Science Fiction – Page 9 – Carol's Notebook

Artemis by Andy Weir

May 25, 2018 by Carol3 Comments

Artemis is at heart a caper story with a sci-fi backdrop. Jazz is a small time criminal who is offered the chance to make big money doing a job she is capable of, because she's brilliant, but is outside of her usual parameters. The job of course goes awry - as they so often do. But, it turns out the job just a part of the larger plan, a plan affecting all of Artemis. So, as she sees it, in order to save her city, she pull together the standard motley crew of misfits, including her dad (who I really liked), her ex-boyfriend's current boyfriend, a Ukrainian scientist, and others to pull off a near-impossible crime. Set on earth, this would be a fun enough crime novel. Jazz is a good character, smart as all get out, but under-motivated. She's sarcastic and lonely. I didn't always love her sense of humor, especially when she's speaking directly to the reader, it feels...

Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor

April 6, 2018April 13, 2018 by Carol6 Comments

"I don't like time travel and I don't read much science fiction." Apparently I'm a liar. Just One Damned Thing After Another is my third science fiction-ish book of the year and deals pretty much solely with time travel and I though it was a blast. Our historian is Madeleine Maxwell (Max) and I have to say I love her. She's smart and funny in that snarky way and she really does seem to be a bit of a disaster magnet. St Mary's is a "secret" organization that specializes in time travel, going back and observing history - not interfering. They take assignments from a university that they are connected with. There aren't very many historians (time-travelers) in part because they end up getting killed on assignments, so the few that there are get to cover all sort of times, not just those they specialize in. You have to suspend disbelief here and just go along for the fun ride. Yeah, probably sending a non-paleontologist...

Andorra Pett and the Oort Cloud Café by Richard Dee

February 13, 2018February 7, 2018 by Carol4 Comments

Andorra Pett and her side-kick Cy have left behind their man-troubles on Earth and settled on a mining station off Saturn. They're going to make a go at running the little cafe, but there's just one problem - the body in the freezer. Apparently the old owner never actually left. And, since this is a cozy mystery, Andorra has to decide to investigate herself, instead of leaving it to the security force. Her reason is somewhat legit. The owner of the diner, the cafe's only competition, is a bit of a mob boss with ties to everything and everyone and he might be just as happy if she ended up being charged with the murder. I like the whole set up, the station is full of interesting characters, some more quirky than others. Andorra gathers a group of fabulous friends to help her and Cy out at the cafe and show them the ropes of living on the station. She also...

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

January 31, 2018February 12, 2018 by Carol5 Comments

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea alternates between positively boring and absolutely fascinating. At the story's opening, the seas are (maybe) being terrorized by (maybe) a giant monster. Professor Pierre Aronnax, a French marine biologist and narrator of the story, and his servant Conseil join an expedition leaving from New York to hunt the creature. Also among the crew is a Canadian whaler and master harpoonist, Ned Land. The ship finds the creature after a long search. It attacks, but the creature damages its rudder and our three protagonists are thrown into the water, only to be rescued by the monster, which, as we all know, turns out to be the Nautilus, created and commanded by Captain Nemo. Thus begins their journey of exploration under the seas, during which they travel the titular 20,000 leagues, or over 69,000 miles. First the boring. Aronnax is a biologist and Conseil is gifted at classification and they are both entranced with all the fish and sea creatures...

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

November 14, 2017November 14, 2017 by Carol6 Comments

I expected The Invisible Man to be a horror novel, turns out it's more science fiction. He's not a monster, he's just a man. Griffin is a genius scientist who used chemicals and electricity to turn himself invisible. However, after the years of research, when he finally figures out how to do it, it's winter. Does he wait? No, he goes ahead and does it to himself, after testing the solution on a cat, and becomes invisible. Mind you, to not be seen, he has to be naked - in the cold - in England. While he may be brilliant, he is not the best planner. I think I enjoyed The Invisible Man in part because I had no expectations. I knew it was about an invisible man, but I didn't know anything about the plot. Needless to say, life as the invisible man is not easy. He's isolated, often hungry and tired, he can't trust anyone. When he finally finds...

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 by Carol4 Comments

Six Wakes is one I picked up based on the blurb - a locked-room mystery in space, a sci-fi mystery. The sci-fi hook this time around was cloning. The laws around cloning are strict, but basically, we have figured out how to make mindmaps, putting all of a person's memories, thoughts, personalities into a code that can be transferred into that person's cloned body, making an individual practically immortal and able to inherit their own belongings/money. There's some philosophical discussion about what makes a person a person, what is a soul, etc., but it's not really dealt with in depth. The mystery set up is great. Six people wake up in fresh clone bodies, with the clear evidence that their previous bodies had been murdered, obviously by one of them, since everyone else on the generational ship is in "storage." One or more of them is the killer, but no one knows who - their memories from the last 25 years have...