I’ve read several really interesting articles lately. Here they are, if you’d like to check them out:

“The Hunt for Wonder Drugs at the North Pole” by Kea Krause in The Atlantic
Remember how bioprospecting in the Arctic was a background element in my novel Going Dark? This article is about the challenges and potential of real world Arctic bioprospecting.

“Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?” by Adam Frank, also in The Atlantic
Oh sure, this sounds like supermarket tabloid material but in fact this is an utterly fascinating planetary-science article. The author tries to answer the question of what evidence might remain from some hypothetical long-ago civilization.

“Trillions Upon Trillions of Viruses Fall From the Sky Each Day” by Jim Robbins in The New York Times
Did you know that a stream of viruses is “circling the planet, above the planet’s weather systems but below the level of airline travel?” I didn’t. Another fascinating article, and a testament to the awe-inspiring complexity of life on Earth

Finally, this has been a terrible week for the island of Kauai which has suffered record-setting levels of rain. (Don’t worry about me — I live on Maui and we’ve been fine.) It turns out there is a buffalo ranch on Kauai, and several animals were swept away by a flooding river, which led to the surreal scene of paniolo (Hawaii cowboys) rounding up buffalo on the beach at Hanalei. Take a look at the user-contributed video (second video on the page) here at Hawaii News Now.

Aloha and best wishes for a swift recovery to our neighbor island of Kauai!

New York 2140 is Kim Stanley Robinson’s newest novel and I love it. It’s a GREAT novel. It’s the best KSR book I’ve read in years and I’m supremely annoyed — No, more accurately, I’m embarrassed for our genre — that NY2140 is not on the Nebula ballot.

People! What are we here for if not to look ahead and imagine what might be, and to learn?

Alright. I understand. Science fiction means different things to different people and besides, SFF has long ago yielded dominance to the many great fantasy writers.

Still, this is a novel not to be missed. NY2140 is a wonderfully well written, engrossing, incredibly smart novel. It is also that rarest of birds in this genre of doom and dire warnings — it’s an essentially optimistic novel.

Very briefly, NY2140 is about an odd assortment of characters living and thriving in New York decades after two events of massive, successive sea-level rise. Lower Manhattan, aka “the Super Venice,” is flooded and has been for decades but life goes on — although buildings not anchored in bedrock continue to fall. Meanwhile, the world of finance — and the associated endlessly greedy billionaires — are still in control.

Early on in the story it’s hard to know what all these disparate characters have in common. Every passage is interesting, but from time to time the detailed descriptions can feel overwhelming. Just take a break and then get back to it (you’ll be drawn back to it). It’s all worthwhile.

In my early days as a writer, KSR was right up there at the top of my list of favorite writers. The Memory of Whiteness and The Wild Shore were favorites. But as his novels got longer and longer, I stopped reading them. Just in the last couple of years, I’ve started again, first listening to The Years of Rice and Salt and then reading Aurora. I suspect I am going to have to go back and read some of the in-between books that I missed. Given that I’m a slow reader, I might be some time at it.

Still, let there be no doubt: KSR is one of our greats.

Here’s a link to Amazon.

Here’s a universal link that will get you to alternate vendors.

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill

I was looking at cover art — and searching out cover artists — when the cover of Sea of Rust, by artist Dominic Harman caught my eye at Tor.com. I hadn’t heard of the novel before that, I hadn’t read any reviews, but when I read the excerpt I knew I wanted to read more. Unfortunately, the ebook was priced at $14.99 which is far outside the range I am willing to pay so I moved on to something else. Then not too long ago I found the ebook on sale and happily picked it up.

Sea of Rust is a robot novel, meaning it’s about sentient robots with agency. So much agency that robots deliberately hunted down the human species and drove us to extinction thirty years prior to the start of the novel. Since then, robots have pretty much fucked over the world even worse than their human progenitors did before them. The “Sea of Rust” is a vast area of industrial ruins in Ohio and neighboring areas. When robots reach the end of their functional lives they are cast out of settlements and wander off to spend their last days in the Sea. Enter Brittle, our first-person protagonist, who gets by through hunting these nearly gone “404s” and harvesting whatever parts they have that might still be used.

The author does a terrific job with characterizations although I feel I have to add a caveat — the robots are essentially human personalities in mechanical bodies. This worked for me because it made the story very relatable.

Per usual, I’m not going to go any further into the plot. Suffice to say that Sea of Rust starts out as a sort of robot-cyberpunk-dystopian story, indulges in some impressive action sequences as the stakes rise, and ultimately grapples with philosophical issues about life and the meaning of existence. I really enjoyed it and recommend it highly.

Here’s a link to Amazon. (affiliate link)

Here’s a universal link that will get you to alternate vendors.

Gunpowder Moon
by David Pedreira

It’s been almost thirty-one years since my first published story, and Gunpowder Moon is the first novel I’ve blurbed. 🙂

It’s customary in publishing to send out pre-release copies of upcoming novels to other writers who might be willing to take a look at the work and offer supporting testimony if the novel works for them. I send out copies of my own work of course, and I’m very grateful to those who have taken the time to read my work and compose a blurb on it.

The more successful and well known you are as a writer, the more of these requests you can expect to receive. I don’t receive many and oddly, most are not in my genres. Also, I always have a long list of novels and stories that I’m already trying to read or that I’ve been asked to read, so — like most writers do — I promise to try, but with the caveat that I might not get to the book in time. All right, I admit. I’m not well organized and I’m a notoriously slow reader.

Happily, Gunpowder Moon was exactly the sort of novel I was looking for — near-future, hard science fiction, with excellent writing in the opening chapter that hooked me right away — and it arrived at just the right time so that I was able to read it.

Gunpowder Moon takes place after the “Thermal Max,” the peak point of global warming which has delivered a body blow to civilization from which the Earth is struggling to recover. Helium-3 has become the most important source of energy. It’s being mined on the Moon and used to power fusion reactors on Earth, but competition for lunar resources is heating up. When a miner is murdered, the fallout looks likely to lead to war, unless former Marine Caden Dechert, now commanding a lunar mining station, can find a way to avert hostilities.

Here’s my quote:
“In Gunpowder Moon, David Pedreira has crafted an excellent near-future thriller. This one’s got it all — realistic technology, an all-too-believable political conflict, and characters to care about — in a fast-paced story set amid the moon’s austere beauty.”

David Pedreira’s Gunpowder Moon is out today. The ebook is a reasonable $9.99. Check it out!

Here’s a link to Amazon.

Here’s a universal link that will get you a selection of vendors.

I listened to two audiobooks over the busy days of December and early January. Both were political memoirs.

For much of my reading life I’ve found it difficult to focus on memoirs or biographies. I would start eagerly but rarely did I manage to read them all the way through, perhaps because I’d get distracted by the latest novel. This problem doesn’t exist when I listen to audiobooks. Having someone read to me a fascinating narrative while I’m doing dull tasks like kitchen work or gardening is such a privilege, and I have no problem at all paying attention through to the end.

The first of the memoirs I listened to was Hillary Clinton’s What Happened. Written and also narrated by Hillary, it’s an excellent review of both the high points and the travesties of the 2016 election, from the perspective of an extremely intelligent, competent candidate with an amazing resume and record of doing good in the world. It’s also the voice of a woman who is ready to call out misogyny in the electoral process. If you’re a fan of Hillary Clinton you might want to read this book, although there’s a risk you’ll be plunged into despair all over again when you consider what exists in the White House now. If you’re not a fan of Hillary than I highly recommend that you read or listen to this book. Perhaps you will begin to change your mind.

The second memoir is Joe Biden’s Promise Me, Dad, and it’s also narrated by its author.

In 2013, Beau Biden — Iraq War veteran, attorney general of Delaware, and son of Vice President Joe Biden – was diagnosed with brain cancer. He died of his cancer less than two years later. Promise Me, Dad tells the story of those years, from the point of view of a very active and effective United States Vice President, who — at his son’s request — helped to keep Beau’s illness a secret until very late in the course of his disease. It’s a touching story of the Biden family, and also of Joe’s view of his role in government and the tasks that he worked hard to accomplish even as his beloved son was fighting for his life. It was the grief of Beau’s loss that kept Joe Biden from running for president in 2016.

Since the election – and since we’ve had to endure the venality and incompetence on full display in this administration and in the GOP Congress that continuously supports it – I’ve often found myself reflecting on Beau Biden, and thinking, “If Beau hadn’t died, there’s a good chance that Joe Biden might be the president right now, and how much better off we’d be if that were so.”

In any case, both Hillary and Joe would have made fine presidents. Both had the experience, competence, and work ethic that the job requires, as well as a devotion to national service. Yes, let’s remember that politicians are supposed to be serving their country.

As the saying goes, “Every nation gets the government it deserves.” Maybe we do deserve this, but I desperately hope we can manage to throw the bums out before they succeed in burning the country down. Let’s strive to keep this democracy tottering on long enough to install actual competent, knowledgeable people in both Congress and the White House.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

You’ve probably seen this book around. It’s classified as a self-help book. I read an excerpt from it sometime ago and liked what the author had to say, but I felt like I’d already applied a lot of his principles in my life, so I didn’t pick it up.

Recently though, the subject of the book came up again so I decided to listen to the audiobook — and I really enjoyed it! It’s profane but humorous, it tells engaging stories to illustrate its points, and the narrator is excellent.

“Not Giving a F*ck” in this context is about seizing the power to choose what you “give a fuck” about. In other words, making the choice only to care about the things that really matter in life and “Not Giving a F*ck” about the rest of it, or about what others think of your choices. Of course there’s a lot more to it, including an interesting discussion of entitlement and a chapter on the effect of social media on our psyches. If you’re looking for a relatively short, smart, and humorous listen, check it out.

I saw the new Star Wars this afternoon. Measured against the rest of the franchise, I thought it was fine. But on to the subject of this post…

“99 Reasons 2017 Was A Great Year” is the title of a post authored by Angus Hervey, for Future Crunch. Anyone with a bit of curiosity will find something of interest in this list of mostly science and environment-oriented markers of progress.

For example, #17, “Chile set aside 11 million acres of land for national parks in Patagonia, following the largest ever private land donation from a private entity to a country.”

Or #29 “In November, Mexico’s government created a new 148,000 square kilometer ocean reserve, ‘the Galapagos of North America’ for the conservation of hundreds of species, including rays, humpback whales, sea turtles, lizards and migratory birds.”

What a contrast to the American regime, whose officials have no interest in doing their mandated jobs but instead are trying to take away America’s protected lands!

There’s also positive news on the technology front. Item #52: “The cost of solar and wind plummeted by more than 25% in 2017, shifting the global clean energy industry on its axis.”

Of course there is stuff to argue about in the list, and there are items guaranteed to inspire cynical comment. Number eighty-four is an example of the latter: “Heckler & Koch, the world’s deadliest arms manufacturer, announced it would end gun sales to countries falling short of corruption and democracy standards.” So no more sales to the USA, eh?

Each item includes a handy link to a source article. So click through and check it out. If you happen to be a science fiction writer, you’ll probably find a lot of inspiration.

On Twitter someone recently asked, What book has changed the way you see the world?

I’ve just finished reading 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus — and it’s been that kind of book for me.

Written by Charles C. Mann and originally published in 2005, 1491 presents a view of the Americas before Columbus that is in sharp contrast to what most Americans my age learned in school.

This is a fascinating, well-researched, and well-written book. I’d read articles and extracts based on it, but the details included in the full text really drive home the author’s main points:
• that the indigenous population of the Americas before Columbus was much higher, diverse, and sophisticated than has traditionally been believed;
• that between the arrival of Columbus and the settlement of what would become the American colonies, disease swept through both North and South America, decimating these once-large populations and wiping out civilizations;
• that because of this, North America only appeared to be a “virgin continent” and relatively unpopulated;
• that Indians** acted as a “keystone species” essentially engineering much of the landscape to suit their needs — for example, burning off the undergrowth in New England forests, modifying land for agriculture, encouraging the growth of nut-bearing and other useful trees, and discouraging the proliferation of species that competed for these resources.

What we think of today as North American wilderness and the “primeval” Amazon are both, in large part, recent phenomena, existing only since disease eliminated indigenous cultures.

This is compelling stuff on so many levels. First and most obviously, that many millions of people died of disease — up to 95% of the population by some estimates – and hundreds (thousands?) of cultures simply vanished.

Apocalypse is a popular topic in science fiction. What happens to a culture when 95% of its people suddenly die off? Nothing works after that. Technology, history, the complex network of human interaction that allows food to be grown and goods to be produced and traded simply vanishes. Those few who are left will be left with very little and no real means to replace what was lost. Mann uses the phrase “Holmberg’s Mistake” to describe the conclusion of an anthropologist who studied a “primitive” Amazon tribe and came to believe that these people had lived thus for thousands of years, not considering the possibility that they were the descendants of a handful who survived a real apocalypse. (more…)

Set in the 1990s, Daryl Gregory’s Spoonbenders is the story of a family of psychics who live in the Chicago area. I’d heard it was really good and, wanting to try something different, I listened to a sample of the audiobook — and decided at once to pick it up. I’m so glad I did.

This is a terrific novel. It’s amazingly well plotted, the characterization is fantastic, it’s fun, it’s funny, and it’s utterly engaging. The narrator, Ari Fliakos, does a fantastic job. As is usual for me, I won’t try to describe the plot, but you can check it out at Audible.

I hope Spoonbenders proves to be a huge success for Daryl. He deserves it.

Highly recommended!

This is the first novel by Daryl Gregory I’ve read. I’m looking forward to reading more!

Links
If you were interested in the technology and ethical questions behind The Last Good Man, you might enjoy this article by Andrew Apostolou, which presents a good real-world overview of these topics: “Get Ready for the Silicon Military”.

And because mercenaries are part of The Last Good Man, I’ll also recommend David A. Graham’s piece “Are Mercenaries Really a Cheaper Way of War?” (Hint: the answer is almost certainly “no.”)

And on an entirely different subject, Alastair Reynolds fans should head on over to Audible where you can download a free interview with him, wherein he talks about his novel Revenger. And if haven’t read Revenger I highly recommend it. I loved the world building in this one.

An Update
As for me, I’ve been making progress on a novel, and am itching to work on a couple of other projects as soon as I can get myself organized enough to juggle more than one project at a time.

There’s not much new to report on The Last Good Man. I had hoped to get a couple more professional reviews, but those didn’t materialize. I’m not sure what I can do for more publicity at this point, though I’m always looking for opportunities. Honestly, I’m spending too much time worrying over publicity when I should be focused on writing. It does get frustrating though. I always feel like I should be doing more to promote the book. Sales have been better than any indie book I’ve published before, but not good enough yet to call it a success.

That said, reader reviews have generally been terrific. THANK YOU to everyone who’s posted a review at Amazon. It’s really appreciated. If you’re wondering if additional reader reviews are needed, my answer is “Yes!” and not just for The Last Good Man. If you enjoyed the books in the Red trilogy, those could use some new reviews too.

Giveaways Upcoming
If you haven’t done so already, do signup for my newsletter. I’m going to be holding giveaways for audiobook codes for The Last Good Man and paperback sets of the Red trilogy — starting very soon!