Different Flavors of Sci-Fi

    It has been a Science Fiction season for me. I interpret this to mean things are complicated, and I want to escape. Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson wasn't precisely what I wanted. It takes place about thirty years in the future, and climate change has become a massive problem for low-lying areas around the world like the Netherlands, the United States, and parts of India and China as well as others. A Texas billionaire has a solution. He creates a giant gun that fires sulfur into the atmosphere, which reflects back the sunlight, cooling the earth. The problem is that a beneficial change to one part of the ecosystem generally means a detrimental change to another. And not everyone or every country will like or stand still for that. Stephenson, I think, is considered hardcore sci-fi. He finds science and cultural trends and extends them into the future. The story starts with the Meth-Gators watch and Hogzillas watch and then gets weird. As I read, I thought this couldn't be true, but an internet search would prove me wrong. Termination Shock is a time investment to read (708 pages), but an exciting ride. I wouldn't say it's his best work--Cryptomnomicon or Seveneves-- would be my favorites, but I found it worth the effort.

    I've recently discovered Emily Henry and have read some of her prior works. A Million Junes is a Hatfield and McCoy, Romeo and Juliet kind of romance set in a place where the world is thin where the line between reality and the supernatural blurs. what-are-thin-places The two forbidden lovers try to solve the mystery of why their families hate each other so profoundly. It has good things to say about forgiveness, shame, and guilt. A lovely podcast I listened to, Marriage Therapy Radio (https://marriagetherapyradio.com), had an episode about having a personal philosophy of forgiveness. It's been on my mind, and A Million Junes helped me consider it from Henry's perspective while it absorbed me. Not bad, right?

 

    My final book of the week, finished just before lunch today, is Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid. It was apparently a week of reading authors I've read before. Reid is having a moment lately. She also wrote The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Malibu Rising, and Daisy Jones & The Six. This earlier work doesn't feel as accomplished as her latest titles. It is a multiverse story Multiverse. Hannah Martin returns to LA after ten years of wandering. On her first night home, she gets hit by a car, or she gets together with her high school sweetheart. Reid's two storylines contain the same significant events--pregnancy, divorce, and family estrangement, but the different iterations react uniquely. The chapters alternate between the two lines. I like the What-If nature of the multiverse, and Reid has both Hannahs grow and mature. All roads lead to taking responsibility for her life. I didn't think of this as romance fiction when I started, but it did have the happy ending making it a restful summer read.