Category: Science Fiction

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter defies genre. It is moving, disruptive, scary, and cerebral simultaneously. The action shatters into the narrative within the first several pages and just grows in intensity until reaching its nail-biting conclusion. As action-driven as the book is, though, there are indelible moments of imagery and real emotion. It’s really a masterclass in how to tell a darn good story. This riveting novel is also deeply personal, challenging all of us to confront our own darkest selves–this novel throws our human fantasy of revisiting the paths not taken into a scathing, searing light.

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The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

John Wyndham’s science fiction parable The Chrysalids remains resonant, despite its 1955 publication date. It’s a quick and somewhat simple read, told from a child’s point of view. The novel’s strength comes from its thorough, unrelenting confrontation with intolerance, seen from the view of an indoctrinated innocent. David knows that if anyone ever finds out his own secret, he and others like him will be branded less than human and hunted down. He also knows that it will only be so long before that inevitably happens. Yet, he still struggles to accept that mutation and difference may not be evil after all. Religious zealotry is a powerful force. What’s the difference between deformity and evolution? Where is the line between mercy and murder? Powerful questions fuel this powerful little book.

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The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Neal Stephenson’s early cyberpunk novel The Diamond Age is… so many things. Ultimately, I feel like it was a thing that I should have been able to appreciate, but couldn’t. It’s a long haul, and blends hard sci-fi, steampunk neo-Victorian culture, children’s literature, dystopian sci-fi, cults, and political upheaval all set in a futuristic China. That was a lot of constant, ultra-developed kitsch that, for me, got in the way of what could have been a more compelling story. One of Stephenson’s strengths is his ability to explain, in a fully realized way, the smallest details of his mind’s creation. However, in this novel I felt it put the book at a disadvantage. The explanations overwhelm the story itself, which is quite frenetic and convoluted in its own right. I admire Stephenson as an author, but this novel was ultimately just not the right match for me.

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The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

With Ursula K. Le Guin’s passing this year, I knew it was time for me to read one of her works. She is science fiction royalty, and her Hugo and Nebula-winning novel The Left Hand of Darkness is considered a masterpiece of classic sci-fi. It is everything 1970’s era science fiction usually is, with its politically intricate societies and chapter segments that present written “artifacts” from alien history. However, this book is so much more–it feels almost as groundbreaking today as it must have been when it was published in 1969. Le Guin approaches the idea of a genderless/gender-shifting society with a graceful hand. Particularly in the third act, her human protagonist Genly Ai needs to re-structure his concept of the gendered body, the gendered mind, sexuality, worth, and honor in order to survive on an alien world. While the first two acts are intellectually interesting and occasionally mired in world-building details, it’s the final third of the book where the heart of the novel truly beats, inviting us to personally encounter these ideas. I found it unforgettable.

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Kenobi by John Jackson Miller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kenobi is the first Star Wars installment that I’ve read since the transition to the rebooted Legends canon, and it was a natural choice because (in my opinion), Obi-Wan’s character is the single shining gem to emerge from Episodes I-III. This adventure picks up right at the end of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and presents Ben Kenobi’s transition to Tatooine life in the form of a space western. It’s an engaging adventure story that is absorbing and fun, but ultimately forgettable. I wish there would have been more scenes actually involving Ben, since he’s left as an enigma on the side of what is really a settler’s story. Miller doesn’t let us get close, and I think that’s on purpose. While I understand the move to keep the mystery surrounding his character sacred, I’ll simply counter with this: the book is called Kenobi. I was hoping the novel would take his point of view as its guiding force, but I guess I’ll just have to keep daydreaming about Obi-Wan’s forgotten years in my free time. That being said, enjoyable romp of a book.

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Artemis by Andy Weir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Andy Weir’s sophomore literary appearance brings in many stylistic elements that fans will recall from The Martian: a first-person narrator with snark to spare, high stakes space peril, and lots of meticulously researched, accurate science. However, the punchy heart that made The Martian soar is just not present here. Artemis is a fun-enough adventure tale that doesn’t bring quite enough believability to its characters to be truly great. The narrator and her entourage of various frenemies drop witty lines at every turn, like they’re waiting for a laugh track. The constant witty back-and-forth, pervasive even in moments where more gravity (pun intended) really is required, makes me feel like these characters are simply a cast full of little fictional Andy Weirs. Especially in the middle of the novel where Weir is busy connecting all his plot elements, we really lose all sense of soul in exchange for the big “can you believe that?!” conundrum that pushes the ending along. The ending, by the way, is redeeming in many ways. All in all, if you want to have fun thinking about perennially sassy smugglers doing improbably complicated science heroics in a moon city, you will enjoy this. If you’re looking for Weir’s best, go re-read The Martian. There really is no comparison.

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An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An Excess Male by Maggie Shen King explores a timely, absorbing speculative premise: if the continued effects of China’s One Child Policy and preference for male children continues along its current path, what cultural reactions will occur because of the millions of “excess” unmarriageable male citizens? The writing itself is a little unwieldy and uneven. Shen simultaneously develops the rise of a governmental conspiracy on a large level alongside the more intimate drama of a family trying to make their lives work within an oppressive polygamous social structure. Ultimately, neither one reaches a fully realized state… overly easy tie-ups are definitely at play in the plot. The ideas within the novel, though, were forceful enough to give me pause, wondering how closely King’s vision will match up with the future.

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