Now here's an unusual find - an SF book from Sri Lanka, written in English. Not sure about you, but it's a first for me!
Exodus 2300 is a religiously tinged Seeding/Uplifting story by Sri Lankan author Carl Muller. Carl is, apparently, the best-known author in Sri Lanka, and this is his first stab at SF. The book comes with an endorsement from A.C. Clarke; it is unusual, and interesting, but has parts that would have been in dire need of editing and potentially re-writing in my opinion.
It’s the end of the 22nd Century – Earth is slowly recovering from the impact of a star, only 36 million miles away, exploding into a Supernova and subsequently collapsing into a black hole, with our Solar System ‘barely out of reach’ of its gravitational pull. This, it will not surprise you to hear, has caused ‘elemental havoc’ on Earth, ‘like ten thousand nuclear wars’. Er.
Here are my thoughts, rather delayed, on Banner of Souls, the 4th book by Liz Williams, which I found to play in a world/universe more intricate and interesting than the actual story; a world which notably reminded me of Dune, nevertheless. And all of this in a good way, as I found the book to be a captivating read, and can recommend it.
Times are dark indeed in Liz William’s 4th effort, Banner of Souls. Earth has gone through a phase of warming, and is flooded, with significantly fewer land masses left. It is governed, as a colony, by the Memnos Matriarchy on Mars. Lunae is a girl, supposedly the Hito-Bashira (‘the woman who holds back the flood’ – don’t she wish she knew what that meant!), who lives above Fragrant Harbor (built up on the flooded ruins of Hong Kong), under the stern gaze of the powerful ‘Grandmothers’. She is being looked after by Tersus Rhee, a frog-like being known as a Kappa, and by Dreams-of-War, a Warrior from Memnos.
Here are my thoughts on Halting State, a near-future, online-gaming-detective-spooks romp by Charles Stross, at his social-trends-of-technology-extrapolating, the-geeks-will-inherit-the-earth best. The book contains, besides the novel of the title, an interesting interview with Charlie, where he explains some of the story, including the title pun. No, I won't spoil your, er, enjoyment...
The story kicks off when Sergeant Sue Smith from the Edinburgh Police force is called to a robbery at Hayek Associates, who have their headquarters set up in a former nuclear bunker. And the robbery took, of course, not place there, it happened at the Prestige Level Central Bank in Avalon Four, an MMORPG, and reeks of espionage, insider trading, and industrial-level hacking. Dealing with the Real-World implications of an online-robbery - it takes the police a few minutes to get their head around this (as has happened IRL!).
I've just finished Grailblazers, by Tom Holt, and found it, on the one hand, very funny and witty, with a storyline that’s pure madness; and, on the other hand, overloaded with ideas, weak on plot, and not all that well executed. A mixed bag, then, and mainly for the fans.
Prince Boamund of Northgales (Snotty to his friends) is dopey, idealistic, and upright. He has been trained from boyhood to be even more so, making him the Holy Fool – biddable, virtuous, stupid, extremely pompous, the sort of person who would never be afflicted by greed, megalomania or anything like that. The perfect Grail Knight. Brave. Honest. Stupid.
Here's a book that I didn't buy myself, but recevied as a review copy instead - so here's my review of The Court of the Air, the first book in the Jackals series by Stephen Hunt.
The main description to sum it up (at least for me) was Steampunk meets Cthulhu in Middle Earth - this is enjoyable and full of drive, albeit not particularly well written in parts, and with way too many topics crammed into it. This is only Stephen's 2nd novel, though, so this might well be a promise for the future.
