Pieces on Speculative Fiction

I still have a few read books waiting to be reviewed. Robin Hobb’s Renegade’s Magic, Ian C. Esslemont’s Malazan novel Night of Knives, Tim Powers’ Last Call and David Gemmell’s Shield of Thunder. I also read recently James P. Blaylock’s Digging Leviathan. Still reading Kay Kenyon’s Bright of the Sky and I fear that completing it will take a while. I really don’t like the direction the book is taking and it just isn’t that enjoyable to read. I rather like my science fiction either as quite a bit shorter novels or in the page-turner form.

I’m a bit on the fence whether to read something new or just reread something classic David Gemmell novel. I’m itching to reread Erikson’s Malazan, even though I read it recently when the latest, Reaper’s Gale, came out. I do have a few unread books. Some are really classic fantasies, like Michael Moorcock’s Gloriana, Wind in the Willows, Austin Tappan Wright’s Islandia and quite a few others.

I’m also looking to make yet another big Amazon.com order as Dollar is soon like Monopoly money compared to Euro, so any tips on good newish fantasy & science fiction books are welcome. Maybe mainly fantasy.

Three stars. Passion Play is science fiction murder mystery in Christian fundamentalist America. A great actor is found dead and detective Diane Fletcher is called to investigate, who is the protagonist. She is a shaper, she can read people’s emotions and emotional patterns after some interaction. Sadly her ability is explored only perfunctorily. The interesting parts of the book discuss people’s lives in fundamentalist society.

What I liked the most in the book was describing fundamentalists as quite normal and real people, not cardboard cutouts, their motivations are realistic, even if not to my liking. In this respect the books ending leaves something to be desired. I liked the descriptions of Diane’s professional problems in a phallocentric world, where she was doing what was considered a man’s job. The clashes between her job and social life is quite good.

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This books is a classic, it won five awards(including Hugo and Nebula) when it was published 1973. In my opinion it is very good example of Clarkes hard science fiction before he tried to write about things he didn’t really understand, like relationships or characters. This book is about exploration and wonder. I give it four stars out of five.

The novel starts by describing decentralized solar system in 22nd century, where Mars, Mercury and several moons are inhabited. Systems designed to detect asteroids detect one moving at huge speeds towards our solar system. Closer inspection shows that it isn’t what it seems.

The premise of the book is typical to science fiction: first encounter. This is explored through a panel of scientists who debate related issues and through the protagonist space captain Norton who leads the expedition to find out more about Rama, the mystical object that has arrived to the solar system. Read the rest of this entry »

In my opinion racial issues aren’t really discussed in fantasy and science fiction. I haven’t found many authors who are willing to tackle this task.
Tia Nevitt makes an excellent point in a recent post to her blog.

I don’t check the skin color of the author, but when I crack open the book I invariably find a novel about white characters. To be sure, most of these settings are like northern Europe, in a medieval world, where you would indeed expect there to be mostly white people. I have never read about a black elf (except the drow, which I don’t think really count).

I’ve been thinking this quite a bit and in addition to recent fantasy debudant David Anthony Durham I can’t think of any black speculative fiction Read the rest of this entry »