over when I put it down.  I will give it 7 out of 10 ancillaries and will probably pick up the sequel when it comes out.

What did you think of this book?  Do you like more abstract concepts, or do prefer a more solid story?  How rambly and incoherent is this rambling?

I Have Purple Hair

So the title of this post actually has absolutist nothing to do with the post, but I couldn't think of a good title, so there you go (Oh but I actually do now have purple hair and it is AWESOME!).   I have FINALLY finished reading Jack Glass by Adam Roberts.  It took me a while to get through it, not because it was bad (it was excellent), but because it has to be one of the densest (in a good way) books I have read in a long time.  What the heck do I mean? you may ask...well read on and I will tell you.  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

This will not be a detailed synopsis as all of the myriad details are too hard to keep straight in just a couple of paragraphs, but I will try and give you enough to get the gist of the book.  This is a hard core Science Fiction book broken up into three parts, which I shall go through one by one. We learn right off the bat that the main character in this book, Jack Glass is responsible for all the murders that we will read about...we just don't know how or why.  Our job is to read and try and figure these two questions out.
Part I-In the Box

This is the weirdest of all three parts, it has a much different feel then the rest of the book, but I will get to that in a moment.  In the future, certain prisoners receive an 11 year prison term in which a group called the Gongsi use the prisoners to hollow out and make habitable various asteroids.  A team of seven prisoners and a minimum of survival gear are placed in a small hollow and sealed in.  They then have 11 years to try and survive while making the place habitable and salable.  At the end of 11 years the Gongsi will come and pick up any survivors and they will be free to go.  The seven that are placed in this particular asteroid include the notorious Jack Glass who has been accidentally misidentified as a lesser criminal.  Much scientific theory, economic perusal and of course prison stuff occur through out this story.  The seven men carve out a menial living before starting to turn on each other.  In the end Jack kills the remaining prisoners with a glass knife (hence the name Jack Glass) and ingeniously uses the bodies to make himself a sort of morbid space suit to escape in.  I know this sounds sick and twisted (and in some ways it is) but it is mostly fascinating.
Part II-The FTL Murders
This is a whoddunit type of story in which we are introduced to the future of the Argent clan, the teenage sisters Diana and Eve.  The girls, along with their bodyguards, servants, and tutor Iago have all come to Earth to get used to gravity before Diana's big 16th birthday party.  The girls and their crew live in what they call upland in zero-g so Earths gravity is very very oppressive and debilitating.  Right off the bat a servant is murdered and Diana (who loves to solve mystery's) is put in charge of solving the case (with the sanctioned help of the local police)  We go through several clues and Diana deduces who the killer is in a fairly straight forward manner.  This however is just a small piece of a larger mystery as she soon discovers.  Her and her sister are attacked by the Ulanovs (who are the ruling family) in a bid to take them down before they can start a revolution...I know a bit confusing.  Diana discovers that the murder of the servant and the subsequent solving of the case was actually a set up by her tutor Iago (who is of course Jack Glass in disguise) as a birthday present/test to see if she was ready to lead her family.  Diana decides to trust Iago and runs away with him and the servant Sapho (who was the murderer, but had good cause because the murder victim was trying to rape her).  They head out to the bubble towns of space to hide with the trillions of people who inhabit them.
Part III-The Impossible Gun
This is a more direct continuation of the second story in which Diana, Iago (Jack Glass) and Sapho tell a story backwards.  We start by Jack and Diana bringing a robot to a friend to ensure that the data on it is not corrupted.  After they verify it's completeness they take us back to why the information is so important.  Jack takes the two girls to his own bubble home for safe keeping.  On the way he tells Diana that they have located her sister Eve and that she is safe, Diana is even able to talk with via encrypted channels.  They

arrive at Jacks supposedly unfindable home bubble and proceed to try and formulate a plan.  Alas they are found by a police cruiser carrying the famous police man Bar-le-duc who wants to bring in Jack Glass and gain the reward.  Jack makes a deal witnessed by the above mentioned robot to come peacefully if he lets Diana and Sapho go.  Bar-le-duc agrees and comes down to the bubble to get Jack.  While this exchange happens Bar-le-duc gets himself vaporized by some unknown super weapon.  This sets off a closed room mystery...which the solution to is kind of cheating, but still ends up ok.   We find out that Eva (Diana's sister)is the one who orchestrated the whole downfall of the clan in return for being named head of the Argent clan.  The story ends with Jack declaring his love for Diana as his reason for being willing to trade himself for her freedom.  Diana gently reply's that she does not return his love, and goes on her way.  The servant Sapho stays with Jack and is the one who writes his story.  The End.

I realize that this bare bones synopsis seems a little chintzy, but it is really the best I can do.  I have read other reviews of this book and I am not the only one who is having trouble putting into words my feelings on it.  I loved it, it was rich and dense and at time humorous,  and at times gory and at times horrifying and at times well almost everything.  The author amazingly puts together an old time whodunit type story with a truly hard core Science Fiction story with a bit of a love story a political story and an incredible ability to build this future world.  I kept thinking I was going to get bored with it because it is a heavy read, which is to say there are some very advanced scientific, economic and political concepts liberally sprinkled through out the book, but the author always manages to mix it in with a very readable story.  There were several times where I had to stop and put the book down to digest and think through some concepts introduced because the more I

thought about them the better sense they made and would make my poor little brain go down so many cool rabbit trails.  The author also makes several nods to a ton of different books and authors that add even more flavor to this already full book. I am so used to zipping through books in a couple days it was really nice to read a book that took some effort (in a good way), that I actually had to do some thinking and take my time.  I was initially worried that this "critically acclaimed" book would turn out to be a pretentious slog, but I was so wonderfully surprised.  In my little opinion, this is how your write a smart book, this book does not talk down to the reader, does not expect the reader to have a Phd in astrophysics, nor does it over simplify or ignore laws of physics.  I know this is a super all over the place ramble, but this book was just really awesome in a completely indescribable way.  This book is not for everybody, if you are looking for a light beach read, or a quick space opera this is not the book you are looking for.  This is a book if you are looking to be a wee bit challenged, or want to feel smart, or are just looking for a great SciFi book, then go pick this one up.  I give it 8 out of 10 FTL drives.
What was the last book you were surprised by?  How do you describe a book that seems one thing but once you ready is something completely different? How much do you wish I could write a coherent post?

Brains and Brawns

We all know I am an Anne McCaffrey freak and have yet to find a book of hers I do not like.  I had been stuck on her Pern and Talents and have reread every entry in these series several times over. Lately though I have been expanding into her other works.  I was trying to figure out which one I should read next...should I go for an oldie but goodie that I had read 1000 times but knew would give me what I wanted...or should I be brave and hunt down a new book.  Enter the new used book store by our house (heh heh new used) and lo and behold, sitting front and center for $2.14 was a paperback version (with the old school cover no less) of The Ship Who Sang.  Who was I to mess with the book gods, so into my basket and to the top of the reading pile it went.  I had read a couple short stories concerning these brain ships before, so I had a bit of an idea of what to expect, and it was awesome. As always SPOILERS AHEAD.

Helva was born with sever physical deformities, but a highly functional brain and in this future universe parents are given to options.  To euthanize the child as a kindness or allow her to become a shell person.  A shell person is one who's body will be stunted and ecapsulated in a titanium life support shell that is capable of being wired into a computer.  The child will then be raised to become the "brain" of a star ship, city, or any other number of things.  Since this conditioning takes place at birth, these shell children know no other life and are taught to enjoy and value the benefits of having a ship or city as a body.  Helva learns quickly, loving life in her shell and is eventually installed in a star ship.  The down side to all of this is that it is very very very expensive to raise a shell child to adulthood and the shell person must pay of their debts to the Federation. It is the goal of every brainship to clear their debt as quickly as possible and become their own master.  Once a brainship is deemed to be sufficiently trained and education they then pick a brawn.  A brawn is the "normal" human half of the team, sometimes called the mobile partner.  These brawn's are specially trained to work 

with brainships, to respect them as humans, and to work with them as equal partners.  Helva's first brawn Jennan is a bright, intelligent man who has no trouble treating Helva like a human. Jennan and Helva soar across the universe together, performing tasks for the Federation and racking up credit to erase Helva's debt.  Helva falls in love with Jennan in an oddly appropriate way...not really sure how to describe this relationship, but it works.  The two pass time and express emotion through song, making Helva the Ship Who Sings. This is used by Helva through out the book to deal with various situations. Sadly Helva's happiness is cut short when a mission goes bad and Jennan is killed in the airlock of the ship.  Helva buries her brawn and mourns him deeply.  She is then boarded by Theoda a Physiotherapist who is sent to a plague ridden planet to try and find a way to help people who have become vegetables recover.  Helva, using her heightened senses realizes that the people are not brain dead (yet) but are trapped in their own bodies, eventually leading to madness and death. Theoda surmises that with intense physical therapy the victims may recover use of there bodies.  Helva and Theoda try this on the young son of one of the hospital administrators, proving to the plague ridden world that there is hope. The planet begins recovery efforts and Helva learns that Theoda lost her family to a similar plague on a different world years ago.  They grieve and start to heal together.    Helva is given a temporary brawn by the name of Kira and it is their mission to deliver thousands and thousands of human embryos to a planet that has been left sterile by a radiation flare.  Along the way Helva learns that Kira is suicidal, wanting to die after her husband was killed.  The Federation gives Helva strict orders to stay away from certain planets where suicide is considered legal.  As they go about there mission they end up on a planet that seems to have a strange death cult.  Turns out an old brain ship who has gone mad over the death of her brawn years ago tried to fly into a volcano but got stuck out side of it.  The people of the area built a cult around the ship and have been controlled by a breathable narcotic.  Helva recognizes the ship for who it is and with Kira's assistance delivers a mercy killing to the ship.  Helva and Kira discuss the loss of Thorn (Kira's husband) and Jennan (Helva's former brawn) and the desire to no longer live with out them.  They again help each other grieve and heal and finish there mission.  After the three year mission is finished Helva she is given the task of ferrying a troop of actors to the newly discovered Beta Corvi to perform and teach Romeo and Juliet to a new form of life. One the way there is much strife as the lead actor/director is suffering from a fatal illness and the lead actress is pretty much as shrewish as they come. During rehearsals the director discovers Helva has 

an impressive acting range and casts her as the nurse in the performance. The people of Beta Corvi are essentially bags of gas that float around in an almost aquatic environment. The actors (including Helva) have their brain essentially downloaded into an empty Beta Corvi body to perform the play.  The response of the new life forms is devastating and wonderful all at the same time, with the actors brains becoming more and more Corvi like the longer they stay in these "bodies"  Eventually the director, his lover and the lead actress end up staying in there borrowed bodies on Beta Corvi, essentially allowing the actor to continue living even with his fatal disease.  Helva is tempted to stay, having finally experienced what having a real body is like, but then decides to return to her ship where she is happy.  She demands her own pick of brawns and ends up with an insufferable little prick of a man who treat Helva like she is nothing more then a sophisticated computer. After rumors of brainships dissapering with their brawns her pilot becomes paranoid that she is going to turn on him and double checks everything she does.  They are called to transport highly needed yet highly dangerous medications to various planets.  Along the way they are tricked and taken captive.  Helva is removed from her ship and deprived of her senses which starts to drive her mad.  She is given limited senses back as long as she does as she is told.  She eventually tricks her captors into giving her more power and fries them.  She and the other captured ships are rescued and she immediately dumps her crappy brawn.  She then has enough money to pay her debt and becomes a contract ship.  The Federation immediately bribes/contracts her back for a new drive and she demands that Niall, the sweet-talking supervisor (and protector of Helva throughout the book) becomes her new brawn.  He confesses that he is in love with her and is not sure if that would be good for a brawn/brain pairing.  She eventually convinces him and they sail off into the stars ready for more adventures.

The format of this book was kinda quirky in that all but the last chapter was actually a collection of short stories.  Each chapter while part of a whole timeline was its own complete story.  This made for a bit of a choppy read, but overall it was amazing as is all Ms. McCaffrey's books.  This book is unique because it is her one of her first work to be published and remained one of her favorites.  It is interesting to see the development of this amazing woman's skills from the beginning to her death.  As far as content goes, it is still amazing to me how advanced Ms. McCaffrey's thinking was, some of her ideas far outpaced what was the norm for the 60's and 70's when these stories were published.  During those times it was not uncommon for children with any sort of perceived defect, whether it be physical or mental to be institutionalized and forgotten. It was also assumed a lot of the time if you had a physical deformity then you were also slow in the brain, something we now know is not always true.  The idea to give these kids not just a life, but a life of near immortality with freedoms and respect is pretty cool.  I have read several criticisms of the premise of these stories, how the children never had a choice and that they were essentially sold into indentured servitude, which in some ways is not entirely incorrect, but I think there is more to it then that.  First of all just about any time a parent makes a decision for their children, especially health related, they are essentially altering that child's future, whether it be to pierce their ears, circumcise them, institutionalize them, heck even name them, that is what happens when you are a parent, you try and make choices that are best for your kid, and in 

these stories a life of living in the stars was a much better alternative to pretty much anything else this era had to offer.  As far as paying off their debts go, well this is probably the most plausible way for something on this scale to actually happen.  It would cost a lot of time, effort and resources on an unsure outcome...so yeah it's gonna cost somebody and the shell person arguably is the one getting the biggest bargain in the deal.  I like that the author made a point of having Helva be a person, no a brain hooked up to a computer, not a ship that was super smart, but a real flesh and blood (albeit one stunted and encased in titanium) human with emotions, wants, needs, and preferences.  I love that she is not a cold, calculating android, but a women with emotions and a need to express them through song (Anne McCaffrey's ever pervasive love of music appears in all of her books).  The conditioning that the shell people go through to accept their lot in life, the training the brawns go through to see the ship as an equal partner, not a machine to be driven, the emphasis on treating the brains as humans all points to how we need treat our own special needs friends here in the real world.  This book is among other things a call to see all humans, regardless of their form, color, shape, size, or disability as first and foremost a human.  I very much enjoyed getting into this authors earlier works and am now going to go read my whole shelf full (which is now spilling onto a second and third shelf) of her works and also I am going to go hunt down the few I don't own yet.  I give this book 8 out of 10 singing ships.

Would you choose to be encapsulated if you were born with sever deformities?  Do you think it is ok to take the choice away from a newborn infant if it is the only hope you have?  What would you sing if you could soar through the stars?