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Monday, November 15, 2021

Galactic Empires

Oscar Isaacs in his Dune look with the caption He Never Learned How to Lose
Firstborn by Brandon Sanderson ★★★★★★ 
Yes, six stars.  With shades of Ender’s Game and Gemini Man this was the best science fiction short I’ve ever read.  A full story and good glimpse into an imperial world on knife’s edge. Riveted!

A lake with a view of a gorgeous alien sky the caption reads To leave the mother is to leave the sea
Looking Through Lace by Ruth Nestvold ★★★★★ 
Best First Contact story!  Nestvold has you fully engaged in figuring out the intricacies of the Mejan culture.  It is so hard to look at another culture and not make immediate parallels to your own - potentially blinding you to the truth.  “Like looking through lace - the view isn’t clear, the patterns get in the way.”

Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Natalie Dormer looking fabulous and uppity in their Tudor outfits the captions read He Thought He Was The Center of It in blue and in Pink the caption reads Naturally, what man doesn't think he's the center of the universe
The Lost Princess Man by John Barnes ★★★★★ 
Combining laugh-out-loud humor, whimsy, and brutal truths Barnes gets all the stars.  I had a great time reading this story.

A fantasy image of a striking woman with a long braid and an intense expression the caption reads Get on Your Knees and Bow Down Before Me.  I am the Priestess of Sarasvati.  I have come, and everything will change now.
The Muse of Empires Lost by Paul Berger ★★★★½
Loved this story, it was densely packed with tasty tropes: living ships, toroidal colonies, future primitive, energy vampires, and the cherry-on-top, the chosen one (ok, she chooses herself, but you would too, lol)!  I liked Star Trek’s Tin Man, but this was better.

All the Painted Stars by Gwendolyn Clare ★★★★½
“Since when were you more afraid of dying than of not having a purpose?” Liu’s lips curl in an expression I now know to indicate amusement. “How human of you.” 
I loved this story of an outcast alien policeman saving a little band of intergalactic humans and finding a new purpose in life.

Angelina Jolie in her intense Maleficent look with the caption Badea called it a sustainable population
Seven Years From Home by Naomi Novik
★★★★☆ 
Solarpunk society with teeth.  A diplomat/anthropologist from a powerful Muslim(ish) confederacy of planets embeds herself with a sustainable eco friendly genetically altered native society.  She is sad, but resigned, to their being wiped out by capitalist forces.  Well the natives are not benign, and they will not let themselves be wiped out.  The wet blanket narrator did not approve -but f*ck her I would have stayed.

A couple walks towards the future on the surface of an alien world
Utriusque Cosmi by Robert Charles Wilson   ★★★★☆ 
This slow burn intergalactic romance was about fighting for life, for survival, for the joy of living and discovering the wonders of tomorrow!

Winning Peace by Paul J. McAuley ★★★★☆ 
“Humans were at the mercy of species more powerful than them, pawns in games whose rules they didn’t know, and aims they didn’t understand.” 
It’s a difficult and complicated galaxy yet humans are still divided.  Two pilots, on different sides, have to decide to work together to survive their debts and dangers.  

A shadowed form of a human face blending with the stars the caption says I have saved your life today the emperor told this boy and one day I will bid you repay me by not saving mine
Invisible Empire of Ascending Light by Ken Scholes ★★★★☆ 
Even gods deserve to choose death.  It was a sad strange thing to feel the wrench of a society going from a true religion to a fictional one.  I don’t see it working better. 

The Waiting Stars by Aliette de Bodard  ★★★½☆ 
Ah the drama of do-gooders making culture gaffs.  Save us from the bleeding hearts!  This short story was not enough for me to understand biologically birthed starships but I liked the idea.

A carnivorous technicolor version of Elmo with a caption saying It Means Human, That In Resurrecting Me You Fucked Up Big Time
Alien Archeology by Neil Asher 
★★★☆☆ 
Well now, that was a lot.  I enjoyed the vicious Prador, and the mystery of the willfully paleo ancient advanced species, but I was left with more questions than answers.

The Impossibles by Kristine Katherine Rusch ★★★☆☆ 
An intergalactic lawyer wins her first case then quits.

The Man with the Golden Balloon by Robert Reed ★★★☆☆ 
I enjoy stories with fabulously long time scales and a bit of romance, that’s why I’ve given this story some slack.  For its lengthy and breadth there should have been an impactful mysteries-of-the-universe denouement.  This felt off-piste and irrelevant to the main story never received.

A lonely man sits by a circular window looking out among planets the caption reads Jacob returned to his long nights listening.  Alone, waiting for Ander's Replacement, wondering if there would even be a replacement.
A Letter From the Emperor by Steve Rasnic Tem ★★★☆☆ 
Some stories feel true and not for the better.  The way Alien made spaceships look like flying corporate dump trucks instead of Star Trek’s noble sleek explorers.  Here instead of the friendly cosmopolitan diverse happening universe space is depicted as the lonely far flung place it is.

The Colonel Returns to the Stars by Robert Silverberg ★★½☆☆
That was a long undramatic story about an Imperial fixer who goes native on his last assignment.

Riding the Crocodile by Greg Egan ★★½☆☆
An epic galactic exploration weighed down mightily by a suicidal partner; the ending a wilted white flag.  

Night’s Slow Poison by Ann Leckie ★★☆☆☆ 
This is a short story from Leckie’s Imperial Radch series, which I have not read.  Perhaps if I had this would have been enjoyable.

Section Seven by John G. Hemry ★½☆☆☆ 
That was a story about quiet sabotage to aid in conformity and peace.  Fine.  But it was impressively boring.

Ghostweight by Yoon Ha Lee   DNF
There is some lovely writing here, and I was a big fan of Ninefox Gambit, but I was bored and lost early on.  This may or may not be part of the Machineries of Empire universe.

A Cold Heart by Tobias S. Buckell  DNF
It’s written in the second person.  You like this not.

The Wayfarer’s Advice by Melinda Snodgrass DNF 
Dislikable people in a love story with too many characters. 

Verthandi’s Ring by Ian McDonald DNF
”The Chamber of Ever-Renewing Waters, the military council, together with the Deep Blue Something, the gestalt übermind that was the Heart-world’s participatory democracy...”
Dude, you’re trying too hard to be weird.

Some of the best of SciFi and some that was unreadable, the highest highs and the lowest lows.  Just counting the 18 stories I finished it’s 3.6 stars, but if I add the four DNFs it’s 2.9 stars.  In the end I will round the former to four stars because the great stories, and there were nine of them!, were memorable.

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