If you haven’t guessed by their last names, then you should know that Emily Janice Card is indeed Orson Scott Card’s last name (and follows in the family footsteps of using all three names). This is (I believe) the first time that Card has co-written a book with a family member and it’s not completely clear how much each of the writers did. The book, Laddertop, appears to be a pastiche of Ender’s Game and manga with talented children being taken to an space station and alien technology being used. The book is just volume 1, so there isn’t a lot of story and more questions than answers. Let’s check it out.
Category Archives: science fiction
The Mirage by Matt Ruff
Matt Ruff has an interesting set of books. They really don’t hang together thematically and are pretty much all over the map in style. So I’m not truly surprised that he’s not a bigger name. I first found him when I ran across a copy of Sewer, Gas and Electric (my review), a book he noted came from him throwing out ridiculous names for trilogies. I was very excited when I heard he had a new book coming out, since he isn’t the most prolific writer. When I heard that his newest novel, The Mirage, would be about an alternate universe where the Christian United States destroys the Twin Towers in the United Arab States on 11/9/2001, I was a little worried. It looked like a difficult premise to pull off. And to Ruff’s credit, he almost manages to do it. So, let’s join this alternate universe and see what happened.
In Time Movie Review
I wasn’t that interested in the movie In Time when I saw the commercials and previews. Strangely enough, it took a lawsuit by Harlan Ellison to get me interested. Ellison claimed that it was based off his classic story Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman. But the lawsuit was dropped after Ellison saw the movie. After watching the movie over the weekend, my guess is that he didn’t want his name on this soulless disappointing movie regardless if it was ripping him off. So, let’s see what went wrong with the movie.
Is the Science Channel Better Than SyFy?
The Science Channel recently concluded the re-running of Stephen Hawking’s Sci Fi Masters and this week it will finish the its home grown Prophets of Science Fiction. This has made me realize that over the last year or so, I’ve watched Science Channel a lot more than I’ve watched Syfy. And this makes me curious as to why? Is Science Channel a better TV network for science fiction than SyFy right now?
Interesting Alternate Timeline Novel Idea
IO9 has an excerpt from David Kowalski’s The Company of the Dead and it sounds like an interesting alternate history novel. From the blurb:
The journey begins with a mysterious man aboard the Titanic on its doomed voyage. His mission? To save the ship. The result of his efforts is a world where the United States never entered World War I, thus launching the secret history of the 20th Century. Fast-forward to April 2012 and Joseph Kennedy, relation of John F. Kennedy, lives in an America occupied on the East Coast by Greater Germany and on the West Coast by Imperial Japan. He is one of six people who can restore history to its rightful order – even though it may mean his own death.
The book comes out next week (March 13, 2012 for those of you reading this in the future), but the IO9 article has an excerpt for you to read now.
The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung
A science fiction book set in China, written in China and banned in China was too big of an invitation, so I decided that I needed to read Chan Koonchung’s The Fat Years. It has a fairly basic premise and a love story that dovetail together. Until the truly atrocious ending, I considered it a lighter version of 1Q84. But, unfortunately the ending is so bad that it just destroy’s the book. So, let’s see what went wrong.
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge
All of Vernor Vinge’s novels have been set in space and in the far future. The ones I’ve read aren’t bad, but none of them grabbed me enough to want to revisit them. But when Vinge came out with a near future novel set on Earth, then I was interested. I tried reading Rainbows End when it came out, but things go in the way and I never managed to get back to it. I decided to try it out again and had mixed feelings about the book. Let’s see what’s up.
Empire State by Adam Christopher
Adam Christopher’s debut novel Empire State starts off as if it were going to be another steampunkish noir superhero novel. But that is all jettisoned after the first chapter and we find ourselves in an alternate reality where the rules (and people) are similar, but just different enough to catch our attention. The book quickly becomes a noirish detective novel which is not unlike the movie Dark City only with an alternate universe twist. I like the merging of genres that Christopher did, even if I wasn’t always thrilled with the result. Let’s see what happened to find out why.
Stephen Hawking’s Sci-Fi Masters
Browsing the channel guide, I happened upon a Science Channel show titled Stephen Hawking’s Sci-Fi Masters. I thought that this was a cool new series featuring introductions by Stephen Hawking and adaptations of classic short stories by science fiction masters such as Robert Sheckley, Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein and others. Imagine my surprise to discover that this series originally ran on ABC in 2007 with only 4 of the 6 episodes shown. A science fiction anthology on a major American broadcast network only 4 years ago and I never heard of it. I’m guessing that there wasn’t a lot of promotion for it.
Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card
I really should stop reading Orson Scott Cards continuing Ender Saga. After the first couple books, it seems more and more like he’s reading his notes and writing stories about what happened in the margins of other books. The latest, Shadows in Flight, shows what happens after the Shadows series of books ended with Bean and his three little legumes that had Anton’s Key (the gene change that makes them smart, but unable to stop growing) turned on. This felt more like a “Where Are They Now?” segment than a continuation of the story. So let’s see what happened.