- "The Terraformers" by Annalee Newitz, 2023, 381 pages, 118k words. Our story starts in the year 59,006. Humanity has many interstellar colonies. People are manufactured to order. The Great Bargain, which was forged out of the Farm Rebellions, lets lots of things be defined as people: uplifted animals, originally from farms, but now including mole rats, earthworms, any animal that has been bioengineered to support consciousness, various androids - including intelligent trains, a la Thomas the Tank Engine.
Of course, corporations are still in there being rapacious, and as ever trying to find ways to turn people into slaves. Who will win the inevitable struggle, between people and corporations?
I remembered from Newitz's last novel various kinds of creative sex. With bodies being designed to order, there are some interesting varieties of sexual organs. I started to say "weird sex", but then I remembered Doc Holiday's line to Wyatt Earp at the end of Tombstone: "There's no normal life, Wyatt. There's just life."
A good exploration, I think, on the meaning of personhood. The more the merrier in the Great Bargain - just as in our world now. Diversity is a source of strength & resilience.
- "The Boat of a Million Years" by Poul Anderson, 1989, 470 pages, 190k words. Well, somehow I was feeling nostalgic. This book came up for cheap in BookBub, I went for it - I always liked Anderson's stuff. I didn't notice: 1) how late in his career it was; 2) how long it was.
So, a Phoenician merchant in 300 BC discovers he seems to be immortal, unless agressively killed, dismembered, burned, etc. There a few other immortals scattered over the world. The book has lots of episodes scattered across time & geometry. Various attempts for them to find each other & create common cause have varied success. Most of the historical vignettes are pretty good. It gets cringey when it's in Anderson's time - the 80s - & his white, libertarian ideals come shining through, as his characters have to navigate through the hellholes that are American cities. Finally, humans go post-singularity, can go virtual, etc. The immortals never fit in, so the rest of humanity agrees to build them a starship to get rid of them. They go exporing for terraformable planets, find other life, have difficult decisions. The end.
Well, if I'd noticed the 1989 date, I would have tried something else. Yet another case where, annoying as the modern gender-fluid emphasis can be at times, it beats the hell out of old white man libertarianism.
- "The Book of Elsewhere" by Keanu Reeves, Chine Miéville, 2024, 352 pages, 109k words. Speaking of immortals, how about a 80,000 year warrior who, even when killed, forms an egg, maybe away from where he died, and regrows a new body. Nice work if you can get it, I guess. He doesn't want to die, but wants to be able to die - a distinction I think too subtle for me.
This is based on the BRZRKR comic that Keanu Reeves co-authored - I think I kickstartered it. The comics were OK. This novel I think has better developed characters than the comic (ya think?) - Miéville can usually be relied on for interesting characters. Kind of drug a little, it seemed longer than 352 pages. Overall, not a bad read. I wonder what will be next, movie or video game?
- "Days of Shattered Faith" by Adrian Tchaikovsky, 2024, 544 pages, 171k words. Book 3 of The Tyrant Philosophers series. Book 1 was blogged here, Book 2 was blogged here. I've liked the covers of this series, here's the latest:
Once again our oh so unlikeable rationalist empire is seeking to expand. Do they succeed or not? A different kingdom in their sites, different gods, different races who have entered through the dimensional gates scattered over the planet. Some very surprising reversals lead to a surprising ending. This 1 kind of drug in the middle, I thought it must be longer than the other 2, but, it is actually > 50 pages shorter! It was still a good read.
