The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal is the third novel in the Lady Astronaut universe. I have previously read, reviewed and enjoyed the first two books: The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky. The Relentless Moon takes place chronologically after the first two books, but follows a different character, so it almost stands alone, aside from spoiling a lot of what went before it.

The Earth is coming to the boiling point as the climate disaster of the Meteor strike becomes more and more clear, but the political situation is already overheated. Riots and sabotage plague the space program. The IAC's goal of getting as many people as possible off Earth before it becomes uninhabitable is being threatened.

Elma York is on her way to Mars, but the Moon colony is still being established. Her friend and fellow Lady Astronaut Nicole Wargin is thrilled to be one of those pioneer settlers, using her considerable flight and political skills to keep the program on track. But she is less happy that her husband, the Governor of Kansas, is considering a run for President. 

I really enjoyed this book. The protagonist is Nicole, who I only vague remember from the earlier books, but that vagueness was not at all a problem in picking up and following this new story. There were also several recurring characters who I had stronger memories of, like Nathaniel (Elma's husband), Eugene and Myrtle, and Helen. We actually got to learn a lot more about the latter three as they became increasingly central to the plot. My absolutely favourite part of the whole book was actually the epilogue, for what it sets up for future books, but of course it is a massive spoiler so I won't say any more about it.

The story follows Nicole, one of the original lady astronauts and now governor's wife as she prepares for and then goes on another mission to the moon. But recently the astronaut programme has been experiencing more failures than usual, even though their various failsafes are keeping people safe. Given reason to believe that sabotage is afoot, Nicole spends a lot of the book investigating, while hampered by a lot of things.

It was a bit sad to see that, still, even 20 years after the first book in the series, a lot of sexist jerks remain, as well as some racist jerks, which are highlighted thanks to the diverse cast in the story. That said, it was also probably fairly realistic, as were the science deniers who don't believe in the future consequences of the meteor from book one. To counteract that, some random little things that I enjoyed about the book: Nicole living anorexia was depicted very sensitively; spies and harking back to the war; a couple of minor background characters called Armstrong and Aldrin; the general scientific/engineering rigour Kowal applies to her worldbuilding.

Overall this was an excellent read and I highly recommend it to fans of the Lady Astronaut books. Especially anyone that was hesitant to pick up a book with a new protagonist, I found Nicole to be just as compelling as Elma. To new readers, I suggest starting with The Calculating Stars to better enjoy the worldbuilding and the deviations from our real-world historical timeline. I am excitedly looking forward to the next book in the series.

5 / 5 stars

First published: July 2020, Tor
Series: Lady Astronaut, book 3 of 3 so far
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Navigating the Stars by Maria V Snyder

Navigating the Stars by Maria V Snyder is the first book in the author’s first SF series (she has many fantasy books under her belt already). It was also my first experience of the author’s work and I’m pleased to say it was a very positive one. I was drawn to pick up this book because the blurb intrigued me and I am glad I took a chance on it.

Terra Cotta Warriors have been discovered on other planets in the Milky Way Galaxy. And Lyra Daniels' parents are the archaeological Experts (yes with a capital E) on the Warriors and have dragged her to the various planets to study them despite the time dilation causing havoc with her social life.

When one of the many Warrior planets goes silent, and looters attack her research base, Lyra becomes involved in discovering why the Warriors were placed on these planets. And, more importantly, by who.

The first thing I want to say is that Snyder clearly did her research when it came to setting up a futuristic society. Not only does she bother to include time dilation in her interstellar travel — remarkable in and of itself since so many books take a lazy magically fast travel approach — but she also thought through the social ramifications of it. The story opens with Lyra, our protagonist, sad, angry and desperate over the fact that her parents will soon be moving to another planet for work. Since she is under 18 and has to come along, that means she will never see any of her current friends again. The way the research base kids deal with that situation struck me as very believable and it was an emotional scene to read.

The way they travel through space to distant planets is still a little bit magic, time dilation or not, but it was sufficiently well thought out that I didn’t find anything to complain about. Ditto the quantum computer that controls navigation and a host of other things. There was also a bit of maths-based problem solving that I found it quite plausible that Lyra would be capable of. In summary, this book gets my “physics done right” seal of approval. Oh, and there was also some realistic treatment of head wounds, which was refreshing to see.

Not ignoring the laws of physics wasn’t the only thing done right in this book. The story was engaging and I enjoyed Lyra’s voice and being in her head. The archaeological side of things, which Lyra was frequently involved with thanks to her parents, was also interesting and not overburdened by boring details. By the time the more mysterious elements of the plot came to the forefront, I was well and truly invested and couldn’t put the book down. (And now I am sleep-deprived.) the romance was probably the least interesting element of the plot, since Lyra’s love interest is literally the only other teenager insight, but he was a sufficiently interesting character that I didn’t get annoyed at him and actually worried for his safety (I may have forgotten that I was reading a Harlequin book at that point.)

I highly recommend this book to all fans of hard science fiction and/or YA. Snyder shows that lazy shortcuts to advance the plot (magic travel, ignoring concussions) aren’t necessary to make a story interesting and engaging. I was really pleased with the realism (yes, realism, even when strange inexplicable things were also happening) and the amount of research that clearly went into this book. I was trepidatious about how the ending would go and whether I would still want to read the sequel, but I am pleased to report that I am definitely interested in finding out what happens next (and that it didn't end on a horrible cliffhanger or anything like that). Bring on the sequel!

5 / 5 stars

First published: November 2018, Harlequin Australia
Series: Yes. Book 1 of a new series called Sentinels of the Galaxy
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold is the latest book in the Vorkosigan saga that I've reread. For a while it was the last book in chronological order, but for the moment it's become second last.

Kibou-daini is a planet obsessed with cheating death. Barrayaran Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan can hardly disapprove—he’s been cheating death his whole life, on the theory that turnabout is fair play. But when a Kibou-daini cryocorp—an immortal company whose job it is to shepherd its all-too-mortal frozen patrons into an unknown future—attempts to expand its franchise into the Barrayaran Empire, Emperor Gregor dispatches his top troubleshooter Miles to check it out.

On Kibou-daini, Miles discovers generational conflict over money and resources is heating up, even as refugees displaced in time skew the meaning of generation past repair. Here he finds a young boy with a passion for pets and a dangerous secret, a Snow White trapped in an icy coffin who burns to re-write her own tale, and a mysterious crone who is the very embodiment of the warning Don’t mess with the secretary. Bribery, corruption, conspiracy, kidnapping—something is rotten on Kibou-daini, and it isn’t due to power outages in the Cryocombs. And Miles is in the middle—of trouble!

From my first read, I remembered this as being quite dark read, but it's not really. Maybe it's a bit less funny than some of the other books in the series, but it's only the very end that punches you in the gut. The rest of the book, for all that it's about death and delaying death by freezing and hoping for a better future, isn't actually dark at all. Funny how an ending can make such a strong impression. I am also really glad that this isn't the last chronological book in the series any more.

I forgot how much Roic was in this book too, and after A Civil Campaign and Winterfair Gifts it was nice to see him confident in  his position and silently judging Miles (or m'lord). It's nice to see that kind of character development over several books. Same with Kareen Koudelka, but she didn't make as much of an appearance in Cryoburn or have any point of view sections so the effect is lessened. Speaking of seeing characters from others' points of view, I also enjoyed Jin's impressions of the grownups around him. I didn't have a very strong memory of him from my first read through (I only really remembered that he existed), but getting to know him again was fun. He and his family have joined the list of one-book Bujold characters that I wouldn't mind reading more about, at least in passing.

Cryoburn actually stands alone as a novel pretty well. While there's a lot of background that can inform the story, it mainly only informs Miles's past, which isn't as critical to this book as to some of the others in the series. It's not a bad place to start the series, although it's not completely representative of some of the other books. On the other hand, the series has become so diverse in styles that no single book is representative of it all. In any case, Cryoburn is not a book to miss if you're a fan of the series or science fiction generally.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2010, Baen
Series: Vorkosigan Saga, second last book chronologically, third last story in publication order
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from Baen's online shop several years ago

The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts

The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts is a long novella — or a short novel, according to comments in the back-matter — about people on a very long-haul space flight that they mostly spend cryogenically frozen. The title comes from the idea of staging a revolution in short snippets over long periods of time. (Very long periods of time: the story opens about 65 million Earth-years after the journey started.)

She believed in the mission with all her heart. But that was sixty million years ago.

How do you stage a mutiny when you're only awake one day in a million? How do you conspire when your tiny handful of potential allies changes with each shift? How do you engage an enemy that never sleeps, that sees through your eyes and hears through your ears and relentlessly, honestly, only wants what best for you?

Sunday Ahzmundin is about to find out.

This book caught my eye because of the premise and because I’ve been in a science fiction mood for a while now. I haven’t read more than short fiction by Watts before (a long time ago when something was shortlisted for a Hugo, I think), so why not give this a try? In the end, though, I didn’t love it. It wasn’t a terrible book but, for me, it didn’t live up to the expectations set by the premise.

First off, it remains a great premise. The purpose of the long haul flight and one-way ticket to the future is to build Star Gates (not actually infringing copyright by being called that) around the galaxy for humanity to, later, be able to get around faster. The ship (actually a flying asteroid with a built in singularity generator) has to travel at sub-light speeds to set up the future FTL highway. The people on the mission know they can never go home and are brought out of stasis mainly for more complicated situations that the AI can’t be trusted to handle alone.

So far, so interesting. Where it fell down for me was in the balance between the science and the tech in the writing, and a bit in the characterisation. Near the start, I thought that the science was the most interesting aspect but we mostly got a bunch of characterisation. Near the end, when the human aspect was more interesting, there was more of a focus on the cool science (I'm being vague to avoid spoilers). Some of the meh could have been avoided by writing slightly more interesting characters. I found them all a bit bland, even the ones that were supposed to be interesting. I didn't feel very invested in the narrator, Sunday, even though she was overwhelmingly the character we got to know best. (I was also pretty surprised when a pronoun identified her as female a quarter of the way into the book, so, hmm.)

This isn't a bad book and if the blurb grabs you, you could do worse. But for me it was a disappointment because I had hoped for more. I was left with a feeling of somewhat wasted potential and I don't think I'll be bothering to seek out more Watts books. I'm glad I gave it a shot, though.

3.5 / 5 stars

First published: June 2018, Tachyon Publications
Series: Maybe? Looks like there are related short stories (thanks Goodreads), but I'm not sure how they're related.
Format read: ePub ARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Falling Free — The Vorkosigan Saga Project

Falling Free is the latest book we’ve read in our Vorkosigan Saga Project. It’s actually the earliest book to take place chronologically and was published fourth out of all of them. Set about 200 years before the other books in the Vorkosigan universe, Falling Free is about a race of genetically engineered “quaddies” who were designed to function better in freefall than normal humans do.

You can read Katharine’s review of Falling Free here, and Tsana’s review here.

Katharine: Hello everyone! Welcome back, and apologies this discussion is so late. Totally my fault, and totally because I struggled to finish reading this one. I was not a fan.

Tsana: While this is definitely not one of my favourite Bujold books, I didn’t hate Falling Free. There was one aspect I was definitely not a fan of (and that was true the first time I read it as well), but other than that I found it to be an interesting hard science fiction book.

Katharine: We meet Leo Graff, who is being hired on a top-secret project and based out on a self-sufficient space station, to teach welding in space, and how to do it safely. Unfortunately it turns out that his boss is someone he’s run into before, and didn’t exactly give a glowing recommendation for… so even before he begins, he knows he’s up against someone who has a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

Tsana: Well I don’t think the boss knows that Leo hated him, which is why he gets Leo hired… but I’m jumping ahead a little. The interesting thing about this space station is not who’s in charge of it, but the project that is being run out of it. The company that owns the station has genetically engineered a new race of humans that can work and live in microgravity environments much better than normal humans can. Their most visible biological difference? A second set of hands instead of feet.

Katharine: Called quaddies, the oldest are only just at childbearing age, which several of them are now experimenting. Tony and Claire are the first parents, and Tony happens to become quickly Leo’s best student. The quaddies are mostly far too innocent for their own good and are considered property of the company.

Tsana: Yes. And when we say childbearing age, they’re like 15 or 16, not adults. That, and some of the interactions with adults in positions of power over them contributed to a significant squick factor. Is that the main thing you didn’t like about it, Katharine?

Katharine: Can go more into that after we raise the spoiler shield as it’s too hard to discuss without it. But basically… the quaddies exist and Leo is only one of many of their instructors, except we don’t see much of any of the others. We see doctors and the ‘mothers’ who care for the kids, and that’s about it.

Tsana: A lot of the book is a look at what might be thought up as a solution to various problems normal humans face working in space for long periods of time, as well as, er something that I’ve just realised is a major spoiler.

Spoiler shields up!

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold occupies a somewhat confusing place in the Vorkosigan universe chronology. It was the fourth book published — which is interesting to consider in itself — but is a prequel set about 200 years before the other books in the series. Aside from anything else, that means it stands entirely on its own with no character connections to any other books in the series. It does, however, lay some background for a race of genetically engineered people that appear in a couple of other books.

Leo Graf was an effective engineer...Safety Regs weren't just the rule book he swore by; he'd helped write them. All that changed on his assignment to the Cay Habitat. Leo was profoundly uneasy with the corporate exploitation of his bright new students—till that exploitation turned to something much worse. He hadn't anticipated a situation where the right thing to do was neither safe, nor in the rules...

This story follows an engineer who has been sent to a space station to teach a bunch of genetically engineered humans how to weld safely. Through his point of view we encounter the quaddies, who have two extra arms instead of legs for better manoeuvrability in free fall. We also see how the quaddies are questionably owned by the corporation that created them and the extent to which they have been psychologically conditioned to keep working for the corporation. Also, how ripe for exploitation they are as a group. We also see some of this exploitation from the point of view of one of the quaddies, Silver, although she doesn't entirely realise she's being exploited.

This was an odd re-read because the first time I read this book, at roughly the same place in terms of which books I read before and after (thanks to the Baen omnibuses), I had no idea what to expect. The second time, I knew what to expect, remembered not disliking the book but was still disappointed that Miles and/or Cordelia weren't in it. Also, the aspect of the book I remembered disliking was, of course, still there, for all that I came at it from a slightly different perspective. I also noticed that pretty much all the bits I didn't really like were very carefully written and challenged within the narrative itself.

Falling Free is one of the most hard science fictional books in the Vorkosigan Saga. There's a bit of hand-wavey science, but for the most part those bits of science aren't the focus of the story. The story very much deals with the scenario of convenient genetic engineering and the possible consequences of obsolesce thereafter.

This is a good book to read as a standalone if you're not sure whether Bujold's writing is for you. Since it stands alone there's not obligation to keep reading the other books, but they remain an easy possibility for readers who enjoyed this book. And although the iconic character of Miles doesn't appear in this book, the story is still feels like a part of the same universe. It's not my favourite Vorkosigan universe book, but it's not a terrible place to start (for all that I've only ever read it in the middle of the series) and it's a darned good read either way.

4 / 5 stars

A bunch of alternative covers, because it's my blog and I can do what I want (and they don't suck as much as usual):

First published: 1987 serialised in Analog and as a fully collected novel by Baen in 1988
Series: Vorkosigan saga, fourth book written, first chronologically speaking
Format read: ePub as part of the Miles, Mutants and Microbes omnibus
Source: Purchased from Baen several years go

Proof of Concept by Gwyneth Jones

Proof of Concept by Gwyneth Jones is a science fictional novella put out by Tor.com. I picked it up based on a recommendation from a friend, and the vague belief that maybe I'd like Gwyneth Jones more now that I was older.

On a desperately overcrowded future Earth, crippled by climate change, the most unlikely hope is better than none. Governments turn to Big Science to provide them with the dreams that will keep the masses compliant. The Needle is one such dream, an installation where the most abstruse theoretical science is being tested: science that might make human travel to a habitable exoplanet distantly feasible.

When the Needle’s director offers her underground compound as a training base, Kir is thrilled to be invited to join the team, even though she knows it’s only because her brain is host to a quantum artificial intelligence called Altair.

But Altair knows something he can’t tell.

Kir, like all humans, is programmed to ignore future dangers. Between the artificial blocks in his mind, and the blocks evolution has built into his host, how is he going to convince her the sky is falling?

Proof of Concept had some interesting ideas in it but they did not overall make up for certain less interesting aspects of the writing and story. To start off, I found the start difficult to follow. The actual opening scene was OK, as far as these things go, but the subsequent section which, more or less, explained the point of the story was hard to follow. Especially since I was tired when I was reading it. I actually ended up going back and rereading a section because I realised I had no idea what was going on. I will note, however, that further into the book things pick up a bit and I found myself more interested in returning to reading it than I was nearer to the start.

I mentioned giving this story a chance based on a recommendation. The reason I needed a friend's recommendation to give it a try is because the only other Gwyneth Jones book I've read is Bold As Love, back in my early teens. Back then, I picked that book up because it had a pretty cover (so pretty, more so in real life than online) but didn't enjoy it. I thought at the time it was because I was too young to get some of the references (true but not the whole issue) but reading Proof of Concept I noticed a few parallels in character choices, mostly of background characters that bothered me the same way. So I think I'm just not a fan of Gwyneth Jones's writing and probably never will be.

That said, the middle and end of Proof of Concept were interesting enough to have me turning pages for reasons beyond wanting to get it over with. The plot centres around an isolation mission, with people sealed into a large underground cavern on a not-spaceship. The idea is that the scientists will perform experiments in a giant Faraday cage (or something, the basis was wishy-washy with intention) and the other half of the inhabitants were something to do with the media. I may have missed something, but I think it was a reality TV kind of thing, to be released after they all came back from the mission. (See what I mean about being confused? I only really managed to get my head around the science half of the premise.) Unexpected stuff starts to happen though, making the plot more interesting and culminating in a satisfying ending. I should be clear that I found the ending satisfying because it fit with my headcannon, but others might find the degree of uncertainty frustrating.

I would recommend Proof of Concept to fans of hard SF who don't mind a significant character-driven component to their stories. On the other hand, I wouldn't recommend it to fans of character-driven stories. I liked the main character, who is also a host for a quantum computer, but I didn't feel that she was enough to save the story. Not that she was a bad choice of point of view character, just that we could have gotten to know her even more that we did. Personally, I don't think I'll bother picking up anything by Gwyneth Jones in the future, but this is a very subjective analysis and you definitely shouldn't let me put you off if you haven't given her a shot (and being a novella, Proof of Concept isn't a terrible way to sample her writing).

3 / 5 stars

First published: April 2017, Tor.com
Series: No
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from iBooks

Contamination by Patty Jansen

Contamination by Patty Jansen is a novella in a new series of novellas. It stands alone well enough, but I can also see how it's a good set up for an ongoing episodic series. It's near-/mid-future SF, set on  a space station in orbit around Earth.

Jonathan Bartell is a young man, just out of university, when he signs up for the position of Quarantine Officer at the Orbital Launch Station.

He is part of a crop of students who flocked to study exo-biology when bacteria were discovered on Mars, and who are now all making their living flipping burgers, because the jobs are few and hard to get. He is lucky to get a job in space, no matter how mundane.

Or so he thinks...

Gaby Larsen is a doctor at the tiny hospital at the space station, and she keeps secrets, not because she wants to keep them, but because she is too scared to share them.

Because out in space, your worst enemies are your fellow travellers.

Contamination follows Jonathan, who has just gotten a job on the Orbital Launch Station as a quarantine officer. He quickly learns that not only is space less glamorous than he expected, but that his job is even less so. He doesn't immediately hit it off with other people on the station and a few innocent missteps lead to more antagonism than he planned for. But Jonathan is determined to do his job, and that leads him down a more interesting path than he bargained for.

This was a quick read and satisfyingly scratched the itch I wanted it to. It's hard SF that deals with some social issues and sticks go near-future plausible developments. (Although how near in the future we're really going to be exploring the solar system is up for debate.) It was interesting but not especially shocking as far as plot development went. That said, there were some interesting hints of other aspects of the world, which were not at all resolved and which I expect will come up again in future instalments. I should stress that the main story was completely resolved, however.

I enjoyed Contamination and I look forward to reading the next book in the series when it comes out. I recommend it to fans of science fiction, especially realistic and solar system-based science fiction. Since it's a novella, it's also an ideal quick read for people looking for a short foray into a science fiction world between other reads.

4 / 5 stars

First published: May 2017, self-published
Series: Yes, book 1 of ? which looks to be a series of standalones
Format read: ePub
Source: Purchased from SmashWords
Disclaimer: Although I am friends with Patty, I have endeavoured to give an impartial review
Challenges: Australian Women Writers Challenge, Australian SF Reading Challenge

Dichronauts by Greg Egan

Dichronauts by Greg Egan is a story of exploration and, by some definitions of the word, adventure. The two protagonists are surveyors in a society that puts a high priority in knowing what land lies ahead of it, because it is a constantly migrating society. It has to migrate constantly because it is based on a geometrically very strange world.

Seth is a surveyor, along with his friend Theo, a leech-like creature running through his skull who tells Seth what lies to his left and right. Theo, in turn, relies on Seth for mobility, and for ordinary vision looking forwards and backwards. Like everyone else in their world, they are symbionts, depending on each other to survive.

In the universe containing Seth's world, light cannot travel in all directions: there is a “dark cone” to the north and south. Seth can only face to the east (or the west, if he tips his head backwards). If he starts to turn to the north or south, his body stretches out across the landscape, and to rotate as far as north-north-east is every bit as impossible as accelerating to the speed of light.

Every living thing in Seth’s world is in a state of perpetual migration as they follow the sun’s shifting orbit and the narrow habitable zone it creates. Cities are being constantly disassembled at one edge and rebuilt at the other, with surveyors mapping safe routes ahead.

But when Seth and Theo join an expedition to the edge of the habitable zone, they discover a terrifying threat: a fissure in the surface of the world, so deep and wide that no one can perceive its limits. As the habitable zone continues to move, the migration will soon be blocked by this unbridgeable void, and the expedition has only one option to save its city from annihilation: descend into the unknown.

There are so many ideas that shape this world into being different from ours, that when I first started reading it seemed like any one of these premises would have been enough for a perfectly interesting story. However, having finished the book, I can see how all the weirdness, for lack of a better word, is interlinked. No one key premise would have worked rigorously without the other elements holding it together. The geometry of the world requires the migration and begets the alien configuration of the beings we follow in the story. The not-human beings can only see in two directions (forwards and backwards, though they don't refer to them like that) and have a symbiotic relationship with intelligent leech like beings. The Walkers have holes in their heads and the Siders live inside these holes and, through supersonic "pinging" can see sideways and share that information with their Walkers. The Walkers and Siders can also silently communicate, and Siders can speak in the Walker language and also among themselves in their own higher-pitched language that Walkers can't hear. And I've barley scraped the surface of the geometry aspect.

The story follows the investigation of a looming crisis. The river our protagonists' city follows is going to run out as the city continues migrating. Seth and Theo are sent to survey a new region and hopefully find a new river or other means for the city to sustain itself in the future. As they make various discoveries, the situation escalates and they learn more about their world than they bargained for.

This book was a little baffling to read, in a way not foreign to a reader who has read a few Greg Egan books before (ie me). I have a degree in pure maths and one in physics and while some of the geometric ideas were a little familiar to me, I found it difficult to picture some of what happened or predict the effects of some actions. Ultimately, I found the book enjoyable enough if I just went with the flow and didn't overthink it. When I got to the end and read the afterword on geometry (not a spoiler if you want to jump ahead to it), I discovered that I hadn't been thinking of things in quite the right way, which explained some of my confusion. I don't think that knowledge would have helped me all that much if I'd read it earlier, however, since I think a proper representation would be more or less impossible without writing out some equations.

Maths aside, I was also put in mind of Flatland (but without he weird chauvinism), for the exploration of a world with foreign geometrical properties. The main story was more a exploration and discovery yarn, albeit not an exploration of Earth or anything in our universe.

I recommend Dichronauts to fans of Greg Egan and people who are not afraid of unconventional mathematics. Readers who enjoy exploration stories and don't mind not understanding exactly how the physics of the world works should also enjoy this book.

4 / 5 stars

First published: June 2017, Nightshade Books
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss
Challenges: Aussie Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Matters Arising From the Identification of the Body by Simon Petrie

Matters Arising From the Identification of the Body by Simon Petrie is a science fiction crime novella set on Titan. It follows a public investigator looking into the suicide of a young woman who opened her own helmet and exposed herself to Titan's atmosphere.

Tanja Morgenstein, daughter of a wealthy industrialist and a geochemist, is dead from exposure to Titan's lethal, chilled atmosphere, and Guerline Scarfe must determine why.

This novella blends hard-SF extrapolation with elements of contemporary crime fiction, to envisage a future human society in a hostile environment, in which a young woman's worst enemies may be those around her.

Scarfe's job is investigate the suicide and the reasons leading up to it. It's told as a police procedural with a solid science fictional setting as a back drop. Petrie has written several stories set on Titan (see my reviews of his short story collections, Rare Unsigned Copy and Difficult Second Album) but I got the impression that this version of Titan was more populated and hence the story is probably set a bit further into the future than those other stories.

As expected, the scientific background is something Petrie gets spot on in this novella. As well as a well-developed setting, I appreciated the additional layers to Scarf's life. She wasn't solely focussed on her job, she also had a family and a back story that wasn't directly related to her job or this particular case, which I appreciated. Matters Arising From the Identification of the Body was fully fleshed out, for all that it was a novella and didn't take me very long to read.

As far as the crime aspect went, I pretty much only read speculative fiction crime so my opinion is a little coloured by that. This ticked all my boxes though. The mystery elements were intrinsically tied to the science fictional setting and the "solution" followed logically from what the reader had been presented with. I did guess one aspect of the resolution, but not the full explanation, which was handled well, in my opinion.

I highly recommend Matters Arising From the Identification of the Body to fans of science fiction and mystery/crime stories. It is both a procedural and science fiction, but I expect it will appeal more to fans of the latter genre than the former. This was also a more series story than Petrie's other mystery series set on a space elevator, which is significantly more tongue-in-cheek. I am looking forward to reading more stories about Scarfe and set on Titan.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: June 2017, Peggy Bright Books
Series: Yes. The first in a series that will have at least one more instalment (there was an excerpt at the end of the book)
Format read: ePub
Source: Review copy courtesy of the author
Challenges: Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge

The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred by Greg Egan

The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred by Greg Egan is a science fiction novella set on two large asteroids out in the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. It is a quick and compelling read more about morality than technology, although of course there is technology in it.

Camille is desperate to escape her home on colonized asteroid Vesta, journeying through space in a small cocoon pod covertly and precariously attached to a cargo ship. Anna is a newly appointed port director on asteroid Ceres, intrigued by the causes that have led so-called riders like Camille to show up at her post in search of asylum.

Conditions on Vesta are quickly deteriorating—for one group of people in particular. The original founders agreed to split profits equally, but the Sivadier syndicate contributed intellectual property rather than more valued tangible goods. Now the rest of the populace wants payback. As Camille travels closer to Ceres, it seems ever more likely that Vesta will demand the other asteroid stop harboring its fugitives.

I enjoyed this book and found it interesting, but I wouldn’t call it a happy read. The story follows a few characters on Vesta where something akin to racial tensions are coming to a head. Of the founding families, one has been singled out as having not pulled their weight (because they contributed intellectual property rather than physical technology to the settlement) and their descendants are being are now targeted. The main characters on Vesta are some of these descendants and their friends/sympathisers mounting a resistance against the bigotry targeting them.

The Ceres sections of the novella are set a few years later than the Vestan parts and mainly follow the Director of the Ceres colony as she interacts with Vestan refugees. In both settings there is discussion of morality, from different perspectives, and a few different moral questions are faced by the characters. The story doesn’t really resolve these questions — mostly because there are no right answers, I suspect — and leaves us only with a chapter in the characters’ lives closing. We do not know all the details of what happens next.

I enjoyed The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred and found it a compelling read, especially after I got past the first chapter and got a better idea of what the story was about. I recommend it to fans of science fiction and political stories. As I mentioned, aside from being set on asteroids and taking the relevant environmental factors into account in the background, there isn’t very much science (or, well, technobabble) in this story. If that’s something that often puts you off SF, then I still recommend giving The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred a shot.

4 / 5 stars

First published: November 2016, Subterranean Press
Series: No
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Challenges: Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Fall by Sean Williams

Fall by Sean Williams (also called Hollowgirl in the US) is the final book in the YA science fiction Twinmaker trilogy. It follows on from Jump and Crash. Because of certain crucial events at the end of book two, which set up the premise for book three, this review, including the blurb, will contain some spoilers of the earlier books.

Clair’s world has been destroyed – again. The only remaining hope of survival is for her and Q to enter the Yard, a simulation as detailed – and as real – as the home they have lost. But in the Yard there are two Clair Hills. The other Clair is headstrong, impulsive, suspicious – just like Clair herself used to be, and their very existence is causing cracks.

As Clair searches for a solution, a surprising new ally emerges from the ashes. Together they fight their way through the digital and political minefield in the hope of saving Jesse, her friends and the whole of humanity.

In the rather dramatic conclusion to Crash, in which Clair and Q/Kari uploaded themselves to the Yard to escape the destruction of all d-mat processed matter on Earth. The story of Fall opens inside the Yard simulation where Clair and Kari run into Clair's friends, who were uploaded two weeks earlier near the start of book one. An earlier version of Clair is also with them. This allows a very interesting contrast between the Clair we had gotten to know and the Clair from before two books' worth of traumatic events. It's easy to side with Clair Two, whose experiences we had just spent a book reading about, but I also enjoyed the way in which Clair Two can almost always see Clair One's point of view. Clair One, however, has fewer reference points for understanding Clair Two, which becomes a source of friction between them.

I enjoyed Fall more than Crash, overall. Among other things, there were fewer piles of bodies and, if I'm remembering correctly, more exploration of philosophical problems. The only real let-down for me was the obviousness of the ending. Exactly how the characters got to the final resolution was the main story, of course, but for me as a reader, the general nature of the ending was never in question. That's not to say it was a bad ending, just an inevitable one. And I think that Williams did a good job of throwing sufficient obstacles at Clair and friends to make the journey an exciting and entertaining one.

The other thing that struck me as I neared the end of Fall was just how much more accessible this series was compared with, for example, Astropolis, Williams's adult SF series (beginning with Saturn Returns, all read pre-blog). Most of that is probably because Twinmaker is YA and not necessarily aimed at people who already know they like hard SF. Possibly making it a good gateway series. I think it's fair to say that if you enjoyed this series, you will probably enjoy other hard science fiction books (assuming the next hard SF you try reading doesn't offend you in some way, which is unfortunately not unlikely).

Ultimately, this series is a detailed exploration of the uses and dangers of teleportation (and fabrication) technology, in what is initially a post-scarcity society. And I'm pretty sure that's more or less what it set out to be. With characters and plot drama added in, of course. I enjoyed it a lot and I would recommend it to all fans of SF and YA and YA SF.

4 / 5 stars

First published: November 2015, Balzer + Bray (US) / Allen & Unwin (Aus)
Series: Twinmaker book 3 of 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Edelweiss courtesy of the US publisher
Challenges: Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie is the third and final book in the Imperial Radch trilogy. You can read my reviews of the first two books, Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword, at those links.

For a moment, things seem to be under control for the soldier known as Breq. Then a search of Atheok Station's slums turns up someone who shouldn't exist - someone who might be an ancillary from a ship that's been hiding beyond the empire's reach for three thousand years. Meanwhile, a messenger from the alien and mysterious Presger empire arrives, as does Breq's enemy, the divided and quite possibly insane Anaander Mianaai - ruler of an empire at war with itself.

Anaander is heavily armed and extremely unhappy with Breq. She could take her ship and crew and flee, but that would leave everyone at Athoek in terrible danger. Breq has a desperate plan. The odds aren't good, but that's never stopped her before.

When everyone was making a fuss about the pronouns in Ancillary Justice (in the main language there is only one gender and it is translated into English as "she") and decrying it as a feminist text, I was wondering what book they had read. The book I read did not have strong feminist themes and was mainly about colonialism. I have to admit I didn't think very much about themes in Ancillary Sword, but this final volume, Ancillary Mercy, deals very interestingly with ideas of sentience and personhood, particularly when it comes to AIs. Perhaps not a surprising development given the main character and first person narrator is/was a ship. But it is interesting that many of the questions raised took so long to come to the fore. Reading this book, I was thinking "yes, this makes perfect sense given what we know" and then being baffled when other characters didn't agree with me/Breq and friends.

Another strength of Ancillary Mercy comes from the very fact that it is the third book in the series. We know the key characters well, we already care about them and there aren't a huge number of new characters to have to remember. Leckie deals well with the character stuff, not letting the story be completely taken over by action and external events (something I have had issues with in other SF books). My favourite parts were small interactions between often minor characters, like the soldiers' protective feelings towards their lieutenants and Breq. As well as characterisation, the universe is very well developed. Leckie makes us care about tea sets! Plural!

Ancillary Mercy was a great conclusion to the series and I had trouble putting it down. I enjoyed it more than Ancillary Sword, which I gave 5 stars to already. They're not wildly different books (Ancillary Justice, which sets everything up and has a lot of flashbacks is the most different in structure to the other two) and I think Ancillary Mercy was my favourite mainly because the comic relief characters were funnier. Which is kind of an odd thing to say since this is hardly a comedy, but it is what distinguished Ancillary Mercy for me. (Although of the three I find Ancillary Justice the most iconic).

I highly recommend this series to all fans of space opera and hard SF. It's really excellent and showcases Leckie's writing talents and worldbuilding skills. This concluding volume was great and although it didn't tie up everything — the series ended up showing us a self-contained slice of a very large conflict — it was still satisfying. A must read! (But start with the first book.)

5 / 5 stars

First published: October 2015, Tor
Series: Imperial Radch book 3 of 3
Format read: ePub
Source: Google Play

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu was originally published in China and has been translated into English by Ken Liu. It's a hard science fiction novel set mostly in the approximate present in China, and partly during the cultural revolution.

Three-Body Problem is the first chance for English-speaking readers to experience this multiple award winning phenomenon from China’s most beloved science fiction author, Liu Cixin.

Set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction masterpiece of enormous scope and vision.

The Three Body Problem is probably the best hard science fiction novel I've read in a long time. Admittedly this is partly because I've been put off by a lot of the books I picked up being either too sexist etc or, well, not being hard. Although, since I've started thinking about it, if I had to compare the style and scope of ideas, Greg Egan springs to mind. But anyway, on with the review.

The book opens during the Cultural Revolution in China, with Ye, a graduate student, watching her father beaten to death. Through the course of the revolution she ends up at a remote top secret radio telescope base where all is not quite as it seems. The first few chapters were about Ye but then the story jumped forward to the approximate present and we didn't get back to her story for quite a while. It's not that I didn't enjoy where the story ended up going, but I felt a little "bait and switch" with the opening. But I was glad when later we did get to find out the rest of her story.

The other part of the story (two thirds, maybe?) followed Wang, a physicist in nano material research, set in the approximate present. The start of his story is a horrifying nightmare for a scientist. Weird and inexplicable and inconsistent physics results start occurring. Particle accelerators start producing chaos, the cosmic microwave background flickers and a glowing countdown follows Wang around, appearing every time he takes a photo, no matter what camera he uses. Wang is terrified, as would I be if I were in the same situation. I thought it was a really clever and terrifying concept that was especially suited to the science fiction genre. I don't think it would freak out non-scientists as much (when reading the book, I mean), but that's kind of the point.

The last third of the story is more unusual. In the course of events, Wang ends up playing a virtual-reality immersive video game (pictured on the cover), which has strange rules and doesn't have any clear goals at first, other than to not die. It takes a little while to work out its relevance. On the other hand, while reading it's clear from the context that the game is relevant to the strange things happening in the world, just not quite how until much later. It also provided an interesting commentary on some aspects of the history of science.

The Three Body Problem is a very idea-dense novel. There's a lot in it, especially if you're not familiar with recent(ish) Chinese history. That said, the culture is very accessible. However, I find it harder to comment on the accessibility of the science, since I'm a physicist. There are some footnotes both from the author and the translator explaining some of the references, mostly to science in the first case and culture in the second.

I would very highly recommend The Three Body Problem to fans of hard science fiction. The main overarching plot — which does take a little while to be revealed — is very science and idea driven, with the characters spending a lot of time trying to work out what's happening. I am definitely keen to read the next instalment which should be out in October this year. (Although Ken Liu is not translating the second volume, only the first and third. It will be interesting to compare.)

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 2008 in Chinese, 2014 in English by Tor
Series: Three Body book 1 of 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Permutation City by Greg Egan

Permutation City by Greg Egan is the first book I've read by the author, although I've been meaning to pick up one of his books for some time. I have to admit, left to base my decision only on blurbs this probably wouldn't have been the one I chose to read first, but it was the book that came up as a review copy from the (new reprint) publisher. Que sera sera and I certainly don't regret reading it. I have definite plans to read more Egan in the future.

A life in Permutation City is unlike any life to which you’re accustomed. You have Eternal Life, the power to live forever. Immortality is a real thing, just not the thing you’d expect.

Life is just electronic code. You have been digitized, scanned, and downloaded into a virtual reality program. A Copy of a Copy. For Paul Durham, he keeps making Copies of himself, but the issue is that his Copies keep changing their minds and shutting themselves down.

You also have Maria Deluca, who is nothing but an Autoverse addict. She spends every waking minute with the cellular automaton known as the Autoverse, a world that lives by the mathematical “laws of physics.” Paul makes Maria an offer to design and drop a seed into the Autoverse that will allow her to indulge in her obsession. There is, however, one catch: you can no longer terminate, bail out, and remove yourself. You will never be your normal flesh-and-blood life again. The question then becomes: Is this what she really wants? Is this what we really want?

From the brilliant mind of Greg Egan, Permutation City, first published in 1994, comes a world of wonder that makes you ask if you are you, or is the Copy of you the real you?

The blurb is a bit misleading, I think, because more of the story takes place in the real world than is implied. The first two thirds or so of the book alternate between a few characters, most of whom, admittedly, are Copies (computer simulations of the original people), who mostly function if not in the real world, then as close to it as Copies can get. The two most central characters are: Paul Durham, whose point of view scenes are set about six years earlier than the rest of the story and whose story we see from the point of view of an experimental Copy (most "living" Copies are of deceased people); and Maria, a programmer who compulsively spends her free time and spare money on modelling a bacterium in a virtual world with slightly different laws of physics (and consequently chemistry and biochemistry).

My favourite sections, all the way through, turned out to be the bits from Maria's point of view. Superficially these sounded like they should be the most boring: a thought experiment featuring the molecular biochemistry of imaginary compounds does not seem like it should be interesting. But it really was. From an intellectual point of view I found those sections engaging and the idea of the Autoverse (the simulated universe) fascinating. I could very much relate to Maria's compulsive toying with it. Honestly, there doesn't seem to be much difference between that and real science simulations apart from the complexity of the models (the story is set in 2051 so computers are more sophisticated). And as for not being applicable, it didn't feel that much more abstract than modelling stars does.

Conversely, I was least engaged with the early Paul-as-Copy story. Well, not at the very start, I mean in the first half/two thirds. It starts of entertainingly enough with a missing bailout option, but it quickly shifts to a lot of philosophising on the nature of consciousness, existence and identity. Which was interesting in principle, but which I found generally less engaging. Most of the time when I put the book down to go do something else (eat, go to the shop, etc) it was during one of these sections. That said, Paul's story is certainly the driver of the plot and the story would be much poorer without it.

There are also some peripheral characters whose stories add to the general tapestry of the world and ideas being explored, but who weren't important to the overall plot (or, more accurately, had minimal impact on anyone else). I won't go into more details because a) I'm not sure I can without spoiling a major plot point and b) even if I could, it's surely more exciting to just read the book, no?

This is the first (that I can think of right now) hard/technical science fiction novel I've read by an Australian. I've read other SF novels which have been scientifically accurate and I've read hard/technical short stories/novellas, but I really can't think of another novel right now*. I'll definitely be reading more Egan in the future and I look forward to more enjoyable technical SF.

*Update: I thought of some! Many of Sean Williams' novels (including with Shane Dix) are hard SF. But that's still not a LOT of examples.

If you're a fan of hard SF definitely pick up Permutation City. I would also recommend it to fans of philosophy and computer-centred stories. For a book written 20 years ago, I have to say the computer stuff was shockingly on point. I mean, it wasn't the world we currently live in, but it is set about 35 years in our future. The only slight discrepancy was some aspects of computing having progressed further than others relative to where we are right now but it was barely noticeable. (I don't think this edition has been updated or anything, and there was one instance of sync spelt with an h, against current fashions.) Anyway, read Permutation City! Especially if you like science fiction!

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: 1994, this edition published December 2014, New South Books
Series: Standalone but apparently part of the "Subjective Cosmology Cycle" (book 2 of 3)
Format read: eARC
Source: Courtesy of the publisher
Challenges: Australian Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Difficult Second Album by Simon Petrie

Difficult Second Album by Simon Petrie is the author's second collection of mostly science fiction stories. I've previously reviewed his first collection Rare Unsigned Copy. I enjoyed Difficult Second Album a lot and found it overall a tighter collection than the first.

The main aspect that set Difficult Second Album above Rare Unsigned Copy is that it's a bit shorter and, more crucially, less overpopulated with flash and drabble stories. It's not that I dislike either of those, but too many can make for a more difficult read. The mix of story lengths/types in Difficult Second Album makes it rather not difficult to read.

I came to a realisation while I was reading this book: Simon Petrie is my favourite (and hence best) living science fiction short story writer. Those stories which are science fiction (not quite all of them) deftly weave accurate science into their tapestries. Of course accurate science shouldn't come as a surprise from someone whose day job is computational quantum chemistry, but I still found it enjoyable enough as to be notable. (And let's face it, how much scientific accuracy is there in the combined science fictional oeuvre? Not enough.)

Petrie switches between comedic stories and more serious pieces with ease. The opening The Fridge Whisperer had be in stitches, while some most of the flash stories had be groaning at puns. On the serious side there are a lot of excellent stories to choose from. The two tales set on Titan (same universe, I think but unrelated to each other), "CREVjack" and "Fixing a Hole" were excellent. The first was a crushing action yarn and the latter a story about a problem that needed fixing lest the characters all die. I very much enjoyed both of them. "Latency" is a story that starts off following a scientific expedition and ends up with a surprising discovery. "Elevator Pitch", the only novella in the collection, is a Gordon Mammon story revisiting space elevator hotel employee who solves crimes on the side. It's a nice blend of humour (and puns) and serious murder-solving business. I should also note that while I say it's a Gordon Mammon story, all such stories that I've read have completely stood alone, so don't worry if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Difficult Second Album is an excellent varied read. I highly recommend it to fans of Petrie's work and newcomers alike. It's a good starting point to sample his story-telling range. I would particularly recommend it to fans of hard SF (although, again, not all the stories are SF). I, for one, am looking forward to finding out what clever title Petrie comes up with for his next collection.

~

Introduction, by Über-Professor Arrrrarrrgghl Schlurpmftxpftpfl — Lol. Again, worth not skipping over.

The Fridge Whisperer — Hilarious. Writer attempts to write (what seems to be The Hitchhiker's a Guide to the Galaxy) while his fridge gains sentience and wreaks havoc. Awesome.

Dark Rendezvous — A space explorer comes across a derelict ship drifting in a favourable direction for rendezvous. Where did it come from? Ominous. I particularly liked the attention to dust particle detail in the nebulous setting of the story.

Florence, 1504, Late Winter — Drabble

Dream(TM) — Flash

Things YOU Can Do To Defend Yourself … — Er... Heh.

The Speed of Heavy — An amusing space cargo caper involving an exchange student, some crickets and some bats. I lol'd.

London, 1666, Springtime — Drabble (So shaggy. Much dog. Wow.)

Latency — A really solid hard SF story. A research team on another planet studying it's only life form. Solid science, interesting concepts played with.

Moonlight — a haiku.

Because We’re Living In A Material World — Amusing and also bittersweet short story about a CERN experiment/accident.

Cruisy — Alien abduction story with a twist. The title makes more sense in retrospect.

CREVjack — A Titan story, full of action and danger and rather riveting for it. A difficult ending to read.

You Said ‘Two Of Each’, Right? — Biblically amusing flash

Fixing a Hole — Another Titian story, very exciting. Definite problem-solving hard science fiction.

21st Century Nursery Rhymes, #126: I Had A Little Nut Tree — poem

Buying a Ray Gun — Amusing story told in a script-like format and set in a ray gun store. Pretty sure there was a stylistically similar one in the first collection (but completely different plot).

X-Factor — An usual story set on Mars and involving genetics. I was left wanting to know more.

Elevator Pitch — A novella length story about our favourite space elevator detective, Gordon Mammon. I had thought the concept might start to get repetitive but it really doesn't. I enjoyed this story a lot, with its double mystery and firm grip of science (and sometimes cheesy humour). It was nice to have something lengthy to really sink my teeth into.

Lithophiles — Lovers turned to stone. An original idea.

Next! — Flash

The Man Who … — Written in a more flowery style than most of the other stories, this is another solid hard SF tale. The story of comet hunters looking to send water to Mars.

Must’ve Been While You Were Kissing Me — Zombie speed-dating noir shaggy dog story.

The Assault Goes Ever On — Weird flash.

Suckers For Love — Alien mating romance. An ultimately disconcerting story. Squidlike.

5 / 5 stars

First published: September 2014, Peggy Bright Books
Series: Not really
Format read: ePub
Source: Review copy courtesy of the author
Challenges: Aussie Science Fiction Reading Challenge

Aurora in Four Voices by Catherine Asaro

Aurora in Four Voices by Catherine Asaro is a collection of short stories that I listened to in audiobook form after the author ran a Kickstarter campaign to record it. I have previously reviewed Asaro's novel, The Radiant Seas, which is set in the same universe as the stories in Aurora in Four Voices.

I didn't love all of the stories in this collection, although I didn't hate any of them either. My least favourite was definitely "Ave de Paso", in which the main characters didn't particularly grab me and which also had a bit of a squick factor towards the end. I liked many things about "Aurora in Four Voices" and I'd say it was probably my second favourite story. I had mixed feelings about the relationship between the two main characters since Soz is the main character of the other Asaro books I've read and her OTP the main character was not. I also enjoyed "Light and Shadows" although it was not, I think, supposed to be an overly cheery story. My favourite story was easily "City of Cries" and I was interested to learn in the outro that there is a novel sequel coming late this year. I will have to keep an eye out for that.

One thing all the stories have in common — with the exception of "Light and Shadows" which only really has the one male character in it — is strong female characters. This is something common to all of Asaro's work, I believe. People seeking hard science fiction populated by women who actually do things, would do well to check out Asaro's work. And in case you were in any doubt that her SFnal universe is indeed hard, this collection contains a short maths essay at the end. I have to admit, I found it difficult to listen to — my brain went into lecture mode and turned off — but luckily there was a simplified URL mentioned to the written and illustrated essay online. You can read it here. (And if you need further proof, some of the mathematical concepts used in her stories have been published in mathematical journals.)

As always, I've written some notes about the stories as I read them. I recommend this collection to people wanting to get an idea of Asaro's work. The stories are pretty broad in setting and, I think, a good showcase of the sort of stories she can write. I particularly recommend it to SF fans looking for more women in their fiction.

~

Aurora in Four Voices — Not bad, about Soz (main character in Primary Inversion and Radiant Seas and others I haven't read) and, more prominently, a man who has been trapped on a planet populated by mathematical and artistic geniuses who like to live in eternal night. He has been mistreated by, well, a mean chap and when Soz shows up she helps him escape his situation.

Ave de Paso — Meh. A pair of orphaned cousins deal with recent bereavement, the desert and magical possession by a malevolent spirit. Not terrible, but not my favourite.

The Spacetime Pool — Your classic present-day maths graduate falls into gate in the spacetime continuum and finds herself in an alternate universe where she's at the centre of an empire-changing prophesy. I wasn't fond of the whole "you must marry me and not my brother because he's a bastard" opening but since it's a novella there was plenty of room to turn it around and I enjoyed the heroine rescuing herself with the application of mathematics.

Light and Shadows — A heart broken test pilot deals with his pain by trying to go harder, faster further. When he pushes his plane beyond the specified limits he gets a bit more than he expected. An amusing story (well, not the parts where he was sad about his dead lover) about a character I'm pretty sure reappears in Skolian Empire books I've read.

City of Cries — This was my favourite story of the bunch. It's a gender-flipped hard-boiled PI story in an SF setting. And when I say gender-flipped, I don't just mean that the ex-military PI is female (though she is) but all the trope-mandatory characters are gender flipped. I found this delightful even while unpleasant things were happening to people.

A Poetry of Angles and Dreams — not a story but an essay, which you can read here. For someone with a maths degree, it was a fairly straight-forward description of concepts. Particularly the imaginary number half of the essay starts at the most basic level and builds up to the more complex (lol, pun) concept of Riemann sheets. I suspect the second part of the essay, about Fourier transforms/analysis would be less enlightening to the lay person.

4 / 5 stars

First published: 2012 Isfic Press (audiobook 2014)
Series: Stories set in the Skolian Empire universe (apparently including the ones that don't seem like they are)
Format read: Audiobook
Source: Kickstarter reward