Genre: Science Fiction

Review – Rose/House

Posted November 29, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Rose/House

Rose/House

by Arkady Martine

Genres: Mystery, Science Fiction
Pages: 128
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted to begin with.

A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing: a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every load-bearing beam and fine marble tile with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. But now Deniau’s been dead a year, and Rose House is locked up tight, as commanded by the architect’s will: all his possessions and files and sketches are confined in its archives, and their only keeper is Rose House itself. Rose House, and one other.

Dr. Selene Gisil, one of Deniau’s former protégé, is permitted to come into Rose House once a year. She alone may open Rose House’s vaults, look at drawings and art, talk with Rose House’s animating intelligence all she likes. Until this week, Dr. Gisil was the only person whom Rose House spoke to.

But even an animate intelligence that haunts a house has some failsafes common to all AIs. For instance: all AIs must report the presence of a dead body to the nearest law enforcement agency.

There is a dead person in Rose House. The house says so. It is not Basit Deniau, and it is not Dr. Gisil. It is someone else. Rose House, having completed its duty of care and informed Detective Maritza Smith of the China Lake police precinct that there is in fact a dead person inside it, dead of unnatural causes—has shut up.

No one can get inside Rose House, except Dr. Gisil. Dr. Gisil was not in North America when Rose House called the China Lake precinct. But someone did. And someone died there. And someone may be there still.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I’ve been curious about Arkady Martine’s Rose/House for a while, but it wasn’t available as an ebook in the UK, so I set it aside for the future. When I spotted it for request on Netgalley, I admit I rather swooped on it! I think the description tends to suggest it’s a science fiction mystery, but I’d argue it comes out closer to horror than to mystery in many ways, playing with themes and scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror novel.

All in all, it might be best not to cling too tightly to labels and let the story speak for itself, though. Certainly the AI at the centre of the story, Rose House, seems to be playing around: it allows Detective Maritza Smith into the house, under the conceit that she is not a person but “the precinct” — and Maritza plays along.

It’s all as unsettling as Rose House itself is described to be, with bizarre scenes like a dead body stuffed with rose petals, the descriptions of weird architecture, and the obvious hold that Basit Deniau has over Selene Gisil, despite his death. The setup does sound like it’s meant to be an “impossible crime”/locked room type mystery — but I think we’re given something else that plays with that concept. (Though I think there are elements of “fair play” mystery here; we’re told something important that we may not notice is important, but we have the clue.)

I enjoyed it a lot, and I’m glad I got to read it.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Mountain in the Sea

Posted November 17, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – The Mountain in the Sea

The Mountain in the Sea

by Ray Nayler

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 456
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

There are creatures in the water of Con Dao.
To the locals, they’re monsters.
To the corporate owners of the island, an opportunity.
To the team of three sent to study them, a revelation.

Their minds are unlike ours.
Their bodies are malleable, transformable, shifting.
They can communicate.
And they want us to leave.

When pioneering marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen is offered the chance to travel to the remote Con Dao Archipelago to investigate a highly intelligent, dangerous octopus species, she doesn’t pause long enough to look at the fine print. DIANIMA- a transnational tech corporation best known for its groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence – has purchased the islands, evacuated their population and sealed the archipelago off from the world so that Nguyen can focus on her research.

But the stakes are high: the octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence and there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of their advancements. And no one has yet asked the octopuses what they think. And what they might do about it.

Lately, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting immersed in books like I (think I) used to. I’ll read 50 pages and feel like it’s been forever; read 10 pages and get distracted by wondering if that email I’m waiting for has come in; a 500 page book is just daunting because it seems like it’ll take forever. And I know, I know, it’s all the fragmentation caused by mobile phones, etc, etc — but while I was reading Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea, I wasn’t paying any mind to that. My brain was quiet and I was totally focused on the story; I say this by way of introduction because I think it bears saying when a book cuts across that fidgeting and demands attention.

There are essentially three threads to the story, which twine together but never quite meet: there’s Ha Nguyen, a scientist, who is brought to a remote island owned by a company called DIANIMA in order to study octopus behaviour that appears potentially much more intelligent than baseline; there’s Rustem, a hacker with a unique way of thinking, who is given a fascinating task to hack into an extremely complex artificial intelligence in order to use it as a weapon; and there’s Eiko, a captive aboard an AI-controlled fishing ship, forced to clean and sort the catch with no sign of escape.

Of the three stories, Dr Ha’s is the most fascinating, and I admit it could be a little annoying to switch to Eiko or Rustem. Ultimately, I’m not sure their stories were entirely necessary: I admire the overall effect, the details that the other two stories lent to Dr Ha’s, and the satisfying click as things came together, but Eiko’s story didn’t lend a lot to it (and his mind palace is overdescribed for something so ultimately useless to the plot — though I think in terms of themes, it does add to the overall inquiry into how thought works).

Despite how much I liked the reading experience, I think there are still things the book could’ve dug into deeper. Evrim’s cognition is important to this question of intelligence, and yet it’s rather brushed under the rug by Ha, who readily declares them to be human all of a sudden, based on the fact that they can interact with humans on human terms. I’m not sure I agree with that definition, or the simplification of it all. There were tantalising bits of inquiry here about artificial intelligence as well as alien (octopus) intelligence, but it feels like it didn’t quite go deep enough; perhaps Eiko’s thread should’ve been reduced in order to give more space for that.

The same goes for the octopus cognition, really: sometimes Ha comes to conclusions rapidly based on fairly little evidence. Is something built of human skulls necessarily an altar? Does it necessarily mean that they’re worshipping humans or trying to appease them? Are you sure it’s not a war trophy?

That makes the book sound unsatisfying, and I don’t think it is: personally, I found it fascinating and riveting. There’s just so much space to expand, as well.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Arch-Conspirator

Posted November 13, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Arch-Conspirator

Arch-Conspirator

by Veronica Roth

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 137
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Outside the last city on Earth, the planet is a wasteland. Without the genes of the fallen, humanity will end.

Antigone's parents have been murdered, leaving her father's throne vacant. Passing into the Archive should be cause for celebration, but with her militant uncle Kreon rising to claim her father's vacant throne, all Antigone feels is rage. When he welcomes her and her siblings into his mansion, Antigone sees it for what it really is: a gilded cage, where she is a captive as well as a guest.

But her uncle will soon learn that no cage is unbreakable. And neither is he.

Veronica Roth’s Arch-Conspirator is a sci-fi dystopian take on Sophocles’ Antigone, which follows the steps of the plot fairly closely (inasfar as it can given the different setting). The basics are there: the two sisters, the two brothers, the tainted birth (though for a different reason here), the betrothal to Haemon, and the struggle of wills with Kreon.

However, a lot of the background is missing: Oedipus didn’t commit any great sin here (he seems to have been a democratic leader), and it isn’t really about the themes of Greek tragedy. Tiresias is entirely missing, and the concept of offending the gods likewise, so all in all it’s not quite a retelling of Antigone, but something which uses the basic shape of the story to say something else.

I enjoyed reading it and puzzling over how it was adapting the original story, and I don’t necessarily think it needs to engage with the same themes as the original in order to be interesting. Still, in some ways I think it’d have benefitted by departing further from the source material, to explore what it was really going for.

Rating: 3/5

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Review – .self

Posted October 31, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – .self

.self

by Christopher Sebela, Cara McGee, Rebecca Nalty, Aditya Bidikar

Genres: Graphic Novels, Science Fiction
Pages: 146
Rating: two-stars
Synopsis:

Postscript backs up everything about a person into a file ready to be loaded in a printed body that offers one final chance to wrap up loose ends after they’ve died.

Nat Winters has finally achieved something like a perfect life. No more scraping or getting by. She has a home, a husband and a job turning into a career.

When Nat’s Postscript gets hacked and her file is torrented, her life gets set on fire by these tweaked copies of her running around the world, chasing down their own versions of her deferred dreams. As more of them begin coming to town, looking for her, Nat will be forced to confront a dozen different sides of herself and try to fix the mess they’ve made. But as she tries to contain things, Nat finds out there’s a contingent of Blanks out there who want to hurt her, even kill her, on the orders of a mysterious enemy who is looking to make this identity theft permanent.

.self starts with an interesting concept: there’s a service that allows you to record all your experiences, right up until you die. Once you die, you’re uploaded into a blank body in order to allow you to move around, meet people, and provide closure. But what if that file gets out into the world early? What if dozens of people torrent it, download you, and put create copies of you? What will those copies do?

I think there’s a lot that could be done with this concept, but .self goes with a fairly straightforward route. Some clones want to kill Nat and take over her life, some want to punish her, some want to be their own person, etc, etc. I wasn’t sold on the idea that these clones were what they said they were: one tells Nat that they’re alternate versions of herself, versions that took a different path, but how? If they’re based on her recent data, they’re all the same. And they all seem to know what they are, and have no blurring of identity between their new self and Nat.

They’ve also all been downloaded into all kinds of bodies, not ones that look like Nat, but there’s little exploration of how weird that might be.

Overall, I thought that at each turn, the most predictable choice was made, and a story that could’ve dug into identity mostly just turned out to be about a modicum of personal growth for Nat, unconvincingly presented.

The character designs are cool, though.

Rating: 2/5

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Review – The Umbrella Academy, vol 1

Posted October 24, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – The Umbrella Academy, vol 1

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite

by Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba, Dave Stewart, Nate Piekos

Genres: Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction
Pages: 184
Series: The Umbrella Academy #1
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

In an inexplicable worldwide event, forty-three extraordinary children were spontaneously born to women who'd previously shown no signs of pregnancy. Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the children; when asked why, his only explanation was, "To save the world." These seven children form the Umbrella Academy, a dysfunctional family of superheroes with bizarre powers. Their first adventure at the age of ten pits them against an erratic and deadly Eiffel Tower, piloted by the fearsome zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel. Nearly a decade later, the team disbands, but when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies, these disgruntled siblings reunite just in time to save the world once again.

I thought I’d give Gerard Way’s The Umbrella Academy a shot, though I didn’t know anything about it other than that there’s a Netflix(?) series, and I kinda liked the violin-woman design on the cover.

It’s… a bit of a mess, to be honest; there are some interesting character designs, but it jumps around, motivations aren’t clear, characters don’t really have coherent arcs, etc, etc. The idea of taking a bunch of “special” kids and training them to fight/unlock their powers/etc is a classic, but barely really used here; why they’re so dysfunctional, alluded to but barely touched on; the whole situation for Vanya, nope…

I don’t really get it, overall. Though I still think the violin-body design is astounding to look at.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – Out of the Drowning Deep

Posted October 21, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – Out of the Drowning Deep

Out of the Drowning Deep

by A.C. Wise

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction
Pages: 176
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

In the distant future, when mortals mingle with the gods in deep space, an out-of-date automaton, a recovering addict, and an angel race to solve the Pope’s murder in an abandoned corner of the galaxy.

Dreamy, beautifully written queer science-fantasy novella, for fans of Becky Chambers and This is How You Lose the Time War.

Scribe IV is an obsolete automaton living on the Bastion, a secluded monastery in an abandoned corner of the galaxy. When the visiting Pope is found murdered, Scribe IV knows he has very little time before the terrifying Sisters of the Drowned Deep rise up to punish all the Bastion’s residents for their supposed crime.

Quin, a recovering drug addict turned private investigator, agrees to take the case. Traumatized by a
bizarre experience in his childhood, Quin repeatedly feeds his memories to his lover, the angel Murmuration. But fragmented glimpses of an otherworldly horror he calls the crawling dark continue to haunt his dreams.

Meanwhile in heaven, an angel named Angel hears Scribe IV’s prayer. Intrigued by the idea of solving a crime with mortals, xe descends to offer xyr divine assistance.

With the Drowned Sisters closing in, Scribe IV, Quin, and Angel race to find out who really murdered the Pope, and why. Quin’s missing memories may hold the key to the case - but is remembering worth what it will cost him?

I had to sit with A.C. Wise’s Out of the Drowning Deep for a while to digest it, because I didn’t have any immediate coherent thoughts. I liked it a lot: the science-fantasy setting, the mystery, the idea of Scribe IV, and the complex darkness of the relationship between Quin and Murmuration. It felt like there was so much more going on around the edges of the story that the characters operated within: the way faith could make gods, and what gods are then, and what the Bastion is for, what the Bastion is like from other eyes… Fascinating.

For those looking for a murder mystery set within a science-fantasy setting, I can see it being pretty unsatisfying, though, because the mystery itself is more of a backdrop to the exploration of faith and addiction, to exploring the dynamic between Quin and Murmuration, and what Angel might want and decide to do. The mystery’s a fairly simple one, and there’s not a lot of time spent on unravelling it, even though it’s the cause for some of the movements of the plot.

I went into it fairly blind, just knowing I’d come across a review by someone who’d liked it, that it was a novella, and the library had stocked it, so I just took a chance, and found it fascinating. I’d love to have dug a bit deeper into Scribe IV’s evolving purpose, because it felt like he was left rather static at the end… but that’s a small point that isn’t even really a complaint.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Murder By Memory

Posted October 14, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 6 Comments

Review – Murder By Memory

Murder By Memory

by Olivia Waite

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Science Fiction
Pages: 112
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

A Memory Called Empire meets Miss Marple in this cozy, spaceborne mystery, helmed by a no-nonsense formidable auntie of a detective

Welcome to the HMS Fairweather, Her Majesty’s most luxurious interstellar passenger liner! Room and board are included, new bodies are graciously provided upon request, and should you desire a rest between lifetimes, your mind shall be most carefully preserved in glass in the Library, shielded from every danger.

Near the topmost deck of an interstellar generation ship, Dorothy Gentleman wakes up in a body that isn’t hers—just as someone else is found murdered. As one of the ship’s detectives, Dorothy usually delights in unraveling the schemes on board the Fairweather, but when she finds that someone is not only killing bodies but purposefully deleting minds from the Library, she realizes something even more sinister is afoot.

Dorothy suspects her misfortune is partly the fault of her feckless nephew Ruthie who, despite his brilliance as a programmer, leaves chaos in his cheerful wake. Or perhaps the sultry yarn store proprietor—and ex-girlfriend of the body Dorothy is currently inhabiting—knows more than she’s letting on. Whatever it is, Dorothy intends to solve this case. Because someone has done the impossible and found a way to make murder on the Fairweather a very permanent state indeed. A mastermind may be at work—and if so, they’ve had three hundred years to perfect their schemes…

Told through Dorothy’s delightfully shrewd POV, Murder by Memory is an ode to the cozy mystery taken to the stars with a fresh new sci-fi take. Perfect for fans of the plot-twisty narratives of Dorothy Sayers and Ann Leckie, this well-paced story will leave readers captivated and hungry for the series’ next installment.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Olivia Waite’s Murder By Memory compared itself to Dorothy L. Sayers and Ann Leckie, which was a huge ask — and I don’t think it worked. Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it, but I didn’t get Sayers from it (more Agatha Christie) and there wasn’t enough focus on the culture or enough gender fuckery to feel like a Leckie title. The comparison to A Memory Called Empire didn’t ring particularly true for me, either, but Miss Marple is an apt comparison.

It was a fun mystery, nonetheless, shaped by its setting rather than just pasted on, and I enjoyed Dorothy’s voice and the concept of the generation ship, the “books” that hold people’s memories, and the ingenious crime that makes use of that. Plus, it’s nice to have a detective fascinated by knitting, and shaped by a long life.

I’d be curious about more stories in the same world, and a few more peeks at things like the Antikythera Club, Crimes Committed, and of course, Dorothy and her interest in Violet. And knitting.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – Clear

Posted September 6, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 1 Comment

Review – Clear

Clear

by Scott Snyder, Francis Manapul

Genres: Graphic Novels, Science Fiction
Pages: 137
Rating: one-star
Synopsis:

In the not-too-distant future, mankind no longer sees the world as it truly is. The invention of neurological filters has made it so one can view reality however they may choose—Old Hollywood monochrome, zombie apocalypse, anime… the possibilities are endless.

Neo-shamus Sam Dunes is one of only a handful who choose to live without a filter. When the death of an old flame reveals foul play, Dunes is set on a wild and twisting mystery that will take him from the city’s deadly underworld to the even deadlier heights of wealth and power.

Scott Snyder’s Clear is set in a world where the US lost World War III, and all its citizens go around using “veils” to hide reality from themselves. Everybody’s using a different veil, there’s very little shared reality now. It’s unclear how that’s meant to work when people with different veils are interacting: at times it seems like it’s just a visual thing, and then it says that you can go around with everyone in the world desiring you. How? Does it change behaviour, then? Then how does anyone ever interact? How would you ever know what anyone else is doing? And yet people are interacting, throughout the comic.

There’s a twist that makes very little sense, as well. Isn’t it obvious, I mean? If you have to pay to have a veil but you also have to pay — even more! — to have no veil (“clear”), then how does that work? What happens if you don’t pay for anything? I guess the answer is that that only happens if you can’t pay, and then you probably become a “wrk” or something and you’re not able to tell anyone what’s going on, but to me it was obvious that the twist was coming as soon as Dunes said he was paying more and more each year for clear.

The more I think about it, the more it all falls apart. Maybe with a bit more time/world-building it could resolve those issues — and also I’m sure there are people content to just fill in the gaps themselves, take it as read, and not ask “why” too much. It’s also possible there are explanations I missed; I’m not very visual, and graphic novels can be a bit overwhelming in terms of the amount of information they give me. Still, the impression I was left with was one of swiss cheese.

Rating: 1/5

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Review – System Collapse

Posted June 26, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – System Collapse

System Collapse

by Martha Wells

Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 243
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast!

Yeah, this plan is… not going to work.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I love Martha Wells’ Murderbot books, but System Collapse ultimately didn’t quite work for me. I think it might’ve been tighter at the novella length like the earlier books, or more fleshed out with a longer plot. This way, it felt like there was a certain amount of filler, where I’d have tightened up e.g. the opening. Admittedly part of that gives Murderbot the time to talk about redacted and build up the curiosity about that, but honestly I kept just reading that as being evasiveness about the events of Network Effect anyway…

Overall, the plot felt pretty thin. There were some nice moments, like Murderbot’s realisation of how to reach the colonists — and the fact that that helped boost Murderbot’s performance. Important development does happen here, too: more glimpses of ART’s crew, a little peek at what Three might do now, some aftermath from Network Effect for the colonists, and of course, Murderbot’s obvious need for trauma therapy (which has been a long time coming).

I just… hoped for a bit more when promised another novel in the series, and perhaps that’s also part of my rating here. Here’s hoping for more of Murderbot and ART soon (and perhaps, maybe, a few more glimpses of Three, and the other newly freed SecUnit).

Rating: 3/5

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Review – Across a Field of Starlight

Posted June 16, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 2 Comments

Review – Across a Field of Starlight

Across a Field of Starlight

by Blue Delliquanti

Genres: Graphic Novels, Science Fiction
Pages: 345
Rating: three-stars
Synopsis:

An epic sci-fi graphic novel romance between two non-binary characters as they find one another through time, distance, and war. An amazing story that explores the complexity of human nature and what brings us together.

When they were kids, Fassen's fighter spaceship crash-landed on a planet that Lu's survey force was exploring. It was a forbidden meeting between a kid from a war-focused resistance movement and a kid whose community and planet are dedicated to peace and secrecy.

Lu and Fassen are from different worlds and separate solar systems. But their friendship keeps them in each other's orbit as they grow up. They stay in contact in secret as their communities are increasingly threatened by the omnipresent, ever-expanding empire.

As the empire begins a new attack against Fassen's people--and discovers Lu's in the process--the two of them have the chance to reunite at last. They finally are able to be together... but at what cost?

This beautifully illustrated graphic novel is an epic science fiction romance between two non-binary characters as they find one another through time, distance, and war.

I really wanted to like Blue Delliquanti’s Across a Field of Starlight a lot, because there’s a lot to like about it. The sheer diversity of body types, the queer normativity, the different types of relationships… there’s so much here, and the art is lovely, and the sheer energy in some of the facial expressions and body language is great.

Unfortunately, I found it a little hard to follow at times — the jumps felt too sudden, so that I wasn’t always sure if scenes were supposed to be connected or not. I adored the whole roleplaying game the two main characters set up between them, and I’d have loved a little more of that context to understand more of why they act the way they do together. A little more world-building would’ve been nice, too, to understand a little more than “evil Empire is evil” and “the resistance can be just as bad”.

I still did enjoy it, and I’m sure some of the deficiencies are mine: I’m not as adept at reading visual media as I’d like to be. But for me, I was left with some questions.

Rating: 3/5

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