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Weekend Reviews
Jul. 6th, 2008 05:25 pmWord Count for Space Rescue
Complete (66,783) Goal (80,000)
100% complete
Since Last Post = 852 words
Things accomplished in fiction: re-organized chapters, added some characterization of people reluctant to get involved.
In the leasure front, I marched with the Darien Rotary Club in the 4th of July parade, and got some of my to-be-read backlog done. My first read was Kris Longknife: Mutineer
by Mike Shepherd AKA Mike Moscoe. It's a fairly good entry into the epic Space Opera genre, with space battles, FTL travel, and a mostly-unseen alien race that very nearly stamped paid on humanity. I enjoyed it, but not enough to track down the rest of the series.
Speaking of series, I promised a while back a more coherent review of Jack Campbell AKA John Hemry's book The Lost Fleet: Valiant. It's a great read, and probably better in both plot and characters then Longknife. However, it's a lousy place to enter the series from, since it's the continuation of a cliffhanger started in Book Three. Having said that, the cliffhanger ending is resolved and the metaplot, which looked a bit stuck in the previous outing, has gotten unstuck.
In this series, Hemry has been exploring two concepts. First, the more overt one of "why men fight," or more accurately, "why men follow other men to fight." John Geary, the fleet's leader, started out as a near-god, but is now followed because he's proven to be competent. The second concept being explored is how men come to political power and how republics die. Here, Geary is being set up as potential Emperor, and now that potentiality is causing men to try and kill him. Overall, it's a very interesting read, and not just shoot-em-up stuff. But unless you pick up book 3, The Lost Fleet: Courageous, at a minimum, you'll be lost.
I also went and saw Wall E yesterday. My more conservative readership may have a bit of a heartburn over the "humanity trashed Earth" (literally) plot, and the more science-fictional aware may have issues with the technical parts of the ending, but I enjoyed it very much. Once you put the "it's a cartoon, folks" light on, I think you'll find it's a very lyrical romance, done with spectacular visuals. Go see it.
Complete (66,783) Goal (80,000)
100% completeSince Last Post = 852 words
Things accomplished in fiction: re-organized chapters, added some characterization of people reluctant to get involved.
In the leasure front, I marched with the Darien Rotary Club in the 4th of July parade, and got some of my to-be-read backlog done. My first read was Kris Longknife: Mutineer
by Mike Shepherd AKA Mike Moscoe. It's a fairly good entry into the epic Space Opera genre, with space battles, FTL travel, and a mostly-unseen alien race that very nearly stamped paid on humanity. I enjoyed it, but not enough to track down the rest of the series.Speaking of series, I promised a while back a more coherent review of Jack Campbell AKA John Hemry's book The Lost Fleet: Valiant
. It's a great read, and probably better in both plot and characters then Longknife. However, it's a lousy place to enter the series from, since it's the continuation of a cliffhanger started in Book Three. Having said that, the cliffhanger ending is resolved and the metaplot, which looked a bit stuck in the previous outing, has gotten unstuck. In this series, Hemry has been exploring two concepts. First, the more overt one of "why men fight," or more accurately, "why men follow other men to fight." John Geary, the fleet's leader, started out as a near-god, but is now followed because he's proven to be competent. The second concept being explored is how men come to political power and how republics die. Here, Geary is being set up as potential Emperor, and now that potentiality is causing men to try and kill him. Overall, it's a very interesting read, and not just shoot-em-up stuff. But unless you pick up book 3, The Lost Fleet: Courageous
, at a minimum, you'll be lost.I also went and saw Wall E yesterday. My more conservative readership may have a bit of a heartburn over the "humanity trashed Earth" (literally) plot, and the more science-fictional aware may have issues with the technical parts of the ending, but I enjoyed it very much. Once you put the "it's a cartoon, folks" light on, I think you'll find it's a very lyrical romance, done with spectacular visuals. Go see it.
