they're out to get you
I FINISHED SOMETHING. IT IS IN BETA. YAY.
So now I'm on babble-mode, and may as well also post book recs, WHAT, logic has no place here.
Science fiction! Just because. Um, the Vorkosigan saga should totally be on this list, but I have plans for it elsewhere and at a later date. ilu Lois McMaster Bujold.
In the Company of Others
by Julie Czerneda
What I love about this book--what I love about most well-written sci-fi--is that you never know what's going to happen next. "Aha," I said wisely to myself during one of the opening scenes. "The people in the bar are shunning that man. Perhaps he is an assassin/diseased/Just Plain Crazy." But people seemed strangely friendly with him, despite physically avoiding him at all costs. I was confused. Then a newcomer tried to touch him, and everyone leaped--LEAPED to defend him from being touched.
I was wrong about everything. That turned out to be a major trend throughout the story. I've never enjoyed being so consistently wrong so much.
Julie Czerneda must have a deep obsession with biology, and this leads her to write many interesting books about bizarre adaptations and the consequences of species migration IN SPACE. Then, too, the books are often about the way in which humans usually screw up the most when we're trying hardest to do good things.
Awesome characters--something to be prized highly in sci-fi. A lot of authors get so hung up on the shiny technology that they forget that you need to care about the people, too. An excerpt. (Note: the story from this point forward sticks pretty faithfully to Aaron; I swear the whole book doesn't jump around like this.)
The one downside to In the Company of Others is that the cover is stupid. Why must sci-fi so often suffer from this problem? And it's a Luis Royo cover, and Luis Royo...I KNOW he can do better. Siiiiigh.
Midworld
by Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster clearly suffers from the problem of being interested in ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. This leads him to develop all sorts of mad ideas about all kinds of things, and I'll bet he can hardly write fast enough. The one thing you're guaranteed with a Foster book is that it's going to be weirder than shit. Sometimes the weirdness is wildly successful, and sometimes it's...just weird. :)
My personal favorite is Midworld, which is a book about people who crash-land on a planet absolutely covered in a seven-level rainforest. The rainforest is an adapt-or-die kind of place, and the people who crash-landed are being very stubborn about adapting. They encounter people who'd crashed there a few hundred years back, and...well, adapted. Which is why they're still around. YAY CULTURE CLASH.
It's a great survival story, it's a great story about people out of their element who just can't cope, it's a great story about freaky jungle plants gone wrong. And then there's a fantastic twist at the end that causes you to go back and reinterpret most of the story.
All this, and it's short. A++.
I will say, the prose is not. Um. Don't go in expecting gorgeous language. The man has gorgeous ideas; he can't do everything at once.
Zodiac
by Neal Stephenson
Big Neal Stephenson fans always seem to love Snow Crash best, so I should probably be reccing that. But, ehm...I have not read it. *hides*
I loved Zodiac, though! Admittedly, I'm biased because I used to live in Boston, and...and it just has some awesome Boston moments.
I have heard mild critique that it was over the top. I LOVED how over-the-top it was. It's a book about a guy with the unfortunate name of Sangamon Taylor, who is an eco-terrorist.
Taylor reminds me a lot of animal rescue people I know. These animal rescue people love dogs and cats, sure, but I think their defining trait is that they hate humans. This guy? He'd fit right in. Well, sort of. He does seem to have more explosions in his life, as a general rule.
He's not really a likable character, per se. He's very interesting, though. I have to admire anyone who attains that level of spite, and I have to admire him twice as hard for talking people into paying him for it. Maybe I, too, can one day inspire someone to pay me to be a dick. I has natural aptitude.
Quotes!
"When I got back from Buffalo I'd have to do these people some damage. In the meantime, I'd have to content myself with charging up tens of thousands of dollars' worth of lingerie on their credit card number."
Taylor: You got any plans for tonight?
Bart: No more than usual.
Taylor: There's a chance that, if I get crazy enough, I'll ask you to drive me around all night sewer-diving and possibly being chased by amateur hit men.
Bart: Whatever.
heh.
And I can see I'm going to have to do a different post just for alternate histories.