Blue into the Rip by Kev Heritage

Blue Into The Rip by Kev Heritage
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I went back in time and read this book through the eyes of the teenager myself.

I found the story quite interesting. I love time travel, it's awesome, it's a paradox itself. This time the Blue, the hero travels into the future. I appreciate the novelty in the method of the time travel, it's not the cliché of time machine or shimmering portal, but a brutal force through time and space: the Rip.

In the story the future is similar to other distopian futures: the climate is warmed, the most part of the Earth became desert, the fauna and flora is distorted, new, dangerous species emerged. But. Unlike other books, this one offers several alternatives: underground habitats, space colonies, new worlds discovered through the Rip. The distopian books are on the rise, and I'm starting to be fed up with the dark, ugly picture of the possible future. Blue into the Rip offers a fresh take on the subject. And some hope.

The Crater, the underground cave with artificial sun and rich vegetation is awesome.

The story is full of action. Blue gets into more and more trouble, as he finds out secrets of the future and try to solve puzzles which seems to go beyond his comprehension. And not only the mysterious organisation called SEARCH has secrets, but his superiors and his mates at the Academy. He finds out strange things even about himself as the events unfold. The middle of the story slows down a little as we follow Blue through the military training, but the special tasks the cadets have to perform still grabs the attention of the reader. At the end of the book you have to hang on, because the action really speeds up.

The plot has a big arc, and this book raises further questions making the base for sequels.

good characters

There was one thing which distracted me time after time: the author often used sentences without verbs. This type of writing can be considered as the voice of the writer, however it should be used with care, only sparingly. To make it clear, here is an example: "A warning siren and the porthole closed". I was confused, because the it says that both a warning siren and the porthole were closed. Should be: "A warning siren sounded and the porthole was closed."

The Blue into the Rip is a decent read, I enjoyed it.

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The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi

Jenny went to see a movie with her friends, something involving romance and love and tears and happy ending. Jack is late from work, he sent me a message complaining about due dates and evil bosses. I'm home alone, so I'm playing my Best of 90's CD so loud that the walls are resonating. Those were the days...

Since nobody disturbs me, I'm catching up wit some reviews I should have written weeks ago. I start with the one about The Ghost Brigades. I'm big fan of John Scalzi, so this review will be totally subjective. If you want to read an objective evaluation of the book, try some other place. If you are still interested in my opinion, here it is.

I like John Scalzi's work since I listened to the Old Man's War audiobook. That was the first one I have read from him. I immediately appreciated his humor, which adds a layer to his books.

The story of The Ghost Brigades happens in the same universe as the Old Man's War, and I loved that Sagan was part of this story. (If you don't know: Sagan is the clone of Perry's wife, who dies before Perry joins the army.  Perry and Sagan have an interesting relation.) It gives extra connection to the previous book. By the way, it really helps if you read the Old Man's War, because a lot of ideas grow from that story, and you can understand better what's going on.

If you haven't read The Ghost Brigades, better go and read the description before I get to the details, so you have an idea what I'm talking about.

The Ghost Brigades could be a simple space-military type of book if it hadn't several layers. The base of the story: the Colonial Defense Forces fights against the threat from three alien species, who made an alliance against  the humans. This already gives reason for a few exciting actions, like taking a research base by force or kidnapping the heir of an alien race. Or blow up the generator and shot the bad guys' base to pieces.

But more is at stake, because by the end of the book we learn that hundreds of races making alliance and other races are making their counter-alliance, so something BIG is going on in the background.

If we go deeper, we see how the Ghost Brigades soldiers are born. Or made would be the better word, because they are clones of people who died on Earth and didn't have the chance to join the CDF as Perry did in Old Man's War. Which raises a series of questions. How can they coop with the fact that they are very young yet fully grown adults? By their "teenager" years they could be retired veterans. And how can they develop an own consciousness? The Brainpal implant seems to solve this issue by providing all the necessary information while they discover the world.

Talking about the brain implant: it is amazing. Not only because it's like an endless source of information, but because it provides deep integration between soldiers. Scalzi unfolds the possibilities of this technology to several degrees, and uses it's impact to create compelling situations and also trouble. Which makes the story more interesting.

The implications of the consciousness-transfer is well done, and its contribution to the final conflict is well played out. Also brings some interesting questions: who really is Jared? The newborn CDF soldier or the incarnation of Boutin, the bad guy? Can the consciousness of Boutin take over completely, or Jared develops his own personality?

There are some really good twists and turns in the story. And of course, there is the characteristic Scalzi humor (for example the stone throwing), which is like a good spice to a delicious food.

It may seem too sentimental, but I liked the ending: Perry, Sagan and Zoe will be a family most probably. I suppose I will know more when I read Zoe's Tale.

I already purchased The Last Colony, and hardly can wait to listen to it.

Immersed in Hyperion

I'm sitting in the dark room, alone, my eyes tries to make out the forms in the shadows, and I see the furniture as pieces of the past long gone. I put my feet on the small table next to my armchair, like a wanderer who spends his well-deserved rest time after a long, exhausting journey. The fireplace glooms, flames dance around each other as they consume the logs relentlessly, converting the once living wood into dead ashes. Time seems to stop, like a slow creek entering the tranquil lake, which smooth as a mirror, in the absence of the wind. My mind wonders, I'm not in the room anymore, but I rise, I ascend high, I leave the stratosphere, and enter the metasphere, where space and time circle around each other trying to decide whether they are individual forces of nature, or they belong together joining their forces and swarming into a higher being, who may be perceived as hand of God. From here the material world is only the shallow playground of the soul, the human body is small, laughable, like the carapace of an ant. I recognise shadow-like figures around me, moving in slow determination towards their destiny. They are far, far away, yet so close I could touch them. They move to the rhythm, the symphony of the metasphere, they march to the sound of the drums of the time, unable to free themselves from the bonds of the space, determined to follow their destiny and fulfil their purpose. The game is set thousands of years ago, and I see unfolding the giant plot, which interlaces the galaxies, and moves the characters as marionettes on ropes. The symphony rises into a shattering crescendo, light fills the metasphere around me, the shadows are judged to extinction and cast out of the universe, the hero is lift up above all, and the justice wins once for all. Then everything becomes silent, very still, like dreams on the surface of the lake.
I open my eyes, and tapping on my mobile I close the audiobook application. I finished Fall of Hyperion written by Dan Simmons, narrated by Victor Bevine. It's not easy to return to the real world, but I stand up, go to my desk and opening my laptop I start to write the review of the book. I type: "I'm sitting in the dark room..."
Jack enters, but doesn't say anything. He takes advantage of that I'm sitting at my working desk, so my armchair is empty, and he sits down. He sits back, stretches his legs and clutches his nape with his hands. He waits until I stop typing and stare at the screen, still trying to figure out the emotions Hyperion caused inside me. Then he asks:
"What are you working on, uncle?"
"Writing review of Fall of Hyperion."
"Ah, Fall of Hyperion. That's an interesting one. What did you write so far?"
I'm reading the text aloud for him, like reciting a poem, my voice is trembling in some places, going sublime just before the end, then settling down like a fragile butterfly on a flower. The dim light of the fireplace and the screen of my computer add a soft touch to my performance.
"That's cool!" says Jack. "But not sure it's a review."
"I know, but it's hard to put Hyperion into a few sentences. I don't know what to think about it."
"Did you like it?"
"Yes. And no."
I hardly can see Jack's face, but I can tell he frowns. So I explain:
"I liked it, because there is cool stuff in it: space travel, teleport devices, future technology, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, time paradox and such. Simmons created a believable future world. The characters are alive, detailed. The story has a huge arc of events in space and time. There are a lot of compelling ideas."
"My favourite is Uman, the super intelligent being" - says Jack. Sometimes he surprises me with his preferences of story characters.
"But I didn't like that it was too complicated" I continue. "By the end of the book I felt it's just too much. Too many subplots, too many heroes, too many places."
"I hear you, uncle, the story is really complex. You should listen to the two Hyperion books again. Maybe you can grasp the details better."
"Maybe sometime later. Now I feel overwhelmed."
"You know what? Why don't we open a bottle of vine and talk about it?"
It's not a bad idea. The situation reminds me of my childhood summer camp when we sat around the camp fire and told ghost stories. I'm not a child anymore, and the Hyperion books are not ghost stories, but they have enough mysticism to talk about them next to the fire.
"I have a bottle of red Bordeaux" I say.
Ten minutes later I'm sitting in my armchair, Jack's in the other one. We nurture our vine in our hands, and staring into the dancing flames we talk about the fascinating world of Hyperion.

Axis by Charles Wilson

I enjoyed Spin, the prequel of this book, and I was looking forward to read Axis. The story is interesting. It picks up the storyline 30 years after Spin ends, and it is about the alien race who caused Earth's spinning. Scientists try to establish a connection by altering the DNA of a child, who - according to the hopes of the scientists - would be able to "speek" with them.

While the idea is compelling, I was disappointed at the end. I felt the book unfinished. The whole purpose of the story was to pave the way to the big event of the connection with the aliens. But I never learned what happened when the superboy entered the gate and finally met the aliens.

Most of the time I enjoyed Wilson's writing, but several times I skipped paragraphs, because I found them only ranting.

Where is the pure genre?

I recently read the novella titled His Name In Lights by Patty Jansen. It was refreshing. This is the review I wrote on Amazon:

Real science-fiction story. This is what came into my mind reading this novella. I'm tired of novels I read lately, mixing romance, paranormal and SF. His Name In Lights is a refreshingly original sci-fi story, reminding me of Asimov's robot novels. It raises questions I'm not sure ever would be answered, like: what makes us human, our body, our soul, or both together?; what is the relation between creator and creature?
The story has some aspects reflecting to the desire for political power, which is again, an attribution the mankind cannot get rid of.

I was thinking about the phenomenon I see in more and more books: mixing sci-fi with fantasy, paranormal with sci-fi, romance with paranormal, and so on. I member of the Goodreads and The LibraryThing community, and I received several books for free in exchange of reviews. Some of them were good, some others were average. There were some of this "mixed genre" type books, and while I did enjoy reading them, I could not get rid of some strange feeling.

When I considered one aspect of these books, I didn't find it compelling enough. They were not really sci-fi. They were not really paranormal. They were not really romance. Something was missing, those things which make you say "aha!" or "ooh!". You would think that when all of the aspects are put together, they compose a complex and interesting story. Strangely, it didn't work for me as it should have. I think it's because non of the genre lines were exploited in great depth, like you do writing a pure genre book.

Maybe it's just me, remembering the pure sci-fi books of old days. This is why I enjoyed the book His Name in Lights more.