Review of The Martian, by Andy Weir

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

martian_largeThe Martian

by Andy Weir
performed by R. C. Bray

Brilliance Audio, 2014. 11 hours on 9 discs.
2015 Alex Award Winner
Starred Review

This audiobook was too good. Every time I stopped my car, I didn’t want to turn off the CD player and get out. Finally, when it was down to the last half-hour, I brought the final CD into my house to finish listening – even though I was already coming home late after playing games after work. The entire book was tough to shut off at any time, but a half-hour from the end, it was impossible.

This book is set in the near future, on NASA’s third mission to Mars. A freak accident has happened, and Mark Watney was left behind, since all his crewmates thought he was dead.

The book is about his struggle to survive. Using what he has (their mission was cut short), he works to figure out how to survive long enough to last four years until the next scheduled mission to Mars.

And that’s not easy. He doesn’t have enough food. He doesn’t have enough water. He has no way to contact earth. He is miles away from the planned landing of the next Mars mission.

Mark is a botanist and an engineer – and his ingenuity and resourcefulness are incredible. Everything he does to survive – to make plants grow in Mars, to make water out of rocket fuel, for example – at least sounds like plausible science. And enough things go wrong to be completely believable. Just when you think he’s finally got it made, something new almost kills him, and new plans must be made. The description of the mission to Mars and the equipment sent is told in such a way, I caught myself thinking it’s already been done.

A friend complained that the book doesn’t really explore the psychological aspects of being thousands of miles from any other human. You do have to enjoy hearing about someone messing around with science and solving one life-or-death problem after another. I was so absorbed in this, I’m disappointed when the book is done to realize none of it is real. (And I’m used to reading – this doesn’t happen to me often.)

The tension is gripping, and the science is fascinating, and you grow to really like this guy who doesn’t give up even when abandoned on Mars.

If NASA ever does send humans to Mars, I think they should read this book first. Just in case.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Jedi Academy: Return of the Padawan, by Jeffrey Brown

Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

return_of_the_padawan_largeStar Wars Jedi Academy

Return of the Padawan

by Jeffrey Brown

Scholastic, 2014. 176 pages.

This is the second book in the Star Wars Jedi Academy series. Roan is back, ready and confident for his second year at Jedi Academy.

At last he’ll get to take Jedi pilot training! And he already has friends!

But the pilot instructor doesn’t seem to like Roan after the flight simulator almost blows up on his first flight. And things go wrong with his friends. The girl he likes hardly talks to him.

Basically, he’s got all sorts of regular middle school problems — only they’re happening at Jedi Academy.

And Roan’s a budding cartoonist, so the text never gets long and involved and is always broken up with comics.

I haven’t seen the first volume of this series on the shelf much since it was published (always checked out), and I am sure the same will be true for this one. And at the back, Roan gives tips for making your own comics.

jeffreybrowncomics.blogspot.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Space Case, by Stuart Gibbs

Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

space_case_largeSpace Case

by Stuart Gibbs

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014. 337 pages.

Dashiell Gibson is the first twelve-year-old to live on the moon. And he is quick to inform the reader that accommodations do not live up to the hype they were told when his parents were being recruited for Moon Base Alpha.

However, the moon is an ideal setting for a locked-room mystery. Dash overhears Dr. Holtz talking to someone excitedly in the middle of the night. He’s going to make a big announcement. The next morning, Dr. Holtz turns up dead. The official version is that he committed suicide. But Dash can’t believe it. Why would he commit suicide when he was so excited about whatever he was going to tell the world?

I liked the beginning and set-up of this book. The time is the not-too-distant future, and having dealt with the government myself, I found it easy to believe Dash’s description of how things function on Moon Base Alpha.

Living in Moon Base Alpha is like living in a giant tin can built by government contractors. It’s as comfortable as an oil refinery. You can’t go outside, the food is horrible, it’s always cold – and the toilets might as well be medieval torture devices.

I also liked the interpersonal dynamics of a small group of people living in a limited amount of space. The Space Tourists, who paid a fortune to travel to the moon, are the unhappiest about how things have turned out. The other kid who’s Dash’s age is obsessed with video games and will do anything to play them – even when they’ve been ordered to stay off the internet so no news will leak out of Dr. Holtz’s death. Another ship arrives soon after and a girl Dash’s age arrives – as well as a security officer who is interested in Dash’s theories about the death.

I was less enthusiastic about the book by the time I’d finished – mainly from quibbles about how things turned out. But along the way, we had an exciting life-threatening encounter on the surface of the moon.

Kids will find plenty to love about this mystery on the moon.

stuartgibbs.com
KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

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Source: This review is based on a book sent to me by the publisher.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra, by Jason Fry

Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

jupiter_pirates_largeThe Jupiter Pirates

Hunt for the Hydra

by Jason Fry

Harper, 2014. 241 pages.

Set in the far distant future, this new series, The Jupiter Pirates tells about Tycho Hashoone, a kid who lives on a spaceship. In fact, he’s from a family with a heritage of being space pirates for generations.

Now, however, they are not pirates, but privateers.

As Tycho’s mother, Diocletia, never failed to point out, privateers weren’t the same as pirates. Pirates ignored the law, preying on any spacecraft that had the misfortune to stray into their gunsights. They stole cargoes and mistreated the ships’ crews they imprisoned – if they didn’t sell them into slavery or kill them.

Privateers conducted themselves differently. They obeyed the laws of space, kept careful records about the cargoes they seized, treated prisoners well, and released them as soon as possible. And they used force only when necessary. Those rules were part of the Hashoones’ letter of marque, the document that authorized them to attack enemy ships on behalf of their home government, the Jovian Union, composed of the nearly two dozen inhabited moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.

The book begins with Tycho in command of the family’s ship, during the night watch. His mother, the captain, allows him to stay in command while they intercept a freighter from Earth, an enemy ship. However, the ship claims diplomatic immunity because of a diplomat on board. But there’s something fishy about that claim.

The family must go to court on the neutral dwarf planet Ceres. This leads into suspicious things to investigate, more space travel, encounters with actual pirates, and battles in space.

This book is fun, if not weighty. Tycho has a twin sister, Yana, and together with their older brother Carlo, the three are in a competition to see who will get to inherit the captaincy of their ship some day.

When Carlo or Yana was in command of the Comet, Tycho of course wanted them to succeed: every prize taken was more money for their family and helped the Jovian Union in its struggle against Earth. But he didn’t want them to do too well and hurt his own chances at the captain’s chair. Ideally, something would go wrong – something that wasn’t bad enough to endanger the ship and their lives, but bad enough that their mother would notice and remember. But that was a dangerous game. In space, things that went wrong had a way of proving fatal.

Their grandfather, Huff, is on board, so injured in the past that almost half of his body parts are artificial. He’s still a bloodthirsty pirate at heart, and he seemed a bit stereotypical. Maybe he was intended as comic relief? I got a little annoyed by the “Arrrr”s he threw into conversations.

But all in all, this is a fun story about legal and humane privateering with a mystery and space battles and a kid who gets to command a spaceship.

jupiterpirates.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Loudoun County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Redshirts, by John Scalzi

Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

redshirts_largeRedshirts

by John Scalzi

Tom Doherty Associates Books (Tor), New York, 2012. 317 pages.

I got this book at ALA Annual Conference a couple years ago, and finally got to read it when on vacation. (That’s when I finally get my non-library books read.) The premise is delightful: You know how, in Star Trek, if a low-ranking officer in a red shirt goes on an Away Mission, he’s sure to die before the commercial break? What if the Redshirts on a ship noticed this trend and tried to fight it?

Mind you, the details of how this works are pretty sketchy. Something about parallel universes, and they end up knowing they’re fictional characters. But the physics in the fictional show being mocked are terribly sketchy, too, so it’s definitely fair, in a mixed-up sort of way.

I’m usually not crazy about meta-fiction. But this book reminds me of the movie Galaxy Quest — a vehicle for poking fun at some science fiction tropes, while telling a good story as well. And the author does add a human element to his story and adds some lovely codas to the main story.

tor-forge.com

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Source: This review is based on my own copy, gotten at ALA Annual Conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Empire Striketh Back, by Ian Doescher

Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

empire_striketh_back_largeWilliam Shakespeare’s

The Empire Striketh Back

by Ian Doescher

Quirk Books, Philadelphia, 2014. 172 pages.
Starred Review

‘Tis here! The sequel to Verily, a New Hope. Here we have the second volume, Part the Fifth, in the Star Wars saga, as Shakespeare himself would surely have written it.

This one includes Yoda, who already sounded Shakespearean, now speaking in haiku.

Nay, nay! Try thou not.
But do thou or do thou not,
For there is no “try.”

And we’ve got Han and Leia’s love story:

HAN:
A cloth of fiction thou dost weave, yet I
Have found the fatal error in thy stitch:
For I believe thou wouldst not let a man
So beautiful as I depart from thee.

LEIA:
The only stitch I know is in my side,
From laughing at thy pride most heartily.
Thou mayst attempt to needle at my heart,
But I am sewn of stronger thread than this.
To say I would not let thee go – pish, pish!
I know not whence thy great delusions come,
Thou laser brain.

I especially like the Ugnaughts on Lando’s planet of Bespin. The Dramatis Personae list calls them “merry dwarves of Bespin,” and they go about their work singing:

Enter UGNAUGHTS 1, 2, and 3, singing.
UGN. 3 The time is ripe!
UGN. 1 His time is nigh!
UGN. 2 And soon he will be frozen!
UGN. 1 We’ve never done –
UGN. 2 This on a man –
UGN. 3 But someone’s now been chosen!
UGN. 2 A merry prank!
UGN. 3 O shall it work?
UGN. 1 Or will the man be dying?
UGN. 3 What’er befall –
UGN. 1 One thing is sure –
UGN. 2 The pleasure’s in the trying!
[Exeunt Ugnaughts.

That Ian Doescher has put a lot of thought into making these authentic is expressed in his Afterword. He explains his choice of haiku for Yoda, as well as other choices like having Boba Fett speak in prose rather than iambic pentameter.

These books are far too much fun. I’d be willing to bet that no one’s ever read one of the volumes all the way through without bursting out and reading sections aloud.

IanDoescher.com
Quirkbooks.com/empirestrikethback/

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer L. Holm

Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

14th_goldfish_largeThe Fourteenth Goldfish

by Jennifer L. Holm

Random House, New York, 2014. 195 pages.

The Fourteenth Goldfish gets its name because of the goldfish Ellie was given in preschool:

I took my goldfish home and named it Goldie like every other kid in the world who thought they were being original. But it turned out that Goldie was kind of original.

Because Goldie didn’t die.

Even after all my classmates’ fish had gone to the great fishbowl in the sky, Goldie was still alive. Still alive when I started kindergarten. Still alive in first grade. Still alive in second grade and third and fourth. Then finally, last year in fifth grade, I went into the kitchen one morning and saw my fish floating upside down in the bowl.

My mom groaned when I told her.

“He didn’t last very long,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “He lasted seven years!”

She gave me a smile and said, “Ellie, that wasn’t the original Goldie. The first fish only lasted two weeks. When he died, I bought another one and put him in the bowl. There’ve been a lot of fish over the years.”

“What number was this one?”

“Unlucky thirteen,” she said with a wry look.

“They were all unlucky,” I pointed out.

We gave Goldie Thirteen a toilet-bowl funeral, and I asked my mom if we could get a dog.

After this seemingly unrelated beginning, in the next chapter we learn that Ellie’s mother is going to be late coming home because of something to do with getting her grandfather from the police. When she does come home, she’s got a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy with her. He looks awfully familiar, and is very critical of her mom.

Something about this whole exchange tickles at my memory. It’s like watching a movie I’ve already seen. I study the boy – the gray-tipped hair, the way he’s standing so comfortably in our hall, how his right hand opens and closes as if used to grasping something by habit. But it’s the heavy gold ring hanging loosely on his middle finger that draws my eye. It’s a school ring, like the kind you get in college, and it looks old and worn and has a red gem in the center.

“I’ve seen that ring before,” I say, and then I remember whose hand I saw it on.

I look at the boy.

“Grandpa?” I blurt out.

Yes, Ellie’s grandpa Melvin is a scientist, and he’s discovered a “cure for aging.” He discovered a new kind of jellyfish that can actually revert its body to the polyp stage, it’s younger self. He made a compound with the specimen and tested it successfully on mice, reverting them to adolescents. Then, naturally, he tried it on himself, and the result is an apparently thirteen-year-old “cousin” living with them.

Melvin has a mission – to break into his lab and recover the jellyfish specimen. The security people there don’t believe he’s the same person as is shown on his badge.

But living with his adult daughter and eleven-year-old granddaughter has some challenges. Ellie’s mom insists that he has to go to school, since he doesn’t want to get the police coming after them. As Ellie gets to know him, she finds the science he talks about more and more fascinating. And she’s happy to try to help him break into the lab.

This book is a lot of fun, and presents a refreshing perspective on aging, science, and the generation gap. Without giving any specifics, I’ll say that I didn’t buy the ending, so that made it fall short of greatness for me. But I did like the way she interwove themes throughout the book, and I liked the look at how an old man would act if he suddenly became a teenager again.

randomhouse.com/kids

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Verily, a New Hope, by Ian Doescher

Humorous, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

verily_a_new_hope_largeWilliam Shakespeare’s Star Wars

Verily, a New Hope

By Ian Doescher

Quirk Books, Philadelphia, 2013. 174 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Cybils Finalist

I’m going to list this on the Teens page – but this is truly a book that spans all ages. I brought it to a party of adults playing Eurogames, and they were all delighted and spontaneously read bits aloud. One of them was a homeschooler, and we agreed that it would be perfect for a group of middle school students getting ready to tackle Shakespeare.

What is it? The complete story of the first Star Wars movie, told in iambic pentameter, as Shakespeare would surely have written it, had he ever heard of space ships. This isn’t a straight translation. The author also used Shakespearean devices such as a Chorus to describe action and multiple uses of soliloquies to tell what the characters are thinking and planning.

This book truly begs to be read aloud or, better yet, performed. And, since everyone knows the story of Star Wars so well, any Shakespearean language the reader doesn’t understand will be readily made clear.

Here’s the scene where Luke has just met Obi Wan Kenobi:

CHORUS Now holdeth Luke the weapon in his hand,
And with a switch the flame explodes in blue.
The noble light Luke’s rev’rence doth command:
That instant was a Jedi born anew.

OBI-WAN [aside:] Now doth the Force begin to work in him.
[To Luke:] For many generations Jedi were
The guarantors of justice, peace, and good
Within the Old Republic. Ere the dark
Times came and ere the Empire ‘gan to reign.

LUKE How hath my father died?

OBI-WAN [aside:] –O question apt!
The story whole I’ll not reveal to him,
Yet may he one day understand my drift:
That from a certain point of view it may
Be said my answer is the honest truth.
[To Luke:] A Jedi nam’d Darth Vader – aye, a lad
Whom I had taught until he evil turn’d –
Did help the Empire hunt and then destroy
The Jedi. [Aside:] Now, the hardest words of all
I’ll utter here unto this innocent,
With hope that one day he shall comprehend.
[To Luke:] He hath thy Father murder’d and betray’d,
And now are Jedi nearly all extinct.
Young Vader was seduc’d and taken by
The dark side of the Force.

Ian Doescher includes a note at the end of the book as to why Shakespeare and Star Wars make a natural pairing. I’m happy to report that the trilogy continues in The Empire Striketh Back.

quirkbooks.com/shakespearestarwars
IanDoescher.com
starwars.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Adventures of Superhero Girl, by Faith Erin Hicks

Adventure, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction, Teen Fiction Review 0

superhero_girl_largeThe Adventures of Superhero Girl

by Faith Erin Hicks
colors by Cris Peter
introduction by Kurt Busiek

Dark Horse Books, 2013. 106 pages.
2014 Eisner Award Winner

I didn’t expect to enjoy this graphic novel as thoroughly as I did. It’s made up of strips from a webcomic about a girl who’s a superhero. She can lift heavy objects and leap over tall buildings, but she can’t fly.

In her ordinary life? She’s pretty ordinary. She’s a young adult in a small town that doesn’t have much crime. She’s got a roommate, and she has trouble paying the rent, because she really needs a day job. She has no tragic catalyst in her life that made her a superhero, and she’s always been in the shadow of her superhero brother, Kevin, who is everybody’s favorite and can fly and has corporate sponsorship and looks like a proper superhero.

Superhero girl has some issues. She forgets to take off her mask sometimes when she’s trying to be an ordinary citizen. She goes to a party with her roommate, trying to set her work aside, and gets caught in the thrall of a supervillain who has the power to make everyone think he’s awesome. Then there’s the skeptic, who’s convinced she can’t be a superhero without a tragic back story or a fancier costume. And don’t get started on the time she washes her cape in the Laundromat and it shrinks.

I like what Kurt Busiek says in the Introduction:

Superhero Girl is about life. It’s about being a younger sister, about being a broke roommate, about needing a job, being underappreciated, getting sick, feeling out of place at parties, being annoyed by people carping when you’re doing your best – all wrapped up in the package of being a young superhero in a small-market city where you’re pursuing your dreams but don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

That’s not parody. There may be elements of parody on the surface, but really, that’s rich, human storytelling. It’s telling the truth through humor, and using the trappings of the superhero genre to universalize it, to turn it into something symbolic, so we can all identify with it, maybe more than we could if SG was a paralegal or a barista or a surgical intern. The superhero stuff is the context, the package, and the humanity and emotion and the humor found in it are the content. The story.

This is a story about a young adult starting out in life, pursuing her dream, and struggling to do so. It’s reading that will make you smile.

superherogirladventures.blogspot.com
darkhorse.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Cress, by Marissa Meyer

Fairy Tale Variant, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Cress

The Lunar Chronicles, Book Three

by Marissa Meyer

Feiwel and Friends, New York, 2014. 552 pages.
Starred Review

Cress continues the Lunar Chronicles, begun in Cinder, and continued in Scarlet. All of the books play off a fairy tale, in a science fiction setting, but the story they tell is something wholly new. All of the books do feature a romance for our heroine, and each of those romances is totally different from the others.

I completely loved Cinder, but wasn’t as enthusiastic about Scarlet. I didn’t really buy the creation of wolf-human hybrids, or if they exist that Scarlet would fall in love with one. Cress gets back to the rest of the story, so I again loved this volume.

In case you don’t get the reference, Cress is a version of “Rapunzel,” since that’s essentially what the German word means. Never mind that in this case, “Cress” is short for “Crescent Moon.” Instead of a tower, Cress is imprisoned in a satellite. She’s good at hacking, so she tracks all the Earthen news feeds for the Lunar Queen, and enables them to hide the Lunar ships.

Cress has been ordered to track down Cinder and Thorne, who now have Scarlet and Wolf along with them. But instead of giving them up to the Lunars, she contacts them and convinces them to rescue her. But then the witch — actually, the mind-controlling thaumaturge — returns unexpectedly, and the rescue doesn’t go as planned, separating the team into different groups.

Cress and Thorne are thrown together, trying to survive in the desert. Meanwhile, Cinder needs to make plans. Above all, she needs to stop the wedding of Queen Levana to Emperor Kai.

Marissa Meyer is skilled at keeping us interested in several different plot threads at the same time. She keeps the sections short, but they’re equally packed with action, so we’re never annoyed with her for what she left behind.

Cress is quite different from our earlier two heroines. She’s naïve and given to daydreams, which makes sense for a girl imprisoned in a satellite. Yes, she has long hair. The thaumaturge didn’t allow sharp objects on the satellite. She’s short, and she’s a shell with no mind-control powers, so you might think she wouldn’t help their mission. But her detailed knowledge of Lunar cyberwarfare is exactly what they need.

This book works as a book in a quartet should — it’s got a wonderfully satisfying story on its own, with a beginning, middle, and end. But there’s definitely a bigger story still going on, and Queen Levana still threatens Earth at the end of this book. The next book, Winter, is promised “soon,” and I can hardly wait!

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!