Anyway, since I have such a rapidly expanding fan-base I have decided to re-un-give up on this blog. Just cause I haven't been updating doesn't mean I haven't been reading crappy books. This post will cover the stuff I have been reading in the interval period.
Mini-Review #1
Ill Wind:
I will go ahead and admit that I didn't make it all the way through "Ill Wind." The premise was pretty interesting and the first about 100 pages were great, then nothing happened for the next about 150 pages so I put it down and started reading something else. I might finish it one day.
The idea behind Ill Wind is that, after an oil spill (topical!) an oil company tried to use a genetically engineered bacteria to clean up the spill. The bacteria mutates like all good sci-fi bacteria should and becomes airborne. long story short all petroleum and petroleum derivatives (gasoline, plastic, etc.) get eaten up by bacteria and human kind is thrown into a new dark age with no plastic TV dinner trays.
Cool idea and based at least kinda on real science. Too bad the book hit such a major slowdown halfway through.
Also of note in this book is the authors weird aversion to cursing. One of the characters was supposed to be a major criminal who was in and out of jail his whole life and he walked around calling people butt-head. This just struck me as odd.
On to the next review!
Mini Review #2
The Einstein Intersection.
Normally in these Reviews I try to avoid spoilers, but to fully explain my feelings about this book I am going to have to pretty much spoil everything about it. In addition to that, the image above is different from the copy I read. My copy had a picture of the main character fighting a more regular looking bull (less minotaur-like) on the cover.
First off let me say that I have a great respect for Samuel R. Delany. He is a really awesome African American sci-fi and fantasy author known for writing really trippy, mind expanding type stuff. This book is no exception from his usual absolutely crazy-pants writing style. If you don't want to read the spoilers my one sentence review is: "The Einstein Intersection is a really good and incredibly odd book. if you like very weird sci-fi or fantasy, you will probably like this book."
(WARNING: SPOILERS START NOW!!)
The Einstein Intersection is a book about Orpheus, the Greek (or African in some myths) story teller and singer who went to Hades to find his lost girlfriend. Except the Einstein Intersection takes place several hundreds of thousands of years in the future.... after humans have gone extinct... and the Earth is inhabited by alien ghosts.... some of which are suffering from horrible mutations... and who are controlled by computers... and forced to reenact the myths of Earth. if that sounds awesome to you (it does to me) then this is a pretty good read. If you know the story of Orpheus then the ending will not really surprise you... except for the part where you realize he was an alien ghost controlled by a computer the whole time...that part would have surprised you.
(END OF SPOILERS)
Mini Review #3
Riverworld
Riverworld is a neat little peace of what I call "Setting Sci-fi." Setting Sci-fi is any book or movie where I consider the setting to be as important or as interesting as the characters and story. Other examples would be: Ring World, Dune, The Matrix and probably those Rama books (I haven't gotten around to reading them yet). The premise of Riverworld is that every human being that has ever lived and will ever live awakens on a strange new planet that's primary physical characteristic is a billion mile long river that snakes across its surface. Other than humans, fish and earthworms there are no other animals on the planet. Everybody wakes up on the planet at the same time in a perfectly healthy 25 year old body, even people that were sick, crippled or deformed on Earth. If you are killed on this planet you wake up 24 hours later in a new body somewhere else on the planet.
There are 5 Riverworld novels total and a handful of short stories as well. All of the Riverworld novels are pretty short (this one is only about 75 pages!). One interesting note is that "Riverworld" the novel is actually the 5th Riverworld book. I didn't realize this before I read it but I didnt have any trouble at all keeping up with the story. It looks like each of the Riverworld Books are pretty self sufficient.
This entry into the Riverworld series dealt a lot with the concept of religion and how it would change if there was no afterlife and everybody just kept waking up a day after they die. It was a neat little book but the big "plot twist" at the end was kinda obvious. I enjoyed Riverworld though and its short enough that you can read it in one or rides on the DC metro though. It comes with my recommendation.
If you really like Riverworld and role playing games, you might want to check out "GURPS Riverworld" I do not own GURPS Riverworld but I think its really cool that such a thing exists. I am a bit of a role player myself and I will probably be checking out the Riverworld source book one of these days when I am not super broke. When that day comes I will try to remember to put a full review up on this blarrrrgh.
