Possible New Selections for 2017
I figure I would send this out, so you all know, or those who check this, what I am thinking of putting on our future 2017 reading list:
January 2017:
Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke
The Yiddish Policeman's Union meets The Windup Girl when a female PI goes up against a ruthless gangster just as both humans and robots agitate for independence in an Argentinian colony in Antarctica.
In Argentine Antarctica, Eliana Gomez is the only female PI in Hope City a domed colony dependent on electricity (and maintenance robots) for heat, light, and survival in the icy deserts of the continent. At the center is an old amusement park now home only to the androids once programmed to entertain but Hope City's days as a tourist destination are long over. Now the City produces atomic power for the mainland while local factions agitate for independence and a local mobster, Ignacio Cabrera, runs a brisk black-market trade in illegally imported food.
Eliana doesn t care about politics. She doesn t even care much that her boyfriend, Diego, works as muscle for Cabrera. She just wants to save enough money to escape Hope City. But when an aristocrat hires Eliana to protect an explosive personal secret, Eliana finds herself caught up in the political tensions threatening to tear Hope City apart. In the clash of backstabbing politicians, violent freedom fighters, a gangster who will stop at nothing to protect his interests, and a newly sentient robot underclass intent on a very different independence, Eliana finds her job coming into deadly conflict with Diego's just as the electricity keeping Hope City from freezing begins to fail
With the inner workings of the mob combined with the story of a revolution, Clarke brings novelty and delight to steampunk Antarctica in this complex and lovely mystery (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Our Lady of the Ice questions what it means to be human, what it means to be free, and whether we re ever able to transcend our pasts and our programming to find true independence.
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
There's Lone, who can make a man blow his own brains out just by looking at him. There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and the unique power of the teleporting twins. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and Gerry, who has everything it takes to run the world -- except for a conscience. Separately, they are talented freaks. Together they compose a single organism that may represent the next step in evolution. As the protagonist of More Than Human struggle to find out whether they are meant to help humanity or destroy it, Theodore Sturgeon explores the questions of power and morality, individuality and belonging, with sophistication and lyricism rarely seen in science fiction.
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
On the planet Ilmatar, under a roof of ice a kilometer thick, a team of deep-sea diving scientists investigates the blind alien race that lives below. The Terran explorers have made an uneasy truce with the Sholen, their first extraterrestrial contact: so long as they don't disturb the Ilmataran habitat, they're free to conduct their missions in peace.
January 2017:
Our Lady of the Ice by Cassandra Rose Clarke
The Yiddish Policeman's Union meets The Windup Girl when a female PI goes up against a ruthless gangster just as both humans and robots agitate for independence in an Argentinian colony in Antarctica. In Argentine Antarctica, Eliana Gomez is the only female PI in Hope City a domed colony dependent on electricity (and maintenance robots) for heat, light, and survival in the icy deserts of the continent. At the center is an old amusement park now home only to the androids once programmed to entertain but Hope City's days as a tourist destination are long over. Now the City produces atomic power for the mainland while local factions agitate for independence and a local mobster, Ignacio Cabrera, runs a brisk black-market trade in illegally imported food.
Eliana doesn t care about politics. She doesn t even care much that her boyfriend, Diego, works as muscle for Cabrera. She just wants to save enough money to escape Hope City. But when an aristocrat hires Eliana to protect an explosive personal secret, Eliana finds herself caught up in the political tensions threatening to tear Hope City apart. In the clash of backstabbing politicians, violent freedom fighters, a gangster who will stop at nothing to protect his interests, and a newly sentient robot underclass intent on a very different independence, Eliana finds her job coming into deadly conflict with Diego's just as the electricity keeping Hope City from freezing begins to fail
With the inner workings of the mob combined with the story of a revolution, Clarke brings novelty and delight to steampunk Antarctica in this complex and lovely mystery (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Our Lady of the Ice questions what it means to be human, what it means to be free, and whether we re ever able to transcend our pasts and our programming to find true independence.
February 2017:
More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
There's Lone, who can make a man blow his own brains out just by looking at him. There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and the unique power of the teleporting twins. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and Gerry, who has everything it takes to run the world -- except for a conscience. Separately, they are talented freaks. Together they compose a single organism that may represent the next step in evolution. As the protagonist of More Than Human struggle to find out whether they are meant to help humanity or destroy it, Theodore Sturgeon explores the questions of power and morality, individuality and belonging, with sophistication and lyricism rarely seen in science fiction.
March 2017:
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age a world terraformed and prepared for human life. But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare. Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?
April 2017:
A Darkling Sea by James L. Cambias
On the planet Ilmatar, under a roof of ice a kilometer thick, a team of deep-sea diving scientists investigates the blind alien race that lives below. The Terran explorers have made an uneasy truce with the Sholen, their first extraterrestrial contact: so long as they don't disturb the Ilmataran habitat, they're free to conduct their missions in peace.
But when Henri Kerlerec, media personality and reckless adventurer, ends up sliced open by curious Ilmatarans, tensions between Terran and Sholen erupt, leading to a diplomatic disaster that threatens to escalate to war.
Against the backdrop of deep-sea guerrilla conflict, a new age of human exploration begins as alien cultures collide. Both sides seek the aid of the newly enlightened Ilmatarans. But what this struggle means for the natives and the future of human exploration is anything but certain, in "A Darkling Sea "by James Cambias.
Okay that is what I am thinking about at the moment. Any vetos? How about suggestions for the rest of 2017?
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