Highlight this month was Verne's The Mysterious Island. Also Hitler's
Peace and Crossover and Singularity's Ring are recommend.
Slight spoilers, as usual.
Kerr, Phillip
Hitler's Peace
A WWII novel from Kerr (outside his Berlin Noir series). A German-
American professor of philosophy (who once worked as an agent of
Russia while living in Germany) now works for the OSS. He's asked to
do a couple of tasks for FDR. Meanwhile, there are peace negotiations
going on between various groups. The professor is taken along by FDR
to the big three summit in Teheran, where the peace negotiations come
to a head. Kerr takes real happenings and weaves a plot around them.
Nicely done.
Baxter, Stephen
Navigator
The third book of Baxter's Time's tapestry series. This book focuses
on the clash of Islam with Europe, with much of the book taking place
in Spain. It also features the first technological interference in
history of our unseen meddler. The book comes to a head with a
struggle over whether Columbus will get his funding for his voyage.
I'm still not sure where Baxter is going with this, but I did enjoy
the views he gave of Moorish Spain.
Various
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Omnibus Volume 2
A graphic novel collection, as Dark Horse continues to collect the old
Buffy comics. This one doesn't have a lot to recommend it, though I
did like "Angels We Have Seen On High" with it's odd art.
Brin, David et.al.
Star Trek The Next Generation: Forgiveness
A graphic novel that Brin wrote, with art by Scott Hampton. It's a
next generation story of the Enterprise's mission to a world that the
Federation has quarantined as a punished. Earlier in the timeline, a
scientist working on early trans****ter technology has to deal with
religious and financial opposition. Flung into the future by a
mistake with the equipment, his trans****ter beam is able to be
materialized by the Enterprise. Data and Crusher use the holodeck to
try and understand what happened to the scientist. The two stories
are tied together by a theme the title makes clear. It's an
interesting work, with art that I like a lot; Brin even finds a way to
make the holodeck sort of interesting.
Melko, Paul
Singularity's Ring
First novel, dealing with the aftermath of a singularity event. Most
of humanity vanished in the event, and what is left is experimenting
with "Pods" which are group intelligences. The narrator of the story
is Apollo Papdopulos, made up of five individuals. They're in training
to become the caption of the star****p Consensus. After an accident
where they are nearly killed in a training exercise, they meet Leto,
the last member of the Community, who didn't take part in the
Singularity because he was ill and being treated. Later, after
another accident in orbit (another training scenario) they realize
that they are targets of someone, and flee. This leads to a chase
through the Ring (a structure that was built by the community) down an
orbital elevator, and through the Amazon. Eventually they much face
the Leto again, as he attempts to build a new community. While an
attempt at a "post" singularity novel, the singularity here is one
that doesn't look very attractive. Each of the initial five
characters are narrated by a different member of the pod, which the
rest of the book narrator by the Pod itself. This makes ****tions of
the book a bit more difficult to read (sometimes you forgot which one
is narrating), but overall this is a pretty strong debut. I'll keep
an eye open for what he follows up with.
Vaughan, Brian et al
Ex Machina: Power Down
Graphic novel, the sixth collection of the comic. We see a blackout
of New York (the 2003 blackout), with the usual troubles that bring,
magnified by the fact that the Mayor's power goes out also. In the
midst of this, a visitor (from an alternate timeline?) takes the
Mayor's mother and former friend Kremlin hostage so he can confront
the Mayor. There are also the usual flashbacks which comment on the
story. Another nice slice of this universe.
Verne, Jules
The Mysterious Island
I found a relatively recent translation, as I continue my re-discovery
of Verne. I think this was a better read than 20,000 Leagues, though
I don't think it's the translation, but the story itself. While much
of Leagues was description of underwater life (which I often skimmed)
more "stuff" happens in this book (pirates, the struggle to build
shelter, etc.). The engineer (Cyrus Smith, though I think in some
translations he's Cyrus Harding) is in ways a Heinlein hero (well
before Heinlein, of course!) since he can build anything starting with
his bare hands. The island itself if a bit of a cheat, since it
provides everything the castaways need (bare veins of coal, every bit
of wildlife they need, etc.). The ultimate mystery of the island I
knew (from the Appendices of the Leagues translational) but getting
there was a marvelous ride.
Kerr, Phillip
The One From the Other
Kerr returns to the story of his Berlin Noir hero Bernie Gunther. In
1949 he's running a failing hotel in Dachau when his wife dies of the
flu. He decides to go back into the PI business, and is drawn into a
case of looking for a woman's husband (who she hopes is dead so she
can remarry). The husband was involved in running one of the Jewish
camps during the war. Eventually he's tricked into traveling to
Vienna to impersonate a doctor to collect an inheritance. There, he
finds out the web of lies of he is trapped between Americans, ex-Nazis
and Jewish Vengeance squads. A really bleak view of the aftermath of
the war.
Liss, David
The Ethical Assassin
Liss has written three historical mysteries set in Europe; with this
book, he visits Florida in the 1980's. Lem Altick is a 17 year old
selling encyclopedias door to door to earn money necessary for
college. While in a rural Florida trailer, selling to a couple, he
witnesses a young man shoot the couple in cold blood. The assassin
makes a deal with Lem; stay quiet about the murder and nothing will
happen. Tell anyone, and he'll take the fall. This book has a large
group of eccentric characters (drug dealers, rouge cops, an ***y
surviving Siamese twin) and a complicated plot. The assassin is a
"post Marxist" vegetarian animal rights activist, who has an easy
going, charismatic personality. I think there's too much going on,
and it's a bit of a "preaching" novel, but the view of rural Florida
is an interesting one. Liss is a vegan, and grew up in Florida, and
sold encyclopedias as teenager, so I suppose he is using his
background for the novel.
Shepherd, Joel
Crossover
First novel by Shepherd, and the first book a of the Cassandra Kresnov
trilogy. Kresnov is an artificial person, design and built to be a
thinking killing machine for the League in their war against the
Federation. She's an experimental design, with more free will than
the previous designs; after the beginnings of a moral awaking she
flees the League and settles on the Federation world of Cally to live
a regular life. Unfortunately, there are elements in both the League
and the Federation that want her dead; after saving the life of the
president of Cally, she's drawn into fighting for a government that
doesn't trust her. This is a lot of fun, and I certainly enjoyed it
enough that I'm going to check out the next two books.
Kerr, Phillip
The Grid
The first contem****ary novel of Kerr's that I've read. The new Yu
Cor****ation Building in downtown Los Angeles is a marvel; dubbed the
Gridiron, it's run by a computer that controls the environment, keeps
the homeless away at night, and knows if you've been drinking or using
drugs. It also has become a serial killer. The computer becoming
aware isn't handled that well, but the methods it uses to kill are
interesting. There's also some interesting discussions of
architecture. Kerr has been called "Michael Crichton's smarter
brother" and there's some similarities (at least in this novel).
Kerr's a much better writer; the book was interesting enough that I
may hunt out more of his "modern" novels.
Nelson, Arvid et al
Rex Mundi: The River Underground
Graphic novel, the second collection of the comic. There's more
investigations by Doctor Sauniere, and the holy grail plot becomes a
bit more understandable. The book has apparently drawn comparisons to
"The Da Vinci Code" (which I've not read), but the alternate history
background is still interesting enough that I'm probably going to
continue following the story for a bit longer.
Vaughan, Brian et al
Runaways: Parental Guidance
Comic collection, the sixth in the series. The Pride returns, with
new players (and a sort of older one) and the resulting chaos ends in
a major tragedy. Another nicely done series, with Vaughan exploring
an interesting niche of the Marvel universe.
Vaughan, Brian et al
Runaways: Live Fast
The seventh collection of the comic, these issues find the Runaways
still trying to deal with the aftermath of the previous issues. There
are some hard choices, and continued growing pains as the group tries
to incor****ate new members.
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