Near Future – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Mon, 04 Jan 2016 19:14:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.4 ZERO HISTORY by William Gibson /2011/zero-history-by-william-gibson/ /2011/zero-history-by-william-gibson/#respond Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:05:47 +0000 /?p=19999 Book Quote:

“Above him, near the room’s high ceiling, illuminated by the large Italian floor lamp with its silver umbrella, the matt-black manta ray was turning slow forward somersaults, almost silently, the only sound the soft crinkling of its helium-filled membrane. He wasn’t watching it. Instead he was focused on the screen of the iPhone, watching the feed from the ray’s camera as it rolled…It was hypnotic, and all the more so because he was causing the roll, maintaining it, executing it each time, with the same sequence of thumb movements on the phone’s horizontal screen.”

Book Review:

Review by Bill Brody  AUG 21, 2011)

 Zero History by William Gibson continues his critique of contemporary civilization through a window of technology that renders the everyday into science fiction.

We follow a complex and sophisticated plot revolving about shadowy, powerful and unscrupulous figures that use the more sympathetic protagonists to further their financial and political ends. Think something like a James Bond story told by a cyberpunk sophisticate. There is adventure aplenty and lots of action. Cutting edge technologies and their implications further the action that is intense and unrelenting.

Hubertus Bigend, the Belgian entrepreneur, shadow figure par excellence who sports a Klein Blue suit (after the artist, Yves Klein who famously had nude women covered with his signature color of blue paint writhe about on bare canvas, painting it with their naked selves) entices ex-rocker, Hollis, and Milgrim, recovering addict, to find the designer behind Gabriel Hounds, a line of clothing that appears to echo and perhaps anticipate U.S. military design. Bigend wants to be in the recession-proof business of designing U.S. military clothing. Bigend’s enterprise is under attack by an American competitor.

In the course of the story, Hollis and her feisty rocker friend Heidi call on Hollis’ old boyfriend, Garreth, a performance artist who jumps from extremely high buildings wearing what is essentially a flying squirrel suit, for some high tech action to save the day. Garreth is able to call upon some really shadowy and powerful friends. We enjoy a very active and twisting ride featuring, among other novelties, a flying manta ray made of mylar that is controlled by an iPhone and sports a surveillance camera and a taser.

Gibson’s focus on fashion, taste, marketing and manipulation by those privy to the newest of the new and savvy to the implications of cyber-technology is so clearly exact as to appear prescient. His work only appears to be science fiction to those of us who are out of touch with the new. If you are up to date or think you are up to date, just blink your eyes and you are as out of touch as the rest of us. To remedy this situation, read Gibson, master of cyberpunk. He is a must-read for anyone who hopes to have a clue as to where the contemporary world is headed.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-0from 97 readers
PUBLISHER: Berkley Trade; Reprint edition (August 2, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bill Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: William Gibson
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Movies from books:

]]> /2011/zero-history-by-william-gibson/feed/ 0 A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD by Jennifer Egan /2010/a-visit-from-the-goon-squad-by-jennifer-egan/ /2010/a-visit-from-the-goon-squad-by-jennifer-egan/#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:04:24 +0000 /?p=13360 Book Quote:

“I want interviews, features, you name it,” Bosco went on. “Fill up my life with that shit. Let’s document every fucking humiliation. That is reality, right? You don’t look good anymore twenty years later, especially when you’ve had half your guts removed. Time’s a goon, right? Isn’t that the expression?”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (NOV 03, 2010)

In Jennifer’s Egan’s lively and inventive novel – A Visit From The Goon Squad – each of its characters feels his or her mortality. Each is a in a tenuous danse-a-deux with “the goon.”

Every chapter is told from a different character’s point of view and it is no accident that the novel starts with Sasha – the assistant of music producer Bennie Salazar, one of the key focal points. Sasha has sticky fingers and is constantly pirating away meaningless objects to compose “the warped core of her life.” These objects serve as talismans, placing her at arm’s length from the love she wants.

And Bennie? A one-time band member and arrogant indie genius, he is now one step removed from the action, adding flakes of gold to his coffee to enhance his libido and bemoaning the state of digital technology. Like Sasha, he’s at arm’s length from a direct connection with love and life in general.

Bennie and Sasha will never know much about each other – even though they’ve worked together for decades – but the reader comes to know them through various stories. We get to know Lou, Bennie’s charismatic, misbehaving, skirt-chasing mentor during a harrowing African safari; Dolly, the PR mogul who places her own daughter in harm’s way; Jules, the ex-con journalist whose lunch with a Hollywood grade B actress goes terribly wrong; Ted Hollander, Sasha’s art-loving uncle, who travels to Naples to find her. Each will add a little something to the puzzle.

Yet none of their stories is told in chronological order, or even through flashbacks. Rather, time is revealed like the grooves of a record album, jumping from track to track in what appears to be no particular order. As each character takes his or her own moment in the spotlight, he or she is desperate for a second chance and to hold off the approaching goon. At one point, Dolly reflects, “Her deeper error had preceded all that: she’s overlooked a seismic shift…Now and then (she) finds herself wondering what sort of event or convergence would define the new world in which she found herself, as Capote’s party had, or Woodstock, or Malcolm Forbes’s seventieth birthday, or the party for Talk Magazine. She had no idea.”

The rich, lush, adventurous life that these characters once lived is being replaced by PowerPoints (one young character reveals her story through a 40-page PowerPoint presentation), paid “parrots” who create social media buzz, truncated emails, and digital technology. As Egan’s characters “strut and fret” their last hours on the broader stage, the world of technology is making them increasingly irrelevant. When Alex – Sasha’s would be beau whom we meet in the first chapter – tells Bennie, “I don’t know what happened to me,” Bennie’s answer is, “You grew up, Alex…just like the rest of us.”

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 257 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf (June 8, 2010)
REVIEWER: Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Jennifer Egan
EXTRAS: Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another genre bending new school novel:

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

Bibliography:

Movies from Books:

  • The Invisible Circle (2001)
]]> /2010/a-visit-from-the-goon-squad-by-jennifer-egan/feed/ 1 SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY by Gary Shteyngart /2010/super-sad-true-love-story-by-gary-shteyngart/ /2010/super-sad-true-love-story-by-gary-shteyngart/#comments Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:17:03 +0000 /?p=11054 Book Quote:

“I think when the dust settles and the Bipartisans are history that’s how we’re going to live, as small units who don’t agree. I don’t know what we’ll call it, political parties, military councils, city-states, but that’s how it’s going to be and we’re not going to screw it up this time. It’ll be like 1776 all over again. Act Two for America.”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte (AUG 2, 2010)

It’s probably best to get this one interesting tidbit out of the way: 38 year-old Gary Shteyngart, the author of the clever new satire, Super Sad True Love Story, recently made the New Yorker’s list of “20 Under 40” fiction writers—writers whom the New Yorker described as “capturing the inventiveness and the vitality of contemporary American fiction.” With Super Sad, Shteyngart has done just that.

One doesn’t know for sure how many autobiographical elements are in Shteyngart’s protagonist, Lenny Abramov. But the two are close in age. Lenny, an unsure, bumbling, child-adult still, is 39. As the book opens he has just fallen in love with Eunice Park, many years his junior.

While this might seem straightforward enough, it is not. For this is the America of the not-so-distant future where the country is pretty much on the verge of social and economic collapse and a political apparatus named the Bipartisan Party is in power. Sinister elements of authoritarian rule are creeping up everywhere. The National Guard has posted random checkpoints all around the country to weed out unwanted citizenry all while the country is locked in an endless war against Venezuela.

Lenny works for an outfit that is invested heavily in Life Extension and his assignment is essentially to seek out “High Net Worth Individuals” who will subscribe to the concept. In fact, at the outset of the novel, he is just returning from Rome where he has spent a couple of years trying to scope out potential clients in Europe (he meets Eunice Park in Rome).

As far as everyday human interactions are concerned, the situation is equally grim. Everybody lives out lives in a constant flow of information streamed through individual devices called äppärät. At any given time, these “apparati” can tell others what your hotness quotient is or how valuable an asset you are, to your employer. Everybody’s worth is constantly tabulated. “One unfortunate Aiden M. was lowered from ‘overcoming loss of loved one’ to ‘letting personal life interfere with job’ to ‘doesn’t play well with others,’” Shteyngart writes. Hardly anybody ever talks to each other anymore and if they do, it’s called verballing (as opposed to just using pictures streamed live).

Needless to say, such an environment is hardly conducive to the nurturing of a budding relationship. It doesn’t help that Eunice Park, for her part, doesn’t see Lenny through a romantic lens right away. Her first impressions of him are that of a nerd in dorky clothes, someone who is trying way too hard and getting nowhere. Slowly however, she warms up to him, as she realizes he genuinely cares about her.

Super Sad is written in the form of two thought journals. One is maintained by Lenny and is more conventional in its format. The other, maintained by Eunice, is written in the form of brief and intense email messages (or as GlobalTeens messages as they are referred to in the novel) to her close friend, Jenny Kang. Together they paint the picture of a couple slowly navigating the landscape around them to fall in love.

Of course, as the novel’s title implies, this story does not have a fairy tale ending. For one thing, the strained political landscape explodes and there are riots in New York with casualties. The government bombs targets within the country and everyone’s äppärät stops working. All kinds of chaos ensues—nobody is sure exactly who the bad guy is here. In this politically stifling climate, with all kinds of “Big Brothers” watching, it remains to be seen how and if Lenny and Eunice’s fragile relationship will endure.

Shteyngart, himself the son of Russian immigrants, has portrayed Lenny as one too. Eunice, for her part, is the daughter of Korean immigrants. Her father’s systematic abuse of the family (Eunice’s mother, sister Sally, and herself) on the heels of a failing podiatric practice, also looms large in the background. Shteyngart beautifully portrays the unbearable expectations placed on second-generation immigrants to be high achievers. And he makes it clear not all immigrants and their associated dilemmas are the same. One of the best scenes in the novel comes when Lenny gets to meet Dr. Park over lunch. He can see the similarities between his own overbearing father and Dr. Park but can yet spot the telling differences.

Shteyngart has always written wonderful satire starting with the delightful The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, which gave a good sneak peek at this author’s talent. And while it too has sharp satire, Super Sad lacks some of Debutante’s zaniness. Yet it makes up for this in its more significant emotional heft. Perhaps this is a sign of the gradual maturing of Shteyngart’s own work.

In an interview with the New York Times, Shteyngart has said that he is very comfortable painting dystopian societies. “Dystopia is my middle name,” he says, “I was born in the Soviet Union, and then we moved to Reagan’s America.” Even ignoring the tongue-in-cheek factor in that statement, it is easy to see what he means when you read Super Sad. “That’s what I admire about youngish Italians, the slow diminution of ambition, the recognition that the best is far behind them,” Lenny says in the novel. One wonders how long before the same could be said of us Americans.

What’s worse, the scenario painted in Super Sad is not all that far-fetched. One can see the beginnings of such madness all around us. In that sense, not only is Gary Shtenygart’s new novel super sad, it is also super scary.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 114 readers
PUBLISHER: Random House; 1 edition (July 27, 2010)
REVIEWER: Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Official website for Gary Shteyngart

Wikipedia page on Gary Shteyngart
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Another satirical book of our times:

The Unknown Knowns by Jeffrey Rotter

And one set in London:

A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks

And some countries make it hard to write a love story:

Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandinpour

Bibliography:

]]> /2010/super-sad-true-love-story-by-gary-shteyngart/feed/ 3 ABLE ONE by Ben Bova /2010/able-one-by-ben-bova/ Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:48:17 +0000 /?p=10423 Book Quote:

“Now, flying toward the Sea of Japan at more than thirty thousand feet, heading into a possible war, Harry studied the laser assembly with the critical eye of a worried father. It’ll work, he told himself. We’ll make it work.

But in his mind’s eye he saw the rig in the desert explode into white-hot flames, saw Quintana being roasted alive, felt the agony of his ribs cracking as he slammed against the back wall of the control room.

It should’ve been me, not Pete. I should have been out there. I should have checked the oxy line myself, made sure it was clean.

He shook his head to clear the nightmare vision. Well, Harry said to himself, if she blows today it won’t matter where I’m standing. We’ll all be dead.”

Book Review:

Review by Ann Wilkes (JUL 31 2010)

In Able One, Ben Bova turns up the heat with the threat of war. A Korean faction takes out most of the world’s satellites by exploding a missile in orbit. Through unaffected, hardened military satellites, the government watches the Korean launch pad where two more missiles stand ready.

The Korean threat turns Harry Hartunian’s first airborne test of an experimental, anti-missile laser into the real thing. The Airbourne Laser, or ABL-1 (Able One), housed in the retrofitted body of a 747 Boing jet, is America’s best hope of averting a war with not just Korea, but by extension China as well.

The tension mounts as the various U.S. government division heads argue over the appropriate response to the threat. Meanwhile the macho U.S. President refuses to delay or divert his flight to San Francisco, which the civilian security advisor is convinced is the Korean’s next target.

For Hartunian, it is not enough that his team is now all that stands between America and WWIII, he also has a saboteur aboard. He’s convinced it’s one of his own team, but they could not have known that they were boarding anything other than a test flight. The part can be switched en route, but who would sabotage the test and why? And more importantly, will they do it again?

The pilot, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Christopher had been the object of one of those chiefs of staff’s impropriety. Colonel Christopher had refused to name Major General Bradley Scheib as the married Air Force officer she slept with and was shipped to what would have been a back-water mission in Alaska to test the laser. Now Scheib must watch as she risks her life, never letting on that she is any more to him than a military asset.

One of Bova’s main strengths is his ability to create believable, fallible characters. All the tension and drama of this tale wouldn’t mean a thing if the reader couldn’t identify with and care about the characters going through it. The laser technology was interesting, but what drew me into the story were the natural ways in which the characters dealt with the crisis before them. Able One is an engaging techno-thriller from an author who has made his name writing science fiction.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-0from 9 readers
PUBLISHER: Tor Books; 1 edition (February 2, 2010)
REVIEWER: Ann Wilkes
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Ben Bova
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Watchmen

Exile Series:

  • Exiled from Earth (1971)
  • Flight of Exiles (1972)
  • End of Exile (1975)
  • The Exiles Trilogy (2011)

Voyagers

Orion

To Save the Sun

  • To Save the Sun (1992) (with AJ Austin)
  • To Fear the Light (1994) (with AJ Austin)

Grand Tour of the Universe:

Moonrise (part of Grand Tour):

Asteroid Wars (part of Grand Tour):

Sam Gunn (part of Grand Tour):

Nonfiction:

Related:

]]> THE IMMORTALITY FACTOR by Ben Bova /2009/immortality-factor-by-ben-bova/ /2009/immortality-factor-by-ben-bova/#respond Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:38:54 +0000 /?p=6772 Book Quote:

Does Habermeir know you’ve asked me to look into his work? I asked…I didn’t like stepping on the toes of other scientists in the Omnitech family. But I needed Johnston’s support for my own programs and to keep the support I had to keep the CEO happy. Politics. There was no way around it, you had to be good at politics to get to do the science you wanted to do.

Still, I couldn’t help muttering, “How can you expect anything but trouble, dealing with radioactive material?”

Johnston fixed me with a stern gaze. “There’s a lot of money to be made in cleaning up nuclear wastes. And it’s a good thing to do, Arthur. You’re always telling me we should be doing good things, aren’t you?”

Book Review:

Review by Ann Wilkes (Dec 29, 2009)

The Immortality Factor was first published in 1996 as Brothers. It is now presented, according to Bova, not as a science fiction novel, but as a contemporary novel. Due to advancements in the field of cellular regeneration, it is no longer science fiction.

The novel begins a little slow – with a trial that plays out between flashbacks throughout the story. The trial is conducted in a newly devised Science Court, established with the express purpose of determining the validity of the protagonist’s line of research. In spite of his objections and the Court’s original intent, the prosecutor continually brings up peripheral matters: Which brother’s idea was this growing of new organs and limbs? What about the lab’s scientist who died? What about stem cells and the babies who have to die to provide them?

The trial gains momentum as the characters’ individual dramas unfold. Arthur Marshak is a scientist who was drummed out of academia and is set on winning a Nobel Prize from his commercial lab in lower Connecticut. His brother, Jesse, married Arthur’s former fiancé, understandably trashing the brothers’ relationship.

“Julia, it isn’t right for Jess to drag you off to these places. They’re dangerous.”

Very patiently, Julia replied, “As I’ve told you before, Arthur, dear, he’s not dragging me anywhere. I want to go. I want to be able to help him, to help those poor miserable people. I couldn’t remain here while he’s off in the bush somewhere risking his life.”

…”Stay here where it’s safe,” I said, meaning, Stay with me.

“No,” Julia said, as if she knew precisely what I meant. “No, I really can’t, Arthur. My place is beside Jess, wherever he goes, whatever he does.”

Worse still, Jesse initially suggests the possibility of regenerating organs and limbs only to oppose the project in the Science Court. The Immortality Factor may be a glimpse into the inner circle of modern scientists, but the driving force is the novel’s characters. Bova makes the reader care about their fates – and not just the protagonist’s. I was invested in all of the major characters whom Bova gave voice to in short chapters from their own point of view.

Buffeting Arthur about are: the possibility of a hostile corporate takeover, the love he still feels for his brother’s wife, religious and political opposition, office politics and two other women who have set their sights on him. Though Arthur is a bit self-absorbed and single-minded, you’ll want to see him succeed, if not in winning that Nobel Prize or in saving paraplegics, at least to become a happy man.

AMAZON READER RATING: from 7 readers
PUBLISHER: Tor Science Fiction (December 29, 2009)
REVIEWER: Ann Wilkes
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Ben Bova
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Our interview with Ben Bova on MARS LIFE

Bibliography:

Watchmen

Exile Series:

  • Exiled from Earth (1971)
  • Flight of Exiles (1972)
  • End of Exile (1975)
  • The Exiles Trilogy (2011)

Voyagers

Orion

To Save the Sun

  • To Save the Sun (1992) (with AJ Austin)
  • To Fear the Light (1994) (with AJ Austin)

Grand Tour of the Universe:

Moonrise (part of Grand Tour):

Asteroid Wars (part of Grand Tour):

Sam Gunn (part of Grand Tour):

Nonfiction:

Related:

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