Mystery and science fiction make a great pairing and Lock In by John Scalzi does it well. It's a police procedural set in a future where a portion of the population has been affected by Haden's syndrome, leaving some "locked in, " awake and aware, but unable to move or respond without computer/mechanical help.
I find a read more sci-fi every year and really enjoy it. Lock In is light on the sci-fi side. It's near future and the tech is obviously more advance, allowing human brains to connect with "threeps" (named after C-3PO), the robots that allow locked Haden victims to move, talk, interact with the real world and with the Agora, a virtual world that allows Hadens to communicate with each other, to have their own "spaces" and communal areas. But it all feels distinctly possible and here. It's not space ships and AI robots. There are Hadens who never use a threep, who basically live and work in...
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...
"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...
A Christmas Carol tends to be one of my selections every year, whether it be in print, on audio, or watching a movie adaptation. It's just a good story. Ebenezer starts off as an arrogant, obstinate, miserly man, but by the end, he's generous and warm-hearted, a changed man.
I listened to the story this time around on the Audible Channel. Honestly, it took me a little while to get used to the full cast. It's just unusual that a story I listen to has more than one, or at most two, narrators. Once I got into it, though, I enjoyed the format. It was like listening to a play with a narrator taking up the pieces that couldn't be handled well through dialogue.
It's a traditional Christmas story and I think this format would make it a nice listen for the whole family....
The Collapsing Empire is my first Scalzi book, but since it's the first in a new series in a new world that wasn't a problem. I have to say I really enjoyed it. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was getting good review and I needed an audio for the Sci-Fi Readathon. Now, I'm a little upset that I have to wait for the next in the series, which, at least according to Goodreads, isn't expected until 2019. :(
The Flow has allowed humans to build a far-flung empire, the Interdependency. The Interdependency is set up so that all the colonies must depend on each other, hence the name. The problem is the flow is changing, moving, becoming inaccessible - outposts will be cut-off, unable to send or receive supplies or people. Eventually, it's going to be a matter of survival, but now it's a political issue, one that the brand-new Emperox has to handle.
It's clearly the first in...
The Girl with Ghost Eyes is an enjoyable read, but I felt like it was straddling the line between YA and adult historical fantasy, which threw me off a little. I can't put my finger on why it felt like that. Li-lin is not a teenager, she's in her early 20s, I think, and a widow. So, it's not her age. There isn't a love triangle. I listened to the audio, and maybe the writing sounded a bit simple at times and there were definitely repetitive sections. I don't know. Am I the only one who got that feeling? I listened to the audio and was glad that I did. Zeller brings Li-lin to life, but I also like to hear the Chinese words and phrases, not try to struggle with reading them.
Li-lin is a good character. She is tough and strong and a talented martial artist. She's also a Daoist exorcist who has ghost eyes, meaning she can see all the spirits, ghosts...
