In Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, Jaime Gray lost his job and is delivering food now. It’s early in the pandemic and COVID-19 makes Jaime’s job difficult. Jamie’s old friend Tom offers Jamie a job to help the KPS as a grunt. Jaime takes the job and goes through a portal and makes friends with others working for the KPS. Huge creatures called Kaiju live on the land near the portal. Bad people want to use Kaiju for their short-sighted purposes. Will Jaime and their friends save the Kaiju and prevent a catastrophic event from occurring back on Earth?
Summary
In Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi, Jaime Gray goes into a performance review by the boss, Rob Sanders, expecting a great review. Jamie works at a food delivery service in New York City. Jamie is demoted to a delivery person by Sanders, who he calls a deliverator. It’s the middle of COVID-19 so there are limited job opportunities in New York City. With the lockdown food service delivery is Jamie’s only viable job opportunity so Jaime starts delivering food for the boss.
Six months later Sanders sells the business and Jamie is out of a job and prospects. On the last delivery ever, Jamie meets an old friend named Tom Stevens. They talk about Jamie’s situation and Tom offers Jamie a contract job as a grunt. Tom says the job is with an animal rights organization protecting large animals. Tom sends Jamie to an intake interview. But those animals he mentioned are not what Jamie expects and the location isn’t either. It’s the beginning of a wild adventure.
Recommendation
I thought Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi was a great and fun novel. The novel was short and featured Scalzi’s dry brand of humor. I liked how the author featured the pandemic in the novel, but the irreverent humor balanced the seriousness of the subject. I wonder if in the future the pandemic will be less than a footnote in future works. In this novel, it is important to the plot. I thought it was interesting that the author didn’t reveal Jamie’s gender. It is like the Locked-In series, where the author doesn’t reveal Chris’s gender. Scalzi doesn’t make a big deal about this, but it makes the reader think about the reader’s preconceptions coming into the novel. I had a good time reading this novel and look forward to reading more like it.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page for Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi.
Redshirts by John Scalzi is a stand-alone novel like KPS, and it features the same type of humor done so well in this novel. I recommend this novel if you liked Redshirts.
Review of Redshirts by John Scalzi, Ensign Andrew Dahl is assigned to the starship Intrepid. Crewmembers on away missions die at an alarming rate, but not the officers. Dahl must discover the unbelievable truth, or he will die like the other Redshirts.
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi, Book #2 of the Dispatcher series.
Introduction
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi is about Tony Valdez, who is a legal professional murderer. In the future, people who are murdered come back to life in the place where they find most comforting. People who commit suicide and have natural deaths stay dead. 99.99% of all Murder victims return to life naked but alive. So, murderers can keep people from dying an eternal death. Times are tough for dispatchers because legitimate jobs are scarce. Tony needs money, and he takes a shady deal that goes wrong. They implicate Tony in a robbery scheme and people are dying without being murdered. Will Tony discover the criminal’s plans before they kill him by other means?
Summary
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi is the second book of the Dispatcher series. In the first book, The Dispatcher, someone has kidnapped one of Tony’s colleagues, another dispatcher. Tony must rescue him, or his colleague may be killed and stay dead. Tony searches for him even though Tony faces his eternal death.
They set this novella in Chicago like the previous novella. Tony lost his role with the Chicago PD and needs money, so he takes a risky job. Mr. Peng is from China and wants a quick way home. Tony can provide that for him. He got the job from Lloyd Barnes, a Chicago lawyer. The translator is Mister Chen. Tony performs the dispatch.
Tony is at the bank and becomes involved in a robbery scheme in which he becomes implicated. People die in unusual ways. Tony has to unravel the mystery or he will be the next person to die and not come back.
Recommendation
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi was originally only released as an Audible audiobook in 2020. I read the hardback novella published by Subterranean Press in 2021. The book is 191 pages long. This, the second story of the Dispatcher series, explores another ramification of the murder mechanism that rules this world. How would you murder someone without murdering them? The solution made sense. It was an enjoyable thriller.
Links
Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi is Book #2 of the Dispatcher Series
This is the link to The Dispatcher’s Goodreads page.
John Scalzi read the first chapter in his work in progress, the Dispatcher 2, at the science fiction conference ConFusion in Detroit on January 19, 2019. This is a link to my recap of the conference and John Scalzi’s reading.
The Dispatcher by John Scalzi is a police procedural set in the future where murder victims return to life. Dispatchers commit legalized murder. Will Dispatcher Tony Valdez look for his kidnapped friend even though Tony may face his eternal death?
Last Colony by John Scalzi, Book #3 of The Old Man’s War series.
Introduction
Last Colony by John Scalzi is the third book in the Old Man’s War series. John Perry, the protagonist from Old Man’s War, has retired from the Colonial Defense Forces to the colony planet of Huckleberry. Jane Sagan joins him. She is another former member of the CDF and the clone of his deceased wife. They have taken in the orphan Zoe Boutin Perry as their daughter. It’s a good life. John is a farmer and an ombudsman, while Jane is a constable. Their former commander, General Rybibki, asks them to help settle a new colony on the planet named Roanoke. What they find at Roanoke is not what they expected. Can John protect the colony, or will the colony perish leading to the extermination of humanity?
Summary
Last Colony by John Scalzi starts with John Perry and his family fitting in on their adapted colony of Huckleberry. Huckleberry was first colonized by people from India. John is the ombudsman of his town and his assistant is Savitri Guntupalli. She helps him and keeps him in line. John must settle disputes between people of his town like the Chengelpet brothers about a troublesome goat. John’s family is his wife, Constable Jane Sagan, and his adopted daughter Zoe Boutin Perry. Zoe is the biological daughter of Charles Boutin from the previous novel, The Ghost Brigades.
General Rybicki, John and Jane’s former commander, asks them to lead a first colonization team to the planet named Roanoke. When they get to Roanoke, nothing is like it seems. John must lead the colony against an alliance of alien lifeforms named the Conclave. The Conclave wants to contain humanity or destroy it. John wants neither to happen. He must go down a dangerous path if he is to succeed.
Recommendation
Last Colony by John Scalzi is a great sequel to Old Man’s War. It was fun to see John Perry and his family again. John faces an impossible position and escapes a dire fate again. Scalzi is the master of idea and dialogue. A quick read, I wanted more. He sets up the next novel in the series at the end of this novel. I am looking forward to reading book four of the series, Zoe’s Tale.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of The Last Colony by John Scalzi.
Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi is the second book in the Old Man’s War series. Jared Dirac is a clone with another man’s memories. He must save humanity from three allied alien races determined to destroy humanity.
They held Dragon Con Atlanta 2020 from September 3 to 7, 2020. This year with Covid-19, it was a virtual conference. I viewed 5 panels, 1 interview, and 2 Dragon Con updates. Three tracks could be viewed at the same time for 24 hours a day from 6:30 PM Thursday to 3:30 PM Monday. The tracks were the main track, a fan track, and a classic track (replays of taped panels from 2008 to 2019). It was a great opportunity for me because Atlanta is far away from me, and I am not likely to attend this con in person.
Games of Thrones panel from 2015 on the Classic Track:
The panel’s moderator was Marc Lee. The panelists were actors from the Game of Thrones show Kristian Nairn (Hodor), Finn Jones (Loras Tyrell), and Julian Glover (Grand Maester Pycelle).
Kristian talked about filming in Iceland, Finn talked about performing a gay scene on his first day of shooting, and Julian talked about always playing the villain in movies, so he was never in the sequels.
I thought it was a fun panel and the panelists were engaging.
Saturday, September 5th, at 1 PM
John Scalzi: Tour of an Author’s Life (and Kitchen), an interview with John Scalzi on the Main Track:
This was a taped interview by Brian Robertson of author John Scalzi. He interviewed Scalzi by remote from each of their homes. The interview was done in three parts.
First, John Scalzi talked about his career in his office. He started as a journalist and posted his work in progress on his blog. That novel was Old Man’s War and the success of that book launched his career as a novelist. He considers it an accidental career.
The second part of the interview was from John Scalzi’s basement. He keeps his musical instruments down there. Playing music is a release for him between writing.
The last part of the interview was from John Scalzi’s kitchen. He enjoys making burritos with anything goes. The burrito he made here featured two-day-old lasagna and parmesan dip. He finished the interview mentioning that his latest novel was nominated for the Dragon Award for Science Fiction Novel.
John Scalzi’s latest novel is The Last Emperox. It is the third and final book of the Interdependency Trilogy and was released on April 14, 2020. This is the link to the Goodreads page.
The panel started with 298 attendees, increased to 335 attendees at 1:10 PM, and ended with 361 attendees at the end of the interview.
I thought it was a great interview. I’ve seen John Scalzi many times and he is always interesting and engaging.
Saturday, September 5th, at 5 PM
Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey panel from 2008 on the Classic Track:
The beginning of the panel was Todd interviewing his mother Anne and the rest of the panel was questions from the audience. She said she got inspired to write because she needed money for her three small kids at home. Anne wrote the Dragonriders of Pern series which became more popular with the success of Harry Potter.
She said that sometimes it is the names that inspire the story other times it is the characters. Geology fascinated her and cartography was important to her novels. She moved to Ireland and horses were important to her. At one point he owned 23 horses.
It was interesting to see this panel from 2008. Anne McCaffrey is one of my favorite authors.
The panel started with 208 attendees.
Sunday, September 6th, at 3 PM
Perseverance – Mars 2020 panel with Dr. Sarah Milkovich and Kim Steadman on the Fan Track:
This was a slideshow presentation with two engineers of the surface operation for the Perseverance rover that launched to Mars on July 30, 2020. The presentation was filmed on July 31, 2020. They plan to land the probe at Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. It was built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology. The mission is to seek signs of ancient life at an ancient river delta.
The engineers discussed the instruments on the rover. The rover will take readings and collect 30 samples at various locations. A second mission will collect the samples and launch them to orbit. A third mission will collect the samples and return them to earth.
These are links to the mission briefing on the JPL website and the NASA website.
I thought it was a great presentation. I hope the rover has a safe landing next year.
Sunday, September 6th, at 6 PM
The 2020 Dragon Awards announced by Cooper Andrews on the Main Track:
The 2020 Dragon Awards were announced. There are 15 categories including gaming, literature, and visual medium. There were nominees in each category and the winners were announced in this half-hour presentation. The last award was for the Science Fiction novel. John Scalzi, the writing Guest of Honor, won for his novel The Last Emperox.
Sunday, September 6th, at 6:30 PM
The Dragon Con Update with Will and Bee:
Will and Bee interviewed Leigh and Jon. Leigh and Jon conduct interviews of the leaders of different tracks at the conference. They want to bring attention to the behind the scenes people at the con. They post the interviews at the unique geek.
The Dragon Con update finished with a heck with Beth about the Fan Interactions Report. She showed pictures from four hashtags that they used.
Monday, September 6th, at 9 AM
Award-Winning and Best-selling Authors panel on the Fan Track:
Bill Fawcett was the Moderator of the panel. The panel was Tasmin Silver (writes urban fantasy and historical fantasy), Robert Sawyer (his most recent novel is the alternate history, The Oppenheimer Alternative), Jody Lynn Nye (wrote in the Myth Adventures series and co-wrote with Anne McCaffery), and John Scalzi (Dragon Con Writing Guest of Honor and winner of the Dragon Award for Science Fiction Novel, for the Last Emperox).
Bill asked the panel a series of questions. The main point was what makes a novel an award winner versus a best-seller. Robert’s answer was a best seller needs a likable protagonist while an award winner might have an unlikeable protagonist. John answered that best-sellers are marketable books with the goal to entertain, while award winners have a bold view and are written for writers.
Other questions included are best sellers a product of the time they are read, social media advice, and advice for new writers.
I thought that all four writers gave insightful answers to the moderator’s questions. I wish the had more time to talk.
Monday, September 6th, at 1 PM
Let’s Build a World panel on the Fan Track:
Michael G. Williams was the Moderator of the panel. The panel was Cecilia Dominic (writes urban fantasy and steampunk), Charles E. Gannon (writes hard SF and Alternate history), and Chris Kennedy (SF author, publisher, and editor).
The panel was about how writers build their worlds. The first question was about how the authors created their setting. The second question was about the most important decision to make in world-building. What do you most hate about world-building? Is it characters first or later when you are designing a setting? Is believability important to you?
They played an exercise on world-building picking four answers to important questions. They picked religion (ancestor worship that is not based on reality), family (with gender fluidity), social conformity (the worst thing to them is to be shunned), and tech (low tech).
I thought the plan was interesting especially how the writers completed the world-building exercise.
Recommendation – Conclusion
Virtual Dragon Con Atlanta 2020 was a great experience. Viewing the virtual con was nice since I would not have made it to Atlanta this year. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I checked out a few presentations Friday evening to see how it was. Before the Game of Thrones panel, I looked at the end of Improvised Dungeons and Dragons. The panelists took a humorous take on a random D & D game. What I saw was funny. I wish I had seen the whole panel. My star of the con was John Scalzi. Other highlights were the Let’s Build a World panel and the Mars 2020 presentation. I hope to attend Dragon Con sometime in the future.
Links
This is my post for a similar conference that I attended in person in January 2020.
I attended the SF conference ConFusion in Detroit, Michigan from January 16 to 19, 2020. I attended four panels, two readings, and one interview. The theme of the con was How to Train Your ConFusion, based on the movie, How to Train Your Dragon. My star of the con was John Scalzi. He gave an excellent reading of Chapter Two of his upcoming book named The Last Emperox. My other highlights were Kameron Hurley’s interview and the lecture on Edible Insects and Human Evolution. I’ll be back next year.
Last Emperox by John Scalzi, The Interdependency Sequence Book #3
Introduction
In Last Emperox by John Scalzi. Cardenia Wu-Patrick is the current Emperox of the Interdependency. She is coronated as Grayland II and her reign starts with a crisis. The Flow connects the star systems of the Interdependency, and the Flow is collapsing. She faces a looming disaster when the dependent colonies of the Interdependency will become isolated. What can she do about the collapse of the Flow and can she get the ruling class to agree to her solutions?
Summary Part One
Last Emperox by John Scalzi has four main characters.
Cardenia wants a solution to the collapse of the Flow connections between the stars of her Empire. The Flow is a wormhole network that connects the different stars of the Interdependency. Humans can only live on the surface of the planet called End. All other colonies are space stations or enclosed stations on planetary bodies. The trading clans head the Interdependency. Each clan owns a star system and has a monopoly on one product. They trade the products between the clans, and no colonies are independent. Cardenia’s clan is the Wu clan holding the system of Hub. The Wu clan created the Interdependency and every Emperox for the last thousand years has been a member of the Wu clan.
The Nohamapetan clan opposes Cardenia’s rule. Nadashe Nohamapetan had been accused of the attempted assassination of Cardenia and was imprisoned for the crime. She escaped and is on the run. Nadashe wants to keep the status quo of the clan system. What that means is that the leaders of the clans will get transferred to the End system and the rest of the people will be left isolated in their home systems to perish.
Summary Part Two
Kiva Lagos oversees the Nohamapetan clan’s finances by Cardenia’s rluing, which causes conflict with the Nohamapetan clan. All Kiva wants is to lead the Lagos clan and to retire with her girlfriend, Senia Fundapellonan. But Cardenia wants Kiva to help her capture Nadashe while Nadasche wants Kiva to release the Nohamapetan fortune to her. They both thwart Kiva’s plans.
Flow physicist Count Claremont of the End system predicts the collapse of the Flow by his calculations. Flow Physicist Marce Claremont, his son, continues his father’s work and is Cardenia’s closest advisor and becomes her paramour. Marce wants to transfer all of humanity to the End system. He believes that the solution is somewhere in the data and he continues his search for the solution.
The fate of the people of the Interdependency rests on the actions of these four characters.
Recommendation
Last Emperox by John Scalzi is a great ending to the Interdependency trilogy. I did not want the ending to go the way it did, but it was the correct ending for the series. All the ideas begun in the first book led inevitably to the resolution in the third book. That makes the trilogy a successful series to me. On reflection, I like a story best that is true to its nature, and this story is true to its nature. The three books were consistent, funny, and interesting.
All together the three books total 948 pages. They could have published the trilogy as one long book but this isn’t epic fantasy so I appreciate getting a book every year. The characters come to a satisfying concluding arc. There could be other stories in this series, but probably not with these characters and their conflicts. I am looking forward to the author’s next series.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page for Last Emperox by John Scalzi.
Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi is the second book in the Old Man’s War series. The Colonial Defense Forces created Jared Dirac for a specific purpose. He is a member of the Ghost Brigades who are the elite troops of the CDF. Jared is a clone of the mad evil scientist Charles Boutin and was made because Boutin has betrayed humanity enabling three alien civilizations to ally against humanity. The CDF wants to understand Boutin’s motivations by studying Jared and defeating Boutin and the aliens. Will Jared help the CDF when Boutin’s memories become his own memories?
Summary
Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi starts with Lieutenant Sagan interviewing a captive alien. The alien gives its view on humanity. He sees three kinds of humans. There are the unmodified humans that colonize unclaimed planets. The main members of the Colonial Defense Forces are older unmodified humans who have their minds transferred to young clone bodies. The CDF creates the third human from human DNA. They are the Ghost Brigades of the CDF. They make Jared Dirac from Boutin’s DNA. When he gains consciousness he doesn’t have any of Boutin’s memories. The CDF trains him in the Ghost Brigades and sends him out on missions. On his missions, his memories are triggered, and he has memories of being Boutin. He must understand why Boutin did what he did and Jared must forge his own path to save humanity.
Recommendation
This novel is a great sequel to Old Man’s War. Old
Man’s War was about the second humans, the members of the CDF. Adding the Ghost
Brigades ratcheted up the tension in the sequel. Jared Dirac was a great character
to show the reader the methods of the Ghost Brigades. Charles Boutin seems like
a mad scientist from an old school space opera but he is more than that. I
appreciate that the author took an old trope and made it new. The author sets
up the next novel in the series at the end of this novel. I am looking forward
to reading book three of the series, The Last Colony.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads
page of Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi.
In Redshirts by John Scalzi, they assign Ensign Andrew Dahl to the starship Intrepid. Crew members on away missions die at an alarming rate, but not the officers. Dahl must discover the unbelievable truth, or he will die like the other Redshirts. This is the link to my review.
Redshirts
by John Scalzi starts with Ensign Andrew Dahl assigned to the Universal Union’s
flagship, the starship Intrepid. He works in the Xenobiology department and his
coworkers advise him not to go on away missions with the officers of the
starship. Crewmembers on away missions who are not officers are dying at an
alarming rate. Dahl must discover the unbelievable truth, or he will die like
the other Redshirts.
Summary
Andrew Dahl connects with a group of new crewmen on the
Intrepid. His group includes Maia Duvall who transferred from her last post,
his rich friend Jimmy Hanson, a suspected ‘fungus’ dealer Finn, and the mysterious
Hester. They learn not to go on away missions with the ship’s officers or risk
death. The officers to watch are the Intrepid’s Captain Abernathy, chief
science officer Q’eeng, astrogator Kerensky, medical chief Hartnell, and chief
engineer West. The key to the mystery is finding the missing crewman Jenkins. The
story is connected to the original Star Trek TV show. They must discover the
nature of what Dahl’s coworkers call the sacrificial effect and another effect
called the Narrative. Shenanigans ensue and the conclusion arrives to complete
Dahl’s story. There are three codas that are from different viewpoint
characters that finish the theme of the story.
Recommendation
Redshirts by John Scalzi is a great novel. It’s funny, has an unusual premise, and moves quickly to the conclusion. The novel is sneaky because the humor overshadows a great theme. The three codas bring home the theme of making your own reality. There is a first-person coda and a second person coda. The third person coda ties up the themes explored in the novel and the final image ends the novel perfectly. I like that there is no sequel because the end says it all.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page for Redshirts by
John Scalzi
The
Dispatcher by John Scalzi is about Tony Valdez who is a legal professional
murderer. In the future, people who are murdered
come back to life in the place where they find most comforting. People who commit suicide and have natural deaths stay dead.
Murder victims return to life naked but alive. So, murderers can keep people
from dying an eternal death. Someone has kidnapped one of Tony’s colleagues,
another Dispatcher and Tony must rescue him, or his colleague may be killed and
stay dead. Will Tony continue to search for him even though Tony may face his
own eternal death?
Summary
The story starts with Tony at the hospital on an assignment
covering for his friend Jimmy Albert. Insurance companies demand Dispatchers
are present at risky surgeries so if the operation goes wrong the Dispatcher
can murder the patient so the patient can live again. This will protect the
hospital and the insurance company from wrongful death lawsuits. It is a judgment
call for the Dispatcher on whether to do the task. After he completes his
assignment, Chicago detective Nona Langdon interviews Tony about Jimmy. Jimmy
is missing and Nona thinks Tony can help her find him. Tony knows the right
people to ask about what assignments Jimmy was working on. Jimmy was taking
less than legal jobs and they wondered if that was why he was kidnapped. Tony
uses his contacts without Nona knowledge and it gets him into trouble. Nona and
Tony follow their leads to find out what happened to Jimmy.
Recommendation
The Dispatcher is a 130-page novella and is a tight, intriguing story. The mechanism of how murder victims are returned to life is an interesting idea and the ramifications are explored in this story. It’s a future police procedural with a surprising moral. If you don’t pay attention to your loved one’s wishes, you will suffer at your own peril. I want to read the next novella, The Dispatcher 2 when published and learn more about Tony and the role of Dispatchers in this world.
Links
The Dispatcher by John Scalzi is Book #1 of the
Dispatcher Series
This is the link to The Dispatcher’s Goodreads page.
John Scalzi read the first chapter in his work in
progress, the Dispatcher 2, at the science fiction conference ConFusion in Detroit
on January 19, 2019. This is a link to my recap of the conference and John
Scalzi’s reading
This is a link to my book review of The Consuming Fire
by John Scalzi, Book 1 of the Interdependency Sequence. It is the next most
recent book I have read by John Scalzi.
I attended the SF
conference named ConFusion at 5801 Southfield Freeway Dearborn, Michigan at the
DoubleTree Hotel from January 18 to 20,
2019. ConFusion is sponsored by the Ann Arbor Science Fiction Association. I
attended 4 panels, one reading, one interview, and watched the movie The
Princess Bride. The theme of the con was Storming the ConFusion, so the areas
were designated with names related to the movie like Miracle Max’s Film Room,
The Fire Swamp Artists Alley, The Cliffs of Insanity Consuite, Pit of Despair
Gaming, and the Thieves Forest Music Room. I stayed at the Hawthorn Hotel by
Wyndham which was next to the Double Tree.
Writers Talk about
Anything But Writing panel with Mark Oshiro, John Scalzi, and Delilah Dawson:
Mark was the
moderator and he came up with the topic. His point was that panelists get
questions about writing, publishing, and touring, but get few questions about
their other interests. This panel forced them to talk about something else.
John Scalzi talked about being almost 50, his exercise program, and taking
modern dance in high school. Mark talked about who he was cast as the lead in
the play Music Man, Harold Hill, in high school while being Mexican and gay.
John talked about working at Del Taco and learning about life. He was in an air
band in high school and won a contest drumming to Round and Round by Ratt. Mark
didn’t understand the concept of an air band since he is from another
generation. John finished up the panel by talking about his wife’s family’s
salsa recipe and how he was glad he married into the family to taste it, The
panel was fun and I’m glad Mark came up with the topic. I learned about the
panelists and I liked that.
Link to another
air band video of John Scalzi at the Webb school:
Mars in Fact and
Fiction panel with industrial scientist Bill Higgins, SF writer specializing in
Mars fiction Martin L. Shoemaker, and professor from Connecticut State
University Dr. Jennifer Piatek:
Two slide
presentations were presented in this panel.
Dr. Piatek’s
presentation was called Mars – A Short Tour, which covered the history of
scientific fact about Mars. The incorrectly proposed canals of Mars were
refuted in the ’60s with the Mariner mission.
The Viking mission extended our knowledge of the surface of Mars. Mars has a
rough southern highland and a smooth northern plain. Most Mars missions land in
the north. The next mission to Mars is scheduled to be the Mars Rover 2020
mission, scheduled to be launched in 2020.
Bill Higgins
presentation was called Mars in Our Stories, which covered SF writing about
Mars. He highlighted a picture printed in the September 1956 Life magazine that
imagined the aliens of Mars as told from many stories including War of the
Worlds by H. G. Welles, Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, and A Martian
Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum. He next mentioned the 1938 radio broadcast of
War of the Worlds adapted by Orson Welles that caused a panic in New Jersey.
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and the John Carter series by Edgar Rice
Burroughs were also mentioned. The panel ran out of time to continue to more
modern examples of Mars fiction.
I thought that
both presentations were well done, and the information was interesting.
A copy of a
drawing by Boris Artzybasheff from the September 24, 1956 issue of Life
magazine.
Saturday,
January 19th at 3 PM
Reading
by John Scalzi:
John Scalzi’s
current work in progress is his sequel to his novella called The Dispatcher.
The tentative title for the work is Dispatcher 2 –the dispationing (probably not the final title). He read Chapter 1 of
his new work. In the world of the novel, people who are murdered will return
alive to a place they found comfort in
the past. They appear naked, healthy and well. Suicide does not work in this
world so there is a call for Dispatchers, who murder terminal patients or for
other reasons if their clients want a fresh start. This work is about a
Dispatcher debating if he will accept Mr. Pang as a client. The chapter comes
to a satisfying conclusion. Scalzi is an engaging reader of his work. Well
done.
Scalzi had more
time to read, so he read two posts from his blog named Whatever. The first post
he read was titled “Automated Customer Service”. It was a funny short story
about a computerized phone customer service call about a malfunctioning
Vacuubot.
A short Q and A followed.
The whole hour was fun and perfect. It was my best hour of the con.
Saturday,
January 19th at 6:30 PM (Err, I should have been there at 6:10 PM)
I watched the
movie The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride
was the theme of this con, Storming the ConFusion. I’ve seen the movie many
times but I thought that it would be fun to see it here with an audience. In
the Henry Ford boardroom (renamed Miracle Max’s Film Room for the Con) there is
a large screen TV at one end of the room and a large table with comfortable
chairs surrounding it. The movie played on the screen and all the dozen chairs
were filled.
On the sheet
posted on the door, it said the movie
would start at 6:30 PM but I think it started at 6:10 PM. Then I arrived at
6:25 PM the scene playing was the one where the Man in Black (Dread Pirate
Roberts, but secretly Westley) was sword fighting with Inigo Montoya and it was
almost over. The movie ended at 7:40 PM and the movie is 90 minutes long so I
figure about a 6:10 PM start. I watched the rest of the movie. The cool thing
is that the five scenes at the beginning of the movie that I missed are all
available on Youtube. I watched them all after the con. It turned out to be a
great idea to watch the movie with others and I am glad that I did.
Youtube link to a
playlist with 12 clips from the movie:
Sign on the door
to the boardroom where the movie played.
Sunday,
January 20th at 10 AM
I attended an interview with Ada Palmer, the Author Guest of Honor for ConFusion 2019. Ada Palmer was interviewed by Black Gate columnist Brandon Crilly. She is an associate professor of early modern European History at the University of Chicago. Ada Palmer first talked about her current project on censorship. She is co-writing a book called Censorship and Information Control in Information Revolutions with Cory Doctorow and Adrian Johns. Her project is funded through Kickstarter Their idea is that censorship has always been a part of society and always will. There are two kinds of censorship. The Catholic model where works are sent to a censer and edited before they are published and the English model where works are censored after they have been printed and deemed censorable.
Censorship relates to her current fiction novel series, Terra Ignota. She extrapolated certain trends from the past into the future to develop her series. Some of those trends are religiosity, the changing family unit, and gender relations. She recommended the short story The Autopsy by Michael Shae, link below. She identifies herself as a writer and not a professor. Her writing suggestion is to take an old story and edit it to half-length to get to the essence of the story. It will help the writer to be concise and make sure that every line and word is doing some work. Brandon conducted an interesting interview with Ada Palmer and I plan to read Too Like the Lightning this year. It’s on my Goodreads list.
State of the Solar
System panel with industrial scientist Bill Higgins, SF writer specializing in
Mars fiction Martin L. Shoemaker, and professor from Connecticut State
University Dr. Jennifer Piatek:
The same panel
members from the Mars panel on Saturday continued their discussion about space
exploration beyond Mars. They talked about the International Space Station
first and then spent most of the rest of the panel talking about probes to the
asteroids. The TV show Salvage 1 from 1979 starring Andy Griffith was mentioned
about commercial space exploration. The show was about a man who built a
spaceship intending to go to the moon and salvage the Apollo mission’s
equipment and sell it on the Earth. It was an interesting panel and the room
was packed, standing room only.
Sunday,
January 20th at 1 PM
Supply Lines and
Economics in Fantasy Worldbuilding panel with K. A. Doore, Ferrett Steinmetz, Jennifer
Mace, Scott H. Andrews, Jon Skovron, and Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
They authors talked
about how economics affected the story they write. The best part of the panel
was their recommendations of resource books to read. They are 1491 by Charles
Man, Debt by David Graeber, Great Cities in History by John Julius Norwich.,
and Food by Dorothy Hartley. There were two examples of novels using the topic illustrated,
the Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abraham and War of Light and Shadow by
Jenny Wurts. I wondered if six panelists were too many for them to get each of
their points across, but the panel went smoothly, and each panelist had
interesting comments. I put all the books mentions on my Goodreads to read list
and look forward too many hours of good reading.
Recommendation –
Conclusion
I had a great drive
to Detroit just before the snowstorm. The con was set up well making it easy to
find the locations. My star of the con was John Scalzi. He gave an excellent
reading and was engaging in the panel I attended. My other highlights were Ada
Palmer’s interview and watching The Princess Bride at the con. I’m planning to
return next year.
Links
This is a link to
John Scalzi’s post about attending ConFusion 2019.
The next most recent conference that I attended was Cleveland
Inkubator which was held on August 4, 2018,
at the Louis Stokes Wing of the Cleveland Public Library, 525 Superior Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio 44115. The event was sponsored by Literary Cleveland.
This is a link to my conference recap.
This is a
book review of the Consuming Fire by John Scalzi. Cardenia Wu-Patrick is the most recent Emperox of the Interdependency. She is coronated as Grayland II and
her reign starts with a crisis. The star systems of the Interdependency are
connected by the Flow and the Flow is changing. She faces a looming disaster
when the dependent colonies of the Interdependency will become isolated. What
can she do about the collapse of the Flow and can she get the ruling class to
agree to her solutions?
Summary – Background
Cardenia is concerned with the crisis of the projected collapse of the Flow connections to her Empire. The Flow is a wormhole network that connects the different stars of the Interdependency. Humans can only live on the surface of the planet called End. All other colonies are space stations or enclosed stations on planetary bodies. The Interdependency is headed by trading clans. Each clan owns a star system and has a monopoly on one product. The products are traded between clans and no colonies are independent. Cardenia’s clan is the Wu clan. The Wu clan created the Interdependency and every Emperox for the last thousand years has been a member of the Wu clan.
The secondary plot of the novel involves the Nohamapetan clan’s opposition to Cardenia’s rule. Nadashe Nohamapetan has been accused of the attempted assassination of Cardenia. Her mother, the Countess Nohamapetan tries to free her daughter. Cardenia lets the wheel of justice progress without interference. Cardenia put Kiva Lagos in charge of the Nohamapetan clan’s finances, which causes conflict with the Countess.
Summary – Main Plot
The main plot involves the projected collapse of the Flow. Flow physicist Count Claremont predicts the collapse of the Flow by his calculations. Flow Physicist Marce Claremont, his son, continues his father’s work and is Cardenia’s closest advisor. When the first Flow collapses as predicted, the Interdependency is rocked with the ramifications. Flow physicist Hatide Roynold has different ideas than Marce about the Flow. She predicts that other Flows will open as others close. A flow opens to a lost colony in the Dalasysla system that has been isolated from the Interdependency for 800 years. Cardenia sends Marce and Hatide to investigate the lost colony. They want to discover what can happen to an isolated colony when the Flow collapses. What Marce finds in Dalasysla will change what the people of the Interdependency think about their past and their future.
Recommendation
The Consuming Fire is a quick reading action novel with a satisfying conclusion that answers questions but raises more questions. It’s a great follow up to The Collapsing Empire and shows enough about the conflicts in the Interdependency to set up a spectacular conclusion in Book 3 which is tentatively titled The Last Emperox due to be released in 2020. I liked the relationship between Cardenia and Marce the best. They make an engaging pair. I thought the best part was the revelations that Marce discovers in the Dalasysla system. It’s an excellent expansion of the story’s universe. I plan to read Book 3 as soon as it is published.
Links
This is the link to The Consuming Fire’s Goodreads
page.
