I love new authors especially if they write science fiction. This is Guy Haley’s debut and the first Richard & Klein novel. The second part, Omega Point is scheduled for April next year. If you want to sample the book you may do so below. You may also check out a free Richard & Klein novella at Guy Haley’s home page Haley’s Comment. I wonder if this is the first book out of Angry Robot’s open submission month earlier this year.

I totally misunderstood the blurb thinking it was about an Ai with a fetish for π but it is obviously about a Private Investigator (PI) fetish. The novel is basically a murder case but evolve to a novel take on singularity. The main characters are a class Five AI, Richard and Otto Klein, a former German special operations cyborg. They have an entertaining buddy relationship with some dry humor and a lot of respect even if Otto sometimes want to kill all machines including his partner. You might think Richard is the brain and Otto is the muscles but it is not that easy. One of the more entertaining scenes is when Richard has to make a full frontal attack in a battle mech.

Each chapter has a point-of-view character.

This takes place some hundred and fifty years in the future after the AI wars. In the EU and USNA all sentients have rights including the non player characters in the gaming realms so they have been closed to gamers and the individuals in there are allowed to live their own lives without influence from human ‘gods’. There are now 36 such realms. Virtual emersion is a crime. Each chapter starts with: All members of the Community of Equals are created free and equal in dignity and rights to emphasis this rule.

One of the foremost activists for machine rights, Professor Zhang Qifang is being murdered at least twice and Richard & Klein are conned into taking the case by Hughie, the EuroPol AI. Hughie and Richard have a funny deadpan kind of dialog and an I-am-not-showing-any-feeling kind of friendship going on.

Prominent in the story are also the Professor’s assistant Veronique Valdaire and her abusive cheerful phone Chloe. There is something I really like about intelligent and witty computer companions like Chloe. She reminds me of Kris Longknife’s Nelly and Ingrid that philosophy discussing Nokia phone from the Netherworld Trilogy by Christopher Rowley. Bickering is fun especially if it is a machine that does it.

Veronique goes on the run early in the novel and we get to follow her and the detectives as they try to unravel the mystery. They also try to avoid being captured by The Virtualities Investigation Authority, VIA which sounds like soap to me but here it is the organization that protect and police the Neukinds.

Guy Haley has created a fascinating world with The People’s Dynasty hiding behind the Great Firewall of China and the United States of North America governed by the three Sams. The AIs’ have started to clean up centuries of pollution and live in a not to secure peace with humanity. Near-I and AI machines is part of life. There are no info dumps just details glimpsed. It feels believable and well thought out. It is a world I would like to learn more of.

As you understand by now I really liked Realm 36. It got a fast pace, is humorous in tone, filled with action, combat and robots a great debut. Guy Haley is a writer to watch. This is not a standalone book it ends in a cliffhanger hopefully concluded in Omega Point next spring. I warmly recommend this explosive PI meets Singularity debut.

Book Information

Reality 36 (Richard & Klein 1) by Guy Haley (Angry Robot 2011) – review copy – Amazon US | UK

Meet Richards and Klein – the Holmes and Watson of the 22nd century.

Except that Richards is a highly advanced artificial intelligence, and Klein his German ex-military cyborg partner. Their first case takes them into the renegade digital realm known as Reality 36 and through the Great Firewall of China, in search of a missing Artificial Intelligence Rights activist. What they find there will threaten every reality.

File Under: Science Fiction [ The Great Firewall | Net Profit | Don't Upload | Remurder ]

Singularity stories are in the vogue and artificial intelligences are staples in science fiction but Robert J. Sawyer has created a heartwarming trilogy about a young blind girl who through an experimental operation becomes able to see the World Wide Web. She discovers and befriends an entity there that she names Webmind. He and she learned the world in Wake and in Watch the world learned about them. Webmind survived an attempt to destroy him by the US government WATCH group at the end of Watch.

Now in Wonder the story continues. WATCH has not given up and the Chinese government whose action to close to Internet created Webmind is at it again. A great deal of the tension in the story comes from a rogue agent who tries to get a hacker to make a large-scale attack on Webmind before it is too late to stop its growth. The whole Hacker scene of the story is fun to read especially when the truth comes out.

One thing I like about it is the learning process both Webmind and Caitlyn goes through. She is growing up and learning her ropes at the same time her new friend does. Being a teenager with her first real boyfriend is hard enough and almost impossible with the media frenzy surrounding them.

Caitlin, Hobo and Webmind are the stars of the show and the characters you root for but the other characters also come across real. It is also refreshing to see ‘bad’ guys with reasonable motivations.

The earlier books had more technology and science in them here the main subject is ethics. I like the way Robert J. Sawyer brings up ethical questions. What is right to do when defending yourself? How do we treat other intelligent creatures? In this instance exemplified by Hobo the ape and Webmind.

This is a well executed ending to the trilogy. It has some good ideas, likeable characters and a heartwarming story. You have to take it for the YA it is. I recommend it to young and adults alike.

Book Information

Wonder (WWW book 3) by Robert J. Sawyer – Ace (2011) – Bought from Amazon US | UK

Webmind-the vast consciousness that spontaneously emerged from the infrastructure of the World Wide Web-has proven its worth to humanity by aiding in everything from curing cancer to easing international tensions. But the brass at the Pentagon see Webmind as a threat that needs to be eliminated.

Caitlin Decter-the once-blind sixteen-year-old math genius who discovered, and bonded with, Webmind-wants desperately to protect her friend. And if she doesn’t act, everything-Webmind included-may come crashing down.

Up Against It is my most anticipated debut this year. M. J. Locke paints a picture of space colonization in a not to far future in this thrilling story of a criminal takeover attempt of Phocaea, a strategic and independent asteroid colony.

There are two main characters Geoff and Jane. Geoff is coming of age as he and his young rocketbike-riding friends become central to the events. He witnesses how his beloved brother Carl is killed in the mysterious accident that destroys the colony’s supply of methane and water. Jane is the city administrator in charge of supplies and she soon discovers that there is more to the accident and starts to suspect the Martian Mafia is behind it all, since they conveniently have the only load in range to save the colony. She also has been through it all before on Vesta when the Mafia took over there. Jane has to struggle both with the Mafia and her fellow administrators.

The tale follows the two main characters as they in their own ways try to save the colony. There is some teen love, a mysterious trans-human cult, lots of action on the asteroid and in space, kidnappings, and a fleet of thugs on their way. The accident also spawns a feral AI that complicates things.

The world building is good and quite interesting. We get glimpses here and there that hints at the greater universe. Earth is a refugee camp after an ecological breakdown and people in space have a better life but life outside the atmosphere is dangerous as the events here show. Life in the colonies are televised to earth by small mobile cameras that are everywhere, the colony managements have an allotment of privacy minutes every week.

I really like the characters and the world building and I hope M. J. Locke is going to write more in this world. It is a straightforward hard sf read where the mysteries and characters keep you interested. It reads a bit like classic science fiction but with modern ideas and people. It is a standalone novel but it has many interesting people and events that leave the range open for sequels I really want to read.

I give Up Against it a strong recommendation.

Book information

Up Against It by M. J. Locke (Tor March 2011) - Amazon  US | UK – Bought it myself

Geoff and his friends live in Phocaea, a distant asteroid colony on the Solar System’s frontier. They’re your basic high-spirited young adults, enjoying such pastimes as hacking matter compilers to produce dancing skeletons that prance through the low-gee communal areas, using their rocket-bikes to salvage methane ice shrapnel that flies away when the colony brings in a big (and vital) rock of the stuff, and figuring out how to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance motes that are the million eyes of ‘Stroiders, a reality-TV show whose Earthside producers have paid handsomely for the privilege of spying on every detail of the Phocaeans’ lives.

Life isn’t as good as it seems, though. A mysterious act of sabotage kills Geoff’s brother Carl and puts the entire colony at risk. And in short order, we discover that the whole thing may have been cooked up by the Martian mafia, as a means of executing a coup and turning Phocaea into a client-state. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s a rogue AI that was spawned during the industrial emergency and slipped through the distracted safeguards, and a giant x-factor in the form of the Viridians, a transhumanist cult that lives in Phocaea’s bowels.

In addition to Geoff, our story revolves around Jane, the colony’s resource manager — a bureaucrat engineer in charge of keeping the plumbing running on an artificial island of humanity poised on the knife-edge of hard vacuum and unforgiving space. She’s more than a century old, and good at her job, but she is torn between the technical demands of the colony and the political realities of her situation, in which the fishbowl effect of ‘Stroiders is compounded by a reputation economy that turns every person into a beauty contest competitor.  Her manoeuverings to keep politics and engineering in harmony are the heart of the book.

Elizabeth Bear have written some intriguing and fantastic science fiction lately. I hear her fantasy  is good too but I have only read a short story or two of that. Jacob’s Ladder is pure science fiction with a lot of fantasy references. I enjoyed the previous books Dust and Chill so this is very likely one of my books for next year.

Title: Grail
Series: Jacob’s Ladder
Author: Elizabeth Bear
Genre: Generation Ship Space Opera
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Spectra Books (February 22, 2011)

Order from: RandomHouse | Amazon US | UK | B&N

No blurb yet but Elizabeth has an Epigraph:

And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.

And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

You Might also want to check out the Jenny Casey Series by Elizabeth Bear.
1. Hammered
2. Scardown
3. Worldwired

Space Opera with feudal castles and wooden ships, ancient compasses, old revolvers, and frothing beakers on on hand, and flying bikes, space travel, and cyborgs on the other.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) sums it up up pretty well. The story take place inside Virga, a spherical world filled with air and floating rocks, artificial suns, and nations  with a central sun Candesce – the Sun of Suns.

The migrating nation of Slipstream has subjugated Hayden Griffin’s home, Aerie and denied them a sun of their own. The opening scene of the book depicts how his mother attempts to light a sun for their home and the brutal response. He swear revenge on the man he believe responsible Admiral Chaison Fanning.

The story continues with Venera Fanning wife of the admiral. She is heading a network of secret informants and security agents and seems to be a force to be reckoned with in Slipstream. A dying scout bring photos and information to her that a rival nation, Falcon Formation is building a huge dreadnought, almost 3 km long in preparation for an attack on Slipstream. Her page for the day impresses her with his knowledge as he glimpses the photo and explains how he knows its size. That page is Hayden trying to get at the Admiral.

The Admiral is ordered to attack the nation in Slipstreams path knowing that the Falcon Formation is contemplating an ambush of the capital while the fleet is away. He and his wife develop an extensive plan to defeat the ambush involving travel to the skin of Virga, finding a legendary  treasure and using it to sneak up on the enemy.

The plan takes them and Hayden on an epic tour through the sunless countries and the central nations of Virga that involves pirate attacks, mountain dropping, fleet battles and running through airless patches. It is all a great adventure remembering of the high seas.

This is a story about fundamental ideas even if it at first glance is a wonderful romp on the high seas, sorry airs with compelling characters. Hayden befriends many new characters in his travels among them Aubri Mahallan a woman from outside Virga. From her he learns that the outside world is governed by Artificial Nature, sort of like a hive mind that has lost its creativity in artificial reality. But Candesce, Virga’s largest sun, disrupt Artificial Nature and prevent it from entering Virga so this is in many respects the last place where you can find true humans. The series works with this conflict between integrated artificial reality gone to far and ‘primitive’ humans in the real world.

Sun of Suns is a wonderful, fast paced adventure story with airships, pirates and artificial suns with one of the most compelling and impressive world buildings I have ever seen. My only complaint is that it is a bit short. All the books in the Virga universe are standalone with tie ins to previous books. I can recommend it to hard science fiction readers as well as to the steampunk adventure audience.

This is part one of my reviews of Virga: Cities of the Air. Expect part two Queen of Candesce next week.

Information

Title: Sun of Suns
Series: Virga book 1
Omnibus:  Virga: Cities of Air (Sun of Suns, Queen of Candisce)
Author: Karl Schroeder (kschroeder.com)
Genre: Retro futuristic steam punk
Paperback: 296 (592) pages
Publisher: Tor (Omnibus 2010, First 2006)
Excerpt: Chapter 1-3

Order from: Amazon US | UK | B&N | sfbok

It is the distant future. The world known as Virga is a fullerene balloon three thousand kilometers in diameter, filled with air, water, and aimlessly floating chunks of rock. The humans who live in this vast environment must build their own fusion suns and “towns” that are in the shape of enormous wood and rope wheels that are spun for gravity. Young, fit, bitter, and friendless, Hayden Griffin is a very dangerous man. He’s come to the city of Rush in the nation of Slipstream with one thing in mind: to take murderous revenge for the deaths of his parents six years ago. His target is Admiral Chaison Fanning, head of the fleet of Slipstream, which conquered Hayden’s nation of Aerie years ago. And the fact that Hayden’s spent his adolescence living with pirates doesn’t bode well for Fanning’s chances…

The Technician is about an intriguing alien mystery explored through the life of a few colorful characters. It is also a return to old familiar premises on the planet Masada for us old Asher fans.

Visiting Masada again for me was a bit like coming home and I got to enjoy some of the characters from previous books (You can read my review of them, links are below. The Line of the Polity is the one with most Masada in it).

As usual with Neal’s books this one also has an intriguing and well developed back story that tightly fits together with what happened before. I can understand why he went back to Masada. It is such a wonderful quirky place with its weird ecology. There are huge Hooder predators that can swallow a man or a minor car and Gabbleducks (the novel is based on a short story about them)  walking around copying human talk but not making any sense; the whole world is wrapped in the mystery of a disappeared alien civilization called the Atheter. On top of this an oppressive theocracy was toppled by rebellion a few decades ago facilitated by the mysterious Dragon’s destruction of their orbital lasers. The Dragon was the mysterious being behind much of the intrigue in the Cormac series but it only figures here through its descendants the Dracomen created when the Dragons crashed on the planet.

One of my favorite characters Amistad the war drone from Shadow of the Scorpion is back in charge of Atheter research as events set in motion by the Dragon once again threatens humanity. With him we get to follow a bit of personal growth and development, AI style.

I might be the only one but I thought it was hilarious when Blue, the only colored Dracowoman was introduced, I immediately thought; Neal your rascal, you sneaked in a Na’vi on us. The next explanation that came to mind was the blue pill from Matrix in reverse.

The plot centers on Jeremiah Tombs of the original religious leadership and his journey back to sanity. A theme Neal also used successfully with Mr Crane/The Brass Man. Tombs is not the only point of view or main character in this novel but I enjoyed him most because he changes the most. The characters are well developed with much more ‘meat’ than in his early novels something I as a character person like and appreciate.

The Dragon’s hidden agenda goes like a chain from Grindlinked to this one. That is a nice touch even if there is not much Dragon action in this one. It is more like a heritage.

The Technician is no doubt one of the best new novels I have read this year. It got a fantastic inner journey with fast-paced alien-world action. I am in awe of Neal Asher for this amazing feat of original writing. If you haven’t read Neal before you might as well start with this one, you will not be sorry but you will get a bit more out of it if you read the Cormac novels first.  Maybe I should add that Mr Asher is very fond of gigantic insects and might get a bit graphic in his descriptions.

Information

Title: The Technician

Universe: The Polity
Author: Neal Asher
Genre: Space Opera
Jacket art: Jon Sullivan
Hardback: 512 pages
Publisher: Tor UK, August 2010
Copy: bought by me

Order from: PanMacmillan | Amazon US | UK | sfbok

The Theocracy has been dead for twenty years, and the Polity rules on Masada. But the Tidy Squad consists of rebels who cannot accept the new order. Their hate for surviving theocrats is undiminished, and the iconic Jeremiah Tombs is at the top of their hitlist. Escaping his sanatorium Tombs is pushed into painful confrontation with reality he has avoided since the rebellion. His insanity has been left uncured, because the near mythical hooder called the Technician that attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of an entire alien race. The war drone Amistad, whose job it is to bring this information to light, recruits Lief Grant, an ex-rebel Commander, to protect Tombs, along with the black AI Penny Royal, who everyone thought was dead. The amphidapt Chanter, who has studied the bone sculptures the Technician makes with the remains of its prey, might be useful too. Meanwhile, in deep space, the mechanism the Atheter used to reduce themselves to animals, stirs from slumber and begins to power-up its weapons.

Related Posts

Asher, Neal
Agent Cormac Series
0. Shadow of the Scorpion
1. Grindlinked
2. The Line of the Polity
3. Brass Man
4. Polity Agent
5. Line War

• Best SF&F Books of 2010 [My Pick]
• 13 SF Books for the rest of 2010
• New Science Fiction Books in August 2010 Revisited

Last week

Peter and Myka infiltrated Fashion Week to find a sinister artifact that aged models in hours. When Myka is affected Claudia gets to play with a real huge needle in a suggestive way before they could sort it all out. Claudia went train wreck on her first date with Todd but Artie came to the rescue.

This week

What could go wrong with a computer upgrade in the Warehouse? You are correct, a lot. Fargo arrives on order of the scary lady. He and Claudia bond over gadgets and the it evolution while Artie fuss over every little change they make. Install completed, reboot. No luck there amigos and amigas, Failsafe Activated! Peculiar and sinister looking devices pop out of the floors while they are locked out of the system.

Mika and Pete chase off to fetch Hugo Miller, the retired inventor of the Warehouse system in the hope he could help. But he has gone bonkers and lives in a nearby sanatorium. After a somewhat amusing trip they bring him back.

Meanwhile Artie show Fagro and Claudia the computer lab where the AI resided. It uploads itself into the more modern diggs Fargo installed including some spiffy drones. The AI appears in holographic form as Hugo Miller in some time typical attire from the seventies. The computer declares a new safety protocol and starts to freeze down the Warehouse with its residents,

Claudia and Fargo go off to hunt the artifact Hugo used to create the AI while Artie goes off and challenge the computer at Battlecruiser. One of the coolest scenes in this episode is when Fargo and Claudia combine a laser pistol with Claudia’s extension ring when they are surrounded by drones. What they made? A Lightsaber! Swish swash, Fargo got one down and hand it over to Claudie who first cut off its legs and then impale the drone brrscreech. In a moment of euphoria they kiss. That’s when Claudia realizes she loves Todd and tells Fargo. Fargo had something else in mind.

Artie saves the day when he beats the computer by cheating. He realizes it is not an AI, it is the left half of Hugo’s mind that has been downloaded into the computer. He convinces it to let the real Hugo in. For a while it looks like the computer might win and download Hugo’s mind into the mainframe but our computer wiz locks him out and Artie reverse the process by spinning the artifact the other way.

In the end Hugo goes off to a new job at GD in Eureka while Claudia get shot down by Todd, bummer.

Said and done

• This is why Jedi turned to the dark side (Fargo)
• Soon we are in breeding camps wearing fur bikinis (Pete)

Friday

The Eureka crossover continues.

Eureka 4.05 – Crossing over (Syfy)
Claudia Donovan visits Eureka to see if Fargo’s promises of wondrous devices are true, but she finds herself in the middle of a mystery suitable for Warehouse 13 when objects begin to appear randomly around the town and GD, and it must be solved before there are deadly consequences.

Next week

Warehouse 13 – Around the Bend (Syfy)
Pete goes undercover and the Relic Hunter is guest staring as one of Peter’s old love interests.

Related post

• Warehouse 13 2.04 – Age Before Beauty (Review) July 29, 2010
• Warehouse 13 2.03 – Beyond Our Control (Review) July 21, 2010
• Warehouse 13 2.02 – Mild-Mannered July 14, 2010
• Warehouse 13 – Season 2 premiere July 6 July 3, 2010
• Myka Bering on Warehouse 13 July 2, 2010
• Warehouse 13 Season 2 Promo April 10, 2010
• Warehouse 13 renewed for a second season August 20, 2009
• Warehouse 13 pilot July 8, 2009
• Warehouse 13 sneak peak March 28, 2009

Neal is a talented world builder in the borderlands of singularity and his characters are complex ‘real’ humans with regrets, guilt and feelings like the rest of us that makes it easy to relate to them. His novels are fast paced, easy to read and with complex plots. I started reading his agent Cormac series.

As far as I know he doesn’t have any aliases or pseudonyms he write under.

His next book The Technician come out in August,2010 and is on my pick for the rest of 2010. The Departure, the first book in his new Owner Sequence series will be published in 2011 probably in August. See my post on the upcoming novel.

Series

Polity Universe

The Polity where most humans live is governed by benign artificial intelligences. They took power when humanity’s wars started to get out of hand and they elected themselves not to go after Singularity. Then the Polity meets the Prador and a huge war breaks loose (Prador Moon). Ian Cormac is grows up during the war (Shadow of the Scorpion) and his grown up adventures as Polity Agent follows. Then follows the Splatterjay series and finally Hilldiggers.

Agent Cormac series

Wonderful series about a secret agent named Ian Cormac that includes a mysterious dragon, renegade AIs, genocide, ancient alien technology, sentient ships and spiffy gadgets.

0. Shadow of the Scorpion
1. Grindlinked (2001)
2. The Line of the Polity (2003)
3. Brass Man (2005)
4. Polity Agent (2006)
5. Line War (2006)

Splaterjay series

This is a series I am about to read, the books are on my 2010 summer reading plan

1. The Skinner (2002)
2. The Voyage of the Sable Keech (2006)
3. Orbus (2009)

Standalone Polity Novels

• Prador moon
• The Technician (Tor UK 2010)

Related Posts

• New Series by Neal Asher The Departure (Owner Trilogy 1) October 13, 2010

Links

• Neal Asher’s homepage
• The Skinner – Neal’s blog
• Neal Asher’s Wikipedia entry

Title: Overthrowing Heaven
Series: Jon & Lobo 3
Author: MarkL. van Name
Cover Art: Stephen Hickman
Genre: Space Opera | Military Science Fiction
Publisher: Baen 2009
Paperback: 560 pages
Excerpt: Chapter 1-16
Order from: Amazon US | UK | B&N | sfbok

It began as a favor to a woman trying to get away from an abusive husband. Jon Moore grew up in a prison laboratory. When he escaped with nothing but his body’s nanotech enhancements and more anger than even a long lifetime could wash away, an entire planet died behind him. Memories of the things he’d done still haunted him; because of them, he often ended up helping those in need. His kindnesses frequently didn’t work out well. This one really didn’t work out well. It hurled Jon and Lobo, the intelligent assault vehicle and Jon’s only friend, down an accelerating, ever more dangerous spiral involving:

• Private armies and government covert ops teams
• A courtesan who always seems a step ahead of him
• Rival superpowers that define Good in terms of their own advantage and Ethics as whatever doesn’t get in the way of their Good
• And a brilliant, amoral scientist to whom human beings are just more experimental animals–and who might be Lobo’s creator.

Jon and Lobo take the reader on a headlong rush through armed enemies and untrustworthy allies and encounter what just might be the worst danger their partnership will face: the truth.

Information

The book is dedicated to Allyn Vogel.

Jon is the only human who has survived nanotech enhancements and now he is making a living as an on and off bodyguard/mercenary while hiding his powers in fear of being returned to a lab again.

Lobo is an extremely intelligent assault shuttle he picked up as payment for a job (see One Jump Ahead) he/it is also quite witty and at times a bit condescending to his ‘owner’. Jon and Lobos good natured banter is one thing I enjoy in the series. It is in fact one of the things that can make or break a book for me. Give me snappy, funny, edgy, bitchy entertaining dialog any day and it is probably a book I am going to like.

About the Author

Mark is a relatively new author for me, I finished the first book in December 2009 and was hooked. As I understand it Mark used to be a stand-up comedian and it is easy to believe with the often snappy jokes and humor in the books. I must admit that my first reaction Mark L. Van Name was that this must be a pseudonum but I was wrong, see his homepage.

Mark L. Van Name, whom John Ringo has said is “going to be the guy to beat in the race to the top of SFdom,” has worked in the high-tech industry for over 30 years and today runs a technology assessment company in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. A former Executive for Ziff Davis Media and a national technology columnist he’s published over a thousand computer-related articles and multiple science fiction stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including the Year’s Best Science Fiction. Jon & Lobo stories have appeared in a Baen anthology and Jim Baen’s Universe.

World bulding

The world feels like The Stainless Steel Rat meets Dominic Flandry. There are two galactic empires/super powers looking to advance their own borders without starting a full scale war. Their officials reminds me of similar ones in Harry Harrison’s books.

The world building is not extensive, this is not a political book. What your protagonist see is what you get sums it up.

Plot

In concentration the plot is beautiful damsel in distress need transport off planet to escape abusive husband. Enter superpower space fleet that just wants to ‘chat’ or else. Amoral scientists backed by the government of Heaven experiments with nano technology on kidnapped children. Damsel is mother to one of them and the Super Power wants Jon to capture scientist to stand trial. Lobo asks Jon to take job so he can meet his maker, the aforementioned scientist.

Problem is that the scientist is turtled up in a fortress under a Mega Jurassic Park styled tourist attraction protected by the government, he has one weakness though, he sometimes visit a prominent but secretive escort girl in the city.

Most good books have some kind of mystery in them for the protagonist to overcome and here it is locating and capturing that scientist the main mystery but seeing Jon a man inexperienced in relationships trying to handle the ‘opportunities’ that presents themselves is a great amusement.

There is also a great deal of wonder in the amusement park with all their security systems but not least their attractions.

Characterization

Jon and Lobo are both well developed. Child abuse and especially the experiments with nanotechnology is something directly from Jon’s past (he was himself the only surviving child from one such experiment) and his character’s raw emotions speaks well to the reader. We have a character in the beginning that doesn’t trust anyone and who have never contemplated a relationship. In the end he still doesn’t trust anyone but his relationship with Lobo has deepened and he has started to think about relationships.

The other characters are not so well developed and we never tap them for any inner dialog. The female cast was intriguing and created many tense and funny moments.

My View

I am trying to find flaws in the book but I cant find many. I checked out my sense of disbelief at the beginning and it held all the way. Some of the plot twists might be unlikely but in general it is one consistent tale. It is funny and there is a lot of friendly banter and some tricky personal situations to enjoy with the action. There might be less action and more preparation and ‘drama’ here than in previous books but it never felt tedious or boring. It gets a warm recommendation from me. Overthrowing Heaven was a fast and fun book to read and it touches on some serious issues around the ends justifying the means, child abuse and the meaning of friendship.

Title:

Webmind is an emerging consciousness that has befriended Caitlin Decter and grown eager to learn about her world. But Webmind has also come to the attention of WATCH-the secret government agency that monitors the Internet for any threat to the United States-and they’re fully aware of Caitlin’s involvement in its awakening.

WATCH is convinced that Webmind represents a risk to national security and wants it purged from cyberspace. But Caitlin believes in Webmind’s capacity for compassion-and she will do anything and everything necessary to protect her friend.

Title: The Line of the Polity
Series:  Agent Cormac 2
Author: Neal Asher
Genre: Space Opera | Military Science Fiction
Publisher: Tor 2003
Paperback: 672 pages
Order by: Tor | Amazon US | UK | B&N | sfbok

Cormac is taken from a case with a rogue scientist Skellor who use alien tech to merge with an AI. It is not unexpected that the scientist will play a part in the following story.

Masada has a thin atmosphere so the denizens have to use old fashioned biological symbiotes to survive. The religious leadership uses their monopoly on them and their orbital laser arrays to control the people down on the planet while they live as kings in their orbital habitats. But things are about to change, there is a literal underground brewing an insurrection supported by elements of the Polity. And we see it all from the point of view of one of the oppressed workers Eldene. Her journey from oppression is a delight to read

On an other arc of the story is young Outlinker Apis Coolant that first discovered the nano infestation and then we get to follow his and his mothers struggle to survive the aftermath of the destruction of the station.

We also in an unlikely but welcome chain of event hook up with old friends from the first book former henchman Stanton and his lovely starship captain Jarvellis on a personal quest that soon converge with the main story.

Blegg is an interesting character. He is rumored to be an immortal survivor of Hiroshima and he has up until now been Ian Cormac’s  boss and teacher. Here it is hinted about something more, of powerful races in the galaxy starting to notice humanity with more to come. Look at the Makers, in Gridlinked Cormac saved one of them, and he has been returned to his people. But their rogue biological machine the Dragon still causes trouble for humanity.

I am a bit reminded of those sleek pulp books of my youth about interstellar agent Cap Kennedy of F.A.T.E written by Edwin Charles Tubb under the pseudonym Gregory Kerr, Neal Asher’s stories have more dept to them but the flavor is similar. Not relevant to this review is that Edwin was born 1919 and he is still writing, expecting to release the 34th Dumarest book soon, impressive.

Neal also uses delightful subverted childhood tales to illustrate each chapter.

The Line of the Polity takes us further into the Polity Universe and deeper into the mysteries with ancient alien civilizations, dragons and the inner workings of the Polity. This is more fast paced space opera with more than average depth. I recommend you start with Shadow of the Scorpion or Gridlinked before you read Line of the Polity

Title: Gridlinked
Series: Agent Cormac 1
Author: Neal Asher
Paperback: 443 pages
Genre: Space Opera | Military Science Fiction
Publisher: Pan 2001 | Tor
Order: Tor | Amazon US | UK | B&N | sfbok

In outer space you can never feel sure that your adversary is altogether human.

The runcible buffers on Samarkand have been mysteriously sabotaged, killing many thousands and destroying a terraforming project. Agent Cormac must reach it by ship to begin an investigation. But Cormac has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Pelter, who is prepared to follow him across the galaxy with a terrifying android in tow.

Despite the sub-zero temperature of Samarkand, Cormac discovers signs of life: they are two ‘dracomen’, alien beasts contrived by an extra-galactic entity calling itself ‘Dragon’, which is a huge creature consisting of four conjoined spheres of flesh each a kilometer in diameter. Caught between the byzantine wiles of the Dragon and the lethal fury of Pelter, Cormac needs to skip very nimbly indeed to rescue the Samarkand project and protect his own life.

Information

Our protagonist Agent Cormac is an unfeeling field agent. He’s cover is blown because his asset thinks he is a construct and he has to fight his way out. Cormac has been Gridlinked for 30 years and it has dehumanized him to a level where it affects his usability as an agent so he gets a choice, shut it down yourself or face the consequences. Being without a connection after such a long time affects a man. I compare it’s effect with the description in WE.

Much of this book and the series is about him finding his humanity again.

The series long arc deals with the Dragon and ancient races.

The Author

Neal Asher is a British science fiction author living in Essex. I am most familiar with and love the now six Agent Cormac novels in the Polity universe. He has also written the Splatterjay Trilogy and a number of standalone novels and short stories in the same universe that I am keen on reading (expected summer reading 2010).

World building

The world Neal Asher paints is the Polity where humanity has spread thousands of light years ruled by benign artificial intelligences (AIs). Instead of evolving into something in-comprehensive by humans the AI:s choose to stay with their creators. There are some post human features in there mind-upload into golem bodies, nano technology, body enhancments, computer-brain interfaces, sentient spaceships and much much more.

One thing that sets Neal Asher apart from the usual Space Opera is the complex and well thought out future society he created.

I like the recurring articles at the beginning of each chapter that highlight items or phenomenon in the world.

In this book he also introduces the mysterious Dragon an extragalactic entity with unclear motivations sent to our galaxy by the Makers.

Plot

When the Runcible on Samarkand is destroyed Cormac is assigned to find out why.

The asset Cormac had to kill when his cover was blown is Angelina Pelter, the sister of  Separatist leader Arian Pelter. He swear revenge on the man who killed his sister and sets out after Cormac accompanied by a crazy robot called Mr Cane.

Cormac arrive at Samarkand in ship only to discover two life forms there, the aforementioned Dracomen.

Cormac is hard pressed to survive while unraveling the mysteries surrounding the Runcible explosion.

Characterization

Cormac is my kind of hero. He is not a superman, he feels like a human even in this space opera setting. He has his weaknesses and doubts (he suffers from addiction to his gridlink since 30 years). But he is also inventive and adaptive and determined. Great characterization by Neal Asher.

The rest of the characters are fairly well developed also.

My View

The quality of  Neal Asher’s writing has improved since this first book in 2001, I notice because I just finished reading Shadow of the Scorpion from 2008. It is still a great book filled to the brim with exciting ideas and fast paced breathtaking action. My mind exploded the first time I read Gridlinked it has so many marvelous ideas, intriguing aliens, gadgets and settings that I kept going Wow all the time. The Polity is on par with all the other Singularity writers out there and the action makes me think of James Bond and Dominic Flandry. I recommend Gridlinked to all lovers of intelligent space opera.

As Jaine says on her website: While I was away a somewhat atypical story of mine, ‘A Mirror to Life’ has been posted up at ‘DayBreak’ magazine, the online story website for the recently released and already much acclaimed ‘Shine’ anthology of near-future optimistic SF. Yes, I know, I don’t usually write near-future optimistic SF; like I say, a somewhat atypical story.

DayBreak Magazine is the online fiction part of the Shine anthology. It will features a story every second Friday until the print Shine anthology appears and a bit beyond (it is out now).

Please note that that the stories featured in DayBreak Magazine are not appearing in the print anthology: these are different stories. They were also submitted to Shine, and while the editor couldn’t include them in the print anthology, he liked them so much that he is featuring them on Daybreak.

I like “A Mirror of Life”, it got a good narration of a clone in gravity for the very first time and the benevolent dictatorship of the machines is an interesting theme. Guardians of Paradise the third book in Jaine’s Hidden Empire Series is coming out later this year. You can read my reviews of Principles of Angels and Consorts of Heaven-

Read the story

Another trend in modern science fiction is the concept of Singularity, but also the opposite which I will cover in a later post. The thing is, that we might have seen the Singularity trend peak and that it in fact has started to fade now at least according to some posts on the Blogosphere (see links at the end of this post). Personally I think it will be here in one form or another for a long time. Technology and Science are changing the world around us and it is only natural that science fiction writers explore those changes to the limits of imagination. There is many ‘modern’ science fiction written which involve the singularity concept which we don’t see in ‘classic’ SF.

Singularity refers to a theory that technological and scientific progress will continue to speed up and that we will develop more intelligent beings that will speed up the progress even more while they invent even more intelligent beings and you see where this is going. Until we reach a point where not even our imagination can follow.

Singularity science fiction follows a Moore’s Law of the future, where science improves our lives exponentially over time. Eventually human life is so radically transformed that it’s unrecognizable to those of us living in the relatively crappy present. – io9

This is usually done by a combination of genetics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. Sometimes the beings are ourself evolved and transformed to a post-human or transhuman race with little in common with the meat monkeys we are today.

History of singularity:

In 1965, I. J. Good first wrote of an “intelligence explosion”, suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unforeseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far greater intelligences. The first such improvements might be small, but as the machine became more intelligent it would become better at becoming more intelligent, which could lead to a cascade of self-improvements and a sudden surge to superintelligence (or a singularity).

Vernon Vinge minted The Singularity expression in 1982.

In 1982, Vernor Vinge proposed that the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence represented a breakdown in humans’ ability to model their future. The argument was that authors cannot write realistic characters who are smarter than humans: if humans could visualize smarter-than-human intelligence, we would be that smart ourselves. Vinge named this event “the Singularity”. He compared it to the breakdown of the then-current model of physics when it was used to model the gravitational singularity beyond the event horizon of a black hole. In 1993, Vernor Vinge associated the Singularity more explicitly with I. J. Good’s intelligence explosion, and tried to project the arrival time of artificial intelligence (AI) using Moore’s law, which thereafter came to be associated with the “Singularity” concept.

Proof and examples:

A good example on Artificial Intelligences is William Gibson’s 1984 novel Neuromancer, in which AIs are strictly regulated by the Turing Police so that they can’t become self aware, but one wants to anyway. A more recent example is the WWW series by Robert J. Sawyer.

The singularity is sometimes addressed in fictional works to explain the event’s absence. Neal Asher’s Gridlinked series features a future where humans living in the Polity are governed by AIs and while some are resentful, most believe that they are far better governors than any human. In the fourth novel, Polity Agent, it is mentioned that the singularity is far overdue yet most AIs have decided not to partake in it for reasons that only they know.

A flashback character in Ken MacLeod’s 1998 novel The Cassini Division dismissively refers to the Singularity as the Rapture for nerds, though the singularity goes on to happen anyway.

Accelerating progress features in some science fiction works, and is a central theme in Charles Stross’s Accelerando (free download). Singularity Sky also touches on singularity.

Ken MacLeod’s Newton’s Wake is a post-singularity work as well as the Evergence Trilogy by Sean Williams & Shane Dix both which I like.

Other authors that address singularity-related issues include Karl Schroeder, Alastair Reynold, Greg Egan, Ken MacLeod, Paul Melko(Singularity’s Ring), Rudy Rucker, David Brin, Iain M. Banks, Ian Douglas, Neal Stephenson, Tony Ballantyne, Bruce Sterling, Dan Simmons, Damien Broderick, Fredric Brown, Jacek Dukaj, Nagaru Tanigawa, John Dickinson (WE), Douglas Adams and Ian McDonald etc

Popular movies in which computers become intelligent and violently overpower the human race include the Terminator series, the parody of a film adaptation of I, Robot, and The Matrix series.

On television series Battlestar Galactica and Caprica also explores artificial intelligence.

Another form of Singularity of a more spiritual kind is explored in the differentStargate installments. Ascended beings beyond human comprehension play a significant part in the Stargate universe (not SGU so far). Although most of them ascends through spiritual means, there are also cases of a more technological form of ascension now and then. The most significant ascended being in the series where Daniel Jackson here seen during the process.

Please watch this video where some of the aforementioned authors discuss Singularity.

The Singularity: An Appraisal from Michael Johnson on Vimeo.

This panel was held at Boskone 47 in Boston, MA on February 12th, 2010. Moderating was the Guest of Honor, Alastair Reynolds. Other panel participants included several time Hugo Award winner Vernor Vinge, Locus Award winner Charles Stross, and Karl Schroeder.

What’s your take on Singularity?
Got any good books to recommend?
Please write a comment.

Trends in Current Science Fiction Post Index:

1. Nanotechnology
2. Enviromental disaster
3. Singularity
4. Reality TV

Sources:

• Bill Joy’s Wired magazine article “Why the future doesn’t need us“
• Technological Singularity page on Wikipedia
• The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
• Singularity FAQ for Dummies
• Acceleration Watch
• The Great Enhancement debate
• whatisartificialintelligence.com
• Science fiction at the end of time a blog post from Marianne de Pierres’ Journal
• The Singularity Backlash a blog post from io9

It starts out as one of those super action packed first scenes in a Hollywood Block Buster but here it feels like it never stops. Put a handful major characters, one mega conspiracy or two and the intrigue and mysteries of a Le Carré cold war spy thriller into the mix and splatter it out on a canvas of world-wide insurrection, high technology and dystopian cityscapes and you have a feeling what this book is.

In the 22nd century, the first wonder of a brave new world is the Phoenix Space Elevator, designed to give mankind greater access to the frontier beyond Earth. Cooperatively built by the United States and the Eurasian Coalition, the Elevator is also a grand symbol of superpower alliance following a second cold war. And it’s just been destroyed.

With suspicions rampant, armies and espionage teams are mobilized across the globe and beyond. Enter Claire Haskell and Jason Marlowe, U.S. counterintelligence agents and former lovers—though their memories may only be constructs implanted by their spymaster. Now their agenda is to trust no one. For as the crisis mounts, the lives of all involved will converge in one explosive finale—and a startling aftermath that will rewrite everything they’ve ever known—about their mission, their world, and themselves.

Plot

The terrorist organisation Autumn Rain it trying to destroy the world as we know it, by blowing things up and launching attacks on the super powers that are running the show. Our protagonists are out to stop them. As is to be expected in a spy thriller the plot is not as it appears and the ending is surprising.

The story keep switching between the different characters point of view. At times it can be confusing and a bit frustrating when something is about to happen in one timeline and it switches over to another, fortunatley the chapters are short.

Characterization

Claire Haskel and Jason Marlowe are two of the protagonists. They are teamed up with Jason as the Mech, a heavily armed stealthed battle armor equipped action part of the team, and with Claire as the Razor, an electronic countermeasure offensive, stealth enhancing and information gathering part, that seems to be the standard operative setup. A hacker named Haskel is a nice touch (Haskel is a programming language).

The false memory tread where Marlowe and Haskel discuss that they keep geting false memories downloaded was interesting but confusing. Can they be sure of anything? They used to be lovers, or did they? This is never followed through, or did I miss something?

The heavily modified (cyborg) agent called the Operative is running a deep undercover mission in parallel.

Carson is another agent that is flushed from cover and blackmailed into helping Linehan, an operative on the run from Autumn Rain.

This is a story with many protagonists, or maybe only two? The never ending action makes you not noticing the lack of character depth, much. The voice of the characters are also a bit similar, this can be intended as they all come from the same spy world.

World building

The story begins in 2110. The world is dominated by the second cold war between the US and the Euroasian Coalition, they have divided the world in spheres of influence.  Europa, India and Ociania are trying to stay neutral.

The world building is great. David paints a gritty cyberpunky dystopian world that leaps out of the pages and punch the air out of you. It is a complex world that some times takes significant infodumps to explain, but thats okay with me.

The timeline of the world at the end of the book is quite enlightening and I wish I read that before I started  with the book. You can also learn more about the world on David’s website www.autumnrain2110.com

My view

Mirrored Heavens is a strong first novel by David J. Williams. He presents a chilly future high-tech world of espionage and double crossing that is more than entertaining, the characters are not very deep and at times the plot might feel a bit over complex at times but so far I like it. I already have volume 2 Burning Skies here waiting. I can recommend it if you like fast paced cyber thrillers.

His transport to prison is intercepted  by a Bane Sidhe strike team lead by his daughter Cally, who he thinks dead. They bring Mike to earth without showing Cally.

The news of what happened leads to mutiny on the Moonbase and Fleet and they are just about to start fighting when neither side can fire their weapons.  The human mentats tell of a new enemy, more fierce and technological advanced than the Posleen.

The Darhels and the alliance depends on humans to fight their wars, and there is only one leader that can save their bacon  this time, General Mike O’Neal. But after what they did to him, his family and humanity it’s not going to  be  easy to get him to help. This time there will be change, a lot of change, with Mike O’Neal in charge of the war.

The Hedren Tyranny has invaded and they have mental powers they use for war. Michele and the other mentats have been trained in the Way that forbid violence but now they have to face the ‘Dark side’.

John Ringo is fantastic at portraing life in the military even when they are not fighting and making it  interesting to the reader. Even appointing officers and NCOs interests as much as a battle (almost). 

But there is more going on in this book, it hints of bigger powers behind the scene and the ending is a total cliffhanger. Now I have to wait for the resolution (Probably 2 more books). I was a bit disappointed by John Ringo’s homepage, there was no information on the series there, not even on this book.

Eye of the Storm (Free Online Book) was a hard book to put down, John Ringo at his best, a superb military science fiction. I recommend it.

And now he wants Jon to help him protect the boy Manu Chang. Manu is a descendant of Pinkelponker, Jon’s quarantined home planet, and a seer, and is in need of money to treat the effect it has on his health. The boy is to have an interview with the wealthy leader of the fanatic Followers, who worship everything Pinkelponker (the name comes from letting the captains little son name the planet). That’s where the risk comes in, he needs Jon as a bodyguard so that they don’t try to kidnap the boy.

Seems easy enough, but there is where he is wrong. There is a crime boss out to get Jack for money he owns. There are also the fanatics who want the boy for their cult. Jon also picks up a feisty redhead in the middle of it. Even the interstellar authorities are after them before it is over.

Jo & Lobo is great fun and fast paced action. This is another great Jon & Lobo book. I would like to see a book of Jon’s escape from Aggro and Pinkelponker.

This book is part of a series, Jon & Lobo.

1. One Jump Ahead
2. Slanted Jack – this article
3. Overthrowing Heaven – Preordered will arrive in May 2010
4. Jump Gate Twist - Preordered will arrive in July 2010 omnibus version of 1-2 (which I own)
5. Children No More – Preordered will arrive in Aug 2010

Drunk on battery acid Freya consider jumping from the balcony of the pleasure palace floating in the stratosphere of Venus. It is the 200th anniversary of the extinction of her One True Love, the human race. Some bored Aristos stumbles on her there and take enough interest to start a fight. Annoyed and drunk Freya ripes the head off one. That particular aristo take offence and promise to pay her back.  Aristos is the name of the cruel slave owning class. Most of the robots are slaves and called arbeiters. 

Freya is of a line of pleasure robots, the Rhea line that help each other out, they buy out indentured siblings and they also share memories of each others lives with memory chips. Freya have just put in Juliett’s chip and now she has to get off Venus before the aristo or his henchmen can find her. She is offered a job on Mercury that include the travel there, she jumps on the opportunity.

After she lands on Venus and make the acquaintance of the sentient hotel she has a run in with some siblings of the offended aristo. Her new job turn out to be to work for the Jeeves Corporation as a courier carrying some organic matter in her womb, avoid the pink police (nice name), and deliver it to the recipient on Mars.

This is when it starts to heat up for her. She learns more about Julietta during her  trip. There are enemy operators on the ship but she succeed in avoiding them and the pink police. She is also more or less force-seduced by Aristo Granita Ford who turns out to be in league with the police.

The rest you have to read yourself.

This is another story about Freedom and self governance. It is thought provoking, action packed, seedy (at least some) and in a imaginative original world. I love it!

Laura is very influenced by her Greek heritage. This time Ari and Matt goes back to the G-145 system they found in the beginning of Peacekeeper. Terran State Prince Isrid Parmet, with family are there too. He who tortured Arianne and blackmailed her to sign a contract for Terran companies to exploit the alien ruins found on a moon in the system.

At the same time it is discovered that a Terran temporal bomb has disappeared, propably stolen.

Also set on G-145 are a cult of isolationists. Their hero Quesan Douchet once destroyed a Minoan ship. The Minoans hunted him down and killed him and made all his relatives barren. Now the isolationists are back for revenge and the fulfillment of his prophesy. They have infiltrated sleepers all over the system when their leader Abrams Hadrian Rouxe take over the generation ship in charge of the temporal buoy.

Another excellent book by Laura E Reeve. Musa 3 might not have as much personality as David Weber’s Dahak but she is getting there

Greeks in space, what will they think of next …

The conclusion of the Conquerors’ Saga. Lord Cavanagh has learned the secret behind CIRCE the humans deterency super weapon. So now he is hunted by all sides. The opportunistic and treacherous Mrach play the Zhirrh against the humans and also lure them into launching attacks on Earth and the Mrach’s ancient enemy the Yycroman.

The battle over the Yycroman’s home planet is described in great detail including the Peacekeepers wolfpak insertion.

At the start of this book only a few individual know for sure why the war started. It is a race against time for the truth and voice of reason to get out before the war blossom.

Rumors says that Timothy planed to have this book told from the point of view of Max the AI but had to abandon that due to page limits set by the publisher. I would have loved to read that, love Max as he is written now.

This book was published in 1996. Is it just me or have  publishing changed since then? I just breezed trough 6 books in slightly more than two days. Todays books seems to be longer.