The Atlantis Grail Series by Vera Nazarian

Just a brief mention here of the Atlantis Grail series, which I found via Overdrive at my local library. Reading these young adult novels set in an SF world where Earth is about to be destroyed, and space travelers from Atlantis, who left when the city was destroyed in the dim mists of history, have returned to "rescue" the most worth teens on the entire planet before a massive asteroid strikes, has been mostly delightful.

I've coined a new three letter acronym. You've heard of PNR - Paranormal Romance. This is SOR - Space Opera Romance, and in this case, sub-genre YA - Young Adult.

Just a fun ride without a ton of political lecturing, and a tolerable portion of teen angst.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

So, of course, I couldn't resist the title of this book,obviously. It's a young adult novel, which is not my usual fare, but it wasn't bad. In a comic book inspired version of the future, random people have turned into Epics, beings with super powers, such as being bulletproof, having precognition, pirokinetics, flying or casting illusions, and so forth. As a Calvinist might suspect, with great powers come great corruption, and the Epics rapidly rule the cities of Earth with an iron fist. Every Epic, however, has one mortal flaw, a certain way they can be killed.

When the Epic named Steelheart rises to power, he eliminates everyone who may have any knowledge of his weakness, but he misses one small boy, David (something David and Goliath-ish here?), who watches his father and many others destroyed by the Epic, and devotes the rest of his life to discovering Steelheart's flaw, and investigating and recording the flaws of all of the other Epics he is aware of.

Eventually, David joins forces with the Reckoners, a group of ordinary humans who have begun a Quixotic quest to eliminate the Epics and return Earth to humans once again.If you accept the premise of corrupt superheroes appearing to rule the planet, the book is an entertaining, fast moving read.

Apollo's Outcasts by Allen Steele

 This book reads like a pastiche or homage to several of Heinlein's juvenile works, and a couple of his novels for adult readers, too, such as Between Planets, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Thet Menace from Earth, right off the top of my head. Jamie, Melissa and Jan are the children of a scientific bureaucrat within the international space agency who signed a petition to keep the Helium 3 resources out of the greedy claws of the current Vice President of the United States. When the President dies suddenly, allegedly assassinated by PSU (Chinese) agents, and the VP takes power, he realizes that he is in danger, and that his children can be used as leverage against him, so he sends them off - to the Moon - for safety.

This is a heavily disguised blessing for Jamey, who was born on the Moon, but who has lived his life on earth up to the age of sixteen in a powered mobile (read wheelchair) since his bones and muscles are not strong enough to support him on Earth unassisted. So, though it is emotionally traumatic and all very suspenseful, Jamie really blossoms...or perhaps soars is a better term, when he arrives at the lunar colony of Apollo. Jamey's best friend, Logan, is also along for the ride, as are the two children of another family of scientists, , one of whom is developmentally disabled, which turns out to be a brilliant gadget whereby Steele can do some expository work, explaining simple things about the Moon and its colony. At the last minute, before they board their shuttle to the Moon, Jamey's older sister, Jan, is replaced by Hannah "Smith", who arrives suddenly in a limousine, accompanied by Men in Black. It's all very mysterious to Jamie, but not so much to the rest of us.

After that, it's all mostly a coming of age novel, set in lunar orbit, complete with bullies, teenage angst and know-it-all atttitude, and a tale of rebellion against tyranny where boy gets girl in the end.
A good, innocent read. Steele has written so many great books over the years, and this one adds to his legacy.

Storyteller by Amy Thomson

 My first impression of this book was that it had some similarities, plot-wise, if not in style, to Citizen of the Galaxy and a few other Heinlein works. The main thread begins when Teller, an itinerant senior master storyteller, rescues a young beggar, Samad, from being punished for theft, and, as Heinlein once said, "when you free a slave, you become responsible for making sure they can survive on their own (not a politically correct sentiment at all, is it?)" So, she ends up adopting the boy and they begin their travels around the world of Thalassa, and Samad's education.

Thomson uses this framework to gracefully show us the story of how the Pilot first landed on Thalassa - its creation myth - and guided the settlers who finally arrived by starship later into creating a peaceful colony, in harmony with the harsels, the dominant intelligent sea creatures on the planet. The Pilot had lost her "Jump" abilities when she was shipwrecked, but bonded with the eldest and greatest of the harsels via mindspeech.

As Teller and Samad travel together, she relates, bit by bit, all of the stories that tie the colonists to their traditions, and we are also given all the background information that we need to understand the planet and its cooperative races, without ever feeling like we've just gotten a massive data dump. The book is billed as for young adults, and it maintains a PG rating aside from some mild heterosexual and homosexual scenes, where Samad figures out just who he is, as he grows into a young adult, and becomes a master storyteller himself.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

At long last, I've finished the Hunger Games trilogy. At the end of catching Fire, Katniss is rescued from the Quell by the rebels in District 13, and we find her adjusting to her new life and role there in Mockingjay. District 13 has survived in part by becoming very regimented and militaristic. Each citizen there has a schedule printed on their wrist each morning by the master computer program, and they must follow it, or risk censure and punishment. Katniss has been given a lot of leeway at first because of her celebrity status and obvious mental issues after her ordeal, but soon she will be expected to toe the line and make herself useful to the rebel cause again.

Peeta, unfortunately, was left behind when Katniss was rescued, and he has been tortured and brainwashed by the government in the Capitol. He retains enough of his sanity to sneak a message to District 13 about an impending bombing during one of President Snow's propaganda broadcasts, though the rest of the things he is forced to say get him labeled a traitor by the rebels. Katniss eventually decides to step up and assume her role as the Mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion, and one of her conditions for doing so is that Peeta will be spared, if ever he is rescued or captured. Most of Katniss' other allies within the Capitol have been tortured and executed, but she is determined not to lose Peeta.

There's still some unresolved tension in the air about whether Katniss will decide she loves Gale or Peeta more, and she agonizes over her every decision concerning them through much of the novel. I'm not real fond of whiny little protagonists, and her angst nearly pushes me into hoping that Collins will simply kill her off in the end.

There's an underlying theme in this novel regarding terrorism vs. freedom fighting. Some of the tactics proposed by the people in District 13 command and weapons development are ripped directly from Al Qaeda, making you wonder who the good guys are in Mockingjay. We already know that the Capitol doesn't hesitate to sacrifice children to maintain its rule, so there really aren't any surprises there.

Without spoiling anything, I think that Collins does a nice job of avoiding the usual cast of characters roundup - the "where are they now" - by the simple expedient of killing off just about everyone that we've come to know through the trilogy. Not much of a happily ever after, but after Catching Fire, we pretty well should have abandoned that hope. This trilogy provides a good YA read, and people who aren't normally into apocalyptic science fiction may like it, too.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

So, all is not peaches and cream, sweetness and light for Katniss and Peeta as they return to District 12, victors in the Hunger Games (subtitle: There's no such thing as happily ever after?). Though they are given beautiful homes to live in, and their families are taken care of, they're not content, and neither are all of the districts. It seems that Katniss unwittingly became a symbol for those who chafe under the rule of the Capitol, and the unrest is beginning.

President Snow pays her a visit to warn her that she mustn't encourage the rebels in any way, threatening harm to her family and her...maybe boyfriend...Gale. When the rebels don't settle down, despite her best efforts to calm things - she's really clueless, and it turns out that her handlers are in cahoots with the rebels, themselves - Snow gets really nasty.

Every twenty five years, there is a special Hunger Games event, called The Quell (from quelling the rebellion?). This time it is announced that the games will be played by previous victors, one male, one female, from each district. Since Katniss is the only living female victor from district 12, guess who gets to play? Snow can arrange to kill off Katniss in the games and deprive the rebels of their mascot. I wonder why the danger of creating a motivational martyr doesn't occur to him?

So, once more unto the breach, dear friends, for Katniss and Peeta. But they're not alone this time, and have acquired some unlikely allies with interesting skills among the other former victors. Things don't work out exactly as Snow had hoped, and when it's over, he's got an all out war on his hands.

Ok, this is a fast and amusing read, but not terribly deep.

Some things that bother me a bit have to do with the world-building Collins has done, or not done, in this series. The whole setup with the Capitol dominating all of the districts through threat of violence, and keeping them all starving, despite the obviously high tech gadgets, medicine and so forth available within the story (convenient to the story line), just doesn't make sense from an economic point of view. It has a bit of a gulag-like tone. I'm not sure just how you sustain a level of industry and high tech seventy five years after a rebellion that gives the people in the capitol access to synthetic limbs indistinguishable from the real thing, regeneration of tissue from wounds, force fields, the ability to manipulate the environment within the Arena to the extent of having a volcano wipe out a group of tributes, not to mention genetic engineering, all sustained on the backs of low tech slave labor.

Read the books, but keep your critical functions turned down.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I've been hearing great things about Suzanne Collins' trilogy for a long time. My daughter, who is not a big SF fan, read and enjoyed it, and her brother-in-law loved it, and loaned me the books. While they were sitting on my nightstand, my wife read and loved the first two, and my neighbor's wife called and asked to borrow the second book, having finished the first late one night. So, it was with a considerable sense of anticipation that I picked up The Hunger Games, and began to read.

It's been a long time since I read any post-apocalyptic fiction, as it went out of fashion in the 80s, when the threat of nuclear war finally fell off our national mental radar. The Hunger Games appears to be set in a post-U.S. world, where the country is now divided into 12 districts, under the control of a central government. It used to be 13, but the 13th rebelled a while back, and was utterly annihilated. I wondered a bit at the choice of 13 districts, whether it was modeled on the original 13 colonies, was picked as an unlucky number, or had something to do with the number at the Last Supper, with the 13th being the betrayer.

Life is not uniformly good in the twelve districts, as some have more resources than others, and as part of their "contract" with the government, each district must pay a "tribute" of two children, chosen by lottery, each year for The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are what I thought the tv show, Survivor, was going to be more like when I heard the concept, except that in the games, the last person surviving wins, and anything, including murder, is encouraged.

Katniss lives in the twelfth district, a poor area, and has spent much of her childhood hunting and scavenging to help feed her baby sister and utterly clueless mother. She's good with a snare and a bow, and has spent a lot of time in the wild areas near her home. When her sister's name is drawn in the lottery to participate in the slaughter, Katniss volunteers to go in her place.

In my opinion, there's really nothing surprising in this book. Katniss' trials in the games are well-written and convey her sense of desperation and fear, but the outcome is never really in doubt. There's a bit of the David and Goliath thing going, as she's a little scrawny and underfed due to her history, while the tributes from the more prosperous districts are bigger, stronger, faster, and have spent their lives training to fight. We all love to see an underdog win, and perhaps that's the appeal of this book.

There are, however, some political rumblings scattered throughout the book that bode well for the next couple of sequels. Not everyone is happy with the way the government is running things, and I think it likely that Katniss may become either a symbol or a leader for a revolution. We'll see how Collins handles it.

Billion Dollar Boy, by Charles Sheffield

This novel is one in a series of juveniles called the Jupiter novels, that authors like Sheffield and Pournelle have been publishing recently. Billion Dollar Boy is a story of a spoiled rich kid, Shelby Crawford Jerome Prescott Cheever V, who is rescued by a transuranic harvester ship in the Messina Cloud after a mishap with the transportation system during a tour of the outer solar system. The harvester is not scheduled to return to the solar system for several months, so Shelby has to himself useful by working as crew on the ship while waiting to be returned home.

Needless to say, Shelby must do a lot of growing up during his sojourn on the harvester ship. The pampered child learns a lot about work, friendship and responsibility.

While the characters are likable and the story amusing, I'm afraid that this sort of juvenile novel just won't catch on with today's teens. You've got to pack in a lot more intense action than say, Heinlein or Del Rey did in their pre-Nintendo juvenile novels that got many of us hooked. If you're looking for a dose of nostalgia in a new twist on Between Planets, then go ahead and read this one, otherwise...