Re: Highlights and Lowlights - April 2025

In article <vvb2nv$rvl4$1@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance  <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:

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Highlights and Lowlights - April 2025

Thanks as usual!

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( ++ - ) The Reefs of Space - Pohl & Williamson [Starchild Trilogy #1]
Holds up surprisingly well for being 60+ years old. But it is clearly
60+ years old. Solar-system-based, dystopian a la’ Orwell’s 1984,
complete with a surveillance state run by a Machine which orders
everyone to follow The Plan. (Fyi, these capitalized nouns are from the
authors, not me.) For the reader, the plot and settings carry the day,
as the book is populated by one-dimensional stock characters. The
protagonist is a mathematician who has become a Risk to the state, and
as such, he is fitted with an exploding collar. Like all collared
individuals, it will be detonated if he has too many Unplanned Thoughts.
Special for him, though, it will also be detonated if he doesn’t invent
the Jetless Drive, which only requires him to violate Newton’s Third
Law. Bummer dude.
I already finished reading #2 a few days ago, and will read the
third/final book at some point.

It's interesting that I can recall finding these books in the public library's
junk basket as "stripped" copies with no cover, but can recall basicaly
nothing else about them.

However your description recalled a "what were they thinking!?"
moment from another series that frustrated me in several ways: M.K.
Wren's "The Phoenix Legacy". Part of the rebellion's master plan
requires their science guy to develop FTL technology, which may not
even be possible.  Find another plan guys!

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( ++ ) The Warden - Daniel M Ford
This is a series-starter, and the 2nd & 3rd are also published. Aelis is
a city-born-and-bred noble who has just graduated near the top of her
class from the Lyceum (a prestigious college of magic). To her deep
dismay, she has been assigned as a Warden to Lone Pine and its
surrounding environs, which is pretty much the most rural place in the
empire, as well as the most distant from the city and college. This
place is r-e-m-o-t-e. As we see Aelis and the villagers adapt to each
other, she starts to uncover some true dangers to both Lone Pine and the
entire Empire.  She’s an interesting character, and becomes surrounded
by interesting characters as well. Although I did not appreciate the
huge cliffhanger ending, I will read #2.
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This sounds like it should be exactly up my alley.  Pushed to wishlist..

( + 1/2 ) Planets of Adventure - Leinster [ed. by Flint & Gordon]
The final 1/3 of this volume is 5 stand-alone stories (the first two
thirds being the books The Forgotten Planet and The Planet Explorer),
and they’re fine. Not great, not awful - fine.
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( ++ 1/2) Sanctuary - Ilona Andrews [Roman Chronicles #1]
Novella-length, set in the Kate Daniels universe, and completely focused
on Roman, who is a Black Volhv (empowered rep/priest) of Chernobog, God
of Destruction, Darkness, and Death. (This does not mean God of Evil, by
the way - more like being the God of the Difficult Necessities of Life.)
Isolated on his 15 acres way out in the sticks, Roman finds a boy near
death just outside his small home. When the boy specifically asks for
sanctuary, Roman must comply. Shortly thereafter, some mercenaries come
to retrieve the boy. When they fail miserably, they hire some mages to
help. Things get very interesting when that fails as well. Roman is dour
and pessimistic, but also funny, and I will read the next one.

I hope we don't have to wait too long.  As I recall the Andrews got
a big non-Kate-related project accepted & underway.

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( ++ 1/2 ) Chimera’s Fall - Stewart [Starship’s Mage #16]
I believe this series narrowly avoided jumping the shark a couple books
ago, and this one is a pretty solid entry. This is completely a Roslyn
book, which is fine, but I miss Damien. Connor (the Ambassador to
Chimera) is a co-protagonist. Picking up immediately after the last
book, distant-system Chimera is awaiting the attack of the evil
devouring civilization that just rediscovered them, and Roslyn and Co
are coordinating with Mars and Chimera to evacuate the entire Chimera
system, because they know they can’t defeat the big-bads (at least not
yet). There are lots of political and military issues to navigate, and
of course the big-bads show up early. Looking forward to the next one.
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( +++ - ) On the Steel Breeze - Reynolds [Poseidon’s Children #2]
Huge in scope - two intertwined plotlines, one on Earth, and one on a
massive colonizing voyage to a distant star. Protagonist Chiku Akinya
creates two clones with her memories, and all three have the ability to
periodically sync their experiences with each other. Chiku Yellow stays
on Earth, Chiku Green goes on the colonizing voyage, and Chiku Red goes
on a solo deep space mission to pursue great-grandmother Eunice in her
runaway starship. (No surprise, Reynolds does indeed address the problem
of staying in sync over relativistic distances.) Pretty fun read
overall, and I will read the third/final one. The minus is for two
combined issues: the prominence of a “homicidal AI” plot, and for the
utter stupidity of humans that shouldn’t take place in a Reynolds book.[1]
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Now Reading:
Long work - Mickey 7 - Ashton
Collection - A Liaden Constellation 1 - Lee & Miller
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Tony
[1] Re: utter stupidity: The colonization fleet — all huge “holoships”,
said fleet carrying billions of people — agree that they should
over-consume their fuel so they can get there 7-8 years faster,
reasoning that they’ll surely figure out the new physics and technology
and plucky know-how they need to slow down. Bonus: Some years later,
there’s also an authoritarian takeover that forbids both research and
discussion of this problem of slowing down.
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