Ultimate Iron Man II by Orson Scott Card

This is the sequel to “Ultimate Iron Man” so it is recommended that you read that before this. Ultimate Iron Man II originally appeared over the course of 5 months in Marvel comics and is presented here in collected form as 5 chapters. This story features Tony Stark as a young adult in another action packed adventure.

At the beginning of the story, we learn that somebody wants to kill Howard Stark (Tony’s father) even though he is in prison. Tony then sets about trying to find out who is behind the evil plot. Along the way Tony also has to deal with a group of terrorists who have stolen one or more nuclear bombs. On more than one occasion, Tony finds his regenerative abilities very handy in getting him out of a tight situation.

In the last chapter, we will finally get to meet the person with the grudge against Tony Stark and his father and we learn that they will stop at nothing to get their hands on Tony’s “Iron Man” suit of armour. The author keeps us guessing as to the fate of the major characters right up to the end of the story.

If you like graphic novels and if you liked the first “Ultimate Iron Man” you will like this story.

Ultimate Iron Man II by Orson Scott Card

Toys by James Patterson

A departure from James Patterson's usual style. Action packed, fast paced & riveting. A definite 'read in one session' book. Sci Fi but not the usual fare. The hero is a bit slow on the uptake & naive but you still cheer for him & there is a definite twist at the end. Leaves you wanting a sequel.

-Therese

Toys by James Patterson

The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood

I decided to have a break from my usual reading and try a new genre. And what a good move it was to read Margaret Atwood’s latest science fiction novel, The year of the flood.

It turned my conceptions that science fiction was a boy’s only genre full of robots, wooden writing and two dimensional female characters.

The year of the flood moves back and forth in a future where most of the world’s population has been destroyed by a virulent virus, the waterless flood. The novel is narrated by two female survivors, Toby and Ren.

Both were members of a fascinating religious group called God’s gardeners. Fascinating because they are a scientific, environmentally aware religion through which Margaret Atwood turns the current divide between religion and science on its head. Imagine a religion today supporting evolutionary theory and stating that belief in a literal 6 days of creation is “making nonsense of observable data”. And ‘unlike some other religions, we have never felt it served a higher purpose to lie to children about geology.” The book is filled with pithy sermons from the leader of God’s gardeners that continually confound our view of religion and nature.

It also has a dig at our predilection for sadistic reality style entertainment. Criminals are given the option of execution or Painball. This is where they enter an enclosed forest to fight a gladiatorial style fight to the death. Those that survive win their freedom. Naturally there are hidden cameras to capture all the blood and gore.

But as well as this the novel is well written. Her prose is so simple and lucid. A pleasure to read and she conveys her character’s plight and personalities so well. I found myself caring about Toby and Ren. It was one of the novels where I raced through because I couldn’t stand the suspense of discovering whether they survived the flood. Definitely recommended for people who are not regular sci-fi readers.

- Kaye

The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood

A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card

Having already read my Christmas book, and knowing I'd have no time for the very last in the Thomas Covenant series 'Against all things ending" (that's one I had been eagerly awaiting, but need uninterrupted reading time for) I handed that back in unread and picked up a slim volume from another of my favourite authors.

Orson Scott Card will be familiar to many for his classic Sci Fi novel, Ender's Game. The War of Gifts, is a short story of one of the many by-plays, that can be envisaged happening in Battle School, during Ender's time there.

For the uninitiated Ender is the most brilliant of hundreds of brilliant children, who have been removed at a very young age from their parents (to reduce the effect of culture & religion) and sent to Battle School...situated on a space station above the Earth. there is no contact with family again until the war is ended.

The children are being trained in war craft so they will be ready to fight off the invasion fleet of Formics, which is already in transit. The children are from all nations and cultures, so to promote a sense of the unity of Humankind against the alien enemy, all religious and cultural observances are banned.

Therefore Christmas does not exist.

The War of Gifts explores what happens when a fundamentally religious person is put into this
environment, and observes a Dutch boy leaving his shoes out of his locker for Sinterklaas to fill.
Orson Scott Card is a fantastic writer who draws you into the psychology of a character, poses moral and intellectual dilemmas and most often provides solutions...usually in the most unexpected of manners.

Prior knowledge of the series is not required to enjoy this tale which explores the true meaning of Christmas 'gifts'.

A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card

Altered Carbon / by Richard Morgan

This novel is a fine example of a 'transhuman' future, where human consciousness can be downloaded into another body, stored in machines or transmitted across networks.The entertaining twist to this book is that it blends hard science fiction with crime noir, creating a dystopian and disorienting future anchored in the tradition of Philip K. Dick, where fluid concepts of human identity are played with to dark and at times grimly humorous effect.

Like any good murder mystery, the plot twists and turns, an effect multiplied when you are confronted with situations only sci-fi can deliver. The novel opens with military envoy Takeshi Kovacs being killed in an operation on another planet, only to discover soon after that his consciousness (backed up in a "stack" at the top of his spine) has been "needlecast" across space into a new body in San Francisco to investigate the apparent suicide of a wealthy man. The suicide victim is also back from the dead, enjoying life again in a new body of his choice. Kovacs, however, has been given the body (or "sleeve") of a policeman, whose consciousness is being held in a digital prison as punishment for a previous crime. Just to complicate matters, the policeman’s girlfriend is still on the scene. And so on.

Richard Morgan blends sci-fi jargon and mean-streets sensibility very well. The characters are all fairly hard-bitten, although (reminiscent of Raymond Chandler) there are always decent men and women who need protecting and whose values and aspirations are worth fighting for. Some of the best writing is description of people coming to terms with their new bodies or adjusting to the overwhelming array of chemicals that circulate through their "sleeves" to enhance their senses. Kovacs struggles with the questions of identity that these technologies present. What constitutes a person when they can swap bodies so readily? How will the justice system deal with mere crimes upon the body, when the consciousness can escape unscathed? Can the state bring a Catholic back from the dead to testify in a murder trial, against their religious convictions that state strictly no `re-sleeving’?

I found myself fully immersed in the bizarre experiences that Takeshi Kovacs endures:
"As I dressed in the mirror that night, I suffered the hard-edged conviction that someone else was wearing my sleeve and that I had been reduced to the role of a passenger in the observation car behind the eyes"
It is a future rendered truly unsettling and perhaps a little prescient, which makes good science fiction so compelling. Yet, as in all good stories, humanity's finer instincts are never fully extinguished, even in the in the strange and mean streets of this future LA. Recommended for those who like crime fiction but have never thought to try SF.

Altered Carbon / by Richard Morgan

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, was recommended to me by a work mate after I mentioned I liked Tomorrow when the War Began. The story takes place in the future. The (former) US is run by a totalitarian government (based in the Capitol). There were originally 13 districts that rebelled against this government with all rebellions being put down. District 13 was completely destoyed while the other districts are forced to enter a randomly selected male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 in the Hunger Games each year. The Hunger Games basically involve throwing the contestants into a huge arena where the objective is to kill each other. All of the games are streamed live in the form of a reality show. Enter Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of our story. Katniss is 16 and volunteers to take part in the games in place of her 12-year-old sister. Katniss is used to survival, having hunted for her family for years - however, she is not comfortable with the games. To make matters worse, the other entrant from District 12 is a boy (Peeta), who once helped Katniss and her family avoid starving to death. Since then, Katniss has felt she owes him and doesn't want to kill him. What follows is an extremely fast paced, nail-biting story.

While the storyline is extremely far-fetched, it is still entertaining and made me think a bit about what I'd do in the same situation. At first I thought it was a little slow, but once they entered the arena, I found I couldn't put the book down as the pace just got quicker and quicker and there were surprises around every corner. Suzanne Collins creates a great atmosphere of trepidation leaving the reader on the edge of their seat. There is also a lot of gore in this book so those with a weak stomach should maybe skip over these parts.

The only part of the book that I felt let it down was the growing romance between Katniss and Peeta. I just found these parts to be extremely slow and a little boring. This, however, may be more reflective of my anti-romantic personality than the quality of the book itself. The whole plot was perfectly planned and I couldn't have come up with a better ending if I tried. There are two other books in the series and I'm eagerly waiting to borrow the second book from the Library.

The Hunger Games