THE FIST OF MEMORY, first contact in near-future Nigeria

THE FIST OF MEMORY
WOLE TALABI
DAW Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: A strange alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the sky in this electrifying, action-packed first contact novel set in near-future Nigeria from award-winning author Wole Talabi

A hard science-fiction novel featuring an assassin-for-hire, a witchdoctor, and an astronomer, this fast-paced thriller is perfect for fans of Arrival.

When a non-communicative alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the sky, global powers are thrown into turmoil.

But for Tope, a principled Nigerian assassin with a talent for lethality in the employ of the mysterious witchdoctor known as "Baba," it’s all just business as usual. At least until a job goes wrong, and Tope is caught in the scramble—a high stakes game of power and politics for the future that is to come. Joined by Itumeleng, a South African astronomer plagued by mysterious dreams, they must find a way to survive, navigate their complicated pasts, and come to understand how they, and all of humanity, are connected to the alien craft before it lands and the world changes forever. But it won’t be easy. There are sinister forces marshalled against them, including a strange assassin obsessed with a single memory.

The Fist Of Memory is a first contact thriller unlike any other; a meditation on the nature of reality, memory and connectedness.

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My Review: I enjoy hearing an author's idea of alienness directly from the aliens, à la Leckie's Radch. I didn't think Leckie's books were worthy of their worshipful hype. Author Wole intruduces his aliens, the Irunmole, as they are in the Kuiper Belt en route to Earth:

The Irunmole awaken to the glorious, manifold touch of the universe.
Rousing, they take stock of themselves; the curve of their stone-skinned cylindrical hull, the emitters and sensors and thrusters, the steady hum of their zero-point engine as it hungrily consumes the vibrational energies from the infinite ocean of fundamental wave fields around them. They are the ship, embodied in its every circuit and panel and processor. A cosmic altar, an interstellar archive, an immortal memory. As responses in the affirmarive come in, myriad signals dancing electric along a variety of signal waveforms, the Irunmole gradually increase the level of their active consciousness, projecting it outward, certain that nothing has been damaged on the long voyage.

It's a terrific way to put me mise-en-scène. I'm fresh to this story, don't know what my PoV voices are about yet, need to be led into this reality before I can feel connected to the story so I get time in the Irunmole ship/being(s) to hear them, to feel their immense difference from monadic me.

What are the Irunmole doing? We only know they're in the Kuiper Belt because the chapter title says so, they could be anywhere, anytime, on their way or arriving to or from any location in the universe. But two words..."Kuiper Belt"...pin us into a place albeit one we humans have never seen, not in any detail, not to need or to generate mental images, like the Irunmole themself we're only oriented because we're aware but not familiar with a space by title.

It's subtle. It fixes the subject of the book. Technology sufficiently advanced, all that jazz, meeting the numinous, the stuff of magic itself, in "consciousness." And so we begin with imaginations tempted, lured into firing our sparkplugs igniting primitive fuel producing power and pollution that obscures the reality of what's occurring. We don't know what that is but feel its immanence.

Now, cruelly, I need to stop telling you about this read because I found it crucial to my experience of this story to enter it only knowing we're going into First Contact territory, we're going into that with an enlightened soul who wants the enlightenment to leave him alone, and it's happening in Africa.

I *hate* when reviewers do that coy thing of "find out for yourself so you'll get the rush, the enlightenment will pound your head on the sands and leave you gasping." If you want to cheat, find out a little too much, here's the author on YouTube so you can click your chance at experiencing the Moment for yourself.

I'll note that I'm disappointed in you for being greedy, and that *I* watched Agranoff's podcast *after* I read the book; you do you, though.

Exploring the spiritual roles of seers and the practical roles of doers, the way that societies apportion attention and what that does to what is and can be seen, what violence used to do something (Ahanna) not simply get something (Tope), is what makes the human parts of the unfolding First Contact so deeply compelling to read for my "colonial empires were still a thing in my teens" self. Even "wrong" serves...the Irunmole, in arriving at Earth and choosing to form contact with a Nigerian sets the culture of SF on its ear...this most resolutely colonizer-centered genre of writing seen in the US as by and for white men follows a Nigerian hitwoman and a Nigerian astrophysicist as well as seer in close third person through a technothriller I crave seeing on a big screen while the Irunmole are...where? how do we know they're there from astronomical data? Because Itumeleng is not only an astrophysicist he's an ancestral line of seers' scion and try as he might he can't unsee.

It's heady philosophical stuff. I think telling the story in alternating third-person PoVs is as good a choice as was available for a story this kinetic, this visual, with a very seriously brain-bending ending. I'm proffering five stars the same way award shows proffer statuettes or bouquets of exquisite color and size.

ON EARTH AS IT IS ON TELEVISION, weirdly funny first-contact debut novel

ON EARTH AS IT IS ON TELEVISION
EMILY JANE
Hyperion Avenue (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In Emily Jane’s rollicking debut, when spaceships arrive and then depart suddenly without a word, the certainty that we are not alone in the universe turns to intense uncertainty as to our place within it.

Since long before the spaceships’ fleeting presence, Blaine has been content to go along with the whims of his supermom wife and half-feral, television-addicted children. But when the kids blithely ponder skinning people to see if they’re aliens, and his wife drags them all on a surprise road trip to Disney World, even steady Blaine begins to crack.

Half a continent away, Heather floats in a Malibu pool and watches the massive ships hover overhead. Maybe her life is finally going to start. For her, the arrival heralds a quest to understand herself, her accomplished (and oh-so-annoying) stepfamily, and why she feels so alone in a universe teeming with life.

Suddenly conscious and alert after twenty catatonic years, Oliver struggles to piece together his fragmented, disco-infused memories and make sense of his desire to follow a strange cat on a westward journey.

Embracing the strangeness that is life in the twenty-first century, On Earth as It Is on Television is a rollicking, heartfelt tale of first contact that practically leaps off the planet.

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My Review: I think laughing is a gift I'll never take for granted again. 2025 has given me few reasons to laugh. This 2023 title was one that got to be more and more fun as I read along.

Despite the c-a-ts being the first-contacting aliens' favorite Earthlings. No way could this climb past four stars after that extremely bad authorial decision.

Though playing the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic for laffs, like they commissioned Michael Zadoorian to observe the results of the visit for a report, is *almost* enough, as the aliens arrive, depart, and pretty much act like indifferent tourists on a cruise. The Earthlings left in their wake are befuddled, asking all sorts of questions, but none the wiser as to the aliens' purpose in visiting Earth.

It sorta doesn't matter. The point of humor is to look at things that seem absurd, but are genuinely important...sometimes profound. This story isn't quite profound, but it's important: We need a perspective check. Maybe aliens exist, maybe they're too far away in time and/or space to "hear" us, or maybe they're fully aware of us and just don't care.

That hurts a lot of peoples' feelings, but if aliens exist (I think spacefaring ones don't), I'll be completely unsurprised if they, like Jane's aliens, aren't much interested in humanity as it acts the fool, messes up its room, defies reason in the name of spurious "personal autonomy," and generally behaves like spoiled, perspectiveless adolescents with too much free time.

A summertime read with enough interesting ideas to make it more than empty reading calories while delivering the sugar rush of humor to keep your mind from processing the nutritious stuff in the moment.

FATHER'S DAY FAST ONES: Two new Adrian Tchaikovsky novels, SHROUD and BEE SPEAKER

BEE SPEAKER (Dogs of War #3)
ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY
Head of Zeus—an AdAstra Book (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$29.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From the Arthur C. Clarke award winner, Adrian Tchaikovsky, comes the third instalment of the DOGS OF WAR science fiction series, a future where genetically engineered “Bioforms” have inherited not the Earth, but the Solar System.

The end of the world has been and gone.

There was no one great natural disaster, no all-consuming world war, no catastrophic pandemic. Only scores of storms, droughts, and selfish regional conflicts. Humanity was not granted a heroic end. Instead, it bled to death from a thousand cuts.

But where Earth fell apart, Mars pulled together. Engineered men and beasts, aided by Bees – an outlawed distributed intelligence—survived through co-operation, because there was simply no alternative.

Fast forward to today. A signal—'For the sake of what once was. We beg you. Help.'—reaches Mars.

How could they refuse? A consortium of Martian work crews gather the resources for a mission: a triumphal return to the blue-green world of their ancestors. And now here they are—three hundred million kilometres from home.

And it has all already gone horribly wrong.

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My Review: This one will require you to go to the bookstore. It is worth it. If Dad's already read the first two books, it's a no-brainer...of course he wants this one. If he is a fan of Author Adrian's work, getting all three is a slightly pricier alternative, but about 97% probability of being a huge hit.

If he hasn't read the first two novels, though, this is set in their medium-term future, and requires no knowledge not given in the narrative here to understand what's going on. I've read both previous books and didn't feel it was a huge advantage; more a mild fillip of some extra fun to be had.

Four Martians respond to the Old Homestead's pretty vague plea for help. The story has chapters the way a ham has calories...lots and lots and all distributed in tasty hunks of richly marbled language. There are multiple PoVs, nine in all. Each one is moving the story...about the way the kindest intentions get deeply enmeshed in very challenging realities of human fallibility...and oftentimes in ways that aren't supposed to be funny, but are.

If your Dad is like me, deeply suspicious of any kind of AGI that pretends to infallibility or omniscience, then this is a great series to hook him on. Nothing about Bees, the Martian distributed consciousness (AGI rebranded), long ago banished from the severely collapsing Earth, is infallible, though it is good-hearted. The crisis of climate collapse is one Bees can definitely help remediate, you'd think, that being part of Bees' memories; but centuries on Mars have overlaid a lot of unhelpful knowledge. The Martian bioforms are such a great idea, and you *know* I approve of intelligent dog-forms! Their terrestrial rescuees are the usual lot of mired-in-muck religious nuts, feudal static thinkers who need help but only want it to look like their idea of a perfect present, and passive whiners. Al the Martians are oddly indulgent IMO. I'd've kicked ass, banged heads...but these rescuers really seem to try to stay helpful.

Ultimately, I'd give this to Dad because the very human-Dadly thing of needing to Fix It, to Help and to Serve a Purpose, all get a strong run. I enjoyed the story, I didn't feel it was tacked onto the end of a duology (a critique I saw that I found particularly unfair...it's been two hundred years since Bear Head so of course things changed!), and the overarching critique of flawed, fallible humanity was challenging but not bleak.

A lot like being a Dad.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

SHROUD
ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY
Orbit Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$19.99 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An utterly gripping story of alien encounter and survival from Adrian Tchaikovsky, author of the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning Children of Time.

They looked into the darkness and the darkness looked back . . .

New planets are fair game to asset strippers and interplanetary opportunists—and a commercial mission to a distant star system discovers a moon that is pitch black, but alive with radio activity. Its high-gravity, high-pressure, zero-oxygen environment is anathema to human life, but ripe for exploitation. They named it Shroud.

Under no circumstances should a human end up on Shroud’s inhospitable surface. Except a catastrophic accident sees Juna Ceelander and Mai Ste Etienne doing just that. Forced to stage an emergency landing, in a small, barely adequate vehicle, they are unable to contact their ship and are running out of time. What follows is a gruelling journey across land, sea and air. During this time, Juna and Mai begin to understand Shroud’s dominant species. It also begins to understand them . . .

If they escape Shroud, they’ll face a crew only interested in profiteering from this extraordinary world. They’ll somehow have to explain the impossible and translate the incredible. That is, if they make it back at all.

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My Review: A stand-alone story by a genre stalwart? Make the trip to the bookstore! A story where the aliens on a truly unnerving world are actually more humane than the humans' own bosses? Perfect for Dad on his special day, especially if he's not retired yet. Talk about living in hope....

Hope feels like a luxury to the women trying not to die on a moon whose every physical parameter seems purpose-built to kill them. (Of course it was—this is a novel.) These two women are put in a terrible place to determine if Shroud, the human name for their likely grave-place, has economic value to their corporation.

Author Adrian is not the biggest supporter of the capitalist world we live in. I knew I loved him for a reason.

As the constraints of Shroud bind their actions and options ever-tighther, their gynergy and their willingness to think outside the training and the constructs of their society coupled with Shroud's life form's desire to communicate with these utterly alien things meet and merge into true First Contact. One of my favorite plot devices, that.

I think it's clear I like Author Adrian's storytelling. I want to spoiler the hell out if why in this story's case more than in Bee Speaker's case. I'm really impressed this arachnid-fancyin' fantasy writer has bent his brain to the task of making Shroud make sense without showing too much of the gearshifting tech he used to get there. Author Adrian doesn't babble his techno, and doesn't imbibe a pint of handwavium before every chapter. I find the balance of fiction to science matches my preference in this story so perfectly you can't see the seam. Unless your Dad's a physicist by trade, I'm guessing he will quite probably enjoy this balance between story told and space-world built too.

I recommend it, and get one for yourself too. Borrowing Dad's might be tough to talk him into.

THE FOURTH CONSORT, latest sci-fi funfest with a serious well-made point from Edward Ashton

THE FOURTH CONSORT
EDWARD ASHTON
St. Martin's Press (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A new standalone sci-fi novel from Edward Ashton, author of Mickey7 (the inspiration for the major motion picture Mickey 17).

Dalton Greaves is a hero. He’s one of humankind’s first representatives to Unity, a pan-species confederation working to bring all sentient life into a single benevolent brotherhood. That’s what they told him, anyway. The only actual members of Unity that he’s ever met are Boreau, a giant snail who seems more interested in plunder than spreading love and harmony, and Boreau’s human sidekick, Neera, who Dalton strongly suspects roped him into this gig so that she wouldn’t become the next one of Boreau’s crew to get eaten by locals while prospecting.

Funny thing, though—turns out there actually is a benevolent confederation out there, working for the good of all life. They call themselves the Assembly, and they really don’t like Unity. More to the point, they really, really don’t like Unity’s new human minions.

When an encounter between Boreau’s scout ship and an Assembly cruiser over a newly discovered world ends badly for both parties, Dalton finds himself marooned, caught between a stickman, one of the Assembly’s nightmarish shock troops, the planet’s natives, who aren’t winning any congeniality prizes themselves, and Neera, who might actually be the most dangerous of the three. To survive, he’ll need to navigate palace intrigue, alien morality, and a proposal that he literally cannot refuse, all while making sure Neera doesn’t come to the conclusion that he’s worth more to her dead than alive.

Part first contact story, part dark comedy, and part bizarre love triangle, The Fourth Consort asks an important how far would you go to survive? And more importantly, how many drinks would you need to go there?

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My Review: My god, what a place Author Ashton's head is. A ruthless, greedy giant snail, a human diplomat of murky ethics, a race of only vaguely comprehensible planetary natives so protocol-obsessed that it can be lethal to say "hello" in the wrong way...who also just so happen to have murderously invaded Earth in Dalton's lifetime. Oh, and Dalton's kinda coerced as a condition of not being killed to become the consort of their ruler. The fourth consort...and let's not get into why he's fourth.

Dalton's a Swiss-Army knife of a guy. He studied engineering...most practical people in the world, engineers...he was a soldier/POW in the invasion, a tech bro, and now works for a Galaxy-wide org that needs him as a first-contact specialist. You can see how this trajectory launched. Now that he's out doing the stuff he was hired by the Unity for, it's kind of a rude awakening. It always is when your principles and your training all get engaged with the messy, disorganzed systemless world. (That engineering background becoming even more valuable in these circs.)

What happens when the Great Awakening comes? When you are forced by events to re-evaluate everything that underpins your view of the world? You question yourself first, but assuming you're pretty well-educated, that answers only a fraction of your new questions. Permaybehaps you're not on the side of Right and Reason after all?

Poor Dalton's doing this questioning among people who will eat his flesh...his spirit's probably not very nourishing just at that moment locked as it is in crisis. His situation is rife with possibilities for own goals, and unsurprisingly there are a few. The thrust of the story, though, is the act of questioning the reality of your assumptions in the face of countervailing evidence. Dalton, using copious amounts of sarcasm and not a little facetiousness, has the courage to do this. It helps him, and us, that he's worked his whole adulthood troubleshooting systems. Better training for analysis I can't conjure.

The role of honor and duty is large in the story. Largely, it must be said, in its absence when most required. Dalton's got trouble on every side because of this absence among those meant to have his back. It resembles our own hypercapitalist world in this way. Dalton's troubles, I will say, are external; the struggling he does is, too, so I never felt I was with him in his sea of woe. I'm an observer of the results, not a participant in the process.

This is not a knock. The fact is I'm not here for that story, I'm here for a fun action-romp that takes me over some very interesting terrain. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Dalton navigate the choppy waters of Reality in a skiff formed of principles (his) and held together by pressures (the Unity's). The story does this job very well indeed, though with rather less characterization of side characters than I prefer (hence a missing half-star) Getting us through this plot, however, militated against the time needed being spent that way. That said, I was aware of wanting to spend more time with the second and third consorts and less with his fellow Unity operative. The other missing half-star comes from Dalton's attitude of..."kindness and acceptance" sounds better than "craven lickspittle sycophancy" doesn't it...for a character who does NOT deserve it. I get why Author Ashton made that choice but I do not agree with it to the point of getting frothingly furious at the way it plays out. I shouted at my Kindle from 97% on.

On balance, which I confess I lost along the way, I was amused and entertained by our hypercapitalist snail (as a former veggie gardener I'm here to tell you a better metaphor for the kind of greedy shit who runs an economy solely for personal gain there has never been), by the second and third consorts, and the rest of the cast...telling that I can't remember their names, eh what? (Wait, "Breaker" was one, I think.)

I devoutly hope Author Ashton's name is familiar to you by now from the film of his book Mickey7 (link to my review of it above). I thought that story was terrific. I think this story is, too, with minor reservations that do not vitiate the pleasures I found in the read.

SAVING PROXIMA, a real rocket scientist tells a first-contact story

SAVING PROXIMA
TRAVIS S. TAYLOR, LES JOHNSON
Baen Books
$25.00 hardcover, available now

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A message from space leads to a desperate race against time and across space to our nearest stellar neighbor in a new hard science fiction thriller from Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson.

THE ANSWER LIES OUT THERE

The year is 2072. At the lunar farside radio observatory, an old-school radio broadcast is detected, similar to those broadcast on Earth in the 1940s, but in an unknown language, coming from an impossible source, and originating at an equally impossible location—Proxima Centauri. While the nations of Earth debate making first contact, they learn that the Proximans are facing an extinction-level disaster, forcing a decision: will Earth send a ship on a multiyear trip to provide aid?

Interstellar travel is not easy, and by traveling at the speeds required to arrive before disaster strikes at Proxima, humans will learn firsthand the effects of Einstein’s Special Relativity and be forced to ponder the ultimate questions: Are we alone in the universe? What does it mean to be human?

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My Review: What you need to know right up front is that the authors are actual rocket scientists. So, even when there's disbelief to be suspended (the planetary science of Proxima b isn't likely to stand up to a planetary scientist's scrutiny), it's made as easy as possible to suspend.

What made me want to read the book in the first place is Author Taylor's Aughties appearances on The Universe and the like. He's got a likable way about him, and clearly understands his subject well. That and a co-author with whom he has a lot of collaborative writing experience led me to expect I'd get a second helping of the character types I'd enjoyed from an earlier collaborative book of theirs (see below). He adds his very definite personality to the stories I've read by this team. I can hear his voice as I'm reading.

As to the story, I found some parts easier to accept than others. I wasn't convinced by the means they explained away our long-term SETI searches missing the Proximans. And now, suddenly, exactly when Earth tech is stretched-but-capable of making the trip, the Proximans make themselves known? Hm. I am allergic to such high doses of handwavium....

Anyway, the story's a good old-fashioned saddle-up-and-ride tale of interstellar derring-do. I liked the science that the middle third of the book handed to us in abundance, so I don't think of it as an imposition or an infodump. For me, it was involving and intriguing. What was permaybehaps not quite so effective was the ending. I don't think it's a huge spoiler to say that the mission to Proxima b is a success...would the title be SAVING Proxima if it failed?...and that there is a reason the Proximans are so very readily able to understand us, to relate in so many ways to Earth people. The notion of panspermia is ripe for exploration in what I confidently predict will happen, ie a sequel. There's no promo for it in this book, but it honestly would be a rotten trick to play on the readers not to give us one and a poor use of the well-loved set-up if the Baen folk don't!

In my never-remotely humble opinion, this read's success depends on you. If you're in the mold of traditional sci-fi readers, those who enjoy the adventure of space travel and the science that underpins it, then this is your book. I am numbered among you, so it was mine, and I enjoyed the heck out of the read.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

ON TO THE ASTEROID
TRAVIS S. TAYLOR, LES JOHNSON
Baen Books
$6.99 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Realistic thriller crackling with action and danger as an asteroid threatens the Earth, and dedicated astronauts and scientists try to save the planet.

LOOMING DESTRUCTION FROM SPACE!

It's the beginning of a new golden age of space exploration. Finally, humanity is taking the commercialization of space to the next level—mining asteroids. The new gold rush of the commercial space era has begun.

Another commercial venture, an attempt to put a hotel on the Moon, is seeking the space tourism gold of the ultra wealthy. And it seems as if the dream of finally sending people to Mars is finally going to happen using a ship propelled by a powerful nuclear rocket.

But space travel isn’t cut and dry, and there is nothing routine about it. In order to mine an asteroid the goal is to bring it closer to Earth, but orbital mechanics are tricky and close to Earth proves to be far too close for comfort—with looming destruction from space about to become a grim reality. Now astronauts, scientists, engineers, and people in all the burgeoning space businesses must team together to stop the asteroid before it is too late for humanity and the planet it calls home.

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My Review: The authors wrote this book five years ago and here I am reviewing it at last...it was the SpaceX launch of Inspirati④n that brought it back to mind. I can honestly say that the Gold Rush into space has begun with Inspirati④n and its all-civilian crew. And that's the basic premise of this book: A crew of space capitalists are screwing with an asteroid in order to get the riches it contains close enough to Earth to profit from when it all goes sideways. Scientists and engineers and some seriously brave astronauts are going to fix what greed broke (if they can) and, in case you thought that wasn't a big deal, the situation if they fail will be Chicxulub-y. Well, maybe not *that* bad but nasty enough for it to matter a lot that it not happen.

I think my favorite thing about the read was the fact that there's never, and I mean this literally, ever a moment without action. The story is full-throttle adventure and would make a terrific film to supplant Armageddon at last. The authors are, in their day jobs, rocket scientists. They do not bring their B-game science to the table. But, unlike Saving Proxima above, there's not extensive explication in this book. Some science talk, I'd've been disappointed if there wasn't any, but not as much as above. To be expected...the problems to be solved aren't those of serious long-distance relativistic travel.

I'm not politically aligned with the authors, and that is noticeable. I think the Chinese rogue agent is a single mustachio-twirl away from being Dr. Fu Manchu. Since I grew up reading Golden Age sci fi, I'm pretty adept at filtering that into background noise. Luckily for me, it did not form a *huge* part of the narrative. Of course not at all would've been better....

Feminists...women in general, persons of Chinese descent, and my more vocally progressive friends are strongly cautioned. This isn't like Thanksgiving with your MAGA uncle. It's like ice-water tea with his wife. Quieter but still Very Very Sure They're RIGHT. One area where I think we can all agree is that the authors strongly disapprove of cutting corners out of greed. I'm not all the way convinced that Business can solve problems...but the action's great, the story's one I suspect they'll be hailed as prescient for writing, and sometimes one (this one, anyway) needs a solidly crafted action narrative. And here it is.

PROJECT HAIL MARY, a true Andy Weir-fest ***SPOILERS***

PROJECT HAIL MARY
ANDY WEIR
Del Rey Books
$14.99 ebook editions, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 2021 BEST BOOK FOR ADULTS RECOMMENDATION!

WINNER OF THE SCIENCE-FICTION NOVEL 2021 DRAGON AWARD!

The Publisher Says: Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that's been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it's up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian—while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

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My Review: There is absolutely no chance that I will not write something, I can't be sure what, that will piss off some delicate fleur of a spoilerphobe. This entire review is herewith declared to be a SPOILER ZONE

SPOILERS AHEAD

SPOILERS AHEAD

SPOILERS AHEAD

SERIOUSLY

SPOILERS AHEAD

SERIOUSLY

SPOILERS AHEAD

On your own head be it from here on. You've been warned and I do not want to hear a peep from you.

Okay. We're in media res with a man who has amnesia and, blessedly, is a scientist capable of working out that he's on a space ship. He isn't at all sure why he is where he is, has no idea who he is, and is in wherever this spaceship is with two dead people. That, my olds, is a fine, fine way to start a book.

The man is being tended by machinery. The machinery is hooked to a computer that wants to know his name, and asks him things like "What is two plus two," and won't *tell* him anything! He needs to remember stuff, to work on what the problem of his self-ness presents in the space he find that self-ness. As he moves through his space, as he eats and drinks and eliminates, he recovers himself bit by bit.

The Earth is dying. Like, overnight the Earth is dying...and it isn't humanity's doing. The Sun is dimming. A lot. And really, really, really fast...in less time than it takes to raise a kid, the Sun will fall below the energy output needed to sustain the ecosystems we need to eat and breathe properly.

Quite the conundrum, no? And this is no way resembles the present climate-change crisis! Nay nay nay! This is science FICTION, y'all.

So, as those who read The Martian will recall, there is hope for a good outcome until the very very last second...and even then there's always someone who can MacGyver up some-damn-thing that ain't elegant but it'll work. In this case, it's a woman named Stratt (she has a first name, and she's a doctor, but call her Stratt from the beginning because believe me it fits) who is given the powers of what the Roman Republic called a Dictator and the Greeks called a Tyrant to extra-politically cope with solving this unprecedented and way-beyond-urgent crisis. That's the simple truth: Working inside a political system would doom us to extinction. So Stratt sets about finding the people who can do the job of solving the Earth's terminal diagnosis.

Enter Ryland Grace—a name! he's remembered his name! He's a former rising star turned enfant terrible of evolution science...his "kiss-my-ass" paper about how "The Goldilocks Zone is for Idiots" ensured no August Academic Institution ever hired him...and now Stratt wants him to work on the subject of the apparently living thing that is somehow or another ?eating? the Sun.

Him. Dr. Failed Grace, the unemployable bad, bad boy, is the one and only person Stratt wants to figure out the life cycle of what we're now calling "astrophage." And what the hey, it's an Andy Weir book, let's make sure he knows the entire future of the planet relies on his success. So, no pressure, you know?

There's a sweet spot in science fiction, really we need to stop calling it that, where its fantasy roots (there is no FTL and there can never be; also, "gravity" ain't happenin' on space stations and the like) drop so far behind it just doesn't matter any more. Disbelief is suspended like a sacrificial god on a tree (real or artificial). Slightly more fun than that is a book that accepts science, does only a little violence to it (more about this anon) and makes the reader accept the author's expertise by simply overwhelming us with checkable details. (Have Google open, boomers and Xers; tap frequently, young'uns.) This is, like the aforementioned Martian, one of those cases.

Much hard work for Grace results in his cracking the problem of what the hell is eating the Sun, figuring out what it can do and how to make that part of the solution to the problem of what it's doing, and then teaching some astronauts with a rare genetic marker (that Grace also remembers he was tested for...does he have it?) how to use the information he's so incredibly lucky as to be able to learn so they can go to the closest star Earthlings can see where this stunningly awful thing is NOT happening to the star.

Again...Andy Weir book...the monkey wrenches arrive clutching monkey wrenches. A Truly Horrible Thing happens and there needs to be a truly terrible solution enacted, which Stratt does. This does not get told until almost the end of the book. I won't spoiler it. But it is a TRULY TERRIBLE SOLUTION and you will be rocked to your foundations.

Back to Dr. Grace. He's awake, bits of himself are floating back into his head, and while I'm usually against heavy use of flashbacks because if they were that important why the hell didn't you start the book there to begin with? I was a little hmmf-y about the structural choice for a while. I realized, though, as we were moving forward in the story as it is, that these moments did not *just* slow the narrative momentum (though they did do that), they also gave me insight into Ryland Grace that wouldn't have been as clear in any other structure.

But now it is anon. The scientific violence begins when Grace detects another ship around his target. It isn't a backup Earth ship. It is an ALIEN ship.

I was willing to skip gaily past astrophage...every story needs an antagonist. The way Grace came to be a failed academic was by positing that Life does not need liquid water, so SOMEthing was going to arise that made this relevant. Fine fine fine, I got it, this is a *really* cool speculation and the waterless life hypothesis makes at least some sense given the extremeophiles we already know exist on Earth now. Plus it meant there was a reason to have this funny exchange between Grace and Stratt:

"How did you do it? What killed {the astrophage}?" {Stratt asked}

"I penetrated the outer cell membrane with a nanosyringe." {Grace replied}

"You poked it with a stick?"

"No!" I said. "Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick."

This is why I enjoy Andy Weir's books. Say what you like about the science, say what you will about the plots and characters and mechanics...this is a writer with full command of the Absurd and the resulting perspective in how to deploy it to best advantage.

But aliens. Sentient aliens. Alive right now in our galactic neighborhood. Like us; so like us that we can, with some work communicate and understand what is being communicated. And yet enough UNlike us that we haven't had so much as a whisper of a hint as to their presence, nor they of ours.

Yeah...no.

But then! Then!! There comes the "are-you-effin-kidding-me-with-this" moment: The alien he meets is a brilliant engineer (which Grace is not) and possesses some miracle material that withstands stunning pressures, heats, etc etc and doesn't ever fail! Or, as I've always called it, "handwavium"—"no no, Bob, as you know your puny titanium is no match for my indestructible handwavium, so we will use its enormous superiority to do the thing."

Ugh.

Well, okay, it's not my favorite item on the menu...but I shall go with it and trust that the story Author Weir is telling me will make my occasional headache worth it. (Unlike what happened in Artemis of which least said, soonest mended.) And you know what? It was worth it. I invested in the character of Rocky the Eridian (from an exoplanet super-Earth close to 40 Eridani, hence the demonym...toponym?) from the get-go. Yes yes yes, aliens aren't real, at least not ones near us in time and/or space or the Fermi Paradox would already be answered, roll with it! Rocky is, without exaggeration, the coolest guy in Known Space, and if all the other Eridians are anything like him, I hope their Party Bus is on the way already. Their handwavium is awesome!

These two Boy Scouts get on the job of figuring out why the star they're at isn't being eaten, unlike Sol and 40 Eridani; they do the job; they make a breakthrough that, let me tell you, had me on the edge of my seat. Cool science stuff bursts from the pages...Grace does a lot of biological fun stuff (though I confess that parts of me clenched at the words Krebs cycle) and even does my blood pressure the favor of eliding the serious math bits. There is enough of the good ol' info-dumping about it to keep me happy, but nowhere near enough to cause eyegraines.

We're treated to several pulse-pounding disasters that Rocky and Grace fix together, and the boys...we have no Earthly analogue for how Eridians reproduce, the subject of Rocky's gender gets solved by Grace calling him male and (in an appropriate moment) his mate back on Erid (Grace's name for Rocky's homeworld; a great deal more euphonious than "40 Eridani b" innit?) the human genderfluid name "Adrian," and merrily we roll along...seem to have the salvation of Earth and Erid solved. Parting is now the hard thing they will need to do. You don't work closely with someone who has saved your life and your species without feelings of strong friendship developing!

Andy Weir book, remember?

I won't go into the ending. I will say that I was absolutely riveted and deeply invested in the solution, because there was a deeply, deeply revealing character flaw foregrounded within Grace that made his actions in this new and unpredictable situation uncertain...and while I was certain they would turn out more or less as they did, I was also unsure if it would be a bitter, bittersweet, or simply too sweet ending.

I really strongly encourage you to go and get this book even if you don't like science fiction or even science. If I can get past my allergy to handwavium applied by sentient aliens, you can set aside a little genre prejudice.

Whether at a bookery of your choosing or a library near you, get yourself this tale into your mind and let it make its story-pearls for your pleasure.

THE DAEDALUS INCIDENT, a swashbuckling pirate-filled alchemy-run space opera

THE DAEDALUS INCIDENT
MICHAEL J. MARTINEZ The Daedalus Series #1
Night Shade Books
$7.99 mass market, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Bizarre earthquakes are rumbling over the long-dormant tectonic plates of the planet, disrupting its trillion-dollar mining operations and driving scientists past the edges of theory and reason. However, when rocks shake off their ancient dust and begin to roll—seemingly of their own volition—carving canals as they converge to form a towering structure amid the ruddy terrain, Lt. Jain and her JSC team realize that their routine geological survey of a Martian cave system is anything but. The only clues they have stem from the emissions of a mysterious blue radiation, and a 300-year-old journal that is writing itself.

Lt. Thomas Weatherby of His Majesty’s Royal Navy is an honest 18th-century man of modest beginnings, doing his part for King and Country aboard the HMS Daedalus, a frigate sailing the high seas between continents . . . and the immense Void between the Known Worlds. Across the Solar System and among its colonies—rife with plunder and alien slave trade—through dire battles fraught with strange alchemy, nothing much can shake his resolve. But events are transpiring to change all that.

With the aid of his fierce captain, a drug-addled alchemist, and a servant girl with a remarkable past, Weatherby must track a great and powerful mystic, who has embarked upon a sinister quest to upset the balance of the planets—the consequences of which may reach far beyond the Solar System, threatening the very fabric of space itself.

Set sail among the stars with this uncanny tale, where adventure awaits, and dimensions collide!

Review links: THE GRAVITY OF THE AFFAIR — THE ENCELADUS CRISIS — THE VENUSIAN GAMBIT

My Review: Swashbuckling naval battles against heinous French pirates! In space!! Benjamin Franklin on an inhabitable Ganymede, and an alchemist to boot!

Manned permanent habitations on Mars! Greedy corporate slimebuckets causing havoc and costing people their lives! Space bureaucracies throttling (or doing their best to, anyway) any initiative in their subordinates!

Either one of those makes a darn good yarn, a familiar-enough plot to keep the pages turning and still, in Martinez's capable hands, the yawns at bay. Both together gave me the geekgasm of a lifetime. Lt. Shaila Jain, RN, is the kind of kickass leader and quick thinker that gives young women today a chance to develop a sense of agency, owning their own power and future. It doesn't hurt that she falls for a handsome man with a French accent, and then spends the books trying to keep him safe from his own inexperience and lack of fighting ability.

Makes a nice counterpoint to 3Lt. Thomas Weatherby, RN, whose career in the 1779 Navy also takes him into space. Now the fun begins, as the alchemical nature of manned space flight in this era is revealed by the number of ways it can and does go wrong. One of those ways leads poor Weatherby to a space equivalent of the Caribbean pirate port, Port Royal, Jamaica. And there Weatherby finds a drunken alchemist who becomes his best friend and a serving wench (in more than one sense of the word) who becomes his One True Love. Unlike Jain's French paramour, though, Weatherby's is perfectly capable of kicking ass and taking names by herownself. Bit shocking to a stodgy middle-class tradesman's son who has bought himself into the higher status of the officer corps.

Among our delicious surprises is the existence of a bona fide intra-solar system alien species, the Xan of Saturn. Their colonial outpost is Callisto, again an inhabitable world unlike in our own just as amazing solar system. The Xan and their intra-solar system rivals based on Mars had the kind of war that our paltry timeline threw itself in WWI, leaving devastation on Mars, an exploded fifth planet called Phaeton (now called the Rocky Main, to our blah asteroid belt), and one Martian survivor who, for his evils, is imprisoned in interdimensional space.

Throw all this into the pressure cooker, turn the fire up high, and let 'er rip. The resulting explosive action propels every character onto a course not entirely predictable, and as the pieces of hot story fly around, a lot of painful damage gets done. But like the "self-building" pyramid on Mars, the story reassembles itself into a satisfying similar-but-different shape. If the tale isn't to your taste ::side-eye:: the resolution as it is will be good enough to leave the book as finished and whole in your mind.

Me, I want more. Now. Ahoy, Second Chance! One to board, please!