Today I read the Hugo Award nominations. Blade Runner, by virtue of it starting with the letter B, was the first film listed in the category “Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form.” I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I admit that I was.

I was looking forward to this movie. I posted back in May 2017 that I wanted to see it. In fact, I was really disappointed when I couldn’t see it on release day. I was terrified that it would no longer be in theaters when I finally got to see it on October 28th. And honestly, that fear was justified. It should not have lasted that long.

I couldn’t do it. I’ve enjoyed some of the other Ilona Andrews books that I’ve read, but I couldn’t bring myself to like this one—not even a little bit. There are just some themes that should not be in fiction at all, and especially not mucking up decent SciFi and Fantasy.

And the number one theme that fits that category is the romance novel trope of Stockholm Syndrome.

The book Alphas: Origins starts out funny. I loved the first line, even read it out loud to my family at Costco. I could relate to the main character. She’s a mom with a middle-grade aged daughter taking her and some other kids on a field trip. While driving, one of the kids announces that he has to go to the bathroom. So she calls another mom she’s been following and says “I’m going to stop at the exit right here for a bathroom break.” The other mom makes confused noises that makes it clear (to the reader at least) that she doesn’t see this exit, or the motel, or the blue sign. But Karina ignores her and so we as readers know that she’s off on her adventure. That beginning was spooky and disturbing, perhaps less so if you don’t have your own middle-grade child in tow, but I do so it worked.

https://youtu.be/gCcx85zbxz4

“Your story isn’t over, there’s still a page left.”

Ryan Gosling. Harrison Ford. Ridley Scott. Yes, I’m hooked. I know what I’m doing this October. “Blade Runner 2049,” who’s with me?

[!spoiler]- It was very disappointing

I just finished watching the movie “Arrival” which I really enjoyed. This didn’t really surprise me as the protagonist is a strong woman who is also a Linguist and it was a Science Fiction story about first contact. Now I admit, I made the obligatory “E.T.” and “Close Encounters” jokes during the film, but in general, the movie was engaging and interesting. I enjoyed the twist (spoiler: there’s a twist…) and was fooled along with most everyone.

A few years ago I got to read and review the book Gift of Change by D. T. Sanders (Buy on Amazon). So when the sequel came out, I was intrigued. From the very first page, Friends Change did not disappoint. It is just as fast-paced and fun as the first book, but with a lot more characterization.

Jason and Fallon Change A Lot

The change in the title of this story is not a misnomer. Jason and Fallon go through momentous changes in this book and come out at the end almost inhumanly different. Their lives are very scary and I would not want to live them, but reading about them sure is a lot of fun! The first section sees Jason and Fallon barely making it back to the space port with their ship practically in pieces. It’s a miracle that they were able to get there at all. Almost immediately they are captured in the guise of getting them healing. And Fallon and Jason have to get free of a sadistic group of sex peddlers who only keep them alive because they hope they can figure out the technology keeping Fallon and Jason alive.

[pods name=“book” slug=“2”] [/pods]Peacemaker is the fifteenth book in the Foreigner series. And the protagonists for this book are Bren Cameron and Cajeiri the heir. It starts almost immediately where Protector leaves off, with a bit extra at the beginning and end. I read this book as a Kindle ebook, so I realize that a lot of the issues I had were because of poor formatting in that version, but it still made it hard to finish completely. But let me start at the beginning. The first 12% of the book (according to my Kindle) was exposition explaining how the characters got to the point we were at in the book. I realize that after 14 novels in a series, this type of thing is needed for people who haven’t been reading it since book one, like I have. But let me tell you, exposition gets very boring after a while. I struggled with completing that first section, and considered skimming until there was some action several times. But I did wade through it. If you’re going to skip, I recommend moving to when the train they are on gets to the Bujavid. It’s pretty boring up until that point. The next portion of the book was the actual story. It jumped between Bren and Cajieri and was basically a build up to Cajieiri’s fortunate ninth birthday. There were three human children from the space station visiting Cajieiri and Jase-aiji was there from the station as well. Meanwhile Bren and his bodyguards are enlisted to clean up the assassins Guild. If you’re wondering why the description is so sparse, it’s because the book was pretty sparse. There was very little from Jago, and even Bren didn’t have much action. Banichi had been injured in Protector and he was still injured in this book, and so that was repeated many times. Even the hijinks of the kids were pretty tame, as they were all on good behavior. The worst thing to happen was Cajieiri forgetting his birthday speech, and so making one up on the spot. Bren was hit in the head in the Guild operation, but other than being light headed, he was okay too. The only other excitement was Cajieiri’s mother. But I won’t say what in case you want to read the book. At the end of the book is another 8% of exposition in the form of a report from Geiji-ji and commented on by Bren. This report is basically a summary of the events leading up to book one in the series and then covering the actions that happened during the series. I honestly don’t know everything it covered, as I got bored again and stopped reading. However, if you’re not already interested in Bren and Cajieiri, I would give this book a pass. I would have liked it more if there were either more action or less exposition, or best, both!

Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

This is possibly the best pure Science Fiction book I’ve read in a long time. One of my big frustrations at U.S. bookstores right now is the massive preponderance of The Lord of the Rings clones. And if I can avoid those, I’m looking at Harry Potter clones. So, when I had the chance to go to a bookstore in London, I found Altered Carbon a welcome relief.