Semiosis, by Sue Burke

I think I liked this better than most reviewers. What I got out of it was an exploration of how human colonists would communicate and share space with a native being that was incredibly powerful in ways they knew they would not understand, and also absolutely necessary for their survival. Stevland, the sentient plant that is the character of continuity for most of the book, reflects in a very thoughtful way about how he (Stevland adopts a male persona and pronoun) relates to aliens.

I do get the criticism that the way the Pacifists talk about their community makes it sound a bit YA. I wonder how this would have gone over if she had made them be an overtly religious group, and had their convictions come from their faith? In places she seems to be quoting directly from the founding principles of the Unitarian Universalists.

I would say that this is "medium-hard" SF. Little is said about how the colonists actually made it to Pax. And nothing at all is said about how a plant embodies sentience. What do they think with, if not brains? I didn't struggle to believe that an intelligent and capable plant would think in terms of the chemistry it is intentionally trying to create. Stevland (the main plant) is capable of manipulating his chemical products (as many plants are) and Burke chooses to show this by having Stevland's inner monologue be very geared toward common names for what he is producing.

There is a rape scene in an early chapter that is meant to illustrate the depths to which the original colonists are willing to go in order to control future generations. Think Clockwork Orange, but in writing so less graphic. Some reviewers pointed out that the consequences of this action were not well explored.

Overall I thought the book had a lot of nuance and explored difficult topics well, and I'm glad I read it.

My Goodreads Review

Red Team Blues, by Cory Doctorow

I liked reading this book. Fast paced action, an appealing if imperfect hero, at the cutting edge of computers, society, and security. A quick read that kept me turning pages.

I am still disappointed. Where is the Cory Doctorow of "Walkaway"? Or "Radicalized"? The protagonist in this story seems to be a guy who is feeling his age and still has sympathies for progressive ideas but has (sort of) made peace with things as they are. Though I think the ending is worth reading a couple of times. At first it sounds a bit obvious and some have thought it tone-deaf, but I think it is self-consciously so.

Cory Doctorow intends his speculative fiction to be "at the very edge of the present". This one feels less at the edge. More like a modern thriller than speculative fiction, he's just slotted there.

Maybe he will stretch Martin Hench in future books. But it kind of doesn't look that way.

David (Spring, TX)’s review of Red Team Blues | Goodreads

Furious Heaven, by Kate Elliot

I persevered all the way to the end of this very, very long book. Not just physically long, it felt long. There's a lot of landmarks and players, but the plot in the end is pretty ordinary galactic fantasy. It is modernized with sapphic romance, but we've had that around long enough for it not to be an automatic qualifier. Space in this series is a very pure metaphor for the ocean--the battles give the book a lift but not really enough. Elliot has fallen in love with Sun, I think--the book tends toward hagiography for Sun, especially toward the end. Lots of hyperbolic descriptions of royal responsibility and honor. If you're pushing the boundaries in speculative fiction now, you're pushing back on the very colonial ideas of empire and royalty that Elliot uncritically embraces. Having the conquerors have an Asian, as opposed to European/Celtic origins, does not let this off the hook. The length just isn't justified--it's mostly a chronicle of Sun's conquests, with some clever interludes from her companions. I kept on, looking for a story, and I'm not sure that really ever happened--just a collection of incidents with Sun at the center.

My Goodreads Review

System Collapse, by Martha Wells

I read all of these as soon as I can get to them, but I have to say that the formula is wearing a bit. Wells is trying to add some dimensions to Murderbot by having him be more vulnerable, and that works to a certain extent. He's made it from one- to two-dimensional. The action in the series is great, always compelling. What's leaving me itchy is that her commitment to telling the story entirely from Murderbot's perspective leaves the humans in the shallows. Murderbot's relationship to them is as a protector, by programming. He can indulge their illogical behavior as being silly, and commit to protecting them from and in spite of themselves, but it's pretty much impossible to tell one human from another outside of their skill sets.

Wells is a very good author and I expect that the series will acquire depth if she commits to it. It will be hard to put down since it's been so successful.

My Goodreads Review

Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I've read several other works by Adrian Tchaikovsky and have gone back to read this one. Gotta say I enjoyed it tremendously.

The world building is done pretty quickly but really works if you are willing to buy in--the big leap is a nanovirus that will drive evolution and brain development in a species. I especially enjoyed the nod to David Brin's Uplift series--and the fact that the book took the concept in a new direction.

The plot summary you can get from other reviews. Some things that stood out for me:

1. Tchaikovsky does a nice job of taking the spiders' perspective without getting so awkwardly alien as to be difficult to read. One of the things he does that is very telling is to have continuity in the spiders' names over generations and even millenia. They're all Portia, Bianca, or Viola (females) or Fabian (male). It gives you the real sense that spiders have a different idea of identity than humans, and it informs their motivations. But in other ways they form a hierarchical society and fight just like humans do.

2. Some people felt like the middle section got long-winded. I think they missed some things. The spiders fended off two existential threats to their civilization, both of which changed them thoroughly. The humans visited a second terraformed planet and fought to keep their creaky, hastily built ark ship alive. We got an extended view of the contrast between the spiders' generational changes and the central core of human characters, which did not change because they spent extended periods in cold sleep.

In all my reviews of Adrian Tchaikovsky's work, I highlight the bit in his bio about being trained in stage fighting. You can see this in the construction of his plots, never more clearly than in this book. We have early indicators that there will be conflict. The initial clash with the remnant of Dr. Arvada Kern. The enemies separate and regroup, each following their own dramatic path. They come together for the final conflict, including various reversals of fortune. It makes for very exciting reading. Not all of his books work like this--he has several novellas that tell stories in different ways--but his large scale series do seem to follow this pattern.

My Goodreads Review

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu

I am sad to give this a two-star review. I gave it all the chances I could, reading it to the bitter end. But I can't do any better. If you have read St. Augustine of Hippo's meditation on time you get the flavor of the protagonist describing his experience of time. There's also a suggestion of technical detail, which was potentially pretty intriguing, suggesting that the techology *might* be simply a way to get into a mental state.

But it goes on and on. The time meditation gets repetitive, which is possibly intentional but still irritating. And the father-son story is just sad, mostly, without a lot of redeeming value. Leo Tolstoy said that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way--I think we may have found the disproof right here. I feel like I have met this family several times. There's just not enough in the relationship story to carry the heaviness of the chronodiagetic exposition.

I think this book would have worked better as a novella. Mostly it just needed more of a reason to exist.

My Goodreads Review

The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson

I liked this book quite a lot, though it has its flaws. The setup is good for storytelling--there's a technology that allows access to the multiverse, but only a limited number of them, so you don't go completely off the rails with possibilities. I am seeing from some DNF reviews that they thought plot elements were missing--like the protagonist and Dell's very complicated romance, which was perfectly clear to me.

I had a better time with the book once I accepted the fact that the science and the action, while present, take a back seat to the main character's introspection. Most of the writing is about Caralee's dialogue with herself. She tells us, in great detail, both the backstory and current motivations for everything she is doing. There were more than enough plot reveals to keep that introspection relevant and interesting. Johnson uses, but doesn't overuse, the multiverse as a way to introduce surprises.

Race and class are central to understanding Caralee. The contrasts between those inside Wiley City and outside in Ashtown are made very clear and iterated over and over. It ends up feeling a bit one-dimensional as an exploration of race and class difference. But I will say that Caralee doesn't ever give in to holding herself up as some kind of example because of her circumstance. She is very clear about all the compromises she is making to survive.

Overall a bit of a grind but worthwhile.

My Goodreads Review