Armada Review

For those who have read this blog for a long time, you might remember that I loved Ready Player One by Ernest Cline when I wrote my review for it back in 2011. Effortlessly mixing pop culture with a futuristic scavenger hunt plot, that book was great. I have definitely been waiting for the movie to come out and I was glad to hear that there was a second book by Mr. Cline for me to try, Armada.

Armada is not a sequel to Ready Player One, it is a standalone novel set on Earth in the near future. In Armada, the story is told by Zack Lightman, a high school student and world-class player of the game Armada. In the Armada game and its companion game, Terra Firma, Zack (and millions of people around the world) fly drone fighter planes or drone robots and use them to try and stop a fictional alien invasion of Earth. Things get interesting from there.

Armada is dripping with references to science fiction video games, movies, TV shows and books just like Ready Player One. In the first chapter alone, you will lose count of how many nods there are to (if you are a certain age) the games you loved growing up. (Where is Missile Command on my iPad? Did I miss it in the app store?).  To go along with that, you have the typical hero's journey going on here. Zack is a kid with only one parent, having lost his dad when he was very little, who has skills but little direction as to what he wants to do with himself and over the course of the book is plucked out of his comfort zone and forced to step up and achieve his potential.

Armada is a fun book. Mr. Cline knows how to weave the nostalgia and geekery into the broader story and while some of the plot twists are telegraphed a little too much, they aren't disappointing when they happen as you think they might. Not as unique a story as Ready Player One, Armada still satisfies and is a fine addition to Mr. Cline's growing body of work. If you like video games, science fiction tropes and a fun story, go get a copy of Armada right now. We may even get a movie of it like we may for Ready Player One. Armada gets 4 Mick Happies. Now I am off to play a video game.

The Martian Review

In my family, we have a tradition. If you drop something, break something, fall down or otherwise injure yourself, but will be all right, you just call out, "I'm Okay!" That way everyone knows we don't need to rush over and run off to the hospital. The Martian by Andy Weir is a bit like that just about every chapter and it's great.

The Martian started as a self-published serial novel on Andy Weir's website, then a $0.99 e-book on Amazon and later was "discovered", published by Crown Publishing Group and optioned for a movie directed by Ridley Scott. The New York Times Bestselling book is the story of a manned mission to Mars, the third such mission in fact, and begins with our main character, Mark Watney, in mortal danger. Things just continue to be dire for Mark from there.

At its heart, this is a castaway story of survival. Mark, a botanist and mechanical engineer, has to find a way to survive everything Mars can dish out with limited supplies and only a sliver of hope of rescue. What is great about the book is the way Mr. Weir weaves solutions based on real-world science (most everything is plausible). Math is applied along with chemistry and plain old ingenuity. I really liked the feel of old-school space exploration with more modern references as well as a dash of 1970s nostalgia (which also fit well with the space exploration background - anyone of a certain age has the two pretty well intertwined in their brain).

I heard of this book through the Sword & Laser podcast, so I knew much of the story ahead of actually reading it. I also knew that a movie was in the works, starring Matt Damon, so I found myself visualizing how the story would translate to the screen (very well in my opinion). I am sure there will be parts of the story that will be cut to allow the movie to fit the time limits of film, therefore you should read the book before seeing the movie.

Pick up a copy of The Martian. The iTunes e-book version had a Q&A with the author, an essay about writing the book and questions for readers groups as extras. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It has reinforced the fact that though I read a lot (A LOT) of fantasy, books set in space are my favorite. The Martian gets 5 Mick Happies. Can't wait to see the movie now.

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).

Ender's Game Movie Review

Original Ender's Game story didn't even make the cover page of Analog

Today, after over 30 years, I got to see the Battle Room from Ender's Game. For those who don't know, the new movie, Ender's Game, written and directed by Gavin Hood is based on a novelette and later book by the same name. Ender's Game the novelette was written by Orson Scott Card and first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine in August 1977. The novelette was expanded to a full length novel published in 1985, winning both the Hugo and Nebula awards.

In the future, some 50 years after contact and war with an alien race, the Formics (or Buggers), mankind is training for another conflict. To prepare, children are monitored in their early childhood and then the most promising are chosen to go to battle school (and later command school) to train for the future conflict. What follows is the story of children, including Ender (played by Asa Butterfield), training into soldiers and commanders. Training that mainly takes place at the space-based Battle School run by Colonel Hyram Graff played well by Harrison Ford.

Hard to see here, but in the future there are still Audi cars

My ten-year old and fifteen year-old self really connected with this story. For many years it has been one of my favorite stories. There are details of the plot and backstory that I won't spoil in this review. My most favorite part of the story is the Battle Room, a zero gravity space where cadets in suits battle with "freeze rays" against other students in mock battles. I could imagine what it would be like flipping, flying and floating in that room while firing on opponents. Even back then I thought that this would make a fantastic team-based video game. I am happy to say that Ender's Game the movie nails the Battle Room in every detail (which unfortunately the picture of the room is blurry).

Ender's Game the book is a dense story with many plots and sub-plots that can't all fit into a movie (naturally). Some threads are cut entirely from the film, but are not central to the plot of the story. What I think is a detraction for those going to see the movie is that everything seems a bit rushed. I don't know if someone not versed in the story of Ender's Game will get the same detail and sense of character development in the movie that happens in the ~300 pages of the book. This means that some details of Ender's development at the Battle School don't have the impact or depth that I hoped to see.

Where's my damn holo display tablet?

The movie is visually stunning with terrific special effects. All of the story elements that matter are present, if not told in the same way as the book. What I am left feeling at the end of the movie is a little sad over how brilliant this story could have been as a three season run of 11 episodes TV show from the BBC or HBO. There the sub-plots that were dropped and the depth of the character development could have been fully realized along with more Battle Room and other training scenes. Instead we have all of the pieces, beautiful to look at, put together well with good acting but not the depth the whole could have had with more time.

Yeah, this looked pretty awesome on the huge IMAX screen

Ender's Game is worth watching and in IMAX looked great. The film, however, feels rushed and some of the details of the story lost their impact by fitting them into the 1 hour 50+ minute run time. Overall, I give Ender's Game 3.5 Mick Happies. Well worth seeing, but I recommend seeing it after reading the book to get the full impact of the story.

Firefly/Serenity Spoiler-Free Review

As a Science-Fiction fan, it is surprising how long I waited to sit down and watch Firefly, the space frontier TV series from Joss Whedon. Over the past year, I have slowly watched all of the Firefly episodes on Netflix on-demand and then followed it up with Serenity, the full-length motion picture sequel to the series.

Firefly is the story of the crew of a Firefly-class spaceship, Serenity, traveling to frontier planets in human-controlled space. Earth is only mentioned as where mankind came from but is never shown in the series/movie. On Serenity, we have Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), his first officer Zoe Washburn (Gina Torres) and her husband - the pilot Hoban "Wash" Washburne (Alan Tudyk). The rest of the crew includes hired gun Jayne Cobb (Adam Baldwin) and ship maintenance expert Kaylee Frye (Jewel Staite). Also on board is a companion, a kind of escort/courtesan that carries a level of prestige in the future, named Inara Serra (Morena Baccarin) who rents one of Serenity's shuttles. There are other characters added to the ensemble cast over the course of the series as passengers come on-board Serenity.

The crew of Serenity travels between planets and terra-formed moons to trade, do commissioned jobs or smuggle. The controlling government of the area is called the Alliance, having taking control a few years in the past after winning a civil war. A war that Mal and Zoe participated on the losing Independent planet's side. During the show, Mal tries to steer his ship clear of the Alliance and keep himself and the crew off the government's radar.

Firefly does a great job of mixing wild-west feel with space opera elements. You really feel that the crew is working on the fringes of society and just barely scratching out a living. There are also great tension moments brought on by the various bad-guy elements brought into the story. While the tv series is fairly episodic, there are some underlying story threads throughout and these are expanded on and brought to a satisfying conclusion in Serenity.

I can understand why the series and film have such a wide following and why fans were so upset when the show ended after only a few episodes (only 14 episodes were made plus the movie). Luckily, the show did get a follow up movie and has had several prequel/bridge and upcoming comic/graphic novel tie-ins created to expand the story (similar to what was done for Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer series).

Hands-down my favorite character in the series is Kaylee and the way she blends optimism with capability (in how well she keeps the ship humming along despite sometime difficulties in getting parts) - Jewel Staite does a great job in this role. The other actors/characters are also good with Nathan Fillion a believable Captain and Gina Torres very good as his strong 2nd-in-command. The stories are often fun, adventurous and tension-filled. Serenity, the movie, expands things even further in scale and scope while remaining tied tightly to the story-lines that developed throughout the series.

Realistic, gritty, funny and sometimes poignant, Firefly and Serenity are a must watch if you are a space opera or science fiction fan. That they are continuing the story in graphic novel/comic format just means there will be more story to enjoy in the future as you will want to keep coming back to these characters and the setting. Firefly and Serenity get 4.5 Mick Happies. Now if only they would make a Mass Effect-style game set in the universe either letting you travel about like the crew of Serenity or even a more combat-oriented game set during the civil war. I would play it without a doubt.

P.S. Researching links for this review I found out that Steven Brust (a very good author - read the Vlad Taltos series) wrote a Firefly novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, that was ultimately not approved/released, but is available for free via download under a creative commons license from his website here.

Night of the Comet Review

For some reason my wife was trying to remember a zombie movie she had seen and used her Google-fu to find it. I believe the exact search was: '80s movie red dust zombie radio station. Which, of course, returned: Night of the Comet. I have to admit that this is one that I missed growing up and told my wife so when she mentioned it. (She was dumbfounded that she had seen a science fiction movie that I hadn't.) It then went to the top of our Netflix queue.

Night of the Comet, written/directed by Thom E. Eberhardt, in all it's 1980s glory is the story of what happens when the earth intersects the tail of a comet. The result is everyone who was exposed to the event is dead or turned into some sort of degenerating zombie. Enter Regina played by Catherine Mary Stewart (who herself has been in many classics like The Last Starfighter and Weekend at Bernie's) who happens to survive the night and finds that she and her sister may be the last two women alive.

Reg and her sister, Samantha (Sam - played by Kelli Maroney, go to a local radio station where they expect to find a live DJ. Instead they find Hector, played by Robert Beltran, who we couldn't help calling Chakotay for the rest of the film. Together they try to figure out what has happened and how to deal with it.

This film is fun and the director worked around a small budget so the special effects are pretty minimal. However, it has so many "rad" 1980s things going on that if you were growing up then and you haven't seen it you should. The argyle socks Reg is wearing while trying to top the leaderboard at Tempest are great - I had a pair of those. The Michael Jackson style shirts she was rockin' and the big hair. Of course there had to be a scene where the girls go "shopping" at the local department store.

It's probably best to watch this one in a group so that you can MST3K-it (see RiffTrax) - comments while watching might be the best part. Also, watch for the scene where Hector takes off his gloves and then magically has them back on! Points if you spot it.

Night of the Comet should been seen if only for the '80s style, music and nostalgia of it all. I polled the family and they agreed that Night of the Comet gets 3.5 Mick Happies. Watch out for comet tails out there.

Agent of Change Review

Agent of Change is a Liaden Universe novel by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. The book is one of two free entry points into Lee and Miller's science fiction universe where mankind (in three main forms) has spread throughout the stars and shares the universe with several space-faring alien species.

Agent of Change is the story of Val Con, a spy whom the reader is introduced to as Terrence O'Grady, a disguise he uses to complete the mission he is on. Following that mission, Val Con comes into contact with Miri Robertson, a former mercenary who is under attack from members of an organized crime group called the Juntavas. What follows is a chase story as Val Con and Miri try to escape those after them while not quite trusting each other.

Along the way, Lee and Miller continue to peel back the layers on a broader Universe that the reader gets the sense has a lot of depth and history waiting to be explored. In that Universe the various human factions (Terran, Liaden and the Yxtrang) are consipiring (or in outright conflict) with each other and non-humans like the Clutch (a sentient turtle-like alien race) of which Edger (above) is a member. Behind this is the organized crime group, Juntavas, which is looking out for its own interests even to the detriment of our main characters. All in all this is a fast-paced story with tense moments and several humorous interactions as we get to know Val Con and Miri and follow them on their race to escape their enemies.

Once you are done with Agent of Change, you will be happy to find that there are (at least) an additional 15 novels, several chapter books and short stories to learn more about the Liaden Universe. The series has been published for over 20 years going through several publishers (and being saved early on by the persistence and loyalty of fans) and is currently published by Baen Books. Baen offers two of the books in the series as free ebooks and others are available individually or as omnibus editions. There are several entry points into the Universe and the books often do not follow chronologically, so it is recommended that after picking one of the free entry points that you check out Lee and Miller's website where they cover the order to the books here.

I found Agent of Change, written in the 1980s, to be fun and quite enjoyable. It didn't suffer from some of the challenges of earlier science fiction novels where the technology of today makes what was written feel outdated or obsolete. Plus the books is free. Well worth your time, I give Agent of Change 3 and a half Mick Happies. Go get a copy for yourself here.

Lost Girl Season 3 Review

Well season 3 of Lost Girl has come and gone and we have to wait until 2014 for more episodes. Season 3 continues the story of the Succubus Bo (played by Anna Silk) and her friends in the aftermath of the big battle that ended Season 2.

This season, the focus is on character development for everyone and the lasting effects of what they did (or had done to them) in the last season. We are also introduced to new characters in the form of a Dark Fae who joins the police force, Tamsin (played by Rachel Skarsten), and a part-time recurring character of interest to Trick. While this season is about character development we do still see a lot of violence, petty fighting between the Fae and the occaisional case for Kenzi (Ksenia Solo) and Bo. We also get to see if there is a new Ash (that job is like the Defense Against the Dark Arts teaching position at Hogwarts - someone new every year).

Bo and Tamsin

What I like about Lost Girl is that it keeps peeling back the onion on the Fae world without feeling like the show runners are just making things up as they go along. As a viewer you feel that you are learning things just like Bo and that is nice. One of the best things about the show has been its ability to wrap up the season in a nice bow while leaving you with nice hooks into what might happen in the next season. Season 3 deviates from this as it does end on a little bit of a cliffhanger (though there is enough foreshadowing along the way for you to guess where things are likely going at the start of Season 4).

Probably my biggest beef with the Season isn't with the show at all. You see those of us in the United States had to wait an extra week for Syfy to air the finale rather than airing the episode the day after it premiered in Canada (all the other episodes were next day air in the US). This was annoying to say the least. I would rather wait until the season has aired and mainline this show rather than have to wait to get the next episode. If history is any indication, you should be able to get Season 3 on demand through Netflix later this year or do what we did and purchase the episodes so you can see them now without commercial (and as I am demonstrating here you can take a screenshot to liven up a post).

Give credit to Showcase in Canada. They are airing some of the best Science Fiction shows out right now in Lost Girl and Continuum. I hope they keep throwing more and more shows down south to us. Lost Girl season 3 gets 4 Mick Happies. Hope you turn in to learn about the Fae.

Dyson doesn't look like he wants to wait for Season 4 either