Diving into the Wreck by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

This is the first book of the series where people explore old forgotten spaceship wrecks. Some break them apart for raw material, while some take tourists to them for an adventure, and others try to find historically significant objects. The protagonist (unnamed, mostly she is just called “Boss”) of the book belongs to the last group. When she finds an extremely old and strange-looking large derelict ship, she can’t believe her luck. She assembles a competent team to study the wreck. It turns out to be very ancient and it contains stealth technology which has almost been forgotten. And that technology turns out to be very dangerous.

In the second part of the book, a famous war hero has also gone to the “room of lost souls.” It is a room on an old space station. If you go there, you won’t come back – although the “Boss” herself did come back decades ago as a child while her mother was left behind and lost forever. The daughter of the war hero hires the Boss to go to the room to try to retrieve him – for an extremely exceptionally good fee. She (the Boss) assembles a new team and even his father joins the team. The room turns out to be another piece of ancient stealth tech. And everything doesn’t go smoothly.

In the last novella, Boss wants to destroy the stealth tech so that a power of balance between nations won't be tilted. She also believes it is far too dangerous to exist and that the world is a better place without the stealth technology. She assembles a new team, and her aim is to destroy the ship she found in the first novella and to obliterate the stealth tech in it.

The book consists of three novellas that fit together well. I didn’t notice any continuation errors and only minor details that could be classified as small glitches. (In the second part Boss says that she doesn’t know whether her father has a video that was shot in the room – certainly, she would have asked about it – and most likely lied about it too – but she would have asked). In the last part, a spaceship that is spinning stops after the spin “dies out.” That doesn’t happen in space – if something is spinning, it never stops if there isn’t any force to stop it. As a whole, the book was a very entertaining and fun read. I had read at least the middle part earlier as a separate piece, but as a part of a whole, it worked much better – although I remember being a bit confused about some plot points. The main hero is a well-described character with more inner conflict, which is good for her – and which is often the secret of memorable characters. I will most likely look for the other parts of this series.


336 pp.

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde

The latest book by Jasper Fforde, whose specialty lies in creating very extraordinary settings in his books. That is true for this book as well. It starts with the premise that humans are hibernating animals – they have always been. There are only a few people, usually quite eccentric ones, who stay awake during the winter to take care of as well as guard the sleepers. The climate is turning colder and the glaciers creep southward – but oh so slowly that no one is really concerned about it. Hibernating takes a lot of energy, and as a result, people try to fatten themselves when the autumn season approaches. However, there are a few people that are lost every winter. There is a new medication which will almost certainly prevents the deaths, but sometimes some unfortunate people wake up as zombie-like creatures, who might be even dangerous in their vast hunger if they weren’t very slow and very stupid. However, they can be used for different purposes- apparently for breeding, (as people die every winter, there is always a need for more children), as well as to complete some easy menial tasks after they are reprogramming and trained - thus they are a source of very cheap labor. The same company which developed the medicine is responsible for the employment of the former zombies. It isn’t hard to see that there are some slight possibilities for exploitation if the ethical standards aren’t high enough…

I feel that the first half of the book was very disjointed and confusing. Anything that remotely resembled a plot took its time to appear. During the first part of the book, everything was pretty surrealistic and unclear and things seemed to happen mostly to enable the puns, witticisms, and wordplay with no coherent plot-line in sight. When the plot really started to move forward and make sense, the book got a lot better. In any case, this is possibly my least favorite book by the author. Nevertheless, I will say that the last third of the book wasn’t bad at all, but it does not make up for the first third of the book, which most certainly wasn’t good.

403 pp.

An Informal History of the Hugos by Jo Walton

It is not so much a history of the Hugo awards, but rather a history of Hugo winners and nominees (and about what else might have been worthy of nominating).

There have been very many books and stories I have somehow missed. There also are many books I have read, enjoyed and almost forgotten and which are ripe for a reread - I tried to be selective, but I ended up with a fairly long list of books to read and reread. The author has a tendency to abandon any author if the first book she read has been mediocre - and in a few instances her choice is laudable, but in other cases, she has missed some worthy books. The book is based on the blog posts the author has written, and every year includes some commentaries by some prominent anthologists and other science fiction personalities. Little editing has been done to those: even the numbers of the comments are left and, in a few cases, there were some comments which apparently reference other comments on the blog, comments which haven’t been included in the book. Some editing might have been nice. It is a good reference book, which I most like will return to.

576 pp.

Leena Lehtolainen: Tappajan tyttöystävä ja muita rikoksia by

A collection of short stories by a female Finnish author who writes novels about a female detective. Pretty mediocre stories with a surprisingly poor description of women; most characters behave very stupidly, and are very one-dimensional.


Kokoelma Leena Lehtolaisen kirjoittamia novelleja. Yleinen taso ei nouse kovin korkeaksi. Parhaita ovat alkupään Maria Kallioon liittyvät novellit, etenkin “Älä kerro Marialle”, jossa päähenkilönä on Maria Kallion entinen pomo, Jyrki Taskinen. Novelli käsittelee raiskausta ja kulttuuria, jossa herkästi ilmoitukset painettiin villaisella, etenkin jos syytettynä oli tärkeä henkilö.
Kirjan niminovelli on myös kohtuullinen ja kertoo miehestä, jonka pakkomielle kirjastonhoitajaan saa draamaattisen lopputuloksen.
“Rakkaudesta se hevonenkin raiskaa”, on suomalaistettu versio Steubenvillen raiskaustapauksesta, jossa suositut urheilijanuorukaiset selviävät raiskauksesta ja uhri syyllistetään. Suomalaiseen kulttuuriin siirrettynä tarina ei oikein tuntunut toimivan, ei täällä jokin junnujoukkue ja sen maine koko paikkakuntaa kiinnostaisi.
“Kuolema ramoviisuissa” on taas kirjan paremmasta päästä, siinä alkoholiin menevän Ramones-yhteyttä fanittavan seurueen yksi jäsen kuolee. Vahingossa? Tai sitten ei.

“Surunsaari” on enemmän ilmeisesti nuorisolle tarkoitettu yksinkertainen tarina, jossa yksi mökkeilevistä koululaisista katoaa ja löytyy sitten onnellisesti epätodennäköisten sattumien jälkeen. Ei todellakaan mikään erityisen hyvä kertomus.

Myös “Möykky” on raiskaukseen liittyvä tarina. Siinä pulska, huonolla itsetunnolla varustettu, hiukan yksinkertainen siivooja saa voimaa siitä, että fiksu toimistopäällikkö edes huomaa hänet, vaikka on juuri tullut raiskatuksi ja sairastunut imusolmukesyöpään. Jossain määrin naiivi tarina.
“Metsänpeitto” on ilmeisesti yritys jonkinlaiseen kauhukertomukseen, mutta äärimmäisen ärsyttävä ja äärimmäisen typerä ja “blondi” päähenkilö kyllä pilaa tarinan. Lopun paljastus poikaystävästä oli myös tarpeettoman tuntuinen ja ihan puuntakaa tullut jippo vain jippoilun vuoksi.
“Sukellus”-tarinassa pitäisi uskoa, että ilmeisesti ihan tervepäinen keski-ikäinen nainen olisi koko elämänsä kuvitellut meritähtien olevan taruolentoja? Oikeasti? Tämä tuhoaa kohtalaisen hyvin tapahtuneen tarinankuljetuksen “loppuhuipennuksena” täydellisesti.
”Joulupukin suudelma” on Hilja Ilveskero-tarina, joten sitä lähtee jo lukemaan hiukan karvat pystyssä. Sinällään juttu on ihan kohtalainen, mutta näyttää olevan tämä muka amerikkalaisen etsiväopiston ammattilainen ihan yhtä taitamaton kuin siinä ensimmäisessä romaanissakin. Ja jos miespuolinen etsivä olisi yllättäen ja melkein puoliväkisin suudellut konnaa, jonka oli juuri hetkeä aikaisemmin päästänyt pinteestä ja pakoon ilmaan poliisille ilmoitamista, niin me too, me too. Loppu pilasi taas muuten suunnilleen tyydyttävästi menneen kertomuksen.
Toinen Hilja Ilveskero tarina on ”Valkoinen poro”. Tarinassa yksityisetsivä on auttamassa rikasta bisnesnaista, jonka poikaystävä on kidnappattu. Poikaystävä on tyhjätasku, joka oli ollut niin “virkistävän erilainen” kuin ylempien yhteiskuntaluokkien miehet. (tässä vaiheessa eli noin alle 2 sivua tarinaan arvasin jo kertomuksen juonen). “Ammattimainen” yksityisetsivä päästää taas kerran konnan pälkähästä, eikä edes kerro mistä on kyse kliseiselle höppänä työantajalleen (tallainen tyyppi ei mitenkään sovi ohjelmistofirman omistajaksi ja perustajaksi vaan ehkä jonkun luomukosmetiikalla huijaavan pikkufirman pomoksi paremmin). En tiedä miten ja miksi naiskirjailijan kirjoittamassa tarinassa kaikki naishahmot ovat tyhmiä kuin saappaat?
Tarina “Joulukinkkuvaras” ei yllätä tässä suhteessa. Siinä köyhä yksinhuoltajaäiti näkee miehen varastavan joulukinkun, mutta ei kerro tästä myymälän henkilökunnalle. Myöhemmin hän panikoi rajusti sitä, että varas tekisi jotain hänelle, kun tämä vielä osoittautuu tyttären kaverin isäksi. En oikein hahmota logiikkaa tämän pelon takana.
Viimeisessä tarinassa, "Kolme Joosefia", puliukkojengin mukana asunut teinityttö tulee raskaaksi ja pääsee metsässä asumisesta pois, mutta ystävälliset puliukot edelleen tukevat häntä tulevassa äitiydessä. Ja viinan lopettaminen onnistui tuosta vain ja lopussa annetaan ymmärtää, että lapsi tietenkin on terve eikä kärsi FAS-oireesta. Jee! Oi jospa se olisi niin helppoa ja leppoista.

Aika heikkotasoiseksi jäävä kokoelma, jossa oikeastaan eniten hämmästyttää se, että miten naiskirjailija voi kirjoittaa naisista näin naiiveja, tyhmiä ja yksiulotteisia.

327 s.

Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, November 1971

A pretty bad issue with not so good stories.


And Silently Vanish Away • novelette by Glen M. Bever [as by Glen Bever]
A research faculty has been developing a serum for teleporting. Now they have apparently succeeded: At least there are rats winking out from one place and appearing at another. Unfortunately, they are not sure what the effective formula was. And Chinese and Russian agents want to get their hands on the invention. There is a LOT of scheming and planning, and that is the main point of the story. A pretty bad story which hasn’t hold its time, with a very implausible PSI invention with a bad overly long and boring story arch. ***-
Compulsion Worse Confounded • short story by Rob Chilson [as by Robert Chilson]
A company plans to market synthetic food. There is a computer that controls inventory and investments, and it is malfunctioning because wrong type of questions have been asked of it. A dull, unimpressive story that is extremely hard to remember even though I just read it a few days ago. **½
The Old Man of Ondine • novelette by Terrence MacKann
Ondine is a nice water planet with a comfortable climate. Immunization shots to prevent mental illnesses have been in use for years, but there appears to be a man with schizophrenia. Who is the man? Why is he sick? And a merchant spaceship captain has a cargo of dried fish powder that has toxic contaminants to deal with. The story has a lot of exposition (with a lot of parentheses) and pretty clunky writing. It's a fairly stupid and dull story. **+
Hierarchies (Part 2 of 2) • [Interstellar Security] • serial by John T. Phillifent
Continues an earlier story. Two men are transporting an invaluable artifact to be studied. They have a rare animal, and its caretaker with them as a smokescreen of sorts. The caretaker is a woman who is very beautiful, but she has a grating voice, so surely, she must be very stupid. After the first part, I was hoping that readers would have been misdirected, that the woman would turn out to be something extraordinary who would completely humiliate the men. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. After some contrived and stupid adventures, it turns out that the woman’s eidetic memory has been used for spying, but, yes, she is pretty simpleminded. But at least she gets some voice coaching at the end, and everything turns out fine; so she is someone worth pursuing, after all. It is just as stupid a story as it sounds. The first part, in which there was something to hope for, was better. **½
Holding Action • short story by Andrew M. Stephenson
A visitor from the past arrives. His questions are not answered, and he is detained as soon as possible. There have been several other visitors from the past, but none have returned. The time traveler is quickly imprisoned, and a force field that prevents his return is raised. Why such harsh treatment? Future is afraid that their timeline is contaminated by wars of the past. The story is not bad, but nothing is really surprising in the story. ***
The Nothing Venireman One • short story by W. Macfarlane
The story feels like part of a series, but at least according to the www.isfdb.org, it isn’t. There is a scant backstory. There were some sort of agents and apparently there were some trade negotiations, and some scheming and so on. And everything turns out all right after some adventures and witty remarks. The story felt very confusing, boring, hard to get into, and easy to forget. **-

Olli Jalonen: Taivaanpallo

Tuorein Finlandia-voittaja oli taas luettavana.
Tällä kertaa kyseessä oli historiallinen romaani, joka ei liity Suomeen millään tavoin, eikä Suomea tai suomalaisuutta mainita sanallakaan. Romaani kertoo St. Helenin saarelta kotoisin olevan nuoren pojan elämästä muutamien vuosia ajalta. Poika on tutustunut tähtitieteilijä Edmond Halleyhin, kun tämä on ollut tekemässä saarella havaintoja. Tämä antoi pojalla muutamia havainnointitehtäviä tehtäviksi poistuttuaan itse saarelta. Näihin tehtäviin poika suhtautui äärimmäisen vakavasti vuosien ajan ja piti tarkkaa kirjapitoa siitä mitä havaitsi. Saaren elämä muuttuu levottomaksi ja riskialttiiksi kun paineet protestanttien ja katollismieleisten välillä lisääntyvät ja saaren kuvernööri käyttäytyy yhä itsevaltaisemmin. Poika onnistuu äitinsä ja paikallisen pastorin tuella karkaamaan saarelta ja hakeutumaan uudelleen tri Halleyn palvelukseen Englannissa.
Kirja oli hienolla kielellä kirjoitettu eräänlaisena tajunnanvirtana nuoren pojan ajatuksia. Tässä tapauksessa tajunnanvirtaisuus ei kuitenkaan tarkoita vaikealukuisuutta kuten usein, vaan kaikkea muuta; kirja oli aavistuksenomaisen alkutakeltelun jälkeen erittäin luettava ja mukaansatempaava. Näkökulman on käytännössä koko ajan lapsen, joka ei aina ihan tiedosta mitä ympärillä tapahtuu, vaikka näitä tapahtumia kuvaakin, ja toisaalta lapsi ottaa rajutkin kokemukset vain aika luonnollisina osina elämäänsä juuttumatta niihin sen kummemmin. Kirjan taustalla ovat historialliset henkilöt ja tapahtumat ja lukiessa Wikipediaa tuli selailtua taustatietojen selventämiseksi useaan kertaan. Kokonaisuutena kirja oli elämys, ja sitä piti jopa hiukan jarrutella lukiessa, ettei se loppuisi lian pian, toisaalta pelkäsin hiukan loppua ja että siinä tapahtuisi jotain dramaattista. Ei olisi ollut syytä: loppu oli täysin tyydyttävä.

The winner of the latest Finlandia award is strangely a book which has nothing to do with Finland. It is a historical novel about astronomer Edmond Halley and about a young boy he encountered during his trip to the island of St Helena in 1676. The story is told as a sort of stream of consciousness by the boy. In spite of that, the book was extremely readable and enjoyable telling a good story with a background of real historical events.


461 s.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, January-February 2019

A worse than average issue. There were many too short stories which didn't explore their subjects well enough - some weren't really stories at all, but rather just short scenes of a larger tale.


Ring Wave • novelette by Tom Jolly
An asteroid has hit Earth and has destroyed it. Thousands of people have escaped in fast built simple metal shells which the ripple effect of the hit has flung into space. (I don’t believe for a second that would be possible - at least the G-forces would have been far too high). A young woman has survived the first few minutes and is in space. But there are some serious threats, including “pirates” who ruthlessly want to steal everything they can get their hands on. But not everyone is a bad person. A very hard to believe scenario, some very stupid actions by the protagonist, but the story isn’t bad. ***½
Love in the Time of Immuno-Sharing • short story by Andy Dudak
There have been several plagues of different sorts and one of them has made it possible to make “immuno-love” - whatever that exactly means (it is pretty poorly defined in the story). That apparently helps to battle infections and a high immuno-divergence is something which is sought. Normal sex is considered to be at best a bit old fashioned and at worst somewhat deviant. The writing and storytelling aim at weirdness: neither really worked for me. **½
A Message from Our Sponsor • short story by J. T. Sharrah
A psychologist has lost his clients as the ad agencies market so heavily over the counter drugs that no one uses psychological help anymore. (Strangely, that assumes that those drugs are amazingly effective). Most of his colleagues have gone to work for ad agencies (strangely, that assumes that clinical psychiatrists could effectively evaluate such things). He finds that his dreams now contain advertisements (by the way, strangely, his home automation contains mechanical clicking relays and is illuminated with light bulbs and phones have no caller id).
The psychologist calls his lawyer friend to fight the dream ads. The story has a very strong very old vibe in it - only a few weeks ago I read a forty- or fifty-years old story where a psychiatrist had run out of work due to medicines and this story also feels like it could have been written in the fifties or sixties. ***-
The Last Squirrel Keeper • short story by Shane Halbach
A human spaceship has been destroyed near an alien planet. Humans and some of their animals have survived and have co-operated with the inhabitants of the planet. Humans and animals, all but one man and one squirrel, have died out. The man lives alone until one young enthusiastic alien comes to meet him. A very short but very nice and warm story. ***½
All the Smells in the World • short story by Julie Novakova
A company tries to create smelling for virtual reality. They use transcranial magnetic stimulation, but it has an unintended side effect on the test subject. A very short story, ok as such, but the effects should have been explored a bit more. ***
The Umwelt of the Shark • short story by John Alfred Taylor
People use a sort of virtual reality system to experience what it is like to be an animal. Many get so hooked on it that the tech is apparently treated like a dangerous, addictive drug. There is a police bust on a virtual reality “cave”. A short piece, more of a scene than a real story. ***-
Forever • short story by Mary Soon Lee
A rich man wants to live forever. He dumps his husband as he doubts if it sensible to use several millions on that goal. Later, after a botched treatment, the rich man seeks out his former husband. The story is far too short and sketch-like, there is no emotional involvement whatsoever for either of the characters. **½
The Narrowest Eye • short story by Howard V. Hendrix
Continues an earlier story. Earth is seemingly a utopia, all problems have been solved, there is universal health care, the environment is in fine shape, there is free wage enough for a basic living for everyone, but is everyone just a computer-controlled puppet? More sightseeing in the future world than an actual story, not as good as the earlier part. ***-
Applied Linuistics • short story by Auston Habershaw
An amorphous alien who isn’t even really sentient functions as a waste disposal for a prison planet. A single prisoner starts to feed it and slowly teaches it to think and eventually speak. It has a mind of a predator and scavenger, though. A very good story which might even be seen as a sort of prelude for Thing. A pretty good story, well told. Waiting for the next (hopefully longer) part. ****-
A Civilization Dreams of Absolutely Nothing • novelette by Thoraiya Dyer
A planet is threatened by constant meteors, as two planets of the solar system have collided and caused a massive amount of debris to fall down as meteorites. The aliens are very interesting, they are able to choose which memories to retain and which to lose. They also are able to connect to each other electronically and during sleep. They are able to use combined brain power of the whole species for computations. But there is a planet made of dark matter approaching. What to do? Will it be the final destruction of their world? The aliens are interesting, but the story itself was very irritating and science sounded stupid beyond belief. The planet is supposed to be on the edge of the galaxy, and there is nothing, not even photons, in the “vacuum” of intergalactic space. Also, a new, completely unrelated threat so soon after one cataclysmic event? Is there a superior species which wanted to destroy them or what? The solution was also pretty iffy - 3D printing dark matter which doesn’t interact with normal matter in any other way than gravity? With what? The social relations between aliens were also extremely human - no real alienness there. ***-
Lulu's Friends • short story by Aimee Ogden
A chimpanzee is asked for consent before a medical experiment. A very short “story”. **½
Temple of Children • short story by Jennifer R. Povey
Teen children disappear on an alien planet. The aliens have a completely different life and sex cycle from humans. Aliens were supposed to be almost on the same technological level as humans, but they still behave unreasonably stupidly. Otherwise ok, but an extremely short story. ***
Soft We Wake • short story by S. B. Divya
A man who was cryogenically preserved has awakened. He is still in the resurrection faculty and doesn’t really know what to do, as the future is radically different from his time. Short, simple and nothing which hasn’t been seen dozens of times before. The writing was ok, though. ***
Fingers • short story by Frederick Gero Heimbach
A family lives in the wilderness as they have escaped the “fingers” which grow through anything and cannot be destroyed. A new family comes to live nearby them. It seems the fingers are nanotechnology. Not bad, but one more story in this issue which was too short - the characters were undeveloped - as was the plot. ***
The Fading Pages of a Short Story • short story by Bud Sparhawk
An elderly science fiction author is losing his memory. His children are worried, but his doctor states that it is just normal aging and certainly not Alzheimer’s (Normal aging my ass - they should have changed doctors, at least this neurologist thinks that the symptoms described in the story CERTAINLY are not normal aging). They are considering memory augmentation with a new medical aid developed for the purpose, but it will be expensive and the author doesn’t really see the need for it as he is in denial about the symptoms (a classic feature of organic brain malfunction). There were some good ideas and the relationship between the siblings was interesting, but everything was far too short, the story didn’t really get going at any part. And the end just fizzled out. ***+
A Place to Stand on • short story by Marie Vibbert
A woman who is welding a structure floating in clouds of Venus must climb a balloon which has sprung a leak. A very ordinary “let’s rescue our vehicle” story, really nothing which hasn’t been seen hundreds of times. ***-
The View from Proxima Centauri • novelette by Susan Pieters
Radio emissions have been detected from Proxima Centauri. It hasn’t been possible to decipher them but it was assumed (with really bad reasoning apparently with some very faulty premises) to be generated by aliens. A ship with two passengers is sent to the planet. The radio noise unsurprisingly turns out to be natural phenomena. The earthlings study the planet for a while (and cultivate viruses in glucose :-) - “slightly” iffy science there) and then leave. A story that is too short without much of a point and most of the characters don’t seem very smart somehow. ***-
The Savannah Problem Novella by Adam-Troy Castro
Continues an earlier story. Daikon, a former spy/killer, is still trying to find his former employers as they might have a method of programming people to do everything they wish. A very slow moving story, which is almost all setup. Little happens and mundane details are described in mind-numbing detail. For example, setting a simple explosive charge takes more than half a page and a few hundred words and has no relation to the plot and little to the story. The end was pretty good, but it took far too much time to get there. It seems that every installment of this series is told in a more verbose, slow way, with less actual plot happening. ***-