Category: Science Fiction
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
(Cover picture courtesy of Geeky Scifi.)
The Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces, elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect soldiers for the CDF’s toughest operations. They’re young, fast, strong, and totally without normal human qualms.
The universe is a dangerous place for humanity—and it’s about to become more dangerous. Three races we’ve fought before have allied to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF’s biggest secrets. To prevail, the CDF must find out why Boutin did what he did.
Jared Dirac—a superhuman hybrid, created from Boutin’s DNA—is the only person who can provide answers. Jared’s brain should be able to access Boutin’s electronic memories, but when the memory transplant appears to fail, Jared is given to the Ghost Brigades.
At first, Jared is a perfect soldier. then, as Boutin’s memories slowly surface, Jared begins to intuit the reasons for Boutin’s betrayal…and the fact that some of humanity’s enemies have worse things in mind than our mere defeat.
Just like the first book in the series, Old Man’s War, The Ghost Brigades was nothing like I expected. If you thought it was a little cliché for the Colonial Defense Forces to be the undisputed ‘good guys’ as it seemed in the first book, you’ll love the spin John Scalzi puts on the CDF in his sequel. Trust me, you do not want to read this book if you’re squeamish because here we see the ugly side of the CDF and its Special Forces, the Ghost Brigades.
Enter our protagonist, Jared Dirac. With some questionable ethics, he was specially grown and implanted with the consciousness of another man in an attempt to figure out why one of the leading scientists turned traitor. I won’t even pretend to understand John Scalzi’s science-filled explanations for consciousness transfer, but fans of hard sci-fi will love them. There’s also some throwbacks to earlier sci-fi writers who experimented with the ethics surrounding consciousness and souls. Of course all this involves some pretty heavy ethical debates, but that’s just a sign John Scalzi actually puts faith in the intelligence of his readers.
Jared is an interesting character. Since he’s born an adult, he’s also born without a personality and must develop one when it’s seemingly clear that Charles Boutin’s consciousness hasn’t taken. We get to see the Ghost Brigades very intensive training, see some of their horrible missions and watch as Jared’s personality slowly develops through all of the crazy events. And just when you think you’ve guessed how things will end for poor Jared, you’ll find out that you’re wrong. John Scalzi is just that good at making believable plot twists motivated by the characters themselves.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Scarlet Bastards by Sean Mac Úisdin
(Cover picture courtesy of The Island Scrivener.)
The Scarlet Bastards is the first in a series of memoirs from a retired jawan of the United Nations Off World Legion – a man by the name of Alexander Armstrong. He joined as a youth, fleeing the comfort and tedium of his teenage existence in 2098 – or as he characterized it, “in a fit of teenage pique” and was sent to the UN colony of Samsāra in orbit around Delta Pavonis, some twenty light years from Earth. A dumping ground for the downtrodden, the unwanted, and the forgotten, Samsāra with its nearly 100,000 Terrans and 250,000 Gliesiun refugees was a backwater hell – a technological and infrastructural wasteland where the tundra camel reined and a law-abiding and organized society was almost non-existent.
[Full disclosure: Sean Mac Úisdin sent me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
I’m not sure what it was, but The Scarlet Bastards never made the jump from ‘okay book’ to ‘great book’. This could be because it’s not something I would normally read or maybe it really is just good, but not great. There were some things I absolutely loved about Mac Úisdin’s book, but there were some other elements that I didn’t like.
I’ll start with the former. I absolutely loved the idea of a spoiled Canadian boy setting off on an adventure to what turns out to be the United Nations’ most ragtag army ever. The premise was excellent and overall it was executed well. There was plenty of humour, but also some poignant moments, which is actually quite a bit to pack into one novella that’s only 50 pages long. As for the characters, you have your gag characters like MacShaka, but also your somewhat serious characters like Alexander himself. Alexander as a narrator has an interesting enough voice and does mature quite quickly throughout the story, so I appreciate the effort Mac Úisdin has put into character development.
At first I really loved the world of Samsāra, but because of some of the slang words used by MacShaka and other characters who had been there for a while, I don’t feel I got everything that I should have. The descriptions of what the army was wearing and some of the dialogue was so dialect and slang ridden that I really had no idea what was going on sometimes. Yes, adding character quirks and local slang is important, but when it’s overused it gets both confusing and annoying. And while the dialogue in The Scarlet Bastards never reaches the annoying stage, it is rather confusing.
Maybe it was the fact that this book was never meant for someone like me, but I don’t think this is a series I’ll be continuing. However, if the blurb sounds interesting to you, go ahead and read it! It might just be a matter of personal preference on my part.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
Ghosts of Forgotten Empires by Michael J. Foy
(Cover picture courtesy of The Bibliophilic Book Blog.)
Ancient artifacts like nothing ever discovered before are uncovered in Egypt. They are manufactured by a technique unknown to man and defy all attempts at analysis. A few individuals acquire these items including two top intelligence operatives from Russia and the United States. They are instantly endowed with god-like abilities. But as everyone knows absolute power corrupts absolutely and even with strong national loyalties how will these men react? The American intelligence freelancer, Cord Devlin, is susceptible to temptation at least in the estimation of his friend and handler, Paul McMaster, at the CIA. Still when one is fighting a war against a gifted opponent one cannot afford to be picky about using one’s own assets. Thus a new cold war is born with men and weapons that make a nuclear deterrent look quaint. The one thing that gives Cord an edge is also the thing that makes him immature in Paul’s eyes. Cord’s deep and abiding love of all things Star Trek and the lessons it inspired will also help him deal with an otherworldly threat whose sole purpose is to indefinitely continue the conflict.
[Full disclosure: Michael J. Foy sent me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.]
Ghosts of Forgotten Empires definitely has an interesting premise, but I have pretty mixed feelings about it.
On one hand, there’s the awesome idea behind it and the fast-paced plot. The idea of a malignant alien technology being sentient and controlling humankind for millions of years is interesting, to say the least. Not a lot of time is spent on the technology itself, but the glimpses we see of it throughout the novel are just enough to satisfy a bit of our curiosity. Ghosts of Forgotten Empires also has a very fast-paced plot, which fans of thrillers and mystery novels will appreciate.
However, characterization was sacrificed in the name of this fast plot. To keep up such a fast pace, Michael Foy changed points of view. A lot. At times it was extremely confusing and although things were sort of tied together in the end, I was beyond caring. Characters make the book for me and the constant head-hopping made it hard to really relate to any one character. So on the other hand I didn’t enjoy Ghosts of Forgotten Empires as much as I could have.
One thing that really impressed me was Michael Foy’s attention to detail when it came to the science part of his science fiction novel. I’m not going to pretend I understood even half of the scientific explanations that appeared in the novel, but I’m guessing fans of hard science fiction will love them. If you don’t mind head-hopping and a large cast of characters and like to focus on science and plot, you’ll like Ghosts of Forgotten Empires. It just wasn’t for me.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
Genome by Gary Alan Henson
(Cover picture courtesy of Createspace.)
Jack Thomas is amazed to find himself heading the company of his dreams, nestled in the high-tech backdrop of beautiful Boulder, Colorado.
Built with his best friend and partner Frankie, the bio-genetics company has achieved success far beyond their wildest dreams. The company is poised to revolutionize the treatment of cancer and other diseases.
The only thing missing is Jack’s highschool sweetheart, Emily, who was brutally murdered, her killer never found.
With the help of PIP, a sexy artificial intelligent assistant, and beautiful green-eyed psychic, Samantha, Jack risks his life using the latest genetic technology to delve into a terrifying world of spirits that he didn’t even know existed.
Genome explores the boundaries between what we can create and what we may never fully understand—science and the afterlife, chance and destiny, and a love that crosses the chasm of life and death.
[Full disclosure: Gary Alan Henson sent me a free print copy of his book in exchange for an honest review.]
First off, I absolutely loved the blend of science and magic in Genome. Science has never been my strongest area, so I won’t even begin to pretend to understand half of the technical information Gary Henson included in his debut novel. However, the spirit world that Samantha and Jack encounter is very well-developed and is an interesting contrast to the logical, scientific parts of the novel. It’s not very often that you see a novel where there’s both science fiction and a bit of fantasy, but this odd combination works very well in Genome. If you’re a real science fiction lover, this book is perfect for you because of the insane amount of research Gary Henson obviously did to bring Jack and Frankie’s futuristic company to life.
The main characters like Samantha, Jack and Frankie were very well fleshed out. This was definitely helped by the fact that we got to look inside all of their heads, which also helped move the plot along. There were no sections that really dragged in the book because we could see the motivations and thoughts of all the major characters. Combined with some amazing plot twists, this made for a really fast-paced read.
However, I don’t feel that the characters lived up to their full potential because of the point of view Gary Henson chose. Genome is told in a sort of third person omniscient present tense, meaning that the narrative is in third person and switches between characters frequently but is also told in present tense (i.e.: he goes to the supermarket and picks out a nice fresh apple). This isn’t so much confusing as it is irritating at points because we are being told what happens rather than being shown.
I think part of the problem with the writing was that this was Gary Henson’s first novel. Now don’t get me wrong—it’s very good for a first novel—but I don’t think it lived up to its full potential. The writing wasn’t as polished as it could have been, some of the dialogue was stiff and there were some minor typos (mainly missing quotation marks).
Still, the plot twists, great world-building, realistic characters and the amazing amount of research that went into Genome suggest that we’ll see even better things from Mr. Henson in the future.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
Arlo and Jake Enlist by Gary Alan Henson
(Cover picture courtesy of Gary Alan Henson.)
Jake’s retirement consists of beer, brats, watching beach bunnies pass by his patio deck and trading wisecracks with Arlo, his pet chameleon. OK, so it’s a one-sided exchange, Jake doesn’t mind.
That all changes when they are conscripted into service for the Federation of Thirteen Galaxies. (Twelve actually. They lost one of the Galaxies but it’s too expensive to change all the letterhead, so there you go.)
Book One, ‘Arlo and Jake Enlist’, follows the adventures of our dippy duo as they are snapped off the beach and into service as ABSs (Able Bodied Spacemen).
[Full disclosure: Gary Henson sent me a free print copy in exchange for an honest review.]
Arlo and Jake Enlist is the sort of novella you can curl up in your favourite chair for an hour or so on a dreary day and laugh out loud over. It’s both a spoof of science fiction and a good read all rolled into one 89 page book.
Now, just because this is a spoof doesn’t mean the characters aren’t interesting or well developed. They definitely are. Jake is kind of a lonely old man who fills his days drinking on the beach and watching girls with his pet chameleon, Arlo. But watch out once they get in space! Arlo develops a great personality for comedic effect and has that kind of biting sarcasm that I love. And Jake, well, what’s not to like about him? He’s snarky, curious and, at times, quite philosophical.
The plot moves along very quickly since this is a novella, so you definitely won’t experience the usual plot slump in the middle. There’s also plenty of hilarious situations that made me quite literally laugh out loud, but there are times when Arlo and Jake Enlist is serious. Gary Alan Henson found a balance between writing a great spoof and writing a good novella—a difficult achievement in my opinion.
I give this book 5/5 stars.