Book Review: River God by Wilbur Smith

I've been carrying this book around with me for a while, but I'm finally glad that I've taken the time to sit down and read it.

River God is a story about ancient egypt set four thousand years ago in the Rein of the Pharoah Mamose and is told from the perspective of the eunuch Slave Taita. If this story was set in modern times, Taita would almost certainly be a professor or other learned scholar, but in ancient Egypt he is regarded as one of the best healers, engineers and teachers in the land.

Taita is appointed as teacher and guardian to the warrior Tanus and later to the Lady Lostris who ultimately is betrothed to the Pharaoh. The story covers the life of the Lady Lostris, her love for the warrior Tanus, and of their ultimate struggle to retake their beloved cities from the invading hoards from the Lower Kingdom of Egypt and the invaders from the desert to the west.

The Nile plays a large character in the story and the passing of years is marked by the annual inundation of the lands that brings life to the region.

Overall I'd give the story 8 out of 10.

I am now reading the sequel to this first story: The Seventh Scroll - a modern day tale where archaeologists find the actual scroll that Taita conceals in Lostris' tomb.

Book Review Stephen Baxter's Mammoth Trilogy

I can't believe it's nearly been six months since I've posted on here and much more worrying so long since I finished reading a book, damn work, the Twat and too much alcohol, but finally I've now finally completed reading Stephen Baxter's Mammoth trilogy.

Longtusk is the second story in Stephen Baxter's Mammoth trilogy, although this is a trilogy all three novels can be read independently.

The story follows the life of a young bull "Long Tusk" who loses his family in a fire and then is taken in by a tribe of Neanderthals. The Neanderthals (Dreamers) are in competition for land with tribes of Homo Sapiens (Fireheads) and Long Tusk gets involved in the war. The Fireheads keep a herd of Mastadons to do heavy lifting and hauling and Long Tusk became one of this down-trodden herd.

Long Tusk eventually finds both freedom and his family and succeeds in saving the last of the mammoths from the Fireheads by crossing the land-bridge from Alaska into what was to become modern day Siberia.

---

Icebones is the third installment in Stephen Baxter's Mammoth trilogy and is probably the best book of the Trilogy because - get this - it's set on Mars! Mammoths on Mars, what a cool concept!

The story follows the life of Icebones the daughter of Silverhair who was the central character in the first Mammoth book.I did spent quite a lot of the time reading the book trying to work out how the Martian ecology had been changed by man to enable Mammoths to survive there, but this actually does become clear at the end of the tale, so I won't spoli it for you.

Icebones awakes after being in suspended animation during the journey to Mars (and I believe that she must have been kept in suspended animation for several hundred years while the Martian ecology was established by man or The Lost as the Mammoths call us as the map of Mars at the front of the book is timestamped 3000AD).

On awakening, she discovers other Mammoths who have been living in a zoo, all bred by the Lost using genetic manipulation techniques. The Mammoths cannot stay at the zoo site on top of Olympus Mons because the greatest volcano in the solar system is erupting. (Probably why the man abandoned the planet).Agreeing to become the Mammoth's new Matriarch leader, Icebones uses the knowledge passed down to her by her mother Silverhair of the legends of the great mammoth cycle of life and leads her new Mammoth family across the planetary surface in search of a new place to live.

The Mammoths travel through the Valles Marineris (which is a canyon system that stretches a third of the way around the equator of Mars), facing hunger, thirst, floods and the dreaded dust storms of Mars to the sanctury of the Footfall in the lowlands of the Hellas Basin where other Mammoths are living freely in a lush lowland steepe.


All three of these Mammoth books are now listed on Bookcrossing.com if you want to read this trilogy of books I'll happily give them away for free on a first come first served basis.

Book Review: Mammoth - Book One: Silverhair by Stephen Baxter

I bought this book because I was collecting Stephen Baxter's works on Ebay, but this is not a science fiction novel like Baxter's others works, it is a more down to earth story about the handful of Mammoths that are still struggling to survive in the modern world. Although not specified, I assume that the Family were moving around an Island off the coast of Alaska - somewhere remote anyway. The story does however have a little SF twist at the end, but I'll not spoil it further.

Over the Great Years of the Mammoth's history on earth, their numbers have gradually dwindled until there is just one Family of Mammoths led by a brave Matriarch wandering the icy tundra. The story begins during the harsh winter, and follows through into the melting spring warmth when the last of the mammoth families stumble across the Lost (or a wandering gang of modern-day humans) together with their dangerous Fire-Sticks (guns).

I have registered this book at BookCrossing.com. I do not think that I will want to read this novel again, so at some point I will probably release it into the wild.

7 out of 10

Book Review: Stark by Ben Elton

The earth is dying and the rich and powerful owners of the global corporations indulge in a global conspiracy to create their own kind of future and leave the earth to drown in a future of pollution, hunger and scum.

This story is about a few members of the public who stumble onto the truth, and try to publish their findings, but the world is not interested and as the powerful members of the conspiracy own the press and police. The story doesn't get out, so they resort to journeying to the launch site in Bullens Creek Australia themselves to try and find out exactly what is going on.

Ben Elton's sarcastic level of humor carries the reader through the first half of the book until the story starts to pick up when the main characters of the Stark "resistence" arrive in Australia.

I've finished this book today and I have registered it at Book Crossing.com I'm going to leave it on the bus on my way home tonight. With so many Emmets in St Ives at the moment it could end up anywhere on Earth!

Rating 7 out of 10

Next read: The Draco Tavern by Larry Niven

Book Review: Ilium by Dan Simmons

Dan Simmons returns to large-scale space opera in this novel. Many centuries in the future, Earth's small, more or less human population lives an enjoyable, if drone-like existence. Elsewhere, on some alternate Earth, or perhaps it's the distant past, the battle for Troy is in its ninth year. Oddly, its combatants, Hector, Achilles and the rest, seem to be following a script, speaking their lines exactly as Homer reported them in The Iliad. The Gods, who live on Olympus Mons on the planet Mars, may be post-humans, or aliens, or, well, Gods; it isn't entirely clear.

Thomas Hockenberry, a late-20th-century professor of the classics has, along with other scholars from his era, apparently been resurrected by the Gods. His job is to take notes on the war and compare its progress to Homer's tale, noting even the smallest deviations. Meanwhile, the "moravecs," a civilization of diverse, partially organic AIs clustered on the moons of Jupiter, have been disturbed by the quantum activity they've registered from the inner solar system and have sent an expedition to Mars to investigate.

It seems like a lifetime ago that I started reading this story, truly it does. I think I actually started reading it in the fall of last year, of course Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star and Judas Unchanged sort of jumped into my reading queue in between.

I must confess that I nearly tossed this book. It just couldn't grab me, there were bits that I liked, the Moravecs journey from Jupiter space and their subsequent attack by the Gods and crash on Mars, and also the post-human society on Earth. It was these sections that kept me reading. However I just couldn't see how this seemed to link in with Hockenberry's observations of the Iliad. I started skipping these sections... I've never been one for history texts ....until Hockenberry started changing the fate of the Iliad by direct intervention, using the god's tools to sleep with Helen of Troy and changing the fate of the Trojan war and so became a key player in the story.

There is a sequel to this story it is called Olympos, I don't think I'd bother to buy this - it is only available in hardback at the moment. Maybe it's worth borrowing from the library.

Overall the story grew much stronger towards the end, but because of it's long drawn out start I would give it no more than 6 out of 10. Not a good score considering Dan Simmons Hyperion stories are on my my favourites.

Next on my reading pile is Ben Elton's Stark:

Book Review: Pandora's Star by Peter F Hamilton

I finished this book at the beginning of the month so I guess I'd better review it. The good news is that it's won the right to be the January Book of the Month on the Hard SF online group that I'm a member of, but I don't think that many members with jobs are going to get through this in a month, it took me between 2-3 months to consume it's 1200 odd pages. But I'm so glad that I did.

I've not been this impressed or gripped by a book for several years. It was interesting to try and work out where all the intermingling story lines between the various different plot arcs merged together, but by the end of the story some of them are all falling into place. I guess my favourite character has to be the Maverick Ozzy, 400+years old and creator of the wormhole gateways that link the Commonwealth together. He reminds me quite a lot of the central (and also ancient character in my favourite novel, Ringworld), except rather than getting bored at parties, you would rather catch Ozzy catching a wave on some bizarre alien planet. I've also got to admire the ultimate female cop, Paula Mao. And the mystery of the Starflyer. Of course being a techno-fan I was completely hooked at the offset of the first few chapters which mentioned the pair of stars known as the Dyson Pair being shut off in a moment by that impenetrable barrier.

A real cliff hanger of an ending (and you've got to read the last page to know how much tongue in cheek that comment it ;). I can't wait to read the sequel, Judas Unchained which I've just learned is now out! YAY!

(hopping over to Amazon to buy it now!).

Book Review: Stephen Baxter's Ring

I finally finished reading this story over the past weekend. It has been very difficult going to try and stick with this book. I've had it on the go since April or May this year, it got put aside several times while I've read other stories by Clive Cussler and JK Rowling - which is not a good sign.

It's the second attempt I've made at reading it. The first time I failed too, in fact I found my old book mark during the reading process that was still stuffed in the book when I put it back on the shelf while I was still back in Kent.

The story is the end of Baxter's Xeelee Sequence of stories and follows the story of the Northern. A ship designed to last 1,000 years to bring a wormhole technology link back to the past. The ship uses relativity throughout it's 1,000 year voyage and during those 1,000 years on board ship where the community of humans is either genetically manipulated or enhanced by nano-technology to live to great ages with varying degrees of success.

When the Northern completes it's journey and drops back into normal space-time the solar system and the sun have changed beyond recognition due the the effects of mysterious creatures living within the sun and the effects of the Xeelee-human war.

All in all, I was disappointed by this Novel. There was interesting titbits of superscience in the traditional Hard SF sense in this story, like the Neutron Star system travelling at near lightspeed, and the cosmic string properties of the ring itself, but it felt that the five million year old journey (and reading through the book over these past months has certainly felt like that) was not really worth the effort. Fortunately in reading the afterword, the interesting parts to the story, like the Neutron Star tale are actually expanded on in other of Baxter's works in the Xeelee sequence in a book called "Flux" which I think I may have sitting on my "To Be Read" shelf.

This was the Hard SF Book of the Month for May and I gave it 7 out of 10 in the online poll.

Review: Black Wind by Clive & Dirk Cussler

Been off sick for a few days and managed to finish reading Black Wind by Clive Cussler and his son, Dirk. Just like most other Clive Cussler stories that I've read, it was difficult to put down once I got into it.

The "Black Wind" of the title refers to biological agents developed by the Japanese in World War II. The submarines carrying these agents were sunk towards the end of the war their deadly cargoes still intact. Of course this is where NUMA comes in by diving on the wrecks to retrieve the cargo.

The story primarily follows the exploits of Dirk Pitt Jr and his sister Summer, while the older Dirk Pitt (now head of NUMA) and Giordino take a rather back seat, although they still do feature in the story once or twice and have a big part towards the end. In fact, this is the only part of the story that I can find criticism with, all the way though the book, we follow in the footsteps of the younger Pitt, and at the end of the novel, Daddy comes to save the day again, which seemed somewhat to take some of the wind out of the younger man's sails.

The story was easier to follow than the last installment though, because when I read that the story skipped repeatedly between the two Pitt's and you needed several paragraph's worth of mind adjustment to work out which Pitt you were actually reading about.

I'm glad about one thing though, the whole bioagent plot was interesting, also introducing new departments within the real US government like homeland security, but moreso, pitting a Korean businessman as the "bad guy" made Cussler go where even President Bush fears to tread: North Korea.

Overall 9 out of 10

Review: Robinson Crusoe 1,000,000 AD by Terry Sunboard

I finished this book about a week or so ago. I quite enjoyed it up to a point. The basics of survivalism set against the remains of future technology made a very interesting contrast.

The story begins with the clone of Alex Kirk (no relation to James T ;-) ) waking up in an organic cloning vat aware that he is being eaten alive. A fight ensues and Alex survives his first trial of life. Alex's attacker turns out to be a mutated clone of himself - only semi human.

After leaving his birthing place, Alex has to learn to survive in a world that has literally gone back to nature. 1,000,000 years after the fall of civilisation there is very little trace of humanity or it's civilisation left. Even our great cities have been scourged from the earth by millenia of ongoing glaciation.

Alex (our would be Adam) longs for his Eve, and eventually comes across a woman's birthing cave, which produces a clone of his long dead girlfriend Marayan. They manage to make an idyllic life for themselves for a couple of years, until they encounter the evolved remains of humanity which has now created several sub species. In a desperate attempt to escape these proto-humans Alex and Marayan escape to orbit where the remains of an orbiting space station is still floating around in the Earth-Moon system's Lagrange points.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book, apart from the final couple of chapters where Alex finds the key to using the ultra technology of the Moon to kick the asses of the proto-human Sirk back on Earth. This seemed completely out of character for the rest of the book, I mean, missiles against bows and arrows is hardly fair!

Overall though, I think I would rate it 8 out of 10. I even nominated this for the Hard SF Reading Groups April's Book of the Month. It got a reasonable amount of Votes, but Ringworld by Larry Niven won out with 10 votes..... yeah! (This is one of my favourite novels).

At the moment I'm currently reading Stephen Baxter's Deep Future. This is not a novel but a series of essays on the future of humanity in the solar system and how the various worlds around us could be terraformed or colonized. I've read all these theories many times before, of course, but it still makes interesting reading.

Time to Toss The Golden Age

Well, I've been reading it on and off for more than a month now but despite all this time elapsing, I'm still only on page 54 of this book; not a good sign.

It probably doesn't help that I've abandoned my traditional bedtime reading in favour of watching old episodes of the X Files. I'm up to Jose Chung's "From Outer Space" so far. The Golden Age is no competition to watching these classic X Files Episodes. I keep sitting in bed late at night and LOLLing out loud at all the Mulderisms.

As for reviewing the Golden Age, I just can't seem to get into it. It's probably a fine book if I gave it the time - but some of the concepts of the Golden Occenome are very difficult to follow - neural consciouses/people in a permanent switched on in the 'net state. Well - that's about as much as I've been able to make out. The only time I've acutally made any progress reading it is in my lunch hours or if I'm waiting for food to arrive in a pub or restaurant. Now I've decided to give it the heave ho, it actually feels a relief now to be able to "toss it" and give it back to the Library.

January's book of the month for the Hard SF reading group was Across Realtime by Vernor Vinge - I tried ordering this from the library service - their catalog said that they had two copies available in the County of Cornwall - but apparently both have been lost and are unavailable - doh! I'm not going to bother buying it - imagine how peeved I'd be now if I'd had wasted good money on The Golden Age?

February's Book of the Month is Eon - by Greg Bear - I've read this in the past - good book - I enjoyed it and it's sequel Eternity - but I've got no desire at the moment to re-read it.

March's book of the month is Phoenix Exultant by John C Wright - the sequel to the Golden Age so I guess I won't be reading that one either! ;-)

On my laptop at the moment I'm listening (courtesy of Microsoft Reader's Text to Speech facility) to an Ebook: Robinson Crusoe, 1,000,000 AD. This is pretty good so far - I'm about halfway through the file. Alex wakes up in a gene tank complete with memories of the twentieth century, butt naked and has to learn to survive the Rippers (wolf/bear creatures) and thinks he's the only man on earth. For a time he is until he discovers other people emerging from other gene tanks including his old girlfriend.

It's good "reading" like this because I can get on and do my stitching at the same time as having my mind entertained, and I'm not missing anything like what usually happens if I'm trying to stitch while watching TV or a movie. I've made a policy now of only stitching while things are on that I've already seen: I miss too much otherwise. Audio Ebooks are the perfect compromise.

Ebook Review: Aloha by Ken Wharton

This is a Freebie from Fictionwise at the moment - it's a Nebula Award Nominee.

This is a strange tale of romance mixed with Astrophysics. Felix and Hannah's relationship has survived to the temporal midpoint of the universe--halfway between the Big Bang to the Big Crunch. They face a goodbye followed by a hello again as the universe turns itself upside down.

This was a bit too wierd to follow. A very strange tale - but hey - it's Free

Review: Hot Sky at Midnight - Robert Silverberg

My last reading finish of 2004, this book started off quite well - in a very fascinating environment of environmental disaster and collapse on earth. One of the characters is involved in research to gene-tailor humans to survive the changing atmospheric conditions on earth in the beginnings of a greenhouse climate gone astray - and is constantly reviewing the moral question of turning the human race into monsters. Another character is hired as a tugboat captain to go and bring back floating icebergs of fresh water to a drought-plauged San Fransisco, and finally the third major character is a detective with no eyes - the victim of gene-tailoring experiments back in India.

All in all though, while these elements provide a fascinating series of individual stories, they never seem to come together at the end and form a cohesive plot, I was a bit disappointed really.

Rating 7/10

Next book: John C Wright - The Golden Age Hard SF's Book of the Month for December 04 (A bit late I know - but it's still December isn't it?)