Fandom for Robots, by Vina Jie-Min Prasad

Fandom for Robots by Vina Jie-Min Prasad

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I liked the story. I'm just not sure I'd even call it speculative. Maybe alternate history, since it involves a one-off sentient robot from 1954. IRL, bots produce somewhat above average fan fiction, and have been for several years. Basically Computron is a self-training AI--it consumes a data set and then starts producing answers, which are refined by a trainer. It's 2018, we have those now.



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All Systems Red, by Martha Wells

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was a fun read, not really a jaw dropper but nice as a setup in a series. Our protagonist is a SecUnit, a cyborg construct intended to provide security for an exploration crew. It hacks itself to have free will, and when we pick up it has humanized itself by watching 35,000 hours of entertainment vids. So it does not think of itself as human, and maintains a distance that reminds me a bit of autism. But it definitely has feelings, opinions about the entertainment it watches, etc.

The plot is pretty standard and a bit thin--really all of it is, though it has potential. There are three more books in the series, so some who read this will know where it goes--but I'd be interested in how these Units are made (it reminds me strongly of Robocop, like there's an ex-person in there). Right now the plot isn't engaging enough for me to want to read more. Really, it's a YA novelette, and readers down to 11-12 would enjoy it.

In my estimation this is about a 3.6, rounding up.



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Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages

Passing Strange by Ellen Klages

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is nominated for a Nebula, but the SF element is barely there at all. One of the characters uses it to make an appointment on time. What it really is, is lesbian erotic fiction/romance. And for that, it's pretty good. But short--I wouldn't say we had time to get to know the characters. The plot elements around Haskell's lurid pre-code horror magazine cover art are interesting, it's easy to believe the character in that space. Overall I enjoyed it, though it's not really my thing.



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Jade City, by Fonda Lee

Jade City by Fonda Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Fonda Lee says this is her first adult novel, and the YA roots show just a little bit. But there's very little not to like about the book. As a writer she has mastered the art, and knows how to structure and tell a compelling story.

The setting is Asian, but the flavor is mild beyond the names. It could be set anywhere that clans dominate socially, which is at some point almost anywhere at all (except maybe America). The geography is entirely made up, but culturally it's earth. Reminds me of another Nebula nominee this year, Amberlough.

Like Amberlough, it took me a bit to get into this one. At times the emotions are described rather than depicted, which is where those YA roots show. But the characterization really carries the book. I got invested enough to feel for all of them. Most folks are giving it a 4 or 5 (with the predictable clinkers), but I can't give it more than a 3 because I've read this book before, many times. It's very enjoyable as a clan and family action novel, and you won't feel like you want that part of your life back if you read it. So go for it.



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Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's very difficult to do a good SF mystery because the author has to create the setting of what is possible, and then set up the mystery itself. It's very tempting to create technological "cheats" to resolve the mystery. Lafferty doesn't fall for this--mostly.

I readily concur with the Nebula and Hugo nominations--it's a solid book. Probably not a winner, but definitely a contender. The pacing is great, it kept me eagerly reading the entire time, from the opening gory mess through to the end. The reveals of each character's capabilities are timed pretty well and pull you along.

I don't want to do a plot summary, you can read the rest of the reviews for that. My quibbles are spoilers, so I'll put them behind the spoiler wall:

[Lafferty successfully holds off magic solutions until the very end, where one might think they don't matter anymore. Lafferty sets up the solution with mind maps--complete representations of a person's personality and memories, that can be downloaded to a person's clone--or others, as it turns out. Maria Arena, the super brain hacker, is able to edit these maps to both insert and delete obvious or subtle personality traits. But it apparently has all one's DNA as well. This to me implies that a mind map is a model that can be read from, and written to, the brain, but leaves the DNA part confusing. I mean, you can load a mind map into a brain, but how do you edit the existing DNA as part of the same process? Not explained and not sensible.

But then a piece of the ending involves a super-advanced food printer that can determine one's preferred foods from a spit sample. It apparently does that by making a mind map. The DNA I understand, but recreating memories from a spit sample does not jive with how memories actually form in the brain. They aren't encoded in DNA. Magic alert. (hide spoiler)]

It's still a very good book, and I look forward to reading more from her in the future.

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The Last Novelist (or A Dead Lizard In the Yard), by Matthew Kressel

The Last Novelist by Matthew Kressel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's possible to do more in a short story, but not a lot. The Last Novelist is a very emotional piece of work, I really enjoyed reading about an eccentric author at the end of his life finding friendship and inspiration with a young girl. It's all very well handled. The eponymous novelist might have been sad or angry about the disappearance of print books, but I didn't end up reading it that way--more that he was simply an eccentric person who liked to create books from end to end.

I'm not sure that books would disappear from a universe such as this one, where technology enables the creation of such things (view spoiler)[in the story there is a fabricator called a Maker that can pretty much make anything, and makes the author's old fashioned linotype printing press. No knowledge would really be lost (hide spoiler)]. They will always be valued as art objects, at least as long as art objects are valued.



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Wind Will Rove, by Sarah Pinsker

Wind Will Rove by Sarah Pinsker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Sarah Pinsker has two strong pieces up for awards this year. And Then There Were (N-1) is perhaps the more imaginative of the two, but Wind Will Rove is emotionally powerful.

The story itself is about preservation of memory. The protagonist is a teacher of history on a generation ship heading for a distant star. Early on in the voyage, a disgruntled IT tech erased all their cultural history from the ship databases. The physical survival of the ship was not in doubt, but the loss of the history panicked people and nearly ended the mission anyway. They became hyperconscious of the past, and attempted to preserve as much of their history through their own memories as possible.

Some are simply depressed by the story, thinking it either didn't make a point or the point was too obvious. They would be rewarded by trying again. Yes, the rebellious children are kind of silly. They usually are. What adults who actually care about them do is try to reconcile with an eye to having them learn something from the rebellion, and keep their original ideas. Pinsker's protagonist is trying to do this, and on the face of it this is a harder road than simply kicking the kid's ass and telling him to get with the program. The just-barely-spoken acknowledgement here is that whatever tactics are used to reconcile the discontented have to work for seven or more generations without a break. Simple oppression is more likely to get you another disgruntled IT worker. And you can never plug all the holes.

The story illustrates the importance of memory in spite of, and eventually because of, its imperfections. Faulty memory begets evolutionary creativity, which is just as important as sui generis creativity, even if the young have not figured that out yet. Or the old.

Great stuff, and she could sweep the Hugos and Nebulas for both novella and novelette this year.



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