Ship of the Line

I don't read them often anymore (sadly there was a time when I read everyone that came out) but I've not read a bad Star Trek novel.  If you like the shows it's a given you'll enjoy the books.  This one features Captain Frasier Crane, and First Officer Niles, at least that how it came across.  On the whole a fun and totally forgettable book.

Dragon Season

Pretty standard fare.  Some neat ideas, and a fun premise.  No real tension, or love for the characters.  But, hey for a quarter this was pretty good.

Addendum, summer 2004

Gee, could I have said less about this book?

The Goldenwing Cycle
Glory (©1993)
Glory's War (©1995)
Glory's People (©1996)

I bought this book based soley on the cover art by Darrell Sweet. Glory is a Goldenwing, a huge ship that sails the universe. Humanity has reached out to the stars, and Glory visits a planet that was populated by South Africans intent on maintaining apartheid. Of course the society never flourished. Civil war has decimated whatever advances were once enjoyed.

Glory arrives to deliver a shipment ordered many years ago. The story that follows is entertaining, and although Coppel rides the edge of being preachy he never really goes overboard. The characters are pretty solid, and the pacing is pretty standard stuff. This is space opera, and Coppel weaves an engaging tale.

I plunged into the second book right after finishing Glory. This one was almost as good as the last one. To my pleasure as Coppel continues the series, he writes them so that the books could stand alone as well. This time Glory finds itself in the middle of a war between colonies.

The two factions use Glory as the middle ground for peace talks. Of course both sides want to take Glory for their own purposes. The story is engaging, and Coppel could easily be writing a thriller, the space setting is added to make it feel like SF. There is some weirdness in the space entity "Terror" thing which is just stupid, and is a distraction from the story (although I get the feeling that Coppel is building to something that just won't go away).

On the whole though this was a very good book, with an awkward ending with no resolution. Oh well, it was still very good. Although I'm not sure how long it'll stay with me.

Glory's People is the third and apparently last of the Goldenwing books. This time we get to go to a world populated by people who have modeled their society after 16th century feudal Japan. Glory arrives and early on Duncan is targeted for assassination by a ninja. The book picks up on the "Terror" aspect introduced last time around, and really goes to town. The cats get to play a major role in this story.

The crew of Glory are bent on tracking and destroying the "Terror" and the cats want to help. As a story it was fun to read, and nicely paced, but this was a book I had to work to enjoy. The cats got to be a pain, and the hokey way in which the "Terror" was handled just did not work for me. At all. The climax with the battle at the end of the universe was stupid. Still, in all a good book (I'll bet that caught you off guard), and overall the concept of the Goldenwing is wonderful. I could have stopped after the first book, but like a lot of readers I tend to read all of the books in a series. Case in point And Eternity by Piers Anthony.

Reviewed February 17, 2001 and February 25, 2001

Sylvia (©2007)

Bryce Courtenay is a really good storyteller. Among my favourite books are The Power of One and Tandia. Sylvia is a story of the ill fated Children's Crusade. Sylvia has the voice of an angel, more brains than smarts, and a birth mark shaped like a fish.

This is one of those tales that needs to be read for what it is: a story. There's a lot going on, and rather than poke and look for flaws, I read the story expecting to be entertained, and on that front I enjoyed myself. I did enjoy the aspects relating to faith and wanting to believe, and if you look hard enough, you'll find something. With the Children's Crusade as a back drop it served as an interesting look - although it was heavy handed - at the negative aspects of religious hysteria. There are fun moments as well involving secondary characters who are supposed to be unclean and ungodly who end up showing more compassion and grace than the so called religious leaders.

While Sylvia is not the best book I've read, it was a good solid read, and on that front I liked it just fine, thank you very much.

Reviewed March 18, 2008

Airframe (©1996)

It's been a couple of years since I've read anything by Mister Crichton. This one was sitting on my shelf just waiting its turn, which finally came the other day. This was one of my flu specials. Stuck in bed with no where to go, I decided it was time to be a man and take the perilous journey into the unknown.

The story reads like a house on fire, or if I'm to keep to the theme, like a plane in a dive. The story in a nutshell: Norton makes planes. They want to sell a bunch of planes. One of their planes has a little oops where people die and luggage gets manhandled, putting the sale at risk. To make things worse there's an unsavory television expose being put together that could really make things messy for Norton.

Before you can say little black box, there's a whole lot of stuff going on. There's mystery, intrigue, and more mystery. Not a perfect book, and there's a lot of fuss about nothing at times, but boy howdy I couldn't put it down.

There were some fun details particularly regarding the debunking of the black box myths. In fact the whole behind the scenes aspects to the design and safety of the aircraft was very cool.

If you hate flying, this might not help, but it's a pretty cool story, and one that provided a few hours of relief.

Reviewed March 3, 2006

Timeline (©1999)

For the most part I like Michael Crichton's books. Sure it's a bit of a trick at times trying to suspend my disbelief, but he's a storyteller (okay he was a storyteller, let's not split hairs) and if he took some liberties with science and stuff what's the harm?

This isn't an especially deep book character wise, but it was well paced, and it was a typical Crichton page turner. It's been a couple of months since I read this, and I'm trying to write this from memory, and danged if I can remember any of names of the characters. The basic plot goes something like this: A company figures out how to use travel through time - how they do this is mumbojumbo, but it's science fiction and they figure it out. Of course there are little problems with the process. Sometimes you don't come back the same way you went, things don't copy well, and sometimes the returning subjects go a little nutty. That's if they come back at all, there have been things that haven't come back ... Along the way a bunch of students and their erstwhile professor find themselves in 14th Century France, but they get stuck and need to find a way back, but dang it if one of the people who went "missing" earlier is there having a darned good time, and doesn't want the guests from the future screwing things up.

So there's a bunch of killing and stuff, and our ragtag group of students find themselves fighting for their lives. Meanwhile back in the present trying to get them home again is bit of a problem since the nifty machines that go "ping" went "pong" and blew up causing no end of consternation among the remaining scientist types. Not to mention the billionaire business guy is pissed about the whole thing.

Anyway, not to put in any spoilers, things eventually work out ... mostly and that's about that.

Not a bad story. Mostly forgettable cottoncandy for the brain, but it was good fun while it lasted.

Reviewed February 17, 2009

Little, BIG

Ever read one of those books that you finish and say to yourself, "What the heck was that all about" and then think about the thing for days and days afterward?  I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but this book looks like a kids fairy tale, however what lurks within the dust jacket is a very grown-up, well written, and ambitious novel.  There is a lot going on here, and if you don't keep up you get as lost as most of the characters seem to be in this book.  A satisfying read, and one that will stay with me for a long time.

Beasts (©1976)

This was an interesting book. Not the easiest thing I've read in a while, and the premise of gene manipulation to produce hybrids of lions and foxes that are sentient took some suspending of disbelief, but the overall story is actually quite engaging.

Truth be told I'm just not smart enough to really understand or "get" a lot of this new fangled stuff.

I read to be entertained, and I don't mind meaty subjects - I just like a straight forward tale.

Crowley weaves a hell of a tale, and mixes it up with an alternate future that despite being pretty bloody farfetched, is pretty engaging. The pacing felt a little sluggish at times, and felt longer than the couple of hundred pages it ran.

Still, not to dismiss the book, it was good - and if you're looking for a different kind of story, you could do worse.

Reviewed September 12, 2004