Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Video: The Mechanics of Storytelling 1: Show Don't Tell

SF Signal posted a hilarious video by exurb1a explaining Frank Herbert's Dune. I looked at what else he's done and found these gems.  As with the Dune video, there is swearing.



He's also made The Mechanics of Storytelling 2: Scarcity, which is worth watching.

Tuesday, 15 March 2016

Book Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers


Pros: interesting characters, fascinating world-building

Cons: limited plot

The Wayfarer is a ship that punches tunnels through space, connecting major hubs so other ships can travel between them faster.  When they’re offered the chance to tunnel to a new area, they say yes, even though it means travelling over a year to the entry point in space that isn’t quite friendly.

This is a space opera that focuses on the crew and the world they inhabit by way of a simplistic plot.  The crew encounter a number of problems on the mission, some personal, some interpersonal, and some brought on through outside forces. 

I found the crew a lot of fun.  You get to know some of them and their foibles a lot more than others.  Corbin, for example, is introduced as a jerk and a loner and then pretty much ignored until a crisis focused on him arises.  Other characters get a lot of page time, like Kizzy, the mechanic, and Sissix, one of the alien species on board.  Having said that, I never really connected with any of them, and so never felt particularly strong emotions during their crises. 

Where the book really shines is the world-building.  The alien races are brilliantly done, with unique languages, cultures, dietary preferences, gestures, sexualities and more.  There are minor info dumps through conversation explaining some of the races’ habits, but they’re integrated well and feel mostly natural.  You’re given enough information to understand the differences between races, and how they interact, without being bogged down in details.


If you’re looking for action and adventure you won’t find it here.  If you’re looking for a fun, interspecies crew and learning about a new world this is a great book.  The climax is exciting and there’s a good denouement that wraps things up well.

Sunday, 13 March 2016

Shout-Out: The Reburialists by J. C. Nelson

Burying the dead is easy. Keeping them down is difficult.
At the Bureau of Special Investigations, agents encounter all sorts of paranormal evils. So for Agent Brynner Carson, driving a stake through a rampaging three-week-old corpse is par for the course. Except this cadaver is different. It’s talking—and it has a message about his father, Heinrich.
The reanimated stiff delivers an ultimatum written in bloody hieroglyphics, and BSI Senior Analyst Grace Roberts is called in to translate. It seems that Heinrich Carson stole the heart of Ra-Ame, the long-dead god of the Re-Animus. She wants it back. The only problem is Heinrich took the secret of its location to his grave.
With the arrival of Ra-Ame looming and her undead army wreaking havoc, Brynner and Grace must race to find the key to stopping her. It’s a race they can’t afford to lose, but then again, it’s just another day on the job . . .

Friday, 11 March 2016

Stranger Than Fiction: Swearing

A lot of newer gritty fantasy introduced swearing to fantasy worlds, which can sometimes bump you out of the narrative if the words aren't used carefully.  They help make books feel more real - after all, most people swear to some extent.  But what words were used historically, and why were they considered so bad?

David Waid has a short post about historical swearing, which he ended with this video of Melissa Mohr talking about her book Holy Sh*t: A History of the English Language in Four Letters at the Politics and Prose bookstore.  It's a fascinating talk (only 17 minutes + some Q&A).  She goes over how privacy affected what words are considered taboo, and why religious and body obscenities have so much power.

I really want to read this book now.

Thursday, 10 March 2016

Shout-Out: The Courier by Gerald Brandt

Kris Ballard is a motorcycle courier. A nobody. Level 2 trash in a multi-level city that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border—a land where corporations make all the rules. A runaway since the age of fourteen, Kris struggled to set up her life, barely scraping by, working hard to make it without anyone's help.

But a late day delivery changes everything when she walks in on the murder of one of her clients. Now she's stuck with a mysterious package that everyone wants. It looks like the corporations want Kris gone, and are willing to go to almost any length to make it happen.

Hunted, scared, and alone, she retreats to the only place she knows she can hide: the Level 1 streets. Fleeing from people that seem to know her every move, she is rescued by Miller—a member of an underground resistance group—only to be pulled deeper into a world she doesn't understand.

Together Kris and Miller barely manage to stay one step ahead of the corporate killers, but it's only a matter of time until Miller's resources and their luck run out....

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Video: The Trouble with Transporters

This is a great video by CGP Grey about transporters: great form of transportation or suicide box?

Tuesday, 8 March 2016

Book Review: The World Inside by Robert Silverberg


Pros: fascinating world, fascinating characters

Cons: if you’re prudish you won’t like this book

Centuries in the future the human population has increased dramatically.  Most humans live in 1000 story towers separated into cities with their own schools, hospitals, etc.  Fed by communes outside the towers that urban dwellers will never see as they live their lives fully contained within their buildings.

This book starts with the premise that humans have moved into towers, foregoing privacy for a sexually liberal society and then shows what life is like for a handful of those inhabitants.  It’s a fascinating look at a certain kind of utopian society - and how unhappy many of its inhabitants are under their veneer of acceptance.

The stories vary in terms of interest, though each shows a different aspect of life.  The first involves a lot of exposition as a urbmon dweller explains the tower lifestyle to a visiter from Venus, where the lifestyle is quite different.  Another story shows a young woman’s terror over the prospect of being forced to move to a new tower.  Most of the stories are from the point of view of the higher middle class, though there are glimpses of how the lower, physical workers, and higher, government workers live.

Like many utopian/dystopian books there’s a huge emphasis on population and sex in this book.  There’s a brief contrast in one of the stories between how the people in the towers encourage having children while those of the communes must keep their populations in check.  While the free sexual mores are meant to reduce conflict, jealousies still arise, though not the way you might expect.  There’s a LOT of sex going on in this book.  It’s not graphic and is there to make several points, but consider yourself warned.

I’d expected the book to end with the departure of the Venusian visitor so I was a little surprised when a different character got a second story.  The story did wrap things up well though, touching - however briefly - on the other viewpoint characters.


This is a pretty interesting book.  There’s no plot but the world and characters are quite interesting and will keep you turning pages.  I did find one story, about a musician, a little boring, but the others were quite fascinating.  I’d put it with Ira Levin’s This Perfect Day in terms of dystopian worlds that might not be so bad to live in.