Review: Mooncop by Tom Gauld

September 10, 2016Regular Guy Book Reviews, Stand-aloneDan

Mooncop is an oddly beautiful piece of work about the last policeman on the moon. Short and simply drawn, it’s a quiet story, with broad lunar landscapes and mostly-silent people as they go about their business as the lunar colony slowly winds down.

The quiet is just on the surface, though. It’s clear there’s more going on in the heads of the characters than just what’s in the speech bubbles.

The writer/illustrator Tom Gault is a popular cartoonist in Britain, and I hope he continues to create work like Mooncop.

Recommendation: Buy it. Its sweet, sad simplicity is more than welcome next to all the serious tomes on my shelf.

Review: A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias

July 30, 2016Alien, Regular Guy Book Reviews, Stand-alone, UnderwaterDan

As a lapsed marine zoologist, I couldn’t help but love A Darkling Sea. It has aliens, intrigue, desperate missions, and it all happens underwater.

On a moon orbiting a gas giant, a human science station sits in pitch-black water. They’re studying a semi-primitive alien species, but when a dumb-ass scientist gets himself killed by the curious aliens, another alien species visits the science station and tries to take over. Chaos ensues.

Recommendation: Get it at the library. It’s an excellent read, but not mandatory for a bookshelf.

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Review: Echopraxia by Peter Watts

July 16, 2016Alien, Dystopian, First Contact, Hard Science Fiction, Regular Guy Book ReviewsDan

I have a bad habit of getting excited by a book and skimming, eager to find out what happens next. Usually, this works out fine.

I did that with Echopraxia and missed so much that I had to read it again. This book is as dense as those borderline-illegal molten chocolate desserts that are as big as a teacup but somehow weigh ten pounds.

Don’t skip a word. The writing is that tight.

Echopraxia is a sequel to Blindsight, and again author Watts explores the craziness of space, aliens, vampires (he makes them work, even more believably than he did in Blindsight), and how malleable human brains are. His central idea that human consciousness is like a flea riding a dog, thinking it’s in charge of everything, when really the dog, i.e., the rest of our brain, makes all of the decisions. (This is something that a lot of studies are actually agreeing with.)

In addition to all that, it’s a smart, fantastic read, and his best book since Starfish, one of my absolute favorites.

Recommendation: Buy it. It’s excellent on the first, second, and further readings.

Review: Accelerando by Charles Stross

June 11, 2016First Contact, Hard Science Fiction, Regular Guy Book Reviews, Stand-aloneDan

Accelerando moves like a bat out of hell and made me afraid that the future’s going to tear us all a new one.

It’s dense, and author Charles Stross presents enough throwaway ideas for at least a dozen other novels.

Accelerando follows the adventures of three generations as they experience the world just before the technological singularity, during it, and just after.

(The technological singularity is the point where an artificial intelligence begins to create a runaway chain reaction of improving itself, with each iteration becoming more intelligent. Eventually, it is vastly superior to any human intelligence. Is that something to worry about? Maybe. Stephen Hawking once said, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”)

The book is deeply technical in spots, which is fun, but still has good characters you root for (or despise).

Recommendation: Get it at the library. I really liked it, but its vision of a future that requires implants soon after (or before) birth just to keep up with the world freaked me out a bit. I don’t want to be reminded of my impending future shock every day.

Review: The Maiden Voyage of the Destiny Unknown by Nicholas Ponticello

May 14, 2016Far-future, Funny, Regular Guy Book Reviews, Stand-aloneDan

Like his earlier book Do Not Resuscitate, Ponticello’s prose reads like a less-angry Vonnegut. However, in The Maiden Voyage of the Destiny Unknown, he gets wilder and funnier.

Two hundred million years in the future, the sun is about to engulf the Earth, so a spaceship filled with people is sent out towards a likely star in order to save the species.

The outrageous situations and badly-behaving people on the spaceship are entertaining as hell, and are nicely balanced with an occasional thoughtful perspective from the narrator, a non-interfering alien observer.

The Maiden Voyage of the Destiny Unknown is bold and fun, and I found myself eagerly waiting for the next time I could get back to reading it.

Recommendation: Buy it. The bright yellow spine pleases me whenever I see it on my shelf.
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Review: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

April 2, 2016Regular Guy Book Reviews, Soft, Stand-aloneDan

Flowers for Algernon is a beautiful, human book, with a little science fiction thrown in.

It examines morals and ethics without getting preachy—it’s a surprisingly easy read for such a thoughtful and deep book.

There are a few juicy scenes in it, which is why it’s occasionally removed from school libraries in Texas.

Flowers for Algernon is told through progress reports written by a low-IQ person who has an operation (we never learn the details) that quickly increases his IQ to genius levels. Unfortunately, his social and emotional skills do not increase at the same rate, and this causes hurt feelings all around.

Recommendation: Buy it. Seeing this on my shelf gives me a moment of pause, a two-second meditation, like briefly floating in a deep but safe ocean, before getting on with my day.