3 More

The hits just keep on coming.

"Suicide Club" is the 1st novel of Rachel Heng, 2018, 352 pages. Set in a near future where the fitness nazis and fitbits have seized power, you can live for 200 years if you toe the line and eat nothing but nutritionally correct smoothies and shakes. No music, it gets the juices stirring too much. And immortality is on the horizon, for those who can afford it. This story revolves around 2 women with complicated relationships with a parent, who become involved with the revolution, aka Suicide Club. Well written, a good read.

Next up, "The Freeze-Frame Revolution", a novella by Peter Watts, 2018, 192 pages. An interesting idea, with a asteroid spaceship circling the galaxy seeding it with warp gates. The humans on board cryo-sleep most of the time, and the supposedly not-too-smart AI named Chimp does most of the heavy lifting. Not as good as some of Watts longer stuff, but this is a guy who gets the concepts of what AI would look like. I was impressed that the book had cover blurbs by, among others, Cory Doctorow, Richard Morgan, Vernor Vinge, Hannu Rajaniemi, and Greg Bear - definitely some of my favorites.

Finally, the 1st book of an Arabian Nights type collection of stories, "The Orphan's Tales: In The Night Garden", by Catheryanne Valente, 2006, 496 pages. 2 main stories are told, but there are tales within tales nested I think 4 deep. There is also some dovetailing between the plots and characters of the 2 stories. Confusing at times, but it still gets you turning the pages.

Writing the post prior to this, looking up the blog posts for Hannu's earlier novels, I was reminded of the 2nd book of The Quantum Thief trilogy, "The Fractal Prince". That also had an Arabian Nights format, but approached much more creatively, as blogged here.

At one point a story that includes one of its figures retelling the same story causes a person infected by the story to go into an infinite recursive loop, presenting to the outside world as catatonic.

Hmmm, I thought this was new but I probably got it as a $1.99 or some such special. The 2nd volume "The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice", it looks like came out in 2007. I have just purchased that, I guess is it for this series.