Descent by Jay Bonansinga

reviewed by Gerti

I love the television series “The Walking Dead” on AMC, but I don’t like reading graphic novels, so Jay Bonansinga’s book “Descent” is a wonderful way to check in on my favorite characters and settings, as well as see some great “what happens next” action about a place the television show left behind.

In “The Walking Dead” series, the town of Woodbury has been destroyed after a character named “The Governor” messed with and captured several members of Rick Grimes group. Rick is the protagonist of the TV series, and has gathered around him a group of like-minded individuals since the zombie apocalypse. But he is very protective of “his people,” and has to rescue them when they are captured, no matter the consequences. Lucky for Rick, his group is very skilled at extraction and weapon use, so the citizens of this small Georgia town are no match for him. The town’s defenses are breached, which is bad news as it allows zombies, an ever-present enemy in the story, to enter the town at will.

This book begins after the Governor has left Woodbury, and the town and its citizens left to their fates. A woman named Lilly Caul has become the de facto new leader. She is trying to run things differently than the Governor, but fate is against her. Zombies are no longer wandering around one by one, which makes them easy to destroy, but in something called a superherd, and one of those is headed straight for her town. Fortunately, a new family has arrived in the haven that is Woodbury, and one of its members will do any to save her children, even if it means sacrificing herself to do it. First crisis averted!

An even greater threat, however, comes from a young boy whom the Woodbury survivors saved from starvation outside its walls. He convinces the group that his church group is surrounded in a nearby town, and that they must save them. Thanks to the discovery of an underground network of tunnels, remnants from the Underground Railroad days in the South, the group is able to free the other humans, led by a charismatic preacher named Jeremiah. Over time, Lilly willingly hands the reins of power over to him so she can concentrate on her romantic needs, totally unaware that the religious group in fact has made a suicide pact and they are just waiting for the right time to take the townsfolk with them.

The book is a terrific read. I loved meeting the new characters, and Lilly is a great, if flawed, protagonist. I often wondered with the TV series why Rick’s band didn’t come back to Woodbury once their prison shelter was destroyed, but I am glad that some author realized the town was still viable as a haven from “the biters.” Bonansinga writes in a clear, yet exciting way, and I felt swept along with the action. His characters are also clearly drawn and different enough that I felt they were real people. Bravo to Bonansinga for creating a believable group of human survivors and putting them in dramatic new situations! Can’t wait to read more by this author. 

Empire by Orson Scott Card

reviewed by Gerti

For those who have read Orson Scott Card’s classic science fiction novel “Ender’s Game”, the book “Empire” will sound familiar. The hero here is not a small boy, but a seasoned war veteran, who understands that conflicts are not only fought with weapons, but also with words and deeds. When we first see Reuben Malich, the soldier is stationed in an Arab country. He sees and survives an ambush with rare and almost prescient intelligence. This special knowledge gets him recruited for other anti-terrorist missions. Which is why it is no surprise that when Reuben comes back home, his Princeton history professor selects him as a verbal sparring partner.

The debate between Reuben and his teacher, Averell Torrent, about whether the United States is like Rome before the days of empire becomes the central theme and core question of the book. Card’s point, which is brilliantly made, is that the US is like Rome before it became an empire, and our various political divisions now are just prelude to one strong leader seizing power and uniting the country. In this book, that leader is Torrent. What Reuben doesn’t know at the beginning stage, is that the professor’s siren call has been heard by many people, some of them with the money and connections to bring such a change about.

I don’t want to ruin the plot for you, but Reuben gets involved in this conspiracy to end democracy in the US based on some paper he wrote about the best way to kill the President. His new assistant, Captain Bart Coleman, is with him the day they see scuba diver’s heading toward DC intending to fire rocket launchers at the White House. Reuben and Cole (his nickname), are able to prevent one assassin from firing his weapon, but another’s weapon has already gone off, killing the President, the Secretary of Defense, and several other important people who had gathered in one place. Reuben is a suspect, especially after a trip to NYC with Cole occurs during the first battle in a war to take over that city.

Reuben’s jeesh, which is Arabic for posse, try to help him figure out who is setting him up, and who is behind all the high tech weaponry they see in New York. These soldiers Reuben formerly fought with have a cadre of special skills, and together with Cole, they help uncover a conspiracy to make his former college history professor America’s new dictator. After he is killed, Reuben’s wife Cecily and Cole continue to gnaw away at the extent of the conspiracy, but stop when they realize how dangerous it is to oppose this country’s new leader.

A tremendous book which will probably be especially appealing to those who love conspiracy theories. I’m not a big fan of war or politics, but this book was so well written by Card, and the characters were so well defined, that it was a joy to read up until the end. I hated that protagonist Reuben died three-quarters of the way through, though, and constantly expected him to show back up.

I am Legend and Other Stories by Richard Matheson

Reviewed by Gerti

If you’re like me, you've heard of the movie with Will Smith called “I Am Legend”, but you've never heard of author Richard Matheson. That’s why his collection of short fiction is a delightful discovery. Not only do you find the short novel that was the impetus for the Hollywood blockbuster (although the plots are very different), you will also find another horror classic – the story of the Zuni fetish doll made famous by Karen Black in “Trilogy of Terror”. Yes, that’s Matheson’s story, too.

Spanning from 1951 to 1987, this collection of one short novel and 10 short stories penned by Matheson is a fascinating look at the author’s twisted takes on what it means to be human. Just about every story contains death, often with the main character killing others, but there is also a hint of the paranormal. One story features 7 beautiful teen-aged witches who kill men in horrible but unique ways; another has a witch doctor’s curse which threatens the life of a successful New York City man. Each story contains an extraordinary conflict – my favorite being between an author and his “Mad House”, a home which he has filled with so much anger and frustration that the inanimate objects in it conspire to kill him.

I am bothered that the headlining story “I Am Legend” is actually more like the 1964 Vincent Price film “The Last Man on Earth” and the even campier 1971 movie “The Omega Man” than Will Smith’s movie. Robert Neville in Matheson’s novel is not plagued by fast zombies so much as by a form of infected but evolving humans, and they are angry that he has been killing them, so they send in a “healthy” decoy to kill him. Even though Neville is suspicious of her, he has been alone (and lonely for female company) for so long, that he wants to believe she is human, like him. While she can’t kill him, she instead warns him that the others will come for him, because they are setting up a new society and his very existence threatens their world. I far prefer the unknown Hollywood script writer’s version with Smith where Neville is not a sex-crazed creep, but a charming hero who eventually comes up with an antidote to cure those infected by this disease.

There are psychological depths to the Zuni fetish doll story, “Prey”, which features a female protagonist - Amelia. She has purchased a birthday gift for her boyfriend, Arthur, but her controlling mother wants to spend that Friday evening with her instead. The doll, called “This is He Who Kills” when she takes him out of his wooden coffin, represents her pent-up rage at being treated like a child by her mom, and the gold chains around him are her frustrated struggle for independence. When she is finally possessed by the doll’s warrior spirit before the old lady comes to visit, we are almost pleased that Amelia has found some form of internal strength and a way to fight back.

In all, these short works make worthwhile reading for science fiction fans. While some are sexist and old-fashioned, Matheson has an engaging writing style, and his tales themselves are all uniquely twisted versions of a very strange world.

Ender's Game

 

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Reviewed by Gerti 

My husband read Orson Scott Card’s classic science fiction novel “Ender’s Game” decades ago, and my son a few years ago before the movie of the same name came out. They were both able to scoff when we watched the movie together about how the story was handled by the filmmakers. And while I don’t always trust their taste in literature since it runs more toward science fiction than mine, they were right when it comes to this book. “Ender’s Game” is amazing.

The storyline is dramatic and suspenseful, with a likeable main character, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin, who even though he is not even 10 at the book’s beginning, is nonetheless frightening in his understanding of the world and other people. He is a “Third” child in a world where families are not allowed to have that many children. He has older siblings named Peter and Valentine, and while Peter is a sadist, sister Valentine has always come to Ender’s aid. This is why Ender feels that someone older and wiser will always come to his aid as he goes through his military training, but we learn later that that is not the case.

I don’t want to ruin the plot for you, but let’s just say that Ender kills people. There are two instances where Ender is being bullied by one child in particular, and that child also has a pack of followers. Ender realizes that if he doesn’t decisively win a fight, the bullying will continue and only get worse. So he cleverly defeats his older boy bullies. But what he doesn’t realize until the novel’s end is that he in fact kills those boys, not as Peter would out of cruelty, but out of necessity, as Ender sees it. And while adults are watching, the other boys could just have easily have killed Ender, and no one would have come to his aid.

In incidents like those, Ender proves his strategic intelligence. He is seen as the last hope for humans in a war against alien creatures called “buggers”. He believes he is a student at Battle School, preparing for the coming war against them. He doesn’t realize till the end that each simulation he goes through, he is actually fighting battles against these telepathic creatures. I did, perhaps because I had already seen the movie, but there were enough clues left by the author that Ender has a special connection with the computers at the academy. He was so extraordinary when playing a video game on the school’s machines that his human handlers had not designed the levels on which he was playing.

This book won the Hugo & Nebula awards for writers of science fiction, and the fights between Ender and the other boys, as well as the battle simulations in the special zero gravity rooms, are brilliantly written, so clear and precise in their language that visualizing them was easy even for someone who prefers Regency Romances like myself. My only critique of the book, and apparently it is a common one, is that Ender would be too young to do all this, starting at age 6. I could be wrong, however, as my teenaged son disagrees, and he probably remembers more clearly how young boys think since he’s closer to that age.

Eva by Peter Dickinson

Reading Level: Young Adult
Submitted by Gerti

I read this book because it is assigned reading for my kids’ school. Though eco-science fiction is not a genre I would usually read, it fits in with their goal of teaching middle schoolers about ecology and overpopulation in today’s world. Author Peter Dickinson has set his narrative in a different world (perhaps a future earth?) in which man has destroyed the planet, so that there are only small areas of the globe where the surviving species can live. Not all species have survived to this time, but among those still in existence (mainly due to their use as experimental animals) are chimps, and this story revolves around a chimp research scientist, his wife and their 13-year-old daughter.

The scientist and his family (along with a few chimps) are involved in a terrible accident before the book starts, and the tragic result is that his daughter’s body has been destroyed. To save her “life”, her brain is transplanted into the body of a young female chimp, “Kelly”. So the first few chapters of the book involve the daughter – Eva Adamson – and her brain’s merger and acceptance of her new simian body. We meet various characters, all of whom have different motivations for making this first-of-its-kind experiment successful, including other doctors and researchers, as well as television producers and a juice company who adopts Eva as their living logo. Dickinson also makes up some new vocabulary for this “other world,” and that’s one of the places where the book falls flat for me.

So Eva becomes a “shaper” celebrity, and although she tries to go back to her earlier lifestyle of school, friends and family, it is the chimp society that really draws her interest. Over her mother’s objections, Eva begins to spend more and more time with the animals, and finally begins to adopt a leadership position in their society. A friendly producer named Grog helps a small group of chimps migrate to an island to shot natural footage for a planned “shaper” show. But when a storm rolls in, Eva and her group use the bad weather to escape to another part of the island, away from cameras and people. The book ends with Eva’s daughter and granddaughter chimps coming to see her before she dies, having lived many years in the wild.

The back cover calls this book “Daring! Mesmerizing! Riveting!” and that language is a little strong. While the plot is interesting, and the writing is sometimes clever, it is an imperfect book whose message is more important than its medium. Dickinson would have been just as well served leaving out words like “shaper” and just using our current TV technology to make his point. There is no great technological leap in his world, as people are still using cars, boats and helicopters to get around, children are still going to schools, and adults still have jobs, so the world is not that different. However, “Eva” does inspire questions about the nature of research and using animals for experiments, and for that reason, it would be appropriate to teach a middle school audience.

Ilium by Dan Simmons

Ilium is a fantastic exploration into a Wide range of topics, and a fresh new writing style that makes you want to finish the book from the first moment you start. Combining science fiction with so much more, it amazed me and instantly became one of my favorite books. However: be warned, the story is very complicated, and at times you struggle to comprehend the brilliance of it all. 

You might be wondering, what makes this story so great? Well, first of all, it's a story about a professor who was resurrected by the "Greek Gods" to study a real version of th'e Iliad, being acted out on the plains of a not-so-real Troy. Now, the gods are not really the "gods" of ancient times. They are nano-tech wielding "post-humans" which have long since left Earth behind. Meanwhile, on Earth, the real "old­ style" humans are happy in their ignorance; all their work is done by robotic "servitors" and they "fax" (instantaneously teleport) from city to City, unaware of the universe of events which are about to unfold. 

Now the gods are causing quite a problem. You see, when they "quantum teleport" between Mount Olympus (actually the one on Mars, which is terraformed) and the ancient reality of Ilium, they essentially rip holes through the universe. The moravecs (intelligent bio-robots) that live on the moons of Jupiter pick up this activity and decide to send a mission to Mars to find the source of the ruckus. I don't want to spoil the book, because just when you think you know the whole story, Simmons blows it up in your face. Enjoy! 

Submitted by Max 

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

My husband is an enormous fan of science fiction, an~ I have to say that I have never been one. So it has taken me through high school, through college, and well into middle age before I ever picked up a Ray Bradbury novel. But seeing that my children will have to be reading it soon for school, I thought I'd check this science fiction classic "Fahrenheit 451" out at last.

Let me say, that it is not the easiest book I've ever tried to read. When my 12-year-old told me
he was having a hard time with it, I gave HIM a hard time about not reading it, but there are times
when the verbage is so thick you have to cut through it with a machete. I know it will make my
English teachers weep when I say that I wish I had a Reader's Digest version of this, because
there is a lot in here (RIP Ray Bradbury, no offense meant. .. ) that could have been edited out to
make it easier to read.

That said, however, I DO like the plot. It is an old-fashioned one, like we used to read when I
was in school in the '70s. You have characters, and they have names that MEAN things. The hero
in this book, who starts out as a villain, is named Guy Montag. To me, that means that Bradbury
wanted his lead character to represent just a guy, an everyman, trying to survive in this dystopian
world. It was not a name picked out of a hat, and I like that about the author. He has a reverence
for books, and for the words within them.

But back to the plot. .. Our everyman, Guy, is married to a woman named Mildred (baby name
book says that means "Mild Counselor" or "Mild Power") who does in fact exert a little influence on
her husband. It is her drug overdose, along with several other events, that turns Guy from a
working stiff to a rebel of the first order. Another influence on him is his young neighbor, "Clarisse,"
which my book says means "little brilliant one." She expands his world by making him slow down
and look at the world around him, trying to get him to smell the flowers, as the cliche says. But his
life begins to truly change one day at work, when he sees a woman who would rather die than live
without her books.

And that is at the heart of the story - that "firemen" in this future world start fires, instead of
stopping them, and they start them because their job is to bum books, along with the homes of the
people who dare to keep them. Books have been pretty much outlawed in that time, and we realize
the path that Guy is on when he starts reading from a book during a party his wife is having at his
house. Of course, her friends turn him in, and his fate is sealed at that point. The fire brigade arrive
at his house to bum the place down, but Guy goes rogue, and instead sets fire to Captain Beatty,
his chief antagonist at the station, and the man who knows he has been stealing books from the
houses they bum down. Then the evil death machine, the Mechanical Hound, has to chase Guy
through town, but Guy cleverly jumps into the river and escapes from "the city" itself, leaving his old
life, wife and job far behind.

In an ironic twist, the city itself is soon liquefied in a bombing, as the country has recently gone
to war, so Guy is actually lucky to escape the city when he does. But he finds a band of like­
minded individuals along the railroad tracks who have all memorized parts of books, so that the
knowledge found in books will never be lost. Guy finds that he has memorized a part of the Bible,
Ecclesiastes, and so he is accepted as part of the group.

As Bradbury's introduction to the novel shows, "Fahrenheit 451" is a function of its time, a time
when books (ideas, political views, etc.) were being surpressed, and taken out of libraries across
the world. But it still has relevance today, with the constant need to conform that we see most
recently in the scandal over Chick-Fil-A.



Submitted by Gerti

The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain is an interesting and maybe even thrilling look at the very real and dangerous threat of space-viruses. In the book, the strain is brought back by a secret military test probe and ends up decimating an entire town. The military tries to handle it in the ways they've been trained, but the disease is like none known on earth. It kills by coagulation, and is highly contagious. That's where the Wildfire Team comes in. They were created in case an infection from space was brought back and their mission is to contain and control it. No one took them seriously until now.

In the meantime, an exploration unit Is sent to the infected town to look for survivors. They find only two: an old man and an infant. This only adds to the complexity of the puzzle. Back at the Wildfire facility, which has seven levels, a nuclear device, and tedious sterilization procedures that last for hours, the scientists have isolated the virus. They figure out that it survives without any amino acids, which are essential to all life on earth, and that it spreads as an airborne infection. Then the unthinkable happens- the space virus escapes and contaminates one of the labs. With a scientist trapped inside, all seems lost ... but he doesn't die. It has mutated to a non-harmful state in which it only destroys rubber. With the nuclear device deactivated and the virus contained, all seems well. Three years later, a space mission to Mars in a craft with rubber sealants returns from the atmosphere with 3 dead astronauts.  

When N.A.S.A. is asked about it, the official response is, "it was beyond our control."Not the best book in the world, but it kept me reading. It was one of those books where you wish you
could find more time to read it. An overall classic, a good read, and an interesting look at a very real threat not too far from reality. 

 Submitted by Max 

Wither by Lauren Destefano

Reading Level: Young Adult
(4 out of 5)

This is the first book in the Chemical Garden Trilogy. The second book called Fever will be out in February.

Imagine a world without cancer and other diseases. But then imagine a world where girls only live until the age of 20 and boys until the age of 25. In Wither the world is a different place then the one we live in now. Cancer has been cured but then it was discovered down the road when children started dying in their twenties that something went terrible wrong along the way.

Due to this young girls are being kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out. Rhine Ellery is sixteen and living with her twin brother when she is taken by the Gatherers and becomes one of three brides to Linden. Even though she has entered a world of wealth and privilege and her husband seems to love her she wants out. She wants to go back to be with her brother and she wants her freedom. To get her freedom she has to contend with her father-in-law who is an eccentric man bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant she is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.

This was an interesting read. I don't think I would like knowing I when I was going to die. I know one day I'm going to die but not when. Rhine knows that in four years she will die no matter what. I wouldn't want to have a child that I wouldn't get to raise. The children in this book don't have a childhood. How can they when their lifespan is so short. I'm curious as to see what else is in store for Rhine. This book makes you think.