science fiction

The Martian Contingency

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The Martian Contingency: A Lady Astronaut Novel by Mary Robinette Kowal

Elma York, 48, is the deputy administrator on Bradbury Base on Mars. The year is 1970, but this is an alternate timeline. In Kowal’s award-winning Lady Astronaut series, the race to space was accelerated after a meteor strike in 1952 triggered global warming as well as causing many, many deaths. Technology developed for space is also helping conditions on Earth. Racism and discrimination against women are evident here, but they are being dealt with much sooner than on our version of Earth. Elma and her husband Nathaniel, an engineer, are part of the 2nd expedition to Mars, and they will not be returning to Earth. Elma really enjoys math, piloting, and baking, especially when she’s anxious. Nathaniel is a workaholic and they are both Jewish. On the base the habitat observes Jewish, Islamic, Chinese, Hindu, and Christian holidays. The calendar is a focus here as days on Mars are 39 minutes longer and the year is twice as long as on Earth, and there is a time lag for communications. While technology is more advanced than our Earth was in 1970 (or in 2025), in others not so much, such as for healthcare. Secrets from the first expedition are gradually uncovered, and there are complications in preparing for the next expedition, which will include teens as well as adults. This is the fourth book, after The Relentless Moon. Calculating Stars is the first book, and they are all excellent, compelling reads. I am enjoying the combination of science fiction and alternate history, as well as the memorable characters. I read a digital review copy; the novel will be published March 18.

Brenda

Alliance Unbound

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Alliance Unbound: The Hinder Stars II

Published five years after Alliance Rising, science fiction novel Alliance Unbound is well worth the wait for Cherryh’s many fans. Increasingly hard to put down, this story about trade in interstellar space both delights and thrills. Three main characters narrate: Senior captain JR Neihart of the Large FTL family ship Finity’s End, young Jen Neihart, an up-and-coming member of Finity’s Security team, and her sweetheart, Navigator Ross Monahan of smaller family ship Galway. One of the real delights is an arboretum on the wealthy station Pell. Jen escorts the nine Monahans currently traveling on Finity’s End, and it’s great to see Pell and the arboretum through their eyes. Their visit to Pell also provides clues to a mystery, sending the ship to visit remote, closed-down space stations. Naturally, they find all the excitement a reader could want at one of the stations, with Ross and Jen having significant roles.

Ross can sense the binary stars at the stations they visit, as can Finity’s chief navigator. Alliances are forming among the merchanters and the space stations, but what Finity’s crew encounters could challenge the whole Alliance. A subplot is about waiting for news about Galway, testing out a possible FTL route to Sol, currently visited only by sublight cargo ships, while also dealing with armed intruders.

I love Cherryh’s Foreigner series, but this book is a close second. I will likely reread Alliance Rising while waiting for book 3. These books are an excellent entry point into the Hugo award-winning Alliance-Union universe.

Brenda

Moonbound

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Moonbound by Robin Sloan

This science fiction novel has wizards, dragons, talking beavers, and swords of destiny. It’s also set on Earth, but 11,000 years in the future. If you, like me, enjoy genre-bending tales, you may enjoy the wild ride with young Ariel de la Sauvage and an unseen Chronicler. Dragons (who may actually be robots) live on the Moon and have enclosed Earth in a sort of bubble. Part of the bubble is torn when Durga comes to Earth in stasis, aboard a small spacecraft.

As young Ariel journeys across a far future version of the British Isles along with robot Clovis, Durga, beaver Agassiz and others, he also visits a town dedicated to recycling and remaking and a virtual memory café. Ariel has a lot to learn and has numerous adventures. I enjoyed this very imaginative tale from the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough.

Brenda

Drunk On All Your Strange New Words

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Drunk On All Your Strange New Words by Eddie Robson

Lydia has a rare aptitude: she can hear the alien Logi speak, in her head, and translate for them. She recently graduated from a special college where she studied their language, which appears to the reader as English. The Logi can hear her internal speech as well, but they can’t read each other’s thoughts. This science fiction novel is set in the future, in Manhattan and in Halifax, near Manchester, England. The problem with translating for the Logi, or just talking soundlessly with them, is that it makes the human translator feel intoxicated after a while.

Lydia’s assignment is with Fitzwilliam, the Logi’s cultural attaché in New York City, and they attend operas, plays, concerts, and after parties. Once Lydia was so incapacitated after translating that she took a bad fall, but Fitz caught her. There is a crime in which Lydia is a suspect. With secret help from Fitz, Lydia investigates. Another Logi, Madison, demands so much additional help from Lydia that she has trouble focusing. Sea levels have risen since our time, and the tip of Manhattan is now surrounded by a tall sea wall. Back in Halifax, Lydia is seen as rather posh, especially by people who live in 3-D printed shacks that aren’t durable. Lydia’s mother plays and reviews virtual reality games, and helps Lydia with her investigations. Her brother Gil used to modify old cars and drive them on back roads with Lydia. Modern cars all use Smart Steer, but Lydia can override the software and takes a diplomatic car for a very wild ride in Manhattan.

The Logi are intriguing characters. Their world is warmer than our, and they all wear hats, mostly concealing head spikes. Often, they wear a face wrap, possibly like the atmoscarves worn on Jupiter in Malka Older’s The Mimicking of Known Successes. Lydia has smart glasses where she reads her news feeds. She has the truthiness level set high, at 80, but occasionally looks at popular Chime feeds with low truthiness levels to keep up with trending topics. This is a compelling read, thought-provoking and with a very convincing near future setting. Readalikes include New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson and The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis.

Brenda

The Downloaded

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The Downloaded by Robert J. Sawyer

I enjoyed downloading this short science fiction novel by the multiple award-winning Sawyer to my e-reader. Readalikes include The Last Policeman trilogy by Ben Winters and Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold. Characters include a robot who dislikes Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, which amused me.

Astronauts headed on a sublight journey to Proxima Centauri upload their consciousness to a quantum computer, where they enjoy what seems like four years of their preferred virtual reality simulations. Only Captain Letitia Garvey can visit their virtual silos, if needed.

Another group of characters are prisoners with 20-year prison terms who have agreed to an upload which will feel like 20 years but last only 10 months in the real world. Roscoe Koudoulian regrets his crime, and is eager to not miss his daughter’s whole childhood. His experience is much less pleasant, as he is in a virtual prison and must regularly revisit his crime scene, with only short videos of his daughter to keep him going during what feels like 24 years, not 20.

Both groups are downloaded at almost the same time to their cryopreserved bodies, where the astronauts learn that they’re still on earth, in Waterloo, Ontario. They also learn that way more than 20 years have elapsed, and the city is deserted, with only peaceful farmers living nearby. The groups elect a mayor, surprisingly not Captain Garvey, and explore their surroundings, trying to decide how they shall live. Also, how many of the former prisoners are dangerous? And who is interviewing the groups via holographic image? This thought-provoking novel was a quick, compelling read. It’s available as an Audible audiobook narrated by Brendan Fraser, and as a print book.

Brenda

Rose / House

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Rose / House by Arkady Martine, narrated by Raquel Beattie

I listened to this science fiction/horror/locked room mystery novella set more than 100 years in the future, in a California desert. Architect Basit Deniau left Rose House for his last creation. His remains are now in a large diamond displayed in the house, which has an AI caretaker designated Rose House. Narrator Raquel Beattie does an excellent job with the voices of several humans and the AI. A basement vault in the house has files of architectural and AI designs that are highly desired by other architects and corporations. Unfortunately for them, only Dr. Selene Gisil has access to Rose House. She is a former protégé of Deniau’s who later disagreed with him, but was named archivist after Deniau’s death. Dr. Gisil can stay in Rose House for one week each year. This year, she lasted three days before she called Detective Torres of China Lake Precinct to pick her up. Water theft is the precinct’s most common crime. Torres’ partner, Officer Maritza Smith, gets a call from Rose House stating that a body has been in the house for the past 24 hours. How can she get in? Only Dr. Gisil has access, and she’s out of the country.

Rose House AI is unsettling, even creepy, especially its laugh, and the house is built in a confusing spiral pattern. There are nanites, which can form images, but may also trigger asthma. There are Andorrans (Europeans, not aliens) and, of course, roses. Many roses. This novella, while different from Martine’s longer Teixcalaan science fiction novels, beginning with A Memory Called Empire, is a compelling and memorable read.

Brenda

The Floating Hotel

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The Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis

This is not a cozy science fiction novel, but feels like it in parts. The Grand Abeona Hotel has been a luxury resort hotel traveling between solar systems for many decades. Nina was the manager, now Carl is. Many staff started out as runaways, like Carl. As it’s become difficult to get good staff, they are welcomed. The hotel is starting to show some wear and has been traveling the same sub-orbital route for the past few years.

While I usually focus on characters first, then plot, in The Floating Hotel I wanted more description of the hotel, the views, the food and clothes. I understand the need for intrigue to move the plot along, but to use a TV analogy, I wanted more Love Boat and less Fantasy Island.

We meet the head housekeeper, accountant, the front desk manager, an engineer, and the organizer of an movie club. A linguist and a mathematician come aboard for an academic conference at the Hotel, and are paired to solve an impossible logic puzzle. There are always new guests. Everyone has a secret and a story. Perhaps the Lamplighter is on board with their revolutionary online dispatches; the unidentified spies are searching for them. Also on board are a blind pianist with a visor, a new server, a thief, and a terrible rich boss. The worlds visited are not entirely democratic, and there is some danger to the ship and crew. Lovely and melancholy, with some mystery and suspense.

Brenda

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles

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The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older

In this sequel novella to The Mimicking of Known Successes, Mossa, a detective on Jupiter, asks her girlfriend Pleiti to assist on an investigation of missing persons. Pleiti is a classics scholar at Valdegeld University and the search for two missing university students takes them to the moon Io. They later discover that several other people connected to the university are also missing, and their investigation leads them on a long train journey, with plenty of snacks, to the far side of Jupiter.

Meanwhile, Pleiti is still unsure of how much Mossa cares for her, and the effects of their previous case are about to reach Earth, which is currently uninhabitable. This is a heartwarming and cozy combination of science fiction, romance, and mystery, with a very intriguing setting. I’m looking forward to future Mossa and Pleiti adventures.

Brenda

The Mimicking of Known Successes

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The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

I am amazed by Malka Older’s remarkable world-building with memorable main characters in just 166 pages. Mossa is an Investigator, looking into a missing person report from a tiny frontier train stop. A pub owner nearby grows and cooks excellent green beans, but there seems to be no other reason for a stranger to visit. Did the man fall of the train platform, jump, or was he pushed, and why?

Tracing the unnamed man to the university city of Valdegeld, Mossa reconnects with Pleiti, her former college sweetheart. Pleiti is a Classics scholar, with her own small suite of rooms. When the missing person is identified as a fellow scholar Pleiti dislikes, she provides introductions to various scholars for Mossa, before the pair tour a zoo. At the zoo, Mossa is attacked by a caracal, a wild feline. As Pleiti continues to help Mossa with the case, they slowly reconnect. The exciting investigation, including some train journeys, culminates at a spaceport. Besides the spaceport, what makes this novella science fiction? It’s set on artificial rings around Jupiter, known as Giant, and the classics Pleiti studies are old Earth books. The goal of the Classics scholars is to recreate Earth’s ecosystem, with authentic plants and animals, on the currently desolate home planet.

Summarized by the publisher as a Gaslamp mystery, this book could be described as a late Victorian style community in an alien setting, with atmospheric storms and chilly winds which make tea shops, hot soup, and gas fireplaces very inviting. I’d love to see drawings of life on Giant, especially the atmoscarfs worn outdoors. A sequel, The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles, has just been published, and is high on my pile of books to read. Readalikes include The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal, and books by Becky Chambers.

Brenda

Defiance

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Defiance by C. J. Cherryh and Jane S. Fancher

This is Book 22 in the wonderful science fiction series Foreigner. Foreigner is the first book, in which Bren Cameron is a linguist and diplomat, the only human on the mainland of the Atevi homeworld. This is still mostly true, with rare exceptions. Over the past four years, I’ve reread the first 20 books, and savored the two most recent titles. They have danger, diplomacy, excitement, the very intriguing Atevi, and no one of Bren’s inner circle has come to serious harm, making for thrilling reads with little anxiety. In this book, Bren has been traveling with powerful, elderly Ilisidi by train, and they are headed for trouble on the south coast. And Ilisidi’s age may finally have caught up with her, making for some very anxious moments for Bren. A rest at Bren’s coastal estate, Najida, is much anticipated. But they aren’t traveling alone on the train, and it remains to be seen how far Bren can trust Lord Machigi or the proposed new Lord Nomari. Then Banichi and Jago, his security guards and very close companions are headed into danger. A very young ally sends help, via a single engine plane. While trains are common, and the world has buses, trucks, and even a space shuttle, planes are an uncommon and slightly risky mode of travel. Of course, Bren is soon aloft, and in some peril himself. This is an exciting novel, skillfully plotted, with characters that continue to develop, as they have throughout the series. More, please!

Brenda