Just for Fun 2015


Publication year: 2011
Format: Audio
Running time: 17 hours and 18 minutes
Publisher: Audible
Narrator: Angele Masters









The third and final book in the series
Publication year: 2014
Format: print
Page count: 423
Translator: Antti Autio
Publisher of the Finnish translation: Gummerus

The whole trilogy has lots of cool concepts and science which might exist at some point and the last book is no exception. Theoretically, it should be easier to read because most of the concepts have been introduced in the previous books. But it’s not, at least for me. This time we get to see lot more of the zoku society. They’re like live action roleplayers with high tech that brings everything really alive.

Sobornost (the bad guys) are fighting a civil war and the surviving characters are caught in the middle. The master thief Jean de Flambeur finds out just what he used to be like… and intends to steal a ring from Saturn.

Like before, I think that the setting is the major attraction with technology which behaves essentially like magic, and are named after magical entities such as djinn or dragons. For me at least, this actually made it harder to think of them as tech.

The book has lots of references to various comic book and fantasy and SF characters (even a Finnish one is seen once). Jules Verne is a clear inspiration, after all the most significant zoku society in the book is the Gun Club and its leader is Barbicane (from “From Earth to the Moon” and “Around the Moon”). I enjoyed them.

However, I felt that the characters and plot were buried under cool concepts and setting. I highly recommend reading “The Quantum Thief” and “the Fractal Prince” first and preferably back to back so that you don’t have the chance to forget the names and concepts.

The 8th book in the series.

Publication year: 2013
Format: print
Page count: 432
Publisher: Del Ray

William Laurence washes up in a sea shore. He has no idea who he is and how he has gotten there. Fortunately, he’s saved by a local nobleman.

Meanwhile, Laurence’s dragon Temeraire, the dragon transport ship, and the rest of the dragons have problems. Laurence fell overboard during a storm and the ship was damaged. Temeraire wants to go immediately to look of his captain even though the nearest land mass is Japan which doesn’t allow foreigners. However, he has to help with the ship and Iskierka is having their egg and wants Temeraire to make sure it’s safe before he goes.

Back in Japan, Laurence has remembered his name… but doesn’t remember anything about the last eight years. He thinks that he’s still a ship’s captain and dealing with the very suspicious Japanese is difficult. Fortunately, he speaks Chinese and lots of the Japanese speak it, too. Laurence manages to escape but not without help and he meets the local dragons, too.

The book has three parts. The first is set in Japan, the second in China, and the third part returns our favorite dragons to the fight against Napoleon.

The amnesia forces Laurence to take a long hard look at his life and the people around him. This brings quite a lot of angst and slows the pace a lot. However, I quite liked the Japanese dragons and the clash of different sort of honor definitions and rules.

The rest of the book advances the overall plot and the book ends in a cliffhanger. And I have no idea when the next book might come out.

Overall I liked this book a lot. Amnesia plots are a bit hit or miss with me. They can be hilarious (Buffy’s “Tabula Rasa” comes to mind as well as Star Trek TNG “Conundrum”) but can also go very, very wrong. This is in between for me. Not hilarious at all, since it just brought more angst to, well, everyone and it seemed that Laurence is really unsatisfied with his life which is sad. Other things bring to humor to the book, though: Iskierka is jealous of Temeraire’s Chinese lover and it was fun for a few incidents but got old really fast.

The clash between cultures is always interesting and there are several cultures here compared to the British (and each other). Novik also references a few historical incidents which I almost always like.

The first part has a lot of introspection and so it’s pretty slow but the last third makes up with that when the dragons join the war effort again.

Publication year: 2014
Format: Audio
Running time: 10 hours (includes the novella Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome)
Publisher: Audible
Narrator: Wil Wheaton and a group of narrators for the novella

The SF premise for the book is a disease, a strain of bird flu, which has wiped out a lot of humanity. But about one percent of the afflicted suffer from “lock in”: they’re fully conscious but can’t move or respond to any stimulus. It’s called Haden’s syndrome. This is millions of people and because the wife of the president of USA was one of the first victims, USA spent a whole lot of money and time to find a cure. They didn’t find it but they did manage to find a way for the lock in people to interact with the world. They have neural implants which allow them to take over a robot body or interact with each other in a virtual world. The story starts 25 years later, when Hadens (as they are called) are part of the US society.

The book is actually a police procedural. The main character is Chris Shane who has just started working in the FBI. She or he (the gender is actually never revealed) is suffering from lock in and works with a robot body. His/her partner is Leslie Vann who has her own issues and an interesting past. They are given a tough case which at first looks like it could be murder but might be suicide.

This is exactly the kind of SF I enjoy and I really liked Lock in. Scalzi takes a premise and then extrapolates how it would change a world much like ours. There are people who hate Hadens and legislation is done concerning the robot bodies (threeps). But some Hadens are media darlings.

The novella is available for free here: http://www.tor.com/2014/05/13/unlocked-an-oral-history-of-hadens-syndrome-john-scalzi/ It’s quite different in style from the book and it showcases the world very well. It’s done in a TV documentary style with statements from people who were near the center of things when the disease first started. Each person has just a paragraph or two but most of them have personalities which show through. The novella shows how people and the government reacted to the outbreak of the disease and then how people’s opinions about the Hadens and the robot bodies grow and change.

The final book in the Vampire Empire series.

Publication year: 2012
Format: Audio
Running time: 14 hours, 49 minutes
Publisher: Buzzy Multimedia Publishing
Narrator: James Masters









A stand-alone book set in the Promethean Age series.

Publication year: 2014
Format: print
Page count: 332
Publisher: Prime







The first book in the pulp adventure series set in Venus.

Publication year: 1932
Format: print
Page count: 183
Publisher: Del Ray (printed in 1991)

I’ve read more than a few Tarzan books, the first three Pellucidar books, and the Mars series in my youth, but this is the first time I read Burroughs’ Venus series. To my surprise, I found out that the first three Venus books have also been translated but in 1930s but there aren’t any reprints that I’m aware of. I’ve never seen the translations.

The book starts with Carson Napier contacting Burroughs himself. Carson is determined to travel to Mars in a rocket ship. In order to tell people on Earth about his adventures, Carson will keep in touch with his telepathic powers which he learned from a Hindu mystic. Carson also tells his life’s story to Burroughs. This ties the Venus series into the same world where the Tarzan and Pellucidar books happen.

Carson takes off in the rocket but the calculations were wrong and he ends up on Venus instead of Mars. There he encounters a human race which lives on gigantic trees. The humans call themselves Vepajans and they are a remnant of a once great race which invented immortality and made great technical strides. The men are armed at all times and seem to be fighting against the local animals. However, they also have human enemies and soon they capture Carson who has to find a way to escape.

The book contains many of Burroughs’ staples: a strange new world with humans who have different customs and cultures, strange beasts, and adventure. There is even a Princess whom Carson falls in love with and has to rescue. The story also contains political satire with the two human cultures: The Vepajan Empire had strict class distinctions (between merchants, wage earners, slaves, and brain workers) and even though the Vepajans claim that the classes didn’t interact at all, the empire was also so egalitarian that anyone (I presume anyone male) with sufficient skills and intelligence could rise to the thinking class of doctors and scientists. Yet, there were people who were unhappy with the empire and rose in rebellion. Their leader was Thor and so they’re called Thorans. The Vepajans are all beautiful or handsome and very courteous while the Thorans are often plain or ugly and insulting. The Thorans won and killed a lot of the Vepajans before the rest managed to escape.

The humans are now split into Vepajans and Thorans. The Vepajans still enjoy immortality and are almost free of disease but only half of the women are able to bear children. They don’t have slaves or servants; everyone is equal except for the king and his offspring who are almost revered. The Vepajans don’t have religion and when Carson tries to explain the concept to them, they find it ridiculous. In contrast, the current day Thorans are ignorant and weak willed people who are ruled by their former rebel leaders with an iron fist. The Thorans possess guns and ships which the Vepajans no longer have.

The locals again have just one language which, we are told, is a lot easier to learn than English. For example it doesn’t have irregular verbs. Therefore Carson is able to learn it in just three weeks.

Venus, or Amtor as the locals call it, has heavy cloud cover and the locals have never seen the sun, moon, or stars. The vegetation is gigantic and the climate is so warm that the locals need very little clothing.

Carson is an athlete but he isn’t a soldier and while he can fence he’s a novice and not the overwhelmingly skilled swordsman that John Carter is. But he’s a courageous, friendly man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly, as is usual for a Burroughs hero. His fair hair, blue eyes, and light skin marks him as different from the Venusian people.

The beginning of the story is a bit slow when Carson is told a lot about Amtor but after that the pace picks up. It’s the first book in the series and ends in a cliffhanger.

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