Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany

Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In Dhalgren, the town of Bellona is isolated. It's somewhere in the central United States, but we don't know exactly where. People live in a kind of chaotic anarchy, with no authorities present to enforce order. Occasionally strange things happen in the sky, but generally life continues with little interference from whatever has affected the town. The story follows the Kid, a wanderer who comes into town without knowing even his own name, but becomes part of the community.

Dhalgren is a very different kind of escapism than I usually look for in science fiction or fantasy. There's very little in the way of explaining why the world is the way it is, or how. Instead it's almost entirely about people finding ways to keep living their lives. Some go with the flow of things, some fight against it. Bellona is a place of benevolent anarchy, where everyone pretty much does whatever they like and things will largely just work out.

There are a lot of themes running through this book. Sex is a big one, present at the very beginning, and explicitly pornographic at times. Homosexuality, multiple partners, wide promiscuity - it reads to me as if Delaney was trying to touch on everything from the 1960s free love movement. Racial tensions appear as well, with some fairly bigoted characters as well as prominent black figures. Several characters, including the Kid, exhibit symptoms of mental illness. There's plenty of drug and alcohol use, sometimes to the point of abuse.

But it's just as interesting what doesn't appear. There are basically no economics - everyone just takes what they need from abandoned stores, squats in the park or abandoned homes, even drinks are free at the bar. There's no religion - the one church that we see is a community center but not a place for traditional worship, and the characters largely ignore the spiritual (at least in a religious context). And there's no government or other controlling authority, or any attempts to form one.

Taken together, the things that Delaney includes and chooses to leave out gives the impression of being unhappy with many realities of the world - living under authority, restrictions on sexual expression, economic hardships - and describing a world that simply removes them. I don't know if that's how Delaney felt himself, or it was a viewpoint he was trying to capture. I think it succeeds to some extent, although it's clearly not a stable reality. The reader can see that at some point, either resources will begin to run low or someone will get power-hungry, and the anarchy will turn much less benevolent. But that time doesn't come during the book.

All told, I can't say I particularly liked Dhalgren. It says some interesting things on quite a few topics, and that part I did enjoy. However, I just couldn't get behind the idea that you can take a random city full of people, remove the constraints mentioned above, and end up with a chaotic-but-largely-benign utopia of personal freedom and sexual expression. Someone or something has to make an effort to get that scenario and keep it going, and Dhalgren doesn't have any such controlling force. Without that, it feels like reading one long dream sequence rather than a commentary on reality, which is just not my thing.

Plum Rains by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Plum Rains by Andromeda Romano-Lax
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Plum Rains is a wonderful story that touches on dozens of topics, from family to trauma to technology to culture. It just takes a while to get there.

The novel centers on two women, elderly Sayoko and her live-in nurse Angelica. The first third or so of the book is largely concerned with describing how these two women live and interact, and it's not a particularly happy story. Eventually, things start to happen...an android arrives to assist Sayoko, Angelica's various troubles catch up with her, Sayoko reveals past trauma that she's kept hidden for decades. The stories of Angelica and Sayoko end up affecting much more of the world than just themselves.

The setting in Plum Rains is near-future Japan, when some of today's trends...low birth rate, increased population age, significant foreign worker presence...have grown significantly. The wider world plays a role, too, most notably in development of robotics and artificial intelligence. And history is just as important as the future in this story, as events from Sayoko's past in particular come to light.

I felt that the early part of Plum Rains dragged a bit, but it gets much more interesting further in. Don't give up on it early. Romano-Lax tells a great story that's well worth the time to read.

Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan

Market Forces by Richard K. Morgan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The author's note at the beginning of Market Forces says it evolved from "...nasty idea to short story to screenplay to the novel..." and that it was inspired in part by Mad Max. And that is exactly how it reads.

Market Forces is a near-future dystopia where international finance corporations openly bankroll wars around the world, inequality in capitalist nations is extreme, and corporate executives win promotion through road-rage battles. The protagonist is Chris, an executive with lower-class origins pushing his way upward into the privileged ranks. Along the way he struggles against the other executives, against his own conscience, and against the system.

There's a whole lot of big-budget action movie in this book. The driving duels, obviously, but plenty more too. Sex and drugs and money and betrayal and bloody fights (in and out of cars). It's not hard to see where "screenplay" fit into the evolution of the novel that the author mentioned. I'm pretty sure the same story could easily have been told with a lot less drinking, drugs, sex, and graphic violence...but it wouldn't have the same spectacle feel.

For the first half of the book, I had a hard time taking it very seriously. The idea of Mad Max-style road duels didn't fit all that well into the more serious world-building. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch from today's world to get to the idea of giant financial powerhouses abandoning all pretense of morality, or to have society stratified into the privileged rich and downtrodden poor with governments pushed aside by corporate power. Executives running one another off the road made it all seem pretty cheesy, though. But as the book went on, there was a lot more intrigue and political maneuvering than straight-up road rage, and by the time it got back to driving I was used to the idea.

Much of the novel is taken up by Chris trying to come to terms with what kind of person he is. Is he a ruthless executive driver who ruins third-world nations and rival executives alike? Or does he have enough empathy for others in situations not unlike his own background to show some mercy? What does it mean to be loyal to his own beliefs and to the people he knows? Not easy questions, and there's not really a definitive answer. Everything ends up in shades of gray, no easy right or wrong resolutions.

Market Forces paints a disturbing-but-intriguing picture of a world where amoral financial interest has taken control. It's even fairly believable, aside from the idea of road-rage car duels. But those duels and the sex/drugs/violence action-movie spectacle isn't really my style, and felt over-done. If that's your thing, though, you'll likely enjoy this one.

From the New World (anime)

From the New World is a combination of post-apocalyptic dystopia and mind-bending mystery. It's set in the far future, after humans developed psychic abilities leading to conflicts that nearly ended the world. In this world, society is strictly controlled to keep a tight rein on those abilities.

The main character, Saki, and her friends grow up in this society and learn their powers like the other children. Unlike the others, though, Saki's group pushes the boundaries set by their elders. They manage to learn something of world history and the sometimes draconian methods used by their leaders in keeping society under control. But even those methods can't prevent every disaster.

A good chunk of the story revolves around an intelligent animal race called Monster Rats. They have no psychic powers, and treat the humans as gods. And the humans behave as such, putting restrictions and rules in place for the Monster Rat society. A small number of powerful individuals holding sway over a large population...nothing could possibly go wrong with that, right?

I really enjoyed the world-building of From the New World, and most of the mystery aspect of the story. There's several points where I thought the plot dragged a bit, and some of the interpersonal relationship stuff seemed awfully contrived to me. But those are fairly minor nitpicks, and overall the show kept me entertained and interested throughout.

Provenance by Ann Leckie

Provenance by Ann Leckie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Provenance tells the story of an insecure young woman finding her place in her world. Not an unusual theme, but then add that the world is part of a human diaspora of in space and the other characters aren't all human, and it gets a bit more interesting.

The protagonist in Provenance is Ingray, who hails from the world of Hwae and is competing with her brother to be their mother's heir. She makes some questionable decisions in pursuit of that goal, meets some very interesting other humans and non-humans, witnesses a murder, and gets herself unwittingly involved in some very high-stakes conflicts between governments. In resolving all of that excitement, she grows up enough to know more about what she really wants from life.

The entire novel is written from Ingray's viewpoint and we hear much of her inner dialogue, much of it revealing a distinct lack of self-confidence. This isn't new, I've read books with similar characters before - but it's pretty rare in my experience for the character to grow and yet continue to express that weakness. Ingray never does become a heroine with nerves of steel, but she does learn to use the skills and abilities she has, even if she's frightened and unsure of herself the entire time. And a little good fortune and some good friends certainly help.

There's plenty about the wider world - aliens, political intrigue, other cultures - that Ingray doesn't know, and so the reader tends to learn about those things along with her. That's convenient for explanation, but it does make some of the plot points feel like deus ex machina when she suddenly becomes aware of something new and it causes significant changes. I didn't like that at first, but then I realized that's pretty much how Ingray herself would have felt, and then it made more sense.

Provenance is set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch trilogy, which I read a few years ago. This book doesn't really touch on the events in the trilogy, though there are a few references to what happened. Even a few bits that could be considered minor spoilers, so be warned if you haven't read the trilogy. And we learn more about the universe, most notably the alien Geck.

One part of Provenance that I found particularly interesting was the Hwae culture's reverence for "vestiges" - basically souvenirs from important dates in a person's life or the history of the larger culture. Some pretty significant parts of the book rely on the way the Hwae assign importance to these objects...whether they're the real thing or not. As long as everyone believes they're seeing an important bit of history, it might as well be the real thing.

I enjoyed Provenance, and anyone who's read Leckie's other work certainly will as well. If you haven't yet given her work a try, do so...though I'd start with the Imperial Radch trilogy.

Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez

Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kill Decision is a near-future techno-thriller based on the disturbing concept of financial interests using technology to further their profit goals without morals or accountability. That's not a new idea, of course, there's been plenty of other books (and movies/TV/etc) based on the same idea of some shadowy conspiracy manipulating events with no regard for consequences to the world. I think Suarez does a fine job of implementing the concept using modern society and technology, so it didn't bother me that there wasn't much in the way of new ground covered.

The novel revolves around advances in autonomous drone technology, most notably vision processing and swarming behavior. I'm no expert in those fields, but I consider myself an informed layman, and it certainly doesn't feel like Suarez is reaching all that far past what's possible right now. What the novel proposes in these fields is advanced refinements of capabilities that we're already seeing in labs today - years away, not decades, if someone really wanted to do it and dedicated the resources.

It's not all techno-games, of course; there's plenty of interesting characters with personality in Kill Decision. The main character is Linda McKinney, a scientist who studies ants. Her work is co-opted by the bad guys, and she's saved from elimination by a team of black-ops soldiers. They proceed to spend the rest of the novel roaming around the world to stop the conspiratorial disaster. My favorite character was the heavy-metal-loving commando Foxy, right-hand man to team leader and hero Odin. All of it is well-written and engaging, if not particularly unique.

Kill Decision is a enjoyable read, fast-paced and interesting. The reader can just enjoy the action, or think a little deeper about some of the moral questions. (What kind of danger are we in from certain kinds of technological advances? Do we have any real control over bad actors using such technology?) Either way, I recommend it.

Street Freaks by Terry Brooks

Street Freaks by Terry Brooks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I feel like I've read this book before. Not in the "it's been so long I forgot about it" way, but in the "I've read something similar so many times that it all feels familiar" sense.

World-building: future cyberpunk. Lots of people with genetic modifications or cyborg parts, robots, and replicants...er, I mean synths. Giant corporations with immense power, conspiring with corrupt governments. Massive economic and social inequality. Environmental collapse, natural resources running out. It's not exactly like the Shadowrun or Blade Runner worlds, but it's close enough that I didn't get any real sense of discovering something new.

Plot: Kid with no clue narrowly escapes powerful forces to hook up with a rebellious group, eventually figures out what's going on and fights back. How many times have we seen this one? And in this particular case, the evil scheme plot device and bad guy behind it are so incredibly obvious from the fairly early chapters that it makes the characters look dumb for not seeing it.

Main Character: Ash, a naive kid at the center of something big, forced to come of age quickly. Spends his time learning about friendship, love, and how crappy the world can be. The plot of countless books, movies, and just about any other media form you care to name. Feels generic.

Style: supposed to be suspenseful. I say "supposed to" because once you recognize the archetype of the story, how much suspense can there really be? Ash isn't going to get killed off. You know he'll have some bad stuff happen, but it'll all work out in the end.

Now, I'm not saying that Brooks has completely failed with Street Freaks. He's a fine author who knows how to write; I didn't throw it down in disgust or anything. But I didn't feel like this book did anything special to set it apart from a ton of others in a similar genre, and it certainly didn't hide things well enough to engender any suspense. I'd much rather be reading sci-fi that's either attempting to break at least a little new ground, or pulls off a surprise. Street Freaks does neither.

Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang

Folding Beijing by Hao Jingfang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Folding Beijing makes no effort to obscure its theme of economic inequality taken to an extreme position. A entire city of millions of people, engineered to share space among three populations. The privileged First World has the lion's share of time and the lowest population density; the Third World is overcrowded with little time for anything but drudgery; with a Second World somewhere in the middle.

The protagonist Lao Dao visits all three worlds during the story. This novelette is short enough that there's no need to recap the plot in a review; almost as quick to just read it yourself! Besides, much more important than the plot is the attitudes of the people involved.

Those we meet in the Third World are either resigned to their place in life, or in Lao Dao's case, doing everything possible to give his child a chance at a better future. In the Second World, they aspire to advancement into the First World. And in the First World, they take privilege for granted, rarely if ever considering the plight of those who serve to support their lifestyle. Well, rarely except when making sure to keep the masses busy so they have no time to consider another way of life.

More than the story itself, what I really enjoyed about Folding Beijing is how it shines a light on the upper/middle/lower class structure of society. It's taken to an extreme, of course, but it's not difficult to map the motivations of the various characters onto the way we see people acting in our own society today. Read it for an opportunity to recognize how society can stratify; and hopefully it prompts us to consider alternatives.

The Robotech Novels by Jack McKinney

Robotech may have started in television animation, but what really made me a fan was the series of novels written by "Jack McKinney" in the late 1980s.

Robotech is pure space opera which is heavy on a "love conquers all" theme. There's some lip service paid to how people end up out in space or flying planes that turn into giant robots, but the real reason is effectively "magic." Magic in the form of "protoculture" in the case of Robotech, a substance that does strange things to people's minds as well as enabling crazy technological advances. Perhaps "protoculture" even has an awareness and agenda of its own. I've labeled this post science fiction because that's how Robotech is categorized when you go looking for the books or videos, but don't be fooled - it's an epic fantasy, with all the romance/tragedy/adventure that implies.

That's not to say, however, that Robotech uses mystical "protoculture" solely to manufacture happy endings. The initial alien attack against humanity doesn't end with humans beating back the assault. Not all the star-crossed lovers get a perfect happy ending. Earth is in pretty bad shape, humans and aliens have to learn to live together, and later on the planet ends up conquered by yet another alien race. People die, lots of them, including a few that the reader knows pretty well. By the time the series wraps up with The End of the Circle there has been plenty of good news, but the journey is certainly not all roses and rainbows.

The Robotech novels are roughly divided into four sections: the Macross Saga, the Sentinels, the war with the Robotech Masters, and the Invid Invasion. Three of those correspond to the three seasons of the television series; the fourth, the Sentinels, was going to be a sequel television series but never made it to air. Then you have three novels that fill in gaps between the four major parts, and The End of the Circle that takes the story beyond the various TV series timelines to wrap it all up. (That last is specific to the novels, since the animation went another way with Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles. I much prefer the story of the novels to the animation.) If that sounds like a lot of reading, you're right: 21 books in all. Though many are fairly short as novels go, that's still a whole lot of words. A reader has to really enjoy the universe and characters to make it all the way through that kind of verbiage.

Those three "fill in the gaps" novels were new to me, as they were written after the rest. By the time those three came out, I'd already finished the rest of the series, and at the time I never even looked for additions. Of course, that was 25 years ago, so my memory of the details is hazy at best. I'd been thinking about re-reading the series, curious as to whether I would still enjoy it a couple of decades later. When I saw the books were available on Amazon for the Kindle, that gave me the excuse I was looking for to read the whole series in chronological order. (Well, all but one were e-books. For arcane reasons of publication rights, The Masters' Gambit is only available in dead-tree format, and out of print to boot. Had to order that one from a used book store, and it cost nearly as much as the entire rest of the series combined!)

Those quotation marks around the author's name up above are there because there was no actual Jack McKinney - the name is a pseudonym used by American authors James Luceno and Brian Daley. I had no idea of this when I first read the books, of course. As a sci-fi obsessed teenager, I didn't much care where the stories came from!

Novelization of television is a tricky thing. You have to describe in words what people simply absorb by watching, while still capturing whatever tension and emotion the sound and visuals evoke. You also get the opportunity to expand on things that didn't make it on screen for whatever reason (often time or budget constraints). And you need to find a way to explain some of the more absurd things that happen; on screen it might go by quickly, but in writing there's always time to stop and say "wait a minute, they did what?" (Inasmuch as explanations are possible...some of the scripting was just too absurd to really explain.) No one is perfect, but I think the authors did an outstanding job on all those fronts in these novels. I read them before I'd watched the television series. When I finally did see some of it (never did watch the entire thing), I mostly felt underwhelmed, because I felt I knew so much more from the books than what was shown on screen. This is particularly true in the character motivations and internal struggles. There are a lot of insecurities that are explicitly laid out in the novels which humanize the characters - Rick in particular - that didn't really come across on screen.

Those characters are key to the Robotech franchise, at least for me. Don't get me wrong, it's not like the latest type of giant robot or the fate of invading alien armies do nothing for me...wouldn't be reading this series otherwise. But honestly, I cared at least as much (maybe more) about what happened to Rick Hunter or Dana Sterling or Scott Bernard as those big-picture questions. Unlike a lot of stories that started as cartoons, these characters have some depth and history as you work your way through the series. I especially appreciate that some pretty important people die off - the whole series basically takes place during wartime, and not everyone makes it through. Losing some people along the way gives those who remain that much more depth.

I should also mention Macross here, since Robotech and Macross are two offshoots of the same initial story. They have transforming space fighters and giant fortresses in common, and of course the original series characters. However, they go very different directions past that. Robotech focuses on the power of protoculture (a tangible thing derived from weird plants), the various factions and races fighting over it, and how it changes everyone and everything it touches. Macross treats protoculture as a concept based on ancient civilizations, and power largely comes from heroes finding strength within (often by singing). In my opinion, Robotech is the better story, but you really need to read the novels to get that story. Based on all the watching I've done, I'd rate Macross as the better anime series. So if you're looking for something to watch, go with Macross; for something to read, pick Robotech.

Having now read the Robotech novels twice, I feel qualified to say that the series ages well. The first time around, my teenage self was mostly interested in the giant battles and major events directing the epic sweep of history through the series. During this second reading as an adult, I found myself much more interested in the individuals at the heart of the story, and how the authors tied together the various phases of the story into a coherent whole. Regardless of where you are in life, the series is certainly aimed at a niche audience that loves epic fantastic adventure, futuristic mecha battles, and romantic underdog victories. If you fit that description, then you'll get plenty of enjoyment out of the Robotech novels.

The Orville on Fox

Seth MacFarlane has been involved in a lot of television production in his career, the most well-known being Family Guy. But it looks like what he really wanted to do is captain a starship...thus, The Orville.

If you've ever watched Star Trek, you'll feel right at home with The Orville. The colors are modified, the starship design slightly different, there's a "Planetary Union" instead of "The Federation," the alien races have different names, and so on. But it's basically Star Trek: The Next Generation by another name, plus sitcom humor.

I'll admit, I was skeptical when I first heard about The Orville. I loved Star Trek: The Next Generation as a teenager, and I laugh at Family Guy as much as the next person, but MacFarlane was going to need to do more than just throw around jokes in space to make the show work. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed the result...mostly.

When The Orville is being a spiritual successor to Star Trek, it's really good. Anyone who has watched much Star Trek is going to recognize a lot of the plotlines, some of which feel like they were lifted wholesale from episodes of one or the other of the Star Trek series. Not to mention the characters, who feel like the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew, right down to alien officers and an android. But whether lifting old plots or doing something original, The Orville does space exploration opera well.

Where The Orville falls short, in my opinion, is when it forgets that it's about the future. For instance, the first two episodes of the second season, which as far as I'm concerned could have happened in any generic suburb instead of on a futuristic spaceship. Outside of a few minutes on a shuttle performing a planetary rescue mission, both episodes were all about relationship drama and personal failings. Those things are important, but should be secondary to the futuristic space heroics, not the other way around.

As long as The Orville continues to stick to space exploration and dealing with alien races, I'll keep watching. Hopefully the ratings are such that Fox keeps it around for a while.

Future Man (on Hulu)

Hulu's Future Man is a great example of niche television getting a chance in today's expansive landscape of entertainment production. And I am exactly the target audience.

The plot of Future Man revolves around time travelers going into the past to recruit a video game expert to help them save their future. Which is ridiculous and rapidly becomes more so, jumping around multiple times and places with barely a stop. Not that it really matters, because what Future Man is really about is hilarious pop culture references, insanity that seemed like a good idea at the time, and a whole lot of crude jokes.

I really like the performance by all three of the main actors: Josh Hutcherson, Eliza Coupe, and Derek Wilson. Each really sells the role they're playing, which I think is essential in this kind of comedy. It doesn't work if the characters don't seem truly invested in the events, not to mention often being confused by what's going on. All three of these folks do an outstanding job.

There are a lot of people who shouldn't watch Future Man. Anyone who's been offended by South Park, for instance. Or has issues with jokes about bodily functions. Or isn't steeped in pop culture time travel sci-fi, like Back to the Future and Terminator. Although I guess you could do without that last part, if you don't mind missing a good number of references.

Twenty years ago...maybe even ten...I'm not sure Future Man would have found a home. It's got a narrow target audience and wouldn't make it past the censors for broadcast TV. But these days, with all kinds of cable channels and streaming services producing a ton of content, there's a lot of room for all sorts of ideas. And I'm glad this one got a chance, because it's hilarious.

We Are Legion - We Are Bob by Dennis E. Taylor

We Are Legion - We Are Bob by Dennis E. Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We Are Legion - We Are Bob (hereafter WLWB) tells the story of a self-aware Von Neumann probe, seeded with the personality of one Bob from 21st century Earth. The story tracks Bob (and his copies) from the initial confusion of waking up as a computerized simulation to being launched into space and spreading out into multiple star systems.

There's a definite feel of two different books in WLWB. The first half deals with how the world gets from the present-day to the near future when Bob's probe is being sent to the stars. It's not particularly subtle about the dangers of fanaticism, extremism, and a fragmented society with little or no cooperation. There's a lot about the technology being used to send out the probe, mostly recognizable as near-future extensions of what we can do today. Once Bob launches, though, the book feels very different, becoming pretty much a space opera as the technology becomes wildly advanced, multiple versions of Bob start spreading out through the galaxy, and they start to find extra-terrestrial life and artifacts.

Reading WLWB reminded me a lot of playing a space 4X game. Start small, survive an early skirmish with opposing forces, establish a base, expand your resources, spread out to new systems, more battles, discover other life, even go on a quest (saving humans from Earth). It's not an exact analogy, but it's close enough that it came to mind several times as I read through the book. And like playing such games, reading WLWB requires quite a bit of patience as you keep track of lots of different disconnected happenings across the galaxy.

I found the novel's concept interesting and enjoyed the various takes on Bob's personality, but even I felt things had gotten extremely fragmented toward the end of the book. Shifting back and forth across half a dozen versions of Bob in various star systems made it difficult for me to feel any real investment in any of the various story threads or characters. There's simply too much going on. And it doesn't help that several of those threads are largely left hanging (presumably to be picked up in the next book in the series).

WLWB is a fun read for science fiction fans who want an interesting take on how galactic exploration might begin. If that concept doesn't grab you, though, I wouldn't recommend it. Without that hook to hold your interest, WLWB is likely to just feel too long and scattered to be enjoyable.

The Jean le Flambeur trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi

Fair warning: if you like to understand all the words and want to have a good idea of what's going on at all times when you read a novel, Hannu Rajaniemi may not be the author for you. But if you can put up with some uncertainty (actually, a ton of it) while the story unfolds, this trilogy has a lot of entertainment to share.

The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince, and The Casual Angel follow gentleman thief Jean le Flambeur through various adventures in a far-future solar system with wildly advanced quantum technology. People's minds are regularly electronically uploaded, duplicated, modified, stolen, and enslaved. Bodies can be changed with little more difficulty than changing one's clothes, as long as you can afford it. Various groups live in just about every part of the solar system, from the planets to asteroids to the Oort Cloud to moon-sized spaceships.

The books follow Jean and friends through adventures all over the Solar System, from Mars to Earth to Saturn and many points between. Jean is a self-described master thief, and so it's not surprising that a lot of the story revolves around pilfering stuff from under the noses of its owners. The larger plot involves the fate of society in the entire system, so it isn't just about stealing shiny objects, though there's plenty of that in service of the end goals. And there's no shortage of action along the way, either. Each of the books has multiple passages that read like descriptions of the craziest special effects in sci-fi movie battle scenes, and I mean that as a compliment...it's fun to envision actually seeing all of what Rajaniemi has written.

Through all this, Rajaniemi doesn't do a lot of hand-holding. New terms get thrown at the reader with minimal explanation. There's plenty of weird happenings that don't make sense until much later when the reader has more information. As I said earlier, you have to put up with quite a bit of uncertainty. But I felt that by the end of each book, Rajaniemi had done a reasonable job of clarifying what had happened and why.

As far as the science aspect of sci-fi goes, Rajaniemi has gone far enough out into the future that much of what he describes seems like magic. Clarke's third law applies here: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." There's a good amount of explanation scattered throughout the trilogy, much of it involving quantum effects or nanotech, which to my layperson's mind seems plausible. And Rajaniemi certainly does a fine job with the descriptions, unsurprising since he has a doctorate in physics. But it's so far ahead of anything that exists in today's world that there's really no way to know how feasible any of it is, so it's easiest to just suspend disbelief and accept the premise without worrying about how it works.

My favorite part of the world building isn't the technology anyhow, but rather the social orders. The Oubliette is a whole society built around taking privacy to the extreme. Innumerable mind-copies of a few original Founders created the Sobornost society made up almost entirely of themselves. The few who still live on Earth fight against corruption by rogue "wildcode" technology that tries to corrupt mind and body. And my personal favorite, the zoku collective that gamifies everything, using points and levels and "entanglement" bonding to both keep score and organize their efforts. Given the changes wrought by technology and shifting environments, I thought the social and political structures that Rajaniemi describes are plausible and certainly the ideas are thought-provoking.

If my previous warnings about complexity and uncertainty haven't turned you off already, then you're probably going to enjoy the trilogy. I certainly did.

12 Monkeys (TV)

The Syfy time-traveling show 12 Monkeys wrapped up its four-season run earlier this year, so I decided now was a good time to check it out.

When it begins, 12 Monkeys is about a time traveler trying to stop a massive plague that kills the vast majority of humanity in the mid 21st century, and the 20th century actions that led to it. After about a season and a half, the scope expands to cover larger sections of history and the destruction of all time. It's all a bit over-the-top in terms of dramatics, but I thought it worked well for the most part, keeping the viewer interested as the stakes went higher.

The TV show is loosely based on the 12 Monkeys movie from 1995, but most of that relationship is in the initial setup and character names. Once the series gets going, and particularly after the first season, it bears little resemblance to what was in the movie. Not surprising, since they had a lot more hours to fill.

Time travel is always a difficult beast to pull off, but 12 Monkeys did a fine job of it. The ability to travel was limited by technical issues and potential for paradox, so the viewer could believe the difficulties that the characters were having couldn't simply be solved by going back a little further in time. And the limited information available after the plague made it more believable that it wasn't possible to easily eliminate the source of the problem. Later on, some of those limitations were removed, but by then the problems were greater and the enemy more capable. On the whole, I think 12 Monkeys pulls off the time-travel theme about as well as can be expected.

I enjoyed most of the characters in the show as well, although the leads were far from the best in my opinion. Both James Cole - handsome rogue from the future - and Cassandra Reilly - implausibly beautiful and brilliant doctor - felt too "TV perfect" for me to really have much empathy for them. Sure, they were in some crummy situations, but of course they always found a way out. But several of the supporting cast were great, in part because the characters actually had some believable flaws. By far the best character as far as I'm concerned, both in terms of acting and writing, was Jennifer Goines played by Emily Hampshire. She played the driven-insane-by-warped-time character perfectly, and the writers gave her some of the most hilarious and memorable moments in the series.

One of the most difficult things to do with any multi-season series is a really satisfying ending. On this score, I give 12 Monkeys high marks. The way that they wrapped up the plot was excellent, covering pretty much every major question that had been raised along the way. I'm sure there were a few minor things that didn't fit, but there wasn't anything that bothered me enough to matter. The ending for the characters was a bit too good to be true, but I really wasn't expecting anything else by that point.

All told, I'd recommend 12 Monkeys to science fiction fans. I'm not sure it'll draw in too many who aren't interested in the time travel premise, but it's a solid offering for those who are.

Orphan Black

The main thing I learned from watching Orphan Black is that Tatiana Maslany must be a serious workaholic. She deserves that Emmy and the other awards she's garnered from playing half the roles on the show.

Orphan Black is a contemporary science fiction thriller series based on the idea that a shadowy cabal is messing around with the human body. Clones, DNA manipulation, body modifications. Over the five seasons, the characters go from blissfully ignorant to deeply involved, one layer of evil masterminds after another.

This kind of sci-fi thriller isn't a new formula, of course, but it's a solid premise if executed well. Which Orphan Black is, especially in the first 3 seasons. There's plenty of intrigue and mystery with interesting characters. Anyone who's read some sci-fi in this genre won't be too surprised by the larger plot points - there were several "big reveal" points that I saw coming a mile away - but it's still a fun ride getting there. I wasn't as impressed with the last 2 seasons in terms of plot, largely because it's just hard to sustain the suspension of disbelief as the stakes keep going higher. Eventually you become kind of numb to the ever-escalating danger and crazy mad science.

But that's all right, because there are plenty of great characters to follow into those last couple of seasons: several clones, their various friends and family, recurring villains, and new bad guys showing up on a regular basis. It's not always clear which people fall into which category, either, which is great. Keeps things really interesting when you're aren't entirely sure who is on which side. And even among the main characters who are clearly working together, there's plenty of interpersonal tension and drama, largely driven by the fact that just about everyone is flawed in some way.

What makes Orphan Black really unique is how Tatiana Maslany plays all those clone roles. There are four primary recurring characters, and at least five others with lesser roles. Each is a separate character, with their own personalities and appearances (and accents, usually). I thought she did an excellent job of really giving each one a unique feel, so that the viewer really sees them as different people. It's especially impressive when she plays one clone trying to pretend to be a different one, looking uncomfortable and purposely not-quite-perfectly mimicking mannerisms.

I had a great time watching Orphan Black, even when the plot-lines got a bit hard to swallow in the later seasons. Still a great show that I'd recommend to anyone who likes the sci-fi thriller genre.

K Project (anime)

The K Project anime series has a promising premise and themes, but doesn't do a very good job of executing on that promise.

In the world of the K Project, superpowers have begun to manifest in a small portion of the population. Most of that power is concentrated in a few individuals known as Kings, with a larger number of lowered-powered individuals forming clans around the Kings. The effect is limited to a small portion of Japan (for reasons made clear as the series goes on). The first season of the series focused on a murder mystery that leads to a conflict between Kings, while the second season expands to a larger conflict between more Kings. There's also movie in between that fills in some gaps between the two seasons.

The problem with the K Project, in my opinion, is that it constantly undercuts its own story and themes. The logic behind the Kings alone is inconsistent and confusing. There's mention of seven Kings, but the story never tells us who they all are. Each King is associated with a color and theme (red for chaos, blue for order, etc) but some don't seem to have a theme (like the Gray King) and one has no color. Supposedly the death of a King leads to a new King being chosen, but sometimes that doesn't happen for no apparent reason (such as the Gold King). Each King has a giant "sword of Damocles" that sometimes hangs in the sky above, which are never explained except that we know it's bad if they fall. There are several flashbacks that fill in some of the history leading to the Kings, but they leave so much out that it feels like we're only given a few random glimpses.

It's not just the Kings, either. The visuals are beautiful and largely take the subject matter seriously, but occasionally veer off into ridiculous fan service territory with panty shots and bouncing cleavage.  Serious themes like abuse of power and order vs anarchy are raised in the story, but they're used only as excuses to get clans battling rather than explored as complex issues.

There are some manga serializations and novels that are set in the same world. It's possible that the missing bits that I've mentioned above can be found there. If that's the case, I think they really should have somehow tied that into the anime - a simple mention of the manga stories in a post-credits scene would have sufficed.

The K Project isn't a bad series, but it could be much better in so many ways. There are better things out there to watch.

NBC's Timeless

There were quite a few time travel shows that popped up 2-3 years ago. I've written about DC's Legends of Tomorrow on the CW (which has improved greatly since a weak season 1) and Netflix's Travelers. Frequency on the CW was pretty good, but only lasted one season. And on NBC, we have Timeless.

The world of Timeless: Time travel has been invented with the backing of deep pockets from a shadowy organization called Rittenhouse. They want to use the time ship to entrench their own positions and mold society to their ideals, which needless to say aren't progressive or friendly to anyone outside their group. A small team of uncorrupted government agents and civilians use a prototype time ship to thwart those schemes.

Like most shows based on time travel, you can't think too deeply about the premise of Timeless. The only real restriction is that you can't travel to place where you already exist, and there's ways around that (like recruiting others). The show establishes pretty early that changes made in the past do affect the future, so you have to ignore the fact that it would be incredibly easy to make a mistake that would wipe out your desired result, the development of time travel, or even all life on Earth. So watching Timeless definitely requires you to turn off the bit of your brain that tries to make sense of the whole time travel aspect.

Once you've got that suspension of disbelief going, Timeless is a lot of fun. I like pretty much all the characters, particularly Jiya and Rufus since they're nerds like me. (Younger and smarter and better looking, but then, who on TV isn't?) There's a decent amount of family and interpersonal drama that for the most part doesn't detract from the overall storyline, and in fact usually plays into it. Nice to have writers that make an effort to integrate the emotional drama, not just tossing it in on the side.

But my favorite part of Timeless is the historical characters. Pretty much every week, the crew goes to a different part of history and meets one or more pivotal persons. There's plenty of the usual suspects: the Alamo with Bowie and Crockett, Bonnie and Clyde, the revolutionary war with Benedict Arnold and George Washington, Al Capone and Eliot Ness in Chicago, etc. But some of the best stories are with lesser known characters, like Katherine Johnson at NASA (better known now after Hidden Figures) or blues musician Robert Johnson. Timeless does a fine job of bringing these characters to life, generally with a minimum of deviation from what we know from history. (The Smithsonian does a weekly blog post checking the facts.)

The second season wrapped up recently, with a cliffhanger that shows that the writers are ready to go for season 3. Hopefully NBC lets them keep going, or someone else picks it up.

11.22.63 (on Hulu)

11.22.63 is an eight-part miniseries about an English teacher who goes back in time to prevent the Kennedy assassination. It's based on the book 11/23/63 by Stephen King.

I'm a fan of time travel and alternate history in general, so when this show popped up in a recommendation list it was a natural choice. I haven't read the book, so I didn't have any preconceived notions about the plot going in.

The series uses a very limited form of time travel in which a person can go through a "rabbit hole" in space-time and emerge in 1960. There's no other destination, and any changes you've made in prior trips are erased if you go through a second time. And if you try to make a major change to history, unlikely events will conspire to prevent you. There's no effort made to explain how it works or where it comes from, which is fine since it's just a plot device to enable the real story.

The protagonist is Jake, an English teacher who is recruited by his friend Al to go back in time and stop the assassination of JFK. Al is motivated by his experience in Vietnam, which he hopes will be prevented by changing history. Jake is a reluctant recruit, but eventually becomes dedicated to the cause.

Al gives Jake plenty of advice on how to avoid trouble while he's in the past, most of which is ignored. Just about everything Al warns Jake about...spending too much money, getting into close personal relationships, drawing attention to his future knowledge, overdoing his money-making scheme of sports betting...ends up happening. Honestly, I found it a bit silly just how inept Jake turns out to be in his role. But it makes for good drama, so it's not too hard to ignore.

The vast majority of the series is spent describing everything that happens with Jake from the time he arrives in 1960 until November 1963. While dealing with his self-inflicted issues from failing to follow Al's advice and bad luck from trying to change history, Jake follows the threads of various theories about what lead up to that day in Dallas. Russians, CIA, FBI, and of course lots about Lee Harvey Oswald. There are quite a few directions that the story could have gone, and I thought the one chosen made sense in the end.

The last episode wraps up Jake's time in the past and sends him back to his own time. I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that he doesn't manage to create a utopia. It's a recurring theme in the series that good intentions don't always lead to the best results, and historical change is no exception.

All told, I enjoyed 11.22.63. It probably could have been a couple of episodes shorter, but it didn't drag out too long. I thought the portrayal of the 1960s was well done, and the cast did a fine job with all the characters. Worth a few hours to watch if you like drama and suspense with a historical twist.

Orange (anime)

Orange is a high school romance series, which in itself is not usually something I'd watch. But it also has a time-travel hook, and deals with the subject of suicide and the regrets of those left behind. (Minor spoilers below, though I don't think they'd detract from anyone's enjoyment of the series.)

The time-travel bit is what drew my attention to Orange in the first place. A high school girl named Kaho gets a letter from her 10-years-in-the-future self, giving instructions about how to avoid the thing she most regrets. The mechanics of how the actual letter delivery across time happens are pretty weak, but that's not really the point. The focus is on what future knowledge does to her actions and relationships. (Note for those who aren't Japanese-literate: make sure you get version that has English translations of the letters. They're often just shown, not read aloud. Some English dubs don't have the written translations and that really detracts from this particular series. Personally, I think the sub-titles are better than dubs anyway.)

Just a few episodes in, it's revealed that future Kaho's main regret is the death of Kakeru, a new student in her class. At first they don't specify that it's a suicide, but I thought it was pretty obvious almost immediately. The rest of the series follows the efforts Kaho makes to change that future.

There's a lot of awkward teenage romance in Orange: Kaho and Kakeru, a triangle with her friend Suwa, interfering friends, and so on. The romantic tension is largely driven by how shy and easily embarrassed Kaho is. Not really my favorite thing, but it was worth tolerating for the other aspects of the show.

What I found most impressive about Orange was how Kakeru is portrayed. He comes from a broken home, loses his mother, and withdraws from personal relationships and activities (such as soccer club). He's depressed, blames himself for his mother's death, and eventually becomes suicidal. But he doesn't show any of this in day-to-day activities, continuing normal life right up into the end. In the original timeline, where the future letter originates, no one noticed and took action. That's a realistic portrayal of how suicide can happen - my family had a recent experience along those lines, and so this story really hit home.

In Orange, the future letter gives Kaho and her friends a chance to save Kakeru. There are some specifics in the letter, of course, but the most important thing is that they recognize his situation. Even when their actions have changed things so that the future knowledge doesn't make much sense in terms of specific events, the fact that they're aware of Kakeru's pain and depression puts them in a position to help. And that's what I hope people take from this story...that recognizing someone's suffering and doing everything you can for them can make a difference.

Club Anyone by Lou Agresta

Club Anyone by Lou Agresta
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Club Anyone has an awful lot packed into one book. Dystopian corporation-ruled future. Human cybernetic augmentation. Colonization of Mars. Drug addiction. Romance, both failed and successful. Artificial intelligence. And that is by no means an exhaustive list.

The story follows Derek, a mid-level employee of a major corporation who has big plans to make a new life for himself and his family on Mars. Plans that almost immediately fall apart as his wife refuses to leave Earth to join him, initiating a downward spiral that leads him into ever-increasing debt to his employer and dangerous underworld involvement. The first half of the book is all about Derek's fall into danger, depression, and some terrible life choices.

Things change significantly in the second half of the book, as Derek (barely) survives the trouble that he fell into. It's hard to say much more than that without spoilers, but I doubt anyone would be surprised to know that there's plenty of action, wild and crazy people (and other entities), and romance to heal his broken heart. The story ends well, but with enough open questions that future stories set in the same world are certainly possible.

The world that Agresta builds is nicely detailed, describing a blend of cyberpunk and space colonization genres. Cybernetics are common, corporations are ultra-powerful, and there's a thriving black-market of illicit tech and drugs...very much the cyberpunk style. Setting the book on Mars adds an interesting twist to what I'm used to thinking of as the standard cyberpunk world.

I enjoyed Agresta's writing style, which has plenty of wit and does a fine job bringing the story's characters to life. I thought the pacing dragged a bit in the first half of the book, but once the action really started in the second half, I had no trouble staying engaged through to the end.

For anyone that enjoys the cyberpunk genre, Club Anyone should be high on your read list. Fans of any kind of sci-fi action and intrigue will likely enjoy it, for that matter, even if cyberpunk isn't usually your thing.