Books Archives - Page 18 of 23

What does a post-MCU sci-fi landscape look like?

April 9, 2020/2 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Joshua Dalzelle

Yes, yes… I realize that the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is still ongoing.

I suppose a more accurate way of saying it would be; "what does a post-Avengers cinematic landscape look like?" Marvel/Disney is obviously still going to be producing movies within the MCU, but after Avengers: Endgame I feel like interest will begin to wane now that the story arc that began with Iron Man waaay back in 2008 has concluded.

While many would (rightly) argue that Marvel's cinematic juggernaut wasn't really science fiction, it's impossible to ignore that the series of superhero movies completely dominated a space where science fiction would normally reside. The MCU sucked so much oxygen out of the room that, other than Star Wars, there wasn't a lot of room left to talk about anything else. The new Star Wars may have sold a lot of tickets, but it seems to have as many people who loathed it than people who adored and obsessed over it. So, for the sake of this argument, let's assume that the MCU is firmly within the science fiction spectrum… what do audiences have to look forward to next?

Looking past the big boys of LucasFilm and Marvel, the sci-fi movie scene is pretty bleak.

The Star Trek reboot seems to have lost steam and nobody wants to take the chance on new, untested properties. Sci-fi is expensive to make. It's hard to get studios to commit to something that isn't guaranteed to make a profit in a time when ALL movies are struggling to get funding. But the sci-fi market globally is enormous and hungry. How do you service that need if you're not willing to take risks on new projects?

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Could the indie filmmakers fill that void?

We've all seen low-budget sci-fi movies on deep-cable. The more popular ones have their own drinking games attached to them. In other words: they're entertaining because we point and laugh at them, not because they're good films. I realize that some of that is deliberate on the part of the filmmaker… at least I hope it is. If the guy who made Sharknado was trying to make a serious movie then that's a whole other problem. So is there any good news? Yes. Things are changing within the industry for the better. Technology is becoming cheaper and more prevalent and filmmakers are no longer beholden to the big studio dinosaurs to get their movies made.

Check out the work of director/producer Hasraf "Haz" Dulull (HazFilm.com). Haz is able to make compelling films and he's doing it without the backing of huge studio bucks. His shorts have a real "big movie" sensibility about them and you honestly feel like his work is something you'd see in the theater after paying $14 for a ticket and $2,500 for concessions. He's able to create a lot of what we expect to see from big-budget sci-fi using the leading edge of visual tech… and, of course, no small amount of talent and skill.

Can filmmakers like Haz change the sci-fi cinema landscape and steal back some of the momentum from the monolithic companies like Disney and Paramount?

With some help from distributors willing to play the movie in theaters, I'd like to think so. The mega-studio movies will continue to have top billing… but I, for one, would like to see indies begin to do for movies what they did for books: provide more options and a quality alternative to what the gatekeepers say we must watch.

Joshua Dalzelle grew up in a small, rural town and joined the US Air Force as a teenager to see the world and work in aviation, one of his enduring passions.

After his first enlistment as an avionics technician on B-1B bombers, he left the military and worked in the aerospace industry in various capacities while earning a master’s degree in aeronautical science.

During this time, he continued to write as a hobby, occasionally submitting a short story or novel for publication.

In 2012 he discovered indie publishing so he dusted off the dream of being a writer one more time and in 2013 released his first published novel.

He is a USA Today bestselling author, an Amazon Top Ten Bestselling Science Fiction author, and creator of the hugely popular Omega Force series.

You can follow Joshua on Facebook & Twitter.

Steven Konkoly on Predicting the Covid-19 Pandemic

April 3, 2020/1 Comment/in Books, Insider /by Discover Sci-Fi

I arrived at a rather unenviable and hopefully “once in a lifetime” position recently—having accurately predicted the novel coronavirus now sweeping the globe.

It’s an inexplicably eerie feeling. A pandemic is not something you ever hope to be “right about.” You hope it never happens. Unfortunately, one of my greatest fears has come true. A fear with its roots firmly planted in my first novel, The Jakarta Pandemic (TJP for short), published ten years ago.

The idea for TJP sprang from an already unhealthy obsession with viral outbreaks. Captain Trips from Stephen King’s epic, The Stand, was burned into my psyche from an early age. I burned through The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton in a single sitting. The book Hot Zone by Richard Preston and movie Outbreak was like a one-two punch, released a year apart in 1994-95. The movie 28 Days Later in 2002. Max Brooks brilliant novel, World War Z a few years after that. I couldn’t get enough of these stories. And then the Swine Flu pandemic hit in 2008! Looking back, it should have come as no surprise to anyone, especially me, that my first stab at writing a novel would center around a pandemic.

However, despite my initial enthusiasm—the project barely got off the ground. The usual first time, part time writer challenges applied. Didn’t know what I was doing and wasn’t sure it would be worth the effort. Limited time to write. Busy with two young kids. Everything got in the way, but the biggest delay came from what turned out to be the novel’s greatest strength.

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I spent at least six months researching past pandemics, virology, disease epidemiology, U.S. and world pandemic response protocols and detection capabilities, vaccine production, the U.S. healthcare and medical infrastructure, U.S essential services infrastructure, supply chain dynamics.

I consumed every article or paper publicly available that could help me understand the various impacts of a pandemic on society. I had hit what writers call “research paralysis,” where I was obsessed with collecting and digesting more information than I truly needed to write the novel.

When I finally broke through to the other side, I decided to tell the story differently. I steered away from the heroic CDC scientist hopping from one jet to another to reach the next hot zone or the critical response team fighting against all odds to stay one step ahead of the pandemic. Instead, I focused on a single family’s tense and claustrophobic struggle to stay alive during the most lethal pandemic in recorded human history. Of course, I threw way more at them than an unseen virus. Society collapses in my novel (along with nearly all essential services), pitting neighbor against neighbor in a vicious struggle to survive.

What does this have to do with me predicting the COVID19 Pandemic?

Fast forward ten years from the publication of The Jakarta Pandemic to January of this year. Without going into exhaustive detail (I’ve already taken up enough of your time)—YOU DON’T LOCKDOWN AN ENTIRE CITY OF 11 MILLION PEOPLE FOR THE SEASONAL FLU. I had been watching the virus news closely when Wuhan was locked down by Chinese authorities, noting that the first case detected in the U.S. a few days earlier, had recently returned from a trip to Wuhan. That was all I needed to know.

Interested in going deeper into Steve's thoughts about the current Covid-19 situation? You can read about the rest of his Paul Revere ride through the coronavirus pandemic on his personal blog HERE.

Steven Konkoly is the USA Today bestselling author of over twenty novels and novellas.

His canon of THRILLERS includes: the FRACTURED STATE books, a “24-style,” near future conspiracy series set in the southwest United States; the BLACK FLAGGED books, a gritty, no-holds barred covert operations and espionage saga; and the ALEX FLETCHER books, a tense, thriller epic, chronicling the aftermath of an inconceivable attack on the United States. He recently released HOT ZONE, the first book in a thriller series chronicling the events surrounding a bioweapons attack against the United States.

You can contact Steven directly by email or through his blog.

Review—Gemini Man

February 22, 2020/0 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Bobby Adair

Bobby’s Rating - 6 out of 10

Currently available on the streaming services.

Gemini Man, not a great movie, but not a bad one either.

It starts with the frequently used thriller trope of the rogue operative who gets crosswise with the shadowy government agency he works for, and then the agency decides to kill him. Throw in an unexplained and much younger version of the hero, and suddenly you’ve got a clone in the movie, and voila, it’s SciFi.

BFD? Maybe.

But let’s be real for a sec’. Any of us who likes these kinds of flicks knows how the trope works. We’ve watched it a thousand times, and we always come back for more. In a world where most of us are just trying to keep out of trouble at work over the missing TPS cover sheets, indulging the fantasy for a few hours that we’re the haunted hero who must reluctantly shwack the boss to make the world right again, is pretty appealing. I mean, I’m no psych professor, but is this really the whole point of these movies—cathartic indulgence of the boss-killing fantasy? Thankfully, only the most whacked among us ever Goes Postal in the real world.

Anyway, I’m getting off the subject of the movie… kind of.

I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t watch these movies because I want to leave the theater (get off the couch for us who watch a streaming vid in the living room) and feel inspired to contemplate my place in my family/world/relationship. I want escapism and fun. Gemini Man does a decent job with that.

Pros:

The action scenes were good, not great, but good. I did, however, dig the chase/shoot-em-up scene through Cartagena. It felt like watching a T-1000 in a Will Smith mask chase an old Will Smith through a 1052-count box of HDR crayons. The colors—WOW!

Young, CGI-face Will Smith looked 100% real in almost every scene. The technology that does this is maturing quickly, and it leads me to speculate what the future of the movie biz will look like when the stars never have to age, never get fat, in fact, are never less than perfect. And how does that turn into unrealistic self-perceptions out here in the real world?

Oops, I’m off the topic again. Back to the movie…

In the big climax battle, when the URT© (Urban Riot Tank) shows up with its spiffy-fast missiles and shreds a convenience store with its mini-gun and laser-like tracer rounds, I was double-dawg-diggin’ it. I liked the proto-robocop super-soldiers who were just fodder for Will and his sidekick-chick to shoot with perfectly aimed shots.

Will Smith in the lead—well, I’ve always liked Will Smith, but he’s a likable guy. I think for most movies, he just shows up on set and says, “Hey ya’ll, I’m feeling kinda lazy, so I’m just gonna act like me in this this time around,” and the director says, “Cool, dude. Action.” For the most part, Gemini Man felt that way.

Overall, though, the movie does an excellent job at being what it is.

But of course, we have to look at the cons too.

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Cons:

After I watch a movie like this, I sometimes wonder if the producers were sitting around saying, “Hey man, we’ve got a big budget for special effects, we signed Will-Fucking-Smith to star, and we’ve got a gold-plated formula/trope and an interesting premise. That’s good, right? I mean, Jimmy’s nephew can write the script. I heard he got a C+ on his spelling test, so the kid is literate. What more do we need?”

Some of the dialogue was silly. But I’m not going to judge too harshly there. I mean, I’m a writer, too. Lots of silly shit sounds good in my head when I’m in the heat of the story, but doesn’t sound actual-silly until I re-read it six months later. You know, after I’ve published. So it goes.

Most of the stuff that happens in the movie seems to happen as an excuse to set up an action scene or a trip from Georgia, to Cartagena, or Budapest, or any other exotic locale the budget can stand, because we audience members expect that from the trope. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t really support any of it. It all just sorta happens, ‘cause.

The movie starts a little slow as it gives us a chance to get to know the character and the situation, so we can bond with the hero before the shit hits the fan. I can or can’t be okay with this sort of thing, depending on how well it's done. Maybe for me, I just saw Will Smith being Will Smith, so I figured I already knew him, and I didn’t need to get to know the character he was ‘playing.’ So, this time around, it seemed a little like wasted time.

And while we’re talking about Will Smith, I think he’s played some outstanding roles. He’s demonstrated in numerous films that he is a talented actor. If he’d brought some of that depth to this role (necessarily coupled with a better script), this could have been a GFM© (Great Fuckin’ Movie – you know, like the Bourne Identity, also made with the same trope but different premise). Instead, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad. It was worth an evening on the couch, escaping the rigors of my day—you know, the time I spend trying to come up with non-silly dialogue for the characters in the story I’m writing, trying to meet my dogs’ expectations to let them in and out of the house every three minutes, and trying to remember the cover sheet on my TPS reports.

* If you feel like I’ve been unnecessarily harsh on a masterpiece, or too easy on a terrible POS, please read my Disclaimers, Caveats, and Excuses page before you flame me.

Bobby Adair is a former programmer, with a long-lived passion - and only recently fulfilled desire - for writing. He is the author of the Freedom Fire series, the Slow Burn series and the Ebola K series.

One of Bobby's favorite quotes:

“It’s not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It’s about all of us...Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.”
- Peter Gibbons, Office Space

You can follow Bobby on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Review—The Twilight Zone (2019 Remake)

August 13, 2020/0 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Jasper Scott

"You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of one's fears and the summit of one's knowledge. You are now traveling through a dimension of imagination. You just crossed over... into the Twilight Zone."

Let me preface this by saying, I am too young to have been a fan of the original series. Having been born in the late 80s, I have not yet delved into the beloved classic that was the original Twilight Zone. From my limited research on the topic, the original series was characterized by short, unrelated 30-minute episodes that each put forward an alternate reality in which one key variable had been changed or introduced in order to make brief moral statements in the context of a sci-fi/fantasy allegory.

Having watched both seasons of the remake, I can tell you that unfortunately, the new series doesn’t really live up to that heritage. There is a pithy moral to each episode, but upon deeper analysis, each of those “morals” winds up falling flat. They’re not the kind of profound truths that the original series became famous for. These are more superficial observations. Having said that, the remake is still great entertainment—or at least half of it is, anyway. Almost exactly half of the episodes have decent twists and interesting ideas, making them entertaining to watch, but the other half run the gamut from mediocre to abysmal. These unfortunate offerings even managed to fail as entertainment, being too slow, too improbable, too predictable, or just too meaningless on every level.

Yet there were a few episodes with a deeper meaning that managed to sneak through the rest, thereby coming close to the lofty goals of the original series. For example, in season one, “Replay” (S1E3) is about a Black woman who discovers a camcorder that has the ability to rewind not only the tape, but also time itself. She uses the device repeatedly in an attempt to escape a dangerous encounter with a racist cop. This episode has some strong parallels to current events, and it’s particularly powerful, because it helps to put the viewer in the shoes of the protagonist. Being singled out and mistreated just because of the color of one’s skin is an unfortunate reality in the world, and this episode manages to make several important statements about that exact problem. Preachy? Maybe, but I thought it was fantastic.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are episodes that I couldn’t even watch because they were so boring. The Wunderkind (S1E5) is a great example of this. A campaign manager gets a kid elected as the President of the United States. I couldn’t bring myself to suspend disbelief to the point that I could imagine anyone, ever, electing a child. Maybe it was hyperbole to suggest that any candidate with the right backing or campaign platform could get elected, but I just couldn’t get into it.

Then there was The Blue Scorpion (S1E9), about an old antique revolver that seems to have a mind of its own. I watched the episode all the way through, only to wish I could get that hour of my life back.

In season two, the trend continues: some episodes are good entertainment while others are too boring or ridiculous to endure. The better ones, Try Try (S2E9), Among the Untrodden (S2E5), and Meet in the Middle (S2E1) are all great entertainment with ironic twists that you might not see coming, but the second season still lacks the punch of having any particularly deep meaning, and I would characterize fully half of the episodes as skippable or unwatchable, even though I did watch a few of those through to the end. You can safely skip 8 (S2E6), which is about sentient octopuses plotting to take over the world, and Downtime (S2E2) which is about an artificial reality (presented in the most boring way possible), and You Might Also Like (S2E10), which was so unbelievably obtuse that I couldn’t even tell you what it was about after watching it halfway through.

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Overall, if you’re already paying a subscription fee for CBS, then it’s worth picking through the remake to find the jewels. If I had to rate both seasons together, I’d give the remake a 6/10. But the individual episodes rise both above and below that average. If you’d like a more detailed guide, here are my individual ratings and comments:

SEASON 1

The Comedian (S1E1) – 6/10 – “A stand-up comic incorporates details about people he knows into his routines, unaware that every joke results in someone being erased from existence.” Entertaining, but there’s no deep meaning here.

Nightmare at 30,000 Feet (S1E2) – 6/10 – “A journalist finds an MP3 player with a true crime podcast that details how the airplane he is currently on will disappear.” Entertaining.

Replay (S1E3) – 9/10 – “A woman sets out to prevent a racist state trooper from killing her son by using a camcorder with the power to turn back time.” More than just entertainment. Has a deeper meaning, and makes a strong emotional connection with the viewer.

A Traveler (S1E4) – 4/10 – “A mysterious man's arrival at an Alaska police station's Christmas party prompts a sergeant to investigate his ulterior motives.” You can skip this one. There’s a decent twist, but that’s about it.

The Wunderkind (S1E5) – 2/10 – “A down-and-out campaign manager gets a kid elected President of the United States.” Definitely skip it.

Six Degrees of Freedom (S1E6) – 6/10 – “A space crew preparing for the first human flight to Mars is faced with a life-altering decision...and its consequences.” Entertaining and definitely sc-fi.

Not All Men (S1E7) – 5/10 – “A meteor shower spreads infection across an entire town affecting some of the inhabitants more than others.” Not bad, not great.

Point of Origin (S1E8) – 2/10 – “A housewife discovers where she's really from when she's taken away from her family.” I’d give this a skip.

The Blue Scorpion (S1E9) – 2/10 – “The emergence of a strange, elusive gun changes the life of an anthropology professor whose mind is slowly unraveling.” Skip it for sure.

Blurryman (S1E10) – 5/10 – “Sophie Gelson, a writer for The Twilight Zone (2019), is haunted by a mysterious figure.” Unique! Worth watching as a segue into season two.

SEASON 2

Meet in the Middle (S2E1) – 8/10 – “A lonely bachelor makes a telepathic connection with a stranger, but not everything is as it seems in his new romance.” Good twist!

Downtime (S2E2) – 3/10 – “After a woman is promoted to hotel manager, the nature of her reality is called into question.” Really bad, but maybe you’ll like it better than I did.

The Who of You (S2E3) – 7/10 – “A struggling actor risks everything to catch his big break, but an impulsive scheme takes a few unexpected turns.” Entertaining. Worth watching.

Ovation (E2E4) – 5/10 – “A struggling singer's music career takes off when she witnesses a tragic incident, but she soon realizes that her recognition comes at a steep cost.” Just okay.

Among the Untrodden (S2E5) – 7/10 – “A transfer student's unusual interests make her an easy target at her new all-girls boarding school before she discovers her popular classmate's special talent.” Nice twist!

8 (S2E6) – 3/10 – “A team of scientists discover a new highly intelligent species that may endanger more than their research.” Too cheesy and unrealistic. The initial concept was good, but it gets progressively worse as the episode drags on.

A Human Face (S2E7) – 4/10 – “A grieving couple are led to second guess what's worth leaving behind when an otherworldly encounter interrupts their move.” Not bad, not good.

A Small Town (S2E8) – 5/10 – “A church handyman discovers a magic scale model that gives him the power to help his small town, but the mayor takes all the credit for his good intentions.” It’s unique, and has some interesting moments.

Try, Try (S2E9) – 7/10 – “A man dazzles a woman with his seemingly miraculous abilities, but their encounter takes a dark turn when the true source of his charisma is revealed.” Good twist! I enjoyed this one.

You Might Also Like (S2E10) – 1/10 – “A stay-at-home housewife is looking forward to acquiring a heavily marketed device that promises to make everything better forever, but the product has an unsavory truth.” I stopped watching partway through, so I can’t say much other than it bored me to tears.

Jasper Scott is a USA Today bestselling author of more than 20 sci-fi novels including the best selling First Encounter, The New Frontiers trilogy and Dark Space series. With over a million books sold, Jasper's work has been translated into various languages and published around the world.

Jasper writes fast-paced books with unexpected twists and flawed characters. He was born and raised in Canada by South African parents, with a British heritage on his mother's side and German on his father's. He now lives in an exotic locale with his wife, their two kids, and two chihuahuas.

You can follow Jasper on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Review—Starship Troopers

May 21, 2020/21 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Bobby Adair

Title - Starship Troopers

Author - Robert A. Heinlein

Narrator - Lloyd James

Release Date -1959

Wiki Info - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers

Review - Bobby Adair

Starship Troopers is the great-granddaddy of today’s Military Scifi genre.

At least, I think so. I haven’t ready any Sci-Fi yet that predates it and also takes the military training/campaign trope and maps it onto a space adventure.

Let’s say a few quick words about the movie and novel before we blaze on to the audiobook. The movie shares a title and the names of most of the characters with the novel. It plugs in some of the good phrases, and seems to have been created from the same two-page outline as the book. Beyond that, the two differ vastly in tone, detail, and goal. The movie wants to be…maybe a satire. I think the book wants to be a user’s guide to creating Heinlein’s idea of a utopian society. Feel free to hate me if you disagree.

BTW, I read the book some years ago. This time around, I listened on audio. I found the audiobook much more enjoyable than the ebook/paperback, whichever it was I read.

So, 1959. This book was written a long time ago. It may have introduced the idea of the mech suit.

You see those in military Sci-Fi and big-budget Hollywood movies all the time. Back in 1959, I’d guess probably not so much.

The book starts strongly with a battle scene, an invasion from space of an alien world. Well, not really an invasion, more of a crash & grab, or maybe just crash. But, it’s fun and full of the kind of military detail that readers of the genre love. Heinlein builds the world, and the suits, and the tactics, and the characters nicely. He is, after all, a fantastic writer.

After the battle scene wraps up, the book slips into a pretty standard trope for military stories—a recruit, Johnny, in this case, joins up, goes through basic training, excels, hits some bumps along the way, and eventually graduates. A war is always conveniently in the offing—and why not, there’d be no story without that part—and Johnny is sent off to fight the war. More bumps along the way, but excels, does some hero shit, and in most of these kinds of stories, would drive the story toward an expected climax. That climax part is a tad weak here. Aside from the expectations of the trope, there’s little driving the story forward.

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I don’t intend for that to be a mean comment. The story was readable and enjoyable.

However, unlike a lot of modern fiction in the genre, it wasn’t propulsive. It often languished down digressions that didn’t serve the story so much—I suspect—as the writer’s need to indulge his idea of a utopian society.

Maybe I overstate. Perhaps Heinlein is so good at building a world because he immerses himself so deeply in it, that he writes it as if it’s real, or the dream his characters want to make real.

I recall one stretch of the audiobook when Heinlein had one of his characters argue for thirty minutes (no exaggeration, I checked the time) on why beating dogs and kids was foundational to a stable culture. In fact, beating them was a favor to them they’d not appreciate until later in life. Thirty minutes. No shit.

His characters go down these kinds of rabbit holes over, and over, and over again, sometimes rehashing an argument Heinlein had his characters make once or twice already.

So, though Heinlein makes a promise to the reader with the first chapter, well written, good action, good world-building, he kind of gives the reader the switcheroo after that. The action scenes after chapter one are few and far between. The characters spend entirely the first half of the book in basic training. Interesting at first, as Heinlein fleshes out the experience to a remarkable degree of realism. But, the scenes are pumped full of preachy characters sermonizing over points of training and soldierly behavior that I found a little tedious.

That, and continually advocating for their governmental system. Which, after a while, made me wonder whether it was me Heinlein was trying to sell on the idea.

Overall, Starship Troopers was a well-written, interesting book.

Not an action-packed barn-burner. Though, it contains plenty of skippable pages.

Bobby Adair

* If you feel like I’ve been unnecessarily harsh on a masterpiece, or too easy on a terrible POS, please read my Disclaimers, Caveats, and Excuses page before you flame me.

Bobby Adair is a former programmer, with a long-lived passion - and only recently fulfilled desire - for writing. He is the author of the Freedom Fire series, the Slow Burn series and the Ebola K series.

One of Bobby's favorite quotes:

“It’s not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It’s about all of us...Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.”
- Peter Gibbons, Office Space

You can follow Bobby on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Review—The Forever War

April 22, 2020/1 Comment/in Books, Insider /by Bobby Adair

Author – Joe Haldeman

I’ll start by plagiarizing a meme (if that’s possible) and say:

The Forever War is the granddaddy of today’s Military Scifi genre. Change my mind.

Of course, you’d say, ‘Well, there’s Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.’

And I’d reply:

Starship Troopers is the great-granddaddy of today’s Military Scifi genre. Change my mind.

I’ll cover Starship Troopers in my next Classic Review. Today, it’s going to be The Forever War.

First, a little history. I bought this book in paperback twice. Once back in the 80s because I loved the title, once in the 90s because it had a different cover, and I didn’t realize it was the same book. Unfortunately, I used to buy a lot more books than I had time to read them (that really hasn’t changed), so I never read either until much later. At the time, I thought it was a fantastic book.

The copy I purchased this time around was the audiobook, and that’s what I’ll be reviewing here.

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A little about the narration:

The audiobook was recorded in 1999, and to me, the audio quality sounded just a tad substandard. Perhaps that was all in my imagination. It didn’t, however, inhibit my ability to understand the narrator at all. He read clearly, with excellent diction. He was just a tad dry for my tastes. I did, however, listen at 150% speed. Was that the narrator's style, or the story making me want to hurry it along? I can’t say. But at 150%, it worked for me.

On to the story: I loved it the first time I read it.

I’ve recommended the story to my friends for years. This time around, I thought it was thoroughly okay.

It is Military SciFi, but it is not a high-action story. Of course, there are space battles, even the big climactic throw-down at the end—very satisfying. But, the military action is a bit sparse when compared to many of the more modern books I’ve read in the genre.

So, what do you get instead of rock’em-sock’em war?

Well, you get a lengthy newbie soldier training sequence. That’s a pretty standard trope in many military stories before the hero(es) goes off to war. You also get a heaping helping of world-building, a world that needs to get built and rebuilt several times because the author chooses to tell his story in a hybrid FTL universe.

What I mean by this is that one of the things authors have to consider when they sit down to write a space opera of any sort, is whether faster than light (FTL) travel occurs in their new universe. The choice carries significant implications for the story that develops. In The Forever War, Haldeman employs ‘collapsars’ the same way wormholes are employed in more modern fiction, as gates through which space travelers can jump from one area of the galaxy to another. For journeys in areas where no collapsar is in the vicinity, travelers in Haldeman’s books move at some significant fraction of the speed of light. Hence, time dilates. So, soldiers go off to battle and come back decades or centuries later. Haldeman squeezes this set of circumstances for lots of pretty interesting chapters, many of which have to do with explaining a world a hundred or several hundred years in the future.

Overall, it’s a good book — worth a read.

A few notes I should mention, however: Haldeman, through his character’s voice, does offer up an editorialized point of view on many of society’s changes. Perfectly fine, we all do it. That’s part of the fun of being an author. However, a few points arise in the book, one where female soldiers were required to sexually service their male counterparts, and one where homosexuality was portrayed as a choice, not a genetic outcome. He presents both of these without the irony that his character seems to view nearly everything else. That seemed a tad odd to me, as though Haldeman were presenting both as natural beliefs. I don’t agree with any point of view where such things are natural, at the same time, I’m not one to get offended by much. But if you, as a reader, are, then beware, there may be a few other pitfalls for your sensibilities wrapped into the text of the story.

Bobby Adair

* If you feel like I’ve been unnecessarily harsh on a masterpiece, or too easy on a terrible POS, please read my Disclaimers, Caveats, and Excuses page before you flame me.

Bobby Adair is a former programmer, with a long-lived passion - and only recently fulfilled desire - for writing. He is the author of the Freedom Fire series, the Slow Burn series and the Ebola K series.

One of Bobby's favorite quotes:

“It’s not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It’s about all of us...Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.”
- Peter Gibbons, Office Space

You can follow Bobby on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Review—Electric State

March 18, 2020/0 Comments/in Books, Insider /by Bobby Adair

Author – Simon Stalenhag

I’ll start with the bottom line first. I thought Electric State was an excellent book.

But, not for everyone.

Let’s start with the most salient oddity—it’s not quite a graphic novel, and it’s not quite a novella. It’s a book that decided to be something in between. It’s a story written around a series of stunningly beautiful apocalyptic art pieces. They create a vision of a world that words would fall short in describing. I totally loved the artwork, and I’d say, if you like the book cover, give it a try, if only to peruse the images from time to time. If you don’t dig the cover art, then don’t waste your cash on a purchase. You won’t like what’s to come, and the word count alone is insufficient to justify the cost. I paid $16.99 on Amazon for an eBook.

I should probably say something else about this. I own a spiffy little kindle that fits into the pocket of my cargo shorts, but I do most of my eBook reading on an iPad Pro with a 12.9-inch full-color screen. If you’ve got a small and/or black & white display, I wouldn’t recommend buying Electric State in eBook format. Spend a few bucks more and purchase the hardback, otherwise, you won’t get the full effect of the artwork.

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Next, the storytelling style—not for everybody.

It has a very raw, ambiguous, dark feel. As a reader, I spent a good deal of the time unsure about what was happening in the present-day story of the narrative and what was the retelling of a memory. Characters from the recollected past seemed to come into the story, so suddenly that I spent many paragraphs feeling like I’d missed something. It took some time for me to put together who those people were and how they related to the main character. Having said all that, the entire story was a set of nested questions leading me toward a resolution that tied the story up very nicely.

I know reviewers like to talk about story details and how the plot developed and whether this scene or that scene worked, but I think to do that with this book would be an injustice. It’s a quick trip through a weird SciFi-apocalyptic world, and I thought the unmoored feeling I experienced was what the author intended—a feature, not a bug.

Check out the sample at your favorite eBook retailer. The artwork in the sample is worth at least a glance.

Bobby Adair

* If you feel like I’ve been unnecessarily harsh on a masterpiece, or too easy on a terrible POS, please read my Disclaimers, Caveats, and Excuses page before you flame me.

Bobby Adair is a former programmer, with a long-lived passion - and only recently fulfilled desire - for writing. He is the author of the Freedom Fire series, the Slow Burn series and the Ebola K series.

One of Bobby's favorite quotes:

“It’s not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It’s about all of us...Michael, we don’t have a lot of time on this earth! We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.”
- Peter Gibbons, Office Space

You can follow Bobby on Facebook, Twitter and his website.

Yes, yes… I realize that the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is still ongoing.

Looking past the big boys of LucasFilm and Marvel, the sci-fi movie scene is pretty bleak.

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Could the indie filmmakers fill that void?

Can filmmakers like Haz change the sci-fi cinema landscape and steal back some of the momentum from the monolithic companies like Disney and Paramount?

I arrived at a rather unenviable and hopefully “once in a lifetime” position recently—having accurately predicted the novel coronavirus now sweeping the globe.

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I spent at least six months researching past pandemics, virology, disease epidemiology, U.S. and world pandemic response protocols and detection capabilities, vaccine production, the U.S. healthcare and medical infrastructure, U.S essential services infrastructure, supply chain dynamics.

What does this have to do with me predicting the COVID19 Pandemic?

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Title - Starship Troopers

Author - Robert A. Heinlein

Narrator - Lloyd James

Release Date -1959

Wiki Info - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers

Review - Bobby Adair

Starship Troopers is the great-granddaddy of today’s Military Scifi genre.

So, 1959. This book was written a long time ago. It may have introduced the idea of the mech suit.

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I don’t intend for that to be a mean comment. The story was readable and enjoyable.

His characters go down these kinds of rabbit holes over, and over, and over again, sometimes rehashing an argument Heinlein had his characters make once or twice already.

Overall, Starship Troopers was a well-written, interesting book.

I’ll cover Starship Troopers in my next Classic Review. Today, it’s going to be The Forever War.

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A little about the narration:

On to the story: I loved it the first time I read it.

So, what do you get instead of rock’em-sock’em war?

Overall, it’s a good book — worth a read.

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Next, the storytelling style—not for everybody.

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And here are the covers in question for your reference:

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