Review: Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer

In most cases there are two separate types of science fiction, those stories that focus on the science and those which focus on the fiction.  Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer is a story that often difficult path between the two. It has science that is both interesting and science while focusing largely on characters.

There are two major themes in Rollback. The first is the title concept. A medical technology which allows someone to become young again with theoretical technology that costs billions. The other is a message from an alien race which was discovered over thirty years ago. These two interact because the woman who deciphered the first alien message has grown old and a new message has arrived.

Because she might be important a billionaire offers to pay for her rollback and, reluctantly, her husband’s as well. The problem is that her rollback fails while his does not. So he has grown  young again while she remains in her late 80’s. 

Much of this story is about the man dealing with the changes in his age, cultural differences between age groups and guilt. Most of which are dealt with well enough. The only real major problem is that one of the major plot points has him doing something that is at best morally questionable. He feels a bit guilty but never deals with it and in the end it becomes a major positive. And while I don’t feel that negative actions always need to lead to negative consequences in a good book it is hard to really feel for a character who acts in such a selfish way.

Overall there is a lot of interesting story in Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer and while there are a few points in the story which bother me they don’t come near ruining the story. In fact one could argue that they add to the moral complexity of a story which focuses on a subject that has a lot of moral complexity. So, if you like science fiction that is able to meld character and big ideal which remaining largely plausible in the science then you’ll likely like Rollback though I can’t say that I expect a lot of people will love it.

Why Write about Dystopian Futures

I have heard a fair amount of discussion lately about science fiction writers using a lot of dystopian futures in their stories. Neil Stephenson even discussed the point lately suggesting that slower levels of true technological advancement may be in part because of this and want to write more optimistic stories. That is great. I for one love Star Trek in part because hope is important in science fiction, but in the discussion I think a lot of people miss the most basic reason that writers often use apocalyptic futures. It’s easier. 

A lot of people don’t think that much about stories, but if you take a moment to think about it dystopian futures you’ll understand why. The most important element in story is conflict. That conflict can be between man and man, man and society, man and God, ect… The problem is that if the future is a kind and peaceful place there is less conflict than if mega corporations have pillaged the planet turning it into a wasteland, leading to a nuclear war that triggered a zombie uprising.  

The basic premise of many of these people is still correct. People are more likely to write dystopian stories in times when the economy is bad and people are afraid, but it is still worth remembering the simple point that futures where everything has went wrong tend to lead to easier conflicts. In fact my problem is often not so much that we have dystopian futures but that so much of science fiction is unwilling to look into the future more than a few years rather than centuries. For example instead of shows like Star Trek and Star Wars that show truly advanced technology you have shows like Fringe and Eureka with advanced technology in our own time. I like these shows, but I enjoy visiting the distant future from time to time as well and it’s OK (at least for me) to assume that sometime might come up with a way to do something that we currently think is impossible like faster than light travel because one of the things science fiction does well is point out we don’t know all that much.

Hunger Games by Suzanna Collins Book Review

In an attempt to catch up on some of the more popular science fiction of the recent past I picked up The Hunger Games by Suzanna Collins.  Since it was reasonably short I also read Catching Fire and Mockingjay. This is a story about a young girl who lives in a dystopian future where children are forced into a reality show style combat to the death.

Plenty has been said about this book and the most common comparison is to Battle Royale. This is a good comparison, but I actually found myself thinking of Ender’s Game, especially towards the end of the third book. Both are about children who are used by adults and mix very personal stories with huge political issues. Both also deal with death and how children deal with having killed.  I still strongly prefer Ender’s Game, but I find it interesting.

Reading any young adult novel I try to give it a bit of a pass on the cliché level, but it is a bit difficult in parts of Hunger Games. This is mostly because several of them felt very unnecessary. The most notable of these was the love triangle.  The problem is that it never really felt like there was a decision to be made.  There were other commonly used ideas in these stories as well, but few of them felt as forced as this.

The biggest weakness of this story for me was its staying power. I enjoyed the first book quite a lot, the second book was interesting and by the end of the third I was ready for it to be over. This is the opposite of most books that I love.  Most of this is because the longer the story goes the less it feels like Katniss is actually affecting anything. Instead it feels like she is riding the wave created by her first actions and trying to catch up with the events rather than creating them.

Still, while I am willing to criticize the story there is a lot to enjoy here. I like many of the characters and very few of them feel flat or like they don’t have room to change and the world building is very interesting giving you a real feel for each of the districts even though there are several that you hardly see at all. Even the villains feel like they have personalities beyond simply being evil though there is a bit of moustache twirling at times. 

Just like with Harry Potter I am always glad to see kids excited about genre fiction and can enjoy the stories for what they are, but in the end this isn’t great science fiction, it is only good and I do hope that those who like this story will find their way to some substantial stories after they have finished it. Perhaps something like Ender’s Game if you enjoy the children and death theme, or the often mentioned Battle Royale if you like the life and death arena. For those who like the world building there are a lot of great science fiction universes such as Dune, Ringworld and the Foundation stories. Oh an if you like the archery you could try the Stephen Lawhead King Raven series that looks at Robin Hood from a different view.

Overall I would give this book about three and a half out of five stars. Worth reading, but without as much substance as I would like even out of a young adult novel, but with characters and themes that are worth spending some time with.  

11/22/63 by Stephen King

I don’t read a lot of Steven King because I don’t read a lot of horror. It isn’t that I don’t like a good horror book on occasion, just not very often. Since 11/22/63 by Steven King isn’t really a horror novel, and several sights suggested it as the best science fiction of 2011 it seemed like a great story to read, especially with so much of the recent science fiction being of the depressing apocalyptic variety.

The story itself is, like many of the best Steven King stories, very simple on the surface. A man discovers a ‘rabbit hole’ that leads to 1958. You can enter that hole, look around and return easily, and no matter how long you are there only two minutes have passed and if you enter the hole again you return to the exact same moment and can relive the same events. You can even change things, but as soon as you return those changes disappear. 

The man who shows him this ‘rabbit hole’ then suggests his plan. He should go into the past, live there until 11/22/63 and stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing Kennedy. The problem is that the past doesn’t want to be changed. It struggles against the actions of the time traveler.

From the beginning a few things seem clear. The time travel in this story isn’t really all that important, except to put the right person at the right time. The giant reset button set up in the first few pages will be used and there is more going on than you really see.

What makes this story, like almost everything Steven King writes, so interesting is that you actually care about the characters. This is vital to his style of writing. After all horror only works if you care about the people in the story because no one can create a monster bad enough that it will scare someone when they don’t care about the people it’s killing or, worse, are actively pulling for the monster kill obnoxious characters. This is generally a bit less important in science fiction, but it is always a good thing to have characters you care about, and characters that the writer also seems to care about, though a bit of the wind is taken out of that when the reset button is hovering over the story like a sword on a string, but even that is used very well.

It is easy to read this and recognize the style of Stephen King. Like most of his work this is rated R though a bit lighter than most of his work, in large part because most of it is set in the 1950’s. It also has some nods to other stories. Visiting Derry one town he hears a story of a clown that was killing children.  There are likely other more subtle nods to other stories as well, though none as clear.  So anyone who loves Stephen King should enjoy this book even if there isn’t all that much to be scared of in it.

On the other hand those who generally avoid horror could certainly use this as a great way to get the feel for Stephen King without the fear of killer dogs, ghosts or even curio shop owners getting too much in the way. The biggest horror in this story are Oswald, and a few other similar human characters and while they may be every bit as much monsters as those in other King novels they are certainly more familiar and something already dealt with. In fact the real drama isn’t in what they will do, because that is already known, but if they can be stopped.  So if you want to check out Stephen King, this is a good place to start.

Overall I’d say this story is about a 4 out of 5 with the only real problems being that it drags a bit in the middle and I could see the ending very early, but even knowing where the story is going it is still mostly fun to get there and a bit of slowing down in the middle to explore the past is part of the reason that you read a story about time travel.

Hugo Book Review: Foundation's Edge

The Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov is one of the most famous of all science fiction stories of all time, but while it is a series that really does feel as if it has a strong coherence it has a major break both in time and in tone. Having been encouraged by his fans to return to the series Isaac Asimov wrote Foundation’s Edge thirty years after the other Foundation’s book. In addition, Asimov began to connect other series into the books while writing in a very similar style which includes a lot of people talking and discussing ideas.

Taking place about 500 years into the Seldon plan the mule has been destroyed and the Foundation believes that they have defeated the second foundation and are nearly as powerful as the empire was at its peak. Yet one of the Foundation’s senators sees a problem.  They are not only on the Seldon plan but far too perfectly on the plan and that perfection shouldn’t be possible especially after the problems of the Mule. This suggests to him that someone is affecting the foundation and he suspects the second foundation was not destroyed.

By bringing this up though he upsets the leader of the foundation and is exiled at least in appearance and unable to actually search for the second foundation because then they would use their mental abilities to stop him. So, he is given an advanced ship and a historian who is searching for earth he begins to search for the second foundation. The second also has its own internal politics though and one of the most powerful of the leaders of that organization is also sent away due to politics creating a parallel between the two and making it clear that there is something else going on.

Connecting in the robot books and even the three laws of robotics into the foundation series is an interesting choice and one that could have worked out badly. But, Asimov is a great writer and he was able to connect the two in such a way that it really did feel right even if it wasn’t always easy. In addition there are a few other brilliant ideas. Gaia is perhaps the most interesting as you find out at the end of the story that there really is something unique about this place and using an idea that is common in science fiction in a different way. And just like Asimov was able to use robots in an interesting way when most others were using them only as monsters he also makes the ideas behind Gaia less scary and far more real at the same time.

It is almost impossible to talk about this book without discussing books which came both before and after it, except to say that while this will be better if you have read all of those stories you really can pick this up and enjoy the story without having read the others since almost everything that has happened before is at least partially explained and most of the characters are self contained in this book. Still if you want the full experience it is well worth beginning with the first of the foundation series or even some of the books such as the robot series which are excellent stories and thanks to these stories connected to this book.

Chuck Series Finale: Chuck Vs. The Goodbye

I hate TV finales, but I also love them. As the saying goes all good things must come to an end. It is in fact those ends that often make the good shows into classics and is one of the biggest advantages that a popular TV show has over a good comic book or even a movie as they can build for years to a real conclusion. Today, I watched the last few episodes of Chuck,  a show that I have enjoyed from the beginning, and the emotions as I finished Chuck Vs. The Goodbye were as mixed as they ever have been watching any show.

This season of Chuck has been hit or miss.  I enjoyed the first part with a new intersect, but once they resolved that part of the story it didn’t really feel a lot like Chuck. It was more like a generic spy show with a few quirky references.  The finale both helped to make it clear why it felt so different and yet made it feel like Chuck again.

The biggest accomplishment of the finale was that it managed to get everything that I loved about the show into a single episode and do them all well. It rekindled the feeling of the first seasons with Chuck’s uncertainty and lack of confidence , had Sarah and Casey more like they were at the beginning and even brought back Jeffster.

Perhaps the best part of Chuck Vs. The Goodbye was the very end.  Without spoilers it was able to make it clear that everything was going to be OK without actually telling you exactly how it turned out. If Morgan was right then naturally everything will be good, but if he was wrong, which seems likely, then it might take a bit of time but it will still be OK. That feeling that the story is over, but there is still a story to be told is hard to do, but when it’s done well.

Overall this season of Chuck wasn’t its strongest, but the finale itself really did feel like a great cap to a series that I really enjoyed, making the story feel complete without undermining anything that came before it. So all in all this was a good ending to one of my favorite shows even if the last season wasn’t as good as I would have liked.

Skyrim

I have been playing far too much Skyrim in the last week and a half and to actually review it at this point is a bit absurd. We can all agree that the game is great and move on. Still there are a few points in the game that I would like to address specifically.

Dragon Claw Keys

I can see the value in these. They are likely hard to replicate and even if you did you wouldn’t know the combination. The issue I have is that they put the combination on the bottom of the key. These doors are seriously over engineered with huge turning stones that had to have taken workmen months or years to build. During all of this time someone must have asked the foreman why they were doing all the extra work if anyone who had the key would know how to open the door immediately. Perhaps it was simply a recession in Skyrim and they were so glad to have work that no one was willing to admit that it was pointless work.

Alter Puzzles

I have run into a lot of these puzzles in a lot of forms, but in general you have a pillar you have to turn or levers you have to pull in a specific order. The odd thing is that in almost every case the solution to these puzzles is on the wall of the room.  Since I assume anyone in Skyrim would figure out these puzzles my thoughts are that these puzzles are the Nord’s way of taunting the Falmer who, being blind, would  be unable to solve these puzzles. For everyone else it simply slows them down.

The Way Out

I can understand the value of having a quick way out of a tomb. After all if you’re one of the workmen building these giant tombs you don’t want to have to walk through the entire crypt to get home at the end of the day.  The problem is that after having walked through enough of these giant crypts to discover that there was a path that would have taken a tenth the time I begin to wonder that not one of these people left the back door open. Just once I would like to go into a tomb discover that the back way was opened, bypass the hoard of undead grab the one thing I need and leave without incident.

Why don’t these people know me?

I understand that there are a lot of people running around Skyrim and there is no reason for anyone who doesn’t know me to know why I am, but there are times when it can be a bit insulting. I’m the archmage of the college you live in, we fought a dragon together a few days ago and yesterday I spent five thousand gold buying things from you, but now that I show up with someone else you don’t know me.  I get it, you’re too good for me. You’ve got to impress people after all and I need you for now, but don’t think I’m going to forget this. When the great purge comes, and it will come, you will be among those who are to suffer and not simply be removed.   



Hugo Book Review: Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh

Downbelow Station by C J Cherryh is the type of book that I began to read the Hugos to find. An epic science fiction story which tells the story of Pell’s World which has fought itself caught between two empires.  This is the first world which was found to be habitable and while generally unimportant still serves as a jumping off point for other colonization.

At some point later faster than light travel has been created and the control earth has over the colonies is largely breaking down with only a fleet of fifty ships allowing them any real control, a control which is breaking down as those ships are defeated and largely unsupported in the war so that they are losing to a more advanced and growing fleet.

The story begins near the end of that war. One of the earth ships arrives at Pell filled with refugees that put a strain on the bases both because of the cost of resources and because they fear that there are spies among them. Much of the rest of the story deals with these people as well as the captain of the earth ship who is forced to defend them.

While I did enjoy Downbelow Station I never really felt as if there were a protagonist I could like. The ship captain begins the story by doing something more or less evil and it never really feels to me as if she cares about what she is doing. Earth isn’t particularly good as they are both out of touch and trying to hold back humanity, but the others are worse.  This is probably more realistic than those books that have a clear good and evil, but not as satisfying.

I can certainly understand why Downbelow Station won the Hugo Award. It is a very smart book with a lot going on and it takes risks that many science fiction books don’t. The aliens are both different from humans and yet not bizarre and the conflicts are smart. In the end though much of this felt as if it didn’t really need to be science fiction and the story became a bit slow at times. So I can recommend this book to those who have the patience to enjoy a book that is a bit slow, but not for everyone.

Hugo Book Review: The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge

The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge tells the story of a world in an empire that has collapsed. The story is set on a world that has a medicine which effectively allows immortality. Very rare it is used primarily by the royalty of this world, but they do not hold that position forever and the world takes place as that is about to change, something the queen doesn’t want.

It is hard for me to read The Snow Queen because separating out the difficulties in reading it is going to be almost impossible from the book itself. I enjoyed the beginnings of this book well enough, but I had technical difficulties twice the second time my Kindle broke and it took days for me to get a new one and then I couldn’t find the exact location I was previously at in the book. Still, I didn’t feel any great desire to return to this story while I was waiting.

The major character of this story is Moon. She is a sibyl which means that she has access to a huge database of knowledge in a strange almost computer like way. This along with the fact that she has a connection to the queen drive the story along with a great deal of politics. This covers ideas like fear of death, the nature of intelligence, the nature of power and even nature vs. nurture.

While there are a lot of great ideas here, but the truth is that I never really cared about any of the characters or entirely bought into the ideas of this story. They just felt shallow and not all that interesting in general.

I want to give this another chance at some point because there are a lot of great ideas in this story, but I never really felt like the plot drew me in and I didn’t care about any of the characters. Still, I can understand why this won a Hugo because the questions and ideas that this sets up are important and not easy to answer and that makes it worth reading even if it isn’t great.  



Hugo Book Review: Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Gateway by Frederik Pohl is one of the Hugo award winning novels that I have most enjoyed. This is a story that isn’t entirely about what you expect it to be about and that is part of the reason I enjoy it so much. The Gateway is an ancient space station that has been found by humans who barely understand how any of it work, but know that the technology is far ahead of them and potentially useful and so are exploring that technology.

The primary way that technology is being explored is by sending people out in the ships that they have found. There are three types of ships at this station. One hold one person, one holds three and another hold five. Though no one really understands why the three person ships seem the most safe and this idea of them guessing about what is safe makes up much of the ship as the main character is trying to find ways to improve his odds of not only surviving a trip on a strange alien ship, some of which never return, but also to find technology of true value so he can become wealthy.

What makes this book different than you might expect is how little the alien technology is really explored. This is about the man and the pain that he feels as well as guilt he feels. The reason for this guilt is one of the few of the major mysteries of this story that is really answered. But even though you don’t find explanations for the technology or solve every problem there is a lot to like about this story because it feels far more real. The technology doesn’t simply make sense because we want it too and the world isn’t a single solution to be found.  

In some ways this story could be considered slow. There is a lot of time where very little actually happening besides character development, but the quality of the story telling and the way it is told helped to keep me hooked.

Having moved on to the next of the Hugo novels I did not read farther in the Heechee saga of books so I don’t know how much more is explained, but in truth I liked many of the questions that this story left as well as the fact that the life of the character isn’t perfect or even all that good simply because he has solved some scientific problem. So, if you like good hard science fiction with real character development then this is a good choice.