Book Reviews for November

It's been a while, and I've read a couple of books since the last time I posted. Here are my quick reviews:

Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
This was one of the Hugo nominees for this past year. Synopsis...human civilization has gone a long way towards populating the galaxy, thus far no other intelligent species has been found...up until now. The latest colonization attempt is reaching a world which is populated by bat-people similar in size to human. The world is very similar technologically to the Earth in the 1920's.

This book flips back and forth between two points of view: those of the colonists and those of the bat-people. I actually wish that MacLeod stuck with the story from the bat-people's point of view...to me, at least, this part kept me more interested than on the colony ship. I think what turned me off to the colony ship was that the people on this ship were so different from humans today that I couldn't relate to them...I actually felt closer to the bat-people. Maybe that was what MacLeod was trying to do all along. The ending was a little weak, I was waiting for more stuff to happen and then the book just ended with a convenient resolution. I was kind of disappointed because I was really getting into the story at that point.

The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
John Scalzi is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. Again, Scalzi doesn't delve in any deep concepts/messages, he just writes a really good story with plenty of action and comedy to keep you turning the pages. The book starts off with a chapter-long fart joke assassination of an alien diplomat. In order to prevent the alien race from destroying humanity, which they easily can, a low-level state department official, Harry Creek, who has just the right qualifications (i.e. ex-cop, special forces experience, computer-wiz, etc.) has to track down a genetically modified sheep called the Android's Dream and provide it to the alien race. The only problem is that somebody is killing off all of these sheep and now have their sights set on Harry. I'm afraid of revealing any of the plot twists, so I can't say anymore about the book. Just pick it up, you won't regret it.

My only regret is that I bought this book right away and then found out that Scalzi is offering some signed versions of the book at some of his preferred retailers. I think I will still buy the signed version anyway and give my current version to the library. The great news is that Tor has asked for a sequel to this book...I can't wait to see it!

Encounter with Tiber by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes
Yes, that Buzz Aldrin. I was actually surprised with the quality of the book. Of course, reading all the technical parts about space travel from an expert was quite exciting for me, considering that I'm getting my Master's in Space Systems. Synopsis...an alien species far more advanced than humans sends a signal to earth with a map to a location on the moon that leads to a library of information from the aliens. The book is divided into a number of parts, some parts deal with trying to get to the library, other parts deal with information obtained from the library (in particular, the telling of some stories from the aliens...this is the part that I enjoyed the most).

It's a pretty good book, which surprised me. I say that because I'm always skeptical of picking up books that are written by more than one author. There's something deep inside me that says, if one person couldn't write it (especially if he isn't an author) it can't be that good. I'm glad to be proven wrong here.

The only thing that I found as a real weakness in this book is one of my major pet peeves when I read novels...a really smart character all of a sudden having such a lack of knowledge in a particular area that another character has to explain it to him, when really the author is just trying to explain the concept to the reader. It really annoys me when an author does this. I don't care if the author has to make a descriptive paragraph or two in order to explain this to the reader...it's science fiction, it's a given that there are going to be some things that a reader doesn't understand. The part that I detest is taking a person so out of character that it is laughable that they don't know the information being explained to them. It doesn't fit in the story, especially when the person has be touted as being uber-smart and is a real distraction for me.

Next Book:
Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder
(By the way, this book has some real kick-butt cover art. It will definitely be picked up by those people who do judge a book by it's cover.)