Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie  has received several awards and great acclaim since its release in October 2013. Having won the Nebula Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award and tied for the BSFA award, the Sword & Laser Podcast were pretty glowing in their praise of the novel when I first heard of it from on their show. It was then a pleasant surprise that iTunes was offering the book for $1.99 and made it really easy to pick up a copy and I am glad I did.

Ancillary Justice is the first book in the Imperial Radch trilogy. The book opens with the main character Breq coming across a body in the snow on some planet on the fringe of the galaxy. It turns out Breq knows the person (who turns out only to be injured) and decides to help Seivarden even though it may compromise Breq's mission. From there we are taken on a journey that jumps from Breq's present to the past where we are given insight into the Radch empire by following the story of Lieutenant  Awn and her troops during the annexation (occupation) of a planet 19 years ago.

Through the story in the past we learn of the ship Justice of Toren and the empire's use of ancillaries as part of their military. Ancillaries being the humans from conquered planets that have been put into cryogenic storage until thawed and connected to the ship's AI when they become a "segment" of the ship's ancillary groups with no part of their original personality remaining. The whole practice is both intriguing and repulsive at the same time given that these people, rather than being killed during an occupation by the empire are instead essentially killed and used as host bodies for the ship's AI.

What Ann Leckie does well in this story is give us the viewpoint of the ancillaries and help the reader have some understanding of what it might be like to think and be 20 people at once (or more). Through this viewpoint, Ann Leckie also raises questions of what it means to have free will and what makes a person unique. Overall, Ancillary Justice is a political thriller and quest novel rolled into one with a unique setting and great world building. Luckily there are two more books coming since we only get to scratch the surface of the setting.

One aspect of the book that will be a little jarring is the lack of gender specificity in the characters. The empire doesn't distinguish between men and women and thus the reader can be left guessing the gender of the characters we meet. The interesting thing is that ultimately it doesn't matter to the story. Well done. Ancillary Justice is good science fiction space opera-y stuff and gets 4 Mick Happies. Probably the best compliment I can give it is that it has made me focus my reading on Sci-Fi books as I don't want to leave the vastness of space that was introduced in the story (so now I am reading more Honor Harrington books by David Weber to pass the time until Ancillary Sword is released in October).

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Last weekend the whole family went to see Transformers: Age of Extinction. This is a big deal since I can't pay the wife or kid to go to an actual theatre and I really don't blame them. We went to the luxury theatre nearby and paid $21.50 a person then a boatload more for popcorn and Icees. Then there is the uncomfortable seats (compared to home) and the inability to pause the film when you have to go, etc., etc., etc. We thought it would be worth it to see some Transformers action as we have enjoyed (most) of the previous films and I am of an age where I remember watching Optimus Prime and crew growing up.

Transformers: Age of Extinction (T:AoE) is the latest installment in Michael Bay's big screen franchise based on the classic cartoon, Transformers. I won't bother explaining the backstory since most people who are reading this have likely already seen or heard of the previous movies. T:AoE picks up 5 years after Transformers: Dark of the Moon and finds all Transformers on the run and in hiding. They are being hunted down by a covert operations team run by the CIA with the goal of ending alien activity (and protecting the country/world). Needless to say they aren't discriminate between Autobots and Decepticons and many of the robot characters from the previous films are dead. The CIA team is also working with others for specific goals that are directly related to the plot (so I won't spoil them).

Okay, so this isn't a great film. It is long, repetitive and tries to pack too much into one story. T:AoE runs about 2 hours and 45 minutes (more if you count the 20 minutes of commercials and trailers we had to sit through). There are several points in the movie where they could have stopped and it would have been a tight, compact story. Instead you get a bloated action fest that leaves you tired, physically tired, when it is done. At times it seems that fight scenes were just going on to provide an opportunity to throw more visual effects at you.

On the plus side, there are Transformers and we get to meet some new ones who are interesting - like Hound (voiced by John Goodman). There are also some nice comedic moments in the film that are laugh out loud and meant to be. Stanley Tucci is pretty good in his role and Mark Wahlberg was better than Shia LeBeouf is the last film or two in the franchise. Though I do miss MoJo.

Oh yeah, Dinobots.

I think my major problem with the Transformers films is that they all end up being about saving the world or stopping some major bad event from occurring. If I could do one thing with the franchise - assuming we want more Transformers - I would reboot the whole thing. I would keep most of the first film but rather than having the aliens come for the Allspark, the Decepticons would come to take over Earth because their planet was used up or have them come because the Autobots are here hiding. Then have the whole movie just be about the fight between the Autobots and Decepticons with humans trying to help the Autobots. Would be a much more interesting than wasting time with all the chasing around for an Allspark or a Matrix of Leadership or Seed or whatever.

Anyway, Transformers: Age of Extinction gets 2 MickHappies. Too long, repetitive plot, too much trying to shove new shiny things in and not enough clever. Watch at your risk. Or watch if you just really like watching robots fighting robots.

Hollow World Review

A year ago or so I read The Riyria Revelations by Michael J. Sullivan and enjoyed them quite a bit. Recently I had a chance to pick up a copy of his latest novel, Hollow World, as an e-book on Amazon for next to nothing, so I jumped at the chance. Hollow World, for those who didn't hear about it before via its successful Kickstarter campaign or other means, is a recent past/far-future time travel tale - think H.G. Wells' The Time Machine but without quite so bleak a future.

In Hollow World we are introduced to Ellis Rogers, a married man who is going to die and has little to hold him to his current life. Lucky for him, he has built a time machine and if he is willing to roll the dice, he may be able to find a cure in the future to save himself. we are given a very interesting view of the future indeed. That's as far as I will go into the plot as this story holds suspense and mystery and asks a number of social questions and I don't want to ruin it for you.

Anyone who has been reading my recent posts knows I like time travel or stories when people from our world go to a new one. This fish-out-of-water scenario is always interesting when it involves the future and we get to see the author's speculation of what the future might hold for mankind. Mr. Sullivan's take on the future in Hollow World is interesting and thought-provoking and will force the reader to question what the purpose of life is and how do sexuality and religion play a part in it. Luckily it doesn't beat those topics over your head, after all there is still an interesting story going on in there as well.

One thing I did find with Hollow World is that a few of the big reveals were possibly too heavily foreshadowed meaning they didn't have quite the impact that they could have. On the other hand, it was nice to actually guess a few events in the story rather than just go along for the ride. Either way, it doesn't detract from Hollow World being a good book and rating 4 Mick Happies for me. I recommend you give it a shot and if you buy it in print form you can get a free e-book copy from the author. Additionally, the e-book comes with two versions of the book, the explicit language one and the clean version. See you in the future.