Book Journal: Astra Lost in Space

One of the reasons I enjoy going to physical bookstores (even after getting a tablet with an e-reader app that I like using a lot) is that it's very easy for me to just randomly find interesting books by wandering through the store. Which is exactly how I found Astra; I decided to pick up one of the random space-themed manga I saw in a Japanese bookstore a while back, and then realized I needed to get the rest of the series after I had time to read it.

It starts out as a very nice survival story - the main characters are thrown into deep space after a routine camping trip to another planet goes badly, and they have to come up with a clever plan to survive and get back home. In the process, they have to explore several planets - and as the story develops, the whole thing turns into more of a mystery story featuring not just the characters on the ship itself but the entire world they live in.

Which in many cases is a recipe for disaster. Transitions like that can be hard to pull off without disappointing either the people who liked the first genre or people who liked the second. In this case, though, I thought it was very skillfully done; the end result is a satisfying mystery with some very interesting twists that also manages to be a serious survival tale.

I also think the (relatively short) length deserves a note - because while I do like franchises that keep giving me more of the characters I've come to love, short stories that make their point and call it a day deserve credit too.

I really liked reading this one, and I highly recommend it to any science fiction fans.

Book Journal: Overlord series

One of my friends recommended the Overlord anime to me a while back, and while I still haven't had the time or the Internet reliability to actually watch that yet, it was enough reason to start picking up the English version of the light novel series when I saw it in a bookstore.

As is often the case when someone goes to the trouble to recommend something to me, I've ended up wishing I'd picked it up sooner, because I've enjoyed reading it quite a bit.

The series is about a former online MMO player who decides to stay logged in to his favorite game until he's forced out by its final shutdown, only to discover that instead of being forcibly logged out, he's been thrown into a fantasy alternate world instead. Of course, he soon discovers that his massively powerful character is significantly more powerful than almost anyone else he can find, and the massive dungeon and NPCs that his guild created ended up in this new world with him, so he's a little bit better off than the typical protagonist of these stories, to say the least.

If there is a problem, it's that the story is a bit one-dimensional so far. The main character and his minons are so much stronger than everyone else that most of the stories focus on revealing more of the world's back story or detailing the exact ways in which they manage to annihilate whoever is making trouble for them. Which isn't so bad, since I do enjoy reading these absurdly destructive fantasy-style fights, but it would be nice if there was an actual threat or challenge to the main characters at some point. (Of course, I'm only about halfway through what's currently been published right now, so there's time left for me to get my wish.)

Book Journal: Safehold Series

... It surprised me quite a lot when I went to check past posts that I've never written one about David Weber's Safehold series before. I guess I'll go ahead and fix that now.

While this series has some interesting science fiction roots, it's a lot closer to historical fiction than his Honorverse series. Most of the action is set within a world that has no access to electricity or really any technology more advanced than sailing ships and crude guns. (At least - at first, and with some exceptions.) So the fighting and politics in this series are a decidedly different affair from the space opera battles that are the centerpiece of the Honorverse.

The attention that Weber pays to the politics and economics that lead up to those battles is no different, though. As with many of the Honorverse books, a lot of the Safehold books talk about a lot of political maneuvering and military strategy, get through one major battle, and then close with the implications of that battle. So they can get a bit dense and slow if you're looking for straight-up military action. Weber does do a great job with the world building (as always), though, and he does a great job of getting us to care about the fate of the characters involved, so I've always liked it anyway.

Interestingly, he also does a good job (at least in my opinion) of making it seem like things are always hovering on a knife's edge for the protagonists, constantly keeping them in danger of being defeated, even when they don't actually lose very often. Under most circumstances, I guess it probably should inspire worries about boring invincible heroes when they lose as rarely as these people do, but I've never really felt that way.

The inspiration for this particular post was (naturally) my reading of the latest book in the series, which for a few different reasons is actually a rather different book than many of its predecessors. Spoilers for the series (and that latest book) follow, so if you haven't read any of it yet (which I recommend you do if you haven't), you've been warned.

The big difference for this latest book (Through Firey Trials) is that with the major military campaigns in the previous books largely concluded, it's a lot more general in its coverage of events than any of them were. All of the books (particularly the later ones) tend to drift across several years of in-universe time, but I don't believe any of them covered fifteen years in one go. That made this one feel like an entire book's worth of filler, frankly; while I'm happy that it moved the story all the way forward to the next major point, I could have wished for something a bit more interesting.

Book Journal: Throne of Glass

One of the nice things about NaNoWriMo is that spending lots of time around plenty of other people who like books is very helpful in getting new book recommendations... I learned about this fantasy series at one of the writing events last month and have just gotten around to actually reading it. (Which means I've finished the first four books in the series and am working on more. I think there are seven books in all.)

It's quite good. A lot of these novels have problems creating any kind of serious internal conflicts for the heroines and heroes; given that I occasionally thought this one was going a bit overboard on the self-doubt and regret, it definitely doesn't have that problem.

Without getting too much into spoilers (read as: you may want to stop here if you haven't read it yet, but don't have to), I also liked the way it brought the main characters into the central conflict of the story. There's a great evil that's hunting for magical artifacts it can use in its nefarious plan... and it's already mostly done with that stage, forcing the main characters to scramble a bit if they want to cause any disruption to the plan at all, and putting them at a serious disadvantage for almost all of what I've read so far.

However, the antagonists still make mistakes too, and the protagonists do a great job of using those to their advantage. It ends up making both sides seem very realistically flawed while still allowing everyone to have their chance to do some very clever scheming and plotting.

Also (major spoiler alert) there's plenty of magical fireworks once one gets far enough into the series, so if what you really want is to read about an entire castle getting melted by a magical blast of fire, you can have that too.

Book Journal: Ghost Fleet

There's a damn good reason this book has been on basically every flag officer reading list I've seen since it was published. Thinking about the extent to which events might actually turn out this way in a real war - and how to either stop it from doing so or helping it along, depending on which side one represents - is arguably the more important part of many military officers' jobs.

It certainly helps that the book makes a strong effort to track actual trends in technology and politics. There are even footnotes to point out the bits and pieces of tech that are either real or inspired by real things. The book is ultimately near-future science fiction, so there's still some stuff in here that is not real (yet, at least), but there's a lot that is. Its use of military terminology - at least as it applies to my own knowledge - uses almost all of the correct terms but still rings a bit false. Overall, it paints a very convincing picture of what its war might look like.

The characterization is... interesting, I suppose. On one hand, it's nice to have characters with interesting quirks, and to make sure that there's no clear division between good guys and bad guys, both of which the book does. However, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of effort spent on character development; while there are some complicated characters, the book doesn't spend time on how or why they've changed. It's kind of understandable, given the time the book spends on talking about technology instead, but it still seems like a flaw. Given that, I'm not sure how much appeal the book will have to people who are neither in the military nor interested in cutting edge tech. It's a serviceable war story, but those aren't exactly rare.

I certainly enjoyed it a lot, though.

Book Journal: The Honorverse

The only bad thing about a new Honorverse book is that now I have to read some of the previous entries and remind myself what's been going on... actually never mind, that's a good part.

The Honorverse is a science fiction series written by David Weber - it follows the adventures of Captain (at least at first) Honor Harrington of the Royal Manticoran Navy - which is probably best thought of as the British Navy from the age of sail, except in space. Over the course of 19 books (as of the latest release) and three wars spanning 20 years in the setting, she goes from being the captain of a single ship to being one of the most influential admirals in the entire galaxy.

Weber's skill at world building is on full display here; the companion book describing the creation and organization of the Royal Manticoran Navy draws heavily on the wide variety of real world skills that his friends, advisers, and fans of the series possess. Including stuff from the Naval War College's curriculum about the theory behind how navies and fleets are organized (or so it claims). Some people probably don't like the fact that most of his books only ever get to one or maybe two major battles, since they spend so much time on the political maneuvering and background details leading up to those battles, but I like the detailed breakdown of all the events surrounding each battle, myself. There certainly are some unrealistic parts; there isn't any actual science that I'm aware of behind their hyperdrives or a lot of their gravity manipulation, but that's not a problem for me.

One of the other nice details is that there are fairly clear bits and pieces that are inspired by politics and governments in the real world, but it's still rather difficult to pick out anyone who is all good or all bad. There are some science fiction authors I can think of who quite clearly like one side or the other; all their heroes and villains are clearly on the side they like or dislike. A lot of them still write good books, but it's kind of jarring and irritating to read depictions of politicians or activists who are clearly based on the misinterpretations of their opponents. These books generally manage to avoid that fate, as far as I'm concerned.

Which brings me to the reason why this is one of my favorite series of all time, and why I think it's going to remain so for a long time: It's had a significant impact on a lot of things in my real life. Between the degree to which its world building is based on some real political and economic theories, and the extent to which it avoids reducing either side to a complete parody, it certainly feels a lot safer to draw lessons out of this stuff compared to any number of other books. And the depictions of various military leaders are frankly inspiring - and detailed enough in their priorities, outlook, and demeanor to be worth emulating.

Given that, it should come as little surprise that I literally never fail to mention this series if anyone ever asks me for book recommendations.

Book Journal: Sins of Empire

I should probably be reading the second book in this series, since it's the one I haven't read, but it's been long enough since I read the first one that I wanted to remind myself what was actually going on here before I jump back in. (This happens to me more often than I would expect, given how good my memory usually is, but it's not like I actually mind.)

Sins of Empire is the start of the second series written by Brian McClellan. It's set in the same world as his first, although it centers on a different part of the world. I really like both; they've got a lot of interesting political intrigue, fight scenes, and a very interesting magic system. The magic system in particular feels very interesting and relevant even in a world that's closer to Napoleonic War tech than the typical fantasy setting that features magic. The fact that some of it uses gunpowder as a power source for magic probably helps in that regard.

The whole thing does get a bit convoluted (which is probably part of the reason why I'm having to re-read it in order to remember all the things that happened), but that doesn't make it any less entertaining.

Book Journal: The Call of Cthulhu

Blame some of the satire pieces I found this past week for convincing me to dig my old collection of H.P. Lovecraft's stories out of my pile of books.

Talking about why I really do like Lovecraft's horror stories probably means starting with the things that will make me dislike a horror story. I don't like the jump scares or buckets of gore that a lot of games and movies in this genre seem to rely on to terrify or disgust the audience. I particularly don't like it when the protagonists get themselves in trouble by virtue of doing something absurdly stupid, or when they aren't capable of stopping the implacable horror stalking them because they're not smart enough to make good decisions.

Lovecraft's protagonists aren't like that, as a general rule. Many of them are supposed to be intelligent people and are written in a way that actually makes them seem intelligent. There's the odd stupid decision involving digging a bit too deeper than one should, but by that time the protagonists are generally doomed already anyway. And the implacable horrors of Lovecraft's works generally are insurmountable threats no matter how smart the protagonists are... they see some measure of success against merely mortal cultists and magicians, and even manage to temporarily stave off the elder gods on rare occasions, but in the end there's only so much mortal investigators can do. This sort of horror story built off of a convincingly terrifying implacable creeping doom is quite a bit more interesting to me than the alternatives.

Of course, there are flaws. Largest is the fact that like all too many people in the 1920s, Lovecraft was horribly racist, and it shows. It's not just a matter of the (irritatingly common) occasional throwaway remark about any non-white people being inferior, either - in several of his stories, the madness stalking the protagonists involves a reversion or degeneration to a more flawed form of humanity... and that generally always involves mixed breeding or flawed bloodlines. It's a serious problem, and there's not much to be done about it but ignore it if you can or just don't read them.

More happily, there's also a wealth of good stuff that is based off of the Cthulhu Mythos, ranging from other books and stories to TV shows, games, anime, and all sorts of other things. It's quite possible to enjoy this particular horror setting even without having read the original material.

Book Journal: The Dragon Below

One of the things I've been doing as I prepare to play Dungeons and Dragons in the Eberron campaign setting for the first time in a while is re-read some of the novels I've got which are set in it. In particular, I've been reading the Dragon Below trilogy by Don Bassingthwaite.

Probably the most memorable part of these novels for me, strangely enough, are some of the curses. I still use "Lords of the Host!" (referring to the primary pantheon of good gods in this setting) in place of things like "thank god" or "dear god", a practice which alternately confuses and amuses my non-nerdy friends when they hear it. (Admittedly, it's not unique to this book; "Nine Hells!" is another D&D themed curse from a different setting that I use a lot.) "I swear by the Three Dragons and the Twelve Moons" didn't stick as well as some of the other expressions I can remember, but it's still easily one of the most memorable lines in the entire trilogy for some reason. Not sure why.

As for the rest of the stuff in the book... well, it's a properly dramatic fantasy adventure, with plenty of evil cults trying to restore their gods' power, fighting with each other and with the main characters, and just generally being nasty. There's also a lot of wandering around as the main characters struggle to figure out exactly what the hell is going on, but the story actually does hold together quite well in the end. 

And the combat is excellent; a lot of novels based on Dungeons and Dragons tend to falter a bit on the fact that the mechanics which make for a good experience as part of a tabletop roleplaying game don't always work as well as the basis for a combat scene in a novel. It either makes for awkward combat scenes in which each character takes turns in order, or completely abandons some of the details that limit what normal players can do in combat. These novels generally manage to avoid both of those fates.

Book Journal: Mercedes Lackey

A quick explanation: In order to have something on the blog that's not just me reacting to whatever news article attracts the most attention, I'm going to be experimenting a bit with some weekly posts on other topics - for example, me talking about whatever novels I'm reading (or re-reading) in the past week.

... I suppose if I didn't read any novels in a particular week, I might have a bit of trouble with that idea, but then I've not had a week like that in a long, long time.

Anyway, on to this week's reading.

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I've been re-reading some of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar and Elemental Masters novels this week. (If you want specific examples, I'd probably pick the Collegium Chronicles for the former and Phoenix and Ashes for the latter.) There's a lot of both of them; I actually didn't pick up Lackey's Valdemar novels for a long time simply because I wasn't sure where to start. That little problem didn't get resolved until I asked a friend for recommendations.

I particularly like Lackey's approach to the magic in her novels. It manages to make magic feel properly mystical and elaborate without making it seem too weird and unknowable. There's also a lot of references (particularly in the Elemental Masters novels) to a number of different belief systems, myths, and other bits and pieces of mysticism, which makes it that much more interesting to find all of them and learn about those legends as well.

And her Valdemar novels have always had some very well-written heroes and heroines; they're neither unrealistically flawless, nor so badly flawed that one wonders how they ever manage to be competent. Their problems are understandable and realistic, as is the character growth that solves those problems - sometimes it happens a bit faster than one might expect with the help of some of their spiritual advisers, but then the books do have to have a conclusion to them eventually.