Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia

A book from a series I had never before even heard by an author who is at most only a superficially familiar name. At first I thought that this would be a spoof in manner of Scalzi’s short story which was nominated a few years ago, the title seemed to be so ludicrously preposterous. But no, this is a real series done apparently with an (almost) straight face. The Grimnor is an organization who fights against supernatural threats in an alternative 1930s world. Superpowers are common. There are people who can teleport, mess with gravity, be super intelligent, be unbelievably strong and so on. They tap some sort of “power” and are often able to augment their powers by crossing it with technology. A some sort of alien creature who craves the “magic” for its’ sustenance is coming to earth, to kill and destroy everything. It has sent its first influence ahead and that has infiltrated at least the Japanese government. The Grimnor starts to fight the evil influence. As this was the third part of the series, it took some time to get what was going on and who was who. By the end of the book there was a lot of fighting. And mean a lot. I saw the battle scenes in mind’s eye as an anime. They were so preposterous, that they could only be imagined as cartoons. However, it can be said that they were entertaining, at least at some level. The book had some slightly racist, antigovernment and pro weapon slant. Every single gun was described by the make and the caliber.
The book was fairly entertaining, but nowhere Hugo worthy. It didn’t really work as itself, the writing was ok, but not unique, and the plot wasn’t really surprising or complex.

448pp.

My Hugo votes 2014, part 3, short stories

There were only four nominees this year. Most of them were short and based more on allegories than on the actual plot. There was no competition for the first place; in my opinion Chu’s story was by far the best one. The order of the others was less easy: I didn’t really like any of them, even though they were all well written. They felt more like poetic mood pieces as actual stories with a real plot and real characters.


“Selkie Stories Are for Losers”, Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons, Jan-2013)
Two young girls who work at a restaurant bond and ponder about Selkie stories and abandonment issues. Very short, well written sad melancholy story. Didn't really had interest for me. Partly because I am not familiar with the concept Selkies - the first time I ever heard about them was from a last year's nominee - and that apparently wasn't that kind of Selkie story, this story is talking about. Also, there seems to be hardly any actual speculative material in the story.

“The Ink Readers of Doi Saket”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor.com, 04-2013)
Villagers from a Thai village pick up wishes people have left floating on the river which flows nearby. They collect gifts people have included in the small paper boats where the wishes are. Some wishes might be granted in some way, sometimes there might be some sort of exploitation of the gifts, and sometimes the wishes the villagers themselves have might come true, but not necessarily in a way they were hoping for. A poetic story.

“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, Rachel Swirsky (Apex Magazine, Mar-2013)
A kind prose poem about how awesome dinosaur the loved one would be, if he would be a dinosaur. Very short, nice language, metaphors, but nothing else really.

“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere”, John Chu (Tor.com, 02-2013)
Water starts to appear from now where if you lie about anything. A major lie completely drenches you. A guy couple is going to travel to the home of one of them. He hasn’t come out of the closet yet, and the parents believe that they are just good friends. And especially his sister seems lean very heavily to him getting settled, marrying a nice girl from the same ethnic group and starting to have children. How to survive the visit when it is impossible to lie? Another story which is heavy on metaphors. Good writing and moving story.


My voting order will be:
1. “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere”, John Chu (Tor.com, 02-2013)
2. “The Ink Readers of Doi Saket”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor.com, 04-2013)
3. “Selkie Stories Are for Losers”, Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons, Jan-2013)
4. “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, Rachel Swirsky (Apex Magazine, Mar-2013)

My Hugo votes 2014, part 2, novellettes

The stories in the novella category were pretty average for most part. Apparently two of the nominees ended to the list due coordinated voting effort by some readers of righter wing sf-blogs. The stories in question aren’t exactly bad, but not very good either – certainly not worth of an award. At best they can be considered average or at most slightly above average. Kowal’s and Chiang’s stories were the best ones by a good margin and was fairly easy to choose which of them was better one.


“Opera Vita Aeterna”, Vox Day (The Last Witchking, Marcher Lord Hinterlands)
This story was apparently voted into the final ballot by the right wing and bigoted part of US fandom as well as a few other nominees. The author got some notoriety by his extremely racist and misogynist opinions, which were so hate filled that Orson Scott Card started to feel like a moderate liberal free thinker. He got himself kicked out from the SFWA, but apparently collected some sympathy on that part of fandom who lives in the forests of Montana armed to the teeth waiting for the invasion of the UN troops
An elf comes to a monastery to study religious literature. He befriends (or at least comes accustomed with) the monks and decides to stay there studying sacred texts and copies and illuminates a major multipart religious text. He is wooed back to the kingdom of elves regularly, but he refuses. Not as bad I expected, but not very good either. The motivations of the elf were left very vague. As he knew for a FACT that the religion is bogus (he had "magical" abilities which he kept under control) why to spend years on the task? The writing felt slightly clumsy at places, certainly worse than the writing of the most of the other nominees.

“The Exchange Officers”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jan-Feb 2013)
Another story which is on the ballot apparently due organized voting. Chinese attack a space station US is constructing on the orbit. A pair of building crew, who use remote working system unsurprisingly defeat them. A pretty standard Analog-style story. The plot was unsurprising, but the fairly nice writing gave freshness to the otherwise very conventional plot.

“The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com/Tor.com, 09-2013)
An elderly female astronaut who lives on Mars gets a change to take one last job. She would jump for the change, but her husband is badly ill and will die in a year. They don't even have children as they decided early on their careers, that there would be no room for children in their lives. Should she take the once in the lifetime chance or should her stay home and take care of her husband? A well written, bittersweet, nice story.

“The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean, Fall 2013)
People have been using life recording devices for a long time. It has been very hard to access them, though. Now a new program, which enables pretty comprehensive search faculties, is being introduced. A man is testing the software and examines his own memories - do they correspond with the reality? A story of how technology shapes self-perception. Which is true - what really did happen or you conception and memory of the event? Interspaced with the modern (or future) story is a tale of how writing changed or almost changed tribal life n Africa. A good story, but at places especially at the end, feels more like a pamphlet than a "real" story.

“The Waiting Stars”, Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky, Candlemark & Gleam)
Tells a story of a group of women, who have been raised at an orphanage, alternating with a story a group who is trying to find a derelict space ship. At the beginning, the stories don’t seem to have anything in common, but eventually there is a connection. Not very logical from a technological point of view, but not too bad from the emotional point of view. Apparently the world of the author’s Xuya-universe of the Chinese descent _has_ other societies, than the Chinese derivative, repulsive, one.

My voting order will be:

1. “The Lady Astronaut of Mars”, Mary Robinette Kowal (maryrobinettekowal.com/Tor.com, 09-2013)
2. “The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling”, Ted Chiang (Subterranean, Fall 2013)
3. “The Waiting Stars”, Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky, Candlemark & Gleam)
4. “The Exchange Officers”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jan-Feb 2013)
5. “Opera Vita Aeterna”, Vox Day (The Last Witchking, Marcher Lord Hinterlands)

Parasite by Mira Grant

After Mira Grant finished one series about zombies, she starts a new one about them. Different book, slightly different zombies. Once again evil scientists and an evil corporation have designed something which turns out to be harmful. This time zombification isn’t due to run away genetically engineered diseases, but from runaway genetically designed tapeworms, which were supposed to monitor their owner’s heath. The main protagonist is a young woman, who apparently was saved by her tapeworm after being diagnosed as being brain dead. She has however lost all her memories of her former life. After five years, she has slowly adjusted to life and has gotten a cute boyfriend, who just happens to be an expert in parasitology. (There is a slight yuckiness factor, when someone who could essentially be considered to be five years old dates seriously. At first I suspected that the boyfriend is a plant of the Evil Corporation, but it doesn’t seem to be so.) The beginning of the book is pretty slow and not a lot happens. Soon there starts to be “sleepwalkers”, people who stop what they are doing, and just wander aimlessly, but eventually they turn to more or less full-ledged zombies, who are attacking people. If Mira Grant’s earlier series was pretty unbelievable, this one is stupid beyond any belief. At the end of the book, she credits people for medical and parasitological help. I wonder if she has managed to pick up people, who just pretend to be experts, or if she has just chosen not to listen to their advice. The book is filled with extremely stupid science and medicine at many levels, from small irritating errors (X-rays on film on a top-notch laboratory in 2027 – film hasn’t been in use at any major centre for years) to very stupid errors (a large bridge is so powerful Faraday cage, that it prevents all possible listening devices and even disrupts a Bluetooth connection between cell phone and headset, but doesn’t prevent the phone call going through) to extremely major stupidities rendering the plot totally nonsensical. (Human DNA is special and it has major effects – as has toxoplasma DNA – even when humans and tapeworms already probably share something like 60-70% their DNA anyway. Also the sophisticated medical faculties are unable to notice parasites teeming in muscle and brain tissue - apparently it doesn’t occur anyone to do any MRI or ultrasound scans of the patients. Also, worms take over most powerfully some brain dead people. The brain dead people don’t have any brains to be taken over by definition. The text is easy and fast to read, but the stupidities and very poorly described characters and fairly bad writing started to grate my nerves. I was able to finish this book by making an itemized list of all major stupidities in the book. I didn’t start at the beginning, and I run out of steam a little before the end, but I got to somewhere over 25 entries. The earlier series wasn’t any great literature, and had a lot of huge faults of logic, but this one is whole in a class of itself considering implausibilities. This one will be under the “no award” on my ballot.

512 pp.

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross

The book happens in the same world as Saturn’s Children, which was nominated for the Hugo award in 2009. Humans are still extinct – they have been revived a few times, but as they are so very fragile when compared with cybernetic lifeforms, they haven’t been able to survive for long. It is a few thousands or tens of thousands of years later that the earlier book. The artificial lifeforms, the descendants of humans, have spread across the galaxy and they are still spreading. The forming of new colonies is extremely expensive and depends on a pyramid scheme like financing, where a new colony is able to pay of its’ debts by establishing a few new colonies. Krina Alizond is an accountant, who has a special interest in the history of accounting practices and different accounting and pyramid scams, especially something called FTL scam, where people are lead to believe that someone has invented an FTL drive. That would totally revolutionize the whole society and monetary system. She is on the way to meet her sister, Ana, but she seems to have disappeared. Krina starts to follow Ana’s trail, but that turns out to be much more eventful than a humble accountant had ever suspected. Eventually, she ends somewhere she could never have foreseen – in more than a one level.
The book is a real avalanche of ideas and events. A lot of happens and with sudden and even sometimes surreal succession. There are a lot of gags and really unexpected events. I was reminded at places of Monty Python, especially when an insurance company turned to space piracy made an appearance. In spite of that, the book is not a farce, at least not for mostly. One of more interesting and entertaining sf books I have read for some time. This will most likely be my number one choice in Hugo voting.
336 pp.

My Hugo votes 2014, part 1, novellas

The all nominees in the novella category were pretty competent. None was bad, but neither none of them was unforgettable good and all had a few failings. It wasn't easy to put them in order. The writing in most of them was very good, but it could be argued that all of them weren’t even speculative fiction - I might have put the Wakulla Springs to the first place, if there would have been even slightly more fantastic content. The Six-gun Snow White was slightly too open. The Butcher of Khardov seemed too connected to its’ franchise. So eventually the Stross’es story was the one which ended to the first place by default. None of the stories was so bad that I should have but it under the “no award”.



“The Chaplain’s Legacy”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013)
Continues an earlier story. The advanced aliens, who have already destroyed several other sentient species, have stopped just before they were going to destroy humanity. They want to study a very strange human phenomenon: religion. Now their leaders start to believe that there is nothing new to be learned from humans and what has been paused for a while should soon be finished… The transformation of the alien queen was “slightly” too convenient and the story continues the old pretty stupid convention that humanity is special in some way. A pretty good and exiting story in spite of religious undertones anyway. Very traditional science fiction compared with most of the other nominees. Perhaps too traditional for award.

Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Press)
A little more realistic retelling of Snow White fairy tale. This Snow White is a half breed Indian born to a beautiful American-Indian women after a rich prospector falls for her and practically buys her from her parents and tribe. At first orphaned Snow White lives moderately comfortably in a vast mansion and spends her ample free time by learning to shoot and to play cards, but when her step mother arrives, things turn bad. As in the original version she runs away, but there are some slight differences: the snow white in the original fairy tale didn’t support herself by gambling and sharpshooting. The writing style is reminiscent of fairy tales, but the content for most part isn’t. And the ending naturally isn’t clear and unquestionably happy one. A nicely written story, but it felt somewhat overlong. Also, the writing was smooth and enjoyable, but somehow I was left expecting some kind of more meaningful resolution and point for the story.

“Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10-2013)
Story (or stories) about Wakulla Springs, a real fresh water area in Florida, which has been used for filming Tarzan movies and Creature of Black Lagoon, among others. The first segment tells about a black girl who works on the kitchen during the shoot of a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film. The second segment tells about her son and third about the son’s daughter. The last, a very short one, gives a glimpse to the fourth generation of the family. The story is very well written and interesting. The major failing was the (almost - one or two completely throw away sentences really doesn't count) lack of any speculative content. Normally, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but when you are reading a Hugo nominee you keep expecting that something fantastic would happen. That partly spoiled the story, it would probably have better without predispositions. In spite of that, this was a good story - but it is not really science fiction or fantasy.

The Butcher of Khardov, Dan Wells (Privateer Press)
This novella is connected to some sort of game which is apparently played by miniature figures, and which happens in some sort of steampunk world. I never had even heard of the game ever before. The story tells a backstory of a giant axe wielding solder, who ruthlessly kills everyone he even suspects being unloyal. The story is presented in nonlinear manner with short episodes of his life. He is presented as psychotic and unbelievably violent man, but there are logical or almost logical reasons for him being such man. As I was unfamiliar with the world and the backstory there were a lot unfamiliar terms, which somewhat hampered reading the story. There was a glossary of the terms which were used, but that was at the END of the story – not much help there.

“Equoid”, Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
A story about a secret British X-files style government organization. An agent is sent to investigate a possible infestation of unicorns. The unicorns are real, but thankfully rare creatures, with some very "interesting" qualities. They are meat eating, extremely vicious and their reproductive cycle is pretty unique and involves their horn (which actually really isn't a horn...). A pretty good story with pretty unique style with Lovecraftian undertones and even with a dash of tentacle porn. The writing is good, at places bit thick (which is part of the plot - the protagonist is reading Lovecraft's letters and complains that their style is contagious). An enjoyable and entertaining and at places pretty amusing story.


My voting order will be:
1. “Equoid”, Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
2. “Wakulla Springs”, Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10-2013)
3. Six-Gun Snow White, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Press)
4. The Butcher of Khardov, Dan Wells (Privateer Press)
5. “The Chaplain’s Legacy”, Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013)

Seppo Jokinen: Hervantalainen

A police procedural which happen at Tampere, my home town. There appears to be serial murderer at loose in a Tampere suburb, Hervanta. It seems that victims are people who have mistreated their parents. A very good book with believable characters and engaging plot.

Komisario Koskinen kirja. Taitaa olla aika monta osaa edellisen lukemani ja tämän välissä, kun ihmisten väliset suhteet olivat kehittyneet aika paljon sitten viime näkemän.
Tällä kertaa poliisit tutkivat sarjaa pahoinpitelyjä, jotka vähitellen yltyvät murhien tasolle. Uhreina vaikuttaa olevan omia vanhempiaan kaltoin kohdelleet, jotka nyt joutuvat itse rajun koston kohteiksi. Suurin osa uhreista on elämän kaltoin kohtelemia, mutta ei välttämättä kokonaan ilman omaa syytään. Välillä tapahtumia seurataan vielä anonyymin murhaajan näkökulmasta. Aivan loppu, ja se miten murhaaja sai tietonsa, oli ehkä hiukan kaukaa haettu, mutta omalla tavallaan ymmärrettävä. Kirja on erittäin sujuvasti kirjoitettu ja omaa hiukan yhteiskunnallisemman otteen, kuin aikaisemmin lukemani sarjan teokset. Teksti tuo hiukan mieleen Matti Yrjänä Joensuun kirjat, päähenkilö vain ei ole yhtä ärsyttävän hermoheikko, vaan hahmot ovat sympaattisia, uskottavia, hyvin kuvattuja ja ymmärrettäviä. Tämä oli sen verran positiivinen lukuelämys, parhaasta päästä dekkareita pitkään aikaan, että pitää harkita sarjan aloittamista ihan tosissaan, jos nyt sitten kaiken muun lukulistalla olevan mukaan ahtaa.


330 s.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, July-August 2014

A large double issue with fairly competent stories. Nothing really excellent, but all at least average or slightly over average.


Mind Locker • shortstory by Juliette Wade
A cyberpunk story with a lot of made up words and made up grammar. Very hard to understand at places. For example, what does this mean: “Nope, what I done’s sure not the Arkive”? Some kids who are trying to find something to eat and communicate by fancy computer text messages of some sort run into trouble. Or something, I really didn’t care (or understand). **
Who Killed Bonnie's Brain? • novelette by Daniel Hatch
A reporter tries to find out why a “brain in a pot” died (or was apparently killed). He meets and interviews several characters and eventually finds out the truth. The world is pretty interesting and well described, and there are some fairly interesting characters. The plot itself wasn’t really unusual or surprising. ***+
The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale • novelette by Rajnar Vajra
A group of some sort of “space cadets” take part in a bar room fight. As a punishment they must join a mission to a planet with apparently intelligent life, which has so far resisted all attempts of communication. Most life forms, especially the plants on the planet are extremely dangerous. One of the cadets claims that he will succeed in something dozens of scientists have failed: he is going to open the communications. Very much reminiscent of Heinlein’s juveniles - not as well and entertainingly written, but not too bad. Not great or unusual in any way, but readable in spite of somewhat irritating characters. ***+
Crimson Sky • shortstory by Eric Choi
A helicopter ambulance driver rescues an explorer in Mars. The patient gets an injection of ringer solution to his arm apparently subcutaneously or inside a muscle in a few seconds and that makes him stabilize. Rotfwl. ( it is infusion solution for intravenous use, and you need 500-1000 ml to have any benefit) The story had some extremely detailed descriptions of technology. Writing ok, but there is little actual plot.***-
The Journeyman: Against the Green • [Journeyman] • novella by Michael F. Flynn
Continues an earlier story. A pair of friends are drafted to an army which fights against green skinned men. The story apparently happens on a planet colonized by humans centuries ago, and some high tech relics might still be around somewhere. For most part the technology is medieval, but the green skinned seem to have muskets and primitive cannons. Little happens in the story. The bulk of the tale is taken by a very detailed description of battle, which at places seems almost like a transcript of a war game, interspaces with light humorous banter. The writing is pretty good, but again: where is the plot? ***+
Journeyer • shortstory by R. Garrett Wilson
An alien runs through a desert to collect an important medical herb which would save lives, especially his niece’s life. He takes a very different approach and strategy anyone has ever taken, and no one believes he will succeed or even survive. Guess what happens? A slightly too short, well written story with pretty strange and interesting aliens. ***
Valued Employee • shortstory by James K. Isaac
A young woman returns to her birth village. She has been living in outside world where everything is controlled by nanotechnology (?). She journeys back to her “luddite” village to turn them to accept technology “by any means necessary”. There are good parts in the story, but there was something in writing and/or plot which somehow irritated me- but I can’t really pinpoint what it was. ***-
Sadness • shortstory by Timons Esaias
Earth has been invaded. The invaders let humans live in peace in degree, but they impose some strange mixes of earlier human religions as mandatory belief systems. Up to and including those with human sacrifice. A sad, well written mood piece. ***
The Half-Toe Bar • shortstory by Andrew Reid
People have contacted a human civilization which has been separated for a long time. A group needs help from a black-smith, but some social norms cause some trouble: apparently it isn’t proper that women discuss such things, but the member of visiting group, who best knows what kind of help is needed is a woman. Nothing really special, an easily forgettable story. ***-
Hot and Cold • shortstory by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
A couple who travels together on a FTL ship has some severe problems with a black hole and an abandoned old space ship with unstable AI. They are forced to some creative measures to survive. A sort of problem solving story. A fairly nice as such. ***
Code Blue Love • novelette by Bill Johnson
The last surviving siblings of a family which suffers from severe cerebral aneurysms create as a last ditch effort intelligent self-modifying intravascular stents. They succeed very well, even though the discovery comes too late to save one of them. Or was it too late? Not bad story, and well written. However, I wonder of people would be _so_ brilliant after several brain surgeries and possible minor subarachnoid bleeds. ***+
Vooorh • novelette by Paula S. Jordan
Continues an earlier story. The background is described very scantily and the style of the story seems somehow to be pretty different from the earlier part which was slightly melancholy mood piece, while this goes more for action.
There are two groups of aliens which fight with each other’s. The evil ones are ugly crab like beings, while the good ones are more graceful looking beings, who apparently are something like a cross of seal and octopus. I wonder how the protagonist was able to be so sure who were the "good" guys - but naturally the ugly ones are always the evil aliens. It was kind of surprising how the rock salt was deadly poisonous for sea creatures. There were also a few things which were explained pretty poorly; I wonder for example, why the bad aliens apparently were able to influence police. The writing was pretty good though and the story was entertaining in spite of a few irritations. ***½