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SF Book Project: August

Sept. 9, 2010

I missed July's shipment because I moved to a new house. However, here's what I sent for August:

The Coming by Joe Haldeman. I actually met Joe Haldeman once. At the time, he lived in Gainesville, FL part of the year and he spent an afternoon speaking with my science fiction class. He not only answered our questions about his novels (particularly The Forever War which was assigned reading), but also gave us a lot of advice about the business of science fiction. I bring this up because the main reason the book is included is because The Coming is a first-contact story set in a future Gainesville, FL. I can't get over the novelty of seeing a place I spent 4 years extrapolated upon. Literarily, the book is interesting in that the point-of-view of characters only changes when those characters share a scene. The big twist at the end is predictable but the overall uniqueness and novelty in presentation still makes this a good experience.

Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Another space recruit novel in the tradition of Starship Troopers. Like Ender's Game, Scalzi experiments with the formula by dramatically shifting the age of the combatants. Scalzi's battlefields are entirely populated by rejuvenated seniors. Rather than decline into old age, future seniors are given the option to receive a new young body in exchange for military service. Scalzi provides some keen insight into both old age and war as seen through the eyes of the experienced. For example, a young soldier's death on the battlefield is seen as both heroic in sacrifice but also tragic in the unfulfilled potential. When John Perry, the protagonist, sees his first combat death, he is more accepting. After all, the combatant had already lived a full life as a business executive. On the other hand, all those memories and experience were just wiped out. It is someone more tragic to see someone die in battle who already spent decades surviving.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Not satisfied with inventing only one SF sub-genre (cyberpunk), William Gibson teamed up with Bruce Sterling to, if not invent, certainly re-popularize steampunk, possibly the hottest cult sub-genre of the late 2000s. This novel, published in 1991, speculates on what a computer revolution would have looked like in 1855, when Charles Babbage first designed his analytical engine. Historical characters such as Ada Lovelace figure prominently. Reading the plot synopsis, it is hard to believe this novel was written in 1991 rather than 2003 or so considering how popular many of these settings and themes have become recently.

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon. Elizabeth Moon won the Nebula award for this novel about a high-functioning autistic named Lou. Lou and his friends work in a special division of a bioinformatics company designed to accommodate their special needs while also obtaining their much needed services. When the company develops a cure for autism, Lou's new boss tries to force it on him and his co-workers. Like Flowers for Algernon, The Speed of Dark portrays life through a person with an illness that makes the world seem very different from the way the rest of us experience it. Moon herself has an autistic son and she obviously puts the experience of raising him to good use here.

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik. I have a soft-spot for naval novels set during the Napoleonic Wars. This novel presents an alternate history of that period in a world where humans and dragons live side-by-side. Temeraire is a new dragon in His Majesty's Air Force - a military unit consisting of dragon-riding aviators.

Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint. This collection of short stories set in the fictional city of Newford, Canada. Newford has all the problems of any other declining urban area: unscrupulous developers, homelessness, and crime. But it is also a place where fantastic creatures live secretly alongside humans. Most inhabitants of Newford are totally oblivious to the magic right around them but people continually have eerie or frightening experiences with balloon-men, underground goblin cities, or werewolves.