Category: Fiction

I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

So this is the last Paolo Bacigalupi book I will be reading/listening to for a long while. I liked Windup Girl but everything else has not excited me, and this book is no exception.

If you have read Windup Girl you have already read one of the best stories in this book, go read Windup Girl instead of this one.

From the publisher:

Paolo Bacigalupi’s debut collection demonstrates the power and reach of the science-fiction short story. Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo’s work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.

The 11 stories in Pump Six represent the best of Paolo’s work, including the Hugo nominee "Yellow Card Man", the Nebula-and Hugo-nominated story "The People of Sand and Slag", and the Sturgeon Award-winning story "The Calorie Man". The title story is original to this collection.

With this book, Paolo Bacigalupi takes his place alongside SF short-fiction masters Ted Chiang, Kelly Link and others, as an important young writer that directly and unabashedly tackles today’s most important issues.

©2010 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

I rate this book a 5 out of 10 and only recommend it to Bacigalupi fans.

I bought this audiobook on a sale at Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

Dutch is an angry story about an angry young black man from an angry place. Not being an angry young black man myself this book misses the mark for me. It does not speak to me and was not meant to.

This is not a mainstream story targeted at a widespread audience, but is targeted squarely at an urban teen African American audience, whether that was the author’s intention or not. As a movie it would probably have wider appeal.

It is well written and if you like stories about angry young black men getting over on the system at the cost of other people’s lives, usually the lives of other young black men, then you will enjoy this story.

The performance by Ezra Knight is very good, I hope to hear more from him.

From the publisher:

Teri Woods has built a considerable literary legacy thanks to her compelling urban novels. The first volume of a trilogy, Dutch follows the criminal career of street hood James Bernard Jr., a.k.a. Dutch.

Even while stealing cars, Dutch knew he was destined for more, and it wasn’t long before he saw his chance to seize power in New Jersey. Now a Jersey kingpin, Dutch is coming under fire from an upstart DA—but it won’t be easy to take down this streetwise criminal.

&copy2003, 2009 Teri Woods (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

My rating is a 5 out of 10 and think African American teens would rate it much higher.

I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.

I absolutely love Neil Gaiman and can’t get enough of his stories, not only did he write this one but he also narrates it. I really enjoy hearing stories as read by their author. The author is able to put more inflection and emotion into the characters than any other narrator could and Neil Gaiman is a fantastic narrator.

While listening to this book I went out of my way to find opportunities to listen to it. I don’t think I can give any audiobook a higher compliment.

From the publisher:

Sussex, England: A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. He is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet sitting by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean), the unremembered past comes flooding back. Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie – magical, comforting, wise beyond her years – promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. A stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

©2013 Neil Gaiman (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone!

I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it on my iPhone using the Audible app.

This is book 2 in the Shipbreaker series, the first being "Shipbreaker".

I did not really get into Shipbreaker, but I did like some of the characters enough to give the second book a try. The half-man Tool was my favorite character in the first book and it was great getting so much time with him in Drowned Cities.

But again, this story didn’t really draw me in. Mahlia and Mouse are very good characters, and their stories are compelling, but… I don’t know, just not for me I guess.

Joshua Swanson delivers another wonderful performance bringing the characters to life. I can’t point at the narration for my feelings about this book.

From the publisher:

Soldier boys emerged from the darkness. Guns gleamed dully. Bullet bandoliers and scars draped their bare chests. Ugly brands scored their faces. She knew why these soldier boys had come. She knew what they sought, and she knew, too, that if they found it, her best friend would surely die.
In a dark future America where violence, terror, and grief touch everyone, young refugees Mahlia and Mouse have managed to leave behind the war-torn lands of the Drowned Cities by escaping into the jungle outskirts. But when they discover a wounded half-man – a bioengineered war beast named Tool – who is being hunted by a vengeful band of soldiers, their fragile existence quickly collapses. One is taken prisoner by merciless soldier boys, and the other is faced with an impossible decision: Risk everything to save a friend, or flee to a place where freedom might finally be possible.

This thrilling companion to Paolo Bacigalupi’s highly acclaimed Ship Breaker is a haunting and powerful story of loyalty, survival, and heart-pounding adventure.
Apocalypse now: also listen to Ship Breaker.

©2012 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

I rate this book a 6 out of 10 and recommend it to fans of Paolo Bacigalupi.

I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

I really enjoyed Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and decided to give his other books a try.

This book is a solid story. The pacing is good; the characters have clear motivations and believable emotions. But meh…

I’m not sure why but this book just didn’t reach me. It is very post-cyberpunk, I should like it a lot, but I don’t. I like it some, just not a lot.

Joshua Swanson does a great job narrating the story, he does bring the characters to life and does a great job conveying their emotions.

From the publisher:

In America’s Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota – and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it’s worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life.

In this powerful novel, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set in a vivid and raw, uncertain future.
©2010 Paolo Bacigalupi (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

I rate this book a 6 out of 10 and only recommend to fans of Paolo Bacigalupi.

I bought this signed hardback from Powell’s Book Store in Portland Oregon.

I have been hearing a lot about this book from every direction. Audible, Amazon, and a lot of friends have pushed it at me. But I wasn’t impressed by any of them; most of the time when a writer is unable to get a story published it is for a good reason. Wool is an exception, at least the story as a whole is, I am not sure I would have made it much past the first section of the book if I had to wait for the next section to come out. I want to say a big thanks to all of the people that encouraged Hugh Howey to keep writing.

I enjoyed reading Wool, enough so that I stayed up all night reading it.

The entire time I was reading Wool I couldn’t stop thinking about the "Fallout" series of video games. In Fallout the player begins in a "Vault" which is like the Silo in Wool, the similarity is impossible to ignore if you have played the game.

It was not a book that blew me away. I really enjoyed it, but it didn’t have a lot of "WOW" factor. Nothing that got me really excited.

From the publisher:

In a ruined and toxic landscape, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside.

His fateful decision unleashes a drastic series of events. An unlikely candidate is appointed to replace him: Juliette, a mechanic with no training in law, whose special knack is fixing machines. Now Juliette is about to be entrusted with fixing her silo, and she will soon learn just how badly her world is broken. The silo is about to confront what its history has only hinted about and its inhabitants have never dared to whisper. Uprising.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone looking for a solid science-fiction apocalypse story.

I am not sure where I bought this hardback book, probably Amazon or Barnes & Noble. I read it here and there over a couple of months, it took awhile between everything else that has been going on.

Wetworld features 2 of my favorite characters, David Tennant as the 10th Doctor and Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.

The story itself is really cookie-cutter. The companion wants to go some where/some when, the Doctor agrees while totally misinterpreting the where and when, and the TARDIS takes them to someplace that neither one of them expects. Something is wrong endangering the locals of where they land. The companion gets in trouble, the Doctor runs around acting manic, and with the help of the locals everything gets straightened out.

But I still enjoy reading these stories, especially the Dave Tennant stories. If you like Doctor Who novels, this one will not disappoint.

From the publisher:

When the TARDIS makes a disastrous landing in the swamps of the planet Sunday, the Doctor has no choice but to abandon Martha and try to find help. But the tranquillity of Sunday’s swamps is deceptive, and even the TARDIS can’t protect Martha forever.

The human pioneers of Sunday have their own dangers to face: homeless and alone, they’re only just starting to realise that Sunday’s wildlife isn’t as harmless as it first seems. Why are the native otters behaving so strangely, and what is the creature in the swamps that is so interested in the humans, and the new arrivals?

The Doctor and Martha must fight to ensure that human intelligence doesn’t become the greatest danger of all.

Featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha as played by David Tennant and Freema Agyeman in the hit Doctor Who series from BBC Television.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any fans of Doctor Who.

I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

With such high ratings and the endorsement from Neil Gaiman, how could I pass this one up.

I am not sure why, but this book just didn’t work for me. It started out with many small technical problems with the audio, small chirps and crackling, that really distracted me. But even after those issues went away later in the book I still just couldn’t get into it.

The lead character, Tom Carmody, never appealed to me… The book just feels pretentious to me with all the armchair philosophy, puns, and forced wordplay. I can see how this book would be viewed as a precursor to Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series, but Mr. Adams was able to do it without pretension, he did it in a way that made it feel natural in a way I do not feel like this book does.

John Hodgman does a good job narrating the book, but it is hard for me to judge as I never could get really involved with the storyline.

I really respect Neil Gaiman and Audible for making audiobooks like this one of stories and authors that many of us have never heard of and look forward to many more of them.

From the publisher:

Award-winning author, narrator, and screenwriter Neil Gaiman personally selected this book, and, using the tools of the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), produced this work for his audiobook label, Neil Gaiman Presents.

A few words from Neil on Dimension of Miracles: “Dimension of Miracles is probably not [Sheckley’s] most famous book…. but I think it’s probably his best-loved book. It’s about the joys and tribulations (mostly the tribulations) of winning the lottery—the galactic lottery—accidentally. And wrongly. Tom Carmody is awarded a remarkable prize, is taken half way across the universe to collect it, finds himself hopelessly lost, and needs to find his way home again to Earth…to this Earth, not an alternate, weirdo Earth. He’s got to get back. And the price is high.

In its style of humor—and even in some of the jokes—Dimension of Miracles is very obviously a precursor of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas actually hadn’t read Dimension of Miracles until very shortly after Hitchhiker came out, when people pointed him to it, and he told me that he found the experience almost shocking—it was like reading himself. He was a huge admirer of Bob Sheckley and a huge admirer of this book, and in later life, I had the privilege of introducing both of them.

Now the challenge for me with a book this funny, this strange, this perceptive was to try and find a narrator who was as iconic, somebody who could deliver the goods, somebody who could give you a book like this as it deserved to be given. And the first, and the last, and actually the only person to come to mind was John Hodgman. So I asked John, and he said yes! And he did it; he pulled it off. Listening to John—not just the suave, sensible, sane narrator of this book, but all the peculiar accents and incarnations that he is forced to adopt through here—he does it delightfully, he does it brilliantly, he’s really, really funny. And so is this book. Enjoy your journey through a Dimension of Miracles.”

Dimension of Miracles is a satirical science fiction novel first published by Dell in 1968. It’s about Tom Carmody, a New Yorker who, thanks to a computer error, wins the main prize in the Intergalactic Sweepstakes. Tom claims his prize before the error is discovered and is allowed to keep it. However, since Tom is a human from Earth without galactic status and no space traveling experience, he has no homing instinct that can guide him back to Earth once his odyssey begins – and the galactic lottery organizers cannot transport him home. Meanwhile, his removal from Earth has caused a predatory entity to spring into existence – one that pursues and aims to destroy him. Carmody is on the run, and he ends up transporting from Earth to Earth – different phases and realities of the planet, which of course is not the time or condition he expects.

&copy1968 Robert Sheckley (P)2013 Robert Sheckley

I rate this book a 5 out 10, it just didn’t work for me.

I bought this audiobook on sale from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

I absolutely love Stephen Hunter’s Bob Lee Swagger series of books, but after so many books they got very stale to me. It started feeling like Mr. Hunter was not trying very hard to come up with something new, so I have not read any Stephen Hunter books in a long time. When I saw this audiobook on sale at Audible I decided to give it a try.

Soft Target is not a Bob Lee book but is instead about Ray Cruz, a Marine sniper who was introduced in Bob Lee books.

This story just didn’t work for me, the technical descriptions of computer systems are incorrect, annoyingly so. Mr. Hunter obviously has an experts level of understanding when it comes to firearms, but until his understanding of computers reaches the same level he should avoid writing about them.

The entire book feels like he is struggling to write a script for a 45 minute long TV show.

From the publisher:

New York Times best-selling author Stephen Hunter is back with another breakneck thriller, in which ex-Marine sniper, Ray Kruz, must outwit a group of murderous Somali terrorists who’ve laid siege to the Mall of America.

Recently retired marine sergeant Ray Kruz has been talked into a mall trip by his fiancé, the beautiful Molly Chan. For Ray, Molly represents a way to reconnect with normal life, something his 20 years in the service and five tours in two combat zones have prevented. But now he finds himself in the middle of the softest target of all, a huge consumer mall where a self-styled "Mumbai Brigade" has come to bring massive death to the heartland. They just didn’t know Ray Cruz was in the building….

©2011 Stephen Hunter (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

I rate this book a 3 out of 10 and do not recommend it to anyone.

I bought this hardcover book from Amazon.

I really enjoy these cheesy Doctor Who novels, they are great fast reads that deepen the mythology and add a lot of depth to the characters.

This story is about the Eleventh Doctor, as played by Matt Smith and Amy Pond romping around New York saving the earth from an invading army of doll-sized aliens. Good stuff.

From the publisher:

‘Let me tell you a story. Long ago, in the frozen Arctic wastes, an alien army landed. Only now, 10,000 years later, it isn’t a story. And the army is ready to attack.’

New York – one of the greatest cities on 21st century Earth… But what’s going on in the Museum? And is that really a Woolly Mammoth rampaging down Broadway? An ordinary day becomes a time of terror, as the Doctor and Amy meet a new and deadly enemy. The vicious Army of the Vykoid are armed to the teeth and determined to enslave the human race. Even though they’re only seven centimetres high.

With the Vykoid army swarming across Manhattan and sealing it from the world with a powerful alien force field, Amy has just 24 hours to find the Doctor and save the city. If she doesn’t, the people of Manhattan will be taken to work in the doomed asteroid mines of the Vykoid home planet. But as time starts to run out, who can she trust? And how far will she have to go to free New York from the Forgotten Army?

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to any fans of Doctor Who and cheesy sci-fi.

I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone. This is the 4th book in the Retrieval Artist series.

Jay Snyder turns in another great performance; to bad the story is not up to snuff.

This story took the politics to far, I seriously lost interest in this story many times. I feel like there is very little action and entirely to much explanation and whining. This is not why I have been reading these books.

I will now be taking a break from reading the Retrieval Artist series for awhile, it looks like the next book in the series may have more action and less politics so I will eventually listen to/read it, but it wont be anytime soon.

From the publisher:

Forensic anthropologist Aisha Costard has been summoned to Mars to examine skeletal remains recently discovered beneath a building erected by the Disty aliens. The bones belong to a human woman who vanished 30 years ago with her children. She is believed to have been one of the Disappeared, outlaws wanted for crimes against alien civilizations.

To investigate the mystery of the skeleton, Aisha turns to Retrieval Artist Miles Flint. Following the trail back three decades and seeking the whereabouts of the victim’s missing children, Miles discovers a deadly secret that could threaten the stability of the entire solar system.

©2005 White Mist Mountain, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

I rate this book a 5 out of 10 and only recommend it to people who are invested in the Retrieval Artist series.

I bought this book from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

This is book 3 in the Retrieval Artist series.

I really liked this one. So far it is the best book in the series. The tension between Noelle and Flint continues to grow as they try to sort out how they feel about each other.

I liked the mystery aspect and the depth in which it was explored by Flint. His honor and ability to sleep at night are seriously on the line. It is this aspect that made the story interesting to me, I could use a lot more of that type of story. Action, conflict, mystery and more action.

The politics in this book did get on my nerves; I could do without all the back and forth about alien politics.

From the publisher:

Officer Noelle DeRicci is investigating a murder in Armstrong, the domed colony on the Moon. The victim was one of the Disappeared – outlaws in hiding who are wanted for crimes against alien civilizations – whose family had her brought home, believing she was no longer in danger.

Retrieval Artist Miles Flint is responsible for putting the dead woman in harm’s way. He may be the only one with the information needed to solve the case. Now, with DeRicci pressing him for answers he’s not ready to give, he must relive the events that led up to his client’s death, including her role in a war between humans and a mysterious alien race. And that ongoing war continues to escalate, threatening to consume the entire solar system.

©2004 White Mist Mountain, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

I rate this book a 9 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who is reading the Retrieval Artist series.

I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

This is the second book in the Retrieval Artist series of books and is a great continuation of the storyline.

In this book Flint and Noelle are no longer working together and Flint is learning that he really can’t trust anyone, which is very hard for him as he really wants to trust Noelle with everything he knows, but telling her to much will endanger his clients and their families.

The tension between Noelle and Flint is growing; they are trying to figure out what there new relationship is and how it will work in the future. It is not something that will be resolved anytime soon. It is this tension between the characters along with the crime-mystery drama that makes these books enjoyable for me.

Jay Snyder continues doing a great job bringing the characters to life.

From the publisher:

His name: Miles Flint. His occupation: Retrieval Artist. His job: find the Disappeared – outlaws on the run, wanted for crimes against alien cultures. The catch: Flint isn’t working on the side of the law anymore.

One simple mistake and a Disappeared could end up dead. But this time, the death of an ailing Retrieval Artist has caught Flint’s attention. He suspects it was foul play, not a viral infection. Equally suspicious is a young woman’s sudden demise during the Moon’s prestigious Extreme Marathon. As Flint investigates, he finds an ominous connection. Both deaths lead back to a scientist – a scientist who is now one of the Disappeared.

©2003 White Mist Mountain, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi crime drama stories.

I bought this audiobook from Audible and listened to it using the Audible app on my iPhone.

I chose this book based upon the reviews at Audible and they were right, it is a very good listen. Jay Snyder turns in a very good performance bringing the characters to life and giving each one a uniqueness that makes them come alive.

This is the first book in a series that is currently up to 9 books, there is a lot of good reading here and it is a nice step away from the John Scalzi books I have been listening to.

What I like most about this book is how clear the main characters motives are, they are driven by things that make sense to me, their emotions feel real and easy to understand. They are very human.

In this universe Human’s have agreed to respect and uphold the laws of many different alien cultures. This has created a lot of problems for the police and the court systems because many of the alien laws, punishable in amazingly horrible ways, are not obvious to the humans who regularly break those laws accidentally by doing things that are not considered illegal by the humans.

Those that find themselves in trouble disappear; they change their identities and their lives to escape the alien punishments that await them. They spend the rest of their lives on the run from both the human and alien courts.

There are bounty hunters known as "Trackers" who hunt down the disappeared to bring them back to the courts while "Retrieval Artists" who search for the disappeared to help them in different ways.

From the publisher:

Retrieval Artists help the lost find their way back home, whether they like it or not. Specialized private detectives, they investigate the most unusual crimes in the galaxy. But Miles Flint isn’t a Retrieval Artist. He’s just a cop, trying to do his job.

In a stolen space yacht, three people have been found eviscerated, the grisly signature of an alien vengeance killing. Moments later, the border patrol halts another ship launched out of the moon’s orbit. Its passengers are two human children, kidnapped by the most ruthless aliens in the universe. Both ships are linked to a woman on the run: a Disappeared relocated to the inhospitable landscape of Mars. A reluctant outlaw with a bounty on her head and a detective on her case, she’s about to teach all of them a lesson: it’s dangerous to gamble with your life in a universe that rigs the game.

©2002 White Mist Mountain, Inc.; (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

I rate this book an 8 out of 10 and recommend to anyone who likes mystery, detective and sci-fi novels.