When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

 

Reviewed by Kristin

If we could package John Scalzi’s sense of humor, I think we might solve all world problems.

In this case, the world does have a big problem. Or the moon has a big problem, which is causing humans a big problem. The moon is suddenly larger and brighter in the sky than it should be. Moon rocks in museums and labs all over the world have changed consistency, and the scientists will only say that they appear to be made of some kind of biological matter. Pretty soon someone takes a sniff, then a taste, and finds that the moon is made of . . . cheese.

The decades since someone landed on the moon have been frustrating, and astronauts have been preparing a trip back to the lunar surface. But if it’s cheese, is it safe? Is it gooey or stringy or shredded or grated?

This tale takes us through exactly one lunar cycle, told through many characters’ points of view. Scientists, kids, billionaires, college students, and politicians all have their opinions and intentions when it comes to finding out exactly what has happened to the moon. From hijacking a rocket to literally howling curses at the moon, this wild romp kept me turning pages long after I should have been asleep.

I guess Scalzi’s books are little packages of his humor, and I know that I can always count on them to make me smile. Scalzi writes space epochs, private investigators, pop culture satires, scathing political commentaries, and so much more. Plus, he loves cats. That is all I really need to know.

The Dispatcher: Murder by Other Means by John Scalzi

Reviewed by Jeanne

Somewhere in the not too distant future, death becomes a bit less certain.  For whatever reason, people who are murdered may not die, but reappear in another place, sans clothing but unharmed.  This has given rise to a new job:  dispatcher.  These are trained and licensed professionals who work with the police and hospitals to officially “murder” people on the brink of death in hopes of having them reappear in better condition. It’s not infallible: 999 times out of 1000, the person returns, but that one time the victim will remain dead.

It’s not a profession for the faint of heart.

Tony Valdez is a dispatcher but he’s currently unemployed and struggling, so when a job comes up that isn’t exactly legal he is inclined to bend the rules just a little to pay the rent.  Shortly thereafter, Tony is present when a robbery goes wrong and soon it seems that someone is trying to set him up for something.  He’s going to have to find out who and why before someone else dies—and dies for good.

John Scalzi writes intriguing speculative fiction with a sense of humor and off-beat situations that still manage to be serious.  This novella is the second in the series, and although I hadn’t read the first book, I still had no problem keeping up.  I like that his main characters are usually decent people who follow a moral code and try to do the right thing no matter the circumstances.  His books are very creative as well as entertaining, and he plays off other genres, such as hard-boiled detective for this one, or fandoms, such as Star Trek for Redshirts. One of his more recent books, Starter Villain, gives me a sort of James Bond feel except that maybe sometimes the villains can be—well, maybe not exactly the good guys, but the not-so-bad guys.

Though short, I thoroughly enjoyed this entry in the series and recommend Scalzi to folks who think they don’t like fantasy or science fiction.

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

 

Reviewed by Kristin

One morning, Charlie turns on the news and discovers that his long lost and extremely rich uncle is dead. Not that he actually expects to receive anything from the man he hasn’t seen since he was five years old, when Charlie’s mother died.

Charlie is just an ordinary guy with a string of bad luck. His wife left him, he’s no longer a halfway respectable journalist (he’s now a substitute teacher), he’s living in his dead father’s house co-owned by his much older half siblings (who want to liquidate), and he lost his good pair of shoes. So that explains the black Skechers he is wearing with his black suit as he goes to the bank to ask for a loan to buy McDougal’s Pub, hoping to turn that endeavor into financial stability.

I’m sure you can guess how that turned out.

As Charlie returns home from the bank, he discovers a woman on his front porch swing, a woman who is about to change his life. She tells him that his uncle did leave him something, and now he should come with her to learn about his extensive business holdings around the world. They include an island volcano lair, of course, as Charlie’s uncle evidently was something of a villain.

Talking spy cats, unionized dolphins, whales with questionable motives, assassins, and other competing villains…(oops, I mean, “other totally upstanding business people”), that’s just the beginning of the story.

John Scalzi has a brutally sharp wit and the ability to make the totally absurd seem absolutely believable. As soon as I was drawn into the first few pages, I knew that I was in for an exciting read. I was a particular fan of the super intelligent talking cats. With a broad cast of characters, human and otherwise, Scalzi takes us on yet another wild ride with Starter Villain.

The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi

Reviewed by Kristin

Jamie Gray* thought that a performance review would be an excellent chance to showcase their ideas and innovations, but füdmüd CEO Rob Sanders had other ideas. Jamie walks into the meeting as a marketing executive and walks out with the offer of being a company “deliverator” – a food delivery person in the midst of 2020. Jamie fumes and swears never to stoop that low, but the reality of New York City rents and roommates jumping ship in the middle of a pandemic causes them to start delivering seven-spice chicken and vegan egg rolls at all hours.

A chance encounter with an old acquaintance named Tom finally gives Jamie a way out. Tom Stevens works with KPS, a company that he calls an animal rights organization. One of Tom’s team is on a ventilator in Houston; he needs a replacement team member, and he needs one now. No special skills are needed, just the ability to lift stuff. Well, maybe lift stuff, follow directions unquestioningly, and keep your mouth shut about what you are lifting. Jamie jumps at the chance to ditch the deliverator cap, passes the background check, and has two days to get their affairs arranged before the KPS team heads out on a new assignment.

As it turns out, the top-secret part of the assignment is even more important than being able to lift stuff, because Jamie is about to travel to a parallel universe where real-life giant creatures (think Godzilla) are entire ecosystems unto themselves, and oh yeah, they just happen to produce nuclear power. The Kaiju Preservation Society really does want to protect these creatures, and definitely wants to keep them from thinning the layers between dimensions so that they don’t pop back into the “real” world. Umm, that might have happened once or twice before. Not the kaijus’ fault, of course. That was totally on humanity who kept messing around with atomic bombs.

John Scalzi is a scathingly brilliant wordsmith who tells extremely entertaining stories while also pointing out the inequalities and disparities contained in the world today. In this fictional take on alternate worlds and political manipulation of the sciences, Scalzi writes characters who believe themselves too powerful to be bothered with morals, as well as underdog characters who fight for the greater good, and for the toppling of billionaire/corporate empires.

 

*All while reading this book, I thought that Jamie was a woman, telling her story in the first person. Other reviewers have assumed that Jamie was a man. Flipping back through the book, I couldn’t find any clues. Then I found a Kirkus review that says Jamie’s gender was never specified.

A Very Scalzi Christmas by John Scalzi

 

Reviewed by Kristin

John Scalzi has a warped sense of humor. And I like it.

I’ve always liked science fiction, but I used to believe that it had to be serious and at least pseudo-scientific. Isaac Asimov is obviously one of the first science fiction authors who comes to mind, along with Ray Bradbury, H.G. Wells, and the other greats of decades past. A few years ago I began to branch out to a newer generation of science fiction: Robert J. Sawyer, Connie Willis, Becky Chambers, James S.A. Corey and more began to populate my reading lists. I first began reading Scalzi a couple of years ago when I saw the book Redshirts, (reviewed here) a comical take on how people on a certain starship would meet bad ends only if they were assigned red uniform shirts. Star Trek, anyone?

Scalzi is a rather prolific author, so I haven’t made it all the way through his published work yet. Fortunately, I was able to find this small volume of short stories full of Christmas cheer, some of which have a sci-fi bent, and some of which do not. Interview with Marta Pittman, anyone? Who is she? Oh right, she’s Santa’s lawyer. There was a bit of ongoing litigation over Rudolph, but Ms. Pittman can’t comment, naturally.

I especially liked the chapter entitled “Christmas in July” as people around the world woke up on a bright July day to discover trees, presents, and Christmas hams baking in the oven. Also worth mentioning is “A personal top 10 of things that are not titles to Christmas songs and/or Lifetime holiday movies and HONESTLY I DON”T UNDERSTAND WHY.” After all, why don’t we have a movie or a song called “Jingle! Jangle! Gerbils!”? Honestly I don’t understand why.

“Sarah’s Sister” is more of a rarity in Scalzi writing, an achingly painful short story of love, loss, and family. This chapter doesn’t really go along with the rest, but that’s okay, I’ll take the bittersweet along with the mildly eyebrow raising humor and the laugh out loud funnies Scalzi has included in this holiday volume.

If you’re feeling ho-hum about the 2020 holiday season and would like some ho-ho-ho’s to perk you up, check out A Very Scalzi Christmas today.

The Interdependency Series: The Collapsing Empire and The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi

Reviewed by Kristin

John Scalzi’s imagination is out of this world—literally. I recently reviewed his science fiction novel Redshirts where Star Trek-like characters assigned to wear red shirts were often on the receiving end of a phaser blast or the victim of some hungry alien creature. Scalzi’s humor shines through as he creates intricate plots and characters.

In the Interdependency, humans have used up the Earth and been forced to find other places to live. The artificial habitats and one single livable planet (called “End”) all depend on each other. Certain resources are available some places, and other things elsewhere. One place may produce all the citrus fruits available in the known universe, and another may have the perfect conditions to manufacture solar panels or self-sealing stem bolts. Humans have adapted to live underground, on rotating space stations with artificial gravity, and under domes.

But there’s a catch—humans haven’t mastered the ability to travel faster than the speed of light, but they have discovered a network which allows them to jump from certain regions of space to others. Think wormholes, but here it is called the Flow. Ships may enter the Flow at certain places and exit at others, so a trip which might take decades at sub-light speeds may only take a few weeks or months instead. It all depends on which stop you get on this interspace subway, and where you want to get off. The map is pretty much set, or at least it has been for the past thousand years or so. All roads connect to the Hub, so it’s a pretty important place within the Interdependency.

The Interdependency is ruled by the Emperox, using a gender neutral title rather than the old-styled Emperor or Empress. Originally a religious figure as well as a head of state, the Emperox has plenty of power, but usually manages his or her empire through a series of royal houses which have a monopoly on selling one thing or another—like all citrus fruit. Political maneuvering runs rampant; the matchmaking and intrigue rivals that of ancient European countries. Everyone who is someone has something to gain, and something to lose.

But then the Flow starts to change. Streams are collapsing, isolating colonies from the rest of the known universe. Only a few scientists are aware of the issues and the potential outcome. As they attempt to deliver that message to the Emperox, that’s where things get interesting. Cardenia Wu-Patrick is about to become the new Emperox and she is forced to hit the ground running as this looming crisis may change everything.

This may sound like I’ve given you the plot of the entire two-books-so-far-series, but I assure you that I’ve barely skimmed the surface. Scalzi writes brilliantly and creates incredible yet believable storylines filled with fascinating characters. The Collapsing Empire ends with huge questions hanging in the balance, but The Consuming Fire picks right up where the series debut left off. Both are available in the new fiction section of the Bristol Public Library.

Bonus:  These titles fit our BPL Book Bingo theme this summer as we explore “A Universe of Stories.”

Redshirts by John Scalzi

Reviewed by Kristin

Most Star Trek fans are familiar with the concept:  On the original series, if you were a minor character wearing a red shirt, you were at risk of serious peril during each weekly show.  If called upon to accompany Captain James T. Kirk, Science Officer Spock, and/or Dr. Leonard McCoy on an away mission, the red-shirted crewmember was most likely doomed to be pushed down a cliff, vaporized, or have all the sodium chloride sucked out of their body.

John Scalzi has taken this idea and run with it in Redshirts.  The crew of the Intrepid, the flagship of the Universal Union (a cooperative galactic organization very similar in feel to the aforementioned Trek universe’s United Federation of Planets) has been roaming the skies with aplomb in the twenty-fifth century.  Ensign Andrew Dahl is proud to have such a prestigious assignment, but he very quickly notices that his co-workers go out of their way to avoid being chosen for away missions, or indeed to be any nearer to the senior offices than absolutely necessary.  How many times could the other menial crewmembers be running to the mess hall for coffee or checking a supply room just as their fearless leader Captain Lucius Abernathy or chief science officer Commander Q’eeng steps foot on the deck?

But wait—this work of science fiction is set in a future version of our real world, a world in which Star Trek really was on television screens in the late 1960s, inspiring many more science fiction shows with wildly incredible plots.  Ensign Dahl begins to notice that the crew of the Intrepid seems to be controlled by some larger ‘Narrative’ which throws lesser crewmembers into the gaping jaws of Borgovian Land Worms or kills them with the Merovian Plague.  Is the rank-and-file crew simply living their lives not through free will, but in some predestined manner solely intended to add some tension to the storyline of the ranking officers of the Intrepid?

I found Redshirts to be a really fun book with strong characters and a quickly moving plot.  The ridiculousness of the perils the crewmembers faced added to the humor.  Just like in Star Trek, giant worms, black goop, and rocks are equally likely to eat any humans which dare to venture into their path.

After finishing this novel, a new John Scalzi book arrived at the library.  His author photo particularly caught my eye, not for his physical features, but for the fact that his cat is photobombing him.  I will definitely be starting his other space saga entitled The Interdependency series, first with The Collapsing Empire and followed by The Consuming Fire.