Armada by Ernest Cline

Armada by Ernest Cline-349 pages

I enjoyed reading this, though not as much as Ready Player One, although it may be unfair to compare it to Ready Player One since it is really good. As with Ready Player One, I really enjoyed Cline's mentions of and allusions to other sci-fi films, video games, and novels. I also liked his inclusions of many popular/famous scientists and celebrities. Armada is filled with the same witty, readable prose as Ready Player One, but I connected with the plot of Ready Player One more. While I think it would be kind of cool to be thrust into a real-life scenario of one of my favorite video games, it could also be kind of creepy and terrible. Armada is based on a cool, yet freaky premise but I just can't help but compare it to Ready Player One (fair or not) and it falls short.

Twinmakers by Sean Williams

Twinmakers by Sean Williams, 490

Creatively written teen sci-fi novel laced in dystopia. People are dying/disappearing when they try to improve their looks. Weird transports that smack of Star Trek whisk people from place to place. Then they change and are no more than a shadow of their former self. With AIs ruling the world, so much can happen. An excellent read, unfortunately no pictures would paste into the blog so you'll just have to search the shelves for a copy.

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie --- 356 pages

The second in a projected trilogy, Ancillary Sword clearly demonstrates Ann Leckie is no one shot author but a force to be reckoned with in science fiction. In the sequel to Leckie's debut novel Ancillary Justice (which won just about every major award in science fiction last year), she takes a closer look at one space station and planetary society in Radchaai space; moving from a macrocosm to a microcosm approach.

Breq, the ancillary (corpse soldier) was once the AI of the warship Justice of Toren, inhabiting the bodies of thousands of ancillaries and serving the will of the supreme ruler Anaander Mianaai. When her commanding officer, Lieutenant Awn, stumbled onto a secret about the supreme ruler, Anaander Mianaai ordered Breq to execute Awn and Breq was compelled by her programming to obey. Afterward, to cover up this crime, Anaander Mianaai organized the annihilation of Justice of Toren and all its human officers and ancillaries --- but Breq escaped. Stripped of all her resources, Breq begins her quest: justice for Lieutenant Awn, and healing for herself.

In the climax of Ancillary Justice, Breq confronts the tyrant Anaander Mianaai. But Anaander confounds Breq by taking her into her confidence, giving her a new identity, Fleet Commander of Mercy of Kalr, and a new assignment, to protect the inhabitants of Atheok Station and the planet Atheok as the struggle between opposing factions of Anaander Mianaai multiple selves threatens to destroy the three-thousand-year-old Imperium.

And Breq, angry and unwilling, accepts the assignment --- because Lieutenant Awn's younger sister is an inhabitant of Atheok Station, the one person who could, if she would, absolve Breq of some of the burden of grief and guilt she carries.

Ann Leckie is a St. Louis author and one of the most original and intelligent writers of speculative fiction around.  High recommended! Volume 3, Ancillary Mercy, is due out in 2015.

Click HERE to read an inteview with Ann Leckie from Library Journal.

Click HERE and HERE and HERE for reviews of Ancillary Sword.

Find Ann Leckie's web site HERE.

Robogenesis by Daniel H. Wilson

Robogenesis by Daniel H. Wilson - 362 pages

In the first book "Robopocalypse" mankind thought they had defeated the rogue artificial intelligence known as Archos and were now being faced with having to rebuild a world devastated through insurrection by technology that was originally meant to help us.  An intelligence framed by millions of lines of machine code though is very hard to kill and numerous threats still remain.  Continuing the style of the first book, the narrative is a series of first person reports from a wide cast of characters both human and mechanical and even hybrid.  Fans of dystopian future books, Battlestar Galactica, and the Terminator series will find a lot to like in this series.     

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie --- 396 pages

St. Louis author Ann Leckie has hit the big time with her first published novel. Ancillary Justice has won numerous science fiction awards, including two of the "Big Three" --- The Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Nebula Award; and in August she is up for the third, the Hugo Award. No author has ever won all three of these prestigious awards, and only a very few have won two of them.

Ancillary Justice is a brilliant, intelligent space opera and the protagonist, Breq, is strong, vulnerable, cynical and idealistic, on a quest for vengeance and in search of redemption. Her story is both epic in scale and intensely personal, and Leckie manages to balance all these disparate parts and dance like an angel on the head of a pin. It's a polished performance and not surprisingly, it took years in the making. Leckie is now hard at work on a sequel, Ancillary Sword. If you are a fan of Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Margaret Atwood, or the late, lamented Kage Baker, then give Ann Leckie a try.

Click HERE for the NPR review of Ancillary Justice.

Click HERE for a Riverfront Times profile of Ann Leckie.

click HERE for a discussion of gender ambiguities in Leckie's universe from Slate.com.