Category: Science Fiction
Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
(Cover picture courtesy of In The Next Room.)
Okay, let’s clear up some myths about vampires. First of all, you won’t see me using the v-word much. In the Night Watch, we prefer the term parasite positives or peeps for short.
The main thing to remember is that there’s no magic involved. No flying. No transforming into bats or rats either. We’re talking about a disease.
After a chance encounter with a mysterious woman one night, Cal Thompson’s life is changed forever. He’s been infected with an insidious parasite. The good news: he’s only a carrier—still sane, without the worst of the symptoms. The bad news: he’s infected all his former girlfriends—and now they’ve turned into what Cal calls peeps. The rest of us call them vampires. And it’s Cal’s job to hunt them down before they create even more of their kind.
I don’t consider myself a person who’s easily grossed out, but congratulations must go to Scott Westerfeld for managing to do just that! He goes into incredible detail not just for the peeps parasite, but for many other parasites. You see, every other chapter he describes a kind of parasite that is either good or bad and ties it into the story very well in the end. That’s a lot of parasites to gross you out. And the parasites are nothing in comparison to some of the disgusting situations Cal gets into.
In other words: Don’t read this while you’re eating. Or before you go to sleep, like I did.
Scott Westerfeld’s sense of humour shines through more in Peeps than in his Uglies series because Cal is just that kind of character. He’s snarky and sarcastic, but also wracked with guilt over spreading the peeps disease to all of his ex-girlfriends, making them insane. Not only is the parasite spread through sexual contact, it can be spread by bodily fluids like saliva. So you can imagine how scared he is when he meets Lace, who seems determined to interfere in his life and may even be falling in love with him.
The plot is quite fast-paced and Peeps has lots of twists and turns I never saw coming. The best part is that it’s not your typical vampire story, so it’s pretty hard to get bored with the premise. And the cliffhanger at the ending will make you want to read the next book, The Last Days because of the huge plot twist in the end. I can’t wait for the next book!
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
(Cover picture courtesy of 52 Books 52.)
John Perry did two things on his seventy-fifth birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.
The good news is that humanity finally made it to the stars. The bad news is that, out there, planets fit to live on are scarce—and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So, we fight. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.
Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of our resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Forces, and everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join up. The CDF doesn’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You’ll be taken off Earth, never to return. You’ll serve two years in combat. And if you survive, you’ll be given a homestead of your own, on one of our hard-won planets.
John Perry is taking that deal. He thinks he knows what to expect. But the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine—and what he will become is far stranger.
I enjoyed Old Man’s War. Not in the snobby critic “it was an intelligent read with many messages too complicated for you common folk” way. I mean it was thoroughly entertaining: I laughed so hard I cried for a whole minute, read passages aloud to the people around me and read it in one sitting (that’s 3 hours of reading), not even pausing for dinner. Now that, my friends, is the mark of a good book.
Just as a bit of background information, I knew Old Man’s War would be funny yet have deeper messages. I’d been following John Scalzi’s blog Whatever for about three years until I actually picked up one of his books, so I was familiar with his writing style. But that didn’t prepare me in the slightest for his debut novel. It’s science fiction with actual science in it, but it’s explained so well that even someone like me that does not have a strong background in science can understand things perfectly.
This is what science fiction is really about. John Scalzi takes us on a fantastic journey to other worlds, dazzles us with the technology of a possible future, puts us in the skin of an interesting character and, best of all, gives us important questions to ponder while making us laugh. Unlike in a lot of sci-fi, things are not in black and white. We don’t know who the good guys and bad guys are because both sides commit unspeakable atrocities, which is the reality of war. We never really answer the question of who is good and who is bad; it’s left up to the reader to pass judgment, which suits me just fine.
John Perry really is an intriguing character. Since the book is in first person, we get to know him intimately but we never tire of him. He’s well fleshed-out and has a believable background, but also changes as he fights for the CDF. I don’t want to go into too much detail or I’ll spoil things, but John does end up in some pretty tough ethical dilemmas, especially when it comes to the mysterious Ghost Brigades.
Plot twists, science fiction with real science, fantastic settings, realistic characters…you can’t ask for anything else. And that’s why Old Man’s War got the honour of being the book I chose for my 250th review. I absolutely love it and would recommend it to anyone! Seriously, you need to read this book.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
“The Infinity Ring: Divide and Conquer” by Carrie Ryan
Two weeks ago I posted a review on the first book in The Infinity Ring series and it just so happens that when that review was posted the second book, Divide and Conquer was mere days away from release. Of course that meant that I was going to grab it as soon as it was available and use it for my next review here on The Mad Reviewer.
I was excited to read this book because I am in love with the entire concept behind the series as it currently stands. However, I was a little concerned about how things would go switching to a new author for this installment. I really shouldn’t have worried though, Carrie Ryan takes the characters, personality traits, and little things that James Dashner put forth in the first book and carries them seamlessly into this one as well. As a matter of fact, it was so incredibly seamless that I don’t know if I would be able to pick out which book was written by which author if I was to do a blind test on them while reading. I think that bodes incredibly well for the series moving forward.
Dak and Sera fixed a break involving Christopher Columbus in the first book, and now they are tasked with fixing a break surrounding the viking invasion of Paris in the year 885. Talk about a different type of situation in all regards. For most of the book Dak is separated from Sera and Riq in some fashion because of his innate ability to not think before he does something. This flaw in Dak did wear my patience a little thin at times because it became predictable. They children would solve one problem, get things back on track with their plan, and then you knew a mile away that Dak was going to simply leave the group unannounced and mess everything up again. It must have happened at least half a dozen times in this book. If there is one thing I hope the next author improves upon with the series it is finding a new flaw for Dak because this one has been beat to death.
I was pleased overall with how the characters grew up just a little bit in this installment. They had to make some tougher decisions this time around in deciding how to go about fixing the break in time. They also had to deal with some unintended consequences as they jump from one time period to the next to re-fix a break they broke again on accident. Crazy, eh?
The next book in The Infinity Ring series will arrive this coming February and I must say, I’m rather excited for when it does. It appears as though after dealing with Christopher Columbus and Paris-invading vikings, Dak and Sera will be jumping into the fray with the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. That should be quite interesting.
Grade: B
Length: 192 pages
“The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time” by James Dashner
The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time is the first installment in what appears to be a long-term project by several different authors to provide the next big middle-grade book series. The basic concept being that the world all of the characters are living in is actually an alternate reality brought about by many, many well-known historical events not happening the way we remember them. It’s certainly and interesting twist on the usual approach of alternate realities in books. Usually characters are traveling to the alternate reality, not arriving from the alternate reality. I have to say, I loved it through and through.
Dak and Sera are serviceable enough characters for what the story is trying to accomplish and I can entirely understand why they don’t have the depth I’m used to with characters I read because this is a middle-grade series and with a target audience like that you have to keep things a little more simple. There are a few clichés tossed around as far as character personalities are concerned, but nothing glaring and nothing that bothered me all that much.
In this first book of the series the two friends discover The Infinity Ring, a device capable of traveling them through time. Through a series of somewhat unfortunate events they are forced to aid a group known as the Hystorians who are trying to fix all of the wayward big moments in history. Each event has to be righted in a specific order so as to keep the events closer to modern day as unaffected as possible. The first of which that Dak and Sera have to correct is the fact that Columbus was not credited with discovering America.
Back in time the two friends go and as they are younger than your standard adventurers they have plenty of blundered moments that almost leave them stranded in the past. They figure things out in the end however and the result is a fun, quick, exciting tale that takes and interesting approach to time travel and its effects on space-time and all that.
The second installment of The Infinity Ring series, Divide and Conquer was released earlier this week and I look forward to reading it soon and letting all of you know what I think.
Grade: B
Length: 192 pages
Finding Time by Steve Poling
(Cover picture courtesy of The Independent Author Network Blog.)
Rescue the past to build the future. In 2280 EarthGov is desperate when aliens destroy their first colony. They’ll even comb through the wreckage of the aliens’ UFO that crashed in 1947—where one man claims he’s found a time machine. Now the race is on to scour history for the treasures and talents EarthGov needs.
Sid Feynman just wants a government grant. His hopes for a quiet academic life are dashed when EarthGov thrusts the beautiful historian Nell Playfair upon him and expects Sid to actually use the time machine.
Soon Sid and Nell are rocketing across light-years of interstellar space and millennia of history—seeking that which is lost and finding time.
[Full disclosure: Steve Poling gave me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
Well, that certainly wasn’t what I expected.
That’s a compliment, by the way. Finding Time is a book with many different viewpoints, but Steve Poling handled each of them so well that it was never confusing. The first chapter seems completely unrelated to the rest of the book until later, but when the reason behind the event was revealed it made perfect sense. That’s what made Finding Time so interesting for me: the different narrative threads intertwining perfectly, especially toward the end. I live when things are tied together in a way that makes sense and that is especially important in a time travel story.
I won’t even begin to pretend I understand half of the science behind time travel in this book. Science was never my strong point, but hard science fiction fans will love this book for it. I would have liked the explanations to be “dumbed-down”, but I am not the audience Steve Poling was writing for. Each to their own, really. I’m sure most people will have a better appreciation for his attention to detail than I do.
However, I did appreciate the characters. Nell and Sid were the two main characters and they definitely stood out. Their bickering is priceless, but you can tell that they become good friends by the end. No, they don’t fall in love with each other. Gasp! A male and female lead that don’t fall in love! Call the press! As Steve Poling put it in his initial email to me: “there’s no cussin’, smokin’, or gettin’ nekkid.”
See? It is possible to write a good novel without any of those things! YA writers take note.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
*Only available through Amazon in Kindle format.