Thematic spoilers follow. The failure of Armada, for me, was the recursive and self-referential style of Ernest Cline, which ended up feeling like a crutch rather than an addition to the fairly straightforward plot. Unbeknownst to me, this book is in a similar vein to my previous read. Redshirts is about the “red shirts” from the original Star Trek series. They were characters used to create dramatic tension by dying early in episodes (typically on away missions). These were characters with no backstory, and the […]
A great sci-fi series at peak greatness
The Expanse series has captured lightning in a bottle, and Nemesis Games is my favorite installation yet. The entire series is assertively skilled at balancing comedy, drama, suspense, and pure sci-fi adventure, all while grounding the story in character development and the interactions between them, as part of a larger picture that addresses societal concerns that are relevant to us today. Just by existing, the series critiques its contemporaries that are at a loss as to how to include and respect women and minorities. In […]
To Hell By Compass
In your face, Neil Armstrong! Finally, hard sci-fi with a sense of humor. This is the story of Mark Watney, who has been stranded on Mars when the rest of his crew abandon him for dead. It’s not their fault. They believed he was dead already. This is a shipwreck story, but the man marooned is stuck in a barren wasteland where communication with Earth is just this side of impossible and the only music he has is disco. How will he survive? Will […]
And the story picks up 300 years later . . .
If I hadn’t already read (and been blown away by) the first two books in this series earlier this year, I would have been very impressed with this book. But as it is, even though it is very good and exciting and has great characters and poignant themes and hints at even more to come, it pales when compared to the complexity and madcap storytelling of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. Those two books were chock full of stories and characters and layers of […]
I’m on board until someone mentions Zubaz pants.
In a vacuum, I think this book gets four stars. In a vacuum, I think the general opinion for the book is that it’s an engaging story with fairly likable characters that pays homage to numerous classic and iconic science fiction stories from past decades: from Ender’s Game to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In a vacuum. But this book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In the rich and dense atmosphere of Earth, this is the much anticipated follow-up to Ready Player One, which […]
My favorite of the series so far.
First, a warning: I have officially passed the point of objectivity for this series. You know you’ve passed that point when you no longer care what happens in a book series as long as you get to spend more time in its world hanging out with its characters. This isn’t a place I get to easily, but once I’m there, I never ever leave. Love, it is irrational. With that said, oh boy, this book was awesome. In retrospect, one of my favorite things about […]
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