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newnumber6Finished: Camouflage, by Joe Haldeman (Nebula Award Winner)
Started: Probability Moon, by Nancy Kress
Thoughts behind cut, not especially spoilery but depends on tolerance. Short version: Mildly liked it.
Camouflage is sort of a parallel story of the discovery of an alien spacecraft under the ocean, and the stories of two separate aliens who have been on Earth for thousands of years. Both have some measure of shapeshifting ability (though in different ways), but are unaware of each other.
It's relatively enjoyable. I mean, it's not one of Haldeman's best, and I wonder if the Nebula award was more from "Hey, let's give this famous author an award based on his past awesomeness" rather than on the merits of the book itself. It's pleasant, and I enjoyed the stories about the aliens in the past the most, but it wasn't great. The ending comes too abruptly and with too many questions unanswered (I suppose it might have been left for a sequel, but if so it's a bit of an odd way to do it), and some of the characters felt a bit flat at times.
Finished: Lady of Mazes, by Karl Schroeder
Started: A Meeting At Corvallis, by S.M. Stirling
Detailed thoughts behind the cut, not terribly spoilery beyond plot thumbnail. Short version: Really enjoyed it.
Lady of Mazes is set in the same world as Ventus, but very little seemingly connects them right away (a little more later). The main character, Livia, lives in an artificial world constructed around 'manifolds'... where the same physical space is shared among many groups of people who are mostly unaware of each other, different groups living their own type of life, with their own technologies - think a holodeck, except projected into the mind, and when you might bump into someone else not in your manifold, the technology casually guides you in another way without you even noticing. In any event, outsiders come to their world and start taking down the manifolds, threatening her whole society.
I really enjoyed it. Ventus sort of started simply and then developed more complexity, this one almost goes the other way... you dive right into a strange, complex SF universe with technologies that may be hard to grasp at first, but then it gradually becomes simpler and easier to understand. Schroeder also raises a lot of interesting questions, like the quest for meaning in a universe where humans are virtually meaningless because there are much more powerful beings out there, how our technology shapes our way of life and worldview. Another trick he accomplished, much like in Ventus, is that although there are different groups with different interests, it's extremely arguable which is right, and even though, in Ventus, one is implied to be a Bad Thing, in this book I was genuinely left wondering, at least if it was Bad By Nature or just Developed Bad. There's a grand array of technology in post-singularity fashion, and really satisfies on almost every level. Yeah, I'm definitely going to be reading more Schroeder.
And, stolen from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angelophile, reports on a guest star on next season's Sarah Jane Adventures... and I think I might have to download an ep. Photo here (spoilers, obviously)
Started: Probability Moon, by Nancy Kress
Thoughts behind cut, not especially spoilery but depends on tolerance. Short version: Mildly liked it.
Camouflage is sort of a parallel story of the discovery of an alien spacecraft under the ocean, and the stories of two separate aliens who have been on Earth for thousands of years. Both have some measure of shapeshifting ability (though in different ways), but are unaware of each other.
It's relatively enjoyable. I mean, it's not one of Haldeman's best, and I wonder if the Nebula award was more from "Hey, let's give this famous author an award based on his past awesomeness" rather than on the merits of the book itself. It's pleasant, and I enjoyed the stories about the aliens in the past the most, but it wasn't great. The ending comes too abruptly and with too many questions unanswered (I suppose it might have been left for a sequel, but if so it's a bit of an odd way to do it), and some of the characters felt a bit flat at times.
Finished: Lady of Mazes, by Karl Schroeder
Started: A Meeting At Corvallis, by S.M. Stirling
Detailed thoughts behind the cut, not terribly spoilery beyond plot thumbnail. Short version: Really enjoyed it.
Lady of Mazes is set in the same world as Ventus, but very little seemingly connects them right away (a little more later). The main character, Livia, lives in an artificial world constructed around 'manifolds'... where the same physical space is shared among many groups of people who are mostly unaware of each other, different groups living their own type of life, with their own technologies - think a holodeck, except projected into the mind, and when you might bump into someone else not in your manifold, the technology casually guides you in another way without you even noticing. In any event, outsiders come to their world and start taking down the manifolds, threatening her whole society.
I really enjoyed it. Ventus sort of started simply and then developed more complexity, this one almost goes the other way... you dive right into a strange, complex SF universe with technologies that may be hard to grasp at first, but then it gradually becomes simpler and easier to understand. Schroeder also raises a lot of interesting questions, like the quest for meaning in a universe where humans are virtually meaningless because there are much more powerful beings out there, how our technology shapes our way of life and worldview. Another trick he accomplished, much like in Ventus, is that although there are different groups with different interests, it's extremely arguable which is right, and even though, in Ventus, one is implied to be a Bad Thing, in this book I was genuinely left wondering, at least if it was Bad By Nature or just Developed Bad. There's a grand array of technology in post-singularity fashion, and really satisfies on almost every level. Yeah, I'm definitely going to be reading more Schroeder.
And, stolen from
angelophile, reports on a guest star on next season's Sarah Jane Adventures... and I think I might have to download an ep. Photo here (spoilers, obviously)
