Forced book #1

THE TIME MACHINE

A guy named "Time Traveler" builds a time machine and goes to about 800,000 CE where he meets a bunch of beautiful idiots (well thats just a given) and a bunch of cannibalistic underground people. They take his time machine. He gets it back. He comes home to complain to his friends who don't believe him.
Grade C
-Depressing.

Forced book #2

CARLUCCI'S EDGE

This is a cyber punk cop novel. I like Cyber punk as it seems... I never had a term for the type of book before. Apparently it is also the second book in a trilogy, the other two books I have yet to read. Carlucci is asked to investigate a punk rocker's murder. He uncovers a whole nasty operation of smuggling body parts to a space station in orbit.
Grade B+
-The ending is too abrupt, maybe the other two books will redeem this to an A+.

Forced book #3

A PRINCESS OF MARS

Ahhh... very.. well... interesting.
Burroughs is no scientist. He has no idea what Mars should be like. The character John Carter should have suffered from oxygen deprivation and decompression. Instead he meets tall green men, a sexy red martian princess, and a big multi-limbed house pet.
The book is centered on Mr Carter trying to get laid. Sure, he says it's for "her honor", but would he rescue a fat ugly princess? Plus, she walks around naked.
'No, I'm just trying to rescue the naked princess because I like her personality...'
Grade C
-It could have been more realistic, but it was entertaining in that boring kind of way.

Forced book #4

WE

Yes very much like 1984 indeed.... So this guy, D-503, meets this chick, I-330, who's a slut, and he loves her because he hates her. The sweet girl who loves him, O-90, is alienated, so is their mutual friend R-13. All in the name of being a bad boy.
Your parents told you to stay away from the wrong crowd for a good reason (Because the government instucted them to tell you). So the fling that D has with I catches the attention of this old woman, U, who tries to screw up D's relationship in order to claim him for her own. I is using D to start a revolution anyways. (sounds like a soap opera, huh?)
Of course all this activity is counterproductive in the eyes of OneState. The Man blames the uprising on a foul disease called 'imagination'. So OneState creates the Great Operation where you go to have x-rays shot into the part of your brain that produces imagination to cure you. (Without imagination, I wouldn't have any friends.)
D-503 gets cured in the end, and turns in all his sinner friends, who are promptly tortured and executed.
GradeB-
- It gets hard to follow in the end.

(Still to come)

CHILDHOOD'S END

THE SIRENS OF TITAN

Well... kinda weird. So a man, Malachi Constant, meets another man, Winston Niles Rumfoord, who is caught in some funky space-time phenomenon that allows him to see into the future. This man tells Constant that he will go to mars, then to mercury, then to earth again, to reach titan at the end of his journey, not to mention getting freaky with Mrs. Beatrice Rumfoord on the way. Constant tries to avoid going to mars, but is abducted by 'martians' (earthlings with the benifit of mind control) who wash his mind (and Beatrice's mind) and make him a soldier. He regains his memory, rescues Beatrice and their son Chrono. They get separated, sending Constant to mercury and beatrice & son to earth. Constant comes back to earth finally to get the two of them, who have been sept up in a cult that hates Mr. Constant, started by Mr. Rumfoord. Rumfoord forces the trio onto a rocket and they end up on titan. Over the next several decades, Chrono grows up and thinks he's a giant bluebird, and Malachi and Beatrice find 'love'. They both die of course.
However, that is not the point of the story. It revolves around one mechanoid alien named Salo. He was on a trip across the cosmos to deliver an important message when he was stranded on titan. His people have been taking millions of years to get the needed part to him so he may fix his ship and continue his journey. As it turns out, the purpose of life in the solar system is to manufacture this part for Salo, the part being a scrap of metal that Chrono keeps as a good luck charm. At long last he has the part and can deliver that really important message that reads simply "Greetings".
GradeB
- It was absurd. It was too long for an absurd book.

THE STARS MY DESTINATION

A Forest Gump kind of man, Gulliver Foyle, is stranded in space on his ship. One day a ship named Vorga passed him without helping him. He vows to find Vorga and make the crew pay for what they did. He rapes a woman, goes to jail, meets another woman who he strands, falls in love with a pretty blind albino woman (who turns out to be the one who gave the order for Vorga to pass him by) And in this pursuit he gets a brain, becomes a gentleman, repents his sins, and becomes almost godlike.
GradeA-
-A good read, complicated but good.

THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE

WWII, Japan & Germany win. Japan has control of the western USA, Germany the Eastern USA. Germany, of course, keeps up with the anti-jew crap and has nearly exterminated them, as well as slavs, and most people on the african continent. The Japanese are less strict, but still...
A book is circulating through the americas... The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, science fiction dealing with the concept that the USA won WWII. The man who wrote it lives in a mountain fortress named "The High Castle", hence the title. He lives there because he is a wanted man, it is a banned book on both sides (funny since EVERYONE in this book has read it).
It's a complex plot, so I won't try to summarize it much. One thing in it is a woman named Juliana who meets an italian man who seems very interested in sleeping with her and reading this book. So interested that he'd like to go visit the author. She's not so bright, so she does not realize that he's actually a german assasin sent to kill this author and use Juliana as bait. She does figure this out, and cuts the assasin's throat. Then she forgets to get him any medical attention, and he dies. Too bad. She meets the author, talks to him, then goes home.
GradeB-
-Ehh... it's a strange book.

THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS

So mankind has gone to the stars, then forgotten the rest of mankind. They live on a world that is very cold, Gethen. A representative from the alliance of human worlds, the Ekumen, has been sent to Gethen to try and get them to join the Ekumen. But they don't want to join because the Ekumen, by Gethenian standards, are Perverts. Perverts; not because they are a bunch of sick individuals, but because they have gender. Eww Gross huh? Gethenians have over the millenia of separation have developed some hermaphrodite thing, and once a month they go into kemmer, in which they become male or female and lapse into a horny frenzy. This envoy must try to bridge that gap with his Gethenian friend and understand these people (That alone could have made a really silly pornographic tale...).
GradeB-
-Really really difficult to read.

PARABLE OF THE SOWER

(Didn't have to read after all)

VIRTUAL LIGHT

In 2005 California is now two states, NoCal & SoCal. A bike messenger girl in NoCal steals a drunkards' 'sunglasses' which happen to be really Virtual Light glasses (like VR). A rent-a-cop from SoCal is brought in to help locate this girl. He locates her. A whole lot of bad guys try to get them.
GradeA
-It's better than I am describing.

HEAVY WEATHER

Well... We had to go and F**k up the atmosphere and make it unstable and now we have heavy weather. Big storms, lots of tornadoes, lots of freaks chasing the tornadoes. One scientist and his 'Storm Troop' prepare to record the theoretical F6 tornado that Mr. Scientist here has predicted. The tornado hits, looks like a giant donut, the giant donut eats OK City. And only a few of these valliant Troopers die in the act.
GradeA-
-Needed more action - but I don't mean from the storms.