“Excellent. A crafty canine masterpiece.“
“Isle of Dogs is a (dog) treat.“
“I couldn’t look away, but then, I didn’t want to.” – SFRevu

Isle of Dogs[i], Wes Anderson’s second[ii] stop-motion animation, takes place mostly on a garbage island off the coast of Japan, where all dogs in the fictional Megasaki City have been sent, banned from the city by Mayor Kobayashi (voiced by co-writer Kunichi Nomura) because of an epidemic of “dog flu.” Atari (voiced by Koyu Rankin), the ward of the mayor, makes his way to Trash Island to find his dog, Spots. When his stolen “Junior Turboprop XJ-750” crashes, he’s rescued by a pack of dogs who help him search for Spots. Emotional highs and lows ensue as Atari and the single stray in the pack, “Chief” (Voiced by Brian Cranston) gradually form a bond despite Chief’s disdain for whole the Master/Dog thing. The use of the exquisitely crafted puppets and scenes makes the emotionally-compelling narrative visually compelling as well and elevates it beyond comedy to something greater. And the dogs rule. Continue reading →

Tor Books Hardcover
ISBN/ITEM#: 9780765396372
Date: 06 March 2018 List Price $25.99
Author’s Website  . SFRevu Post

Steven Brust’s new novel pits a team of investigators working for a secret foundation against a killer targeting sorcerers who also happen to be pretty terrible people. It’s the foundation’s mission to keep magic out of the public awareness and maybe keep the world safe from its effects, but if someone wants to rid the world of scum, and the good guys must stop them, who’s in the right? Tightly plotted with engaging characters and the solid prose Brust’s fans expect of him, Good Guys is a great addition to his canon.

A PI, a ninja, and a sorcerer walk into a bar. Hmm. OK, Donovan’s not a PI because he screwed up once and wouldn’t be able to get a license.  Also because he got shot up by a cop for Jaywalking While Black and is legally dead. Susan’s not actually a ninja, because she’s not, but odds are that she could whip a ninja’s ass in a fair fight…except that there’s no reason she’d stoop to a fair fight. And the sorcerer? No, Marci is definitely a sorcerer. They haven’t walked into a bar yet either, but considering the trouble they face on a regular basis, it might not be a bad idea.

Donovan and his team work for a foundation whose mission is to keep magic under wraps, so it doesn’t cause too much chaos. The Foundation split off from the Mystici, a much older organization that doesn’t have the same convictions about chaos or the public good, even though they fund the Foundation. So there’s some common ground, even if they don’t see eye to eye.

When Donovan’s team is activated, they take off for whatever manifestation of magic needs to be shut down, assembling from their separate locations across the country by train, plane, automobile, or slipstream, which is the magical equivalent of teleportation.  Slipstream is enough of an effort for the sorcerers that make it happen that Accounting is always on Donovan’s case about profligate expenses. Not that he cares. In fact he may take a perverse pleasure in not caring. Maybe he’s just getting even for his meager pay: minimum wage plus lodging. That’s how they know they’re the good guys; the bad guys make a heck of a lot more money.

The problem at hand isn’t a public show of the impossible, like that flying ship over Memphis, but a series of murders that look mundane, mostly, but have disturbing a commonality, namely that all of the victims are sorcerers in the Mystici, and they’re all serious assholes. Somebody is taking out really bad people who have magical powers and our team has the ambivalent mission of trying to find out who, and why, and stopping them. The question of who is and what defines, a good guy, is at the heart of the story, and the answers are hard come by.

Good Guys is a cross between a PI and classic secret agency novel, and it’s better than most of either, with a refreshingly contemporary air. Brust has assembled a cast of engaging characters that would serve him well in sequels, and whether this remains a standalone or not, Good Guys is a great read.

Every now and then you hear about a cyber-attack that takes down a power-system or other bit of infrastructure. Sometimes it’s even our side that did it. But imagine if all the countries that ever felt slighted by us stored up their best cyber-weapons and released them all at once. That’s what Sam Boush puts forth in his debut novel, weaving an all too possible tale about the day everything went dark and the few courageous individuals that stepped up to the challenge. Fast paced, full of engaging characters and chillingly well thought out. Continue reading →

In The Feed, we see a world where everyone’s internet connection goes straight into their heads, allowing them to share thoughts, feelings, memories and all. More than that, you can keep yourself backed up continuously, just like you do your computer. And you could always restore your memories if something happened to you. Sound good? But what if someone downloaded their memories into your brain, pushing yours out and taking over? Not good. Worse, what if that happened to lots of people, and the invaders were bent on pulling the plug on our energy-intensive, information-addicted world? Very not good.

The Feed is Nick Clark Windo’s debut novel, and it manages to get in shots on social media, internet addiction, climate change, energy dependence, the blindness of leaders, and the frailty of self, all in one post-apocalyptic trek through the world after the Feed shuts off.

The story picks up six years later with a handful of survivors of the mass die off after the collapse of the tec- dependent infrastructure. Tom and Kate, who’ve been with us since the beginning, are now trying to raise a daughter in a refugee camp built around Kate’s aunt’s old farmhouse, but the going is hard, partly because they’re all suffering from PTSD after having their cyber-world ripped from their heads. Most likely, watching the physical-world fall apart didn’t help. Dependent on the Feed for everything from instant knowledge to their basic memories, they don’t have the skills to cope with this mundane world and the camp is hovering on the verge of failure.

The Feed may be down, but their hardware/wetware is still active, and the threat of waking up a different person hangs over them all. Since people are only “taken” while they’re asleep, no one is supposed to sleep without someone on watch, not to save them, but to keep the body’s new owner from waking up. Good times.

So, it’s a grim, sleep-deprived existence for Tom and Kate, but when their daughter Bea is abducted in a raid, they head into the ruined world to get her back.

As they trek through the debris they uncover clues for the reader, and themselves, as to what happened, why, and most importantly, where the invaders came from.

About halfway through the book I was saying to myself, this isn’t all that much fun, really. I’m not overly fond of the characters, and even if they find Bea, there’s not a lot of hope for anyone’s survival. Then things get twisty, and the story manages to develop some traction, until it comes to an end that’s both satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time, which isn’t a bad trick.

The ideas in The Feed have been floating around in science fiction for a long time. While The Invasion of the Body Snatchers may jump to your mind, my first thought was of Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash, in which computer viruses were able to jump from the machine to human, offering mind control for those wielding the technology. If you haven’t read it, by the way, I highly recommend it, and understand that Netflix is working on a series…but please go read the book. Neal goes back to the invention of writing for the core of his technology, and he manages to weave some wonderful ideas about Anh Shubs, Sumerian writing, and the nature and origins of consciousness into the story. Windo doesn’t have to work so hard to provide a pathway to the brain, since everyone is wired directly into the Feed, but from a hard science standpoint, it doesn’t hold up as well either. Of course, that’s not the point of the story.

If there is a point, it’s a cautionary tale about the consequences of relying on our technological crutches until they become indispensable, leaving us crippled when they fail. While I take the author’s point, I think he, like many post-apocalyptical writers, oversells the impact of being forced back on our own resources. Billions wiped out through famine, disease, and squabbling over the last Twinkie? I buy that. But those that remain will pick themselves up and carry on. Caution us all you want, but humans are surprisingly resilient. The ultimate resolution of Tom and Kate’s quest shows some of that spirit, as well as the ability to make hard choices when needed, so maybe I’m complaining too much.

Most of those are old questions, but the interesting ones Windo raises are more about identity and experience. What makes us one person and not another, and how mutable is it? Mind uploading and downloading, despite its implausibility, is a favorite concept in science fiction, and its consequences deserve to be examined, if not its methodology. To the author’s credit, he has his character Tom point out early on that “…brains aren’t like hard drives; they can’t be wiped. People can’t be taken over.” Having pointed out that he knows it doesn’t work like that, the author moves on to say, OK, but I’m not here to argue, I’m here to tell a story.

The Feed is being compared to other recent Post-Apocalyptic efforts like Station 11 and The Girl With All The Gifts, and like those authors, Windo leaves the reader a fair amount to think about in his critique of modernity, pointing out that it’s a good thing that we’ll be gone before the bill for our way of life comes due. Except, of course, evidence to the contrary.

Review published 4/1/2018 SFRevu: http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=17870