Anathem by Neal Stephenson

The first reviews of this book I read were rather odd, and can be summarized as “This is an admirable book but will anybody love it?” Now that I’ve read it I think the ambivalence was due to the great wads of philosophy and theory in the book, as well as the length. I loved Anathem myself, but I did have to stop reading occasionally to digest the theory.

I also loved the idea of the monastery like setting where the inhabitants concentrate on the life of the mind (not the spirit or soul, though it rates the occasional fleeting mention). And current events outside are only filtered inside occasionally, so everyone automatically has a very long view of events and history. I especially liked the history branch, who went around pointing out when this idea or theory had come up before, an essential group when you have 7000 years of recorded history - this book is not set on Earth, by the way.

I liked Stephenson’s The Diamond Age also, though the lack of any denouement in it was a bit surprising. Anathem however has lots of denouement, and a plot that is quite easy to follow, and better characterisation than The Diamond Age also. An admirable book, but set aside some serious time to read it! And don't read any reviews before you do, they mostly give away too much plot. When I had finished I missed reading it and getting lost in another world.

Anathem first published 2008

Gods and Pawns by Kage Baker

This is another excellent collection of seven short stories in the Company series. Lewis and Mendoza, my favourite characters, turn up frequently. I liked nearly all the stories, even if I feel the operatives spend too much time in Hollywood!

Boundary by Eric Flint & Ryk E. Spore

This was quite fun, though there were a few info dump paragraphs. This was an Aliens Visited our Solar System, (so lets send a space ship to Mars to look at the base our sensors found) story. Entertaining enough, and the characters were fun too, though too many of the women were beautiful. The engineers were happy to use low tech solutions when they were most appropriate, to the horror of the IT people, whose motto was always newer is better.

The Clan Corporate by Charles Stross

This is the third in The Merchant Princes series, which has quite a fascinating and well thought out premise. A very small number of people (with 2 copies of a recessive gene) can travel with difficulty and pain from one parallel world to another, with what they can carry. The Families that can do this are powerful in the other world and unknown, rich and drug smugglers in our world. The worlds have had quite different histories, even coast lines are different.

Miriam has this ability, and was raised in our world and is now trying to live in the other. Unfortunately she behaves like a stereotypical American, ie with complete disregard for different cultural values and norms and lines of power, so things go rather pear shaped.

The American Government also finds out about the other world, and their smuggling and general skulduggery, and behaves as the American Government always does in near future SF books, ie by setting up yet another security agency which behaves as though the immoral means justifies the imperial ends, the ends being them winning at all costs, and laws (especially habeas corpus) only applying to other people.

The Clan Corporate first published 2006

The Children of the Company by Kage Baker

This book has a lot of the horrible Labienus in it, as he is the viewpoint character for all the linking bits between the short stories/reports. This book is fascinating but a lot less humorous than the other Baker books I've read, except for my favourite story, about Latif and the delightful van Drouten. I liked the story about Lewis in the Irish monastery too.

There is quite a lot about the little people in The Children of the Company, which is full of information we will obviously need to know to enjoy the rest of the series to the full, but shows the dark side of the company, and the corruptness of some of the immortals. Some of the stories are pretty sad, but I am happy to have read this book.

The Children of the Company first published 2005, some parts of it previously published 1999-2001

The Ram Rebellion by Eric Flint & others

I liked this, but only just. This isn't one of the better entries into the Ring of Fire series, but it is still interesting. The stories were of variable quality. As a farmer's daughter, I was very interested in the farming stories; though I think most people would have found Birdie's efforts to combine American and German farming and Flo's worries about wool quality interesting. The ballet story was fun too.

The Brillo fables need not have been printed, or not so many, in my opinion. Parts 3 & 4 had interesting moments, but were a bit laboured. I liked the accounts of the Mormons in the new world - I like the way religion is taken seriously as a motivating factor in this series - and I thought Johnnie F.'s sense of when to get involved and when to pretend he hadn't noticed a thing was great.

Flint's refusal to take the easy plot path of winning a few big battles and assuming that will then automatically win hearts and minds is the most interesting part of this series. Parts 3 & 4 are set in Franconia, a nearby area that the Americans are trying to administrate and make more democratic, or at least have less witch burning and disease, and more religious tolerance and voting. The path to revolution, especially when you are trying to have a low death toll, but know you can't help breaking some eggs, is always problematic, and the difficulties aren't made small and palatable. Worth reading just for the consideration of the problems of changing a society.

The Life of the World to Come by Kage Baker

This Company novel starts with Mendoza deep in the past, but then shifts to the twenty-third century for the most part. The future is both familiar and unfamiliar, with what was then illegal being interesting. I thought the characters I christened The Three Nerds most amusing, and yet they were understandable people still.

The dual view of the same incident was very interesting and enlightening about the the two characters involved. I recomend this novel highly, and it could be read without having read any previous Company series novels.

The Life of the World to COme first published 2004

Mendoza in Hollywood by Kage Baker

This is one of Baker's Company novels, and is an excellent read. Baker balances humour and sadness well in this book. Watching the immortal operatives get carried away by their specialities is amusing, especially Imarti and Juan. I found I even caught a bit of their enthusiasm as they enthused. But immortals have seen plenty of sorrow in their long lives, and must cope with it in some way - and Juan, at the beginning of his immortal life, has to learn sorrow like everyone else.

This is set in Hollywood before there was Hollywood, in the 1860's, and there are a lot of references to films, serving to point out how the operatives treat that now (1860's) as something they are watching rather than living in, as history already because they know what happens next. Where they don't know what will happen next, they make as many mistakes as the average mortal.

Mendoza in Hollywood first published 2000

Three Serrano books by Elizabeth Moon

There are seven books in the Serrano Legacy sequence. The first four books, which I read quite a while ago, read well as independent novels. I have just read the last three, Rules of Engagement, Change of Command and Against the Odds, and I think they read a lot more powerfully if you know what happened in the earlier books, and also form almost one long novel.

Esmay and Brun are the most important characters, though there are multiple viewpoints and many minor characters get a chapter. I didn't find the many viewpoints hard to follow and never wondered which character was which. I thought Moon handled the many strands of the plot well, and I enjoyed these books.

One of the issues this book is dealing with is effective immortality through rejuvenation, and how this will affect society. I was pleased to see that Moon didn't think everyone's reaction would be the same, there are plenty of people opposing it on various religious and philosophical grounds. I also noted with interest that her rejuvenated people tended to conservatism and opposition to change - most authors depict effectively undying people as perpetual adolescents.

Rules of Engagement first published 2000, Change of Command 2000, Against the Odds 2001.

Grantville Gazette III & Clifford Simak

I like the 1632 series a lot, especially the way that the main novels set up a world and cover the important events, and then you have the Grantville Gazette short story collections showing what else was happening to some other people at the same time. These stories are of variable literary quality - a definite thumbs down to Hobson's Choice, written in imitation seventeenth century prose - but really increase the richness of the world as a whole. People who like every loose end tied up eventually, this is your series! I don't myself, but still love the way that you can spend time with people not important enough for even a mention in the main books.

I particularly enjoyed Pastor Kastenmayer's Revenge, all about finding husbands for a group of refugee girls - and increasing the number of Lutherans. Also Hell Fighters and If the Demons Will Sleep, where we see librarians and nurses and monks dealing with a changing world, and meet a family living around Post Traumatic Stress Disorder quite successfully - if you accept their definition of success, of course, which at least one nurse is not willing to do.

I read some science fiction short stories by Clifford Simak collected in The Civilisation Game - though an excellent writer, he mostly doesn't read all that well now as his SF future had changes in technology, but no changes to society. This reads very oddly when there are women in his stories, and just as much so when you read a whole story with a large cast of male only characters in a workplace.

Grantville Gazette III first published 2007; stories in The Civilisation Game first published 1939 to 1961.

Atmosphere: Gellis, Spider-Man and Vande Velde

I was trying to work out what was wrong with Overstars Mail: Imperial Challenge by Roberta Gellis; which is a perfectly competent adventure cum mystery story set in an future interstellar empire on one level, yet totally unsatisfactory on every other level. Then I read a quote by C.S. Lewis about the importance of atmosphere in book - world building they call it now I think. Gellis's book is completely devoid of anything that would tell you what sort of society you are reading about. You could be in any age or time, if the action wasn't set on a spaceship; which has obviously been chosen to give a small group of suspects. Not really worth reading.

The Best of Spider-Man: Vol 2 disconcertingly has 3 different artists with very different artistic styles in the one volume, which somewhat ruins the atmosphere. The second artist could not bring himself to draw wrinkles, so Aunt May's supposedly elderly face looks like she has been face lifted and botoxed till her face is a skull with skin stretched over it, yuck. Apart from thinking that choosing today's emotions as your major guide to life's big decisions is bound to lead to tears and regrets, I quite enjoyed it.

Ghost of a Hanged Man by Vivian Vande Velde is a children's ghost story with an abundance of excellently done atmosphere, both as a ghost story and as a picture of a place and time. There is nothing unusual about the story, except that it is so well done it is worth reading.

Overstars Mail first published 2004, The Best of Spider-Man in 2003 (I am not sure whether it the year's best for 2002 or 2003), Ghost of Hanged man first published 1998

Terenesia by Greg Egan

This book was fascinating to read, but I'm not entirely sure about the ending, which seemed a bit fast to me. Though on reflection (and re-reading the last page) probably what I thought was a sub-theme was what the author thought was the main theme. Oops.

The setting really seemed like a possible future 2030, the science and the politics likely to have sprung from our present. As this book was published 8 years ago, this is all the more cause for admiration. The science was a little daunting in parts, though not impenetrable and still very interesting.

I thought the relationships and people were very well done. This included the homosexual scenes, which have come off as pretty icky in some books I've read, but here were very good and a necessary part of the book and characters. (And yes, I've read some pretty yuck heterosexual scenes as well.)

All in all, this was the best straight science fiction novel I have read in ages, and I look forward to reading more of Greg Egan.

Teranesia first published 1999

Other, Luckett, and Flint

I borrowed a book called The Delaney Christmas Carol from the library, thinking it would be an updated version of Dickens. It was three novellas by three authors, each story being a romance; unfortunately the boring sort where at least one person is very rich, both people are exceptionally beautiful, and an overwhelming feeling of mutual lust is a sure sign you are soul mates. The past, present and future were all astonishingly similar. I tried each story but didn't manage to finish any. Avoid this book.

More fun was a re-reading of Dave Luckett's The Truth About Magic and The Return of Rathalorn, fantasy books for children with a good story and good characterisation - both the heroes and the villains have entirely understandable motivations. You can see a whole workable, even if not always admirable, society in the background. An excellent introduction to class, prejudice, and standing up for the right without wrecking your society or yourself. I also thoroughly recommend his Tenabran trilogy for adults.

I also read An Oblique Approach (free in Baen's online library) by David Drake and Eric Flint, which is an alternate history, Byzantium sixth century. A couple of "computers" have popped back in time to change history. A fun light read, and I enjoyed looking up to see which characters were historical (answer lots, who'd have thought we know so much about the sixth century), though way too many people are excellent at their jobs and repartee as well. Style is a bit variable.


A Delaney Christmas Carol first published 2004, The Truth About Magic 2005, The Return of Rathalorn 2005, An Oblique Approach 1998

A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo

For someone who skim reads fights, I read a lot of military SF. I like John Ringo, and this was his first novel (available free on the internet), which I haven't read before. I noted a few first novel type faults, which he doesn't have in later books; except for his strange way of referring to a planet as having mostly one type of terrain and climate all over - a mostly swampy planet? I don't think so. The utterly unrealistic cover picture is not his fault however, and not like anything he describes either.

The peace-loving aliens have arrived - peace loving in a no physical violence sense, as they are commercially rapacious, aristocratic (with serfs), and not all that truthful. Unfortunately, the war loving aliens are on the way, so they are all that is available in the way of allies.

I find it hard to believe the USA military is as stupidly hidebound as portrayed in this book, though not that the Chinese were better at working out more about the aliens. As for dumping lots of privates and NCO's in a camp without a command structure (ie officers and administrators) in place, surely no army has ever been so stupid. Still, you can't have a war novel without a few mistakes to give chances for heroes.

There are a few quiet military history jokes about which nation does best at fighting aliens, and I enjoyed it overall - Ringo is good at making you care about his characters. I am looking forward to reading the next, Gust Front, which is also on the net.

A Hymn Before Battle first published 2001

Inherit the Earth by Brian Stableford

This novel kept me mildly interested all the way through, though I did keep stopping to read other more interesting looking works. There are lots of kidnappings, possible murders, people who are dead or maybe have faked their deaths, and the usual wrong side of the law hackers for hire. There are lots of pompous and initially opaque conversations, with people who want power and influence and for other people to stop playing god because it interferes with them playing god.

The main character has very few warm human relationships; mind you I can't blame him for breaking up with his histrionic girlfriend in the first chapter. Supposedly this book is about the problems of extended life and possible immortality (the population is much reduced after a series of possibly man made plagues). At the end the main character decides to change his life and career path drastically, but to what we don't know. This book was mildly interesting, but not fun.

Inherit the Earth first published1998

Lost In A Good Book by Jasper Fforde

The second hand bookshop had this filed under detective. I said I thought it was fantasy or SF. They said they did have trouble deciding. I can see why libraries stick to alphabetical order.

It's best to read The Eyre Affair before reading this book, the second in the Thursday Next series. Thursday is the heroine, a detective in special ops, the literature section, in a rather different world than ours. Except for bureaucracy and people, which are much the same.

These books are fascinating while you are reading them, but I do have trouble picking them up again after putting them down, though less in the second half of this book. I think Fforde is getting better as a writer.

The world of this book is indescribable in a few sentences, but Fforde is worth reading just for the strangeness. Some people can go into books, for example. I do hope there is more of Miss Havisham in the next book.

Lost In A Good Book first published 2002

Stories by Ted Chiang & Eric Flint

Reading short stories lately - Ted Chiang's Stories of My Life and Others is from the library, and while I'm not sure I'd want to own the whole lot I am glad to have read them. The title story is excellent, as are several others, but some are depressing - Chiang is better read as part of an anthology with other writers, in spite of his gift for memorable and absorbing stories.


I didn't find Towers of Babylon, his take on the Tower of Babel, depressing, though probably that is a matter of taste. It was fascinating, even though Egan's description of it as SF for Babylonians is quite accurate! Seventy-Two Letters is also highly recommended.

I have also been re-reading stories from the Ring of Fire anthology, notably The Wallenstein Gambit. The Ring of Fire/1632 series have a lot of charm, and are fun to read. My husband and daughter are both reading as many as I own currently. Unusually for a People-Dumped-Back-Into-The-Past plot line, what can be done and what can't has been thought out very carefully. Also religion (Judaism, Protestant & Catholic Christianity) is being covered seriously as a part of society and a motive for people's actions; not in every book or story, but it is one of the continuing threads.

Ring of Fire first published 2005, all stories first publication; Stories of your Life and Others first published 2002, stories first published 1990 to 2000

Roma Eternal by Robert Silverberg

This is an alternate history, as a set of linked short stories. The Roman Empire did not fall, Jesus & Muhammad did not found religions. The stories can be read individually, which is good as a couple are not very interesting, and some are merely OK.

Some are very good - Silverberg mostly does better with the stories about people on the edge of great events than the people in the centre; I think because the characterisation is better in those stories. Several stories are concerned with people's choices, some admirable and some not, and in others people have very few choices they can make.

Silverberg is good on world building - Majipoor the world in the Majipoor series was very memorable - and he has no trouble making this changed world believable. There is also the interest of working out which historical event he is mining in some cases.

Roma Eterna first published 2003, stories in it first published 1989 to 2003

The Lighter Side by Keith Laumer

My initial reaction on picking up this book was that I had never heard of Keith Laumer, but the first story in the book, In The Queue, was a story I had read years ago and never forgotten. It's the one about the bloke waiting most of his life in line (in shifts with other family members) to present his papers to the government.

The Lighter Side is a collection of short stories and one short novel, Time Trap. I purchased it on eBay as part of mixed set, and have been reading it over the last few weeks with amusement. Laumer has the ability to take a well worn idea from science fiction, present it amusingly, and then provide a different ending. You'd think that no-one could find anything more to say about 'friendly alien being comes to earth and gets shot by local xenophobe'. But Laumer's town council in The Exterminator, distressed at the bad publicity the xenophobe has provoked, manage to find a new solution to this perennial problem in fiction.

I also enjoyed The Planet Wreckers, which I had heard of but never read. I thought it must be a poke at all disaster films of the last decade or so, but it was first published in 1967. And The Body Builders, also amusing, was written in the 1960's not the 1990's; Laumer must have been psychic.

I could mention a few more stories, but will just say I kept finding I was smiling when I finished most of the stories in this book. An enjoyable read.
And for those of us not from the USA who read this book, a rutabaga is also known as a swede, a swedish turnip, a yellow turnip, or a neep.
The Lighter Side collection first published 2001, contents first published 1964 to 1970

A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold

I have just re-read this book, I meant to only read the section where Miles and Ekaterin talk about honour and breaking vows you intended to keep, but started at the first page and just kept going.

Bujold's character's frequently contend with their life not going in the direction they planned and intended.
On page 427 of my copy (Baen 2000 paperback, with a horrible cover of people I can't identify from the book) Ekaterin says

"I went from being the kind of person who made, and kept, a life-oath, to one who broke it in two and walked away."..." I am not who I was. I can't go back. I don't quite like who I have become. Yet I still - stand. But I hardly know how to go from here. No-one gave me a map for this road." ...

"In my experience," [Miles] said, "the trouble with oaths of the form, death before dishonour, is that eventually, given enough time and abrasion, they separate the world into just two sorts of people: the dead, and the forsworn. It's a survivors problem, this one."

I am not sure why this an important point in the book for me; perhaps because it relates back to Ekaterin's concerns about her choices in Komarr, and the consequences of two bad choices of Miles in Memory. And in general I prefer characters and people who keep their promises. But it isn't always possible, and people don't always make the best possible choice. And then we all have to go on from that point, that not so good choice we have made. Some people can accept that they are a different person than they thought they were. Some twist the story so it makes it sound as thought they were always that person, or that the choice was forced on them - I listened to a friend do this once a week or two after her choice, a very educational experience - and no, I didn't point it out.

A Civil Campaign first published in 1999