In a repressive, totalitarian future America, a group of dissident scientists and astronauts plot to steal the first interstellar colony ship, and turn its mission into one of escape and liberty. Idealism only gets you so far, though, when you’re setting up base on an alien planet light years from home.
I’d read most of the stories that make up Coyote when they were published in Asimov’s a few years ago. Reading them again, fixed up as a novel, they’re still very strong.
Sitting down with a new John Sandford Prey novel is always a great pleasure. In many ways they are standard cop thrillers, but the lead character, Lucas Davenport, is so charismatic and cool that hooking up with him for another ride feels like slipping on a pair of expensive shades on a sunny day. It helps that Sandford’s writing is consistently good, not too wordy, tightly plotted, with a touch of humour. Basically, it hits my sweet spot every time.
Davenport is now with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, a somewhat political post, in which he gets to “fix shit” for the Governor. A Russian from a very important family has been murdered. When the police don’t make much progress, and the Russian government starts pushing the matter, Davenport is asked to move things along. This involves liaising with a Russian policewoman, who (inevitably) turns out to be more than she seems at first.
What else can I say? I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was, as always, a little sad at eventually having to finish it. Fortunately, I somehow managed to skip my annual Sandford fix last year, and have his latest book, Broken Prey sitting invitingly unopened on my bedside table at this very moment.
I started reading this the day before the London bombings earlier this month. The first few chapters cover the activities of a terrorist for hire, the the reaction of the police, who have learned that he is planning a job on British soil. The sudden eruption of terrorist violence in real life, mixed with Brookmyre’s acerbically humorous writing, made reading the book quite uncomfortable for a while: I felt guilty about laughing.
The story revolves around two characters, Simon Darcourt and Raymond Ash. They were students and flatmates together at one point, but they fell out catastrophically and have gone very separate ways: Darcourt is now an infamous contract terrorist, and Ash has taken a job as an teacher, and is being driven psychotic by his colicky infant son. Ash thought Darcourt had died in a plane crash several years ago, but when he sees him walking through an airport one day, their lives become entwined once more.
In the end, the book is more about how the history Ash and Darcourt shared, how they came to be the people they are, and how life rarely turns out the way you expected it, than it is about the terrorist plot and how it unravels. It’s tense, funny, and full of sympathetic insight into the mind of a new teacher and a sleep-deprived parent.
Set in the same universe as the Ian Cormac books, but set several hundred years earlier, and taking place on just one planet. The protagonists battle against the wildlife of the planet Spatterjay as much as against the bad guys who are out to get them. Also notable for the sarcastic drone Sniper–an excellent character. If you like Iain M. Banks, you’ll like this.
(This quick review is part of my September 2005 “clearing the decks” exercise.)
Far-future thriller in which Earth Central Security agent Ian Cormac has to track down a ruthless terrorist in command of a psychopathic android, and pit his wits against a cryptic alien entity known as Dragon to find out the real cause of the destruction of an interplanetary transport facility.
The future universe Asher outlines is nicely detailed, full of wonder, and dangerous around the edges. The adventure story is tense and well plotted, building up to an explosive climax. The last few pages move very fast and feel a bit muddled (I had to re-read them to catch what really happened), but on the strength of the rest of the book I bought the other two in Asher’s Polity series, and I’ve not been disappointed in the slightest.
Jack Parlabane novel–hijinks in the highlands, with a corporate outing that turns into a siege. Brookmyre leaves out a lot of the poilitical and social satire of the earlier Parlabane books, leaving this as “just” a good comedy-thriller.
(This quick review is part of my September 2005 “clearing the decks” exercise.)
Last (?) of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy. (I’m not sure how he would take things forward after this ending.) Good, but not the best of them.
(This quick review is part of my September 2005 “clearing the decks” exercise.)
(This quick review is part of my September 2005 “clearing the decks” exercise.)
(This quick review is part of my September 2005 “clearing the decks” exercise.)
Old Man’s War is a refreshingly old-skool space opera, with echoes of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Haldeman’s The Forever War. In a hostile universe, humans are forced to fight for every inch of territory. Their soldiers: geriatrics who are promised a new life in the military. It follows a fairly standard recruitment-training-fighting-reflection story arc, but that doesn’t detract from the sheer energy and fun bursting off the pages. It may not have the same emotional depth as The Forever War, but it plays with some cool ideas, raises some interesting questions, and has restored my faith in science fiction as a genre to read for entertaininment.