Hi.

Fast Forward Review/General Thoughts

2007-03-02T01:17:59Z

I used to be subscribed to Asimov's, but found after a while that I just didn't enjoy many of the stories. So I was curious as to how I'd like a science fiction anthology. That said, I really enjoyed reading Fast Forward. I liked a majority of the stories, there were a few I didn't much care for. My favorite stories, because I can't choose just one:

Paolo Bacigalupi's "Small Offerings" - I loved "The Fluted Girl", and so was really looking forward to reading this. I'm not sure how to describe the story without giving away anything, but the basic premise is childbirth in the future. I found it very disturbing and thought-provoking.

Elizabeth Bear's "The Something-Dreaming Game" - Just, wow. The opening quickly caught my interest, and though at first the idea of a girl seeing a centipede-alien named Albert was out of place to me, but I by the end I felt that everything fit together. And I loved the very last few lines. They created a beautiful ending image.

Mike Resnick and Nancy Kress's "Solomon's Choice" - Sort of a story about an encounter between humans and the alien natives, except a whole lot better than that description sounds. I especially liked how the memories for the Hutaral's people worked. The change of name at the very end did strike me as a bit strange though; I had noticed a slight religious thread running through the story, but hadn't felt it was so important to the character to merit the last few sentences. Anyways, besides that, I really liked this.

John Meaney's "Sideways from Now" - Longest story of the anthology, and which made me happy when I started liking it after the first page. The main character has lost his wife, and is beginning to have strange dreams. I loved the dream world--it was pleasantly odd and detailed (my sort of a place), and the tech in the story was also interesting.

Paul Di Filippo's "Wikiworld" - A fun story with a great opening and follow through. Everything has become wiki-cized, with a new lingo and everything. After the narrator's girlfriend is hurt, he manages to rise to power and start a trade war with Venezuela to take revenge. Just a very enjoyable story and a great end to the anthology.

And so concludes my first review/general thoughts. I also just finished Justina Robson's "Keeping It Real", which I enjoyed, and found amusing (in a good way).

Firefly Love

2006-09-08T09:11:37Z

*insert crazy 2 in the morning laughter here*

So I'm watching Firefly. Just finished watching Our Mrs. Reynolds, and it irritated me/made me laugh so much that I'm writing an entry now about it. Erm. In sentences:

Saffron really pisses me off. At first it was funny but it very quickly became bleeping annoying.
The Mal and Inara scene at the very end was hilarious.
Vira! and Jayne talking to her about getting dressed up and getting to go to places.
Zoe = good because she didn't like Saffron.
Did I mention that Saffron really makes me mad?

*heart* Firefly. Back to watching now. Why oh why did they end it. Godly gods.

Review - Babel-17

2006-08-19T00:20:00Z

The book: Babel-17, by Samuel R. Delany

I started reading Babel-17 with high expectations (it won a Nebula, it's by Delany, it got massive squeeage from Rebecca with the Moxie) and wasn't disappointed. For this book, the three-dimensional characters, the many fun details*, and the linguistics were what made me really like this book. Minor spoilers below.

The basic plot is that the Invaders use Babel-17, a language. Rydra Wong, the main character, is asked to learn Babel-17 for the Alliance so they can stop the Invaders.

The characters were three-dimensional, appropriately sympathetic or unsympathetic, and interesting. The Baron and Baroness immediately grated on me, and I wasn't particularly sad when their dinner party was disrupted. (Because of Frank Herbert's Dune, I think I'll always view barons negatively and assume that they're overweight until told otherwise. With Babel-17 this view has been reinforced.)

Extremely minor characters were also portrayed so that they caught my interest. After about a paragraph each on the other two members of Rydra's former triplet, I wanted the story to at least partly focus on them. Happily, Delany has a novella, Empire Star, which (I think, I'm not completely sure) expands more upon that particular triplet, and if not about the triplet, then about the world that Babel-17 is set in. To be vague, the way the spaceships are flown is unusual and interesting. I wouldn't have minded more expanding of the story in this area.

The last part of the book was basically an explanation of what was going on. I didn't love it, but by that time I cared enough to read through it. And it did help my understanding of what had happened. So, it felt a bit awkward, but it wasn't horrible.

*For example, Rydra at one point remembers back to when someone threw a mirror at her--she watched her own face come screaming at her in that mirror. Yay, fun images.

Anyways. A note--I don't usually read space opera, usually because I don't like it. That said, off to add more Delany books to my ever-growing reading list.