BOOK REVIEW: Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

written by David Steffen

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty is a science fiction mystery, one of the finalists for the Hugo Award for the Best Novel category of 2017.

In the future, cloning is commonplace, but its use is strictly limited by law to ensure that it’s only used for longevity of a person rather than multiplication. Every clone makes regular mindmaps of their memories and after they die, a new youthful body is cloned from their DNA and the mindmap copied into it. Many clones have hundreds of years worth of memories they carry with them as though they have lived a single long life. The practice of cloning is not accepted by everyone, especially religious groups, many of which consider clones to be soulless abominations, and there have been violent conflicts about cloning practices.

And what better use for clones than to crew a starship? Equip the ship with a cloning bay and mindmapper, and a crew of six can staff a starship that would require a generation ship with much heavier infrastructure with an uncloned human crew. Not many clones would be interested in such a long dull trip, but criminal clones granted a pardon for their crimes as payment can be convinced, watched over by an AI to make sure things don’t get out of control, and a cargo of humans and clone mindmaps to colonize the planet at the end of the trip.

But, something has gone terribly wrong. Maria Arena and the other six crew members wake up simultaneously in newly cloned bodies, to their own murder scene. They have been in transit for twenty-five years but have lost all of the memories of their journey, the gravity is off, the food replicator is only manufacturing poison, the AI is offline, the cloning bay has been sabotaged, and presumably one or more of them was the murderer but even they don’t remember that they did it. Their previous crimes are strictly off the record as part of the pardon deal, so no one knows if any of the others had a history of murder.

This was an enjoyable SF mystery, an amped-up locked room type of mystery, where this crew of six is set to investigate their own murders, and it could’ve been any of them since they lost the memories of the journey. As they go they have numerous other obstacles they have to deal with just to keep going, as well as searching for clues to who committed the murders. Scenes from the present are interspersed with scenes from each person’s pasts so the interplay between the characters makes more and more sense as we understand their histories. I don’t read a lot in the mystery genre, but I liked how this novel took familiar tropes like the locked room mystery and by changing the setting and technology level gave them interesting new angles to explore. The book flowed easily from beginning to end and I was satisfied with the resolution. I don’t know how well it will stand up to avid mystery readers, but I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

BOOK REVIEW: Ancillary Mercy

written by David Steffen

Ancillary Mercy is the third and final book in Ann Leckie’s award-winning Imperial Radch series with previous installments Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword. If you are a newcomer to the series, these are books that I would recommend reading in order, otherwise there’s a lot of important events that aren’t going to make a lot of sense. You can read my review of Ancillary Justice here, and my review of Ancillary Sword here. There’s no way to discuss this book without spoiling major elements of the previous books, so I’m not going to try.

Breq, the one remaining ancillary (human avatar) of the starship Justice of Toren has stabilized the situation in Athoek System. She was sent her by Anaander Miaanai, many-bodied emperor of most of the human star systems. Well, sent here by… part of Anaander Miaanai, anyway. The trouble with having countless bodies scattered across the galaxy is that a situation that you find truly conflicting can start a civil war within yourself. A civil war that even Anaander Mianaai wasn’t openly admitting to until Breq confronted her at the end of Ancillary Justice.

After that initial confrontation, one faction of Anaander Mianaai shut down much of the gating system used for travel between star systems so that only military ships (which can make their own gates) can travel. After that, Anaander Mianaai sent Breq to Athoek System with the claim that this vital station needed to be stabilized and prepared for difficult times. Breq consented in large part because there was a person on Athoek Station that she desperately wanted to see, the sister of Lieutenant Awn who had been an officer aboard Justice of Toren.

In Ancillary Sword, Breq succeeded for the most part in stabilizing the system, although one major event that happened is that a Presger translator was killed during a violent conflict. The Presger are an incredibly powerful alien race that has not exterminated humanity only because they have forged an uneasy treaty with them. They themselves are nigh incomprehensible (and offscreen) and communicate through the medium of their translators–human-ish ambassadors who are decidedly strange and mostly incomprehensible themselves.

Phew, that was a rather long run-up to the actual review. Sorry. Even this is leaving out major important bits, but a lot of the ideas are complex enough that it’s hard to jump into book three without any context.

After this brief period of stability that bridges book two and three, events start picking up again as they find someone in the unsurveilled Undergarden area of the station, another Presger translator arrives, and one of the factions of Anaander Mianaai arrive to confront Breq and take back Athoek Station.

Ancillary Mercy is a worthy conclusion to the series. It doesn’t tie everything off with a neat bow, far from it, but it is a satisfying conclusion to most of the major plotlines of the trilogy. There is plenty of exciting action, political intrigue, interesting conflicts and I was never bored. Leckie, as ever, is a master of the kind of concise writing I love best. The pacing is perfect– the tension goes up and down with the events of the book but my interest never waned because every scene is there for a reason.

I remarked in my review of Ancillary Sword that that book felt like half a book, and I still feel that way. To me it feels like a two book series, with Ancillary Justice as the first book, and the other two combined as the second book. I don’t knock Orbit for publishing it in three books of approximately equal length, but it does affect how I think of them and read them. For instance, I don’t think Ancillary Justice has to necessarily be very fresh in the mind to read Ancillary Sword, but I found it rather more difficult to read Ancillary Mercy with my only reading of Ancillary Sword 14 months in my past. If you have a choice, now that all the books are out, I’d recommend reading 2 and 3 back to back.

One element of this book that surprised me (in a good way) was that there was a bit more comedy in this one, generally in the form of the Presger translator doing strange things, and especially in the translators conversations with other characters, especially with a particular ancillary character. The translator, though she appears to be human, has no experience at being human and so despite being intelligent and powerful, she is also often childlike and bizarre. If this kind of humor had been without the right finesse, the translator could’ve ended up as annoyance that didn’t fit into the series’s tone (ala Jar Jar Binks) but it was handled very well and especially contrasted well with Breq’s dry personality. I loved it, and was surprised by it.

Out of the whole trilogy, I still think that Ancillary Justice is my favorite, for its novelty and for the extremely difficult point of view it manages to succeed with during Justice of Toren flashbacks where one POV character is existing and interacting in dozens of bodies seamlessly and simultaneously. But to say that I like books 2 and 3 less is no insult–I like the first book so much that that’s a tough threshold to beat, and I like books 2 and 3 enough to give a hearty recommendation.

Hugo Novel Review: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (link)

written by David Steffen

Normally I write up full reviews for each of the Hugo novels I have time to read, but I had already read and reviewed Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword over on SF Signal last year, so just follow the link if you want to read it.

My Nebula Ballot 2015

written by David Steffen

The Nebula awards are nominated and voted by members of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. I have been a member of SFWA in the past, but have chosen not to maintain my membership dues so I am not currently a member. So I can’t actually vote. But I do still follow the Nebula awards, and so I thought it worth posting my ballot as if I had the right to vote. The Nebula ballot has only 5 categories, four of them for lengths of written fiction and one for the Ray Bradbury Award for film. Unlike the Hugos, its voting system only allows you to vote for one thing, rather than rank-ordering all of them and doing instant runoff votes like the Hugos, so I will structure my post accordingly. You can find the full list of nominees here.

Because I don’t tend to read many novellas, because the Nebula voting period is so short, and because I was spent some of the Nebula voting period reading books for short-term review deadlines, I didn’t read any of the novella nominees this year.

Best Novel

Ancillary Sword, Ann Leckie (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Ancillary Sword is the sequel to Ancillary Justice. I reviewed Ancillary Justice here. I gave Ancillary Sword a more lengthy review here. The story picks up shortly after the evens of Ancillary Justice. Breq the body-bound ship AI is now in the employ of Anaander Miaanai, the many-bodied emperor that rules over most of the colonized universe, albeit with a schism that has divided herself into a civil war. With the shutdown of the gate system that most ships depend on for transport between the stars, the empire has been thrown into disarray. Miaanai orders Breq to visit Athoek Station. This is the only assignment Breq would have accepted from the emperor, because she owes a debt to the sister of Lieutenant Awn, one of her former crew members who had died in her service.

It’s hard to match the novelty of Ancillary Justice, especially since one of the things I loved about that first book were the flashback sequences in the many-bodied ship AI with ancillary system. But this was a solid entry in its own right. I thought it felt rather incomplete, like the first half of a book rather than a whole book, to be concluded with Ancillary Mercy, but was still a good book, worthy of an award.

Best Novelette

“The Magician and Laplace’s Demon,” Tom Crosshill (Clarkesworld 12/14)

(this review was part of my Nebula Novelette review, where I review the 3 nominated novelettes I found time to read)

The protagonist of the story is an every expanding near-omniscient near-omnipotent AI. It thinks it has everything under control, but it discovers a new threat, an inscrutable impossible unprovable threat–magic. The alteration of probability which only manifests when it can’t be proved. Alteration of probability isn’t inherently provable because there’s always a chance it could’ve turned out that way anyway, but when the same person can twist it in their favor time and time again, even if it’s not provable.

This story was great on so many levels. The outcome was never certain because the two sides are so powerful, but differently powerful. I love a great mix of science fiction and fantasy like this. Epic, fun, exciting.

Best Short Story

“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye,” Matthew Kressel (Clarkesworld 5/14)

(this is an excerpt of my Nebula Short Story Review, where I review all 7 nominated short stories)

Humanity has been gone for eons, and there’s not much of interest going on anymore so the Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye have a lot of time just to talk. Until they find the DNA encoding of a human named Beth in a pod and recreate her. She is terribly ill and she only has time to hint at a secret that even the All-Seeing Eye doesn’t know before she dies from her illness. The Eye cannot allow this, and sets out to recreate Beth again and again and again, but each time they can’t keep her alive long enough.

I really enjoyed this story. The tone seems light at the beginning, like an intergalactic buddy road trip between the Meeker and the Eye, but as the Eye seeks Beth’s secret’s relentlessly it gets much darker. Solidly entertaining, far future SF.

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation

Edge of Tomorrow, Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (Warner Bros. Pictures)

(this is an excerpt of my Ray Bradbury Award Review, where I review the 5 nominated films that I could find rentals for)

Earth is under attack from an alien force known only as mimics, viciously deadly enemies that humans have only one battle against. Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) works in PR for the US military and has been ordered to the frontier of the war in France. The general in charge of the war effort orders Cage to go to the front lines to cover the war. When Cage attempts to blackmail his way out of the mission, he is taken under arrest and dropped at the front with the claim that he had tried to go AWOL and so is quickly forced into service, given only the most passing training in the mechsuits that are standard issue, and dropped into battle with everyone else. This area was supposed to be fairly quiet, but the battle here is intense. Cage manages to kill one of the mimics, but dies in the act, only to wake up earlier in the day when he’d woken on the base in handcuffs after the general had him arrested. He dies again, and again, and again. No one else has any memory of reliving the day except for Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), the super-soldier nicknamed “Full Metal Bitch” after she wreaked havoc against the mimics in the only battle against the mimics that the humans have won. She confides that she had won that battle because she had gone through the same thing he had–as long as he dies he will always restart at the same time and place.

I avoided this movie in theaters, because I haven’t really gone to any Tom Cruise movies since he kindof went publicly nuts. But I rented this one since it was nominated. I thought Tom Cruise was back to old form in it, and even if you don’t like it, well you get to see him die literally dozens of times. I thought Emily Blunt was especially good in her role as Rita, powerful but still affected by the PTSD of dying over and over and seeing so many die around her over. The looping-after-death element makes for a cool dynamic when well-plotted and when placed against large enough obstacles, which was well done here. Good spec FX, good casting all around, solidly entertaining.

Hugo Novel Review (Partial): Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross

written by David Steffen

This is the first year that I’ve actually managed to read all of the nominees in the Hugo novel category, at least a portion of each. Charles Stross’s Neptune’s Brood is the last of the batch, and I only got my hands on it mid-July when I borrowed it from a friend–the publishers decided not to put it in the Hugo packet, and neither Stross nor Penguin were interested in providing a review copy so I had been intending to just skip the book until the opportunity to borrow it came up. I haven’t finished reading the whole book yet. I’m at about page 150 of 340. But the Hugo deadline is tomorrow and this is the last posting slot I have before the deadline, so if I want to share my review before the deadline it’s got to be a partial. You can consider this part 1 of the review; I’ll write up the rest when I’ve finished the book.

Neptune’s Brood takes place in the universe of Stross’s book Saturn’s Children, but can easily be read as a standalone. I’ve not read Saturn’s Children, but from what I gather, Neptune’s Brood is not a sequel and the time lapsed between the two is so long that there aren’t any narrative lines from one to the other in any case. If you like one, I’d guess you’d like the other, but they can be enjoyed independently.

In the universe of Neptune’s Brood, human life as we would recognize it (known in that time and place as “Fragile”) has gone extinct more than once, only to be revived. That kind of body is just generally not suitable for the rigors of space travel, the radiation and longevity problems inherent in the medium. A person’s mind is backed up on soul chips, electronic wafers that contain the essence of their mind. Without a brain a soul chip is just an inert data card, but any body is eminently replaceable. A new body can be grown for a soul chip, and the soul-chip will then decompress the mind it stores into the body. Humanity as it exists is spread across a large number of interstellar colonies. Colonization is far from easy; it is both extremely expensive and prone to failure, and also a very very slow process. Once a colony has been established, a communications beacon can be established and can import the minds of colonists that can be printed on soul chips and grown new bodies, so it is only the first colonists who have to travel by starship. Stross has clearly put a lot of thought and planning into the economy and technology that supports the spread of humanity through the stars. The explanations of them are very interesting, and I expect they would be even more so to someone whose academic focused centered around economics or space travel. And in particular, the problem of how to deal with interstellar economics without dodging around the problem of communications limited by lightspeed. There are no ansibles or wormholes or anything like that to work around the problems. It deals with them with the limitations as we understand them now. From my point of view, at least, it all seems very plausible.

Krina Alizond-114 is a historian of accountancy practices on a lengthy academic pilgrimage who learns that her sister Ana has disappeared from where she had been living on the water-world of Shin-Tethys, so Krina sets out to Shin-Tethys to find her. Eager to book the fastest passage possible on short notice, she takes a job doing unskilled labor for a Church of the Fragile. The Church is literally built in the shape of a church building as it would exist on a planetary surface, an ungainly and unfunctional shape for a starcraft to be sure. On the previous journey, a deadly accident killed several members of the crew, and several more deserted upon landing, so the Deacon is looking for help to keep the ship functional until new bodies can be grown for the dead crew members. Krina can tell early on that something fishy is going on with the crew, but soon she has to deal with the inhuman assassin stowaway intent on killing her, as well as on the insurance-underwriting pirates that capture the Church vessel and demand that Krina tell them how to find Ana so that the pirates don’t bankrupt themselves paying for Ana’s life insurance policy.

The worldbuilding of Neptune’s brood is dense. There’s a lot of meat there. Interesting stuff, and he’s taken it all into account with the history and plotting in the book. But it does take some heavy chewing to get through it all. I think that this is a large part of why I didn’t feel that the plot had much tension before about page 70. Up until that point I was considering whether I wanted to keep reading, and I could’ve gone either way, but was interested in the worldbuilding as it was rolling out so decided to keep going. I’m glad that I did because at about page 70 all the tension hits from about three directions at once and is still keeping me interested at page 140. So, if you’re like me and you really want some action, some plot to keep you going, just stick through the beginning stretch and there’s plenty of action after that to get you going. Just stick with it. It’s worth it.

Beyond that, I haven’t made it far enough in the book to say I’d recommend it for sure, but between the very interesting and complex worldbuilding and the action and plot that are now in full swing, I’m sure that enough of my interest has been captured that I will read to the end of the book. I think the odds are pretty good I’ll recommend the book as a whole–it’s a rare book that loses me once I’m halfway through, mostly just if the ending is so terrible that it ruins what came before it in retrospect. Once I finish the book (probably in a few weeks), I’ll report back on what I thought of the rest of it.

My Hugo Ballot 2014

The voting deadline for the Hugo Awards is tomorrow, July 31st, and I’ve read as much of the Hugo content as I’m going to have time for. So, the time has come for me to cast my ballot and put awards aside until next year. As I’ve done the last couple years, I’ve publicly shared what my ballot is going to look like, as kind of a final section of my Hugo review that is kind of an overarching look at what I thought of the categories. I didn’t read work in all the categories, so I’ve abstained from voting in those that I had no familiarity with and left them off the ballot.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with how the voting system works, it used an instant runoff scheme which allows you to rank all of your choices. First, they count everyone’s first choice. If no one gets more than half the votes, then the lowest ranked one in that scheme is eliminated, and anyone who chose that one as their first choice then has their 2nd choice tallied instead. And so on until there is a clear winner. It is possible to vote for “No Award” which you do if you would rather no one win at all than for the remaining ones to win, and in the end if too many ranked No Award above the eventual vote-winner, then no award is given.

Best Novel

The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (Tor Books / Orbit UK) (I reviewed it here)
Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US/Orbit UK) (I reviewed it here)
Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross (Ace / Orbit UK) (will post review on July 30)
Parasite, Mira Grant (Orbit US/Orbit UK) (I reviewed it here)
No Award

I also reviewed Larry Correia’s Warbound here but ranked it below No Award. I didn’t get a copy of Neptune’s Brood until quite late in the game. I won’t finish it before the deadline but I’ve read far enough to get an overall impression to rank it here. I originally planned to post this ballot on July 30, but decided to post my partial review of Neptune’s Brood on that day to give me a couple more days of reading.

Best Novella

“Equoid”, Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
“The Chaplain’s Legacy”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013)
No Award

I reviewed this year’s Novella category here for more details.

Best Novelette

“The Waiting Stars”, Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky, Candlemark & Gleam)
“The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean, Fall 2013)
“The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com/Tor.com, 09-2013)
No Award

I reviewed this year’s nominees here for more details.

Best Short Story

“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere”, John Chu (Tor.com, 02-2013)
No Award

I reviewed this year’s nominees here for more details.

Best Related Work

“We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative”, Kameron Hurley (A Dribble of Ink)

Best Graphic Story

The Meathouse Man, adapted from the story by George R.R. Martin and illustrated by Raya Golden (Jet City Comics)
Girl Genius, Volume 13: Agatha Heterodyne & The Sleeping City, written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)
No Award

I reviewed this year’s nominees here for more details.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Iron Man 3, screenplay by Drew Pearce & Shane Black, directed by Shane Black (Marvel Studios; DMG Entertainment; Paramount Pictures)
Gravity, written by Alfonso CuarÃ�’ �n & JonÃ�’ �s CuarÃ�’ �n, directed by Alfonso CuarÃ�’ �n (Esperanto Filmoj; Heyday Films; Warner Bros.)
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, screenplay by Simon Beaufoy & Michael Arndt, directed by Francis Lawrence (Color Force; Lionsgate)
Frozen,screenplay by Jennifer Lee, directed by Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee (Walt Disney Studios)
Pacific Rim, screenplay by Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro, directed by Guillermo del Toro (Legendary Pictures, Warner Bros., Disney Double Dare You)

I reviewed this year’s nominees here for more details.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Game of Thrones: “The Rains of Castamere”, written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, directed by David Nutter (HBO Entertainment in association with Bighead, Littlehead; Television 360; Startling Television and Generator Productions)
No Award

Game of Thrones is awesome, and that was one of the best episodes in the series so far. I haven’t seen the rest of the category, but I am tired of episodes of Dr. Who dominating the ballot. There ARE other worthwhile things being published in SF, people. I’d rather Dr. Who would not be on the ballot or win anymore, so I’m voting accordingly. I haven’t seen Orphan Black, don’t know anything about it–so I don’t want to vote for it with no knowledge, but to vote No Award above Dr. Who episodes there’s nothing to do but lump Orphan Black in with them.

Best Editor, Short Form

John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Sheila Williams

Best Professional Artist

Dan Dos Santos
Julie Dillon
John Picacio
John Harris
Galen Dara

I based these entirely on the portfolio included in the Hugo packet. Though I do have a soft spot for Dos Santos–I have an autographed print of his portrait of Moiraine Damodred hanging in my office at home. They’re all good but I tend to like the styles that make the people seem very real, and convince me that everything unrealistic is just as real.

Best Semiprozine

Lightspeed Magazine
Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Best Fanzine

Dribble of Ink

Best Fancast

No Award

It’s not that I hate the nominees. It’s just that, with all the amazing fiction podcasts out there, I find it extremely disappointing that only nonfiction podcasts are on the ballot, and that the only fiction podcast that’s ever been on the ballot had to heavily pander to get there. If fiction podcasts aren’t going to be recognized in this category, then I hope this trial category is short-lived.

Best Fan Writer

Kameron Hurley

Best Fan Artist

Sarah Webb

I based these entirely on the portfolio included in the Hugo packet, which only included work from three of the five nominees for some reason.

Hugo Novel Review: Parasite by Mira Grant

written by David Steffen

In the near future, The American medical corporation Symbogen releases a product that dramatically changes the medical industry–the Intestinal Bodyguard, a a genetically engineered tapeworm that manages most of your medical needs, including suppressing allergic reactions, and producing insulin for diabetics. Within a few years, the tapeworm implants are so ubiquitous, you would be hard pressed to find an American who doesn’t have one, and cheaper models have even become popular in third world countries where they help keep people healthy who have never known good health. They are the universal cure-all elixir. There can be no doubt that they have all the marvelous effects that are claimed–these are well documented. What may not be so well documented are the side effects that may come with that little traveling companion in your gut.

Sally Mitchell owes her life to the parasite, even more than most. She was involved in a terrible car accident, after which the doctors pronounced her permenantly braindead and urged her parents to remove her from life support. During that very discussion, she wakes up. She suffered from complete memory loss, to such an extent she had to relearn how to speak from scratch and had no memory of her previous life. Lacking memories of her old life, she became a completely different person but one who has learned to be completely functional within a few years, even holding down a job. She has to live with her parents and must make regular visits to Symbogen for them to study her condition further.

Symbogen’s interest in her has only increased with the recent increase in reports of the “sleeping sickness” which seems to be related to the parasites. Those afflicted with the sleeping sickness take on a state like sleepwalking without warning, even when they hadn’t been sleeping. And, sometimes, these sleepwalkers can be dangerous.

I’ve been looking forward to this novel, the first in the Parasitology trilogy, since I saw it on the Hugo list–the complete novel didn’t end up being in the Hugo packet, but I was able to get a review copy. I haven’t been familiar with Mira Grant’s (aka Seanan McGuire’s) for very long, but she’s gotten several award nominations these past few years that I’ve been following the award closely and her work has been good enough that I was very interested in reading a novel by her.

I thought that this was a solid novel, good through and through. I found Sal Mitchell a very relatable and interesting character, in a very interesting situation. She has learned enough language to be able to communicate fluently, but the youngness of her mind is clear in her spotty education on expressions and colloquialisms, and when she is lacking in some of the social norms that we generally take for granted. Her relationship with her boyfriend (Nathan Kim) is certainly not the point of the book, but was probably the part I enjoyed the most–a great example of a mutually supported relationship tuned to the individual people in it. All of the characters in the book were completely believable, even the ones with less savory aspects. I could believe everything in this book could really happen. Some of the characters gave me a strong enough impression that I had Hollywood actors picked out for their movie portrayals–for those reading along, I pictured Andy Serkis as Sherman and Ben Kingsley as Colonel Mitchell (Sally’s father).

Although this book has been billed as horror, I didn’t find it terribly horrific. Of course with tapeworm implants being a major factor there is potential that some might get grossed out by those parts, but I didn’t think anything was going for a squick factor in that. I think it would do just as well with a general SF audience, unless you’re particularly sensitive to the idea of the tapeworms, in which case you probably haven’t read this far anyway.

My first complaint is that there was a twist reveal late in the book that perplexed me a bit because I thought the knowledge given in the reveal had been a foregone conclusion since page 1 of the book. Understandably, that is from my perspective as a lifetime SF fan looking in from the outside of the situation, so it’s understandable if people in the actual story wouldn’t see it right away, but I thought there was enough evidence even within the story itself that some of them should’ve figured this reveal out long before it was handed to them–that was the one area where the characters didn’t behave as I thought they would.

My second complaint, admittedly a minor one, is that this doesn’t stand alone as a single book. My favorite series are those where each book is its own complete arc while also being part of the larger arc of the series. That’s not the case here–rather than resolving anything at the end, several more cans of worms are opened and then the book is over. Of course, wanting a full arc per book is a personal preference and certainly not a requirement of a writer.

I would highly recommend this book, and I eagerly await reading the second and third books in the series.

Hugo Novel Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (Repost)

written by David Steffen

Note: This is a reposted review of one that had run in December 2013. I’m reposting it here as part of my annual roundup of Hugo nominees.

“Breq is both more than she seems and less than she was. ” This line is from the back-cover blurb of Ancillary Justice, the debut novel by Ann Leckie published by Orbit Books. Breq is a fragment of the ship AI known collectively as Justice of Toren, whose mind once occupied many bodies simultaneously: the body of the ship itself and thousands of ancillaries. Ancillaries are “corpse soldiers”, human bodies whose minds have been overwritten to function as appendages of a ship AI. At the point where the story begins, there is only Breq. All the rest of her is gone. She has chosen a mission, a dangerous mission against astronomical odds.

The genre is probably most easily described as a space opera SF. Galaxy-spanning empires, fights, drama, action. But I don’t mean that as a criticism. This book is everything that space opera should be: exciting, emotional, action-packed, and well-paced. The story hits the ground running–there’s no infodump to ground you in the politics or technology of the universe. Action is happening on page one, and reading the story is as much a puzzle to figure out the significance of different political factions, the limits of the available technology, as the story is happening around. With such a grand background, it would be easy to lose the individuals in the midst of it or to use one-dimensional characters from central casting, but the story is full of strong characters, including Breq herself, which give the very human, emotional components that a story needs to be really engaging.

In some ways Breq is superhuman–a very efficient killer when she wants to be, with flawless aim and a computer-like ability to calculate complex math. In other ways she struggles where an ordinary human would not–interpreting facial expressions, trying to tell male and female genders apart. It’s just taken for granted that she is extremely capable, but the book places her against such tough odds and difficult situations that even then her success is not inevitable. But it also manages to pull off the conclusion in a convincing manner so that it doesn’t seem a contrived success. A tough balance to strike but it is done well.

All that’s well and good, but what really makes this book stand out in my mind from other space operas is the interesting format of the point of view of Justice of Toren. The first scenes take place once Breq is all that’s left of Justice of Toren, and although she thinks and acts differently than a typical human, she is more-or-less very human-like, so the POV is not particularly novel. But scenes from that time period are interspersed with flashback scenes from Justice of Toren in all her legion of bodies. She is a single entity, despite all the bodies, receiving sensory input and exerting control over all of them simultaneously, and each body is basically an appendage of the whole, though the bodies are capable of functioning in isolation (as the continued existence of Breq shows you). Writing such a complicated point of view was a risk that could’ve easily made the book unreadable for anyone but the writer (who of course knows how it’s all supposed to fit together). Quite frankly, this is a point of view that shouldn’t work. In the hands of a lesser writer, it would be a garbled mess from which you wouldn’t be able to extract a narrative. Ann Leckie took a risk with this, and she made it look easy. If you’re interested in reading, if you’re interested in writing, even if you have no interest in space opera, you should try out the first few chapters of this book to see how she did it.

I’ll admit, there are parts of the book where I felt like I was falling a little behind, particularly having to do with the relation between some political/social factions. I think that I could sort these out with a second read-through. I don’t think these were the faults of the writing, but of me being a bit slow on the uptake, and even with that I was able to understand the central plotline perfectly well.

And, even better, this is slated to be the first book in a trilogy. The first book stands well enough on its own as a complete story that you don’t need to go further, but I’ll be looking forward to reading the next two books–it’s always hard to outdo the novelty of the first in a series, but I look forward to seeing what Leckie can do for a followup.

I’ve heard some buzz about Ancillary Justice in relation to Hugo and Nebula nominations. I will certainly be ranking it high on my Hugo ballot. I would love to see this book get all the recognition it deserves. Please read this book and tell everyone you know about it.

Hugo Novel Review: The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

written by David Steffen

I’ll try to keep spoilers out of the review and just talk on broad arching principles and maybe a few specifics that aren’t major plot points. Since this is a series of fourteen huge books, that limits a great deal of what I could talk about. But I’ll do my best.

I had nominated the final book of the series, A Memory of Light, for the Hugo Award, but it is not just the final book but the whole series that is up for nomination. I had no idea this was a possibility until it happened. It’s only allowed if none of the individual books were on the final ballot in previous years, and I think the idea is to consider a single long work as a whole if it has a continuous plot arc from beginning to end. So, that’s what happened.

Some people on the Internet are making a stink about The Wheel of Time series being on the final ballot, complaints that some Wheel of Time fans might start a voting bloc, etc etc. There’s drama every year, and this isn’t even the biggest drama of this year. If you want to get worked up about such things, go for it, but it’s operating entirely within the rules so if you don’t like it, try to influence a change in the rules. Otherwise, IMO, there’s not really anything to complain about.

Plus, if you buy a supporting membership for WorldCon this year to get the right to vote which costs $40, then you get the entire Wheel of Time series in ebook format at no additional cost. That is seriously cool.

History of the Series

The Wheel of Time is an epic other-world fantasy series created by Robert Jordan. Robert Jordan wrote the series up to book eleven: The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, The Shadow Rising, The Fires of Heaven, The Lord of Chaos, Path of Daggers, A Crown of Swords, Winter’s Heart, The Crossroads of Twilight, and Knife of Dreams, published between 1990 and 2005.

In 2006, Jordan publicly announced that he he had been diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis. He passed away in September 2007, having left copious notes and partial sections written of what he intended to be the one final book. After some long consideration, Brandon Sanderson was chosen as the writer to complete the writing of the series using Jordan’s notes. In Sanderson’s words, he said that there were certainly better writers than him, and there were certainly bigger Wheel of Time fans than him, but he was probably the best choice to maximize both of those concerns at once.

Brandon Sanderson finished writing the remaining sections of and compiling what ended up being the final three books of The Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, and A Memory of Light, published in 2009, 2010, and 2013 respectively.

Review

Most people who’ve tried reading the series fanatically love it, fanatically hate it, or fanatically love it until about book ten at which point they lost interest and never finished the rest.

Those who fall into that last category: I encourage you to give the rest of the series a try. As a whole, I see value in almost all of the books in the series, though there’s certainly some uneven qualities. Book ten, The Crossroads of Twilight, is the exception. I went on at length about that particular book in a separate review, so I won’t go into it here. Suffice it to say that nothing happens at great length for a long book, until literally the final page when something finally happens. So, you might just want to read a general summary, read the last few pages, and move on to Knife of Dreams. Granted, I wouldn’t listen to someone’s advice if they told me that, but if you do insist on reading it, just keep in mind it is not representative of the quality of the series after it, so at least try Knife of Dreams.

I’ve also written up a separate review for A Memory of Light, the last book in the series, which you can find here.

The first book starts with a sudden influx of strangers into the town of Emond’s Field in the Two Rivers, where three young men of very similar age live: Rand al’Thor, Matrim Cauthon, and Perrin Aybara. It seems like these are just visitors for the holidays, but it’s no coincidence that the town is attacked by Trollocs, beasts the locals believe to only be myths. One of the strangers in town, Moiraine Damodred and her warrior companion Lan Mandragoran, smuggle the boys out of town, claiming the attack was directed at finding them. The first book follows that group as they are pursued by Trollocs as they try to journey to Tar Valon where they can be protected.

The series goes on in various directions from there, most of which I can’t really talk about without getting into heavy spoiler territory. This is and always will be one of my favorite series, and it’s definitely getting my vote for the Hugo Award for Best Novel this year.

The Good Parts

Imaginative worldbuilding with a variety of detailed cultures
A cool and detailed magic system
The first book stands well alone as a standalone read
Most of the books in the series are memorable in their own right
Colorful and interesting cast of villains
If you like the story, there’s certainly a lot of it

The Bad Parts

The Crossroads of Twilight
The Crossroads of Twilight
A few of the other books relatively unmemorable
Some of the characters fall into the same personality cliches repeatedly (I still love them but it’s hard not to see)
Seriously, The Crossroads of Twilight. Yes it deserves to be on this list three times. It’s really that bad.
Some of the advancements in magical abilities are unexplained spontaneous jumps that don’t seem to fit into the worldbuilding
Some inconsistencies with how magic is explained in the first book with how it’s used in the rest of the series.
Sometimes the italicized internal monologuing gets excessive.

The Series’ Effect on My Life

I first came across The Wheel of Time when I was in about seventh grade. I was at a Barnes & Noble waiting for my mom to pick me up. To kill some time I went to the Science Fiction and Fantasy section and grabbed the book from the endcap with the most appealing cover, which happened to be book seven or eight of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. From there I went into the aisle and found book one of the series: The Eye of the World. I sat down and started reading and it drew me right in with the young man Rand al’Thor and his father Tam walking through a bitter cold wind and glimpsing a mysterious stranger. I was sorely disappointed when my mom got there and we had to go without the book.

At the time I lived in a tiny town with a pathetic closet of a library that mostly contained romance novels, and a school library that was no better. So without money I didn’t have a quick way to access it. I had a little side job delivering advertising newsletters for small amounts of money, so I spent those meager paychecks buying the books in The Wheel of Time series.

That was during a time of my life where I felt very isolated, having no car and living a couple miles outside the closest town which only had a population about 500 people. I’d moved there when I was ten, by which time the social cliques were very well cemented, and in the eight years that I lived there I never really felt part of any group. Reading and video games got me through a lot of that time, keeping me entertained enough to stay sane and The Wheel of Time was a big part of that as the next several books came out through the high school years, and each time a new book came out I would re-read the series again in preparation.

In college, things were much better, but there were still some rough times. One of the worst kind of times were nights in the dorm sophomore year when I lived in a room next to a sorry excuse for a human being who played music and video games at all time of night with the subwoofer planted against the wall with no consideration of other people’s sleep. Talking to him accomplished nothing. Talking to the dorm master accomplished nothing. There was one particular night where he was playing Counterstrike until 3am with the machine guns and grenades pounding the walls. I had to get up at 5am to work at a gas station the next morning. I managed to get through that night without killing anyone and without having a nervous breakdown, and I owe that at least in part to a meditation technique that our main protagonist Rand al’Thor learns in the very first book. I used that technique and even though I was awake for most of the night, just kind of watching the clock and lying still, I still felt rested enough the next day.

And, The Wheel of Time has even molded some of my strategies for life. One of the elements of the series that I found very compelling was ji’e’toh, the systematic system of honorable behavior followed by the warlike clans of the Aiel. There are many details of it, but one of the things that I took from the system was that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do, sometimes you want to do things that will have consequences you’d rather avoid. But what is generally best is just to do what you need to do and then willingly pay the price required for it. It may not seem profound at the surface, but I’ve found that a lot of everyday problems can be broken down to that level: just asking what you need to do, and asking what you need to pay to do it.

Bottom line: it’s got my top vote for the Hugo Award, and it probably would no matter what other books it was running against. Any other year, Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice would probably be my favorite, but The Wheel of Time has had a huge impact on me.

Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

written by David Steffen

I’ve heard some buzz about Ancillary Justice in relation to Hugo and Nebula nominations. I will certainly be nominating it for the Hugo, and voting for it if it is one of the finalists. I would love to see this book get all the recognition it deserves. Please read this book and tell everyone you know about it.