"Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours" by David Mack, 2017

"Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours" by David Mack, 2017

Writing the very first Star Trek Discovery tie-in novel was bestowed upon David Mack, and, in my opinion, he did not disappoint.

 "Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours" takes place one year before the "Star Trek: Discovery" pilot episode and one year after the U.S.S. Enterprise visited Talos IV. We know that the characters and ships we see in the pilot are going to make it through the ordeal in this book. But, for me, that doesn’t detract from the tension or suspense whatsoever – there is excellent pacing and even better character development. And that’s what this novel needed to be: A way for us to get to know these new characters and their relationships on a deeper level, and Mack accomplishes this goal by teaming them with the characters that we already know-- Captain Pike and Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

The story begins with Captain Phillipa Georgiou offering a conditional promotion to Lieutenant Michael Burnham as first officer. This places Burnham in conflict with Kelpien science officer Lieutenant Saru, who was the more seasoned officer and only receives a promotion to second officer. Georgiou, Burnham, and Saru must take the Shenzhou to Sirsa III where a mysterious craft, dubbed the Juggernaut, is attacking the colonists. When it becomes clear that the Juggernaut may pose a threat to the Federation should it leave the planet, Starfleet sends Captain Christopher Pike and the Enterprise to destroy it, with the colony as collateral damage. The story focuses on the conflict between the two ships and their crew, with both trying to do what they think is best for the galaxy.

I was pleased at the amount of insight the novel gives into the characters of Captain Georgiou, Michael Burnham, and Lieutenant Saru, but also by the excellent treatment of some old Trek favorites. Through the story and along the way, Mack includes interesting character studies through combined boarding parties, such as Una from the Enterprise and Saru, but particularly through Burnham and Spock. After the death of her parents, Spock's father Sarek raised Burnham on Vulcan, where she attended the Vulcan Science Academy. In this way, she is like a distorted reflection of Spock, who was estranged from his father while struggling to balance his human and Vulcan ancestry, eventually leaving Vulcan to attend Starfleet Academy. Their interaction drives the story and, as this focuses on a younger Spock, Mack has the ability to present a character still developing into the more familiar iteration of the character.  

It’s a good sci-fi book in general, and an almost-outstanding Trek novel in particular. Fans and newcomers alike will enjoy the Burnham-Spock part of the narrative.Well worth the purchase for any fan of the franchise.

Book description from cover:

Aboard the Starship Shenzhou, Lieutenant Michael Burnham, a human woman raised and educated among Vulcans, is promoted to acting first officer. But if she wants to keep the job, she must prove to Captain Philippa Georgiou that she deserves to have it.

She gets her chance when the Shenzhou must protect a Federation colony that is under attack by an ancient alien vessel that has surfaced from the deepest fathoms of the planet’s dark, uncharted sea.

As the menace from this mysterious vessel grows stronger, Starfleet declares the colony expendable in the name of halting the threat. To save thousands of innocent lives, Burnham must infiltrate the alien ship. But to do so, she needs to face the truth of her troubled past, and seek the aid of a man she has tried to avoid her entire life—until now.

My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 out of 5 stars) - I liked it.

"2312", by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2012

"2312", by  Kim Stanley Robinson, 2012

In the 24th century, mankind has spread throughout the Solar System, from Mercury (where a moving domed city, Terminator, moves on a track to stay out of direct sunlight) to Saturn (where mankind lives on Titan and other moons) to Earth (which is in somewhat dire shape after centuries of climate change and over-population) to Venus (which is undergoing radical terraforming) to Mars (already terraformed). Throughout the system, thousands of asteroids have been hollowed out, spun up, and used to create mini-ecosystems called terraria, some of which contain ecosystems and species no longer found on Earth, and many of which are put in eccentric Solar orbits that allow their use as a mass-transit system, in conjunction with space elevators on the Earth and other major planets. Small quantum computers, called qubes, have been used to create rudimentary artificial intelligences. Humans have extended life spans of more than two centuries (as in some earlier Robinson novels), and there are new genders beyond male and female. These are just some of the marvels among which sets his story.

The novel's complex, convoluted narrative also supports a diverse cast of interesting characters, whose complicated natures are somewhat slowly revealed. Swan in particular, early in the novel, has the feel of a self-absorbed, impetuous twenty-something, but is slowly revealed to be more than a century old, and a well-known former terrarium ecosystem designer. She becomes more likeable and sympathetic as the novel progresses and her character is more fully revealed. She and Fitz are in many ways opposites in their personalities, but their growing friendship is believable due to the more important similarity of their being both smart and empathic. It is indeed this combination that I think makes so many of Robinson's characters distinctively different from most other SF protagonists -- their deep-rooted empathy not just for their friends, but for all of humanity, and indeed for all life, and even natural landscapes.

Summary (with spoilers):

Swan lives on Terminator, a city on Mercury that glides along planet-wide tracks to avoid being caught in the sun. As Swan grieves at the death of her grandmother, Alex, she learns that Alex was involved in secret political dealings. Alex has left several letters that Swan must deliver, causing Swan to meet up with Wahram, Inspector Gennette, and Wang.

In addition to being overcome with grief, Swan is a rather unusual person. She had her qube, Pauline, installed in her head. She's also undergone various physical modifications.

Swan tries to figure out what Alex was working on, but no one will tell her directly what's going on, except that it has to do with Earth, and that they don't trust the qubes. Swan travels to Earth via terraria (hollowed-out asteroids turned into small worlds), to meet up with her former lover, Zasha. On Earth, some ruffians attempt to kidnap her, but she is saved by Kiran. In return, she gets him off-planet to Venus, where he becomes a double agent for two major political powers.

Swan meets up with Wahram on Mercury. After attending a conference, they decide to don some spacesuits and walk back to the city platform. En route, they witness an explosion the almost hits Terminator and destroys the tracks. They rush back to the city, but it's already been evacuated. Since the sun is rising, they need to get to safety. They decide to run sun-ward to the next platform, which has an underground system mirroring the tracks above ground. They make it to the platform, and while they are waiting for the elevator to arrive, Swan jumps in front of Wahram to protect him from a solar flare.

They hike along the underground tunnel for weeks, trying to reach safety, whistling Bach to pass the time. Swan gets increasingly ill from radiation poisoning. Eventually, they go to the surface to break the monotony, even though they are sun-side, and a vehicle passing by rescues them.

Swan spends time with Inspector Gennette, who thinks the attack on Mercury was caused by lots of small rocks thrown so that they would all land at the same time. He's also suspicious of the qubes. Swan and Wahram go to Earth to help with various development projects and then decide to repopulate Earth with all of the animals stored in the terraria. Thousands of animals are sent through the sky in gel balloons. On Earth, Swan and Warham realize they have feelings for each other.

Swan and Warham become passengers on a space craft, when Pauline informs Swan that a similar attack is planned on the Venus sun shield. They use the space ship to deflect the small projectiles, which means that everyone has to evacuate. Swan and Warham get into space suits and float in space, waiting to be rescued. However, their rescue ship is attacked before it can pick them up, and Warham's leg is injured. Eventually, they are rescued, but their time waiting in space is reminiscent of their time in the tunnel.


Meanwhile, these strange humanoid qubes have been wandering about causing trouble, so Inspector Gennette exiles them all in a star ship. The book ends with the marriage of Swan and Warham.

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

“The Spaceship Next Door” by Gene Doucette, 2015

“The Spaceship Next Door” by Gene Doucette,  2015

The premise itself is interesting enough: a spaceship lands in the town of Sorrow Falls,

Massachusetts, and proceeds to do absolutely nothing for three years. There are no dramatic “first contact” scenes, no enigmatic aliens, no interplanetary romance – just your typical alien spaceship, hanging out in the middle of a field, minding its own business and keeping people from getting too close with its alien forcefield.

Eventually, the government sends a bright (though not very experienced) young man to investigate his pet hypothesis. He meets a quirky, precocious 16-year-old girl who knows everyone and everything in her town, and together they join forces to figure out what’s what and save the world while they’re at it. Along the way, they bump into enigmatic locals, bored soldiers (who spent the last three years waiting for an alien invasion that never came) and a wacky assortment of UFO groupies that created a trailer park community next to the flying saucer.

The book is dim, semi-well written and has no laugh-out-loud moments. The characters are flatly developed and just used as cardboard cutouts whose only purpose is to move the plot along.

That said, “The Spaceship Next Door” falls short in its action scenes. Some of them are explained in overly elaborate details: a certain scene involving a car and a ravine is stretched out over an entire page, even though the action is only 10 seconds long, if that. The pacing is somewhat uneven throughout the book. The first half of the book is slow – almost too slow. The second half is much more fast-paced, and the two don’t mix too well. The end result is anti-climactic.

Overall, “The Spaceship Next Door” is not a decent sci-fi book that does not work equally well as a detective mystery (some of the plot twists were predictable), a comedy, a sci-fi novel and even a young adult book. It’s not close to acceptable, but it’s a nice trial experiment and a failed attempt at a  reversal of the all-too-typical “first contact” trope that's common in science fiction.

My rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5 stars) - I did not like it.

"Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2015

"Aurora" by Kim Stanley Robinson, 2015

Aurora is Kim Stanley Robinson’s melancholic and ambitious tale about a generational seed ship on its final leg of a 160 year journey to an Earth analog planet which is actually a moon of a larger planet orbiting the star Tau Ceti, 11.9 light years from Earth.  The name of the analog planet: Aurora.  On board are ~2100 humans who are the seventh, and final, generation of an eventual settlement expedition that will land and live on Aurora.  There are two main characters in the narrative; Ship, an artificial intelligence that is the ship itself; and Freya, a woman around which Ship builds the narrative of the book told through its “eyes” (cameras).  Ship itself is comprised of two rotating rings, each comprised of twelve segments (or biomes), with each ring holding about 1000 humans. The biomes represent biologically and ecologically independent environments.

Aurora is also divided up into three thematic sections: The Arrival, On Aurora, The Return.  These sections are my interpretation, not reflective of the actual named parts of Aurora.

Part I – The Arrival:

As Ship approaches Aurora, a moon of the planet Tau Ceti e, which orbits Tau Ceti, we find that the infrastructure of Ship is in a state of disarray.  Systems are failing and in need of constant repair, biome biology has become increasingly sensitive, and the IQs of this final generation of humans is the lowest it’s been.  The populace is generally unhappy and dissatisfied with conditions on the ship.  They are more than ready to depart.  Devi, Freya’s mother, is suffering from cancer and soon succumbs just as they reach Aurora.

Part II – On Aurora:

Most, but not all, passengers are eager to leave the decaying Ship and begin establishing an outpost on Aurora. The work will be hard while in inhospitable conditions. Approximately half of them move to the cold, windy, and lifeless surface, using molecular printers to create all the tools and resources they need. Even though they never leave their protection of suits, accidents happen and they soon learn that Aurora is even more inhospitable than believed. People are suddenly and quickly dying from an unknown prion that seems to be found in the sand of the planet. It quickly becomes apparent that the mission is doomed to failure . . . 160 years for naught. Two options are proposed: move to the next candidate planet, or return to Earth. There seems no other option since all but one person who landed on Aurora died.

Part III – The Return:

Put to a vote half of those remaining on the ship choose to move on to the next planet, the rest vote to return to Earth, knowing they will be doing so on a Ship that is quickly succumbing to the forces of entropy. Ship is divided into its two rings, one given to each group, and the story follows the return group to Earth. Plans for another generational return via procreation soon evaporates. Starvation, suicide, infertility, Ship failure and the like take their toll. Ship receives communication from Earth that they’ve developed a method of suspended animation that should get them the rest of the way home.

It’s clear the Robinson did his homework while writing Aurora.  It oozes speculated science on how humanity could journey to another star via a generational ship. Is the science accurate? In most respects, probably not.  I expect building a self contained environment and flinging it to a fraction of the speed of light via laser while keeping seven generations of humans alive for 160 years in the cold of space is something current scientists have no tangible idea how to do, other than via speculation.  But the extrapolation of said science to arrive at the overall premise of Aurora is sound . . . or at least comes across as sound for the sake of fiction.

And that’s one of Aurora‘s problems, at least for this reader. The story is steeped in too much science, often told from the point of view of an analytic artificial intelligence.  Yes, at times Aurora is beautiful, powerful, and melancholy . . . its middle sections are also as dry as the Sahara and are a real struggle to wade through. Thankfully the book isn’t overly long, it only feels like it, especially during the middle sections.

Ship is populated with many characters, most of them mentioned in passing, few of them ever given memorable attention. As previously mentioned the two main characters are Freya and Ship.  Freya is the daughter of Ship’s main engineer (Devi) on the last leg of the journey to the planet Aurora.  Being so, Freya inherits many of the problems plaguing Ship. While her characterization is strong, it’s not overly interesting nor is she really likable.  The other character, of course, is Ship, who is significantly more interesting than, and equally as complex as, Freya. When a reader is more interested in a quantum computer and sad that an artificial intelligence “dies,” rather than being happy a significant number of humans return to Earth alive . . . you might have characterization and relatability issues.

Finally, the title of the book is Aurora.  It’s an enigma since very little time is spent on the planet.  It comes across as a destination device simply for something catastrophic to go wrong, with little effort on Robinson’s part to develop it as anything more than a quick stop over point.  The book is essentially about Ship, the people aboard it, and every detailed sacrifice and challenge they face.  Aurora is not about its namesake planet or anything that happens there other than being infected with prions which brings a tragic end to the hope of settlement. If the name of Ship was Aurora, an interesting character . . . then you’d have an appropriate title.

Bottomline:

There’s little doubt that Kim Stanley Robinson crafted Aurora to be a cautionary tale about the tremendous risks involved with space travel and the settling of alien planets.  The takeaway seems to be that humans are far too fragile for such work and that it’s best left to machines and artificial intelligence. Aurora is not a tale of the triumph of discovery, but of the despair of loss and the triumph of survival. Along with it comes a profound sense of beautiful melancholy that can often make it a difficult read.

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

"Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth's Past #3)" by Cixin Liu, 2016

"Death’s End (Remembrance of Earth's Past #3)" by Cixin Liu, 2016

**WARNING: This review contains unavoidable spoilers for The Three-Body Problem and The Dark Forest. If you have not read the first two books and want to remain unspoiled, look away.**

REVIEW
It is fifty years after the Doomsday Battle. The Trisolarans and Earth are locked in an era of deterrence, after Luo Ji has proven that the universe is actually a Dark Forest–any spark of intelligent life will be extinguished by others, protecting their own best interests. But first, let me rewind:

In The Three-Body Problem, humans had broadcast a signal of communication from Earth to the first alien race known to humankind, aka aliens from the planet Trisolaris. Unlike Earth, Trisolaris has a three-body star system, meaning that their planet and civilization undergoes immense catastrophic periods of chaos, followed by intermittent periods of stability during which life thrives. When the Trisolarans learned of Earth–thanks to a broadcasted signal–they sent a colonization fleet to take the planet. Since Trisolaris is considerably more evolved in their technological capabilities, they also sent sophons to Earth–all-powerful supercomputers folded upon themselves in lower dimensions, capable of seeing and overhearing anything on Earth and reporting back to Trisolaris in realtime. The mission for these sophons was simple: obstruct technological progress on Earth so that by the time the Trisolaran fleet arrives in 300 years, they can easily exterminate the Earthling bugs who were so luckily given such a beautiful, stable home planet.

In The Dark Forest, we saw humanity’s prolonged reactions to the impending Trisolaran fleet–some humans embraced the Trisolarans as saviors, others yearned for the alien race to destroy humanity. The United Nations and the leading governing bodies around the world, however, took a different approach: selecting four “wallfacers” who would have unlimited resources and no questions asked as they prepared their grand plans to save humanity from annihilation. Over the years, these wallfacers stumbled with their protective measures and projects–the Trisolarans sent “wallbreakers” to divulge each of these humans’ plans, defeating them one after another… except for Luo Ji. Luo Ji is able to devise the truth of the nature of the universe–it is not a happy place, where life coexists and grows naturally, but a dark forest, where each civilization acts as a silent hunter. Because survival is the primary need of civilization and all civilizations will do whatever they can to ensure their own survival, and because civilizations always grow and expand but the amount of resources in the universe is finite, it follows that civilizations in the universe strive to remain undetected, always hunting for new planets to colonize and destroy.

Luo Ji tests this theory at the end of The Dark Forest, and receives his answer when his test results in the destruction of a star system following his broadcast of its location.

And so, Earth-Trisolaran relations enter a third stage: Deterrence. Luo Ji now becomes the Swordbearer–his mission is to convince Trisolaris that he will broadcast the location of Trisolaris to the cosmos, which will result in the destruction of their world from other civilizations in the dark forest. Should Luo Ji broadcast that location, however, it also means sure death for Earth civilization–as an intelligent alien race capable of destroying a star system will be able to unravel the nature of the relationship between both Earth and Trisolaris. In short, Luo Ji has concocted a tense peace resting on the premise of Mutually Assured Destruction.

It is in this Era that Death’s End begins.

+++

In Death’s End, there are three very important things happening at once:

The Staircase Project is the first introduction we have to Cheng Xin–a female engineer who has both empathy and creativity in spades. It is Cheng Xin who devises a plan to deliver a payload that will intercept the Trisolaran fleet several decades before it gets to Earth. The hope is that the payload–a human–will be able to infiltrate the fleet and either give humanity an edge, or destroy Trisolaris’ invasion.

At the same time, two warships are locked in deadly pursuit. Gravity, you may remember from the Doomsday battle, breaks away from Earth and holds onboard a broadcasting system that is able to share the location of the Trisolaran civilization. Another Earth ship, the Blue Space, pursues her in hopes of catching her, silencing her permanently, and forcing her crew to face trial and death for crimes against humanity (for, what greater crime could there be than the potential annihilation of all life on Earth).

Finally, a quiet, introverted man faces death from incurable disease. This man, Yun Tianming, is also a scientist who knew and fell in love with Cheng Xin when they were in university together. Before he takes his own life in state-sanctioned euthanasia, he makes a grand, romantic gesture. He buys Cheng Xin a star, spending all of his insurance money, in the hopes that she may one day realize how much he loved her and spark similar feelings.

+++

I won’t spoil how these three threads mean everything for humanity in Death’s End, but know that each one of them plays vital role in the novel, and under Cixin Liu’s careful puppet-mastery and masterful plotting, each storyline builds to a dramatic crescendo and so much heartache.

From a pure plotting perspective, Death’s End is more like The Dark Forest than it is The Three-Body Problem; this is a book that dwarfs the other two in scope, as it extends not just the centuries before Trisolaris arrives in the solar system, but the decades, centuries, milennia that follow.

This is also a story that carefully dissects the nature of humanity, and our tendency to elect leaders who reflect the overall sentiments of the populace at any given time, and how leaders when elected hold a great deal of power that may change the course of human history.

+++

Which brings me to the characters in this particular novel. Cheng Xin is the main character of this story, and hers is a tale of Empathy, humanity, and love.

I love that Cixin Liu goes the particular route he does with this particular protagonist. She is our counterpoint, our grounding narrator over the years as she is put into hibernation, skimming over eras, making decisions entrusted to her which will condemn her and absolve her as the centuries turn. Some interpretations or readings of this book may find that Cheng Xin is a weak woman who has made all of the decisions that have damned humanity over this dramatic take–personally, my interpretation is more favorable. Cheng Xin is not a perfect character, nor an ideal leader. She is not A Great Hero, and so she makes predictable, impossible decisions with immense consequence. My reading of Cheng Xin is not that she is weak or wrong; rather, humans are by our nature, flawed, emotional, and prone to our own inherent biases. I thoroughly appreciated this human interpretation–even if it ultimately means humankind is doomed.

+++

Other things that Death’s End did exceptionally well:

The novel plays with metaphor and literary tradition, including secret messages embedded in fairy tales (which are thrilling and beautiful to read in their own right).

Liu also dives into groundwork laid in the first two novels vis-a-vis dimensions and the implications of two, three, four dimensions–and beyond.

Cixin Liu also poses an inadvertent question: at what point does life become not worth living? What sacrifices are so great that they are not worth the cost of implementing? Faced with an inevitable extinction event, how would humanity prepare or behave?

+++

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

"The Authorities™" by Scott Meyer, 2015

The Authorities™

by Scott Meyer, 2015

Sinclair Rutherford is a young Seattle cop with a taste for the finer things. Doing menial tasks and getting

hassled by superiors he doesn't respect are definitely not “finer things.” Good police work and bad luck lead him to crack a case that changes quickly from a career-making break into a high-profile humiliation when footage of his pursuit of the suspect—wildly inappropriate murder weapon in hand—becomes an Internet sensation.

But the very publicity that has made Rutherford a laughing stock in the department lands him what could be the job opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to work with a team of eccentric experts, at the direction of a demanding but distracted billionaire. Together, they must solve the murder of a psychologist who specialized in the treatment of patients who give people “the creeps.”

There is no shortage of suspects. 

________________________________________________

The Authorities tries to be sharp, witty, and funny. The dialogue is flat, without the pacing or timing required to make it humorous; I see how the jokes would work in a comic strip or tv show, but they fail in this novel.
The rest of the humor is of the 'point and laugh, painfully awkward' kind, which I despise. The backer is in need of a butt kicking. The rest of the cast is odd but okay, though it takes forever to meet them.
The central plot is ... uninteresting.

Overall, avoid. Try the sample, see if it works for you. The rest of the book doesn't get any better.

My rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5 stars) - I did not like it.

For We Are Many (Bobiverse #2), Dennis E. Taylor, 2016

For We Are Many (Bobiverse #2), Dennis E. Taylor, 2016

Loved it! Listened to it on audio and cannot recommend it highly enough. Audio is the way to go with this series. Ray Porter narrates it perfectly. He captures the essence of each and every "Bob" and delivers the humor in a perfect manner. The story is fun, funny, exciting and at times, even touching. I love all of the "Bobs" senses of humor. This is not a book to read as a standalone. You definitely need to read book 1 first, but that's not a hardship as that one is fantastic too.

If you like your sci-fi with humor, I highly recommend this series. And I recommend it even more on audio. 

_______________________________________________________________________

We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor is the second book in the Bobiverse, the direct sequel to We Are Legion - We Are Bob.

The many copies of Robert Johansson have spread out from Sol, exploring the universe and identifying habitable worlds for humanity. While a number of Bobs work on helping colonize the closest planets, most begin ranging farther and farther, not really interested in hanging around the "ephemerals." It's beginning to make the older generations of Bobs a bit worried.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian probe Medeiros is still out there, fortifying star systems in the name of a dead nation. Worse, the alien "Others" are slowly attacking every star within range, one by one, collecting all its resources—including life. They have declared war on the rest of the universe, and the Bobs have no choice to take up arms. But the Others are technologically and numerically superior, so there is a very good chance that the first interplanetary war could end badly for the entire universe.

This book contains examples of:

• Blue and Orange Morality: The Others are confused by the idea of cooperation. They will consume everything in their path, and there is nothing anyone can say that will convince them otherwise.
• Hive Mind: Variant. The Others are individually sentient, but they have no concept of individual worth. They all serve the sub-primes, who serve the Prime, and that's all there is to it.
• Horde of Alien Locusts: The "Others" have no concept of mercy, peace, or individual worth. As far as they are concerned, everything exists to be consumed in service of the Prime. If there was another Prime, the two hives would war until only one remained. They are stripping every system in range of metal and life to feed their industry and their people. Sol and the other human systems are in range, but the Others don't see the need to attack them ahead of schedule.

My rating: ★★★★★ (5 out of 5 stars) - Wow. I loved it!