Ringworld by Larry Niven

Louis Wu has seen it all. Jaded, bored with a world that has no more to offer him, he spends his two hundredth birthday reminiscing about his youth, the good old days when caprice ruled his actions and the world seemed endless in its capacity for excitement. The spark of adventure is still inside him, but Earth, shrunken and standardized by the advent of teleportation, is no longer a place of infinite variety and wonder.

Enter Nessus. A member of the “puppeteers,” an alien race famed for its cowardice, Nessus’s fellows condemn him as insane because of his bravery. Yet they find him useful as an explorer, visiting planets and stars no “sane” puppeteer would dare approach. For his current expedition, he requires companions. Louis immediately signs on to Nessus’s mission, with an excitement fueled by xenophilia and a youthful spirit. Along with two other individuals- Teela Brown, a young human woman, and Speaker-to-Animals, a fearsome alien feline- they set off to investigate the Ringworld, a massive alien artifact shrouded in mystery.

I don’t often use the phrase “thrill ride,” but there’s no other way to describe this book. The numerous plot twists and turns left me guessing every step of the way, and at several points I was left simply marveling at the author’s sheer cleverness. The characters and setting were just as richly detailed and complex as the plot, woven together into a compelling novel with a surprise ending no one could have predicted. Fantastical sci-fi concepts enrich the storyline and are made believable by the smart, polished writing. Creepy insights into what humanity’s future could look like are pure genius (and also really unsettling).

Okay, so this book isn’t exactly new, or YA, but the setting is futuristic and the book has as much action, adventure, and suspense as any novel written for teens. In short, it’s made of awesome. If this book has a downside, it’s that made-up words and new concepts are often introduced with no explanation, and the explanation comes later. A slight flaw, compared to the rest of the book. Five high-tech flashlight lasers- er, daggers.






Futuristically yours,

Tay

The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld

Millennia in the future, light-years away, the Risen Empire spans eighty planets. To the people of the empire, the Risen Emperor, inventor of immortality, and his eternally young sister, the Child Empress, are more than rulers- they are gods. They have ruled for sixteen hundred years, and the empire seems as immortal as they are.

But the empire is not alone in the galaxy. The Rix are a civilization of cyborgs, and their domain lies just outside the Risen Empire. The Rix have no leader and no culture. They are a Spartan civilization with only one goal- to propagate an artificially intelligent “compound mind” across the digital network of every populated planet. They worship these minds just as Imperial citizens worship their emperor. Because of this, the Empire and the Rix are constantly on the edge of war. As the novel opens, the Rix have succeeded in capturing the Child Empress, and in planting a compound mind on the planet Legis XV, the location of the Imperial palace.

Captain Laurent Zai is in command of the most powerful starship in the Empire- the Lynx. He has been assigned the task of rescuing the Empress, and the penalty for failure is death by ritual suicide. Light-years away, a senator named Nara Oxham is also becoming entangled with the Rix conflict. Together and apart, destinies closely intertwined, they must both find a way to succeed, or perish in the rising tide of war.

What can I say? It’s by Scott Westerfeld; therefore, it’s amazing. The plot was truly original, which is hard to find in sci-fi these days, and the major cliffhanger at the end left me craving the sequel. Though I don’t think The Risen Empire is actually YA, it reads like one, with cool plot twists and exciting action. The book also makes use of flashbacks and multiple points of view- both common narrative devices, but this time, they’re actually done well. All the events in the book- military, political, dramatic, and romantic- are well executed and convincing.

The real genius of this book, though, was in the details. Scott Westerfeld has managed to convey a vast world with minute precision. Everything, from microspaceships to smartalloy bullets to induced synesthesia to the four types of gravity, is described with a ridiculous amount of detail. While reading this book, I didn’t just feel like I was there. I felt like I knew absolutely everything there was to know about the Rix, the Empire, everything. I was a military officer, a scientific expert, a master pilot, a Rixwoman, and a politician. The world that Scott-la has created is so real, down to the last nanometer.

Strangely enough, this book’s biggest strength is also its biggest downside. Plotwise, it tended to forgo explanation in favor of action, and several times, I found myself rereading the same passage three or four times, trying to figure out what in heaven’s name it was talking about. Most of the cool made-up technical and political jargon is just thrown in there, and explanation comes much later, if at all. I have to admit, the book was more than a little hard to follow. And be warned- it’ll be even harder to follow without a little knowledge of physics, relativity and quantum mechanics.

Still, though, once I figured out what was going on, I enjoyed The Risen Empire enormously. This book has it all- futuristic technology, political intrigue, romance, secrets, lies, cyborgs, undead cats, and obscure, geeky allusions, all woven together in a captivating story. I loved Laurent Zai, Nara Oxham, Rana Harter, H_rd, Alexander, and yes, even the Emperor. I loved it all. I can’t wait for the sequel. Four and a half sixteen-molecule-wide monofilament daggers.

Yours,
Tay

How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford

How to Say Goodbye in Robot, by Natalie Standiford, is the story of Beatrice Szabo and her very unique friendship with Jonah “Ghost Boy” Tate. Bea’s family moves all the time, so when Beatrice is told that they are moving to Baltimore for her senior year, she readies herself for yet another year of gossip and parties and shallow friends. Instead, she meets Jonah, nicknamed “Ghost Boy” by his taunting peers, and the two of them embark on a relationship that cannot appropriately be pinpointed by words such as “friend” or “boyfriend.” To Bea and Jonah, their togetherness is much more than that. It is sharing a love for a late night radio show, talking over beer and music in their favorite downtown hang out, and planning secret visits to Jonah’s sort-of-dead twin brother.

Quite honestly, I didn’t feel it. I liked the idea of a friendship above words and gossip and shallowness, but I felt that the author didn’t develop the characters or the relationship enough so that when the friends had a falling out, I didn’t care at all, really. When Bea’s parents had problems, I didn’t feel for them or for her. Overall, I got the impression of a sort of bleak world filled with chickens, greasy hair, and beer, and it was not a world in which I particularly wanted to stay. Not in a good way, either—some books paint a bleak world intentionally and the darkness can be powerful, but in How to Say Goodbye in Robot this was not the case. There were certainly a few touching moments, and the themes of loss and death and how thinking about them is not necessarily a bad thing were very nice, but I didn’t feel any sort of real connection with the characters.

I liked the never-quite-shot-down ideas of inhabitants from the future living in our time thread, and I found the radio show, The Night Lights, very sweet and quirky. I liked the idea that one could have a whole sort of radio community of friends, and that there can be friendship based on more than just gossip and the troubles of this world. Unfortunately, the author didn’t quite portray the sweet world of their friendship, so there was no basis to build off of.

If you care to do your homework and go all the way back to my Toad Hill days, you'll know what this means: How to Say Goodbye in Robot was a bit less than crinterprood.

And that's that.

Briar.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Somewhere in the expansive throes of the future, across a land once known as “North America,” lies a country, Panem. Led by the power-mad and appearance-obsessed Capitol, the country’s twelve districts are forced to offer up two “tributes,” or teenage sacrifices, to partake in the country-wide battle called The Hunger Games. The tributes are chosen by lottery (although one’s name can be entered as many times as one likes, in exchange for a tessera—a year’s worth of grain and oil to help support a poor family). In some countries, participation in the Games is an honor, as one’s district gets showered with money and food for an entire year, and eternal glory is thrust upon the winner. But when Katniss Everdeen, a poor but fiery citizen of District Twelve (the country’s poorest district), finds herself a tribute, her entire world comes crashing down. For you see, the Hunger Games are no ordinary reality show—the twenty-four tributes are placed in an arena in which they must fight to survive not only against the environment, but most of all, their fellow tributes. It is the duty of each tribute to kill as many of each other as they can, for the winner will be the one that is the last to survive as all others are dead.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, was a positively riveting book. I felt my eyes were actually glued to the pages, and I finished it in a matter of hours because I found it so difficult to pry myself away. Filled with some astonishing twists and turns, the games themselves were nerve-wracking and heartbreaking, as Katniss would constantly have to remind herself that trusting anyone would result in pain as only one could win, but moreover, a smile and a knife in the back.

The scariest part, perhaps, is that the whole thing reads like a glorified reality show. Sure, it is government run and mandatory to watch—the government likes to remind the citizens just how at-their-mercy they are—but one has to think about how easily we watch reality shows that, by a stretch, were born from the same seed as the Hunger Games.

For Katniss and her fellow tributes, the reality show aspect means that they must be constantly putting on a good face, proving themselves to the audience who have placed bets on their lives, as well as trying to win sponsors who can send them gifts in dire situations.

I was so impressed by this book. It managed to effectively weave a futuristic sci-fi setting with a reality show that is hard to stop turning over in your head, with a commentary on image, as well as a love story. I can’t even weave that sentence to sound ordered or clear, yet Suzanne Collins managed to do so beautifully, creating a book that is a package of sheer suspense and delight.

The first of a trilogy, it has certainly caused a stir among both readers and professionals. Stephenie Meyer and Stephen King both gave rave reviews, and the rights to a movie have been already bought, with the author herself adapting it as a screenplay.

But even more exciting—there is something in which YOU can get involved! The author is hosting a competition in which teens can enter to win an ARC (Advanced Readers Copy) of the book’s sequel, Catching Fire. The entry consists of writing, in 500 words or less, how you would survive the Hunger Games. For more information, check out their website here.But hurry, because the contest ends May 15th!

Again, I absolutely loved this book, and am under the impression that everybody should read it. Unsurprisingly, I give it a whopping and wonderfully evil (oxymoron? no way-- Evil IS wonderful!) five daggers.



Relieved that OUR kind of evil is delightful rather than murderous,
Briar

Extras

The fourth book in the Uglies 'trilogy', Extras, takes place in post-'mind-rain' Japan a couple of years after Tally Youngblood destroyed the Pretties system. Japan, along with the rest of the world, is adapting to the freedom of thought that people had so long been deprived of. New cultural norms have emerged, and Japan's 'reputation economy' is one of these. It ties wealth and fame together at a whole new level, making most everybody want fame more than anything else.

Enter fifteen-year-old Aya Fuse, who's just as desirous of fame as the next person. She's a kicker, and always has Moggle (her hovercam) by her side. She is constantly searching for a great story to kick, one that might take her out of panic-making obscurity. One that might make her famous. But with a face rank of 451,369 (out of a million), there is little chance of that happening. That is, until she stumbles upon the story of a lifetime. But she gets more than she bargained for when she kicks it, and fame ends up being difficult. And, in her case, dangerous.

For an Uglies/Pretties/Specials fan such as myself, it was awesome to return to Westerfeld's creepy future earth. I couldn't help but notice that the reputation economy makes a lot sense. Which is creepy. We're already fame obsessed enough as it is.

Extras is really quite a wonderful book. It was well tied-in with the three preceding books, but has enough new developments so as not to be repetitive. Aya is a great character. She's endearing but imperfect. And sometimes you get really mad at her.

Which means, of course, that Westerfeld has done his job very well.

Five daggers out of five.

Wanting to mag-lev surf*...

*What is mag-lev surfing, you ask? I don't think I'll tell you. Read the book.

_________________________________________________________

An economy based on fame.* Creepy people with too many joints. Japan. People who surge themselves to look like manga characters. Tally Youngblood. Hoverboards.

Dude, Extras is awesome.

And, as many of you probably know (on account of the link from his blog), we saw Scott Westerfeld talk/sign books... it was pretty darn cool, yo. Justine Larbalestier was also there (author of the Magic or Madness trilogy), which was also pretty darn cool, yo.

So... five out of five. Yep.

*Which would possibly work better than our current economy. I mean, it's creepy, but it would totally work.

Hoverboarding, kicking, mag-lev-riding, fame-seeking,

PS Reese: email us! Quick, before the dark lord of all evil finds out!

I finished reading Extras and I adored it. Tally-wa...Tally makes me incredibly happy. I love her super-specialness and "I'm a loner" attitude and her "just accept me or don't - - I don't care" outlook.

I give this wonderful book, the full 5 daggers.

Nonbubble-headedly yours,
Twyla Lee