Review

Once again, Alastair Reynolds cranks out a weighty tome in Redemption Ark (Part of the Revelation Space universe) that proves, at least to me, hard SciFi can be surprisingly entertaining.

Part of the problem with sticking directly to physics, as Alastair with his Ph.D. in Astronomy is likely to do, is that space travel is necessarily limited to current breakthroughs in physics, even when targeted hundreds or thousands of years in the future. It’s both refreshing to see slow acceleration of two or three Gs and all the problems that entails, and frustratingly annoying to read hundreds of pages of space-battle that effectively amounts to dodging obstacles for objective years of travel time.

I just finished The Short Victorious War by David Weber and I’m starting to notice a pattern here:

1. Honor Harrington thrust into difficult situation complicated by politics.
2. Honor thwarts an invasion while overcoming said politics.
3. Profit.

Now, I understand these have to be somewhat formulaic, and this book was in fact, enjoyable, so I can’t complain excessively here. The real weakness of this book is that it’s so short, and Honor plays such a minimal part in the action. I’d almost even call this an “interim” novel.

I just finished Gust Front by John Ringo, and Ringo is a hard man to understand. He clearly loves the SciFi genre, and with the continuation of the Posleen War, proves he can delve into the stickier details many gloss over.

The problem is he goes way too far on occasion, detailing for pages on very intricate and specific troop movements and justification. I felt like I was reading a historical account of each battle. Provided a map of the United States, I could probably have replayed each flank and counter-attack exactly as if executing a play-by-play of an Axis and Allies or Risk game. It was mind numbing, and I found myself skimming over vast swaths of copious minutiae. It’s fairly obvious why this, the second in the series, was over 250 pages longer than the first.

I originally wanted to take it easy this Saturday and failed miserably. I started the day off by seeing Shutter Island at the theater two miles from my apartment; it’s an awfully convenient jaunt down the road, and I actually woke up early enough to catch the first matinee. One thing I can say about this film, was that it actually had me second-guessing myself for its entirety.

It would seem that I read a lot more than I thought. My book pile was dwindling and I wondered how that was possible, since I had at least six or seven in the pile before the holidays. Well, as it would turn out, between the train rides and reading before bed, I consume more than my fair share of books. So, what did I read during January? In order: