Book Review: Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer

Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer

Hardcover, 323 pages

Published December 2019 by MCD

I really hard to think about how to write this review, and I just finished reading it an hour ago. I should probably sit on it but hey I will give it a shot. My experience with Vandermeer is strictly reaching Annihilation a few years back and enjoying following his online musings. I much preferred the first Southern reach novel to the film although I liked both. I had always meant to read more. When I saw my library had a copy of this I jumped at the chance to read it.

Dead Astronauts is not follow up to Vandermeer's last book exactly but it takes in the same post-apocalyptic world. I didn't know this until I finished the book. The fact that it is not being marketed that way makes me think maybe it wasn't that important to know. That said reading this book is a little like floating in space without anything solid to hold on too. So the very first question you have to ask yourself is that a reading experience you like? Vandermeer is a talented and smart wordsmith and there is no doubt when I was reading this that there was a very smart human writing this.

I think many reading will have the sense when diving into this book that it is beyond them. I certainly felt dumb and lost at moments during Dead Astronauts. The thing is I don't mind that feeling from time to time. I like it in short stories or novellas more because I am a plot and narrative reader/writer. It is personally challenging for me to read a novel with a vague or unformed plot. Add to it surreal characters whose reality and humanity is constantly challenged - yeah Dead Astronauts was not totally my cup of tea. The reality is I gave it three stars when it is probably a five-book. It just is not for everyone.

I recognize there are smart themes and ideas but Dead Astronauts is a weird weird book in ways I find both frustrating and exciting. There are some really excellent parts and my mind when to crazy places but I also felt I didn't need three hundred pages of it.

Dead Astronauts has Solaris feel to it, a cosmic horror feels that tests the wibbbly wobbly ness of reality. In a world after humanity has been almost lost "The Company" is trying to extend life by creating biotech lifeforms more able to survive the harsh conditions. That is where reality and what is human comes into play. The POV characters don't know what or if things are real, and Vandermeer plays with all kinds of neats tricks to test them and the reader. The characters are used in experiments and so is the readers.

Does that sound like fun? At times I loved it and felt like I was being beautifully manipulated and then at other times I was just confused. This book is not for everyone but it is really cool for such a bizarro experimental book to get a mainstream release. That is something I love Vandermeer for.

Book Review: Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds

Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds

Paperback, 175 pages

Published March 2019 by Tor.com

I have to admit that I have never read Alastair Reynolds. I have had several people I trust tell me he is great, I even have a few of his books on my shelf including his Doctor Who novel. Yet somehow I just never made to the point where I cracked up one of his books. When I say he had a Tor novella (they have been releasing just fantastic novellas the last couple years) I decided it was the time.

I mean I saw the book on the new releases shelf and when I read the back I was instantly sold. "Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Master of science fiction Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost." You would have had me at climate fiction. I mean it is a subgenre that I have published in myself and the end of the end Cli-fi is kinda my biggest nightmare.

Add time travel and now we are really talking. Taking place in a post insect future with a slowly dying human race the time travel aspect of the story has a cool Twelve Monkeys vibe. In this world time travelers are trying to go back to a time before all the insects died to hide seeds that they could protect without screwing up the timelines.

I didn't fully get the fake science of it but the time travelers would go back and in embed themselves in a host body. The project that sent them back gave the book the title Permafrost.Once the time travelers are back the various missions and timelines get crossed with an unlikely villain tries to ruin their plans.

I loved this novella, with plenty of plot twists and action. All this with a powerful climate message. Permafrost with its tight story and short page count could make a great movie. It should be a movie anyways. Does all the time science work, it seems to me that it does. I like some of the weird twists the method of time embedded thing creates. The message is strong and highlighted by how strange one of the characters finds it to watch a fly buzz around them. Is it heavy-handed? Sure but the climate crisis needs direct and brutally honest speculative takes so this future never happens.

Book Review/Podcast Now Wait for Last Year by Philip K. Dick

Now wait for Last Year By Philip K Dick

Paperback, 256 pages

Published October 2011 by Mariner Books (first published March 1966)

While I am going to save most of my hot takes for the podcast let me say this is a novel with lots of interesting and weird concepts. I think it suffers a bit from getting a final polish in the period of which PKD was separating from wife number four (?), not only does this inspire some painful misogyny in the form of shots fired at the institution of marriage. Worse is just that Phil's life was a mess at the time. I think this negatively affects this novel that does have some really cool elements.

Podcast recording soon.

Book Review: Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Artist)

Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Artist)

Paperback, 176 pages

Published October 2012 by Image Comics

Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story (2013)

Harvey Awards for Best Continuing or Limited Series, Best New Series

Best Single Issue or Story (Saga #1)

Best Writer (for Brian K. Vaughan)

Best Artist (for Fiona Staples)

Best Colorist (for Fiona Staples) nominated for Best Cover Artist (for Fiona Staples) (2013)

British Fantasy Award for Best Comic/Graphic Novel (2013)

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards for Best New Series

Best Continuing Series, Best Writer (for Brian K. Vaughan) (2013)

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Graphic Novels & Comics (2012)

I find it really strange that this series has been going since 2012 and I never read it. I am pretty sure I saw the cover around. Brian K Vaughn is a hit or miss writer for me, I loved Y the Last Man enough that I would have been interested if anyone told me the concept. I got interested when a film podcast I listen to mentioned that the film rights sold and they described as almost unfilmable. They seemed to think that BKV wrote Saga to be something that could only exist in the comic book medium. Is that true? Not sure about that but after reading the first book it seems very possible.

Saga is a high fantasy space opera, think of a hard R rated Star Wars. I would describe this as a fully adult Star Wars that gets a big boost from the amazing world-building in both the writing and Fiona Staples' amazing art. Much like A New Hope, we are thrown into this universe with little explanation but that is OK because the action and characters hook you right away. Eventually, you figure out that this is in our far future (I think) and humans are spread out in the galaxy, we see a few of them but our main characters are soldiers from opposite sides of a war who have just given birth to a baby Hazel.

This story is told by Hazel whose father Marko has horns and grew up a moon of their homeworld and her mother who winged and ferry looking a solider on the other side. They are badass new parents and they have to be because the Robot Kingdom and various bounty hunters are hired to kill them. Both sides are not stoked on the situation. There is not a ton to the story in this the first of nine volumes but it is a great introduction to the world and that is the job of this issue. At the core is a very relatable story of two parents trying to raise their child in an extreme situation. Beyond that surface is a super weird fantasy world that includes TV faced cyborgs, half spider lady assassins, a Rogue character with a truth detector cat and plenty of potential for space opera madness. All are things I dug.

Saga is a really cool piece of work and actually, I would love to see it as a TV series. might have to tone down the adult stuff but I don't think the story would suffer for that. He is an interesting thing. This is only the 9th book I read this year but if you look back at the books I have read this year I couldn't help compare this the uncompleted series that Malcolm Mcneil started in the 70's Tetra. Originally published in the '70s in Gallery magazine Tetra only recently re-surfaced when James Reich and Stalking Horse press brought it back from the dead.

Saga is much more developed but I did think to myself while reading SAGA if only Tetra had the time to grow. I am going to keep reading this for sure.

Book Review: The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley

Hardcover, 356 pages

Published March 19th 2019 by Saga Press

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Science Fiction (2019)

Dragon Award Nominee for Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel (2019)

Welcome to the review of my third Kameron Hurley novel. This is my favorite but the last two have convinced me that Hurley is one of the most exciting voices working in modern Science Fiction. As a well known old school reader, it is awesome to have found a bold new voice. I mean not that new my first time reading Hurley was her 2010 series kick-off God's War (Bel Dame Apocrypha, #1). I could tell it was really well written but for some reason, it felt too fantasy for me or something. I knew it was good just didn't push my books. Then a few years back Hurley released The Stars are Legion.

The Stars are Legion is an incredible epic space opera with hints of body horror set in a post-men future matriarchy. The world-building in that novel is some of the best I have read in decades of science fiction reading. The Stars are Legion is a book that you enjoy while reading but it worms around in your brain every time you think of it. It is a book impossible to shake. When I wrote my review of that book three years ago I thought Hurley would have a tough time following that up.

Well, enter the Light Brigade. I read this book for two reasons. Primary was the strength of Hurley's last book, but second, was a five-star review from Science Fiction Book Podcast's Luke Barrage who very rarely gives that high praise. I say this because I went into this book as cold as I could. I knew nothing about the plot, managed to avoid even the notion that it was military sci-fi although the title told me that. I think the best way to enter this book is without any background. So if you are like me (and many of my readers come via the Dickheads podcast) and you like mind-bendy science fiction stop now and come back and read the rest of this review.

Before I get into spoilers let say this. Military Science Fiction has a long history that Hurley tips her hat too. The ultimate classics are Starship Troopers and the Forever War which kinda serve opposite sides of the political divide. Light Brigade does pay homage to those books but importantly Hurley updates the themes with a close look at the one issue that is tops on the minds of our modern solider. PTSD and the fog of war. While Hurley doesn't address as directly as Weston Ochse has in his Grunt series and his Burning and Dead Sky books. It is no small deal that Weston the author of those books and a Vet who has spent several tours in Afghanistan has said the Light Brigade impressed him with its military sci-fi-ness. That is bigger praise than anything I have to say.

The Light Brigade has other very strong influences mostly in classics like Slaughterhouse-Five and 1984 which get subtle well-done nods through-out. It is one of the most quoted statements about war but Senator Hiram Warren Johnson was not wrong in 1918 when he said the first casualty of war is truth. At the heart of this novel is the fog of war but brought to the surface in a way that only sci-fi could. This book is military sci-fi but it also is a dystopia, Cli-Fi, a multi-verse story and involves time travel. It is a rich political tapestry woven perfectly into the world-building that never forgets to give you character and story worth following. Excellent stuff.

OK, I hope I sold you because now I am going to start talking about the story. Go read it and come back.

The Light Brigade on the surface is a story about soldiers who are trained to be transported on a beam of light. Unlike Star Trek Hurley never ignores the insanity of that concept. Our POV is a soldier named Dietz who after the death of her family in a massive attack on Sao Paulo signs up to become a citizen. Yes this sounds like Starship Troopers but under the surface, most of the humans were living in the south because the North Hemisphere had become unlivable in this future controlled by six corporations.

It was not huge bugs or monsters like aliens who attacked it was people who were human before setting up a social system on Mars colonies. The cold war with the Martians gets hot when they returned to earth finding a way to make the former Canada livable. At this point, Dietz and her team are sent by a beam of light to Mars, Canada, Africa where ever there is a front in the war. When they are transported by the light the effect sends them across space but also time. From one timeline to another. Dietz has trouble with who and when she is.

I was OK with feeling like I was a step behind the book, that was fine with me. I felt Hurley wrapped it all up. In the final pages, I realized that we were getting a very neat way to look at how war tears about the individual. At the same time, the book takes subtle knocks at how society is affected. I don't think that was the point though. One of the final twists is preserved also by the fact that the majority of readers will assume Dietz is a man. Written from a first-person POV Dietz is also never described by any gender pronouns. I think I assumed Dietz was a Woman because I had read The Stars are Legion. I admit through the first act I started to look for clues and decided it didn't matter and I liked that.

The Light Brigade is a masterpiece and should become a classic. This cements my belief that Hurley is a badass and that I will pay attention to anything and everything she does at this point. As for my Dickheads...as a co-host of the PKD themed podcast we always make Dick-like suggestions to our listeners and yes this is one. Big time PKD vibes all over the place. So When we cover Now Wait for Last Year I will talk about this book on the show.

Book Review: The Secret Ascension; or, Philip K. Dick Is Dead, Alas by Michael Bishop

The Secret Ascension; or, Philip K. Dick Is Dead, Alas by Michael Bishop

Mass Market Paperback, 341 pages

Published June 1989 by Tor Books (first published 1987)

I am not entirely what I was expecting when I read this but being the co-host of a Philip K Dick makes you somewhat of an expert. I thought a good time to read this was on the heels of re-reading Lawrence Sutin's amazing biography of Philip K Dick. I admit somehow over the years I missed reading Bishop before. He is an award-winning author and teacher of the genre. He has over thirty novels published but honestly, I can't comment on those.

The Secret Ascension is a delightfully weird book that is about an alternate reality that is kinda the prose version of the PKD robot. I mean in many ways this is a loving tribute to PKD and it is more meaningful that it happened in 1986 when his genius was far less recognized. It is clear to this Dickhead that Bishop loved and knew deeply the work of Philip K Dick. It is not just the moments when PKD appears as a character but it is the story about an alternate reality where Nixon won the Vietnam war and is in his fourth term. Bishop is ticking all the boxes for a PKD concept.

The world in this novel is just like ours only slightly different. For the Dickheads, the major difference is that PKD's career is flipped. He is a literary figure whose mainstream fiction like Mary and the Giant and Voices From the Street were published and it was his science fiction that was largely unpublished. Not because it was bad because it was considered crazy and subversive. All his mainstream titles here are from Bishop's research but the science fiction besides Valis and Flow my Tears are slightly changed titles like The Doctor in the High Dudgeon and They Scan us Darkly, Don't They. The boldest step of Bishop's was to create a PKD novel conceived entirely in this world. This fictional PKD is a reaction to Nixon's fiction four-term called The Dream Impeachment of Harper Mocton.

The Dream impeachment was super interesting to me, partly because as I read this in 2020 in this strange timeline a president who thinks he is a king who lost the popular vote is managing to avoid being impeached. In the PKD novel of Bishop's imagination, the deeply entrenched but unpopular president is impeached in the collective unconscious of the public. This makes Nixon and PKD adversaries in a strange way. PKD who recently died in the events of the novel has his subversive Sci-fi novels traded on the underground.

The story that involves moon bases, King Richard Nixon, pets and domestic travel bans and most interesting Vietnamese refugees who are brought to American for Americanization training after losing the war. All this feels like PKD pastiche. I have the feeling that this book dives into themes from Valis and Radio Free Albemuth books we have yet to cover although I read them back in the day. This is mostly expressed in the character of Philip Kai Dick. Who is not as dead as he was thought to be believed. It gets even weirder from there.

The first question I think I need to address is the aspect of this novel paying tribute to PKD. Is it a good tribute? I would say yes. I think it takes a fair amount of hubris to invent novel that PKD never actually wrote. It is one thing for Bishop to write that in this reality there is a slightly different Scanner Darkly, the Dream Impeachment, however, is something altogether different. It takes brass ones to say this is a book that PKD would have written in this reality, but I have to hand it to Bishop and his research. I can live with all those aspects of this book. It is a fun thought exercise and i think Phil would have been amused by this. The man clearly enjoyed messing with people. How much of his alternate reality stuff he really believed is hard to say but he loved to ponder it.

How is this as a science fiction novel? I don't know if I can separate myself as a PKD podcaster from this reading experience. So I enjoyed it but I don't know how much of that is my personal connection to the material. I think being a serious Dickhead is kinda required here or you are going to end up being disappointed. The non-PKD moments are interesting but not enough to really carry this novel. The good news it doesn't have to as this book is a pure tribute to PKD. So yeah serious Dickheads will have fun I am not sure I think anyone else needs to spend the time.