Reached, Allie Condie

Last one in the Matched series. good wrap up.

Erebos, by Ursula Poznanski

Wow- well, this was one I've been so excited to read, but I can't help but wonder if something was (literally) lost in translation from the German...
While the plot was intricate and solid for a techno-thriller, many of the colloquialisms rang wrong to my ears- I know it is set in London, but still, it was very hard to make the dialogue sound natural in my head, and some other things I found jarring- on p. 11, even, Nick was eating lukewarm ravioli from a can, and it was like, hm??? He doesn't seem to have a problem with money- his computer is state of the art and he goes to a 'public' school, so why would he have heated a can in a pan of water instead of nuking it???

It's a shame when something comes from Europe and you just get the sense it's been mangled... I felt very much the same way about Ruby Red by Kiersten Gier, that I was fated to miss the great appeal of the book because of clunky translation.

Thumped, by Megan McCafferty

Sequel to last year's Bumped.
This was very much a sequel- I don't know if it would stand alone, but luckily I had read Bumped, so was able to jump right in without getting too lost.
Harmony and Melody, twins raised apart in a near future where a virus has affected human reproduction, and female fertility ends at around 18, are international celebrities for both being pregnant with twins. In Bumped, the girls find each other, but Harmony was raised in a kind of God-fearing commune situation, and Melody on the Outside, is putting her surrogate skills up for sale in a bidding war.
Melody's hired star inseminator Jondoe falls in love with Harmony, and is the father of her twins, instead of Ram, the husband she has inside the commune...
OK, I'm going to stop with the annotating.
While thought provoking and timely in addressing women's reproductive rights, this didn't really stand alone, and the ending was very wrap-it-all-up and happy endings for everyone to feel realistic, even in the surreal world they lived in.

The Assault, by Brian Falkner

Fun but silly sci-fi.
Aliens land in the Australian desert pleading refugee status, but it is only a short time until they attack.
At the point the novel starts, the only human-controlled areas are North and South America- the Free Territories.
A team of 6 teen commandos have all kinds of training and surgery to pass as Bzadians, and they attack the center of the Bzadian control, at Uluru.
Daft but fast and fun- a little too predictable though.

Starters, by Lissa Price

Fast paced and interesting dystopia.
Teen's bodies are rented by Elders, adults who survived the Spore Wars and have utilized advanced medical technologies to the point where "250 is the new 100", and the wealthy Elders have technology that will allow them to enter and control a teen's body (while the teen is put into a medically induced comatose mental state).
There were just too many plot holes here- I really enjoyed it but it had major problems, conceptually, and in many ways it read as a mash-up of other popular dystopian novels.

Losers in Space, by John Barnes

Well, this has possibly the worst title ever, but was a great hard sci-fi read- John Barnes is always a great writer.
In a future where humans have achieved universal material comfort, celebrity or major talents are the only way to stand out. At a special school for teens who may prove exceptional, Susan and a group of friends are looking for a way to stand out. Susan's best friend Fleeta has already burned out on a drug called happistuff, and Susan is trying to angle for recognition points by dating Derlock, a rising celebrity.
The group finds a chance to achieve what would be epic fame, by stowing away on a Mars-bound spaceflight, only to discover that Derlock is a sociopath, and that the rest of them have more skills than they ever thought.
This was such a good read, and I REALLY loved the Notes For The Interested, a great way to give the math behind the plot without endless adult-style exposition- the reader has the option to just read the adventure, or to read the adventure and also the Notes and gain some interesting knowledge.

Winning Mars, by Jason Stoddard

Clever and fast paced near future sci-fi. After the Chinese have gone to the moon and taken the US flag down and taken the rover back to Shanghai as a souvenir, entertainment producer Jere decides to create a reality show based on winning a race on Mars. Securing funding and sponsorship is one thing, finding the perfect "cast" is another, and governmental interference threatens to shut down the show, but Jere and his girlfriend Patrice- aka Yvette Zero, one of the world's biggest interactive media stars- boldly go ahead with Winning Mars.
Fun read!!!

Blueprints of the Afterlife, by Ryan Boudinot

Extraordinary post-apocalyptic novel. In the years after the FUS (Fucked Up Shit), residents of the Pacific Northwest are creating New York Alki on Bainbridge Island, using newman (essentially cyborg) labor, people are hooked into Bionet, which can be hacked by DJs who control them, the climate is fucked, polar bears (ACK) are gone, a rogue glacier has hunted down cities...
Overwhelming, epic stew of ideas and words, brilliantly done, but not super focused.
I loved it, it read like Bacigalupi in some ways, but I do wish it was a tiny bit tighter. So good though, and wildly different from Boudinot's first novel, Misconception, which I also thought was insanely good.

The Fear Index, by Robert Harris

Fantastic sci-fi/financial thriller. Hedge fund genius Alex and his parter Hugo are pitching a new product to client that Alex has created to run on algorithms he has created around an AI called VIXAL 4. The AI makes trades based on the fear index and on news it gathers from thousands of sources, and the book is a great and truly chilling ride.

172 Hours on the Moon, by Johan Harstad

Flawed YA sci-fi. NASA in a wildly improbably decision, decides to hold a worldwide lottery for 3 teens to travel to a secret moonbase (with a trained adult astronaut crew, at least) but of course everything goes wrong.
Required too much suspension of disbelief to work.

Arctic Rising, by Tobias Buckell

Wow! Straight out awesome climate disaster scifi thriller. Not as well written as Bacigalupi, but a hell of a plot, and out-of-the-box refreshing protagonists made this an un-put-down-able read. Futuristic Arctic cities, climate modification schemes, chase scenes, I want this to be a movie.

A Million Suns, by Beth Revis

Fantastic follow up to the awesome YA sci-fi Across The Universe. This was a great continuation, much more than a "middle book". Elder and Amy continue to grow as characters, and the ethical conflicts aboard the space ship continue to introduce ideas about the nature of leadership, and the value of freedom. Just a great read, and I can't wait for the next.

The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Wildly creative if depressing followup to Bacigalupi's Prinz-winning knockout Ship Breaker. This isn't a sequel- could totallly stand on its own- the only link between the books is the ravaged future America and the half-man called Tool. In this one, clearly set in and near a ruined Washington DC, war refugees Mahlia and Mouse are separated when he is kidnapped to become part of a troop of child soldiers, and Mahlia must choose whether to try to run or to try to save him. Brutal and very very dark, this was a haunting and brilliant book based on current events (child soldiers in Africa) that was drawn so clearly it seems inevitable.

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

I haven't read this since high school, so was interested to revisit Huxley's consumerist, pill popping vision of the future, and found it disturbingly on the mark in many ways, but still wildly off the mark in others. The promiscuity, consumer culture, and pill popping surrender is here, but the sentimentality regarding the family is definitely still here, and then some, in hallmark variations... so good, and so sad. Soma for all.

Cinder, by Marissa Meyer

PHENOMENAL new YA book. Sci-Fi Cyborg retelling of Cinderella, and a fantastic, thrilling and thought-provoking beginning to a new series, the Lunar Chronicles.
Cinder is 36.7% artifical- a terrible accident as a child left her orphaned, and her adoptive new guardian had her body repaired with the best technology available, until he died too, leaving her with his wife and 2 daughters. In this version, only Pearl, the eldest sister, is truly evil, Peony, the younger, does love her cyborg adoptive sister and Cinder loves Peony and Iko, her android. Cinder is licensed mechanic, with a knack for fixing all machinery, and is known throughout New Beijing for her skills.
I've read a lot of re-told Cinderella tales (a recent favorite being the lesbian twist in Ash, by Malinda Lo) but this was really a stunner- impossible to put down, great classic sci-fi imagery, and a heroine whose human-vs-artificial rights/and intelligence was so much better addressed than in The Fox Inheritance.
LOVED IT.

The Fox Inheritance, by Mary Pearson

An interesting but frustrating follow up to the excellent The Adoration of Jenna Fox. In this book, set 260 years after the accident that left only 10% of Jenna's brain, and let her parents re-create her using Bio-Gel, Jenna's friends Kara and Locke, who were 'killed' in the same wreck, have been re-created by a mad scientist from a hair of Kara's and a fingernail of Locke's. It seems that Jenna's parents scanned their brains at the same time they did Jenna's, and a corrupt assistant stole the 'boxes' that imprisoned their 'minds' for all those years. The exploration of AI rights was interesting, but the book didn't settle whether the Fox Standard of 10% was ethically right, and the ending was disappointing and left the essential question unanswered.

Across the Universe, by Beth Revis

Well done YA Sc-Fi. Amy is frozen with her parents for a 300 year journey to terraform a new planet, but is woken 75 years early in suspicious circumstances. This was an exciting blend of scifi and romance and philosophical points about what compromises might be necessary for the human race to survive.

Fever, by Lauren DeStefano

A fantastic follow-up to the phenomenal Wither.

In this novel, unwilling bride Rhine and house servant Gabriel have escaped the luxurious prison of her husband’s mansion, only to find that the world outside the gilded cage is even darker and more dangerous than it had been inside. With their freedom the only thing they truly have, their struggle to remain free is all the more poignant. After being captured in a surreal and vividly painted brothel/circus, Rhine must use all of her strength to save herself, Gabriel, and a young straggler they pick up along the way. Without giving spoilers, it’s hard to describe more of the plot, but once again, DeStefano’s writing reimagines the familiar ground of YA post-apocalyptic dystopian near-future America, and creates a fully imagined world fraught with danger, but touched by hope. Different in tone from the nearly claustrophobic Wither, Fever is a fantastic sequel that doesn’t feel like “the middle book” at all- while leaving me panting for the next in the series!

Crossed, by Ally Condie

The second in Condie's YA trilogy, Crossed has Cassia leaving the safe confines of Society to search for her love Ky in the Outer Provinces. Disturbing scenes have Society dropping off unarmed young Abberations off in the wilds to serve as decoys for the enemy, and that is where Ky has ended up. Cassia and Ky's romance gets helped along by a few too many coincidences, but it was still a fast and enjoyable read, if of a very different tone than Matched.

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller

Dazzling early (1960) post-apocalyptic Sci-fi, with a heartbreaking sense of inevitability and repetition to our own self-destruction. Obviously born of nuclear nightmares, this still had  a strong message to send, despite a certain datedness. I can't believe I had never read this before, this was definitely filling in a gap for me. I still think On The Beach is a more powerful novel, but this went to darker places after the final clouds rained poison, and suggested that we would do it all over again.