Looking For a Good Book

In this conclusion to The Interdependency trilogy, author John Scalzi heats up the action and ties up the nicely, albeit unexpectedly.

‘The Flow’ is a slipstream in space that connects distant worlds/communities known as ‘The Interdependency.’ The Interdependency has one ruler, referred to as the Emperox (a non-gender version of emperor).  . The current emperox was not expecting to gain the title. Her father died and her brother was killed, thrusting her to rule over the entire Interdependency.  She took the name of Grayland II as her emperox name (she was Cardenia Wu-Patrick before becoming the emperox). Fortunately for her, she can seek guidance from every other emperox before her.  A special room (the Memory Room) allows for her to call upong any past emperox and a computer generated image appears, complete with mannerisms and all the knowledge of what that emperox thought or did.  Recordings are made of Grayland II every moment so that once she passes on she will also be able to impart knowledge to the next emperox.

And she may just ‘pass on’ sooner rather than later.  One of the biggest drawbacks to becoming emperox is that assassination attempts are pretty common.  Even more so when you were not the expected emperox and the leader of another house, Nadashe Nohamapetan, who has tremendous political clout and power, thinks that she should be the emperox.

Working alongside Grayland is Lady Kiva Lagos – a no-nonsense, full of action woman who may have just a touch of coprolalia or Tourettes – and Marce Claremont. The latter, a brilliant flow scientist, is Cardenia’s lover. He is also the person who has brought awareness to Grayland II and the Interdependency, that the flow streams are collapsing and that soon each planet or station will be cut off from all the others.  This bodes doom for a collective that relies on the trade between worlds.

Grayland’s council of house leaders don’t seem to want to believe in Marce’s science, while at the same time they begin planning for the safety of themselves and their families with little concern for the people they govern, which is why Grayland II sees it as her duty to find a way to save the entire Interdependency … while fending off assassination attempts, of course.

Scalzi’s one of the best when it comes to adventurous space opera and this book definitely thrills, while wrapping up the story quite nicely.  There is a surprise or two along the way, and a few things that are not at all surprises but that you really wanted to see happen.

It’s hard to say too much without giving anything away, and making the discovery is definitely part of the fun here. Though there is a major plot that happens and I haven’t decided yet if I’m a little ticked off that we didn’t get any clues about the possibility of it happening until this third book, or if there was a clue about this right under our noses from the very beginning and we just didn’t see it coming.

If you happen to follow Scalzi at all, on any of his social media platforms, you’ll know he tends to get political, and the political parallels in this book aren’t particularly subtle. If he was looking for a theme for this series, he found it with American politics of the last four years (though Scalzi’s leader is antithetical to the U.S. leader).

I’ve already personally recommended the first two books in the series to a few people, and I would recommend this one as well.  But you really will want to have read the whole series, so don’t start here … end here.

Looking for a good book? The Last Emperox by John Scalzi is a thrilling space opera adventure that nicely finishes of The Interdependency series.  Read all three books.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Last Emperox

author: John Scalzi

series: The Interdependency #3

publisher: Tor Books

ISBN: 0765389169

hardcover, 320 pages

Just around the time the first true Artificial Intelligence appeared on the earth all computers, all databases everywhere were wiped clean (a time known as ‘the seizure’) and mankind was at the mercy of the AI (known as “emergences”). But now the AI’s are gone, ‘living’ in a satellite orbiting Mercury – choosing a ‘self’ exile rather than look after humans.

Except for one.

Dr. Easy has stayed in order to research a human life from beginning to end. That human is Theodore Drown, currently a teacher at the University of the Moon. He is an expert in the pre-seizure He’s a former addict of a drug called ‘weirdcore’ which destroys the emotional core of a brain so that the user cannot feel anything like fear or love or desire or jealousy.

Theodore is given an unusual opportunity when he is approached by a representative of a corporation. A cache of data has been found … preserved … but only someone who understands the pre-seizure culture, such as Theodore, is likely able to make any sense of it. This should be exciting, but of course Theodore feels nothing.

I typically like a book that really makes you think. A book that makes the reader work to understand and follow can be tremendously engaging.  But that book needs to provide enough glimpses of the light at the end of the tunnel to keep us interested in reading.

In the previous “Dr. Easy” book that I read (author Matthew de Abaitua states that there are three Dr Easy books but they are not a series but stand-alone novels) I wrote that there was some strong Philip K. Dick aspects with our not knowing what was real and what was virtual.  This book leaves behind the Dick-like confusion for a long, drawn-out, rambling story.

I found this story difficult to follow.  I’m okay with starting like that if there’s something to hold me there, to keep me going.  The ‘something’ here is Dr. Easy (for me), but Dr. Easy plays such a background role for too much of the book.  Our focus here is Theodore Drown, but how do you gt attached to a main character who has no emotions – whose function is comment dryly on life as they pass by?

The concepts are rich.  A future society that has lost its past and a possible key to the past has presented itself.  Add that to a race of ‘robots’ that have abandoned the Earth – save one who is studying humans – and this definitely sounds like a story I would want to read.  Unfortunately it’s too thick with ponderous prose and rambling narratives to be the full, exciting story it could be.

Looking for a good book? The Destructives, by Matthew de Abaitua, is a great concept held back by too much mood setting.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The Destructive

author: Matthew de Abaitua

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857664751

paperback, 416 pages

Mearlan IV, the ruler of Daerjen is looking to add a Walker to his retinue.  That Walker is 15 year old Tobias Doljan. A Walker is someone with thew ability and training to walk backward and forward in time – usually to give important messages to someone to watch out or be careful about something. And of course a ruler such as Mearlan wants to make sure he has a Walker to warn him about dangers. But Mearlan has a job for Tobias – an unusual request and one that he won’t repeat.  Mearlan wants Tobias to go back and tell the younger Mearlan not to start the war that he’s currently in and losing.

There’s an important side-effect to Walking through time.  The body ages with the amount of time Walked.  If a Walker goes backward one day, he ages a day, and if he goes forward one day, to the time he initially left, he ages another day, even though no one else has aged.  Mearlan IV has asked Tobias to Walk backward 14 years, to an integral point before the war starts.  Of course Tobias, who will be 29 in body and 15 in mind, will have to try to find a way to convince Mearlan that he was sent by his older self.

But along the way, assassins are trying to take out Tobias, and disasters occur that suggest the future will be changed in some very unexpected ways. Tobias may be the only one who can salvage or resurrect the future the way it’s supposed to happen.

I’ve read a few time-travel books and they’re always pretty confounding, but author D.B. Jackson has done a pretty remarkable job of making sense of the vagaries of time travel.  I do like the addition of aging, which does put some limits on how far backward or forward someone can travel.

The story is greatly interesting right at the start as we get settled in to this world and the beginning of Tobias’ quest.  As the action picks up I lost interest in some of the story.  Things change drastically, and the changes keep coming for a bit, and at some point it is just a little too much.  It settles back down (if action chases can be considered ‘settles down’) and we return to story-telling over action sequences which is much more interesting.

The book is the first part of a series and as such, there are unanswered questions and an unresolved story-line when we get to the end of the book.

I liked Jackson’s writing, and the overall concept is quite intriguing. Jackson takes on a challenging theme with time travel, but he builds a story around it very well.  But his story is much more interesting than his action sequences.

Looking for a good book? Time’s Children by D.B. Jackson is a clever fantasy and well-written.  I look forward to the next book in the series.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Time’s Children

author: D. B. Jackson

series: The Islevale Cycle #1

publisher: Angry Robot

ISBN: 0857667912

paperback, 528 pages