Books

I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.

📚 Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl

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17/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Much like Gateway, the prior book in the series, there’s a lot of really neat hard SF worldbuilding. Unfortunately, there’s also a lot of uncomfortable-by-today’s-standards focus on whether the 14-year-old girl is going to jump in bed with her brother-in-law or the raised-by-horny-computers orphan. Gateway had a little bit of this sort of thing — the main character at one point in that book is in a relationship with a woman who is described as said-she-was-18, looked 16, but even that was questionable — but here it’s a fairly major thread for the first half of this book. Thankfully, it more or less fades away in the latter half, but it was rather painfully obvious that Pohl (who was in his early 60s when he wrote this book) was absolutely part of the “old white men indulging their puerile fantasies” crowd of mid-century SF. In the end, the interesting SF parts kept me invested and I’m proceeding to the next book in the series.

Michael holds Beyond the Blue Event Horizon

📚 Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success by Susan Albertine, Michelle Asha Cooper, Tia Brown McNair, Nicole McDonald, and Thomas Major, Jr.

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16/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The basic concept and ideas are good (flipping “college-ready students” to “student-ready colleges”), but at times really needed a stricter editorial eye (the point where a sentence begins “In short…”, but then goes on for nine lines, and is already three sentences into a page-and-a-half paragraph being a prime example).

Michael holding Becoming a Student-Ready College

📚 Gateway by Frederik Pohl

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15/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1978 Hugo Best Novel

The main character’s something of an ass (admittedly, this is part of the story, so at least he’s not an ass for no reason), but the general conceit and worldbuilding is fascinating. Humanity has found the remnants of an alien race, including a fleet of FTL ships…but nobody really knows how to work them. Take one out and you might come back with treasures worth millions, you might come back with nothing, you might come back dead, you might not come back at all…and the odds aren’t in your favor.

Michael holding Gateway

2022 PKD Award Thoughts 📚

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As I have for the past several years, I’ve read all of this year’s Philip K. Dick Award nominated works.

This year had a nice strong slate, I’ve actually had a hard time picking which I’d choose for the top spot. Top three is pretty easy, but top spot…that’s more difficult.

My picks for top three: Nino Cipri’s Defekt, Tade Thompson’s Far From the Light of Heaven, and Lavie Tidhar’s The Escapement. All of them were the kind of stories that took up residence in my brain and poked me for a few days afterwards, which is always a good sign.

If I had to pick a top choice (and I don’t have to, but then, what would be the point of this post), I think I’d go with Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson. Amusingly, it was one of two “murder mystery in space involving an investigator dealing with misbehaving AIs” stories (the other being Kali Wallace’s Dead Space); both were good, but I found Thompson’s to be my preference — admittedly, possibly somewhat influenced by my prior enjoyment of Thompson’s earlier Wormwood trilogy.

Of the books I haven’t mentioned yet, Jason Sanford’s Plague Birds was an enjoyable adventure and well worthy of being nominated; and Giacomo Satori’s Bug was the only one of this year’s picks that just didn’t work for me.

As noted, though, another strong slate, and I’m looking forward to seeing who wins this year (and my tongue-in-cheek advance apologies to Tade Thompson; as his book is my favorite, if historical trends hold true, another book will take the top spot…but hey, maybe this year is the year to change that)!

📚 Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

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12/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Philip K. Dick Award Nominee

A locked-room murder mystery in space, with mysterious AIs, interstellar politics, and somewhat mystic aliens. I really enjoyed Thompson’s earlier Wormwood trilogy, and this absolutely holds up. His characters are fascinating and very real (even when artificial), and motivations are not always as clear cut as they might seem.

Michael holding Far From the Light of Heaven

📚 Dead Space by Kali Wallace

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11/2022 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Philip K. Dick Award Nominee

A murder mystery on an asteroid mining colony, under investigation by an AI-expert-turned-indentured-security-officer after a catastrophic disaster on their scientific expedition ship. I had fairly good guesses at several of the final reveals, but enjoyed the journey even if it never really caught me off guard.