Neuromancer

Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984) 288 pages

This originated the term Cyberpunk. It is a hard-boiled crime novel with a heist as the central plot device. It takes place in a futuristic world that would inspire the Blade Runner movies and The Matrix movies. Designer drugs, genetic manipulation, violence, and virtual reality are present everywhere. The main character Chase, while working to plant a computer virus as part of the heist, has to navigate three layers of virtual reality. The technobabble, made up terms for the future technology and the slang used in talking about it, is pretty dense. It was a struggle to find my bearings in the beginning. What is a noun and what is a verb in the sentence? From context, I'm pretty sure this is a noun. But is it a person, place, or thing? It is a bit shocking being dropped into this world, and each scene moves along very quickly. Eventually, I did become more accustomed to Gibson's use of language and went along for the fast-paced ride.
 

The Album of Dr. Moreau

 The Album of Dr. Moreau by Daryl Gregory (2021) 176 pages

Kara previously reviewed this book here. I listened to the audiobook on Hoopla narrated by Luis Moreno. It is quite short, which was great for my short commutes. The weird concept of Dr. Moreau hybrids and boy band culture is what hooked me. The murder mystery plot followed the regular procedure. All the witnesses are gradually interviewed: the ocelot boy, the bonobo boy, the elephant boy, the pangolin boy, the bat boy, the victim's wife, the stage manager, and the leaders of the fan club. The detectives examine the area surrounding the hotel penthouse. The assisting detective, Banks, makes lots of corny jokes. The lead detective, Luce Delgado, used to perform a magic act with her dad here is Las Vegas. Now she is a mother to a pre-teen, who is the biggest fan of the WildBoyz. Luce has special skills and knowledge that make her the perfect detective for this case. On top of the murder mystery there is the mystery of the boys' background. Who created them? How? I'm not sure I totally buy the twist at the end. Luce gives us a simple and a complicated explanation for the murder. That is fine. But the bigger mystery of these genetic experiments remain largely a mystery.

Two Graves

Two Graves (Agent Pendergast series) by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child  484 pp.

When you read certain series out of order you may find yourself confused. That was the case with this book. I have read Fever Dream in which Helen, Agent Pendergast's wife is murdered. I haven't read Cold Vengeance where Helen apparently is found to be alive. This book begins with Helen alive but being kidnapped and then murdered. Pendergast is once again devastated and hides himself away but returns to work when a mysterious serial killer stalks New York. Pendergast realizes he has a personal connection to the killer. That investigation leads him to a plot involving modern day Nazis continuing the horrific work of Josef Mengele. A side plot involving Pendergast's "ward" Constance Greene explains some of the mystery surrounding her existence. I found this episode in the series to be one I had a hard time putting down (or turning off since it was the audiobook).

A Closed and Common Orbit

A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, 367 pages

Guys, I think I may have found a new favorite author! The (kinda) sequel to her awesome The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit focuses on a few minor characters from the first book, offering both a continuing story and a backstory for them. In this book, techie fix-it gal extraordinaire Pepper and her partner Blue take in an AI that has been illegally moved into a very realistic humanoid kit. Sidra, as the AI has named herself, is struggling to adjust to the limitations of her new existence, and figure out her purpose in a non-ship environment. Interspersed with Sidra's story, however, are chapters that give Pepper's backstory as a genetically engineered factory slave who escapes and lives in a broken down ship with only a motherly AI named Owl for company.

Like she does in her first book, Chambers examines the nature of found families, identity, purpose, and love in this book. She gives as much heart and dimension to the artificial intelligences as she does to the other sentient characters, and while this book is narrower in scope than her first outing (only two main characters instead of the half-dozen or so of The Long Way...), its stories are expansive and universal. I absolutely love her books.

Oryx and Crake

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood  376 pp.

This had been on my "to read" list for a long time and I finally got to it. Unfortunately, I didn't particularly care for it but that's just me. The post-apocalyptic story of humanity being ravaged by corporate bio-engineering raises scary possibilities for our own future. However, the love triangle part of the story doesn't really resonate with me. The central character, Snowman (previously known as Jimmy) is a sympathetic character who is just trying to survive after the pandemic caused by Crake's BlyssPluss drug. He is also doing his best to help the human-like beings that were bio engineered and and immune to the pandemic. In his dealings with those beings Snowman's references to Crake give him seem an almost god-like status. The rest of the book is the backstory about Snowman/Jimmy's childhood and meeting Crake and Oryx, the once child porn star. This is the first book in the MaddAddam trilogy but I'm undecided on whether to continue on with the next book.

The Big Sheep

The Big Sheep by Robert Kroese, 308 pages

Quick question: what do a giant genetically modified sheep and a paranoid Hollywood starlet have in common? Well, other than the fact that private investigator phenomenological inquisitor Erasmus Keane is tasked with finding one and protecting the other, not much. Or so the erratic detective thinks. Set in a futuristic Los Angeles, The Big Sheep is a funny bit of sci-fi noir, zooming the aircar of our narrator (Blake Fowler, the Watson to Keane's Holmes) from the gang-filled neighborhoods of the DZ to immaculate biotech firms to media empires to ritzy hotels, chasing down the answers to these surprisingly intertwined mysteries. The characters don't have much depth, but with a complex plot running at breakneck speed, that's not really a problem. It's a weird book, but a good one. Fans of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and Richard Kadrey's The Everything Box will likely enjoy this one.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, 324 pages.

The book that was once considered a classic, now often reviled because of its author's views on homosexuality and gay marriage. I had read the book years ago, and then watched the recent movie version on dvd. The movie was okay, and watching in it the story (book version) of Ender Wiggin came back to me. The movie, it turns out, was rather faithful to that book. Ender is younger in the book than he is portrayed in the movie, and the violence between the children is a bit more brutal, but other than that this tale of young children training in battle schools to help humanity defeat the alien horde is about the same in both versions. It's a good book, and should appeal to kids who don't feel they fit in, but given what I've read about the author, it wasn't good enough to make me want to read more in this series.

The audiobook is read by Stefan Rudnicki and Harlan Ellison.
Check our catalog.