Tag: Star Trek

Review: Spectra by Joanne Elder

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Format read: Trade Paperback provided by the author
Formats available: Trade Paperback, ebook
Genre: Science Fiction
Series: Spectra #1
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing
Date Released: June 27, 2011
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Light years away from Earth a mining exploration crew makes an amazing discovery…intelligent life comprised entirely of energy. This living energy is so pure and unique, it could provide proof of the existence of the human soul. Those exposed to the entities gain unimaginable cognitive abilities but at a terrible cost.A rogue scientific group will do anything to maintain their mind-enhancing gifts, even if it leads to the destruction of the peaceful beings. Only two people stand in their way, and they will sacrifice everything to end the slaughter.Could the quest for the secrets of life lead to the creation of true evil; one so dark it threatens to tear down the walls of sanity and redefine our very existence?

On Star Trek, alien life almost always looked pretty much like us–bipedal, humanoid, and pretty generally human-shaped as well. There were occasional variations, like blue skin and antennae (remember the Andorians?) but the alien races were limited to the human actors.

One notable exception was the Next Gen episode “Home Soil“, where the aliens discovered by the terraformers turn out to be silicon-crystal based. They are tiny beings, but they are physical. And the proposed terraforming of their planet will kill them.

I raise this example because it bears some similarities to the story in Joanne Elder’s Spectra, but Elder has added multiple layers of complexity to her tale. On Spectra, the planet, a mining exploration group discovers a planet rich in minerals, and something extra–a life form that is pure energy.

It is also purely several other things: purely good, purely curious, and purely able to enhance the intellectual capabilities of the humans who come into contact with it. There’s only one problem. As the energy forms are absorbed by the humans, they die. Our enhancement comes at a great price to the tiny energy life forms. Hundreds, thousands of them die to enhance one human. And the process needs to be repeated or the human fades back to what they were. It’s somewhat addictive to go from being average to being DaVinci. Or Einstein.

Once their curiosity is sated about the physical beings who have invaded their world, they beg the humans to leave. Of the six people in the mining group, four agree to leave and declare the planet off-limits, two disagree but seemingly bow to the will of the group.

Then people start dying. Because those two who disagreed, well, one of them, Ivan, finally found himself smarter than everyone else for the first time in his life, and he just wasn’t willing to let that feeling go. So he went back to Spectra, and brought back some of those aliens. Just to augment himself and a few select friends. And get research grants. And get rich.

And kill anyone who might stand in his way. Including the four people who said no.

But as Ivan got smarter, his plans and plots got more convoluted. Back to Star Trek, as Scotty famously said, “the more they over-think the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.” Especially since those entities are very, very unhappy about the whole situation, and even without bodies, have ways of making their displeasure felt.

Escape Rating B+: There’s a lot going on in Spectra, and all of it is fascinating. The discovery of the entities, and what they do to get themselves freed makes for one cool story. As part of the plot to keep the whole situation with the entities under wraps, Ivan’s machinations to get one of his colleagues from that mining expedition framed for murdering another, and how that all finally goes to smash makes for an exciting and harrowing prison break story.

There is, as is often the case in science fiction, an underlying ethical question. What would you do in the same situation? The scientific breakthroughs enabled by exposure to the entities appear to be astounding. But the entities die from the exposure. Is it worth it? This is not a question of whether the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but whether the needs of this many over here outweigh the needs of that many over there?

When we meet our first aliens, how will we decide?

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Interview with Lilly Cain: Wild Woman and SFR Lover

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Author Interviews> Author Q&A> blog tours

Lilly Cain is here to celebrate the release of the third book in her fascinating science fiction romance Confederacy Treaty series, Undercover Alliance (review here). Ms. Cain has visited Reading Reality before. Her guest post on “Writing and Loving the Alien” gave me a chance to re-read and review Alien Revealed, the first book in the Confederacy Treaty series, and take a look at The Naked Truth again as well.

Take it away, Lilly!

So tell us a little bit about who Lilly Cain is when she’s not writing.

When I am not writing, I spend my time with my family—I have two daughters. I am a single mom, so I work hard writing and more recently, freelance editing. When playtime rolls around I like to relax by a campfire, roast marshmallows and sip vodka loaded lemonade, LOL. I have a cat; she’s evil but her nefarious deeds have slowed down to trying to sleep on my laptop and chew my proofs more than anything else.

Your blog says you’re a wild woman.  Is that only on the pages of your books, or does it have something to do with your real life?

Once upon a time it really was me. Now I remember it fondly (with the occasional backslide into a party – hey I don’t have the kids every weekend) but as you can see from the answer above, my wild side has slipped into the pages of my books more than anywhere else.

The Confederacy Treaty series is science fiction romance. What made you choose SFR as the venue for this series?

When I am plotting a new series I love to play what if and one day I was watching NCIS, and wondering what if the woman accused of terrorism was innocent?  What if she fell in love with one of the investigators? What if the explosion she was charged with causing actually happened in space? So love came first, then setting. 🙂  This was The Naked Truth. I wrote it first, but then realized there was another story that had to come first – Alien Revealed, the first meeting of an Inarrii alien and a human.

Who first introduced you to the love of reading?

My mother is a bigtime reader. And so was my grandmother. I used to look at them reading and pick up books of my own. Soon I’d read the entire contents of our small school library and was looking for more.

Who influenced your decision to become a writer?

My sisters perhaps. One actually hated English class. I loved it. The other simply claimed not to be able to write and I believed her. I wrote papers for them both, and had fun doing it! Then I took my first creative writing class in high school and I had a teacher whom I both loved and despised. She kicked me out of class after we argued over the meaning of one of my own poems! Yet she could hold her own and I so respected that.

What was the first moment when you knew you wanted to write?

I’d finished University and was getting married. Or I thought I’d finished. I was told I was a credit short and had to finish via correspondence while living in Bermudawith my new husband. I didn’t have a job, knew no one and the course kept me sane. I knew then I wanted to write.

Are you a plotter or a pantser? Do you plan everything, or just let the story flow?

I usually write a synopsis – about a page per 10K words. It gives me a plan, or enough of one that I want to start writing. Everything else is in my head. Once, I tried using pictures, but it didn’t help, so I still with the simple outline (which becomes useful when pitching to editors) and try to work on it every day until it is done.

Do your characters sometimes take over the story and just run away with it?

Occasionally. What I find is that I am writing along and then all of a sudden, I am stuck. And I think what the heck happened? I pull out my synopsis and guess what? Wherever I am, it is not in the plan. The story, not necessarily the characters, has pushed off in a new direction. Then I usually need to either back track or write a new synopsis!

What book do you recommend everyone should read, and why?

I don’t think there is any one singular book you should read. I suggest, if you want to write, you should read hundred of books. But for myself, I will never forget certain books. I fell in love with the worlds of Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Jean M. Auel, Isaac Asimov. Stephen King scared me. Nora Roberts soothed. Catherine Coulter intrigued me.  I can’t pick just one.

Speaking of science fiction, are you a fan of any science fiction series? Books, TV or movies?

I’m a Trekkie all the way! Every series, although I have my favorites. I also enjoyed Firefly, Dr. Who, Battlestar Galactica (old and new).

What’s your next project? Will there be any books set in the Confederacy Treaty universe?

I am actually writing one more for The Confederacy Treaty Series, currently called Honor Bound. It wraps up this particular series, but I love the Inarrii – the aliens in my series – so I imagine that they will pop up in another book or two. After that I am planning on something entirely different, some non sci-fi work as Lilly Cain.

Your blog says you love coffee and chocolate, so night-owl or (ugh) morning person?

LOL!!! Night person for sure, I am only forcibly a morning person while my kids are home.

I’m always so happy to meet a fellow Trekkie! Lilly, you named all my loves, Trek, Firefly, the Doctor, wow! Galactica reboot, yes, first, not so much. I’ll be looking forward to revisiting the Inarii in Honor Bound.

Thanks so much for answering all my geeky questions.

Kidnapped

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Did you ever think that it might be fun if Scotty “beamed you up”?

I certainly did.

But that’s not quite the way it works out for Patricia Risden in Kidnapped by Maria Hammarblad. Oh, Tricia gets “beamed up” all right. And imprisoned. Because the world of the Alliance is a lot colder and bleaker than the Federation.

And Alliance Commander Travis isn’t like anyone on the Enterprise. Unless you’re thinking of the Mirror universe Enterprise. The one where the universe went very, very wrong.

But Travis isn’t quite that evil, although the Alliance that he serves is. Travis has just, well, misplaced his humanity. Tricia helps him find it again. All because he made a mistake. Two mistakes.

Travis’ first mistake was picking Tricia up in the first place. Travis was chasing a known revolutionary. Said revolutionary made a temporary stop on Earth. Very temporary, but just long enough to appear in front of Tricia’s car and cause her to have an accident.

Travis thought the revolutionary (his name is William) and Tricia knew each other. Travis whisked Tricia away when he couldn’t get to William.

Once Tricia was aboard his ship, he realized that Tricia was exactly what she appeared to be, a harmless Earth woman with no technological expertise whatsoever, and no knowledge of the Alliance or the Revolution against it.

But it was too late. Travis had already notified his Commander that he was bringing in a prisoner. Since she is harmless, he decides to give her the run of the ship.

That’s his second mistake. Tricia is harmless in any technical sense. But she is also bright, curious and dependent on him. Yes, she has more than a touch of Stockholm Syndrome. She sees him as a man, and not the murdering monster the rest of the Alliance sees.

Because Commander Travis is a murdering monster. He is an assassin and a butcher for the Alliance. He’s been programmed to be since he was a child. The last time he disobeyed, the Supreme Commander cut off his arm and replaced it with a mechanical one.

Tricia knows none of this. All she sees is her only possible way home. Her only companion. She falls in love with him.

Travis is a man under all his programming. Harmless Tricia finds the chink in his Alliance conditioning. And Travis re-programs all of his unswerving loyalty from serving the Alliance–to saving, and loving, the woman he kidnapped from Earth.

If they can both manage to survive everything the entire Alliance, and the Revolution, throw at them.

Escape Rating B-: The story gets off to a slow start. Travis is not a sympathetic character in the beginning, and Tricia definitely has more than a touch of Stockholm Syndrome. She goes from being scared of her kidnapper to falling in love with him.

It’s what happens after that that makes the story interesting. Travis has been so conditioned to serve the Alliance that he shouldn’t respond to Tricia at all. Instead, he falls too. But he can’t quite get rid of the Alliance conditioning, so he finds a way around it. His solution was pretty neat.

The Alliance Supreme Commander was just a bit too cartoon-villainess for my taste. The whole manipulative vampy-spacesuit sex-goddess thing just didn’t work for me. But the family-vibe of the Revolutionary ship did. Reminded me a bit of Firefly, which is never a bad thing.

Dreams of space

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Uncategorized

The Space Shuttle Atlantis is in the midst of her final flight. And it’s also the last scheduled manned mission of the U.S. space program. NASA’s future launches are all for satellites and rockets. Very pretty, but people’s hopes and dreams follow people, not hardware. Our hearts lift when they can ride the wings of another’s fulfilled dream, and imagine ourselves at their side, or in their place.

I’ve been re-watching Star Trek: Enterprise recently. While opinions on the series itself may vary, what still grabs me is the montage of images in the opening title sequence. If you always skipped that part, watch it again carefully. Ignore the music if you feel you must.

What gets me every time is that all of the images consist of archival footage up until the last few, when the sequence changes by showing the International Space Station as it should look when it is complete. But all the images, real and science fictional, show humankind’s relentless pursuit of what is beyond the next hill, what is on the other side of the fathomless depths of the ocean, what is out in the vast depths of space.

There are reproductions of old maps of the earth including navigational charts. A shot of Thor Heyerdahl’s raft voyage across the Pacific Ocean on the Kon-Tiki. The Wright brothers’ first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. Amelia Earhart waving “good-bye,”possibly for the final time. Charles Lindbergh next to his famous plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, which is preserved at the National Air and Space Museum. A scene of Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, writing his theories on a blackboard. Chuck Yeager striding away from the experimental aircraft with which he broke the sound barrier. Pictures of a succession of historic ships which all bore the name “Enterprise”, culminating in the experimental Space Shuttle Enterprise in 1977. The crew of Apollo 11 boarding their spacecraft, and then that “one small step for mankind”. A closeup of the Mars Rover exploring. And, a shuttle crew in flight and on a spacewalk.

A friend wrote of the end of the Shuttle Program that the spirits of those who perished in the Challenger and Columbia disasters could finally rest in peace now. I firmly believe that he is wrong. Those who gave their lives in the space program, on Challenger, and Columbia, and with the first Apollo disaster at the beginning of the program, made their sacrifice so that humankind could reach further, so we could make our way into the stars. Those astronauts dreamed of space, not safety.

The quote from William Shedd still says it best. “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.” Humankind is not made to be safe. We are made to be explorers. Why have we stopped?

 

The Mysteriousness of Collecting

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | books

I’m staring at shelves again.  And some of them are even empty.  I’m also thinking about Booklist’s mystery theme this month, and there IS a connection.

There are certain kinds of mysteries I enjoy.  The ones I like, I really, really like.  The ones I don’t, simply don’t work for me.  My enjoyment of mystery series has so much to do with liking the point of view character.  In a series, the detective is the person you “live with” throughout the series–if you don’t like them and the “family” they create to investigate with, it’s difficult to like the series, or at least it is for me.

Janet Evanovich‘s Stephanie Plum is a truly likeable heroine.  The scrapes she gets into always seem not just far-fetched, but trouble that almost anyone with half a brain should have seen coming a mile (make that ten miles) away.  At the same time, I can identify with Stephanie’s multi-generational issues with her mother and her grandmother, and her Grandma Mazur is an absolute hoot!  I still want to read the next book in the series, even though I know Stephanie’s train wreck of a love life is never going to be resolved.  The mystery in the books is not the point, everything else in “the Burg” is.  The Plum books are a series I have read all of, but never owned.

A lot of my mystery reading falls into that category.  But there were a few series that I had collected, absolutely religiously.  I had all of the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters.  I love Amelia.  She’s someone I would have adored to have tea with, or more likely brandy.  Right up until she started ordering my life around, which she would have done upon 15 minutes acquaintance, tops.  Readers either love Amelia, or can’t stand her.  I found her attempts to reconcile her passionate marriage with Victorian circumlocution utterly hilarious. And, as Abdullah, their reis intones in an early book, “another season, another dead body”. Someone always dies, providing another mystery to investigate.

In a completely other vein, I had the entire run of Shirley Rousseau Murphy’s Joe Grey series.  Joe Grey is the narrator.  However, Joe Grey is a tomcat who both understands and speaks perfect English.  Joe doesn’t know why he is gifted, but he uses his talent, which he acquired as an adult cat, to help the police in his small town solve mysteries.  His owner does know about his gift, which Joe occasionally misuses to place delivery orders from the local deli.  Joe Grey is sarcastic and somewhat confused by his gift, which is shared by two other cats.  He doesn’t just speak human, he also thinks human, and he knows it’s wrong for a cat to be whatever it is he is.  There are a lot of times he’d rather be normal. But Joe somewhat subscribes to Spiderman’s credo, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Joe is able to help, so he must, in spite of the fact that sometimes he’d rather still be selfish, just like a cat.

Both these series are gone now.  I’m still not sure how I feel about that. These were long series, and took up a lot of space. I bought them because I wanted to read them as soon as they came out, not because I re-read them. But being able to see them on the shelves, especially the Peabody series, was very…comforting.  At the end of the Star Trek episode “Amok Time”, Spock tells T’Pring, “…having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”  When it comes to books, having them to read ASAP is very pleasurable indeed.  But I kept thinking I was going to re-read Amelia’s story, beginning with Crocodile on the Sandbank, someday. I guess if someday ever comes, I’ll just have to buy them all as ebooks!