Without Warning By John Birmingham eBook edition

Removing the USA from the world political scene is a daunting task. Birmingham does a credible job of showing what a dangerous place the world would become without our power base.

This book examines a recent past in which the mainland USA was taken out of the world power equation. The plot devices and characters are well enough developed that by the end of this book you are ready for the sequel. Unfortunately, that next book is at least one year away from being published.

I like some of the story lines better than others. By and large though if you are a Science Fiction fan or a fan of the disaster novel this is a good read following an interesting premise.

Without the USA in play the world degrades quickly into disorder, as you might expect. Some outcomes seem likely and strategically correct. Others stretch credulity a bit but are plausible enough to carry your attention.

All in all Birmingham does a good job of drawing lines between the disappearance of the majority of US military power and the increase of chaos worldwide. This is a great spring break distraction or a really nice find if you haven’t read any of Birmingham’s other books. They are all worth reading if military fiction is one of the types of novels you enjoy. His knowledge base is solid and his writing skills are first class, so enjoy.

In Kuwait, American forces are stacked up, locked and loaded for the invasion of Iraq. In Paris, a covert agent, a woman who inhabits a twilight of lies and death, is close to cracking a terrorist cell. And just north of the equator, a forty-foot wood-hulled sailboat, manned by a drug runner, a pirate, and two gun-slinging beauties, is witness to the unspeakable. In one instant, all around the world, for politicians and peasants, from Gaza to Geneva, things will never be the same. A wave of inexplicable energy has slammed into the continental United States.

America, as we know it, is gone. . . . WITHOUT WARNING

Now U.S. soldiers are fighting a war without command or control. A correspondent records horrors for no one. Washington is gone and the line of succession is in tatters; the functioning remnants of government are in Pearl Harbor, Guantanamo Bay, and one desperate, isolated corner of the Northwest. For the jihads, it’s Allah’s miracle. For Saddam, it’s a chance to attack. Iran declares war on an America that doesn’t exist–except in the hearts and souls of the men and women who want it to.

In this astounding work of alternate fiction, John Birmingham hurtles us into a scenario that is unimaginable but shatteringly real: a world of financial ruin where a cloud of noxious waste–from America’s burning cities–darkens Europe, while men and women in offices around the globe struggle to make decisions that cannot hold and opportunists unleash their secret demons.

From a slick Texas lawyer who happens to be in the right place at the right time to a hard-working city engineer in Seattle who becomes his terrified city’s only hope, from the cancer-stricken secret agent to a drug runner off the Mexican coast and a U.S. general in Cuba, Without Warning tells a fast, furious story of survival, violence, and a new, soul-shattering reality. The first in an epic trilogy that will leave readers breathless and astounded, Without Warning offers a world without its policeman, its Great Satan, or its savior–as an unknowable future struggles to be born.

del.icio.us Tags: ebook,e-books,ebooks about scifi,science fiction,altnerative history. Birminghan

Misspent Youth eBook edition

This latest offering by Peter Hamilton, left me wondering where Science Fiction might be headed. Of course it actually has been on a wrong course since it was clumped together with fantasy way back when. And Misspent Youth is more fantasy than science.  Basically it pulls more from Greek Tragedy than putting forward and exploration of the future.

The only problem with the hopelessness and angst evident in its pages is that it is used badly. Blending those ingredients with the sexual dysfunction of a rejuvenated jerk turned this book into a geek tragedy.

I find it hard to fathom where Hamilton thinks the future is going from many of his novels. This one makes it clear where he sees things developing in Britain and it is obvious that he is not happy.

His tendency to blend the mystical with the far future science of his dreams is evidently over for now. This book is social commentary in the most Orwellian vein. Amazingly Hamilton has never found this approach before while injecting his ideas into the heart of scientific inquiry. Perhaps he should abandon it before it ages him badly with his audience. There is evidently no return from the process of aging if he is to be believed.

Instead of one central theme the reader is left with a mix of: Here the theme is the destruction of intellectual property, there it is the destruction of freedom by the European central nanny state, next it is the innocence of real youth versus the decadence of false youth. None of these themes ever really take over and this book stumbles from Geek Tragedy to Morality Play to the sadly inevitable failure of science in rebuilding youth in an aged human body.

I think it is interesting in the way most morality plays turn out to be interesting in what it tells us about the author and his times. His characters left me as cold as his denouement for Jeff, his main victim. His plot mumbled when it did not shout. His themes rambled and his grasp of the future failed to inspire anything but despair for his future as a writer of Science Fiction. I do not recommend this book especially for fans of Hamilton who deserve better.

The publisher says:

Readers have learned to expect the unexpected from Peter F. Hamilton. Now the master of space opera focuses on near-future Earth and one most unusual family. The result is a coming-of-age tale like no other. By turns comic, erotic, and tragic, Misspent Youth is a profound and timely exploration of all that divides and unites fathers and sons, men and women, the young and the old.

2040. After decades of concentrated research and experimentation in the field of genetic engineering, scientists of the European Union believe they have at last conquered humankind’s most pernicious foe: old age. For the first time, technology holds out the promise of not merely slowing the aging process but actually reversing it. The ancient dream of the Fountain of Youth seems at hand.

The first subject for treatment is seventy-eight-year-old philanthropist Jeff Baker. After eighteen months in a rejuvenation tank, Jeff emerges looking like a twenty-year-old. And the change is more than skin deep. From his hair cells down to his DNA, Jeff is twenty–with a breadth of life experience.
But while possessing the wisdom of a septuagenarian at age twenty is one thing, raging testosterone is another, as Jeff discovers when he attempts to pick up his life where he left off. Suddenly his oldest friends seem, well, old. Jeff’s trophy wife looks better than she ever did. His teenage son, Tim, is more like a younger brother. And Tim’s nubile girlfriend is a conquest too tempting to resist.

Jeff’s rejuvenated libido wreaks havoc on the lives of his friends and family, straining his relationship with Tim to the breaking point. It’s as if youth is a drug and Jeff is wasted on it. But if so, it’s an addiction he has no interest in kicking.
As Jeff’s personal life spirals out of control, the European Union undergoes a parallel meltdown, attacked by shadowy separatist groups whose violent actions earn both condemnation and applause. Now, in one terrifying instant, the personal and the political will intersect, and neither Jeff nor Tim–or the Union itself–will ever be the same again.

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New Release eBooks -

This is obviously the political silly season that comes before every major election. The details of the behavior of every candidate are dissected down to the atomic level. What they say, what they wear and how they respond to the endless stupid questions posed by the press is analyzed over and over again. Every bit of information related to everything except the candidates’ qualifications to solve problems is the subject of every newscast in the twenty four hour news cycle.

Of course, I know all this because I was up way too late last night watching the debate.  No book review this week; I was too distracted.

I woke up this morning with a burning question:  How do you escape all of this bombast?

And then it came to me.  In one of those "of course" statements.  Just unplug the TV and pick up a good book (or even a piece of total thrash that appeals to your personal taste). Go back and read one of the classics or grab the latest escape novel off the shelf.  Do anything but read a book on politics.

For the science fiction and fantasy fans there are several new offerings that released this last month:

• Misspent Youth eBook edition by Hamilton, Peter F.
• Cast in Fury eBook edition by Sagara, Michelle
• The Sunrise Lands eBook edition  by Stirling, S.M.

For the Romance fan there are a lot of new moans and whispers of undying , well you know how it goes.

• One-Click Buy: October Silhouette Desire eBook by Dunlop, Barbara
• One Fifth Avenue eBook edition by Bushnell, Candace
• Lucky Charm eBook edition by Phillips, Carly

For the mystery fan there are new releases galore and some of them will take you totally away from the monster on the wall or on the nightstand. You know what I mean, the one eyed loud and obnoxious window into the real world.

• Espresso Shot eBook edition by Coyle, Cleo
• In the Dark eBook edition by Billingham, Mark
• Comforts Of A Muddy Saturday eBook edition by Mccall Smith, Alexander

Whatever else you do, please escape this election cycle for a few hours with a book. It will get you one day closer to the ever shorter time between political silly seasons and some real peace and quiet.

So here's the deal -- buy any book in the store for a 5% discount.  Use coupon  Crazy108 to get your discount at check out.

Let sanity prevail.  Come on, even a novel about deep and abiding psychologically twisted behavior is better than this!!!!

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Physics Of The Impossible eBook edition

Henri is the serious science reader in our household.  He just finished this book and highly recommends it.  After this review, I am (almost) tempted to read it.                                      ---Gigi            

Some of the best Science Fiction I have ever read was masquerading  as science fact.

The ultimate discovery of the truth about our universe has always fascinated me. When I was taught Physics, in that high school so long ago, in a galaxy far away.  Newton still largely filled the pages with his view of the universe. Schrodinger’s Cat was a little too hip for that place and time.

Since then I have tried on many occasions to read such deathless tomes as, “Quantum Mechanics For Dummies.” (That book really exists in some universe in the multiverse, I am certain of that fact; just not yet in this one.)

Michio Haku’s new book, “Physics Of The Impossible,” accomplished the almost impossible feat of updating me on the physics of the brave new world of the atomic and subatomic scales. That is a world where natural phenomena are weirder than fiction. The simple fact is the author clarified what is known. He discussed what is not known. He even speculated on what is likely to never be known; in the particular sense that is the purview of the physicist’s theories about our universe and its possible brethren in the multiverse.

The book engaged my ancient curiosity and thoroughly fulfilled its role in defining how the physical world is constructed and the possible limits of human endeavors to control it.

The author divides the world where current knowledge is not quite yet complete into three categories of impossibility. That is a particularly clever device in expostulating about the Quantum world and the Multiverse. Both are places where the impossible happens, often before breakfast.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the author’s clarity on what is known and what is still unknown in an area of science where he has spent a lifetime.

The plot may have been a little thin, but I am used to Science Fiction and can live on plots so thin that the air in them is likely to never stir up a mote of dust.

I recommend this book to the curious or the merely acquisitive; who often need a tabletop book to impress their friends and acquaintances. Even if you don’t ever read this book, buy it. Someone else will eventually read it and it will spread its knowledge and confusion clarifying facts a little further into the human world.

Here is what the publisher says:

A fascinating exploration of the science of the impossible—from death rays and force fields to invisibility cloaks—revealing to what extent such technologies might be achievable decades or millennia into the future.

One hundred years ago, scientists would have said that lasers, televisions, and the atomic bomb were beyond the realm of physical possibility. In Physics of the Impossible, the renowned physicist Michio Kaku explores to what extent the technologies and devices of science fiction that are deemed equally impossible today might well become commonplace in the future.

From teleportation to telekinesis, Kaku uses the world of science fiction to explore the fundamentals—and the limits—of the laws of physics as we know them today. He ranks the impossible technologies by categories—Class I, II, and III, depending on when they might be achieved, within the next century, millennia, or perhaps never.

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Sir Arthur Clarke - 1918-2008

Henri Reynard is the SciFi reader in our house.  We think he read everything Clarke ever wrote.  As a "fan" and admirer of Clarke he wrote this special obituary for this blog.

Gigi

The world is always losing great human beings. Life and death dictate that fact for all of us. Even the greatest of lives comes to an end. Arthur Clarke’s life has ended. He left behind a legacy that few human beings achieve. As a scientist, writer and philosopher he impacted billions of lives. His invention of the satellite communications systems in such broad use today was only one small element of his wide ranging interest in the future of humanity.

Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, these men were the trinity of Science Fiction when I was young. The genre was sometimes then, and occasionally today remains, steeped in the logic and fundamental understanding of what science has meant to humanity. From extended life spans full of warmth, light and knowledge; to systems that offer us the hope of solving problems as far reaching as global warming or asteroid impact, these men were seminal in their vision of hope for the future.

I grew up in that atmosphere of hope along with a lot of young men and women, we are all old now. In a tiny blink of that ancient dragon time’s eye all of those years have fled. What they have left with me thanks to the men and women like Clarke who taught me so much about life and dreaming and working for a better future is still that hope and concern for humanity that their work expressed.

I will miss this great human being whom I never knew personally more than a lot of the people who inhabited places far closer to my life. I suspect that is a measure of how many of the people who were touched by his writings feel today. The delight of discovery that his work and times imbued in me remains and will be with me as long as my synapses are still snapping away.

I read with great interest his final interview.  The most iconic moment in the interview was when the interviewer, Sawato R. Das, asked whether Clarke had ever "suspected that these satellites would one day prove to be so valuable to telecommunications."

He laughed and said:

“I'm often asked why I didn't try to patent the idea of communications satellites. My answer is always, ‘A patent is really a license to be sued.' ”

Thank you Arthur and God speed your being into whatever the best of all your futures might bring. Perhaps there won't be any lawyers there.

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Publishing World Odds and Ends

Seems like there have been an inordinate number of interesting and creative people how have left us in the last month or so.  In my more depressive moments, I look around at the world we live in and wonder if they don't have the right idea.  And then I snap out of it.

Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke was someone who looked around and saw opportunities.  I think he saw the world and the humans in it as raw material. 

I am not a big Science Fiction fan but I am sure I have seen 2001:  A Space Odyssey at least ten times.  For my generation it was a rite of passage. 

Between the movie and his appearances with Walter Cronkite during the space walks I knew who he was.  As a bookseller he was hard to miss with over 100 titles that he either wrote or co-authored.

My main connection to him, however is more personal.  It is in the form of a placard on my desk.  It has been there for over 20 years and was given to me by a couple of programmers. Once in the middle of a project I asked them to explain to me exactly what they were doing and how the software they had written worked.  After listening to a long convoluted explanation I finally concluded that it was just easiest to say that what they did was magic.   

The next day they presented me with a placard that simply says:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology

is

indistinguishable from magic.”

Arthur C. Clarke was an original who produced his how kind of magic.

Another One Bites the Dust

I wasn't sure how to characterize this piece of information.

    

It's official:  Amazon now owns Audible.  Amazon has said they completed their acquisition of Audible.com at the $11.50 a share offering price. Audible is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon.  Evidently media consolidation is proceeding everywhere; even on the Internet.

Audible just celebrated a solid ten year anniversary.  That is a long time in internet years.  It is hard to remember now, but 10 years ago MP3 was an unproven technology.  Players were primitive and CD's ruled the audio market. iPods did not exist. Most people saw this as a good idea, but no one was sure if it would really catch on.

So here were are ten year later.  MP3 music and books are ubiquitous.  It makes me very happy to see that the early believers in an unproven technology are getting compensation for their faith.

On A Lighter Note

This is too good to have made up. . .

Publishers assign each book to a specific category.  I routinely get lists that show me the Title of a Book, the ISBN number, the Author, the Publisher and the category (as assigned by the publisher).  Here is my current favorite:

I almost left it there; but then who would find it? 

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Literary Fiction or Genre Fiction

The review comparing and contrasting the The Senator's Wife and Mermaids in the Basement got me to thinking about how publishers (and readers) classify fiction.  For example, The Senator' Wife is considered by the publisher as literary while Mermaids in the Basement is genre (romance) fiction.

The publishing industry uses two broad categories: 

• Literary fiction: loosely described as award winning and critically acclaimed.  This is fiction that addresses serious issues and is more generally character centric than plot driven. And finally, these are works that use beautiful language that is rich in vocabulary and lyrical in description. 
• Genre fiction or "popular" fiction: SciFi, Romance, Horror, Mysteries etc.  This is narrative and plot driven writing which is often formulaic, uses simple language and is calculate to create an immediate emotional response.

Here is my rule of thumb:  Has the New York Times reviewed it? 

Yes, means it was either written by a mega-selling author or it is classified as a literary work.  No, almost certainly means it is a popular/genre title.

The thing that keeps coming up for me is that Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Mary Shelly and  Mark Twain were never considered "literary" in their time. I am not sure that Jonathan Swift, Alexander Dumas or Sir Thomas Mallory were either.

What these authors have in common is that they have have all written books that people are reading and enjoying decades later. 

The best definition of literary fiction I have heard is:

Literary fiction is fiction that endures; books that are read and enjoyed a hundred years later.

I would love to be around in 2100 to find out what books have endured and are considered "classics". 

What writers will be remembered and read? Will it be Nora Roberts, Steven King, John La Carre or (heaven forbid), Dan Brown?

Which of the award winning titles from the last few years will be read and enjoyed?  Will it be Gilead (Marilynne Robinson), The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen) or The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood)?  

Or will the whole idea of literary fiction and books be a quaint old fashioned curiosity?

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