Read Something! REDSHIRTS by John Scalzi

REDSHIRTS
John Scalzi

Science fiction

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been posted to the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union fleet. It's a prestigious post, but when Dahl arrives on board, he finds that life aboard the Intrepid is just a little... well, strange. To start off, it seems like the crew avoids their senior officers. Those that don't tend to get assigned to away teams, and those assigned to away teams... often end up dead. Then there's the Box, a device of unknown provenance that consistently offers solutions to insoluble problems just in the nick of time. Something isn't right on the Intrepid, and Dahl and his friends are going to get to the bottom of it - even if it means their world will never be the same.

Scalzi has written a fast-paced, entertaining narrative great for fans of Star Trek and similar sci-fi shows as well as people who enjoy a healthy dose of "meta" in their fiction.

 

Read Something! A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ
Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Science fiction / postapocalyptic fiction / literary fiction

In the centuries after nuclear apocalypse, human society rebuilds itself almost from scratch. Told in three sections, each set several centuries after the previous story, A Canticle for Leibowitz shows us the lives of three men in the Order of Saint Leibowitz, an order of monks dedicated to preserving what books and papers remain of the civilization that existed before global thermonuclear war destroyed much of human society and precipitated a violent backlash against the educated, technologically advanced culture that had made nuclear weapons possible. As Miller brings the reader into the hearts, minds, hopes, and dreams of relatively ordinary people, and as the world moves from a dark age through a new renaissance into another technological era, the unavoidable question looms: will humanity avoid its past mistakes?

Warning [and spoiler warning]: This is not a happy ending.

Readalikes:

• Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban - similar post-nuclear-apocalyptic Dark Ages setting, questions of what society would look like after a nuclear holocaust, themes of history repeating itself
• Miller wrote a sequel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman.
• 1984 - similar for sheer bleakness

Read Something! _Rainbows End_ (Vernor Vinge)

Rainbows End
VERNOR VINGE
2006
381 pp.
Science Fiction

Summary

In the not-too-distant future, wearable computers enable people to be constantly hooked in to the Internet, even to overlay different "realities" upon the world around them. Alzheimer's, and many other maladies of old age, have been cured. And mass terrorism is a threat to civilization on a scale never before imagined.

When hints surface suggesting that someone in the United States may be on the verge of discovering a feasible method of mind control, the other world powers know that they must investigate - but covertly. With the help of a juvenile hacker of uncertain identity, they assemble a ring of unwitting accomplices to breach one of the most heavily secured biolabs in the United States.

But they cannot predict the chaotic effect of their independent-minded hired hacker on their operation. Nor do they know that one of their own is trying to sabotage the investigation...


Appeal characteristics

• Frame: Extensive worldbuilding
• Frame: Near-future setting that seems a plausible outgrowth of today's trends and technologies
• ??: World/plot focused (vs. character-focused)
• Plot: Elements of intrigue/spy thrillers
• Plot: Many loose ends are not tied up at the end; the book just sort of stops
• Pacing: Longish chapters
• Pacing: Slow through the first couple hundred pages, picks up when the major plot event occurs, then slows down again
• Characterization: Major character is (deliberately) distinctly unlikeable for the opening part of the story but undergoes a change
• Characterization: A variety of characters of different ages, races, stations in life, etc.

Other notes

• My Noting: Books entry for this book is here.

Readalikes

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