Contact - Carl Sagan

   1985; 374 pages.  New Author? : Yes, at least since the creation of this blog.  Genres : First Contact Sci-Fi; Hard Science Fiction.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Let’s suppose Intelligent Life exists in the Universe somewhere besides here on Earth.  How would we know?

 

    Well, we can look through telescopes at bright lights and hope to see some sort of “intelligent transmission”, although I’m not sure what that would be.  Is there anything that travels at the speed of light, besides light, of course?  Why yes, there is!  Radio waves.

 

    But radio waves come in all sorts of different wavelengths.  How can we tell which particular one an Extra Terrestrial would use to send out a signal?  And how would they transform a radio wave into a message someone on another planet would understand?

 

    That’s what Ellie Arroway has been working on for quite some time.  On taxpayers’ money.  And so far, she hasn’t found diddley squat of any intelligence via radio waves, on any wavelength, from any of the thousands of stars that’s she’s pointed her radio telescope at.

 

    Maybe we are alone in the Universe.

 

What’s To Like...

    Contact is divided into three parts, namely:

Part 1: The Message (chapters 1-9)

Part 2: The Machine (chapters 10-18)

Part 3: The Galaxy (chapters 19-24)

    Contact is a work of the “Hard Science Fiction” genre.  Carl Sagan makes an in-depth examination of how we Earthlings would (sometimes as opposed to “should”) react to finding out we aren’t alone in the Universe.

 

    The Message postulates that the most-likely means of initial contact is receiving radio signals from Outer Space.  Logical, but how do we figure out how to decode those transmissions?  The Machine theorizes that the Message gives us instructions on how to build a transport machine.  Fine, but do we have the materials and technology to build it, and dare we test it out before firing it up?  The Galaxy invites five Earthlings to sit down in the transport machine and enjoy the ride to intergalactic parts unknown.  Awesome, but are we sure we built it correctly, how do we choose who goes, and what if those ETs just want five specimens to dissect and study?

 

    The character development is superb.  Ellie is the protagonist, of course, so we expect she’ll be one of the Five selected to take the interstellar voyage.  But the other four in the group are richly developed as well, each having their own discrete traits.  Ditto for a host of secondary characters, including a number of government officials who are less than thrilled about this expensive space travel project (what if it doesn’t work?), and a fundamentalist preacher and a televangelist who are worried that God Himself, or even Satan, is the Entity behind those radio waves.

 

    Things build to a great ending, which is simultaneously cynical, revelatory, sad, and ingenious.  To give details would entail spoilers, which we eschew here.  Things close with a genealogical surprise twist for Ellie, which might sound irrelevant but explains a lot of the details in her life.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Samizdat (n.) : the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state.

Others: Armillary Sphere; (n.); Chiliasm (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.5/5 based on 6,428 ratings and 687 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.15/5 based on 148,202 ratings and 5,016 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    Now the pulses were washing against a warm world, blue and white, spinning against the backdrop of the stars.

    There was life on this world, extravagant in its numbers and variety.  There were jumping spiders at the chilly tops of the highest mountains and sulfur-eating worms in hot vents gushing up through ridges on the ocean floors.  There were beings that could live only in concentrated sulfuric acid, and beings that were destroyed by concentrated sulfuric acid; organisms that were poisoned by oxygen, and organisms that could survive only in oxygen, that actually breathed the stuff.  (pg. 51)

 

    How much better if a few of your cells could be preserved.  Real living cells, with the DNA intact.  He visualized a corporation that would, for a healthy fee, freeze a little of your epithelial tissue and orbit it high—well above the Van Allen belts, maybe even higher than geosynchronous orbit.  No reason to die first.  Do it now, while it’s on your mind.  Then, at least, alien molecular biologists—or their terrestrial counterparts of the far future—could reconstruct you, clone you, more or less from scratch.  You would rub your eyes, stretch, and wake up in the year ten million.  (pg. 340)

 

“The Earth is an object lesson for the apprentice gods.”  (pg. 247)

    There’s a smidgen of cusswords in Contact.  I counted four of them in the first 25%, all of which were of the “milder” ilk.  I don’t recall anything that I’d label an “adult situation”.

 

    Some reviewers felt the “science versus religion” angle was overplayed in the text.  They have a point, but frankly, I think Carl Sagan accurately anticipates the religious response.  Life on other worlds, in other solar systems and other galaxies, is hard to factor into spiritual dogma.

 

    The pacing felt slow in the first two section, but keep in mind their subject matter—decoding radio pulses and building a spaceship—is highly technical by nature.  You don’t want any thrills-&-spills to take place during those phases.  The “first contact” stage also felt rather anticlimactic.

 

    But hey, if I were one of the five human space envoys, I'd hope the initial contact with Extraterrestrials was a slow-paced, peaceful affair.  A “Star Wars” scenario, while exciting to read about, would not be a promising introduction to alien species.  I don’t want to come face-to-face with a Stormtrooper, no matter how bad of a shot he is.

 

    Overall, I found Contact to be a thought-provoking work, grounded in real science and logical in presenting one possible way that humanity would react to a “We Are Not Alone” scenario.  If you don’t get bored during the “Message” and “Machine” sections, you’re in for a fantastic read in the final section, “Galaxy”.

 

    8 Stars.  One last thing.  Somehow, both Hydrofluoric Acid and Laetrile make it into Contact’s storyline.  I worked for a company who manufactured HF acid for many years, and had a moonlighting venture to develop a manufacturing process for Laetrile.  Who would've thought that Extraterrestrials are familiar with, and make use of, both these compounds?

Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke

   1953; 218 pages.  New Author? : No.  Genres : 50’s Sci-Fi; Hard Science Fiction; First Contact.  Laurels: Retro Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2004 (nominated).  Overall Rating: 9/10.

 

    All in all, it’s not so bad being ruled over by this particular set of Galactic Invaders.

 

    Oh, when hordes of their spaceships suddenly appeared in the skies over the major cities of Earth, we knew we were no match for them.  But other than declaring all national borders to be null and void (“One World”, and all that), they’ve pretty much left us alone.

 

    They do require that all communication with them pass between our one designated representative, Rikki Stormgren, and their Overlord known as Karellen.  They meet on an Overlord spaceship because the aliens refuse to physically set foot (or paw, pod, tentacle, or whatever appendages they have) on our planet.  But the relations between those two emissaries is cordial.  One can’t help but wonder, though.

 

    When will the Overlords reveal their ultimate plans for us?

 

What’s To Like...

    Childhood’s End opens with a brief, 5-page Prologue wherein the 1950s United States and Russia react with shock to the realization that they’re no longer the only ones in the cosmos.  The rest of the book is divided into three parts:

    Part 1: Earth and the Overlords (5 years after the Overlords arrive)

    Part 2: The Golden Age

    Part 3: The Last Generation (100 years after the “time of Disney”)

 

    I liked the “Hard Science-Fiction” aspect of the storyline.  The Overlords may use advanced technology, but they still can’t go faster than the speed of Light.  And those traveling at almost the speed of Light age much more slowly than the rest of the universe's inhabitants.  Relativity: It’s the Law.

 

    It was also nice to read a “First Contact” tale where the extraterrestrials don’t make their entrance with lasers and phasers a-blazing.  For a change, they seek a peaceful coexistence, albeit one tailored to their set of rules.  They must have an ulterior motive for this, of course, but that’s a secret best kept hidden for now.

 

    Arthur C. Clarke also shows impressive prescience when describing the future world.  Giant computing machines become the norm, and humans are blessed with reliable oral contraceptives and infallible paternity tests.  Yet seances are still popular and I’m still waiting for the aircar to become our principal means of personal transportation.

 

    The ending is both logical and unexpected, and both heartwarming and sad.  Humans and Overlords find their proper place in the Cosmos, but neither group knows what’s in store for them next.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 13,844 ratings and 1,898 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.12*/5, based on 164,727 ratings and 7,806 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “Karellen,” he said abruptly, “I’ll draft out the statement and send it up to you for approval.  But I reserve the right to continue pestering you, and if I see any opportunity, I’ll do my best to learn your secret.”

    “I’m perfectly well aware of that,” replied the Supervisor, with a slight chuckle.

    “And you don’t mind?”

    “Not in the least—though I draw the line at nuclear weapons, poison gas, or anything that might strain our friendship."  (pg. 55)

 

    It was One World.  The old names of the old countries were still used, but they were no more than convenient postal divisions.  There was no one on earth who could not speak English, who could not read, who was not in range of a television set, who could not visit the other side of the planet within twenty-four hours.

    Crime had practically vanished.  It had become both unnecessary and impossible.  When no one lacks anything, there is no point in stealing.  Moreover, all potential criminals knew there would be no escape from the surveillance of the Overlords.  In the early days of their rule, they had intervened so effectively on behalf of law and order that the lesson had never been forgotten.  (pg. 72)

 

“The planets you may one day possess.  But the stars are not for Man.”  (pg. 137)

    There was zero profanity in Childhood’s End, and zero adult situations.  The worst language gripe I can come up with is a single use of a racial epithet.

 

    The only typos I spotted were a couple of hyphenated words that shouldn’t have been (boy-friend/boyfriend, sight-seeing/sightseeing, co-operate/cooperate).  I have a feeling those hyphenation issues arose at the printing shop when the original typewritten manuscript was converted.  I thought I spotted a misspelling (kidnaped/kidnapped), but it turns out both those past tense spellings are acceptable.  English is a goofy language.

 

    A lot of Sci-Fi novels from the 1950s/60s don’t hold up too well over time, but I’m happy to say that Childhood’s End is an exception to this.  It is well-written, thought-provoking, entertaining, and frighteningly plausible.

 

    According to Wikipedia, the theme of Childhood’s End, transcendent evolution, is also used in Clarke’s 4-book Space Odyssey series, of which I’ve read the first two books.  It’s time to tackle the next book in that series.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  At one point (pg. 61) 3-dimensional chess and checkers are compared, with the implication that the latter is child’s play relative to the former.  Well, I’ve played chess, albeit the 2-D variety, all my life, and on occasion have played checkers.  Folks, my comprehension of checkers is pathetic.

Axiom's End - Lindsay Ellis

   2020; 372 pages.  Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Noumena” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : First Contact Sci-Fi; Alien Invasion Sci-Fi.   Overall Rating: 7*/10.

 

    It isn’t easy being the daughter of a wacko conspiracy theorist.  Especially when said conspiracy nut abandoned his wife and children to devote his full time to promoting those wacko conspiracy theories.

 

    But Cora Sabino, the wacko's daughter, is coping.  She’s changed her last name as an act of defiance, and frankly doesn’t care if she never sees her father, Nils Ortega, again.

 

    Nils is telling everyone who'll listen that aliens from outer space have visited us, liked our planet, and decided to stay a while.  He says the government has tried communicating with them, but so far those ETs either cannot or choose not to respond.  Nils claims to have a copy of a top-secret government memo in his hands detailing this, but hasn’t said how he got his hands on it.

 

    Cora just tunes out all the hoopla.  As long as Nils leaves her and the rest of the family out of his farce, she’s content.  But hey, what’s that she just spotted outside in the dark?  No, it isn’t Nils.  And happily, it doesn’t look like some sort of CIA agent either.

 

    You know, it kinda sorta looks like an alien.

 

What’s To Like...

    Axiom’s End is Lindsay Ellis’s debut novel, where we get to gasp along with Cora when she unexpectedly meets up with an ET dubbed “Ampersand”.   That’s not a spoiler since the Amazon blurb tells you this is a First Contact Science Fiction novel.  Ampersand is on a mission, and there are forces, both terrestrial and otherwise, who are out to stop him.  Or her.  Or it.  Whatever.

 

    The story's pacing is good.  The first challenge in any human-ET partnership must be to figure out what makes the other one tick, and that naturally takes time.  Cora discovers that a.) at least some parts of Nils’s conspiracy claims are true, b.) that others in her family have had dealings with ETs, and c.) that a government relocation program dubbed ROSA, which stands for Refugee Organizational and Settlement Agency, is not dealing with political refugees from places like Iran or Ethiopia.

 

    The aliens (yes, there’s more than one of them) do not have the ability to speak out loud, and for the most part, do not understand any terrestrial languages.  I was impressed with the way Lindsay Ellis handles this; it was really easy to keep track of when a human was speaking, when an alien was telecommunicating, and when either of them were just cogitating.

 

    The music references were plentiful and included such newer acts as Neko Case, Fergie, Panic! At The Disco, Avril Lavigne, My Chemical Romance, and Ani DiFranco.  A few groups like Pink Floyd, Nickelback, and the Beatles were thrown in for geezers like me.  It was neat to learn about “The Great Filter” theory, which addresses the issue of: why, if there are so many stars, planets, and galaxies out there, do we see zero evidence of intelligent life anywhere?

 

    The ending is okay, but straightforward and without any twists.  As things built towards it, I really couldn’t think of any other plausible way to wrap things up.  There is a sequel, Truth of the Divine, but I haven’t picked it up it yet.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Chyron (n.) : an electronically generated caption superimposed on a television or movie screen.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 4,181 ratings and 488 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.73*/5, based on 21,093 ratings and 3,407 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “I saw this sliver of white from over the hedge across the street, and I assumed my mind was playing tricks on me.  But then I saw it again in the living room, and I didn’t stick around to get a look at it.”

    Bard sucked on the inside of his lips, considering.  “How do you know it wasn’t a white person?  Like a white human person?”

    “I don’t mean white as in a race; I mean white as in the color white.”

    “White’s not a color.”

    Why did it have to be Bard? Cora lamented.  Why does Luciana need to surround herself with such pedants?  (pg. 55)

 

    “Were it my choice, for that reason alone, I would have sought another planet.  I do not know why they chose to seek asylum on a war-torn planet populated by seven billion flesh-eaters.”

    She looked around, feeling like she was missing something.  “You mean . . . us?”

    “You do eat flesh,” he said.  “You did it in front of me.  Yesterday.”

    It took her a moment to realize he was referring to the burger she’d gotten at In-N-Out just outside of Sacramento.  “That’s . . . beef,” she said gently.  (pg. 102)

 

Black olives.  The answer to the eternal quandary of what if one were to combine snails and old tires into a foodstuff.  (pg. 97)

    There are some nits to pick.  There’s a fair number of cusswords—12 of them in the first 10% of the book—and in a broad variety, including a couple of f-bombs.  I wouldn’t call that excessive, nor did it distract from the story itself, but those who like their sci-fi “clean” may be turned off.

 

    There were a few typos, such as “tooth brushing” instead of “toothbrushing”, and “ill advised” instead of “ill-advised”.  I tend to forgive these in self-published books, but I was reading the hardcover version, put out by St. Martin’s Press, a publishing company large enough to have its own Wikipedia page.  The proofreaders must’ve been having a bad day that day.

 

    The main issue, which has been noted by other reviewers, is with the writing style.  I won’t call it “weak”; but it felt clunky at times.  Some of the metaphors felt forced, ditto for a couple of “rule of threes” usages.  Google it.

 

    But hey, let’s cut a bit of slack here.  As a debut novel, Axiom’s End is an above-average effort, and I’m sure even Shakespeare’s first manuscript was rough around the edges.  It may not be the most polished sci-fi book I’ve ever read, but it still kept my interest.

 

    7 Stars.  One last shout-out, this time to the use of “lorem ipsum” in the story.  Anyone who is familiar with the esoteric language from which this phrase is derived, will smile when they come across it here in Axiom's End.

The Guest - Alan Nayes

   2020; 262 pages.  New Author? : Yes, other than some of his short stories from 2012.  Genres: First Contact Sci-Fi; Hard Science Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    Voyager 1 is an interstellar space probe launched by NASA in 1977 to study the Outer Planets in our Solar System and thereafter interstellar space.  It passed beyond the Outer Planets in 2012, headed to nowhere in particular and if left undisturbed, would reach the mysterious Oort Cloud in just 300 years, taking a mere 30,000 more years to pass through it.  NASA is still in touch with Voyager 1, sending signals to, and receiving signals from it.

 

    Now imagine having the tedious job of monitoring the various instruments of Voyager 1 back here on Earth  That’s what Dr. Kayla Storm does.  It is a boring and slow-paced task, requiring lots of patience since it takes more than 20 hours for a radio signal to get to or from the space probe, and which is speeding away from us in a huge pool of empty space.

 

    But something different has just occurred.  Readings from Voyager 1 shows that it has just doubled in mass, cut its speed in half, and inexplicably started to veer off-course.

 

    Oh well, it’s probably bad data from one of its more-than-40-years-old instruments on board giving up the ghost.  We knew this would happen sooner or later.  Run some diagnostics to confirm the malfunction and we can all go back to sleep.

 

    Hmmm.  What if those diagnostics show that everything is still working just fine?

 

What’s To Like...

    The Guest is an ambitious blend of the “first contact” and “hard” subgenres of science fiction.  We will most likely detect an extraterrestrial spaceship headed our way long before it arrives, but if so, what are we going to do about it?  About all we’d know initially is that its technology was superior to ours, since they’re coming to us, not vice versa, and our first task would be to assemble a team to gather more information about the alien visitor.

 

    Here that team consists of the astrophysicist Kayla Storm, who works at the JPL (“Jet Propulsion Laboratory”); the astrobiologist Dr. Eric Bowen from SETI ("Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence”); and General Tim Nathan of the US Air Force.  They are tasked with determining the physical make-up of the aliens, how to overcome whatever defenses they might deploy, and taking whatever steps needed to keep us Earthlings from becoming casualties should a conflict arise.

 

    Realistically, achieving those goals would take time and lots of trial-and-error.  Mistakes are made, lives are lost, and learning to communicate with the ETs does not improve things.  Their messages to us are terse: “We come, Earth our planet now” and "LEEVE".

 

    I was impressed by the depth of the research done by Alan Nayes in developing the storyline.  A lot of chemistry and laboratory testing is used, which is really the most effective way to learn about the alien “Guests”.  In the movies, ETs seem to almost always be bipedal humanoids who conveniently use the same respiratory process as we do.  In real life, that’s very unlikely.

 

    It was fun to see N-95 masks being used; I learned about them thanks to Covid.  And although I knew what the word “cacophonic” means, I had to google it to learn how to pronounce it.  I’ve never been to Meteor Crater here in Arizona, but it was neat to see it playing a major part of the story.  The nods to Carl Sagan, Oingo Boingo, and Britney Spears shows that the author has great literary and musical tastes.  Well, two out of those three, anyway.

 

    The ending was both good and logical: earthly science finally wins the day.  The key to foiling the aliens might seem a bit arbitrary, but that’s what trial-and-error is all about: keep trying anything and everything until something works.  There’s a nice little twist at the very end, involving Cyclops and Eric, which sets up the possibility of a sequel, although I'm not aware of one at present.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Schnup (n.) : an extreme idiot or shithead (urban slang).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.2*/5, based on 215 ratings and 33 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.29*/5, based on 161 ratings and 14 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “The Guests manipulate atomic structure in ways we can’t define, sir.  They will fold your plate up like tin foil if they feel threatened.  They play by a different set of rules, our physics don’t seem to apply to theirs.  You’ll see for yourself the Hole.  Nothing on Earth could have created that dig—in fifty years.  The so called ‘asteroid’ that created this crater was in fact a huge spacecraft!  How they buried something that massive so deep, there isn’t an engineer on Earth who can explain.”  (loc. 2683)

 

    “Mr. Speaker, I am not a military general, nor a warmonger.  I am just an astrophysicist who enjoys studying galaxies and comets and the cosmos and data from our space probes.” She took a brief sip when no questions or comments followed.  “However, I am very confident of two things. One—if we attempt to stop them from transforming our environment, they will kill us.  Two—if we do nothing and leave our Guests alone, they will kill us.”  (loc. 3962)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Guest is priced at $6.99 right now at Amazon.  Alan Nayes has more than a dozen other e-books for you, of varying genres, ranging from novellas to novels to bundles in length, and costing anywhere from $1.99 to $6.99.  Back in 2012, he was a member of a writers group called “The Eclective” which is where I first ran across his stories, and whose e-books are also available at Amazon for $0.99 apiece.

 

 

“That’s what I love about math and physics – they always tell the truth.”  (loc. 3541)

    The nits to pick are few in The Guest.  About the worst thing I can come up with is: the piglet dies.  There is some cussing, but I didn’t find it overused, and by far the favorite cussword is the rather mild “hell”.

 

    Most of the typos were the usual “spellchecker errors”: wine/whine, war path/warpath, on my God/oh my god, C₂₅O₄C₆₄/C₂₅O₄H₆₄, PMM/PPM, etc.  I only found one plot hole: the aliens somehow manage to use the phrase “oxidative phosphorylation” in a message, despite not knowing that the letter “X” exists in our alphabet.

 

    It could be argued that the fact that the aliens learn to communicate in English in a relatively short time is not realistic, but I was surprised to find that an audio-visual disc, dubbed the “Golden Disk” was placed on Voyager 1, containing written scientific information, photos, sounds, music, and greetings in 55 different languages; thus giving any sentient life with sufficiently advanced technology lots of data with which to learn our terrestrial tongues.  The Wikipedia link about it is here.

 

    While such culture-sharing is laudably well-intentioned, I still think such information, and the aims of the SETI project as a whole, could be cosmically suicidal if such information falls into the hands (or paws, or flippers) of extraterrestrials with a warrior mentality.

 

    9 Stars.  Writing a hard sci-fi novel is always a challenge because “keeping it real” and “keeping it interesting” is no small feat.  I’m happy to say that The Guest was up to the task; I found it to be both a page-turner and a highly enlightening piece of speculative science

2001 - A Space Odyssey - Arthur C. Clarke

    1968; 256 pages.  Book 1 (out of 4) in the “Space Odyssey” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : First Contact; Hard Science Fiction; Movie Tie-In.  Overall Rating: 9*/10.

 

    The evidence is persuasive: extraterrestrial beings have visited us.

 

    They left behind some sort of marker, and we’re not talking crop circles or spaceships either.  Instead, it’s a giant stone monolith buried 30 feet below ground.  Curiously, it was placed on the moon.  Talk about an out-of-the-way location.

 

    Needless to say, we Earthlings didn’t discover it until we made it to the moon and began to analyze what’s beneath its surface.  The slab's strong gravitational field was what clued us in that it wasn't a naturally-occurring object.

 

    Further testing showed that the monolith has been there quite some time.  About three million years, give or take a few millennia.  If some alien civilization possessed space travel technology that long ago, think of how more advanced they must be now.  Although to be honest, burying a marker underground, and on the moon, doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

    I wonder if they left any other monoliths behind for us.

 

What’s To Like...

    2001 – A Space Odyssey is Arthur C. Clarke’s companion book to Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant, spectacular, and incredibly popular 1968 sci-fi movie of the same name.  The "Introduction" in the front of this book (the “Millennial” Edition) details the extensive collaborative effort by these two geniuses to create a blockbuster sci-fi epic, with plans for the film and the novel to be released at the same time.

 

    I’ve seen the movie (three times!) and decided to now read the book.  I was surprised how much they differ, despite the Kubrick/Clarke partnership.  Some examples: the opening “man-ape” scenario in the book is played out in greater detail, with its monolith, dark and silent in the movie, performing some dazzling pyrotechnics.  Later on, HAL’s demise plays out differently and his/its reason for failure is explained in greater detail.  And perhaps most notably, the main mission’s destination in the book is now Saturn; while the movie’s endpoint is Jupiter.  Wikipedia gives a complete list of the differences; the link to it is here.

 

    The overall sequence of scenes is the pretty much the same.  Things start with the man-apes, then hop on a flight to the moon to look at the monolith.  After that, we join HAL, Dave, and Frank on a spaceflight to Jupiter, the final destination in the movie, and a gravitational booster in the book to save on gas for the trip to Saturn, where, when we arrive, we find a familiar object waiting to greet us.

 

    The book is written in a “hard science fiction” style; while the movie focuses on stunning visual effects.  I enjoyed Clarke's choice of the rarely-used but completely-awesome word “waldoes”, and had to YouTube the music references to “Verdi’s Requiem Mass” and the obscure “Walton’s Violin Concerto”.  In light of the present-day pandemic, the book’s mention of China being accused of initiating a “blackmail by synthetic disease” plot was eerily prescient.  And I appreciated Arthur Clarke addressing the urban legend about how the computer HAL got its name.  Hint: it is not a clever transition from the acronym IBM by moving each letter one spot earlier.

 

    The movie-vs-book ending is a trade-off.  You can’t reproduce the movie’s fabulous psychedelic climax with words, but Clarke does give a better explanation of it.  Neither version explains the appearance, purpose, and destiny of the Star Child, and the ease with which it destroys a missile-carrying satellite.  Presumably that will be addressed in the sequel, 2010 – Odyssey Two, which exists in both book and film formats.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.7*/5, based on 2,728 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.15*/5, based on 280,092 ratings and 6,537 reviews

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Quietus (n.) : death, or something that causes death, regarded as a release from life.

Others: Ablative (adj.).

 

 

Excerpts...

    At last, one of Man’s oldest questions had been answered; here was the proof, beyond all shadow of doubt, that his was not the only intelligence that the universe had brought forth.  But with that knowledge there came again an aching awareness of the immensity of Time.  Whatever had passed this way had missed mankind by a hundred thousand generations.  Perhaps, Floyd told himself, it was just as well.  And yet — what we might have learned from creatures who could cross space, while our ancestors were still living in trees!  (loc. 1094)

 

    “Mission Control has just dropped a small bomb on us.”  He lowered his voice, like a doctor discussing an illness in front of the patient.  “We may have a slight case of hypochondria aboard.”

    Perhaps Bowman was not fully awake, after all; it took him several seconds to get the point.  Then he said, “Oh — I see.  What else did they tell you?”

    “That there was no cause for alarm.  They said that twice, which rather spoiled the effect as far as I was concerned.”  (loc. 1878)

 

“The thing’s hollow – it goes on forever – and – oh my God! – it’s full of stars!”  (loc. 2686)

    I don’t really have any quibbles with 2001 – A Space Odyssey, neither with the movie nor the novel.  True, both leave a lot of plot threads unresolved, the movie more so, but the ending in both cases is at a logical point.

 

    The degree of storyline divergence is surprising, particularly in light of the amount of collaboration going on between Clarke and Kubrick, but both of them did a superb job within their respective fields.  We never do meet the monolith-crafting aliens, nor any of the other races of sentient creatures that are implied to exist, but I have no doubt that will be addressed in the rest of the series.

 

    The book version of 2001 – A Space Odyssey was a delight to read, and I was particularly impressed by how closely the hard science fiction proposed in it has matched up with the real-world technological advancements in space travel.  Somehow it seemed fitting that I should read this book in the same week as when Captain James T. Kirk made his ascension into the final frontier.

 

    9 Stars.  I can’t recall any other case of such close collaboration by a movie director and a novelist for the simultaneous development and release of a new movie-&-book combination.  In this age of indie and self-published authors, coupled with TikTok and YouTube video-makers, surely such an alliance should should be common practice.  Authors already co-write novels with other authors.  Why not co-produce your great idea with a movie-maker?

Lacuna: Demons of the Void - David Adams

   2013; 207 pages.  Full Title: Lacuna: Demons of the Void – PG-13 Edition.  Book 1 (out of 6) in the “Lacuna” series.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Space Opera; Science Fiction; First Contact.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    The message from the alien spaceship was short and to the point: “Never again attempt to develop this kind of technology.”  Then, to show they meant business, they obliterated the cities of Beijing, Tehran, and Sydney.

 

    That was in 2029 AD, eight years ago.  It’s safe to assume that they were referring to something we call “jump drive” technology, which Earth’s scientists have been working on for a while.  Think of it as wormhole-hopping; it has the potential to make it possible to travel throughout the galaxy.

 

    Now it’s 2037 AD and the jump drive is ready to be tested.  Earth has built three big honkin’ spaceships, each named for one of the destroyed cities, and it's time to try out the new technology.  The first order of business is obvious: find them nasty extraterrestrials and whup their alien butts.

 

    Let's not let the fact that they are technologically far superior to us deter us from our mission.  We are Earthlings, and we’re always in the right, so we will always be victorious.

 

    We better hope so, anyway.

 

What’s To Like...

    Amazon labels Lacuna: Demons of the Void as Space Fleet Sci-Fi, Alien Invasion Sci-Fi, and Space Exploration Sci-Fi; and those are all appropriate, but I think you can lump them together and call this a Space Opera.  There’s plenty of cussing, lots of rolling-in-the-hay (or in space bunks or in various nooks and crannies of a spaceship), and even a bit of “naked post-sex back rubs”.

 

    There’s lots of action and intrigue to keep you turning the pages.  The protagonist is a female Chinese officer; that's a refreshingly unusual choice.  She’s a bit too quick to pull the trigger, but her interacting with a fellow officer and one of the space aliens gave a nice balance to the thrills and spills.

 

    David Adams is Australian, which means the book uses English spellings (tonnes, grey, tyres, chequered, etc.) and American grammar.  That may sound weird, but it made for an easy read.

 

    While the technology is very “real-sounding”, I wouldn’t label this a Hard Science Fiction novel.  Instead, it reminded me of Star Trek science: neat-sounding and entertaining, but not to be taken seriously.  Sorry, Trekkies.

    I chuckled at the brief reference to the XKCD cartoon strip, and liked that the alien ships utilized Rayguns, even if they were for defensive purposes only.  The Spanish flirting lines were a nice touch, and this is the first book I remember where (Chinese) Mandarin characters were used in the text.  More on that in a bit.

 

    Everything leads to an exciting, two-chapters-long showdown in which the aliens have a couple neat tricks up their sleeve, and all seems lost for quite a while.  The fate of some of the characters is deferred until Book Two, but Lacuna: Demons of the Void is still a standalone story, as well as the start of a 6-book series.  The book closes with a clever plot twist in the Epilogue, although to be honest, I saw it coming many chapters beforehand.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  3.6/5 based on 496 ratings.

    Goodreads: 3.42/5 based on 1,042 ratings and 135 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    Liao watched curiously as [Summer] took the plastic pen out of her pocket, holding it near the giant donut.  The tip wobbled, and then the whole pen jerked out of her hand towards the featureless metal – hitting it with a “clank”.

    “Impressive, but isn’t that just magnetism?” Liao observed dryly.

    “That pen’s plastic.”  (loc. 326)

 

    “Cheung here; what can I do for you, Captain?”

    Liao gave a slight grin, watching the corners of the metal decompression door heat up, glowing dull red as the Toralii burned through it.  “There’s a squad of Toralii Alliance marines about to break in the door of Operations.  I don’t suppose you have any men to spare?”

    There was a pause as Cheung thought it through.  “Negative, Captain.  Sorry, all units are engaged at this time.”

    “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”  Liao thought for a moment.  “Anything you can tell me that’ll help, based on your engagements with the Toralii so far?”

    “Don’t let them shoot you.”  (loc. 4958)

 

Kindle Details…

    The “non-PG13” version of Lacuna: Demons of the Void (which has the title shortened to simply “Lacuna”) seems to be always free at Amazon, which makes trying this series out a risk-free venture.  I don’t know if the version I read is “more adult” or “less adult” than what Amazon now offers.  The other five books in the series are all priced at $4.99 apiece.

 

“Thank you once again, Summer, for your continued disruptive presence.”  (loc. 4359 )

    There are reasons why Lacuna: Demons of the Void gets low ratings at both Goodreads and Amazon.  Some of the reviewers didn’t find the protagonist to be likeable, and they have a point.  Having a female Chinese starship commander is a fascinating idea, and I was hoping for a deep, complex, and evolving character study.  Instead, Melissa Liao comes off as eager to jump into the sack with the first hunk she meets, and without any people-skills when dealing with her crew.  I like anti-heroes, but there's a difference between being incisive versus being arrogant.  There was so much more that could have been done with Liao.

 

    The decision to include Chinese characters in the text felt clunky.  I took two years of Mandarin Chinese a few years back, so this should have been a delight for me.  But in the majority of cases, no translation was given, and let’s face it, trying to google a Chinese glyph is impossible for most readers.  At the very least, the ”pinyin” format should have been used.  Luckily, around 10% of the way through the e-book, the author seems to have abandoned using the Chinese text.

 

    Both Melissa Liao and Summer Rowe are referred to by their first and last names, which was confusing.  Beta readers should have brought this up.  Also, realistically, the learning of the alien language should have been much more gradual, with opportunities for some “lost in translation” wittiness.  And finally, the book could have used another round of proofreading.  Comma misuse was prevalent, the past-tense verb is “led”, not “lead”, and so forth.

 

    But sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.  Yes, the writing and storytelling could be improved, but Lacuna: Demons of the Void still entertained me, and who knows, maybe the writing gets more polished as the series progresses.  David Adams certainly has a talent for penning exciting battle scenes and electrifying endings.  Despite its shortcomings, this book was still a worthwhile read.

 

    6 Stars.  As shown on the cover, my version of Lacuna: Demons of the Void was listed as being the “PG-13 Edition”.  It doesn’t seem to be offered at Amazon anymore, although Goodreads lists it as an option.  I mention this as a caveat that your electronic version of this book may be slightly different in tone from mine.