Where Charlie Gets Friggin Dolphins

Starter Villain by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very entertaining book.

I always like John Scalzi. It feels like he's using straightforward, plain language, but nobody makes me laugh more. The dialogue, the tone, the clever, smart-ass quips--never jokes--kill me. Scalzi taps into the zeitgeist in a way nobody else quite does, and he makes it work for him.

I almost gave this a 5, and still could, but it feels a little smaller than some of his other books. Lots of fun still, but I wish he gave his MC more to do. He's a good character, but his role could have been played by almost anyone. Except for a few good scenes with the other villains and some stuff with the dolphins (I won't give more spoilers than that) he doesn't contribute a lot.

That's alright. It still works.

I kinda wonder what genre this really is. I read it like SF, but it's not really. Speculative fiction still, I guess. Satire, for sure. Closer to a James Bond novel than SF, though. And again--that's alright. He can write in any genre and I'll read it.

A regular dude getting tossed into the role of a super-villain, having to face other rich villains, is a clever idea, a novel-worthy idea. Giving him friggin dolphins and friggin smart cats is just too funny.

If you like Scalzi, or if you like SF (is it SF?) that also makes you laugh, this is your book. And he's got others.

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Where Scalzi Amuses Non-Curmudgeons

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Come on. You can tell. Just from the title (and the author) you can tell that this is gonna be awesome.

And it is.

John Scalzi has a knack for telling real science fiction stories that have an entertaining plot and characters easy to root for while still managing laugh out loud killer dialogue. Funny. Pitch perfect (it's in the book) modern voices.

Smart people (who also like each other) messing with each other.

It's my favorite.

Another thing I like about Scalzi books, beyond the way they entertain me and make me laugh, is the social critique layered in there. I'm sure it triggers sad puppies (look it up) and others of that sort, but that's a bonus. His books are heavy on diversity and light on talking about it. He has as many great female characters as male. It's just how he puts his stories together. It's a Star Trek universe way of seeing the world, and while he can still have lots of dark stuff, with bad guys and painful events, that sense of hope remains and is key.

If you know Music and Lyrics, you'll get the reference, but even without you'll understand: this book is dessert, but it's also dinner.

5 stars. No notes.

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Where Scalzi Is Just Laughing At Us, and That's Fine

The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The summary of this book is kinda odd. Earth is in danger of being attacked by a more powerful alien race if they don't locate a special blue sheep, all of which are being wiped out by a conspiracy, and it falls to a single bureaucrat (with the help of a dead friend) to protect the one woman who unwittingly carries the secret of the blue sheep in her DNA.

Oh, and the diplomatic crisis is caused by a human who uses a special device in his butt to deliver devastating insults via the language of scent to his alien counterpart. Ha!

Sometimes, I think Scalzi is just messing with us. It almost feels like he took a bag full of mad-libs (with stuff like "someone gives insults in the language of farts" and "there's sheep DNA in a pet shop owner" and "the hacker is in the computer, and he's dead") and selected a bunch, then had to come up with a way to use all the weird ideas. But, as usual, however unlikely, it works.

The action is continuous, damn near breakneck, and though it's filled with actual life-or-death stakes, the witty banter (actual banter, mind you; not the awkward, wooden snarking that too many authors try to skate on) keeps the action light and hilarious. It gets tied up a tad too quickly, which seems to be the way he likes to finish his books, but it's satisfying and complete.

So it's strange and funny and exciting and thought-provoking and silly. I give a star for each one.

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Where I Praise John Scalzi and Break No New Ground

The Last Emperox by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Basically, this book is good because it's a John Scalzi book, and they are always a pleasure to read. Literally always. It's a rule, and this book does not break that rule.

It is the last book in the Interdependency series, concluding the story of a future far-flung interstellar empire that is in danger of collapsing, and I read it faster than pretty much any book I've read in the last couple years. Scalzi creates interesting characters that the reader can root for (probably the most important ingredient for me), especially female characters like Nadashe Nohamapetan and Kiva Lagos and Cardenia Wu, among others, and and puts them in tough situations where they get to exude attitude and smart off in a way I never stop loving. Always a blast. For me, this novel and the ones that came before it are like pie—the first bite is good, the second is good, and all the rest are also good, up to and including the last bite. All good.

That's also my only criticism. As much as I love the books, they're short on explosive conclusions. (IMO.) I mean, there are lots of payoffs all through the books, times when we can cheer and laugh and say, "Grayland sure surprised them!" and the like. But there is little to no ratcheting up of stakes and excitement near the end. There's a nice resolution and all the threads I care about get tied up, and like a nice pie, it's all good, though the last bit isn't much different from the start.

I'll take it. No problem.

I found the ending satisfying, and I feel like the series has a nice arc. It seems the author wants to give us a story with only the fun parts, so he doesn't overwrite and he doesn't drag it out.

Well, fine.

I've criticized so many novels for being overblown and wordy, in desperate need of cutting... He sidesteps that, and I thank him.

Good stuff. Recommended.

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Where Big Concept SF Is Funnier Than You'd Expect

The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like every John Scalzi book I've ever picked up, this book is fun to read. Nobody does clever, funny, biting dialogue like him, and nobody keeps a story rolling like him. This one clicks along at a good pace and gets better as it goes, leaving me wanting the third book right now.

It's in the mail, so I'm good. :)

I saw a very negative review of this book when I was starting it, and I thought about it as I was reading. It was strange that I could sort of see the reader's point; yes, the plot often feels condensed; yes, looked at a certain way, it can feel like summary that has not been fleshed out. No, you don't get the elaborate, gritty world-building you get in some other SFF brick-like tomes. It's true. If it doesn't pertain to the plot, it's mostly not there. (The world-building we get is more than adequate, IMO, but leave that aside.) Instead of a fully-realized-down-to-the-dirt type of setting, what you get is fast-paced, witty, engaging, keep-reading-to-see-what-happens action with brilliant, laugh-out-loud dialogue. Like damn near every one of his books.

No. All of them. Seriously.

It's a good tradeoff. Kinda makes me think of Asimov, now that I'm reflecting. But Asimov was seldom this funny. And I am horribly underselling the incredible intellectual work that makes up the setting and history and background of this story and series. It's very cool and super thought-provoking. We just don't see what kind of fluorescent lights are in the grimy homes of the working class schmoes in this series; we don't see what kind of street-food regular people enjoy when they're not engaged in back-breaking labor; it flies over all that in ships like resort hotels.

I think maybe I'd like to see a big fat science fiction novel from John Scalzi, a Wheel of Time sort of creation filled with the minute details of intense world-building, because I'm sure he could pull it off. But there's almost nothing better than his 300 page books. If you're a reader stuck in a reading slump or a regular person just wanting to find a fun read, you just can't go wrong here.

IMO. As always.

This is the second in the series. Highly recommended, especially read in order... :)

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More Scalzi Fun

The End of All Things by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like everything by John Scalzi, this is super readable. It rolls along at a good clip almost from beginning to end, and it is filled with his characteristic witty dialogue (including inner dialogue). And it's a good story, as always.

I didn't love the end, though, so as much as I enjoyed the novel, I felt like it dropped a peg there. The resolution was logical and reasonable, but it wasn't dramatic or entirely satisfying. :(

What the author does better than just about anyone is tell a story through dialogue, and it's almost always fun, humorous, clever dialogue. The downside is when the direct action of the story, like at the end, is still mostly revealed through characters talking. That took away some of the coolness of the action at the end. So the end was *okay*.

Anyway, that's my opinion. John Scalzi is literally a master storyteller, and he can do things his way; even when I disagree I still really enjoy reading his stuff. No exception here.

Recommended. After you read the rest of the series, I mean. :)

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Where I confess my preference for fun books

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read the original "Little Fuzzy" back in the 70s when I was a kid, and I remember that I liked a lot. Cute, quick read, fun. I'm pretty sure I read the second book, but I don't remember much about it, so who knows... But I was totally up for the reboot by one of my favorite authors as soon as I saw it, and I should have known about it years before. How'd I miss it? It's cool, everybody, I finally found it. Even if I'm late to the party, I enjoyed it, and Imma tell you why.

This is a fun book, and I put a lot of stock in that. I was reading five other books (you know, a piece of each every day, like a well-balanced diet) when I grabbed this, and it shouldered all the other books aside. Some of those are very good books, too, but this one was more fun. "I'll read just to page 150 and turn out the light," became, "Wow, I'm way past that now. Well, ten more pages."

Sometimes you read for moral improvement, and sometimes you read for fun, because you remember life is short and boring is long. It's okay to read something that entertains you. Seriously.

So, fun how? First of all, it's funny, which is practically a given with a John Scalzi book. Although the main character, Holloway, is likable and sympathetic and has the best lines, he is kind of an ass. In a brief exchange in court where he is discussed, secondary characters are given a few good lines:

"What's your general opinion of Mr. Holloway?" Meyer asked.
"Am I allowed to use profanity?" Bourne asked.
..."Just hit the highlights," Meyer said.
...[Bourne lists his shortcomings]...
"Any positive qualities?" Meyer asked, slightly bemused.
"I like his dog," Bourne said.

All accurate. He pisses people off, and he does have a good dog.

Besides being funny--it's a good story. It's straightforward in both the original and the reboot: humans are extracting mineral wealth from the planet Zarathustra with the belief that there is no sapient race on the planet, and the Fuzzys' existence, if they can be shown to be sapient, undermines the corporate claims to the planet's resources. It's not a complex plot and doesn't need to be, although it still addresses a lot of themes in an entertaining way. The original book was quite sweet and cute for science fiction (and loved in part because of this). While this version has more grit and conflict than the original, giving the reader a little more to chew on, it does so without doing violence to the source material. It achieves this mainly by roughing up the main character and his backstory rather than by introducing anything scandalous or salacious. (Mind you, I like scandalous and salacious fine. But it wouldn't fit this book.) He was a good steward of the Fuzzy tradition.

And, like all of this author's books, it is cinematic. It is easy to imagine this being filmed with a nicely glib smart-ass actor like Harrison Ford/Jamie Foxx/Robert Downey--or someone younger than that whose name I probably don't know yet. (Mindy Kaling? Out-of-the-box casting!) The book has that cool flow, quick read, action-with-humor vibe that makes a good book and a good movie, and even though it's not heavy, dramatically or thematically, (well, spoiler, this book does contain all the emotions, somewhere) it's not flyaway light; there's an effective and satisfying combination of character and plot driving the novel.

When readers say, "I like to read but I'm between books," or "Lately, I've been in a reading dry patch," what they mean is that they're choosing dull and dreary books that sound better than they are. Quit punishing yourself, people! Remind yourself what made you into a reader all those years ago. Read a good book. A fun book.

Hey! Here's one!

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More good stuff from John Scalzi

Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is an easy one.

I like John Scalzi's writing. Just in general. He's got a sound, a patter, that is recognizably his, and he doesn't screw it up.

This is a good story, with a proven plot, good pacing, sympathetic and interesting characters, and (as always) clever dialogue.

It was interesting to read the same story as the previous novel told from a different POV. It wasn't, of course, the same story, but something new. I liked it.

(Only quibble--what do the aliens look like? Come on! Not every species, but a few, please! Anyway...)

Five stars, of course.

So, read the book already. Off you go. :)

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