"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, 2006

Bleak and beautiful. Though not much really happens, a lot goes on in what is not said.

Father and son pick through the remnants of civilization in search of edible food and serviceable clothing, encounters with other people are inevitable, and when the boy shows concern for his fellow survivors, his father unsympathetic and protective forbids him to make contact. These moments of opposition between boy and man, despite the book's tense, menacing atmosphere, come across as classic instances of father-son sparring.

The earth may be in an arrested state, but the pair's relationship continues to evolve, its course progressing naturally. McCarthy's depiction of their bond is remarkably delicate and sympathetic. The fact that their fate could be our own adds a layer of dark fascination to the novel, a perverse allure.

Indeed, a speculative account of this kind is bound to arouse a sort of obscene curiosity in its audience, and to that end, reading The Road is a bit like observing the aftermath of a car accident you want to look away, you should look away, but you can't.

My Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars) - I really liked it.

"Calculating God" Robert J. Sawyer, 2000

"Calculating God" Robert J. Sawyer, 2000

Fast-paced, morally and intellectually entertaining SF story.

An alien named Hollus has come to Earth to study the five great extinction events that have hit our

planet over the eons. It lands at the Royal Ontario Museum and consults with a paleontologist name Tom Jericjo.

Much of the novel is relatively cerebral, as Jericho and Hollus argue over the scientific data they've gathered in support of God's existence, but the author excels at developing both protagonists into full-fledged characters, and he adds tension to his story in several ways: Jericho has terminal cancer, which gives him a personal stake in discovering the truth of the alien's claims, and lurking in the background are a murderous pair of abortion clinic bombers who have decided that the museum's Burgess Shale exhibition is an abomination that must be destroyed. Finally, there's the spectacular, if not entirely prepared for, climax in which God manifests in an unexpected manner.

This is unusually thoughtful SF.


My Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5 out of 5 stars) - I really really liked it.

"The Fullness of Time" by Kate Wilhelm, 2012

"The Fullness of Time" by Kate Wilhelm, 2012

Hiram Granville, a modern Leonardo, secured more than a thousand patents during his lifetime, often just ahead of others who had already been working the same ideas. His son John, an economics genius, never lost a cent in the stock market or any other financial deal and was investigated for insider trading on more than one occasion. Now Cat, a documentarian; her researcher, Mercy; and Cracker Jack, an electronics whiz, are preparing to do a documentary about the Granville clan. What they find as they research the family is madness, suicide, a seemingly total seclusion, and a frightening glimpse about what it means to peer into the future.

It is a novella and it’s tough to talk about the plot without giving too much away. The concept is

interesting, that “seeing” the future is possible and exploitable. And it’s that possible exploitation, both of the knowledge you could gain and the people capable of doing it, that drives the second half.

My main complaint has to do with the lack of development of the characters. They went through the motions, and I will say the plot had a few twists I didn’t see coming, but I didn’t understand why Cat and, especially Mercy, cared so much. Yes, she spent an afternoon with the man before he dies, but why was that enough for her to change her whole life?

The first half was quite interesting right off the bat and showed a lot of promise, while the second half seemed to have been rushed by squandering all the potential and groundwork laid out the first half accomplished.

My rating ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 stars) - It was ok.

"Flashforward" by Robert J. Sawyer, 1999

"Flashforward" by Robert J. Sawyer, 1999

After the ABC TV hit-and-miss series Flash Forward came to a close, I was left quite unsatisfied. The

premise was so compelling that I decided to take up the book and to find out what actual happens and to get a sort of resolution or closure.

The basic premise of the book and the show diverge pretty radically. The TV show was a who-dunnit where the FBI was tracking down suspects who may have been involved in carrying out the event. In the book, the blackout/flash forward is simply an unforeseen byproduct of a science experiment involving CERN and the Large Hadron Collider. The experiment is being conducted by two scientists, Lloyd Simcoe (the only character in both the book and the TV show), and his assistant Theo Procopides.

The book certainly explores some interesting possible futures, including some fantastic advancements in technology. It also takes a hard sci-fi approach wherein the characters (almost all of whom are physicists), discuss various theories about whether or not the future is fixed or whether humans have free will. As a result the book delves into some interesting philosophical questions as well.

A subplot throughout involves Theo, who doesn’t have a vision of the future and quickly learns it is because he will have been murdered before the day the visions depicted. He then devotes himself to tracking down clues to his own murder.

I won’t give away the ending, though it was utterly fascinating. The book definitely had some dull moments, but in general it was a pretty fascinating “read.” The narrator, Mark Deakins, did an excellent job. If you’re a fan of the TV show prepare yourself for a very different experience. Unlike the TV show the book isn’t crawling with bad guys and there’s not a ton of action. But if you like hard sci-fi and thought-provoking existential material I think you’ll definitely enjoy Flash Forward.

My Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars) - I really liked it.

Sick (Project Eden #1) by Brett Battles, 2011

Sick (Project Eden #1) by Brett Battles, 2011

There’s a war brewing in America, one simmering just below the surface but ready to explode. Captain Daniel Ash, his family, and the other 56 residents of Baker Flats military base find themselves at ground zero of that war one horrible night when hell descends upon their little corner of the world.

Awakened by a cry from his daughter, Ash goes to her room expecting to find her upset from a nightmare. Instead, he finds the girl burning with a dangerously high fever. As he struggles to get her into a cold tub he calls out to his wife for assistance, but gets no response.

Leaving his daughter in the slowly filling tub he returns to his bedroom and finds his wife still in bed. Dead. Panic now flooding in, Ash races to his son’s room and finds him apparently unaffected by whatever killed his wife and has made his daughter dangerously ill.

As he huddles in the bathroom with his two children Ash makes a frantic call to 911 pleading for help, but when it finally arrives it is not what Ash had expected, and his life will never be the same again.

Instead of paramedics or police officers, a team of men in full biohazard gear bursts into the Ash house, bundling Ash and his children outside and into an isolation truck. The scene that greets him as he exists his home is something out of a Hollywood film, as Ash realizes there are similar vehicles and teams of men in biohazard gear deployed throughout the neighborhood, seemingly at every house. Before he can fully process what’s going on he is spirited off to a containment facility, where he is separated from his kids and subsequently informed they have died as a result of exposure to a highly deadly virus.

After over a week in isolation, communicating only with a disembodied voice from a speaker in the ceiling, Ash is slipped a note with his morning meal one day which contains a single cryptic word written on it: TONIGHT. What follows that evening is a daring breakout from the facility with the assistance of two mysterious men whom do not identify themselves to Ash, but hustle him to the outskirts of the facility and give him instructions on how to proceed from there. Ash eventually meets up with the people behind his escape and is informed that though the virus was intentionally released, it wasn’t done by terrorists. Not only that, but contrary to what Ash was told his children are still alive, being studied to determine what made them immune to the virus. And with that Ash is off on a mission to not only rescue his children, but to help stop the people behind the virus from unleashing it upon the world.

Brett Battles

Battles ratchets the intensity and sense of urgency in Sick up to levels so thick you could cut it with a knife. Though military, Ash is no Rambo. He’s a man driven by emotion not machismo, and it is easy to identify with his single-minded goal of rescuing his children at all costs. He’s a man on a mission, and woe be it to anyone who gets in his way. Add to that a great subplot involving a team of reporters hot on the scent of the story the public is not being told, fueled in part by a cell phone video uploaded onto YouTube which appears to show civilians being killed by military, and Battles has set the stage for a pulse-pounding thriller that rockets to a classic showdown between Ash and the man behind the virus. But as this is merely the first book in the Project Eden series, though Ash eventually brings this particular battle to an end, the war rages on.

My rating ★★☆☆☆ (2 out of 5 stars) - It was ok.

"Mort(e)" by Robert Repino, 2014

"Mort(e)" by Robert Repino, 2014

While others' classified Mort(e) a post-apocalyptic cat detective novel, I prefer to describe it as Puss n' Boots meets Thundercats on Animal Farm!

Alternatively an updating of “Animal Farm” and a meditation on friendship and free will, “Mort(e)” is complex, beguiling, and often bloody. Despite its science fiction-fantasy set up, this is very much a book for adults: Mort(e)’s neutered status is rudely alluded to (he is a “choker’’), and the brutality of war is presented prosaically.

In the future, ants have evolved and developed a chemical that causes other animals to grow human like gain consciousness which in turn allows them to join the ants war against humans.

The “Change” happens to Sebastian, our cat protagonist, just as the war arrives at his masters’ doorstep. In the chaos of this global animal uprising, he’s separated from his beloved friend Sheba (dog).  His quest to find Sheba is interrupted when he is conscripted into the Red Sphinx, an anti-human insurgency squad led by a bobcat named Culdesac.

What happens next is convoluted and, perhaps, inevitable as the war winds down and the transition to a peaceful new order begins. Despite his desire to resign from active duty and live alone with his memories, a pitbull named Wawa drafts Mort(e) into the fray when a new, more subtle terror begins. As he investigates this deadly counteroffensive and is caught up in a strange prophecy, he begins to receive messages that Sheba may, in fact, still be alive.

My Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars) - I really liked it.

"The Book of Strange New Things" by Michel Faber, 2014

"The Book of Strange New Things" by Michel Faber, 2014

Aliens, space travel, planet-colonization—The Book of Strange New Things feels poised to read like science fiction. Instead, it is a deeply sad and wrenching work about the intricacies of married life.

Peter, the protagonist, travels to the planet of Oasis where we serves as the Earth's missionary preaching God's word to the natives. Meanwhile, Peter's wife, Bea, remain on Earth and continues her life and communicate with each other via a sort of "space email" called "the shoot."

As the story unfolds, Peter and Bea start to experience very different lives. They were both used to experiencing everything together that life threw at them. While Peter was welcomed by natives grew his congregation on Oasis, Bea starts to freak out about all the calamities on Earth.  And so Peter is put in the position of having to choose between the work he does for his God, and love that he has for his wife.

While Peter's mission is ostensibly the pole around which the rest of the novel revolves, it's the story of a marriage in crisis that clearly resonates.  The natives' settlement on Oasis, the collapse of modern society on earth, life of the base on the alien planet, the passing of their cat-- are only mechanisms that keep Peter and Bea from understanding each other.

The book comes in at lengthy 500 pages and heavily laden with religious exposition.

My Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars) - I really liked it.

NY Times review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/books/review/michel-fabers-book-of-strange-new-things.html?_r=0