sole survivor

Relic by Alan Dean Foster
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
Genre: science fiction
Review: Ruslan is the last human survivor.  Having been rescued by the Myssari, he is resigned to spending the rest of his long life with them, being treated very well, but no less a specimen of his doomed race for all that, as he reminds the reader at least once in nearly every chapter.  For all its repetitiveness on this subject, this is good science fiction.  It's got everything from technology and alien worlds and cultures (and clashes), and the ultimate question of whether humanity can be resurrected will keep you reading until the very end.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

I hope the movie is better

I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: science fiction, YA
Challenge: 100 Book Challenge 2011, 2011 Page to Screen Reading Challenge
Review: I don't generally find that the movie is better than the book. I don't think I've ever suspected that the movie will be better than the book based only on reading the book and before the movie has even been released. But I think (hope) that that's the case here.

The premise of this book is really interesting (which is why I picked it up in the first place), but the execution left something to be desired. The language can be a little stilted, and some of the scenes seemed virtually scripted for a movie. Also, the author's name is clearly a conceit (Pittacus Lore is actually named in the book as a Lorien elder), which is especially annoying because there was no pay-off to it. Maybe that'll come in the rest of the series.

So, I'll probably see this movie when it comes out, and I probably will read the rest of the books in the series as they come out. But I'll do it only out of curiosity to see whether a good story can be made out of this good premise, because it surely hasn't been done yet.

just a little unbalanced

Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: science fiction

Review: Good science fiction is more about the characters than the science. And this is good science fiction. Unfortunately, Kress goes a little overboard in weighting the book toward the characters (sometimes less human drama is more), but this is still a very interesting story. Kress presents a familiar question (what comes after death) and answers it in a unique way, without taking any of the various moralistic routes a less skilled author might have.