Reviews and Comments

This sophomore effort from Ernest Cline lays pop culture references on too thick for my taste.

Armada is about aliens, space battles and invasions. It's main characters (and thus the text) draw from 40 years of popular culture in tv and movies, books and video games. Any short summary of the plot would lead you immediately to one of those many references (The Last Starfighter, Ender's Game, Wargames, etc.) - this book is a collage of all of them.

For me, that is exactly what doesn't work. Our heroes vacillate between doubt and devotion, alternately remembering and then forgetting that this is like a plot from the New Twilight Zone, etc. In the midst of this, they throw out obscure geek references fast and furious, but miss obvious ones right in front of them (Lightman enters Crystal Palace but never thinks about the movie Wargames). Also annoying, the handwaving over advanced technology - "we got it from the aliens". FTL communications, inertial damping and large scale gravity control? Standard trope in sci-fi, but not a good fit for this present-day story.

Back to the positive points - this author can definitely write. Battle scenes are exciting, pop culture references are correct and appropriate (if too frequent), and plot details are logical. The first version of the book available to me was the audio book read by Wil Wheaton, and he does a great job here. I enjoyed the Raid the Arcade mix (Guardians of the Galaxy, anyone?) which was fully documented on the last page of the book and is nearly all available on Spotify.

Overall rating - 3 stars. I liked this book, but nowhere near as much as Ready Player One. Will continue to read this author in the future.

This story follows people connected to Arthur Leander, an actor who dies in the first (and last) chapters of the book. These characters are mostly survivors of a superflu which kills off 99.99% of the human race. The title comes from an elaborate comic book drawn by Arthur's ex-wife Miranda.

The book is primarily set 20 years after the apocalypse, and focuses on a traveling band of musicians and actors, who play classical music and perform Shakespeare. The theme here is the survival of culture more than the survival of humanity.

As the bard said, the play's the thing, and this post-apocalyptic world feels like a play. No gritty realism, starving dogs, or warlords. People get by. This theme carries into the flashbacks, showing various of Arthur's connections sleepwalking through their lives.

The storytelling is rich, but for me the characters feel flat. The jumps are interesting, but the tale before the apocalypse is far better than afterward. The religious zealout who plays the part of the villain is caricatured at first, and less believable because of it.

This won an Arthur C Clarke award for best science fiction novel of 2015. I liked it, but I didn't love it.

This is a book where reviews lead to spoilers, which I will try to avoid. The story is told in two broad parts, the normal life before and the imperiled flight after. The general setting is 20 years after a major fungal epidemic wipes out the majority of Britain (and likely the rest of the world also).

Most of the story is told through the eyes of the main character Melanie, born into this dystopia and... different. Her favorite Greek myth is that of Pandora (the Girl with all the Gifts) and this myth and theme frame the story very well.

The rest of the novel reveals the perspectives of the various supporting cast. Archetypes abound (raw recruit, grizzled sergeant, obsessed scientist, etc.), but each of these characters has some depth and most experience subtle growth through the story.

The writing was very visual and generally well done. It didn't always feel like 20 years, and I wonder whether that choice was arbitrary or planned by the author. I have general quibbles about the physiology also, but was able to suspend disbelief for the duration.

The first version available at the library was the on-demand audio, and Flinty Williams did a very good job reading this. Though the setting and characters felt American, they at least sounded British. For me, this was a solid 4 star book, and I look forward to reading more prose from Mike Carey in the future.

Author Harry Harrison wrote in 1984 about the technique of background-as-foreground - the story for the main characters is really a means to capture the readers attention and draw them to the greater truth of the setting. He uses this to great effect in Make Room! Make Room!

This novel shows what the world will be like "if we continue in our insane manner to pollute and overpopulate Spaceship Earth." The observed limitations of oil and aquifers play right alongside the conflict between farmers and city dwellers. Disease plays only a small role here, but then the scope of the novel is roughly 6 months.

The main character is a policeman, with side stories covering his target and a judge who influences his duties. These characters and the various side characters are well described and interesting, and only once (towards the end of the book) does the story digress into a few pages of exposition as Sol rants about birth control and sustainable development.

As you probably know, this book was appropriated and turned into a movie. Well, some of it was. Harry Harrison wrote all about it in an article published in Omni, which fortunately lives online here - www.iol.ie/~carrollm/hh/soycann.htm The book of course doesn't contain cannibalism, and when Soylent shows up, it is where it makes more sense - Soy and Lentil steaks.

All in all, a really excellent book. Though published nearly 50 years ago, it is still quite relevant today, and a very good read. Recommended!

This incredibly sad novel is told from the perspective of (and within the lifetime of) a dog named Enzo. He comes by this name from his race car driving owner, Denny. Racing as a metaphor for life is both the theme and the constant focus of Enzo, who quotes his owner and other race car drivers with aphorisms such as "Your car goes where your eyes go."

Our narrator often feels trapped in dog form, and looks forward to reincarnation as a human. At times, the author seems to stray from the dog's focus to tell the main story. At other times, he fits this into the dogs head as imagination, tying back to daytime TV shows that Enzo has watched. This is cute, but goes a little beyond at times.

Enzo and Denny are well fleshed out; the rest of the characters are pretty flat. The evil in-laws are beyond creepy. The story has many sad points, a lot of death and dying, and yet I couldn't put it down at times. I understand there are both young adult and children's adaptations of this book by the same author - I can't imagine how they would work, and don't plan to suggest either for my 11 year old animal lover anytime soon.

Cautiously recommended at 3.5 stars.

A very passionate history and analysis, based primarily on source interviews and the Harry Anslinger archives. Covers a surprising narrative of the early "war on drugs", continuing up to the present day. Chapters of analysis examine situations and countries where addiction and sometimes the drugs themselves were decriminalized. Some insightful thoughts into how dealing with marijuana is different than crack or meth. A brief chapter near the end covers the two different campaigns (Colorado and Washington) for legalization of marijuana.

The core of the book is the authors insight that most of addiction is emotional, and largely resulting from childhood trauma. Chemical addiction is only a small percentage, which is contrary to everything we were brought up with.

I found the book well researched and collected, even if much of the message is not news. The writing was a little difficult to follow, especially the first few chapters where the stories of various individuals were relayed. The early history was quite interesting, and at first seemed unbelievable.

Recommended eye opener for anyone who hasn't really thought about the full effects of drugs (and criminalization) on our society.