djwudi's reviews
1066 reviews

The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons

4.0

A good second half to the far-future grand-scale space opera of Hyperion, moving away from the Canterbury Tales-inspired pilgrim's tales to spend more time with the rest of the universe as the story progresses. Definitely best seen as the second half to a singular work than as a sequel.

 NOTE: Given Simmons’ descent into right-wing politics, including [Islamophobia](https://viewfromtheloft.typepad.com/view_from_the_loft/2006/04/dan_simmons_cal_1.html) and [publicly attacking Greta Thunburg](https://file770.com/dan-simmons-criticized-for-remarks-about-thunberg/), he has earned a space on my “[milkshake duck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkshake_Duck)” virtual bookshelf, collecting those authors whose work I discovered, enjoyed, and might still enjoy, before later realizing that they are what I consider to be rather horrible people.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

4.0

Still as engrossing as when I first read it, many years ago. Far-future space opera on a huge scale, but presented through a series of vignettes shared by members of a band of pilgrims (if this sounds rather like Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_, be glad you got a good education in classic literature) heading toward what seems to be an unpleasant fate for all of them…and possibly billions more. Amusingly, while I knew that this was part of a series (originally two books, then four) because I have all of them on my shelf, I’d forgotten that the next book is not so much a sequel as the second half of a single story. Good thing I can just head upstairs and grab the next book to keep going!

NOTE: Given Simmons’ descent into right-wing politics, including [Islamophobia](https://viewfromtheloft.typepad.com/view_from_the_loft/2006/04/dan_simmons_cal_1.html) and [publicly attacking Greta Thunburg](https://file770.com/dan-simmons-criticized-for-remarks-about-thunberg/), he has earned a space on my “[milkshake duck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkshake_Duck)” virtual bookshelf, collecting those authors whose work I discovered, enjoyed, and might still enjoy, before later realizing that they are what I consider to be rather horrible people.

Star Trek: Mere Anarchy by Christopher L. Bennett, Howard Weinstein, Margaret Wander Bonanno, Kevin Dilmore, Dave Galanter, Mike W. Barr, Dayton Ward

4.0

Originally published as six eBook novellas, this series tracks a single plot line — a natural disaster on a non-Federation planet and the resulting aftermath and recovery — through decades, from just before TOS’s “Where No Man Has Gone Before” to just after the intro of _Star Trek: Generations_. It makes for a neat look both at the Federation’s long-term approach to working with non-aligned planets (after all, how often have we seen an adventure and then never heard of the planet or culture again?), and how the core TOS crew evolve over the years. This is helped by each novella being written by an author specifically chosen for their expertise in a particular era of Trek history. Definitely one of the stronger Trek omnibus stories I’ve read.

The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer by Janelle Monáe

hopeful

4.0

Hopepunk and Afrofuturist stories in the world of Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer. A really good set of stories, written with a lineup of coauthors. There wasn’t a story here that I didn’t enjoy. While not strictly necessary, I do recommend at least watching the Dirty Computer “emotion picture” (https://youtu.be/jdH2Sy-BlNE) before or along with reading this for a little more background on the world and its characters. And, of course, Monáe’s Dirty Computer album, along with the rest of her albums, is excellent.

Star Trek: Discovery: Somewhere to Belong by Dayton Ward

4.0

Taking place not long after the end of season three of Discovery (after solving the riddle of the Burn), this uses an adventure tying back to earlier Discovery moments as a framing device, but also nicely exploring an area that the show rather skips over: how the crew of the ship adjust to their new circumstances. There’s some entertaining lampshading of several DIS events, an interesting answer to why one of the alien races encountered in DIS were never seen in later Trek shows, and some very amusing movie night choices bookending the action.

Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh

challenging slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This one took me a while to get through, and it wasn't really until the latter half of the book that I really started to feel like I was really getting invested in it. It's dense, with a lot of the plot revolving around political maneuvering, cloning, and using psychological conditioning to educate, train, and mold the personalities of clones, as well as to influence and adjust both clones and non-clones throughout their lives. I often found myself reading just a few pages or sections at a time before setting it down, rather than just reading my way through. There's a lot of in-depth, high-concept ideas in here -- great if you're into that kind of thing, but difficult if you're not. (Right now, I appear to be somewhere in between those two extremes.)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Rape

The Weight of Worlds by Greg Cox

3.0

Kirk and Spock travel to another universe as the Enterprise crew try to counter an invasion by aliens on a religious crusade. The alien’s religion didn’t really make sense to me, their gravity-controlling weapons seemed to work mostly as required by the plot, and Cox’s referential style is as present as ever. (I feel like I harp on this, mentioning it in every review of one of his books, but it really stands out every time. He’s not a bad writer at all, he just has this stylistic quirk that likely doesn’t stick out nearly as much to some people as much as it does to me.) Not a bad adventure, but not top-tier, either.

Apocalypse Girl Dreaming by Jennifer Brozek

3.0

A collection of short fiction, with a mix of urban fantasy, “weird west” (supernatural western), and science fiction. I’ve enjoyed Brozek’s work as an editor in the past, and picked this up from her at Norwescon to sample her work as an author. I enjoyed these, especially as several were interconnected—generally not directly, but through being set in one or another of the worlds she’s created in her longer works. Short stories are often a fun way to dip into a world, and having a few to sample from a few different worlds was a nice way to get a feel for them beyond what a single story can do. That said, my favorite was a stand-alone story set in Seattle, playing with the “Pigs on Parade” statues that went up around the city in the early 2000s.

Unspoken Truth by Margaret Wander Bonanno

3.0

A Saavik-centric story, mostly set after the events of Star Trek IV, but with flashbacks to her youth. The first half of the book is mostly planetary exploration with a dash of mystery surrounding Saavik’s past; the latter half takes that mystery and becomes a somewhat odd spy story, with various disguised motivations. I found the latter half far less engaging than the first, but overall, I liked diving more into Saavik’s character and fleshing out some of the wider consequences of the Star Trek II/III/IV trilogy. Also, though not a comedic adventure, one brief mention of a character “stepping over a Thermian’s tentacles” in a bar did make me laugh out loud.

Interference by Sue Burke

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

As fascinating as the first. Centuries after the events of the first book, another expedition from Earth arrives at Pax. Their ethnocentric assumptions cause enough difficulties, but when another sentience makes itself known, it all gets worse. More really neat explorations of how cultures change and adapt, how those changes influence communication and understanding, the biology of plant life, and alien intelligences. I’m excited to see that a third book should arrive next year.