Get part of your Geekery fix here with the latest episode from CJ and Angus. This week, special guest is author Clayton Callahan.
https://ofdragonsandstarships.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/episode-25-number-9-number-9-number-9/
This podcast is also on iTunes.
Audiobooks: Gateway, Beyond the Blue Event Horizon and Heechee Rendezvous
By Frederik Pohl
Gateway refers to a hollowed out asteroid that orbits Sol at a distance comparable to Venus but in an orbit that is orthogonal to the plane of the ecliptic. Humans find it left for them bristling with ships that can travel faster than light yet they have no way of knowing where they will go unless someone volunteers to go. It is a game of chance that people are selling off organs for the opportunity to play.
Robinette Broadhead is the, well not a very likeable one but, protagonist and the story of the first three books in this series is told through his eyes. He bounces a lot of his story off of his machine psychoanalyst, Ziegfried von Shrink, which is treating him for his sometimes overwhelm feelings of guilt. The cause of that guilt you will have to read to find out.
The second book centers on the discovery of a half million year old food factory chewing up comets in the Kuiper Belt. The orphaned son of an unfortunate prospector is raised there by intelligences that have been absorbed by a Heechee computer. He is crossing into adolescence with no guidance and ignorantly causing madness to break out on Earth every one hundred and thirty days.
The third book takes us to Peggy’s Planet, discovered near the end of the book Gateway. It gives us a view into the trials and lives of frontier settlers in a human Interstellar Age before it returns fully to the story as told by Robinette Broadhead.
I loved these stories when I read them in High School and hearing them brought to life in audio has been a pleasure. All deference to Frederik Pohl his science in these has still held up in vision other than his choice of materials for the Loftstrum Loop, a construct depicted to be a launch ramp leading to a tether to move shuttles into low Earth Orbit with efficiency and lower stress. Iron will never be the material used but the dream is still valid. Thank you. I give this presentation of these works a five out of five, enthusiastically.
http://www.audible.com/series/ref=a_lib_c3D__vsml_1_12?asin=B009OIW9CG
Typical Work Day Breakfast Sandwich (?)
Fold-it_Flat-Out 5 Grain Flax bread
90Cal, 2.5g Fat, 360 mg NaCl, Total Carb 15 g, Prot 7g
Kroger Original Pork Sausage Patties (2)
400Cal, 38g Fat, 720 mg NaCl, Total Carb <2g, Prot 6g
Eggs (2) Microwave Scrambled
140Cal, 10g Fat, 140 mg NaCl, Total Carb <2g, Prot 12g
Havarti Cheese 1-3”x3” slice
90Cal, 8g Fat, 160 mg NaCl, Total Carb 0, Prot 4g
Total Nutritional Deposit
720Cal, 58.5g Fat, 1380 mg NaCl, Total Carb <19g, Prot 29g
Ready to eat in under ten minutes.
Dark Space
by Jasper T Scott
Ethan Ortane is the primary protagonist in this series, at least at the start. He is an emancipated ex-con who is trying to make a living piloting a freighter space craft in a refuge of the galaxy, universe, expanse,…? called Dark Space. Prior to the Empire being overrun by the Sythians and their minions, the Empire spanned many systems in the galaxy using gate technology. A Com-net allowed for faster than light communications by having relays floating in between gates.
So, Ethan has this beautiful co-pilot that he has been giving the cold shower to claiming that he is searching for his lost wife. Alara, co-pilot, gets taken hostage by the thug “Brondi” to extort Ethan into Imperial Navy sabotage. Yeah, I’m done.
I read more but I’m not in the business of spoiling. There are continuity issues in the story line early on and they are not handled very well. The science, though not quite as hand wavy as it could have been, was derelict enough to send up the bull shit referee flag fairly quick. I’m not just talking about the flippant way interstellar travel was handled. The next item on the agenda here is the invention of curse words, thank Battlestar Galactica and the Lords of Kobalt that you changed a letter and avoided a law suit.
I can’t hate on this too much because it is Space Opera. The series itself is written in such a way as to make the most buck. I looked down the list and saw that the author named book 5 Avilon. Really dude?
I give it three out of five for tenacity. Below are the links for the first three novels, sans covers. This review is staying to my normal venues because when I went to Amazon I noticed he has 2000+ reviews for the first one, 1000+ for the second and over 500 for the third. Yeah, not buying that you have that many legitimate reviews. Frame this one.
Dark Space Book 1
Dark Space Book 2 The Invisible War
Dark Space Book 3 Origin
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