Review Roundup (I'm back!)

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted, and there's been a lot of reasons. Mostly I fell out of the habit of writing up the books I've read because I got busy in my work and personal life, and since then it's been hard to get back into it. But recently, with the pandemic and all, I have more free time and also am in a good state of mind for once in a very long time. So I'm going to try to post more regularly here, and potentially expand what I write out.

So! To start things off: some short reviews of a selection of some of the books I've read over the past few months.

 To be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers


We'll start with the best of the batch. To be Taught if Fortunate is a sci-fi novella about four astronauts scouting four alien worlds for potential habitability. Each planet has a distinct environment, one nightmarish, one idyllic, and, the last, barren but hopeful. I loved this book. It's very character-focused, and the trials (or lack there of) they find on each planet gives us new insight into their relationships and how they function as a crew.

A lot of sci-fi tends to focus more on the technological requirements of space travel, but To be Taught if Able uses its premise to examine the social requirements, among other things. Our characters do not turn on each other, nor does their mission does not go astray because of human error. It is, ultimately, a very hopeful book, and one that focuses on the potential of human empathy. It is definitely worth a read.

Half Way Home by Hugh Howey

The premise of the book is as follows: in the future, corporations have sent out colony ships to planets with the potential for resource exploitation. Embryos are kept in stasis until the ships arrive, then the computer decides weather the planet is viable or not. If not, the ship self-destructs. If the planet is viable (in that it has an abundance of metals to mine/build with and/or other valuable resources) then the growth of the embryos is triggered and autonomous machinery starts to build some basic structures. The children are kept in pods as the computer teaches them their purpose and role within the colony, and when they reach adulthood they are released ready to actually start working. We follow an exception colony: one where the abort function was triggered long after the children had started growing. We follow the survivors as they struggle to survive and figure out why their computer made the decision to kill them.

Although there is plenty of potential, Half Way Home feels half finished. I don't mean plot wise--there is a beginning, middle, and end; there is rising action, set up and pay off, etc.--but in terms of characters, world building, drama, and political commentary. Every aspect of it feels underdeveloped. The book seems to tackle a wide range of themes, such as class hierarchy, the ethics of genetic engineering, the human cost of corporate exploitation, homophobia, religious indoctrination, and nature vs. nurture, but I can't tell weather most of those were intentional or not simply because so little is done with any of the set up. The core issue, I feel, is that it's characters are underdeveloped, and often broad stereotypes.

The worst case is Oliver, the colony's 'philosopher.' Because the children only made it to age 15 before getting ejected from their VR education he never advanced beyond "older, mostly religious considerations." So he spends the entirely of the book praising the gods and ascribing everything to divinity in some way. I would say it is meant to criticize indoctrination or religion, but in every scene he's in Oliver reads as a parody of himself; yet the novel tries to take him seriously. It's absurd.

I could dissect more of the book's failings, but quite frankly I don't think it's worth it. It's a quick read and entirely inoffensive, but not worth seeking out.


Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

I'd never actually read Jules Verne before this book, and now that I have I understand why he's regarded so highly; he does his homework.

This is not an amazing book, especially by today's standards, but it is profoundly interesting to see how meticulous Verne is in constructing plausible explanations for his 'future' technology. If you have any sort of science background you'll quickly recognize a lot of what is explained in the book, but if you're here for an intense plot or character study a lot of the description may sound trite. Verne is focused much more on the science than the fiction, and though he does craft some lovely scenes, his politics and characters are fairly bland. Captain Nemo and the mystery surrounding him are somewhat compelling, but so little is revealed that the 'plot,' as it were, fails to make any sort of lasting impression.

And, of course, because this was written in the late 1800s, Verne can't help but have our crew run into a tribe of sympathetic 'savages' on their world tour. At least it's only the one scene.

Interesting as a historical artifact, but there's just better sci-fi these days.


Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy (2018) 

I won't actually say a lot about this. Buy it. If you are into short fiction at all, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy is a collection very much worth getting, and that goes for any year. I've been reading these since the collection started (in 2015, I believe), and every volume is excellent. A good way to discover new authors, like most compilations.

Although not from the 2018 volume, How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps is my favorite piece of short fiction overall, and I found it thanks to this book series. Worth checking out on its own.










Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson


This book is trash.

It gave me Ready Player One flashbacks, but it's written competently enough to really double-down on its awfulness. I was thinking of giving it it's own post and breaking down all the ways this book tries and fails to be cool, smart, or funny, but thankfully I don't have to because two-thirds of the way in it dives head-first into exploitative garbage:

There's a sex scene between a fifteen year old and a twenty or thirty-something. It's framed as exhilarating for the fifteen year old. She "comes as soon as he goes into her." There's no sense of irony anywhere. I was dumbfounded that the scene made it all the way to print.

Neal Stephenson is a Hugo Award-winning author.