Book Review: Goblin Quest, by Jim C. Hines

There are plenty of fantasy books that involve a party of adventurers who are either on a quest for treasure, or are on a mission to defeat some great evil which is invading their world.  This group of adventurers is typically multi-racial (human, dwarf, elf, halfling, etc), includes a wide range of character occupations (warrior, wizard, thief, cleric, monk, druid, etc), and more often than not contains both male and female members.  The focus of these stories is always around the adventurers themselves, their great companionship, and their ultimate victory in the end after encountering many hardships throughout the story, and sometimes, maybe losing one of their companions at some point during their quest.

  Some good examples of these stories are:

• The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
• The Dragonlance Chronicles, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
• The Guardians of the Flame series, by Joel Rosenberg
• The Belgariad, by David Eddings
• The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen R. Donaldson

I'm sure there are many others that fit this story pattern which I have not read or which I can't remember, and probably many more that I have probably never even heard of.  And, I'm sure that some of them are very good, some are bad, and others are just pale imitations of some other much better work.

Goblin Quest fits the pattern of this type of story, but is actually quite different, and I came across it entirely by accident.  I saw a recommendation for a book titled Libriomancer, by Jim C. Hines.  The concept for this book was unlike anything I had seen before, and I read a sample chapter of it in an effort to feed my longing for the next Dresden Files book.  While researching the book further, I came across a blurb from Wil Wheaton (yes, Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and host of the Tabletop web series on Geek & Sundry) about a book which he referred to as:  "Too f***ing cool for words!"  This got my attention in a big way.  I had never heard of this book before, but since I enjoyed the sample chapter of Libriomancer, I decided to read a sample chapter for Goblin Quest, after which I was immediately hooked.

The story focuses on a goblin named Jig who is pretty much the runt-of-the-litter.  He is small, weak, has bad eyesight, and is treated badly by his peers who never let him come on raiding parties with them.  Jig has a pet, which is a fire-spider named Smudge.  Fire-spiders become hot when agitated or afraid - hot enough to cause things that they are touching to burst into flame.

According to the blurb on the book, Jig ends up guiding a group of adventures who have captured him and as a result he "encounters every peril ever faced on a fantasy quest."  Naturally, the adventurers are on a quest for a very powerful magical artifact which they must recover at all costs.

The whole story is told from Jig's point of view.  As he spends time assisting the adventurers, he learns about himself and his race of fellow goblins, finding that the wider world is not what he imagined.  For example, he used to think that all it took to be an expert warrior was being in possession of a magical weapon.  During the course of his adventure, he ends up learning that most of what he has believed for his entire life is wrong.  He learns things about himself, his own people, and his fellow Goblins.  Eventually, he proves his value not only to himself, but to the party of adventurers.

Goblin Quest is a wonderfully entertaining story, filled with adventure, thrills, and humor, and the reader encounters many surprises along the way.  I could not see where the story was heading, and it was a pleasure to read.  As it it turns out, Smudge the fire-spider was familiar - he is the pet of the main character in the book Libriomancer.  It will be interesting to learn more about that crossover.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for an original, funny, dungeon crawl adventure.

If you had read and enjoyed this book yourself, I'd be happy to hear from you - feel free to leave a comment on this blog.

Book Review: Europa Journal, by Jack Castle

This is a particular type of science fiction story that I enjoy.  Humanity finds something unexpected, followed by something that would seem to be impossible, and then people are on a quest to find the truth of what they have found.

In Europa Journal, humanity finds something very mysterious indeed.  In the year 2168, out on the moon Europa, which orbits the planet Jupiter, a five-sided pyramid is discovered on the ocean floor.  The pyramid seems similar to those found on Earth.  Within the pyramid, the body of a World War II pilot is found - a pilot who disappeared in 1945.  The pilot is holding a journal which details what happened to him after he and his crew were abducted by aliens.  To make things more complicated, the names of some people currently present on Europa are mentioned in the journal.

Shortly after this discovery, Mac O'Bryant and her team are transported through a wormhole to a strange planet, where they encounter many strange things.  As the book progresses, two stories unfold simultaneously:  the events which take place involving the pilot after his abduction, and the events which take place involving Mac and her companions, and eventually their paths cross.  There were times when it was initially not clear to me what was happening, or even *when* it was happening, at the start of a new chapter started, but this usually got resolved pretty quickly.

Elements of this book are reminiscent of stories I have read in the past, or even movies that I have seen.  The world that Mac and her team end up exploring reminded me very much of the book Helix, by Eric Brown, where the characters encounter some very interesting forms of life.  From a strangeness perspective, I would say that this story has some elements of Larry Niven's Ringworld as well.  There are also some elements that reminded me of the film Stargate (and the 11-season TV series spinoff).  And, of course, other familiar story elements like alien abduction and the Bermuda Triangle play a part as well.  All of these elements come together to weave a somewhat different story.

This was a refreshing twist on these familiar elements, and was an engaging read throughout, and I was pleasantly surprised that I could not see where the story was heading.  If you are looking for some different treatment of familiar science fiction themes, I would check this one out.

Book Review: The Silver Ships, by S. H. Jucha

This was an interesting read.  I found this book available to read for free in the Amazon Prime Reading offering, and the blurb about the story was interesting.  Two colony ships leave Earth to build new civilizations elsewhere.  After 700 years, they meet again - under disturbing circumstances.  Alex Racine rescues what appears to be a derelict alien ship passing through his civilizations system, and he risks his life to capture it.  Initially, his goal is to be able to claim the ship as salvage before anyone else can get to it.  Ultimately, the ship is very damaged, but ends up not being a derelict:  it contains human passengers who are all in stasis, and an artificial intelligence named Julien.  After working to restore the ship, and interacting with the humans on board, it is revealed that the two colony ships experienced very different histories.

The passengers on the ship, who call themselves Méridiens (naturally named after their colonized world), arrived at their destination and built their colony with relative ease, and achieved significant technological advances (including FTL communication and travel). Their peaceful civilization is called The Confederation, and is made up of numerous colonies across many light-years of space.

Alex's civilization never reached their desired destination and experienced a sequence of disasters that reduced the colony ships population to less that 2,000 people before they were able to recover and start growing again on their new home world which they called New Terra.  They have recovered to the point where they have begun creating an outpost on another planet in their solar system, but have not advanced much further than that.  They rely on capturing asteroids for water and resources, to avoid destroying their environment like they did with Earth (which is why the colony ships left in the first place).

Eventually we learn why the Méridiens ship is in such bad shape. They were unexpectedly attacked over 70 years ago by a strange silver ship, which managed to cripple a freighter in minutes, and seriously damage their ship before they were able to use their FTL to escape. The damage to the ship required crew members to enter stasis to be able to survive.

As it turns out, neither group of humans has the ability to deal with the threat of this silver ship. While the Méridiens are technologically advanced, due to the peaceful way of life that technology has not been focused on military offense and defense. The state of the Confederation is unknown, and their ship requires major repairs. The first half of the story is about the rescue of the Méridiens, and the second is about the two groups of humans working together to prepare for future conflict, while getting the Méridiens back home.

Alex Racine is a very interesting character. He is a genius, and he has a good moral compass. He is always interested in helping, and he almost immediately sides with the people he has rescued. Alex's interaction with the Méridiens, and with Julien, is a major part of the story. Each of the major characters grows as their trust in each other increases.

Julien is an excellent artificial intelligence, and he grows just as the other characters do, when he starts taking a liking to Alex and how he thinks.  Julien is referred to as a SADE (Self Aware Digital Entity), which is a term I've never heard before.

I also thought that the social structure of the Méridiens was interesting. If I understood it correctly, it is similar to the great houses from Frank Herbert's Dune series - just without the conflict and backstabbing (of course, this is all just learned from dialogue with the Méridiens). Although, their society is not perfect, and there are those who don't agree with certain things. They have an interesting solution to dealing with those that do not follow the orders of their House.

This is a good start to the series. It kept me interested, and I liked the characters, but for some reason I don't consider this an easy read. It's not that the language is complicated, but for some reason I could not read this as quickly as some other books that I have enjoyed. It may have been the level of dialogue in this story. But, this is still highly recommended.

Book Review: Anomaly, by Peter Cawdron

This is a first contact story that I found in the Amazon Prime Reading library.  The idea interested me immediately.  The description reminded me a bit of the novel Dragon's Egg - essentially, first contact between two species that are so vastly different, the main question is:  how would they communicate?  In Dragon's Egg, the Cheela are a race of beings the size of a sesame seed which inhabit the surface of a neutron star, and they develop a million times faster than human beings - essentially moving from agriculture to advanced technology within the span of a month on the human calendar.  More information about Dragon's Egg can be found on Wikipedia here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Egg


The story for Anomaly sounded somewhat similar, but in this scenario humanity is in the position of the Cheela.  An alien ship lands in Manhattan, and humans can't even recognize it as a ship initially.  The alien intelligence is described as being millions of years ahead of humanity.  Ok - sounds appealing.

The original cover of Anomaly (pictured right) contains a portion of the plaque that was attached to

the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft.  This plaque is mentioned in the story, and leads the primary character, David Teller, a grade school science teacher, to initiate communication with the alien ship.  I have also included a picture of the full Pioneer Plaque, which was attached to the Pioneer spacecraft, immediately below it.   David almost immediately gets paired up with Cathy Jones, a reporter who has been sent on site, and they both assist occasionally with the many scientists who are investigating the ship.

Additional information about the Pioneer Plaque can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

I have to say that the ship is unlike anything I have seen before, and the process of establishing communication, while it mirrors what I've seen in other stories, is fairly unique in Anomaly.  I also liked the fact that the breakthroughs made in learning about the ship don't just come from genius scientists, showing that anyone can contribute an interesting idea that may progress the situation.

This story covers many subjects:

• Slow progression of communication with the anomaly - trying to communicate when the difference in evolution is measured in millions of years is not easy.
• A debate about the anomaly with religious figures from many faiths who see the anomaly as a threat (and some who don't).
• International implications of first contact, and the jealousy and suspicion of other nations who feel that they aren't getting a fair chance at participation, feeling that the United States is fully in control.
• An exploration of what can happen when dealing with the unknown (riots, etc), and how people in large groups can be motivate by fear to different ends.  I think I first witnessed this kind of thing in the film The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original version from 1951).
• An examination of how peoples opinions of each other can change when they are thrown into a situation way out of their control.

I found Anomaly to be a very interesting and engaging story, although I found the ending to be somewhat underwhelming, in the vein of the film Contact (based on the book by Carl Sagan - while details of the story were interesting, the major buildup led to an incredibly small payoff involving faith).  Desite this, it did not rob me of the pleasure I had reading the story, but I was disappointed it didn't go further.  This isn't the first story that falls into that category, and it certainly won't be the last.  In Anomaly, the major payoff is in the journey to the final breakthrough in the attempts to communicate with the ship.

I would highly recommend this story to anyone who enjoyed Contact, or any number of other first contact stories (including the film Arrival, which I just saw this year).  I'd also like to say that if it wasn't for the Prime Reading program on Amazon, I probably never would have seen this book.  I'd be interested in hearing from others who have read this book, and hear what they thought of it - feel free to comment on this review.  I'd be happy to hear from you.