Hum by Helen Phillips is a look into a possible dystopian future. I found it scary because it felt so very possible. A woman loses her job teaching AI how to be more human. In financial desperation, she agrees to an experimental surgical procedure that would make her unreadable to the ubiquitous surveillance, screens, and targeted advertising that pervades every aspect of living. With the money, she buys her family an extravagant trip to a hotel/botanical garden. There, they smell unpolluted air, drink untainted water, and lie in the grass under a tree. An impossibility in their current city life in a cramped apartment, where they are behind in the rent. She hopes this time in paradise will be a respite from their daily lives, but even there, serpents hide.
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Mark Lawrence's library trilogy ends with The Book That Held Her Heart. Lawrence finishes well. It is obvious Lawrence is well-versed in fantasy literature, and there are Easter Eggs in the text that made me smile. The main characters, Livira and Evar, are apart in time and space and seek a way back toward each other, and want to end the great war at the heart of the library. Lawrence tackles the scourge of tribalism and the need for a common enemy to rally against. The characters visit a Jewish book store in Nazi Germany on Kristallenacht and find similarities to their world. The infinite library is troubled, and its structure is collapsing. The final book is a fitting conclusion to a great series.
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My favorite author is Connie Willis, who writes incredible science fiction, and Mur Lafferty has a similar vibe. I reaher series'she first and second booes: The Midsolar Murders. The first book, Station Eternity, introduces Mallory Viridian, who seems to have the unfortunate ability to attract murder. Wherever she goes, murders happen, which she then solves. The police and the FBI suspect her even though she solves each murder--and there are many. Her family and friends recognize that she's innocent, but still fear being collateral damage and keep their distance. So she travels to a space station with only two other humans to live among multiple alien species, hoping her murder curse won't follow her there. Guess what happens? The premise is clever and well thought out. Malory makes friends among the variety of sentient beings who dwell there. It is as if Star Trek and Murder She Wrote had a space baby that lived in Cabot Cove.
After finishing the first, I immediately started the second book, Chaos Terminal. Lafferty continues the story. More humans visit Eternity with designs on exploiting the aliens for their own nefarious reasons. As Mallory would say, it's all about the connections.
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