LUCIFER'S HAMMER
Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
Recently a comet was discovered hurtleing toward earth... it might hit in 30 years they say. Wanna know how to survive a comet hitting the earth (just in case)? Read this book. Very good reading. A lot of reading. 400+ pages of reading. But don't let the number scare you.
Titanic won some award thingies a few weeks ago.. what was it.. uh.. best...most grossing... I mean.. Most Gross.. Movie in the Universe. Well.. I'd like to see them do a GOOD movie version of Lucifer's Hammer. No stupid movie with claymation and anamatronic comets.. I guess to get it just right it would have to be Animated. A sick ass cartoon with death and distruction.
A brief summary... a comet is discovered by two guys, it's large and it will come close to earth. Scientists are not sure if it will hit. It does. "Hot Fudge Sundae Will Fall On A Tuesday." Off the scale earthquakes, mile high tsunamis, surfing, wide spread flooding, thermonuclear war, global cooling, religious fanatics, cannibalism, the return of the feudal system, and a touch of romance. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.
Grade A-
- The begining was slow... but the rest is rather fun.
EXPEDITION
Wayne Douglas Barlowe
This Is not a novel. It's rather strange actually. Mr Barlowe takes a trip to another planet (Darwin-something) where strange eye-less creatures live. This book is an account of that trip. It has many sketches of the creatures and the planet.
Barlowe came out with a Guide To Extraterrestrials a while back. Those were the interpretations of aliens from other books: Ringworld, Childhood's End, other classics.
Grade A
- Find out for yourself.
GLORY SEASON
David Brin
**This is a good book for militant feminists and man haters.**
A colony of humans is living on a planet named Stratos. There are very few men on Stratos. The women reproduce by cloning themselves and forming a sort of hive of all their clone-mothers and clone-daughters. Men are only needed here and there, for sailing, for difficult work, and for...you know... They are needed for sexual reproduction, because a woman just can't clone herself to get a son. When girls are born from this union they are outcasts. Maia and Leie are twins. Both set out from their family to try and make something of themselves, maybe start their own hive. They get sepparated when their ship sinks. Maia falls into the wrong crowd and gets caught up in a conspiracy with a man who came from earth. Meanwhile Leie is taken in by pirates. They meet up in the end, the earth man dies, and the conspiracy is foiled.
Grade A-
-Confussing but good. Check it out.
HAND OF PROPHESY
Severna Parks
Human culture has spread to the stars. And gosh darnit, the slave trade returns. Slaves bred for obediance. When given a virus in their late teens-early twenties it makes them nearly invincable (you could push one off a cliff, and in a matter of hours they'd get up and walk away without a scratch) and freezes their age. There is a catch. 20 years after the slave is infected, the virus dies (failure), and so does the slave. Slowly. Frenna is a slave. She is shown a way to prevent death after failure. Unfortunatly a war breaks out and she is forced to live in an arene with a bunch of mean slave girls.... they're all friends in the end... really good friends...
Grade B+
-Could have been better.