Rayguns and Space Suits

What I've been reading

2024-08-23T15:03:00.004-04:00

Ahoy hoy, I'm not dead despite the best efforts of space pirates, alien assassins, and murderous sexbots. I'm going to *try* to get back into posting here, but it'll be a slow process. But anyways, I thought I'd give a brief rundown of the various books and series that I've read lately.

Backyard Starship by J.N. Chaney and Terry Maggert: I've been having a blast listening to this series (read by Jeffrey Kafer) since I signed up for Audible. As a rule, I'm usually hesitant to spend my credits, but that's never been the case with this series. I plan on doing a longer post about it later on, but suffice to say that I would recommend it to anybody who wants a fun SF adventure with plenty of banter, action, and excitement.

Starship's Mage by Glynn Stewart: Another series I discovered on Audible (also read by Kafer). Like Backyard Starship, this will also be getting it's own separate post. I would recommend this for those who like Star Wars. This isn't a straight up science fantasy space opera like SW, but it has magic, starships, and definitely scratches an itch if you like that sort of thing.

Linesman series by S.K. Dunstall: This was a pretty okay trilogy that I listened to at work. My chief complaint is that it should have been longer than a trilogy because it left too much unfinished.

Beyond these, there's various standalones and series that I've just started and plan on continuing:

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson.

Planetside by Michael Mammay.

Helldivers by Nicholas Sansbury Smith (this has nothing to do with the Helldivers games).

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

I'll try and do posts about some of the above and others as time and memory permits. But hey, at least I have fodder to bring this blog back to life!

I read six SF short stories last month and they were mostly okay

2023-08-14T02:57:00.001-04:00

Well, three of them were good, the others were okay. All of them were from Amazon's The Far Reaches series of original shorts.

How It Unfolds by James S.A. Corey: This was meh and honestly pretty forgettable. In fact, I'm trying to recall enough detail to even talk about the plot and I'm struggling. Basically, Earth starts colonizing other planets using some MacGuffin transporter technology. Like, the whole thing makes no sense and it felt like Corey phoned this one in. I don't know if both Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck both worked on this or just one of them, but they probably should have just not. 1 out of 5.

Void by Veronica Roth: Murder mystery...in spaaaaaaace! I dug this one and it definitely cleansed the palate after the first story. A passenger on a starship is found murdered and it's up to the main character, a maintenance worker, to solve the crime before the ship arrives at port. 4 out of 5.

Falling Bodies by Rebecca Roanhorse: The best of the bunch, in my opinion. It's funny, but the meaning of the story didn't hit me until several days later. The main character is a human who was adopted and raised by a member of the alien empire that invaded and defeated Earth decades prior, but is now back among his own kind after an unspecified event (eventually revealed) that's caused me untold troubles. 5 out of 5.

The Long Game by Ann Leckie: One of the okay stories. In this one, the main character is an alien slug that goes on a journey to try and find a way to lengthen his species's lifespan. Not bad, but not a standout either.

Just Out of Jupiter's Reach by Nnedi Okorafor: The other okay story. Honestly, this thing was threadbare for plot, but I like Okorafor's afrofuturism enough that I will generally give her works a try. In this one, the main character and others are bonded to organic starships and sent out into space to explore and gather data. They're allowed to gather halfway through their mission for seven days and the story follows what happens during that week. 3.5 out of 5.

Slow Time Between the Stars by John Scalzi: My favorite of the six. This story has to be the most "unScalzi-like" thing I have ever read. It made me think of the Bobiverse. The only character in this one is the AI of an unmanned probe/ship that's launched on a mission to find suitable planets and colonize them for humanity by setting up the colonies, then growing new humans. Basically, it's like a seed ship, but instead of carrying fertilized embryos, it has the genome or whatever stored in it's memory banks.

We follow the probe as it travels the galaxy over eons and dwells on its mission and the nature thereof. It's pretty good. 5 out of 5.

All in all, the series was worth reading, even if one story sucked and two others were only okay. The others more than made up for it.

Incoming transmission

2022-09-17T16:54:00.001-04:00

Ah yes, it is I, the dude who...hasn't posted here in over a year. Yikes. Sorry about that. You know how it is: one second, you're traveling the space lanes, the next, you're trying to put a hyperdrive back together using Bazooka bubblegum and a bootleg Red Dwarf box set.

But in all seriousness, life just got in the way and my interest in blogging waned. On the plus side, my reading has never been better. This year alone, I've read 12 SF novels and novellas. I plan on doing summaries of all the books I've read this year and last, so look for those soon.

Currently I'm reading Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky and while I've enjoyed what I've read of it so far, I think I might backburner it for a while because I don't think I'm quite in the mood or mindset at present to read it properly. Having said that, holy shit, it is good so far. I can easily and clearly understand the hype surrounding it and it is well deserved. I'm also re-reading Cordelia's Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold as part of a renewed effort to read the Vorkosigan series. I loved the first several books I had read, but couldn't tell you why I just up and stopped reading them a couple of years ago.

Other than the above, my plans for the rest of the year involves reading more military SF and tryout some new authors I've discovered on Goodreads.

Oh yeah, I'm on Goodreads now.

All good things must come to an end: Jodie Whittaker leaving Doctor Who next year

2021-07-29T16:58:00.001-04:00

It was great while it lasted. I hope Whittaker is leaving on her own terms and not because of the toxic elements of the Whovian fandom who abhorred anyone but a white dude playing a fictional time traveling alien. I, on the other hand, was one of the many fans who were enthusiastic that a woman had finally been cast to play the Doctor. With luck, she won't be the last to step into the role.

I also hope that we'll be seeing her more. Several of her predecessors and other Whovian alumni have found success post-DW, and hopefully Jodie Whittaker will join them.

Chris Chibnall is also departing, meaning the show will need a new head honcho.

Let the speculation on their successors commence!

Currently reading: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

2021-02-18T10:30:00.001-05:00

Never expected to read this, but I am and I regret not doing it sooner. The stories are a lot more enjoyable than I thought they would be. It must be - I started reading this on like Monday and I'll be finished with it tomorrow or Friday. I've been reading like crazy for some reason, having already put away ten books so far this year. Of those ten, seven have been SF. Eight if you count Jurassic Park. I honestly have no idea how long this fervor will last, but I'm going to take full advantage of it. Who knows, maybe I'll finally read Dune.

RIP Ben Bova

2020-11-30T22:06:00.003-05:00

2020 continues to be a little bitch of a year by robbing the SF world of one of its luminaries. Bova died of a stroke and complications related to COVID-19, so let's be a sad reminder to wear your damn mask, social distance, and wash those grubby hands.

Scout ships: An appreciation

2020-11-29T14:17:00.000-05:00

A scout ship from Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares.

No idea why, but my organic computer has been stuck on the idea of scout ships in SF recently. I think it might have come from thinking about the scout and outpost ships from one of my favorite computer games, Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares. In the game, the scout is the cheapest and quickest of your combat vessels that you can build early on. I would use the word "combat" loosely because while they are armed, they aren't at all suitable for combat. In fact, last night I was watching a video on YouTube of someone playing MoO2 and they went ahead and removed the weapons from the first scout they built because it was pointless equipping the ship with them. The main job of the scout is to well, scout. In the game, these are the ships you build first and send out ASAP to explore nearby star systems. Outpost ships, meanwhile, can serve a similar function, but with the additional ability to establish an outpost (just like the name says, wow!) in whatever system they're sent to (provided there's something there to build it on).

But it did get me thinking, though. First, it was what I want to call the quiet nobility of scouting vessels not just in Master of Orion 2, but in science fiction in general. If we think about them in a "in-universe" context, the nobility lies in the willingness of the crews to plunge into the unknowns of space, of the uncertainty of what they'll find when they drop out of FTL flight into an unexplored star system. Not knowing if that system is occupied or not and if it is, whether the inhabitants are friendly or hostile. The challenges that the crew of a fictional scout face would be myriad and immense. They're not unlike the scouts, pioneers, and frontiersmen in our real life history who would trek into the depths of unexplored land in order to make maps a little less blank.

The 'quiet' part of the nobility is that they're simply unsung compared to others. What I mean is which ships typically get the most attention in space operas, military SF, and other genres? The big ones like battleships, cruisers, and dreadnoughts. There's probably not many books, movies, TV shows, etc. where the small, "lowly" scout ship is the center of attention. And that's a shame because I have to imagine that the crews of these ships are among the bravest, hardiest, people to serve. You would have to be when you honestly have no idea if the next time your ship drops out of FTL, it'll be into clear space or right into an errant asteroid.

It's really a shame that they don't get more attention and "love" in SF media. I'd rather read about their adventures than those set on a warship or other big ship.

2020 is terrible, but at least I'm reading SF!

2020-10-18T15:24:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I've done a rundown on my recent reading adventures so I thought I'd share, because sharing is caring.

Trading in Danger By Elizabeth Moon (Vatta's War #1): As you can see from this list, I have very obviously committed myself to reading the entirety of Elizabeth Moon's series this year. Vatta's War is a fun military SF series centered around the scion of a major trading family who, after being unceremoniously kicked out of her planet's space navy academy, becomes a captain of a cargo ship. Needless to say, things quickly unfold and Kylara Vatta finds herself neck deep in an interplanetary crisis and having to deal with a mutiny and more. TiD is very much what I would call an "establishing" novel in that sets the stage for everything that comes after in the sequels. That's not to say that it's a bad book, but things really don't kick off until the second novel.

Marque and Reprisal By Elizabeth Moon (Vatta's War #2): Speaking of which, here is the second novel. As I said just above, the overall plot of Vatta's War starts with MR. Ky's family and their interstellar trading empire are both devastated in massive coordinated attacks, leaving her to try and pick up the pieces and figure out who is behind the attacks, all while trying to survive of course. MR introduces several important characters that the story shifts between throughout the series.

Engaging the Enemy By Elizabeth Moon (Vatta's War #3): Yup, I read the first three books in a row. Kinda. There was a fantasy novel between the second and third books, but I think it still counts. Engaging the Enemy picks up not long after Marque and Reprisal ends. Ky now has a second ship, one much more combat capable than the one she started out with. This also means that Ky now has the capability to both find out who was behind the attacks on her family and to mete out vengeance. We also see a division form between Ky and her cousin Stella over how to rebuild the family business. While all this is going on, we get to see their Aunt, Grace Lane Vatta, begin her own investigation and revenge against those who were complicit in the attacks on the Vatta family's home planet.

The Last Emperox By John Scalzi (The Interdependency Series #3): Finally, a book that isn't Vatta's War! I finally got the chance to read the last book in John Scalzi's excellent Interdependency Series after the local public library reopened. It was worth the months of waiting too. TLE wraps up the series nicely. My only complaint is that the last part of the book felt rushed.

Network Effect By Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries #5): Another long awaited read. I love The Murderbot Diaries and if you haven't read the series, then you should. Network Effect is the first novel in the series, the previous four books being novellas and I can say that while the series works well in both categories, I much prefer novel length. In NE, Murderbot and some of its supporting cast get shanghaied on a familiar (to the reader) ship in a long lost colony. Adventure ensues, much to Murderbot's annoyance.

Command Decision By Elizabeth Moon (Vatta's War #4): Yet another Vatta book! I breezed through this one within days of checking it out. Command Decisions reads as it should: the second to last novel and as such, it's all about setting the stage for the finale. In this one, Ky has the beginnings of a fleet, she just needs to find more ships and support for that fleet in order to take on the pirates directly. Meanwhile, Rafe, one of the characters introduced in Marque and Reprisal, returns home to find out what's happening to ICS, the interstellar megacorp that owns the monopoly on interstellar communication. Rafe's characterization during this part of the book is odd. In the previous books he's acted charismatic, intelligence, a bit cavalier. In CD, however, he doesn't act like that. Instead, he acts more emotional, panic-y even. It's hard to explain, but if you read the series, you'll see what I mean.

Regardless, I really liked Command Decision. We get more action, the plot advances suitably, and I can't wait to finish the series.

"Henry Cavill plays Warhammer 40k" is a sentence I never thought I'd write

2020-08-02T22:33:00.000-04:00

It sounds like the fakest thing to ever be written in the English language, but shockingly, it's true! A couple of weeks ago, actor Henry Cavill got the Internet all hot and bothered by posting a video on Instagram of his assembling a gaming PC. While the web swooned, I did some digging and came across something that raised my eyebrows about ten feet in the air:

View this post on Instagram

Considering we are, both, going through the Easter period, and going through The Lockdown, I figured it a good time to put a silver lining onto the cloud that is some of the darker moments during this time. So I've decided to polish some old skills and try my hand at some new ones! It is a time of rebirth after all. So, as you can see here, the obvious might look a little bit like a tiny helmet...which it is. One of my almost life long hobbies, that I've been following but not actively doing, is this. A company called Games Workshop...or plastic crack as "we" call it. Genuinely can't get enough of the lore they have built over the decades. They have been some of my most enthused reads! If you were in denial about me being a geek before, you can't hide from it now. Also, in the background of this photo, there may just be some completely new skills I'm working on.....or there may not be, so all of your eye squinting and attempts at digital unfocusing will be in vain....orrrr maybe they won't. I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank, from the bottom of my heart, all of the NHS (National Health Service, here in the UK) and healthcare workers worldwide, for your unceasing efforts to protect us. I imagine it might be feeling a little rough right now, but you Ladies and Gents are absolutely smashing it! Keep it up! You got this. "Hold on a second", I hear you utter....."if he has both hands in the photo...how is he taking the photo??" New skills, my friends....new skills. #Easter #Passover #GamesWorkshop #ProperGeek #Custodes #NewSkills #NHS #ThankYou #Raggy?

A post shared by Henry Cavill (@henrycavill) on Apr 12, 2020 at 1:34am PDT

He of Superman and Witcher fame not only plays WH40k (aka the sport of kings), but paints his own models. The fact that he plays Custodes and not Ultramarines probably won him some hearts all on its own.

But man, to find out that someone who looks like this plays Warhammer (including the Total War game six times through), nearly didn't get cast as Superman because he lost track of time playing World of Warcraft, and builds his own gaming PCs (or livestreams on Twitch!) is like finding out that the high school quarterback who drove a Mustang and dated the head cheerleader also played Magic: The Gathering in his free time.

This man has no right being this handsome. This is why I'm ugly AF.

But seriously, imagine Henry Cavill walking into your FLGS and asking if anybody was up for a game?

Looking at some recent books read

2020-03-01T20:04:00.003-05:00

Hello, hello! Blog's not dead, just haven't quite felt the motivation to write anything because I'm in a SFF funk since last year. With that in mind, I thought I'd write a bit about the two most recent sci-fi novels I've read.

As you might remember (or if you just scroll down a couple of inches), I bought this book last year at a new bookstore I had discovered in town. Having re-read the first book in the series, Mutineer, I decided to dive straight into Deserter and finished in short order. It was enjoyable, but didn't knock my socks off. I would still recommend it.

A re-read that I literally just finished last week.Vatta's War is one of my favorite military SF series and Kylara Vatta one of my favorite protagonists. She's flawed, but quick thinking and daring. That's the only way that I can describe a character that is thrown out of a naval academy, given command of a merchant vessel on a milk run to the scrapyard, decides to go off book and try to strike out on her own, and finally gets trapped in a war zone and prevails despite all adversity including near-death. An easy recommendation.

Of course I bought more books

2019-10-26T22:07:00.000-04:00

Because there's a new bookstore in town and they had some SF novels that I had to have.

I've been trying to find a copy of Kris Longknife: Deserter for years, so I'm more than pleased to finally have found one. Agent to the Stars is another I've been wanting, while Embers of War is a book that looked interesting enough to take a chance on.

I'm already deep into Deserter and it's living up to expectations.

Here, have the official poster for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

2019-08-24T15:33:00.000-04:00

Via Official Star Wars Twitter.

Looks cool.

Finished: Reach for Tomorrow by Arthur C. Clarke

2019-03-01T22:04:00.000-05:00

I finished reading this collection of the SF great's short stories a while back and I thought I'd give a rundown of the stories within.

Rescue Party: A survey ship from a multi-species federation is dispatched to our solar system after it's discovered that the Sun is about to go nova. Their mission is to explore as much of the third planet as they can and if possible, rescue as many humans as they're able.

This is a neat story because it's told from the perspective of alien explorers. They've never encountered humans before, so they naturally don't understand most of what they find as they explore the Earth. This leads to a tense moment where a group of them find themselves trapped on a subway car. They're rescued, but the whole expedition is forced to leave before the Earth is destroyed, so they assume that their mission is a failure. It isn't. They discover humanity's fate and it leads to an upbeat ending.

This is one of my favorite stories of the collection because of the alien perspective and the ending.

A Walk in the Dark: The back cover of the book describes this as an "old-fashioned ghost story set on an alien world", but I would describe it as boring. I love Arthur C. Clarke's stories, but this one was just not good. The plot is a simple one where the narrator is walking to a spaceport on the aforementioned alien world at night when his flashlight fails, forcing him to make the journey in pitch blackness. He becomes unnerved along the way because the darkness forces him to dwell on a stories he has heard about near encounters with something that may or may not exist on what is believed to be an uninhabited (prior to humans showing up, that is) planet.

I didn't like this one because there was no tension or anything. Maybe this would have been a chilling story back in 1950 when this short was originally published, but not today. The ending felt tacked on too. A Walk in the Dark is probably my least favorite.

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Sword and selfies on the Red Planet

2018-12-13T23:05:00.001-05:00

#nomakeup #naturalskin
Source: Twitter.

Don't you just love interplanetary selfies?

This is accurate

2018-11-12T11:16:00.000-05:00

I'm bored and know just enough about how to use MS Paint to get by.

Still alive

2018-11-11T18:05:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posting, folks. Real world health issues with my dad have sapped my urge to blog as of late. I do have two posts in my drafts that I'm going to try and finish sometime this week, so there will hopefully be some new content on here soon. It's unfortunate that I haven't been able to post because I've read quite a bit of SF this year. I'm currently at ten books, which is five less than last year, but I haven't been pushing myself to hit a total number like previous years. Still, I'm still chugging along and aim to add at least a couple of more books to that number before the year's out. Maybe even before the end of the month.

On a classic SF kick

2018-08-01T15:48:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure why I'm so keen on reading some classics, but I am. I had a hankering for some Arthur C. Clarke yesterday and hit the local public library with the intention to check out several of his books, but instead ended up leaving with more. Here's what I'm reading:

It's a Clarke-heavy reading list, but like I said, I had planned on only grabbing his books. I'm reading Reach for Tomorrow right now and it's not bad. Like Expedition to Earth, it's a short story collection. I might read Expedition to Earth after finishing this book or I might jump to The Gods Themselves. I'm more of a Clarke fan than an Asimov fan, but that's only because I've never read any of the latter's work from start to finish.

Transcendental isn't a classic yet, but James Gunn is a SF legend, so it gets a pass. I'm still amazed that a 95 year old is still writing science fiction.

Anything look good to you guys?

Yet more books

2018-07-06T12:28:00.000-04:00

Different books, same shitty picture quality. Where the books in the previous post were all military SF, these are just a mix of SF.

The "bookcase" in picture #1 is just a cheapo wheeled table I repurposed because it had shelves and I could get my hands on it, lol. The books in the second and third pictures are sitting on the headboard of my bed with the stereo and speakers doubling as bookends. The books themselves are just too tall to fit on that bookcase.

It's certainly an assorted collection, isn't it? I tend to favor SF that's more action and adventure oriented. I'm not into works that are deeply philosophical or requires a degree in physics to grok.

My military SF collection

2018-07-04T12:58:00.000-04:00

I think the hip and happening kids call these pictures "shelfies". I just call them terrible quality. :P

Click to embiggen.

Like I said shitty quality. My hand isn't steady, nor is the camera on my phone the best, but we do what we can, lol. Some of the names are blurry, so if you're curious about any title, just let me know down in the comments and I'll tell you what it is.

But yeah, this is all of my military SF or at least what I don't have boxed up.

Review: The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke (Spoilers)

2018-02-06T14:41:00.000-05:00

I recently finished The Hammer of God and all I can say is that I love Arthur C. Clarke's books.

What's it about: Set in the year 2110, The Hammer of God revolves around the discovery by an amateur astronomer of an asteroid headed straight for Earth. Dubbed "Kali" after the Hindi goddess of death and destruction, the big space rock has the potential to wipe out life on Earth. The book follows the attempt by SPACEGUARD to prevent this by attaching a mass driver to Kali and slowly - very, very slowly - nudging it so that it'll miss Earth.

What I liked: One of the things I liked about THoG is that it didn't focus solely on the efforts of Robert Singh, captain of the spaceship Goliath and its crew to save the day. Instead, Clarke devoted a large chunk of the book to worldbuilding 22nd century human civilization and while it might at times have seemed like he was going off on wild tangents that immediately didn't seem to have any relation to the main plot, Clarke deftly tied all of these side trips together. For example, he focuses several chapters on "Chrislam", a fusion of Christianity and Islam created in the early 21st century that by the 22nd, has become the fourth largest religion on Earth. He doesn't explain any of the tenants or doctrine of the religion and you're left wondering at first as to why he devoted the two or three chapters to the religion, until near the end of the book when a fanatical faction called The Reborn sabotage efforts to divert Kali and almost wipe out mankind on Earth.
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A review of SF read in 2017

2018-01-27T15:32:00.000-05:00

I mean, we're almost a month into 2018, but better late than never. The big thing about 2017 is that it was very much a year of science fiction. The year before last, I read only nine, but managed to raise that to fifteen the following year. More than that, SF made up fully half of the books I read in 2017, so I'm pretty well pleased with that. Let's have a look at them all:

1. Old Man's War - John Scalzi.

A re-read. Scalzi is one of my favorite SF writers and Old Man's War one of my favorite books.

2. The Ghost Brigades - Scalzi.

Yet another re-read. I was a bit meh on it the first time through, but I enjoyed it more on the second read.

3. Night Train to Rigel - Timothy Zahn.

The first Zahn book I've ever read to completion, I've had Night Train to Rigel for a long time and made several attempts in the past to read it. 2017 was the year, though, and I wish I had read it sooner. I'm going to try and read the rest of the series this year.

4. The Last Colony - John Scalzi.

Unlike the other two, this was not a re-read. I really liked how the book ended because I did not expect it at all. Going to try and read the last two books this year.
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Ursula K. Le Guin has died

2018-01-23T17:59:00.000-05:00

This is such a massive loss for both SF and fantasy. The Left Hand of Darkness was already on my reading list for the year, so I'll have to make sure I get to it ASAP.

Netflix to adapt John Scalzi's Old Man's War

2017-12-07T14:42:00.001-05:00

Great, now I have to get Netflix, I guess. Ugh. The book series (one of my personal favorites) was grabbed up by Syfy back in 2014, but as such things go, nothing happened with them and the rights reverted back to Scalzi. Hopefully, the same won't happen with Netflix because the books really are quite good and it would be interesting to see them adapted to screen.

I think the bigger story here is that CompuServe still exists

2017-12-06T13:22:00.001-05:00

File 770 has a post up about the imminent demise of CompuServe's SF forums and while the loss will suck as such things do, I'm more shocked that CompuServe is even still around. I mean, they've been owned by America Online (another relic) since 2003, but the fact that survived that long is amazing.

But on a more serious note, this sucks. While I didn't know these forums exist until today, it still sucks because internet forums are a major source of fannish activity. I used to hang out at SF forums back in the late 90s and early to mid-00s, talking about Star Trek, the then new Battlestar Galactica, and whatever was going on with the now former Star Wars Expanded Universe. Good times.

Here's that preview of "Twice Upon a Time" from the Children in Need charity thing

2017-11-17T20:36:00.001-05:00

"What do you mean 'one'?"

To quote another time traveler, "oh boy."