DenebStation SF Book Reviews

1970- "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" by Samuel Delany -  This is a literary science fiction tale of the thief and master impersonator, known by aliases that all have the initials H.C.E. rising from being a lowly crook to a wealthy criminal overlord in a vibrant interplanetary underworld.  He is being pursued by the Interplanetary Secret Service Maud Hinkle who mysteriously knows about his past, present, and future. We follow H.C.E.'s life using monthly criminal code words based on semi-precious stones, The story introduces the concept of holographic information storage which can unravel a person's entire life trajectory using a single date point. It brings up questions of self-determination and the surveillance state. This was my favorite story from the 1970's because the world Delaney created comes alive and the questions about free will, identity and surveillance lingered in my mind days after reading the story. I could talk about this s...

 We think of time as something linear- past, present, future. But what if it was a helix that spirals and weaves the past, present, and future together as a whole?  I am a middle-aged woman who grew up in a Conservative home in Tennessee. Now I have my own conservative home. We move a lot.  I wanted to write stories. I wanted my stories to be read by Levar Burton on Reading Rainbow. I wanted my stories to be read in universities. I wanted my stories to be read on my blog that has no followers. I didn't write them down. They aren't good enough. Earth- 21 degrees north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean. After I landed in Hawaii, I threw my luggage into my non-air-conditioned dorm and immediately looked for a job. I didn't look Polynesian enough to work at the Polynesian Cultural Center. Another girl got the position to tutor English because I never studied Spanish but studied Japanese instead. I ended up serving food in the cafeteria.  In between classes and before w...

     At the start of summer, I thought I had an easy TBR list: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. But as the summer unfolded, I found myself drifting into a drearier direction. (Though I did read and enjoy Dogs of War .) Instead of sticking with my "must read" science fiction list, I wandered into darker genres that fit the mood of my stressful summer - weird lit and horror.  (Dash is my own, NOT AI!)      I started this turn after reading the Introduction to one of my favorite books, A Case of Conscience by James Blish. The introduction was written by Greg Bear, another of one of my favorite authors. In the introduction, Bear compares A Case of Conscience to the horror story The Turn of the Screw . Like A Case of Conscience , The Turn of the Screw also has an ambiguous, unsettling ending.  After finishing The Turn of the Screw , I became interested in finding more books that...

         Strange is the night  where black stars rise And strange moons circle through the skies, But stranger still is                             Lost Carcosa        This haunting  poem introduces The King in Yellow,  a collection of weird tales, first published in 1895  by Robert W. Chambers.  The first four short stories reference a forbidden play called the King in Yellow that, once read, drives its reader to insanity.  (Warning, spoilers ahead!)      The first story perfectly sets the uncanny tone of the book by beginning in a New York in that takes place in an alternative 1920, imagined by Chambers in 1895.  After the USA and Germany ended a war over the Samoan Islands , the USA entered a new era of prosperity and beauty under a centralized government. "Everywhere good architecture was replacing bad, and even in...

Mild Spoilers :                 In H.G. Wells , The Island of Doctor Moreau , the main character, Edward Prendick, uncovers the horrific experiments of Dr. Moreau who was trying to uplift animals using vivisection . After a disaster on the island, Prendick is stranded for 10 months with Dr. Moreau's beast people, whose animal natures slowly resurface while they lose their humanity. Amid this, Edward finds a loyal and protective friend in the Dog man whose canine instinct drives him to serve his human master. What if scientists in the future could exploit this canine instinct for loyalty for the cause of evil? What if scientists created beast men as weapons of war?  The 2017 dystopian novel Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky explores this issue with updated science using genetics and cybernetics and how this would impact future human evolution.       In the near future, scientists have turned away from AI robots and ...

 Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky June is going to be very busy. I hope to read Solaris by the end of the month too .