Tag: aliens

Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir

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Oh thank God. I can’t imagine explaining “sleep” to someone who had never heard of it. Hey, I’m going to fall unconscious and hallucinate for a while. By the way, I spend a third of my time doing this. And if I can’t do it for a while, I go insane and eventually die. No need for concern.

The book follows the story of the sole survivor of a human crew in their interstellar voyage to find a cure for the microbes that infect the sun and threaten the future of humanity. The narrative is a mix of hard science fiction with comedy.

What a book! For hard science fictions fans this is an almost perfect combination of hard astronomy and physics lessons, a very credible plot, humour, aliens and survival in space. I could not leave the book from my hands.

The story starts with an unexpected dimming of the sun that quickly is determined to be by an infection with some mysterious microbes that simply take energy from the sun and then travel to the highest carbon dioxide-heavy planet (it’s not Earth) to reproduce, return to the sun and restart the cycle. On the other hand, the microbes store immense energy, which changes all interstellar travel paradigm. The dimming of the sun will have rather quickly catastrophic effects on Earth, in only a few decades. All stars around our solar system dim, except one.

A crew is quickly assembled to find if this star has any solutions to Earth’s problems, but only our protagonist survives. And the quest begins.

What is most engaging in this book is that there is no secret recipe, no luck involved, just hard work and using existing tools offered by science and environment. Problems come one after another, but through determination and team work, they are gradually resolved.

A superb book by the author of “The Martian”! I really enjoyed it.

Odyssey One: Into the Black (Odyssey One, book 1) – Evan Currie

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A soldier’s first duty, his reason for being, is not to fight. Fighting is the final recourse for any civilized people. His duty is not even to preserve the peace; that is a police officer’s job,” Comdr. Stephen Michaels of the NAC military said by rote, remembering the many long nights of arguments and discussions that had brought this to his mind. “A soldier’s first duty is simply to stand between his nation and any who might wish it harm.

The book follows the voyage of the first interstellar human ship, more of a warship than an explorer. The first star visited outside our solar system triggers a chain reaction driving the ship to new and exciting adventures, discovering new aliens and technologies.

The book is a heavy military scifi, looking at war and fighting from three perspectives: spaceship to spaceship; fighter plane to fighter plane, in space; and futuristic soldiers on new planets. The military theme is heavy throughout the book, the author giving significant thought to what war will look like in several centuries.

From this perspective, the book is a masterpiece, looking deeply of how conflict evolves and the role of the soldier. The world is nicely build around this, creating a believable space saga. From a military perspective, the book is a hard scifi, with an interesting plot and engaging storyline.

On the other hand, the book suffers on the level of personages, which are a bit cliches. They are not truly memorable. We have the wise, heroic and balanced captain; the wacky scientist; the professional and respectful crew; the daring pilots and the merciless aliens. The vocabulary as well could be improved, saying more with less words. The plot has some gaps, it seems unusual for an explorer to go for certain danger without leaving a note from the discoveries. While the author tries to reason the decision taken, it still seems off.

The author, Evan Currie, is a prodigious writer of military scifi and tries hard to create believable and engaging stories with his series of books, the current book (Into The Black) being the first of the series called Odyssey One, which is the name of the exploring ship.

Overall, the book was a relaxing Sunday afternoon reading, which doesn’t pose significant existential questions or substantial moral dilemmas. Nevertheless, for the fans of the genre, it is a an exciting, believable story, with an interesting plot.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers Book 1) – Becky Chambers

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The truth is, Rosemary, that you are capable of anything. Good or bad. You always have been, and you always will be. Given the right push, you, too, could do horrible things. That darkness exists within all of us. You think every soldier who picked up a cutter gun was a bad person? No. She was just doing what the soldier next to her was doing, who was doing what the soldier next to her was doing, and so on and so on. And I bet most of them — not all, but most — who made it through the war spent a long time after trying to understand what they’d done. Wondering how they ever could have done it in the first place. Wondering when killing became so comfortable.

This is the story of a motley crew, specialized in building “tunnels”, the highways of space and their adventures and individual stories. It is feel good science fiction, where bad events happen and there are bad people, but generally things are going well, there is relative stability and a place for everyone, good or bad.

The world building and character creation are the hallmarks of this novel. The world created makes sense and has enormous depth, the author cleverly staying away from introducing more complex concepts that could trigger deep changes in the society. The characters are each followed and given backstories, motivations and clear roles.

The crew is composed of nine entities: captain Ashby Santoso, a human who is keeping others in check; Dr Chef – an alien, both cook and medic, with little ambition other than to please others; Kizzy Shao – human female, the ship’s mechanic and an explosion of energy and words; Jenks – human dwarf, the software expert, literally in love with the ship’s AI; Sissix – an alien part of a species promiscuous by design, ship’s pilot; Artis Corbin – human male, responsible for life systems support and aloof guy; Lovelace – ship’s advanced and sentient AI; Ohan – alien, ship’s navigator, able to calculate faster than AI by plot armour; and Rosemary Harper – human female, and main protagonist, a runner because of her father shameful acts.

Social diversity is the theme of the book: a world less sexist, transphobic and xenophobic. It is so nice that the book feels almost like a young adult novel, with malice in few quantities; a very sugar sweet world.

Despite the relative lack of action and more often than not romantic character building, the book is quite engaging and creates memorable, unique protagonists. It is one of those books that you either love or drop midway. The sequel of the book, A Closed and Common Orbit, was even highly regarded, finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Interestingly, the book is a kind of reflection of its real life origins, being initially self-published via a Kickstarter campaign, where about 50 people sponsored the author to continue writing.

Shards of Earth – Adrian Tchaikovsky (The Final Architecture, book 1)

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What’s the point of making better people, if they’re still sad and afraid and lonely?

The book follows the story of a space pilot, capable of unique feats, and a soldier, driven by duty and skill, in a futuristic galaxy, where strange aliens seem bound to destroy the universe. In a grandiose space opera, the pilot and the soldier take part in wars and in a motley crew, carried around by the threat of the Architects, the destroyer of planets.

The book is the first part of a trilogy The Final Architecture, but can stand alone and does not finish with a major cliffhanger. Tchaikovsky is increasingly appreciated as one of the best upcoming scifi authors, already winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award and Hugo Award.

Shards of Earth is entertaining, credible and memorable. The reader becomes interested in the fate of protagonists, how the world events are affecting them and how are they responding. The plot is well constructed and there are almost no points where the reader is baffled by the luck or invulnerability of the personages. On the contrary, the heroes of the story do not escape their adventures unscathed. The supporting personages are unique and memorable, with their own motivations and different, interesting backgrounds.

But what impresses most is the world building, creating aliens and separate human species, planets, ships, language, clothes, food – all deeply thought how would they look in the future, and how would they interact. The socioeconomic developments that drive colonization are well-understood. The decision of planets to side with one faction or the other make sense.

Additionally, the dialogue and descriptions are masterfully written, with memorable quotes and presentations. The descriptions manage to create and explain the new space world, without going in too much length – a sign of a great writer.

While the aliens and the worlds created are not uncommon in the scifi literature, the way their interact, the attention to strong motivations, the vocabulary, the editing and, overall, the excellent writing makes the book really engaging and hard to let down before finishing.

Dreadnaught (The Lost Fleet, Book 7) – Jack Campbell

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If you don’t exercise a talent, you get rusty,

The odyssey of Captain Jack Geary and his start fleet continues beyond human-controlled space, into the alien enigmas territory. The captain finds itself again in new and tense situations, but dangers are much higher than during the war with the human Syndics.

Already the 7th volume in the series, the story keeps its appeal and, finally, Jack Campbell responds to some of the criticism and does not repeat the various descriptions of the universe it creates. The book is more ingrained in the space opera, rather than a stand alone book, which was always one of the aims of the author in the previous stories.

This time the war with the Syndics is over and enemy is a mysterious alien civilization. While the plot is simple, it develops well and has enough depth and logic to be plausible. This is indeed one of the strengths of the book – taking wild developments in the far future and then apply logic response to them. There is no silver bullet or magic that saves the day.

Beyond human-controlled space, into the unknown.

The jabs to politicians continue, but it is not a nod to fascism, as, while not explicit, democracy is still seen the best of all forms of socio-economical organisation. The political game makes sense and helps drive the plot forward.

The drawbacks remain the same: a somewhat limited vocabulary, too much focus on dialogue that does not really add more depth to characters, too little description of the universe it creates.

Nevertheless, it is astonishing how the series keeps its appeal, even at the seven volume. Jack Campbell is truly a masterful and ingenious storyteller.

Victorious (The Lost Fleet, Book 6) – Jack Campbell

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We should have suspected that nonhumans were involved right from the start when the activation process didn’t involve a lot of arcane commands that had to be done in just the right order, and the destination was displayed as a name rather than using some counterintuitive code. No human software engineer would produce a device that easy to use.

The book is the last in the Lost Fleet series, completing the story arc. The odyssey of Captain Jack Black is finishing. Or does it? Jack Campbell brings the story to an end, but leaves place for another adventure.

Compared with the other books of the series, it is rather the worst. The plot is still good, but a bit predictable. The romantic twist is an interesting idea, but it does not add much to the main story. And the romantic ending is a cliche.

However, the story is still captivating and good enough to make the reader follow the story until its end. The final fights are well thought and engaging. The dialogue was never a strong point of the book, but managed to stay at decent levels. Some new characters are memorable, although seem sometimes as caricatures of some human traits and cultures.

I enjoyed the book, although the series does not finish with a high. A nice read for a rainy evening, with a glass of tea nearby.

Absolution gap (Revelation Space Book 3)- Alastair Reynolds

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“When two or more of their lighthuggers met, they would compare and update their respective nomenclature tables. If the first ship had assigned names to a group of worlds and their associated geographical features, and the second ship had no current entries for those bodies, it was usual for the second ship to amend its database with the new names. They might be flagged as provisional, unless a third ship confirmed that they were still unallocated.”

A meandering, long and unexpected finish for the Revelation Space series. The characters from the last chapter are still followed by the Inhibitors, the civilization hunters and destroyers, but a mysterious, disappearing planet could give key answers.

Towering at almost 700 pages, this hard scifi book still comes with intriguing and though-provoking ideas, such as moving cathedrals, Gothic spaceships, religious viruses and many more. However, the changes seem more of style than substance, at least compared with the previous books.

It was an entertaining book and, despite its length and a falling flat ending, the writing, editing, vocabulary remained great.

The fight against the Inhibitors begins.

Revelation Space (Revelation Space Book 1)- Alastair Reynolds

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I don’t know.” That was typical Sajaki; like all the genuinely clever people Sylveste had met he knew better than to feign understanding where none existed.

Revelation Space is a hard scifi novel, the first in the “Revelation Space” trilogy, where humans explore stars, alien civilizations and mysterious planets. An archeologist, an assassin and a ship lieutenant interlinked stories make the protagonists of a superb dystopian adventure, with realistic world building.

Imagining humanity in the 26th century is a difficult endeavor, but Alastair Reynolds does a fantastic job in creating an universe that is imaginative, bold, mind-blowing, but still respects the basic rules of science. It does help that Reynolds is a real scientist, who tries hard to create a believable, realistic universe.

The stories of the three protagonists start separately and the reader sometimes feels lost, but gradually the stories converge and create an entertaining and imaginative adventure.

The theme of why we are alone in the universe is explored, despite proofs of ancient civilizations being found. The novel presents itself as a space opera, but the technology does not burden the reader. The adventure focuses on human actions, not on incredible technology feats.

Humanity in 26th century is not an utopia, but, similar with today, it is has good and bad, factions, love, war, diseases, family, priests. The way those concepts are brought forward in 600 years is thought provoking and credible.

One of the biggest strengths of the book is the extensive vocabulary. It was one of those situations when I was happy reading it from an e-book, as I had to search for meaning of words.

While the writing suffers sometimes, the vocabulary, the universe creation, the characters, the story, the premises are all compelling arguments for a great trilogy. An amazing book to read.

Death’s End – Liu Cixin (Translator Ken Liu)

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Some call them doomsday ships. These lightspeed ships have no destination at all. They turn their curvature engines to maximum and accelerate like crazy, infinitely approaching the speed of light. Their goal is to leap across time using relativity until they reach the heat death of the universe. By their calculations, ten years within their frame of reference would equal fifty billion years in ours. As a matter of fact, you don’t even need to plan for it. If some malfunction occurs after a ship has accelerated to lightspeed, preventing the ship from decelerating, then you’d also reach the end of the universe within your lifetime.

By many accounts, this is one of the best science fiction books ever written. The volume is the third in the Three-Body Problem trilogy and the best of all three. The story follows the development of humanity after the encounter with the aliens and finding the precarious balance. Many eras pass by, each one bringing amazing concepts and developments, surprising the reader. The protagonist is this time Cheng Xin, an aerospace engineer, who is not a driver, but an anchor for the narrative. She is placed in the middle of all important decisions, from Swordhandler to speedlight ships development. However, her decisions are only a consequence of being chosen as such by humanity.

Trisolarians become at the end allies in an ending universe, gargantuan, dark and soulless. The Dark Forest remains a grim fact of the universe for the author, following the same rule less world perception developed by Thomas Hobbes: Homo homini lupus, but on a cosmos scale.

The boundless imagination of presenting new eras, technologies and aliens is mindblowing. The author manages to give the right length of description with unprecedented precision: enough to give the essence of an era, summarizing the relevant developments.

The logical tightness of the tale is astonishing, managing to captivate the imagination of the reader and make him wonder of what could it be beyond the stars. The concepts brought forward: dark forest, deterrence, civilization development, dimensions of a universe, galactic distances, human choices in face of critical situations, human society evolution having different stimuli, alien courses of action, make the book and the trilogy on par with the best of scifi writers.

These volumes of hard scifi are stunningly well-research as well, replying to practical, physics questions that arise in the wave of civilization and technology development with plausible, well-thought solutions.

No doubt, this is one of the best hard scifi books written so far, bringing enthusiasm for humanity to look at starts and see what lies beyond our planet. This is despite the fact that, ultimately, the story is one of fatalism, where humans, societies and civilizations, are at the mercy of cosmic events.

[Feature image: Yayoi Kusama – Infinity Room]

The Dark Forest – Liu Cixin, (Translator Joel Martinsen)

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The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds other life—another hunter, an angel or a demon, a delicate infant or a tottering old man, a fairy or a demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them. In this forest, hell is other people. An eternal threat that any life that exposes its own existence will be swiftly wiped out. This is the picture of cosmic civilization. It’s the explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

This is the second book of the “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy by Liu Cixin. The book continues the story in the Three-Body Problem and explores the decisions humanity makes finding that an alien civilization heads for Earth, bent on destruction, in 400 years.

The story is followed through the eyes of Luo Ji, a lackadaisical astronomer and sociologist, who is named one of the four Wallfacers, the humanity project to hide its intentions from the Tri-solarian aliens. The anchor of the book remains Luo Ji’s quiet protector, the detective and policeman Shi Qiang.

Years and generations pass and humanity oscillates from the height of optimism and arrogant self-confidence to the depths of despair, when its fleet is easily taken out by a single alien droplet.

The questions addressed and the hard science put into the plot makes the novel a fascinating read. Weaker than the first book, this volume gives less space to the aliens and more to the personal story of Luo Ji.

The book is not a hero’s story, struggling for humanity, but of an unambitious fellow put, sometimes inexplicably, in positions of decision with grave effects for humankind. The book has no real protagonist, as Luo Ji is not sufficiently explored to understand all his decisions.

The alien motivations and the world building are beautifully exposed and are logically impeccable, while humanity’s response is lackluster, even disappointing. Few raise to the task, including our main personage.

The volume is of excellent writing quality and the story is well followed and expanded from the first book. A less exhilarating experience than The Three-Body problem, but, nonetheless, a great book to read.