Geekomancy by Michael R. Underwood

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

To me, this book is Buffy meets Ready Player One done well. As I discussed in my RPO review, it was just way too overhyped for me vs what it delivered. This one, on the other hand, seemed to come from a more genuine place and fit in better into the story. Also, I love Buffy while dystopias (which I’ve been reading since middle school are starting to really bum me out). Anyway, this isn’t an RPO trash session, let’s get to this book.

The Circlet Treasury of Erotic Steampunk by J. Blackmore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I’ve said many times before - I’ve been exploring more genres recently instead of locking myself into just one. I don’t remember how this ended up in my To-Read list back in 2014, but it’s definitely different than my usual fare. That said, my preferences for stories in this collection mirrored my preferences in the video world. I’m not a consumer of erotica movies, shows, etc. I don’t find sex entertaining for its own sake. But I do think that sex can be very contributory to a plot. Sometimes it can be a move forward for a character (see the many permutations of that in 1999’s Cruel Intentions) and other times it can just make the plot more true to life (see various movies either about dating - the opening to Train Wreck or the quarter-point of Forgetting Sarah Marshall - or married life) So in this collection I preferred the stories that were good Steampunk stories that happened to have good sex vs the ones that were just the literary equivalent of porn. The highest compliment I could give to any of the stories in this collection was some variation on - “I want to see more in this story’s universe!”

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 126 by Neil Clarke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Two Ways of Living” - A world in which humans can essentially hibernate by eating a ton of calories and then a chemical cocktail to go unconcious. Additionally, the person does not age. The short story essentially serves as a meditation on what kind of person would do such a thing and what their reasons might be. I’m not sure how I feel about the ending.

Drive by James S.A. Corey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Prequels can be a tough thing to get right. The reader/audience already knows where things are going. Can you have any real tension? Well, if you’re JSAC, you know a great way to do it - by having it involve none of the characters of the main series and setting it generations in the past. Considering the point of this story is to document how the Epstein drive comes to be, it’s surprisingly touching and personal. Or rather, not surprising at all because my favorite aspects of JSAC’s writing have been the way they can write both a very character-centric plot and keep attention to the details - whether scientific, political, or economic.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think the best way to describe this book is to reference the last chapter and Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s catchphrase on his podcast - the Cosmic Perspective. Even though I already knew a bunch of the info in the book (at least at the basic level), when I really thought about it, it was so hard to wrap my mind around the infinitely large and small quantities referenced by NDT.

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 125 by Neil Clarke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Assassins” - At it’s most basic level, this is a story about people forming emotional attachments with virtual characters. What I think makes this short story so compelling is that this is already the case with much less fidelity than a Star Trek holodeck or even convincing virtual reality. People form emotional bonds with video game characters - the previous book I read (A Mind Forever Voyaging) - documents this happening back in the text adventure days. It still happens today. And it happens with book characters, anime characters, characters on TV shows… So it doesn’t take a huge leap of faith to understand the emotional attachments in the more VR-capable world of the short story. Additionally, the main character has her own emotional issues and perhaps some neuro-atypical things going on. As a short story it’s masterfully told, but I think it would also be fun to explore this world some more in another short story or in a longer story.

Sam’s human looks like something that belongs on Rick and Morty

A Mind Forever Voyaging: A History of Storytelling in Video Games by Dylan Holmes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It was nice to take a break from fiction to read this analysis of the evolution of video game narratives through time. Chronologically, the game goes from text adventure games through point and click adventure games to JRPGs and then to the blending of narrative with FPS engines before ending with Heavy Rain. The book is relatively short for its subject matter and decades of coverage (200-something pages on my Nook in epub format including the glossary) so the author has to cut out a lot. He’s honest and upfront about this which, for me, took the sting out of “why did he mention this one and not that one?”.

One Night in Sixes by Arianne “Tex” Thompson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I added this book to my To Read list back in 2014 after hearing Ms. Thompson interviewed on Sword and Laser. I had a slightly different impression of what the plot would be - I think the interview focused on the character of TwoBlood - but the story I got was still great. Since I really liked the world Ms. Thompson creates here so much, I want to start with what I didn’t like about the book rather than ending with what I didn’t like. In list notation: