The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer is a charming spoof/derivative of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days (besides other classics) - so, Phileas Fogg is part of an alien race living along humanity, and his famous bet & trip was a tactical move in the hidden but gory war for domination over the earth between two alien species, both with lofty ideals but very prone to human-style foibles…
There’s a hidden but gory war going on on Earth – Eridaneans and Capelleans are slugging it out for survival, and for the implementation of their respective masterplans to bring knowledge, social wisdom, the end of sickness, famine, war, and an extension of live into millennia to humanity. As a tactical move in this war, Phileas Fogg, an Eridean adopted human, makes a bet that he can circumvent the earth in 80 days, and sets of on his endeavour This book describes the trip, as noted by Fogg in his 2nd, secret log, narrated and put into reference by Philip Farmer (identical initials being, of course, simply a co-incidence), listing inconsistencies in Verne’s account (based on the 1st, public log of these events), and explains them with ‘extra’ bits not covered in the official log, linking the story to other notable events and stories of the time.
Neal Asher is an English SF writer, mainly known for his Polity and associated Agent Cormac series, with big monsters, bigger spaceships, and even bigger battles. For his new Owner series, of which The Departure is the first offering, he has taken a different approach from his normal large-brush Space Opera; with the initial setting extrapolated from today's State Of The World, no aliens, and, most shockingly, none of his trademark monsters/monsterous fauna.
The book kicks off with Alan Saul, the main protagonist, finding himself in a 'plastic shipping crate moving on the conveyor to Loading Hopper One of the Calais commercial incinerator'; with no memory of who he is beyond his name, and no recollection of what he's done to have ended up at the very wrong end of the system. Still, he has a computer in his skull, and a piece of 'comlife' (essentially an AI) on Govnet looking out for him, which gives him a headstart over nearly everybody else.
The world he finds himself in is, to put it mildly, not in a good state. It is grossly overpopulated (a few billions more than Earth really can support), so it will take mega-death just to get Earth back to a sustainable footing. To make things worse resources are focused on the elite of the Inspectorate world government, the Committee and its Chairman for liftime (essentially we have a centralised World Dictatorship). Zero-Asset Citizens are rioting as they are starving; and the ruling classes are discussing how to deal with them; suggestions are to sector them into specific areas, of taking away what little food and social security they still get, or of turning off power and water for them. All a little close to home – some of the arguments and rhetoric is acutely mirrored in the contemporary press as I write this.
Here's a short synopsis for The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson(yup, the very one who wrote the various Fear and Loathing books) - I can really recommend the book, if you’re looking for a vacation read in a hot destination, then this might be the one to go for!
Given that this is neither a SF/Fantasy or other Speculative Fiction/Alternate History book I’ll keep this short… but I feel that this is a great book, and might make an excellent vacation read for a hot country, so wanted to tell you about nevertheless.
This is not your usual Hunter S. Thompson book – neither is it politically charged, nor is in Gonzo style and/or drug tinged like the infamous Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Instead it’s a (semi-)autobiographical story of a ‘vagrant’ journalist named Paul Kemp, who flies to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to work on the island’s only English newspaper, the ‘San Juan Daily News’.
A Fire Upon The Deep was the first book to come out inVernor Vinge's Queng Ho series, although it's the second one chronologically, with the (only very loosely connected) A Deepness In the Sky playing earlier, and a 3rd book in the sequence (The Children Of The Sky) expected in October 2011. Vinge himself has 7 Novels and 3 story collections to his name meanwhile, for which he was nominated for(and won) most major awards. Repeatedly. The book at hand is a Hugo winner, too.
A Fire Upon The Deep plays in a multi-race universe, linked by the Galaxy-spanning 'Net' (the extracts we see are rather reminiscent of the Usenet, although there is live video etc, too). The space around our Galaxy is layered in different zones, from the Unthinking Depths at the core, the Slow Zone, via the Beyond, to the Transcend(where transcended races/AIs range); each with a different level of how it affects intelligence, travel speed (FTL is only possible in the Beyond and, er, beyond), computing and manufacturing capabilities etc. It's a fascinating and cleverly devised universe, although, at the end – but no, that would be telling.
Clarkesworld Magazine has published The Fish of Lijiang, a short story by Chinese writer Chen Qiufan, translated by Ken Liu.
I found it a rather sad story, both from a topical point of view as well as what it promises for the future of humanity - and especially on that level it is much more believable than I'd like it to be, given the subject matter!
The full story can be found here - go read & enjoy!
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The Other Log of Phileas Fogg
A Fire Upon The Deep
