Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022--San Antonio

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel surprised me by being so short and so good.  I knew it had good reviews, but for some reason I avoided reading it until now.  I was so pulled into the story that I read it within 36 hours (not using all those hours, just reading off and on).  I had read and thoroughly enjoyed her Station Eleven, so I shouldn't have been surprised by this one.  Like "Eleven," this one is science fiction.  Chapters take place over centuries, but all tie together.  What seems strange when you first read it makes sense as you go further along.  The big question addressed in the book is whether life is REAL or if it is just a giant simulation.  The question arises because of a blip in time that makes no sense.  But the book also deals with global warming, the establishment of settlements on the moon and then further out, time travel, ethics, etc.  I do think there was one scientific error in the book.  She states that the moon settlements have two weeks of sun and then two weeks of darkness.  If I remember my science correctly, the moon does not rotate; it has one sunny face and one dark face, so at any given point on the moon there will be either total sunshine all the time or total darkness all the time.  I think the author was thinking of how the moon, seen from the earth, has phases that transition from a total moon face to total darkness in two weeks and then back to a total moon face two weeks later, but that is not an indicator that the moon is rotating so that points on it are transitioning every two weeks in terms of light and darkness.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022--San Antonio

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu is a science fiction book.  It is more a collection of short stories than a novel, although each story has connections (a name reference, the mention of a particular piece of jewelry, etc.) that tie it to another.  Eventually, the final story ties them all together in an unexpected way.  Some of the stories are more compelling than others.  But the writer has a creative mind which makes each story interesting on its own.  The science fiction aspect builds on a recent earth experience by starting in the late 2020s/early 2030s when a new and highly contagious virus is released in the world--through explorations being carried out in Siberia because of global warming.  A neat concept to tie these together and to get the reader thinking more seriously is that the virus is only killing children, but it is almost all children dying which leaves the adults to face global warming as THEIR problem since there will be few, if any, children to be left.  Therefore, the adults will have no children on which to hoist the responsibility for caring for them until they die--during times when life will become more and more miserable due to global warming.  I enjoyed the entire book, but I only got excited about 2-3 of the stories.  I did find the concept of how it all ties together to be especially interesting.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Release by Patrick Ness

Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022--San Antonio

Release by Patrick Ness is a novel with two stories going along simultaneously--a science fiction story about a water queen (who is a spirit responsible for all life on earth and whose spirit can sometimes join temporarily, but only until sunset without all creation ending, with those of humans who have died plus her companion who accompanies her when she leaves the water world) and a story of a group of high school students living in a small Seattle suburb.  The Queen and the spirit of one of the high school girls whose meth-head boyfriend a week earlier strangled her then threw her body into the lake where the Queen lives have become conjoined inside the physical body of the girl and have left the lake for the day because of unfinished business the girl's spirit wants to handle.  The main story among the students revolves around a boy whose father is an evangelical minister and his friends and others who are a part of his life.  In effect, both stories deal with muddling through life that is difficult and confusing, yet hoping that life will still be good in the long run.  I read the book quickly and enjoyed both stories.  The author did a good job of tying them together at the end.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Vladimir by Julia May Jonas

Monday, Aug. 8, 2022--San Antonio

Vladimir by Julia May Jonas is centered around a 48-year-old professor of women's literature at a small, expensive private university near Albany.  She hired, along with her husband, within the same department, and the two of them have been in an "open" marriage for many years.  The husband has gradually progressed to the position of head of the English department and is on suspension from teaching while awaiting a hearing for having had numerous affairs with graduate students in previous, fairly distant years.  The professor herself is worrying about the effects of passing time:  developing teaching burnout as her students more and more want to try to interpret classic women's literature in terms of today's moral standards rather than literary standards, her inability in recent years to begin writing a third novel to be published, having become distant from her adult daughter who has always been rather self-centered and needy, and concern about the affects of aging on her body and general appearance.  When a young, attractive new professor joins the faculty, she begins to fantasize about a relationship between the two of them to the point that the line between fantasy and reality begin to blur in her mind.  Shocking events occur in the latter third of the book that affect the lives of everyone.  I gave the book, which is receiving recommendations from various quality sources,  4 1/2 stars out of 5.  

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

Friday, Aug. 5, 2022--San Antonio

My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is a short story collection that TIME listed among the best in fiction in 2021.  It has 4 stories.  The first 3 are true short stories, and the last, the title story, is more of a novella since it takes up more than half of the 224 pages.  I was not very inspired by the first 3 stories and even quit reading the 3rd one out of lack of interest.  But the title story made up for all of that by being so good.  It takes place in the USA at a time in the future when far right militias have rebelled, when basic services are no longer functional, when right-wing gangs rule the streets with a determination to preserve the country for those who they believe truly should be here--the whites.  The story is about a group of neighbors in a mixed race neighborhood escaping the gang that has come to burn their houses and to hopefully kill the residents.  Among the leaders managing the escape is a young college student, her white boyfriend, and her grandmother (who has in the past been identified as one of the descendants of the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings).  In their wild rush to escape the mob attacking the neighborhood, they manage to commandeer a public shuttle bus.  In rushing out of town, they eventually find their way to the abandoned Jefferson home Monticello where the granddaughter driving the van had worked as a student intern the previous summer.  They try to create their own society there with written rules and regulations and taking advantage of the vegetable gardens; the snacks, drinks, and clothing in the gift shop; etc.  Of course, their safety is only temporary and problems with general life as well as with the far right gangs eventually catch up with them.  Because the last story was so good, I would recommend that people read the book if only just for that last story (but with the recommendation that they feel free to skip any of the first 3 stories if unappealing to the reader).  I would rate the first 3 stories at 2-3 stars out of 5, but because the last story is so good, I gave the overall book a rating of 4 out of 5 stars.