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Ubik by Philip K Dick

July 31, 2014 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: Is anyone better at writing paranoid fiction than Philip K Dick?

Philip K Dick was brilliant and deeply troubled. Which seems to make for a good science fiction writer. Ubik, a 1969 novel, is set in 1992, when psychic powers are common. Joe Chip works for a “˜prudence organization’. Prudence organizations specialize in helping people or businesses protect themselves from psychics. So they use anti-telepaths to protect people from having their minds read by telepaths or other anti-psychics to counter the variety of different psychic powers.

The other plot point you have to understand is “˜half-life’. In this future, when people die, if they can be preserved in time, they can live in “˜half-life’, a sort of preserved life of the mind. You cannot life forever this way, but your body is preserved and you can communicate with people outside your preservation chamber. But at some point you sort of fade out and are reincarnated.

There is basically no way to discuss this book without spoilers, so if you don’t want any spoilers for this 45 year old book, you should stop reading because I am going to disclose pretty much the whole book.

Among the Unseen by Jodi McIsaac (The Thin Veil #3)

July 30, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: Cedar, the new Queen of TÃr na nÃ“g, is trying to adjust to her new life and new powers. But all the Unseen (the magical creatures of Earth) have started dying.

The Thin Veil trilogy is one of the increasing numbers of books published by 47North or one of Amazon’s other publishing imprints. And I think it is fairly similar to the others I have read, better than most self published books, but still not quite to the upper levels of quality of all books.

The Thin Veil trilogy follows Cedar, her daughter Eden, and others through discovering that the Celtic gods were actually an immortal race from another world, and that Cedar is the lost daughter of the last king.

Similar to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series or the Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott, this is a modern look at ancient mythology. But the Thin Veil series is adult fiction (although I would have read it as a teen and I don’t really have any content warning other than some sexual innuendo.)

This is a good light beach read fantasy. Nothing heavy, but not terribly original either.

The main story arc of the third book is about the sickness and death of the magical creatures on earth. There was an ancient spell that protected the creatures from humans as long as humans believed in them. But now that humans have stopped believing in them, they have started dying.

Dawn by Octavia Butler (Exenogenesis Trilogy #1)

July 23, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: A Woman wakes up to discover the Earth as she knows it is no longer, and the only hope of survival is an alien species that has questionable motives.

Dawn is the first book that I have finished reading from KindleUnlimited’s library. I actually already owned the kindle edition, but the audiobook is included in KindleUnlimited so I moved it to the top of my list.

Octavia Butler is known for her strong African American female leads, unusual in the science fiction world. Butler’s first real hit, Kindred, was semi-fantasy. A time travel book that takes a 1970s African American woman back to her 1820s era slave owning ancestor. Kindred is an excellent book, one that I highly recommend and the best of Butler’s books that I have read so far.

The other of Butler’s books that I have read is Butler’s last book that she wrote before she died, Fledgling, a vampire book that was written about the time of the Twilight vampire craze.

So Dawn, as an Alien abduction novel, is yet again completely different. Butler does a great job building suspense, letting you know what the main character is feeling and making the aliens, alien. It is one of the common thoughts of science fiction writers that if we do find aliens, that they will be so alien that we will have a hard time relating to them or even understanding why we don’t understand them.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

May 23, 2014 by Adam Shields

Summary: A Classic novel about wanting what is not good for you.

For some reason that I can’t really explain, I always have felt I did not like Charles Dickens. But the only two books that I can remember reading of Dickens (Great Expectations and The Tale of Two Cities) I liked. Maybe it is like feeling like you do not like a food, but never actually trying it.

Like many classics, I was first exposed to Great Expectations as an abridged children’s book. I am pretty sure I read at least one additional abridgement in high school or college (not for school but pleasure) but I think this is the first time I have read the whole book.

With so many versions of the story in my head (I have seen at least one if not two of the movies in addition to probably two abridged versions), the basic story is not a surprise. Simon Vance (as always) did an admirable job narrating the audiobook. And like many classics, I think it could have easily been cut by at least a third without a problem. But according to Wikipedia, Dickens originally intended it to be twice as long, but his publisher restrained him. (Thank goodness).

Timebound by Rysa Walker (Chronos Files #1)

April 3, 2014 by Adam Shields

I am reposting this review because the kindle edition of Timebound on sale for $1.99 is part of the Oct $3.99 or less sale. Also the rest of the series is on sale as well.
Summary: Sixteen year old Kate must time travel to restore the timeline and stop her Grandfather and Aunt from taking over the world.

One of the things I like most about Amazon is their willingness to experiment. Amazon started the Breakthrough Novel contest several years ago and it has really generated some good books. Timebound is the overall winner and the young adult category winner for 2013.

But that is only one part of the experimentation of this book. Amazon also has started pre-releasing 4 books a month to Amazon Prime members with their Kindle First program. If you are an Amazon Prime member you can pick one of those four books to keep for free (and buy the others if you want.) Timebound was part of the December offering. I picked the kindle version up for free, and then used some promotional credit at Audible to get the audiobook (it was only $1.99 with purchase of the kindle book.)

Amazon’s experiment seems to have worked. After only a month from its official release, Timebound has over 1300 reviews and more than 1200 of them are 4 or 5 star reviews.

Timebound is about a 16 year old girl that discovers that her grandmother (whom her Mother does not get along with and whom Kate barely knows) is dying of cancer. Her Grandmother (Katherine) has moved to DC to be near Kate and wants Kate to move into her home part time so they can get to know one another. Kate will inherit the house and the entire estate when Katherine dies.

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (Book & Movie Review)

January 17, 2014 by All Old Users

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott is known by many to be an American classic. The novel, which takes place during the American Civil War, is about a family of a mother and four sisters. Because their family has fallen on hard times and their father is off fighting in the war, the story is about these young girls coping with poverty and the hardships of life with only each other and their mother there to guide them. Beloved by many, the novel can be seen as a comedy, romance, tragedy, and drama because the story contains aspects of a number of different genres and is based on real life.

Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century

January 8, 2014 by Adam Shields

Reposting this review because Farewell is the Jan 8 Kindle Daily Deal and on sale for $1.99 (the audiobook is only $0.99 with purchase of the kindle book.)

Takeaway: The actual workings of spy tradecraft is as odd as the fictional ones.

Farewell is the code name of one of the most important spy stories of the 20th century. A Russian KGB agent, frustrated with his treatment by the KGB, turned over thousands of pages of documents to the French secret service (the FBI equivalent, not the CIA equivalent) and was perhaps more responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union than any other single person.

The story really is both incredible and fairly simple. Vladimir Ippolitovitch Vetrov, a talented athlete, a good student and a handsome young man is recruited to the KGB. He is trained as a foreign operative and serves two terms outside of Russia. But because of some of the problems of the KGB and some of Vetrov’s own problems he gets called back to Moscow and ends up as a technical analyst.

Frustrated by his lack of importance and the lack of respect he feels he is getting, he decides to become an informant and contact the French DST. Working with a French secret service he is first given a handler (a businessman that is close, but not a spy) and then a single agent. But it may have been the very lack of tradecraft that allows Vetrov to sneak out hugely important technical details of the Soviet infrastructure, military and spy systems.

The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

August 5, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: The original classic children’s book, where a doctor and lover of animals learns to speak animal language.

Audible.com gave away several short books as part of a promotion for members in July. The Story of Doctor Dolittle was one of them.

The audiobook starts out with an introduction to the tenth edition that praises the book as the first real children’s book since Alice in Wonderland. But since I really did not like Alice in Wonderland that did nothing to entice me to the story.

The story (published in 1920) is set in the 1820s. Doctor Dollittle is a good doctor, but his love of animals eventually drives all of his human clients away. After all of the human clients leave, Dolittle starts learning animal language from his parrot. Eventually he learns how to speak to all of the animals and starts treating animals.

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

November 1, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The common conception of the book has nothing to do with what is really in the book.

So here is what is probably most interesting about reading ‘The Modern Prometheus’, almost nothing that I thought I knew about the story line is actually in the book. Many stories we primarily know through movie adaptations and not the book itself. That is not unusual. But the fact that almost all of the central features of the cultural understanding of the book are not in the book is fascinating.

Igor, lightning, the slow walk, the arms raised, pretty much all the features about the monster are all wrong. Not even wrong, it is the opposite of the book. The monster was brilliant, well spoken, desired only to love and be loved. Even the name is wrong. Frankenstein is the name of the Doctor, the monster is never named (I did actually know that part before reading the book.)

When I talked about the book with some friends there are pretty different opinions of it. My sister in law loves the book. She is a scientist and talked about it as part of a discussion about medical and scientific ethics.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

October 23, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A brat of a girl falls into a fantasy world

One of my reading goals this year was to read more old books. Some of these I am re-reading, some I am reading for the first time. If you have a kindle or like to listen to audiobooks, there are tons of free classics available (although of varying quality.)

I picked up about 30 free classic kindle and audiobooks through a promotion (some still available) last month. Jim Dale’s (narrator for Harry Potter) version of Alice in Wonderland. This is both good and bad. Dale is a very good narrator. But some of his voices seems to be the same as some of his Harry Potter voices and that provides a little unintended humor and confusion.

Prior to this I have never read Alice in Wonderland. But I knew the basic story through the many parodies and cartoon remakes. Alice follows a rabbit down a hole. Alice drinks and eats things that make her grown and shrink. She meets the smiling cat that disappears and reappears. And then she meets a pack of playing cards where the Queen keeps crying ‘off with their head’ every few minutes.