Moxyland

Moxyland by Lauren Beukes is a cyberpunk novel set in a dystopian, not-too-distant future Cape Town, South Africa.  Big corporations run everything, and society is essentially controlled through technology:  for example, law enforcement can easily use a citizen's cell phone to tase them, and being disconnected is one of the worst things that can happen to a person.  Corporate-run orphanages are used to train and recruit employees, and the penalty for attempting to defect to a rival company can be high.

Beukes's book follows the intertwined stories of four young people:  Kendra, an art school drop-out who's been accepted to participate in a potentially sketchy marketing program; Toby, a drug-addicted vlogger who engages in all kinds of illicit activity in Cape Town's underground scene; Tendeka, an activist trying to foster revolution against the corporate tech-driven society; and Lerato, product of a corporate orphanage and now a high-ranking employee for Communique.

When I read Neuromancer, I thought that cyberpunk was just way too technical for me.  I didn't major in computer science, I'm not a programmer, and you're going to completely lose me with all that sort of jargon.  But then I read Snow Crash, and I felt like I "got it." Moxyland is written more along that sort of vein:  there's an element of grit and seediness amidst all the shiny future tech, and that is the sort of cyberpunk that I can get on board with.  

Ticker

In Ticker, by Lisa Mantchev, we follow Penelope Farthing (who rides a motorized velocipede, lol), her twin brother, and their friends on a romp of suspense and intrigue as they try to track down the Farthings' kidnapped parents and the now-madman who was once the family's trusted friend and physician.  

Penny was born with the same defect of the heart which claimed the lives of both her sisters; after a traumatic accident, Warwick surgically removed Penny's biological heart and implanted what was only meant to be a prototype of its eventual clockwork replacement.  However, when the truth comes out about how Warwick developed and tested the clockwork "Ticker" on people he abducted off the street, the family is shocked, and Penny becomes unkindly known as the first of the "augmented" - an abomination in the eyes of some.  But Warwick's trial is underway; maybe once he has been convicted, the family can begin to move on and try to find some peace.

The day of the verdict goes anything but smooth, however - there's an explosion at the Farthing family's factory, where Penny was on her way to meet her brother.  On top of this, their parents have been abducted, and the ransom demands not money, but the family's Augmentation research.  With what seems a little twist at every turn, will Penny and her friends be able to find her parents before any harm comes to them?  Will she even be able to solve this before her worn-out prototype Ticker finally gives out?

Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, as I am sure at least most of you know, is the final installment of the widely popular Hunger Games trilogy.  It picks up a little bit after the final events in Catching Fire, so we've got a little catching up to do with Katniss as to what the heck is going on.  Probably you already had a clue, though, because it's not entirely difficult to figure at least most of that business out.  She's managed to survive the arena again, but the reality of what is going on in the districts and in the Capitol is overwhelming at best.  The pattern continues that every decision she makes, thought-out or not, seems to result in torture or loss of life, but the rebels want her to become the public face and voice of the revolution.  Do the potential benefits of this outweigh the certain consequences it will have on the prisoners of the Capitol?  Or will she just end up doing more damage than actual good?  Will the districts succeed in overthrowing the Capitol, or will things just end up worse for everyone than before?

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I was originally reading something else for my non-school book, but I got kind of bored with that, what with its Wall Street-central plot, so when Mockingjay finally came in the mail, I decided to go ahead and read this one instead (although I did re-read the first two in the trilogy before starting on it...you know you would have done the same).  Anyway, I got through this book very quickly, as I did the others.  Collins has a true talent for writing a hell of a page-turner, and I think it is to her credit that she manages to write a story that appeals so deeply to so many people, without having any sex in the plot.  I mean, okay, there is some pretty obvious sexual tension, but I'm talking about some sexytimes action scenes.  I'm pretty grateful for that, actually, because I'm sure that would have made Katniss about a million times more confused about her conflicted feelings for Gale and Peeta, and I had enough vicarious anxiety to deal with, without all that nonsense.

As for regular ol' action, though, there is plenty of that to go around, especially toward the end.  This kind of book is difficult to write a review of partly for that reason - I would hate to be less vague and inadvertently include spoilers, but trust me when I say that shit is going down all over the place here.  Having read the book finally, I'm more excited to see how they'll present it all in the film adaptation - it is sure to be pretty visually dynamic.  

I am also NOT looking forward to the film adaptation, though, because I spent the entire last third of the book yelling OHMYGOD and weeping like a small, emotionally disturbed child.  I finished the book late last night (early this morning?) and I am still not entirely sure how I feel about how it all ended.  I appreciate that Collins provided a more realistic end to things, since it is not what I'd call the Happiest Ever After, but it's still satisfying on some level, albeit a smidge unsettling in a way.  See?  Still not 100% how I feel about it all, except to say that it was a hell of a way to wrap things up.  

Mockingjay ended up being my least favorite of the trilogy, but that in no way means I didn't like it.  I still think they're all phenomenal, and a great contribution to the dystopian sub-genre.  Just, you know, if you're a total sap like me, maybe read it with a box of tissues handy or something, and not in the middle of the night if you live with someone who is a light sleeper, since you might wake them up with all the crying-out in shock and disbelief.

ISBN:

9781407109374

ASIN:
B003XF1XOQ

Publisher:
Scholastic Press

Series Info:  What came before this book?  What's next?

The Hunger Games

- The Hunger Games (Book 1)

- Catching Fire (Book 2)

* Mockingjay (Book 3)

Film Adaptations:
Mockingjay:  Part 1
Mockingjay: Part 2

See what others are saying about it, or buy it now:

Amazon
Better World Books

Filtered Future and Other Dark Tales

"Filtered Future" and Other Dark Tales of Science Fiction and Horror is a collection of nine short stories, a poem, an article, and an interview by Brett Weiss, whose other published works are mainly non-fiction.  As the title of the book states, the stories range in genre from science fiction to horror, with some  elements of dark fantasy thrown into the mix as well.  Each piece is preceded by a brief introduction by the author, a sort of back-story which provides a little insight into things such as where his mind was when he wrote or conceived of the story, or the story's publication history prior to this anthology.  You won't miss any necessary information by skipping the introductions, but they're interesting to note.

Now, before I go any further, I just want to confess that I had never heard of Bentley Little before reading the table of contents, so I did not read the interview.  Having had no idea who the man was and having not read any of his work, I didn't feel I would really get much out of it, but if you're a fan of his work, I have no doubt that it would interest you.  The article on Stephen King, however, I did read, and it was very interesting.  I haven't read much of any of King's works either (I know, I know...shameful), but I have a couple on my shelves and have every intention of collecting more to read at some point.  I've seen film adaptations of some of his novels, and I admit I feel like they will be books I won't be able to read before bed, since I will likely only be able to sleep after if I take an ambien or a large dose of Nyquil.  But I digress.  On to the short stories.

The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, is a classic science fiction tale of Martian invasion.  The story is narrated by a philosopher who lives a quiet life in the English country with his wife.  When visiting an astronomer friend at his observatory one night, they witness what would seem to be shooting stars, but for the fact that they appeared to have been fired directly from Mars.  It is not too long before a large metallic cylinder comes crashing into the earth near their homes.  The news gets out of course, but no one is alarmed at first, since it takes a rather long time for the martians to emerge from their cylinder, and once they are out, they don't appear to be capable of leaving the crater their vessel made.  Their sluggishness and apparent immobility is attributed to their not being able to adjust to the additional gravitational force on this planet, and everyone feels quite safe because of it.

Up until the martians finish constructing their deadly heat ray, that is, and begin burning to death everything within its range.

This unfortunate turn of events is...well...unfortunate.  But they still can't get out of the crater, right?  So as long as you're not in range of this heat ray, you're safe.

Except then it turns out the martians have also brought along things to put together humongous death machines to roam about the countryside in, burning up stuff with their heat rays and snatching up people to feed upon, and causing a widespread general panic.  The military of course was called in, but this is the late 19th century, so their weapons are obviously no match against the superior technology of the martians.  Humankind is pretty screwed, yeah?

Maybe, maybe not.  

Glory Alley and the Star Riders

Glory Alley and the Star Riders, by C. Deanna Verhoff, is a young adult sci-fi/fantasy about fourteen-year-old Glory Alley, amateur spelunker and geologist.  She lives on Tullah, a planet very much like Earth.  Glory's life isn't what you'd call "ideal" - it's anything but.  Her mother died after giving birth to her youngest brother, and things have been going rapidly downhill since then.  Her father is a drunk, and alternates between being Mean Dad or Nice Dad, but with their family's financial situation being what it now is, coupled with her father's abusive behavior when drunk, the authorities have been a presence looming over the family.  Despite his drunken meanness, and the fact that the Alley family is pretty much the town joke, Glory would do or give anything to keep them all together.  

Little does she know that one solo trip into the caverns at Queen's Mesa will put into motion a chain of events that will change her and her world forever.  

Everyone has heard the stories about the Elboni, but to the people of Tullah, the stories are just myth.  Glory isn't sure what to believe anymore when she barely escapes from the Mesa with her life after picking up a beautiful stone, unlike anything she's seen before either in books or with her own eyes.  Could all the stories be true?  Everyone except her grandfather thinks she's gone crazy.  When three strange-looking men come looking for something, though, she realizes that the stories may indeed be true, the stone she found is much more than what it seems, and there is much more to the universe than the science of her world has been capable of uncovering so far.

Snow Crash

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson is set in the near future, where everything is a private corporation, including the mafia, the jails, and the church.  Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza, but he is also one of the best hackers around, and the best swordsman in the world.  While "goggled in" to the Metaverse, one of Hiro's friends, a fellow hacker, falls victim to a new computer virus:  Snow Crash.  This particular virus affects only hackers, and in the wrong hands, will have devastating results.  Connected to the virus is a new religious cult, rising rapidly in popularity.  Hiro's ex-girlfriend, a neurolinguist, is investigating the cult, and finds it is associated with Sumerian myth and the Tower of Babel.  Hiro gets involved in the mission to put a stop to the cult's leaders, picking up along the way a cocky young Kourier, Y.T., as sort of a sidekick, and coming face to face with Raven, a psycho out for revenge.

After reading Neuromancer, I was a little bummed out on cyberpunk, but after Snow Crash, I totally get it.  We follow both Hiro and Y.T. throughout the book, and with both of them there is almost non-stop action, both in reality and in the Metaverse.  When we're not in the middle of guns blazing or swords swinging, then we're finding out something new about the virus or the cult, which only adds to the urgency of Hiro's task.

Neuromancer

Neuromancer by William Gibson is considered one of the Must-Read novels of the cyberpunk sub-genre.  In fact, the Internet tells me that this is really the Grandaddy of all cyberpunk novels.  It was also the first novel to win the "holy trinity" of science fiction awards:  the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Philip K. Dick awards.

Case was one of the best cyberspace cowboys, trained by the best.  As a thief, though, his mistake was not that he stole from his employers, but that he got caught.  He was punished for his offense by having a toxin introduced to his nervous system that made him unable to properly access his console interface, making him unemployable.  Since then, he spends his time in the Sprawl, slowly killing himself through substance abuse.

And then he's found by Molly, a hired gun of sorts with retractable claws under her fingernails, like some kind of female Wolverine.  They're building a small team for a big job, and they need a hacker to jack into the matrix for them.  With the promise of freeing him from the toxin sacs in his system, Case agrees to be their guy.  The Tessier-Ashpool dynasty has some AI that's apparently getting a little high on itself, but the closer the team gets to closing in on Wintermute and the program they're after, the closer they all come to being killed.

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So, alright.  I had heard tons of amazing things about this book, and about the author.  When I saw that Neuromancer had won these impressive awards, I was sure that maybe I could not go wrong with it.  And okay, yeah, I can see where it became the catalyst of a whole new movement in the science fiction sphere.  The gritty, dystopian setting, with its futuristic technology is pretty fascinating, and so much of the book is very visual in nature.  This speaks volumes for Gibson's descriptive technique, and I think it would translate magnificently to film with the right production team.

The Call of Earth

Orson Scott Card's The Call of Earth is the second installment in his Homecoming Saga.  The direct sequel to The Memory of Earth, this one picks up pretty much right where that one left off.  Basilica, the "women's city" is still reeling somewhat from the events that have taken place and upon hearing of its current vulnerability, the powerful Gorayni general "Moozh" sees a distinct strategic advantage for himself.  He has a true gift in his way with words and manner, and in no time he has abandoned his post and started out for Basilica with a thousand of the Gorayni soldiers under his command.

Meanwhile, Wetchik and his sons continue to try and make sense enough of the Oversoul's messages to them, to be able to truly act.  Within the city's walls, the Lady Rasa and her gifted and insightful nieces, Luet and her sister Hushidh, attempt the same.  Time seems to be running out, however, and the abilities and intent of the Oversoul starts to be questioned.  Is the manipulative general a part of the Oversoul's plans, or is he a bigger threat than he seems?  Does the Oversoul even really know what it's doing?  Is it merely a flawed creation of equally flawed humans, or are they right to put their trust and faith in its will, and continue down the path on which they've now begun?  Whatever they decide, there may be no going back, and whatever their choice, the fate of their beloved city as well as their own lives will likely be greatly affected.

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I remember feeling that The Memory of Earth began rather slowly, but The Call of Earth started at a good pace which was maintained throughout the whole book.  There is just as much intrigue, if not more, in this book than in the first, which I appreciated, and while the religious theme of the series is still quite strong, I still didn't find it to be overbearing or preachy.  The main characters are not necessarily blind followers of the Oversoul, and faith is questioned and put to the test.  More than anything, I think of this more as an interesting story of a social engineering project that may be either near to or at the end of its effectiveness.

The Invasion

The Invasion is the first book in K.A. Applegate's Animorphs series.  Jake and his friends Cassie, Marco, Rachel, and Tobias are cutting through an abandoned construction site on their way home from the mall one evening when they see a bright light in the sky that appears to be getting closer...it doesn't take long for them to realize that the light is actually a spaceship.  The ship lands and the kids get a message of warning from the dying alien who was piloting it; the people of Earth are in danger.  Another alien race is working on enslaving people by controlling their minds and bodies.  Until help comes, Jake and his friends may have to try and fight the invasion.  To help them, the alien gives them all a gift:  the ability to morph into any animal after acquiring its DNA sequence by touching it.  When the kids start realizing just how many people are already under the alien control, it hits them just how in over their heads they might be.

These books were right up there with Baby-Sitters Club and Goosebumps when I was a kid; come Book Fair time, Animorphs were certainly at the top of the Want List.  There is something very appealing about having the power to change into any animal at will, and to do so in order to fight for the human race would be pretty awesome.  Reading it again as an adult, I realize how cheesy the writing is, but I imagine it isn't so easy to write in the voice of a pre-teen or teenager in a way that might be believable enough to keep the target audience invested in the characters - especially when the way kids talk changes so much over the years.  

The characters so far are pretty one-dimensional, but there are a lot of books in the series, so there is plenty of room for development where that is concerned.  There are things these kids deal with, though, that are definitely not fluffy and childish.  Marco and Tobias don't have the easiest home lives, and the rest of them are about to have to grow up a lot more pretty soon here if they plan to survive the coming war until the Andalites arrive to fight the Controllers.

The Hunger Games

So I went out of town this past week for Spring Break, and decided to bring along a book for the flight and my three hour layover in Chicago.  Since I wouldn't have been able to really do the exercises in Transforming Body Image, I decided to take The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  I won this in a giveaway hosted by Dani at Pen to Paper back in November and really wanted to go ahead and read it before seeing the movie.

The Hunger Games is a sort of dystopian/post-apocalyptic story set in what was once North America, but after the war, is now the nation of Panem - a central capitol surrounded by twelve (previously thirteen) districts.  Each district is responsible for one duty in Panem, and the Capitol is in complete control of the citizens.  Each year, the Capitol hosts The Hunger Games, a televised battle royale reminiscent of the gladiators of ancient Rome, wherein twenty-four tributes - one boy and one girl - from each district is chosen at random to compete to the death in a chosen arena.  Katniss Everdeen wasn't chosen, but volunteered as tribute in place of her younger sister, Prim.  She has some potential advantage due to her experience hunting illegally in the forest outside her district, but the other tributes have their own talents as well, and conditions in the arena are carefully monitored and controlled, to keep the tributes on edge and to maintain some level of entertainment value for those watching from home.  Wits and strength are matched as one by one, tributes are eliminated.  Katniss will need to survive to win and return home to her mother and sister, but to do so will mean killing if necessary.  The winner of the Hunger Games is the last man standing, which means taking the life of her fellow District 12 tribute is a very real possibility.  Peeta is not only a boy she knows, but he and Katniss also have a history of sorts; will Katniss be able to make it through the bloody tradition with minimal blood shed?  Will district loyalty have to be compromised?  Will she even make it out alive?

The Memory of Earth

The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card is the first book in his Homecoming Saga.  People have been settled on the planet Harmony for millions of years, and everyone is in the care of the Oversoul, a kind of machine that "watches" over them from space and that they worship as a deity.  Its mission was to protect the people on Harmony from their own destruction, as their ancestors were the few survivors of the destruction of humankind on Earth, but its influence is beginning to weaken.  The Oversoul sends a vision to Wetchik, setting in motion events that may or may not save the city of Basilica.

I thought The Memory of Earth started off a little on the slow side, and the pace never really picked up too very much, but what did build throughout the book was intrigue.  There are murder plots, mysterious rituals, prophecies, and  the great mystery of the Oversoul.  The religious theme runs strong through the entire story - people who submit to the Oversoul are rewarded, and those who go against it are inevitably punished - but I didn't think it was necessarily preachy.  I've read that the series is based in part on The Book of Mormon (which is likely, since Card is a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints), but I never felt like that was all I was getting out of the story (though since I'm not familiar with the Book of Mormon, it's also possible I just didn't have the frame of reference to make the parallels).