Category: Science Fiction Books

Considering that Keith Laumer is one of my favorite authors, and that David Weber is on my “read everything he writes” list, it’s not surprising that I found this book fascinating. Laumer was happy to go off in different directions with the bolo series, but those who have taken it up since his death have been trying to build a more coherent history around it.

One of David Weber’s major skills is in description of combat and of the feelings of those who participate in it. He has definitely brought that skill into this portrayal of a bolo in the time of the Melconian war. A bolo commander who survived the death of her bolo, and a bolo whose commander did not survive are combined in protecting a colony mission designed to plant a human presence outside of the area of the war where the Melconians might not find it.

Old Soldiers is a wonderful new addition to the bolo literature.

I enjoy the Man-Kzin wars series, but they aren’t on my list of favorites–good, but not exceptional. Thus Destiny’s Forge was an wonderful surprise. Expecting something merely interesting and entertaining, I was presented with something fascinating and challenging yet certainly no less entertaining. To put is simply, this is a great book.

The characters are strong and portrayed in depth. You might think some character is getting stereotyped at some points, but simply continue reading and you’ll find that there are greater depths. The cultural backgrounds remain largely logical and comprehensible, but are not so simple that you constantly predict what everyone will do. Mysteries can remain mysteries, yet when their solution arrives, you can agree that the solution fits.

The details of space battles are much more limited than in the Honor Harrington books, though I think they are just right to carry this story forward. The politics are interesting. In keeping with its setting on Kzinhome, we hear much more about Kzinti politics than human, but that only makes it more fun.

Paul Chafe goes immediately onto my short list of authors whose books get an automatic pass to the top of my reading list as quickly as they appear.

When I read the first two books set on Pern by Todd McCaffrey I really was not too impressed. Because they were from Pern, and the stories were OK, I knew I would keep reading them, but I didn’t feel that they had the same charm as Anne McCaffrey’s own work.

For the first few pages of this book I felt much the same way, but over time the story became more interesting and the characters more engaging, and for a while again I simply enjoyed Pern. The story is fairly simple, dealing again with the period of time just before a fall when there are skeptics who claim thread will never fall, and others who disagree on the preparations. I really appreciate the effort to deal with the implications of some of the social practices started by the colonists as we see some of the impact of the practice of shunning, something that had practically disappeared from Pern during the time of F’lar and Lessa.

We see a bit of overlap with Dragon’s Kin, and you may enjoy seeing some further development of those themes and characters. We also learn more about the watch whers.

All in all, this book was a good experience, and while I doubt I’ll ever rate Todd McCaffrey as the equal of his mother, I’ve definitely upgraded my desire to read his writing in the future.

This little book is the first volume in a series The Twins of Petaybee which continues the story of the planet Petaybee that was told in Powers that Be, Power Play, and Power Lines.

Those who really like McCaffrey’s writing will really like these little books. They’re somewhat lighter than the Dragonriders series, but they still have plenty of fun and interesting characters and cultures. Don’t expect excessive depths of mystery or strategy; everything is kept on a much simpler level than that.

The next volume in this series will appear in December of 2006.

Unfortunately I must say that this is my least favorite Pip and Flinx adventure thus far. But considering how much I like the series as a whole, that’s not too bad. This book develops a little bit more culture, though we get too little of the culture of the planet Flinx winds up on. It develops a little bit more of Flinx’s character. But it’s very slow on action and on conflict. At no point did I get the impression that Flinx was in actual danger. He’s just marching on to the next episode. It’s sort of like a novel written about the time between major active episodes.

Now because it’s Flinx and it’s set in the Humanx Commonwealth, and because it’s written by Alan Dean Foster, I really like the characters and the history I enjoyed it anyhow. But I’m warning you it’s not one of the more exciting episodes in Flinx’s life.

I like military science fiction, and so it was natural to pick up this book, my first by author William C. Dietz. Let me get a couple of things I didn’t really like out of the way first. This is more in the line of an extended history with several story lines followed at the same time. That’s normally OK with me, but it seemed a bit scattered and the various story lines didn’t always mesh all that easily. I also get jarred every time I read an incomplete sentence. Like this one. And Dietz does that quite a bit.

That said, I’m taking my copy back to the library today and I plan to look up another book or so by the same author. I like the military side. Dietz does a great deal less personality and politics than David Weber, for example, and what there is, is not well developed, but you also don’t get as distracted from the military story. I would note, however, that Weber gets the balance at about my favorite point. Those who have complained about excessive or unrealistic politics in Weber’s books should like this one.

I suspect that in as far a future point as is represented by this story the military technology would be more dominant in warfare, with less human individuals involved, but I appreciate some better integration of technology, such as cyborgs.

Dietz doesn’t move to the top of my list, but he will be on it from now on.

OK, having trashed one Terry Pratchett book, with apologies to all his fans including myself, let me just say that this one is up to standard. I actually found it a little less twisted than the average discworld book, but I found the story equally appealing, incredibly funny, and even a bit more suspenseful.

Ankh-Morpork has a new postmaster, who is very motivated to do his job.

The rest is history, provided we can figure out how that works.

This is a young adult book, and I’m not a young adult anymore, but I thought I’d try it. I really, really love Terry Pratchett. I think he’s a brilliant, imaginative, and humorous writer. Who wouldn’t think those things? They’re obvious characteristics of his work.

But I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get into this one. I finally took to skipping pages to see where things went, because I really didn’t enjoy the story, the premise, the way it was worked out, the characters, or pretty much anything about it. It may simply be the audience, though I’m not usually so put off by young adult material. I don’t know.

Try this at your own risk. I note from reading on Amazon.com that there are some people who think it is just as brilliant as the Discworld series. I just don’t get it.