Barsk, Citrus, Expendable Review
Jan. 21st, 2016 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaHey,
Well, new year, new books. Let's get to it:
First up Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard by Lawrence Schoen. This is a sci-fi tale set in a universe where uplifted mammals are the only sentients. The Fants (elephant-people) live an arboreal life in the jungle islands on the world of Barsk. They want to be left alone and the rest of animal-kind is happy to leave them there. The catch is that the Fant are master apothecaries who make a wide range of pharmaceuticals. One of these, the drug Koph, grants certain people the ability to speak with the dead -- people they know personally or have deeply researched. That monopoly has the other animals concerned.
Jorl, a Fant historian and Speaker to the dead realizes that some recently deceased Fants aren't answering his call. This seems to jibe with an ominous prophecy set down by the First Speaker many centuries ago. Meanwhile, his godson Pizlo is starting to hear a lot of important things from the moons over Barsk. Meanwhile, meanwhile, a telepathic otter girl is forcibly impressed into the military to see if she can pry a few secrets from the Fants about Koph.
It's a fun book. Although the mechanics behind speaking with the dead are a bit sketchy, they are internally consistent and the book never paints itself into a corner. The action is fairly low-key but the animal conceit is fun to play with. Overall, a fun book and worth checking out.
Next up is Gold, Fame, Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins. This is one of the other books I was looking at for ad hoc book club. I think it would've been a bit more palatable than Discreet Hero but it's got it's own issues.
So it's the near future and Luz and Ray are living in the remains of a starlet's home in Hollywood. Drought has devastated the American Southwest and most people have been evacuated out of the area. The ones who stay are known as Mojavs. Ray is a former soldier who found salvation in surfing. Luz was once the poster child for conservation efforts in California, then a model with 12 minutes of fame and now she rolls aimlessly around the abandoned mansion.
They had no plans and then Ig showed up. Ig is a toddler in a bad spot and Luz and Ray take her and decide to make their way east. They load up a station wagon and head out in to the dune sea that envelops the Southwest. Among the dunes they run into a weird little band of survivors.
This book was really good for the first third, got a bit weird but interesting in the middle third and then just completely fell apart at the end. The problem is that both Ray and Luz are broken people and Luz in particular just keeps circling her drain for the entire book (and she's the main focus character). On reflection, there's a good reason for this and it's bound up in some of the larger themes and messages of the book, but I kinda want characters to grow and change and it doesn't seem to happen for Luz (and maybe only a bit for Ray).
Still, that's my bias showing. The writing is really good and the description of various locales is handled really well. It's worth taking a peek at, but just be aware there's no active protagonist here.
Finally, I "read" (mostly via audiobook) Expendable by James Allen Gardner. Another sci-fi series where humanity is a member of the League of Peoples. So now humanity has a shiny fleet to go around exploring planets. The redshirts who actually do the exploring are Explorers and you get that job by being fairly smart, resourceful, and having an unpleasant or inconvenient (but not life-threatening) genetic condition. Basically, it's not so bad when an ugly person dies so it's best they do the dangerous work.
Festina Ramos is an Explorer and she's good at her job. Then she and her partner are tasked with escorting a senior and senile Admiral down to Melaquin -- a dumping ground for Admiralty embarrassments that no team has ever returned from. So they go down, things are Not What They Seem and there's adventure.
I wasn't entirely sold on this one. The basic premise (we send ugly people on hazardous missions) seems a bit too pat. I get it's kind of a satire, but that didn't seem to carry through on the rest of the book. Festina is under a lot of stress when she's dirtside, but I feel like psychological fortitude would be something you'd want for an explorer and she's often hopelessly mired in the past. Near the end of the book people make a lot of decisions that are only just rational. The recording itself was really good and the reader did a great job with the voices, but I'm not tempted to pick up any other books in the series any time soon.
later
Tom
Well, new year, new books. Let's get to it:
First up Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard by Lawrence Schoen. This is a sci-fi tale set in a universe where uplifted mammals are the only sentients. The Fants (elephant-people) live an arboreal life in the jungle islands on the world of Barsk. They want to be left alone and the rest of animal-kind is happy to leave them there. The catch is that the Fant are master apothecaries who make a wide range of pharmaceuticals. One of these, the drug Koph, grants certain people the ability to speak with the dead -- people they know personally or have deeply researched. That monopoly has the other animals concerned.
Jorl, a Fant historian and Speaker to the dead realizes that some recently deceased Fants aren't answering his call. This seems to jibe with an ominous prophecy set down by the First Speaker many centuries ago. Meanwhile, his godson Pizlo is starting to hear a lot of important things from the moons over Barsk. Meanwhile, meanwhile, a telepathic otter girl is forcibly impressed into the military to see if she can pry a few secrets from the Fants about Koph.
It's a fun book. Although the mechanics behind speaking with the dead are a bit sketchy, they are internally consistent and the book never paints itself into a corner. The action is fairly low-key but the animal conceit is fun to play with. Overall, a fun book and worth checking out.
Next up is Gold, Fame, Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins. This is one of the other books I was looking at for ad hoc book club. I think it would've been a bit more palatable than Discreet Hero but it's got it's own issues.
So it's the near future and Luz and Ray are living in the remains of a starlet's home in Hollywood. Drought has devastated the American Southwest and most people have been evacuated out of the area. The ones who stay are known as Mojavs. Ray is a former soldier who found salvation in surfing. Luz was once the poster child for conservation efforts in California, then a model with 12 minutes of fame and now she rolls aimlessly around the abandoned mansion.
They had no plans and then Ig showed up. Ig is a toddler in a bad spot and Luz and Ray take her and decide to make their way east. They load up a station wagon and head out in to the dune sea that envelops the Southwest. Among the dunes they run into a weird little band of survivors.
This book was really good for the first third, got a bit weird but interesting in the middle third and then just completely fell apart at the end. The problem is that both Ray and Luz are broken people and Luz in particular just keeps circling her drain for the entire book (and she's the main focus character). On reflection, there's a good reason for this and it's bound up in some of the larger themes and messages of the book, but I kinda want characters to grow and change and it doesn't seem to happen for Luz (and maybe only a bit for Ray).
Still, that's my bias showing. The writing is really good and the description of various locales is handled really well. It's worth taking a peek at, but just be aware there's no active protagonist here.
Finally, I "read" (mostly via audiobook) Expendable by James Allen Gardner. Another sci-fi series where humanity is a member of the League of Peoples. So now humanity has a shiny fleet to go around exploring planets. The redshirts who actually do the exploring are Explorers and you get that job by being fairly smart, resourceful, and having an unpleasant or inconvenient (but not life-threatening) genetic condition. Basically, it's not so bad when an ugly person dies so it's best they do the dangerous work.
Festina Ramos is an Explorer and she's good at her job. Then she and her partner are tasked with escorting a senior and senile Admiral down to Melaquin -- a dumping ground for Admiralty embarrassments that no team has ever returned from. So they go down, things are Not What They Seem and there's adventure.
I wasn't entirely sold on this one. The basic premise (we send ugly people on hazardous missions) seems a bit too pat. I get it's kind of a satire, but that didn't seem to carry through on the rest of the book. Festina is under a lot of stress when she's dirtside, but I feel like psychological fortitude would be something you'd want for an explorer and she's often hopelessly mired in the past. Near the end of the book people make a lot of decisions that are only just rational. The recording itself was really good and the reader did a great job with the voices, but I'm not tempted to pick up any other books in the series any time soon.
later
Tom
