Lock In John Scalzi One of the first things that strikes a 2024 reader about  John Scalzi 's  Lock In  is that it takes place after an "influenza-like global pandemic". Covid was bad enough, but the Great Flu of  Lock In  was substantially worse. It killed 400 million people worldwide. The Great Flu was often followed by meningitis, which in many patients caused permanent brain damage resulting in  Locked-in Syndrome . Locked-in syndrome is a real thing, but in the real world it is rare. In  Lock In  it is called Haden's Syndrome after a famous sufferer, and is quite common: 4.35 million in the USA. Thus far  Lock In  is grounded in reality. However,  Scalzi  takes it much further. Haden's patients have neural networks implanted in their brains which allow them to communicate electronically. In particular, a Haden can inhabit a telepresence robot called a personal transport, colloquially called a threep (after C-3PO) or sometim...

Saga, Volume 11 Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator)   The cover picture of  Saga, Volume 11  shows Hazel and Squire busking for spare cash. Hazel's wings are visible but her horns are hidden, from which you can guess that they're on a planet that is sympathetic to Landfall and not Wreath. In fact, Alana has managed to scrape out a life for her little family. As usual, they're just getting by, but they ARE getting by, and Alana is entirely legal, for a change. The murderers are Agent Gale and Petrichor. Gale will not surprise you. Back in  Volume 10  Director Croze gave him the job of killing anyone who had ever had contact with Alana, Marko, or Hazel. Besides, he's a vindictive piece of you-know-what by nature. Petrichor is still after The Will for killing Robot IV, with whom she had fallen in love. Honestly, at this point, after eleven volumes, it is just a pleasure to see these old friends again. And  Fiona Staples  artwork is 😘👌. Amazon ...

Diavola Jennifer Thorne Jennifer Marie Thorne 's  Diavola  begins with our point-of-view character, Anna Pace, a commercial artist who works for a New York advertising agency, getting on a plane to Florence. This is like a Big Sign warning "Art Snobs ahead". At one point, after a day doing Florence, Anna's brother-in law Justin declares himself "all arted out". I feel ya, Justin, I feel ya. There is also an inordinate amount of wine in  Diavola . (Anna is an inverse wine snob, because of course she is.) Anna begins the book by avoiding her family. A wise move! Anna has the reputation of being the family Drama Queen. Objectively, this is not 100% inaccurate. However, no other Pace family member is in a position to throw stones at other putative Drama Queens. The publisher's blurb ends with this (Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.) Yeah, that. For the first 55% of the novel, essentially no...

Death in the Spires K.J. Charles K.J. Charles 's  Death in the Spires  begins in 1905, when our hero Jeremy (Jem) Kite is called into his boss's office. His boss has just received an anonymous letter accusing Jeremey of murder. Jem immediately knows what this is about, because it's something he's been living with for ten years. The REAL beginning of our story is in 1892, when Jem shows up at Oxford as a new student. He is quickly taken up into a group of seven friends, revolving about Toby Feynsham. So brilliant are these seven, both in sports and scholarship, that they become known among their contemporaries as the "seven wonders". Until 1895, when Toby was murdered. The other six know that the murderer had to be one of themselves. But the murder has not been solved. Jem, prodded by the letter, is no longer able to let sleeping dogs lie, and begins to investigate. So it's a murder mystery with some of the usual elements common to most murder mysteries. Tw...

Saga, Volume 9 Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator) The cover picture of  Brian K. Vaughan  and  Fiona Staples 's  Saga, Volume 9  is a family picture of Marko, Hazel, and Alana, looking like an ordinary happy family with wings and horns. Does that state of affairs last through to the end of the book? Three guesses... Most of  Volume 9  takes place on Jetsam, the planet that journalists Upsher and Doff come from. The gang's all here: Marko, Alana, and Hazel, as well as Petrichor, Prince Robot IV, his son Squire, and of course Upsher and Doff. Ianthe and The Will show up soon and cause Bad Trouble. ( John Lewis  would not approve.) And that's really all I can tell you without major spoilers. However, I will remind you that  Volume 9  is the last of  Compendium One , and that Saga went into hiatus for four years immediately thereafter. Thus you can expect some things to end. Amazon review Goodreads review  

Saga, Volume 10 Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator) In  Volume 10   Brian K. Vaughan  and  Fiona Staples 's  Saga  returns after a four-year hiatus. Your first question is who the folks on the cover are? The horned girl in the middle is Hazel, of course. The blonde on the left is Alana, who has a new look. The dude on the right with the Bozo the Clown do is not Marko, but Alana's new business partner Bombazine. Marko, of course, is dead, having been killed by The Will at the end of  Volume 9 . The Will was a busy man in  Volume 9  -- he also ended Robot IV. Doff also got offed in  Volume 9 . Three years have passed and Hazel is now ten. (Her age matches the age of the series.) Alana has adopted Robot IV's son Squire, so he is Hazel's brother now. Alana and Bombazine are trying to make a living. You will not be shocked to hear that neither Alana nor Bombazine nor Hazel is deeply concerned with following the letter of the law. Th...

Saga, Volume 8 Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator) In  Saga, Volume 7  Alan had become pregnant again, with a child who, when born, would become Hazel's brother. But it was not to be. Prince Robot IV, under the influence of Fadeaway, physically hurt Alana, killing her unborn baby. Alan, now carrying her dead unborn child. needs medical help. She shows up at Abortion Planet to get it. Accompanying her are Marko, Hazel, Prince Robot IV, and Petrichor. Things do not go smoothly. There are bandits here who prey on people like Alana, or would, except that Alana is far more dangerous than they expect. Petrichor and Marko help out. Hazel also meets a ghost of her brother. Hazel, who was accustomed to having a ghost babysitter Izabel, takes this in stride. We also catch up with The Will, Gwendolyn, Upshur and Doff. Amazon review Goodreads review  

Saga, Compendium One Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator) After seeing  Brian K. Vaughan  and  Fiona Staples 's  Saga, Compendium One  highly praised by essentially my entire Goodreads feed, I bought the paperback. It arrived, and I did not immediately open it, for a simple reason: It weighs 2.2 kg. (That's 5 pounds in old money.) This is a thick book. So instead I bought all currently extant kindle volumes of the series (currently  Saga, Volume 1  through  Saga, Volume 11 ), figuring a series of 11 books was within my capabilities, and began to read them on the kindle app on my iPad. This worked very well. I found to my surprise that the series was not so overwhelming as my kitchen scale led me to expect. It takes an hour, or at most two, to read one volume. I alternated Saga volumes with other books -- thus, between 18-Feb and 24-Mar-2024 I read the nine volumes that together constitute  Compendium One . ( Volumes 10  and...

Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe Sean Carroll The First Law of Quantum Communication is that all explanations of Quantum Mechanics for general audiences are really, really bad*.  Sean Carroll 's  Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe  is very different from every previous pop quantum mechanics explanation I have ever read. The question before us is whether it is an exception to the First Law, or a uniquely creative new example. Where I'm coming from: I am a retired neuroscientist and mathematician. I am familiar with and comfortable with quantum mechanics. I have also, to my sorrow, read dozens of pop physics explanations of quantum mechanics, because every pop physics book begins with the same tiresome six chapters intended to bring the presumed ignorant reader up to speed on relativity and quantum mechanics. And they are almost uniformly TERRIBLE. They are terrible for multiple reasons, but most of these come down to a determination on...

The Last Bloodcarver Vanessa Le I bought this book because of the spectacular cover,    . Judge this book by its cover! Of course you want to know what a Bloodcarver is. The best place to begin is  Vanessa Le 's author biography Vanessa Le  graduated from Brown University with a degree in Health and Human Biology and now resides in Portland, Oregon. Her writing is an expression of her love for medicine and her Vietnamese heritage. When not writing, she can be found studying medicine, spoiling her two Shiba Inus, or wishing she were writing. A heartsooth, we learn, is a healer who communicates and affects the body through touch. "Bloodcarver" is a sort of slur used for a heartsooth by those who don't understand. One suspects that  Le  herself aspires to be something like a heartsooth. Although Nhika grew up in Central Theumas and knows no other place, her mother and father escaped from the conquered and oppressed Island of Yarong, where all heartsooths came ...

The Failures Benjamin Liar Benjamin Liar 's (a pseudonym, of course) debut novel  The Failures  is a big book, the first novel in the planned  Wanderlands  Trilogy. It has been a long time in the making. In the author's note "A Round of Applause, A Round of Shots", he tells us I started writing— not this book, exactly, but exploring the place that I would eventually name The Wanderlands— over thirty years ago. The Wanderlands are a dark and broken world without a sky. Most of the story concerns the actions of five people or groups of people: The Lost Boys The Convox/Cabal The Monsters The Deadsmith The Killers Most chapters have two titles. The first is one of the five above, telling you who the chapter will be about. Then there is a second title that refers to the events about to be recounted. In addition to these chapters, there are five chapters named "An Aside: ..." -- these are (very welcome) brief infodumps about the history of the Wanderlands. The cha...

A Face Like Glass Frances Hardinge On being reminded of  Frances Hardinge 's  A Face Like Glass  earlier today, I was surprised to discover that I had never written a review of it. I read it in the first half of 2020 -- pandemic days, before I had joined Goodreads. It was my first  Hardinge  book, and it was the beginning of a relationship that endures to this day. Of the  Hardinge  novels I have read, this is my favorite. It takes place in a monstrous cavern where food is literally magical. As a baby our heroine, Neverfell, appeared in the caverns of a cheesemaker. As she grew she became his apprentice. Neverfell wears a mask, because ordinary people can't bear to see her face -- a face transparent like glass, that changes to show what's behind it -- her thoughts and feelings. The faces of other inhabitants of Caverna are blank, unless they have been taught by facesmiths to express emotions. Neverfell falls afoul of the rulers of Caverna, and a bold p...

Saga, Volume 7 Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator) We begin  Saga, Volume 7  with Marko, Alana, and Hazel all together again. They're in their rocket tree, trying to head back to Quietus, where they left Prince Robot IV's child, Squire. Prince Robot IV is with them, and he's at least as creepy as usual. Hazel's ghostly babysitter Izabel is with them, too, at least at night. Also with them is Petrichor from the detention colony. Hazel's grandmother Klara, alas, was left behind. The rocket tree springs a fuel leak. To find fuel, they land on Phang, which has large reserves of the stuff of which rocket fuel is made. We have heard of Phang before. It is where Sophie came from. Sophie, if you've forgotten, is the slave girl who was sort-of adopted by The Will and Gwendolyn. So, Marko, Alana, Hazel, Izabel, Petrichor, and Prince Robot IV land on Phang, intending only a quick pit stop. Things get complicated, of course. We also catch up with Gwendolyn, Sophie...

A Skinful of Shadows Frances Hardinge Frances Hardinge 's  A Skinful of Shadows  is a historical fantasy set in the  English Civil War . The  English Civil War  is the name given to that period (1642-1651) in English history that began with war between King Charles I and Parliament. (This in contrast to the many, many other internal wars fought in England. England, like most European nations, was more or less constantly fighting with itself until the 18th century, when the internal wars ramped down to a focus on fighting with other European nations.) As everyone knows, one of the big problems with historical fiction, and indeed with the historical record itself, is its focus on powerful people. Aside from "nasty, brutish, and short", it is not easy to know what life was like for the poor, or for women, or especially for poor women.  Hardinge 's hero Makepeace, a by-blow of the powerful Fellmotte family, grew up the daughter of a poor lace-maker in a small P...

Full Speed to a Crash Landing Beth Revis When we first meet Ada Lamarr she is alone on her ship  Glory  with less than an hour of oxygen left. Ada makes her living by salvaging abandoned spaceships. She is ostensibly here to salvage valuable metal from a ship that crashed on a nearby planet. But as a result of an explosion,  Glory  now has a three-meter hole in her hull, and almost all systems are down. That includes life support, but not communications. Ada knows that there is another ship in the vicinity and has sent out a distress call. Ada is straight as a corkscrew and trustworthy as a seven-dollar bill. I have no hesitation in mentioning Ada's dodginess, because it is (1) Extremely obvious from page 1, and (2) Intentionally obvious. That is, in my judgment  Beth Revis  fully intends to make it obvious that Ada is up to something. In fact, this is the thing I don't get about  Full Speed to a Crash Landing . It is transparently obvious what Ada is ...

Unraveller Frances Hardinge Frances Hardinge 's  Unraveller  takes place in Raddith. Within the country of Raddith lies a marshland forest called the Wilds. Among the many strange creatures that live in the Wilds are humans, and also the Little Brothers, which the people of Raddith describe thus What are the Little Brothers, then? Your new friends will tell you, with a certain affection, of the many-legged creatures that live in the cobweb-laden treetops of the Wilds. They are friends to weavers and craftspeople, apparently. They also seek out those consumed by rage or hatred and gift them with a curse. The curse then nestles in the host’s soul like an unhatched egg, growing in power, until the curser is ready to unleash it upon an enemy. What can you do if you've been cursed? There are those who claim that, for a price, they can help you. One of them can do it. His name is Kellen. Kellen doesn't lift or break curses -- he unravels them. As a child Kellen was a weaver, a ch...

Saga, Volume 6 Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples (Illustrator) Some years have passed. Big news: the couple on the cover is Marko and Alana -- they've found each other. But the family is not together. Hazel is not with them. She and Klara are stuck in a Prisoner of War facility on some unknown planet. Hazel is in school there with teacher Miss Noreen, who looks like a praying Mantis with a humanoid torso. Alana and Marko of course want to find Hazel. They hit up Prince Robot IV, now calling himself Sir Robot, to help. Since The Brand died, Upsher and Doff are free to chase the Story of the Century, viz, Hazel. The Will is chasing the former Prince Robot, looking to revenge The Stalk and The Brand. He grabs Upsher and Doff, figuring that if they find Hazel, Sir Robot will not be far. So, yeah, the upshot is -- everyone's chasing Hazel. Saga, Volume 6  is a bit more coherent than  Volume 5  -- easier to follow. It is also less violent -- there is occasional transient peace an...

Ghost Cat Eve Bunting, Kevin M. Barry (Illustrator) Take a look at the cover. It really tells you everything you need to know. That is Sailor Boy. He's a lighthouse cat, who died, but decided to hang around anyway. As ghosts go, Sailor Boy is very capable -- he can make himself visible or invisible. His mistress, Miss Maggie McCullen, is the lighthouse keeper, and she knows all about Sailor Boy. There's a story here, in which Sailor Boy saves the day (or, more accurately, the night). The drawings are entirely adorable. I read this on an iPad using the kindle app. This worked well. I would not recommend a kindle paperwhite -- you need color to appreciate it. The eBook is well-designed. You can zoom in on parts of a page and move easily from one zoomed view to the next. Amazon review Goodreads review