Adult Review: Dayworld

Reader copy provided by Netgalley in return for a review.



Dayworld (reissue; originally published in 1985)
Philip Jose Farmer

Rating: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 5/5

In Dayworld, human immortality had been unlocked. With an application of energy, humans can be "stoned," a process which suspends the animation of their cells, rendering them immune to damage or age. To accommodate the skyrocketing population of Earth, the government had instituted a time-sharing arrangement. Each person is un-stoned for one 24-hour period and allowed to live their life normally. At the end of the day, they return to their cylinders to be stoned again and someone else wakes up to take their place for the next day. This essentially allows one house or apartment to have seven different families living in it.

Of course, something like this has to be carefully monitored and organized at all times, which is handled by the government. Not everyone is happy with the government's oppressive hand in their lives and an underground of spies, rebels, and informants has developed. Jeff Caird, the protagonist is one of these, known as immers. He lives every day, juggling seven different personas, seven different lives in an effort to gather information for the immers. But when an immer goes rogue and starts daybreaking, Jeff and all his personas are in danger and it's a stop-and-go roller coaster of a chase.

I love this book. I'm a little embarrassed that I just found out that it isn't a new book (the Netgalley book appears to be a reissue/rebranding of the original), but that does help sort out my reaction. As I was reading Dayworld, I couldn't help but think of some of the original masters of science fiction and dystopian fiction: Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, E. E. Doc Smith. I was swept up in the world, integrated into the story so quickly that it was almost impossible to put it down again. Dayworld is fantastic. I am so glad they're reprinting it so it can catch the imaginations of another generation.

Book Spazzing: Dayworld

This is one of my current review copy reads. I was planning on just doing a 10-minute review, skim it and recommend it.

I'm 36% of the way through and I can't put it down. OMG, I'm so excited about this book. It's a throw-back to the paranoia of Philip K. Dick and the forward-looking science of Isaac Asimov. It's balanced in pace and Farmer is the MASTER of cliff-hanger chapters that make you need to turn the page and keep going. I stayed in the tub reading it for TWO HOURS last night because I kept saying, "Well, just to the end of this chapter, then I'll get out." The water was cold and I still kept reading.

I'm not even done with the book and I want to tell everyone I know, "Read this. Don't wait." Except that you have to. It's not released yet. So you have to (unless you have access to Netgalley). I don't rave about books very often, especially if I'm not already familiar with the author (see my forthcoming review of Cold Welcome by Elizabeth Moon) but I am raving about this.

Adult Review: Days Until Home

Based on a promotional eBook received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


Days Until Home
By: Mark Gardner, Greg Dragon, David Kristoph
Release Date: 07/04/2017

Overall Rating: 3/5
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing: 2/5

Days Until Home is a collaborative novel written by three different authors. It tells the story of the mining ship Kerwood and its crew as they pull a normal mining contract on an asteroid and prepare to go home. A massive explosion cripples the ship and leaves the crew and miners struggling to recover both physically and emotionally from the devastation.

I really wanted to love this book. I was primed for it: hard sci-fi is what I grew up reading. I was excited about the potential of the blurb I read, which is why I requested the ARC from NetGalley in the first place. Unfortunately, this piece remains potential without a backbone. Most of the problems with the book can be traced back to its collaborative nature, unfortunately. I suspect it was way more fun to write than it was to read, speaking from the experience of a collaborative fiction writer (hi, Robin!).

For me, it came down to too many cooks in the kitchen. I found it nearly impossible to identify a main character, which given the multiple red herrings and switchbacks that the authors used, was probably intentional. There were so many named characters who had no depth or background beyond their presence in the crew of the Kerwood that I almost needed a chart to keep track of them and who they were sleeping with, affiliated with, and distrusted by. They all had potential depth, but they weren't important enough to the story to get more than a first name, a hair color, and a death scene.

In my notes as I was reading this, I reached the one-third point still filled with hope and excitement. I could see that the writers had the ability to build suspense and drive the plot forward. The sad part was that all that suspense was quickly resolved and drifted off to follow another aspect of the story. Instead of staying closely tied to a few characters, I read from the point of view of so many that I wasn't even sure who I was supposed to be cheering for.

Additionally, from a diversity in sci-fi perspective, I was very disappointed in the society that was built in this story. One of the protagonists, Viktor, is frequently cited as being Russian, with a thick Balkan accent, but this seems to be only an affectation. His perspective is the same as all the other characters, with nothing in it to make him uniquely Russian. For that matter, why is Earth still using the same country designations this far into the future, when it seems that country lines have been put aside in favor of planetary or settlement affiliations?

While I applaud the inclusion of women in space, especially those who apparently have a lesbian or bisexual orientation, most of the women seem to be either crazy, sexually attractive, or sexually neutral but loyal. Dialog between female characters was woefully under-researched; they talked to each other like heroines from a romance novel, all figurative imagery and earnest fluff. For that matter, one of the red herrings (spoilers) centers on the idea that women can't stand the conditions in space and so they build an illicit shower in one of the holding tanks and sold shower time to the other female crew members.

In conclusion, if this had been written by only one or two of the authors, it might have been a decent hard sci-fi novel. As it stands, I found it a meandering and underdeveloped read.

**EDIT** Shortly after posting this review, one of the authors contacted me and I learned that it was originally written as a serial story at Article 94.This put much of the writing style in context for me. While most of my criticism still stands, the pacing issues make more sense now if it was written chapter-by-chapter instead of as a novel.

Adult Review: The Green Kangaroos

Based on a promotional eBook received from NetGalley in exchange for a review.



The Green Kangaroos
Written by Jessica McHugh

Overall Rating: 3.5/5
Plot: 4
Characters: 4
Writing: 3

The Green Kangaroos is set in a speculative near-future in which televisions exist on every corner and broadcast a set material based on where you live. A class system has come more strongly into play in the United States and Baltimore is rife with drugs and degradation. A drug called Atlys has come into the forefront and its use is encouraged by a cultural phenomenon called "potsticking" in which active Atlys users sell bits of their flesh in return for money and drugs to restaurants, which in turn sell them for the consumption of the extremely rich.

Perry Sampson is one of these drug users, fallen from a middle-class family in the wake of his older brother's OD and his parents' perceived neglect. His little sister hopes to rehabilitate him, to regain the relationship with her brother she used to have, but Perry has resisted those attempts for years. When his sister catches wind of a new treatment with advertised 100% success rates, Perry is in for a wild ride beyond even his own reality with not only his own life on the line, but that of his entire family.

I really loved this book, but it was a hard book to read. It was graphically violent, rife with strong language and sexual imagery, and tackled some deeply disturbing cultural taboos. Due to the nature of the book, these elements were necessary and even in keeping with character and world, but it didn't make it any easier to read without wanting to put the book down. It is for these elements that it receives such a low score for me. I would love to recommend it for the story, for the characters, and for the world they live in, but most of my readers would be put off by the graphic and taboo elements. For those that aren't, though, it's a fantastic read with compelling characters (I love Emily in particular) and a twisted ending.

Adult Review: Saga vol 4

Saga, volume 4
by Brian K. Vaughan

Overall Rating: 4.5/5
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 4/5
Artwork: 5/5

The next installment of the comic collection which follows the lives of a pair of renegade lovers from opposite sides of a planetary civil war. Easily on par with the rest of the series and I've been rabidly checking our catalog for it since I heard it had been released.

I adore this series. Definitely not for children and even parents of young adults should be wary due to language and the sexual nature of some of the imagery. But the story of these vital characters fascinates me and I want to know where they're going. I want to know how their daughter grows up and what will happen next. I'm breathless with anticipation at every turn of the page and the artwork is absolutely stunning. The characters are complex and powerful on many levels. And I totally want a Lying Cat of my own.