Miri

Supernova Era by Cixin Liu, translated by Joel Martinsen
Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)
Genre: science fiction
Read 20 in 2020 Challenge category: book by an author from Africa, Asia, or Oceania
Review: The premise behind this book is really interesting.  Essentially, it posits that a supernova gives everyone over the age of 13 radiation poisoning, and they all die.  Only children 13 and under are left in the world.  It's like Miri, a Star Trek episode from 1966, except on a global scale, and with a full-length novel to flesh out the idea.  Unfortunately, the execution doesn't fulfill the promise of the idea.  We can argue whether a children's world would really turn into a "Candytown" free-for-all, or if children would really start massive war games over Antarctica, with actual casualties.  I didn't find either very likely, but I respect the imaginative process that went into creating those scenarios.  My problem was that the writing/translation is very clunky, making the children's world hard to read about, even if I could get behind the ideas.

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

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.

the sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Latchkey by Nicole Kornher-Stace
Genre: science fiction
Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)
Review: Isabel has some serious wounds, but then there's a big fight, so she just has to power through.  Then the ceiling falls in (literally), but the ghost helps her.  Then she's even more wounded, but there's another big fight, so she continues to power through.  Then the ceiling falls in, again (literally - Isabel's in a network of underground tunnels), but the ghost helps her again.  Then she and the ghost are both in trouble, but the gears click in her mind and she figures out a solution, which is totally risky and probably won't work, but it's their only chance... annnnd it works, and they live to have the ceiling fall in on them again (literally).  Meanwhile, there's like a mystery, and some feelings, and Isabel keeps falling into the ghost-place and no-one knows why, and people fighting aboveground too, and it's really just a big mess.  But Isabel is undaunted - actually, that's a lie, she's totally daunted, but she knows the fate of ... everything? ... is at stake.

There, now you don't have to read the book.

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

couldn't care less

The Feed by Nick Clark Windo
Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)
Genre: science fiction
Review: Imagine that we have allowed the Internet to literally take over our brains, so that we don't even need to think about wanting information or remembering anything.  Everything we could ever want to know or remember is simply available with the hint of a thought question.  But what happens when "the Feed" collapses?  Supposedly, that's the question behind this book, but the real story takes place 6 years after "the Collapse" and we only see glimpses of the immediate aftermath.  We're to understand, though, that many people were so completely undone by the lack of the Feed that they couldn't function and died.  This premise is believable, since the Feed stored everyone's memories of everything and had even supplanted most verbal language.  So fine, population decimated, cities ruined, everyone left majorly traumatized, ok.  But Tom and Kate have found a haven, though a tenuous one, with a few other survivors.  That's all background.

The story really begins, or at least I think it's supposed to really begin when Tom and Kate's daughter is kidnapped and they go off in search of her.  Except that all that really happens is that they walk.  A lot.  Don't get me wrong, things do happen, some of them fairly dramatic, except the drama feels like mere blips in a boring landscape, and is so disconnected from everything else that I couldn't bring myself to care much about what was going on.

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