This might sound biased but when I pick out a new book it will often be by the look of the cover (or more usually the spine). Something will jump out at me and I will more often than love what I got. I found Primary Inversion at the Library and knew I was going to love it. The book is now proof of my system. :p

The main character in this story is Sauscony Valdoria (Soz) who is the leader of a team of Jagernauts which are empaths or people with high ability with the KAB and KEB, two areas in the brain that transmit and receive emotions and even thoughts. There are the Artiso’s who are a genetically engineered people who are resistant to pain and their KAB is defective so they can only detect the emotional signals of pain which their brains re-routes to the sexual pleasure centers. The perfect prey for Aristos are the empaths, since the empaths sends out stronger pain emotions, which translates into greatest pleasure. One night Soz has a unique meeting with and Artiso named Jailbriol II and discovers some information about him that could change the fate of the war between the Skolians and the Eubians.

Primary Inversion was an enthralling read with interesting points on topics like sadism and interstellar travel. Something interesting I found out about this book is that the science behind this travel was based on the published paper written by Asaro herself. It was published in the American Journal of Physics under the title, “Complex Speeds and Special Relativity.” This book and the books after in the series have a variety of Science Fiction elements like space opera, (the war between the Skolians and the Eubians) planetary adventure, physics, math, romance, and political intrigue.

I quite like how the political and space operatic aspects combined with the aspect of the Soldiers with the enhanced empathy, it made for an intriguing view on humanity which I for one loved. Both the space opera part and the political intrigue alone were very good. Another feature of Primary Inversion that I enjoyed is the in-depth space battle and description of interstellar travel. After analysis I give Primary Inversion 4.6 and I highly suggest that you pick up a copy especially if you’re a fan of space operas and science fiction. Here is a link to the book on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com,

During the months of September and October I had the privilege of reading all 5 of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books. They are now in my list top rated books. I want to give Brenda a mention for lending me the books. Thanks Brenda

Now the basic plot to this book is Arthur Dent an earthman has a friend who he had no idea was not from earth. On one fateful day Ford Perfect (his friend) tells him that they have 12 minutes before the world is destroyed so they have to drink beer. As the time approaches a fleet of Vorgon destruction ships arrive and tell the earth that they are going to be blown up to make room for an intergalactic highway. Right before the earth goes Ford and Arthur manage to hitchhike their way onto one of the ships. After listening to some horrible poetry from the vorgons who have discovered there presence on the ship they are ejected into space whereupon they are picked up by incredible odds by none other than a former crush of our main man Arthur in the ship of the guy she went home with instead of Arthur at a party. Arthur and Ford embark on a crazy adventure through the galaxy with Tricia MacMillan (aka Trillion) and Zaphod Beeblebrox to find the ultimate question to life the universe and everything to which the answer was well you’ll find out. Spoiling it would be no fun it made me laugh so hard and as you can hopefully tell from the summary almost everything is crazy in this story.

Something that I found interesting was that Douglas Adams initially wrote the story as a radio series which aired on BBC. One year after that aired, the book was published. The other 4 books from this series were published in 1980 (The restaurant at the end of the universe) 1982 ( Life, the Universe and Everything ) 1984 ( So Long and Thanks For All the Fish ) 1992 ( Mostly Harmless ). Eoin Colfer wrote the fifth sixth book to the series (And Another Thing) to which it was published on October 12th of 2009. Douglas Adams has passed away on May 11th 2001, he was 49.
The biggest thing this book has to offer is its humour. The jokes are zany/wacky but that makes them so much better. It’s the little things like doors with GPP (genuine people personalities) that sigh when they open because they love to open doors for people or a manic depressed robot with a large intelligence who can’t stand life. One of the things books do is tell us something about ourselves, THGTTG tells us about the experience of life and all those little things that happen to us and how we should go with what happens because there just might be an adventure waiting for us. If I didn’t give this book 5 stars I wouldn’t be a sci-fi fan I couldn’t even call myself one.
It is hard to give Douglas Adams and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy enough praise, all I can say is if you are a fan of sci-fi and can appreciate this type of humour then get this book. If you want to get it here are the links to order it online at Amazon.ca,Amazon.com, If you want to get the complete set of books here are the links to them. Amazon.com

Author: Murray Leinster

Year of Publication: 1919

Reading this 41 page book was quite interesting. The story was good but peculiar which is a good thing. The year of publication says 1919 but that is the original publication the version I read was from 1969. There have been around 10 other versions of this first-rate book and my hypothesis is that since new technology and advances in science have been made since each sequential publication that the story might have changed a little bit since the first one. Let me give you an example in my version the main character uses a cell phone which wouldn’t have been invented for another 60 some years when the fist story was made.

The story takes place in a skyscraper in Manhattan. The time it takes place is most likely whenever the book was written for they never directly state the time. The story begins when the metropolitan clock stops and begins to move backward. The two main characters, Arthur and Estelle, begin to notice how soon it got dark out. When they look outside they make a remarkable discovery, there building is moving backwards through time. When it arrives at its destination in time it is apparent that they arrived way before the first colonists. Now Arthur must lead the two thousand people to find food for their survival as he tries to fix the time problem.

The really cool thing about this story is how they came to be traveling through time. There was an earthquake which should have caused the building to sink in the 3rd dimension (space) but instead it falls through in the 4th dimension(time). The majority of this book is in the past where the people have to figure out how to survive. It is interesting to read how Murray Leinster writes a mob of people who have just been sent back in time. It is just as how you would expect them to which is weird considering that people who have just time travel might react differently to people who have say been through a fire.

All things considered I herby award The Runaway Skyscraper by Murray Leinster 4.55 stars!!! To breakdown this score there was 2.30 stars for the time travel and how it worked, 0.95 stars for the humour, and 1.30 stars for the ending. If you would like to buy The Runaway Skyscraper by Murray Leinster it is available at Amazon.ca
, Amazon.com
and chapters along with Barnes & Noble.

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Year of Publication: 1987

I recently reread this book for a second time when I found it under my brother’s desk on the floor. (grr such disrespect to this book) The first time I read it I was around 11 so my appreciation of this book was almost non-existent never the less it is a great book.

Kurt Vonnegut just might be my favourite author. He has written 14 books and 9 short stories compilations. One thing I really like about his books is that he included a couple of characters into different stories. One example is Kilgore Trout a science fiction writer in both Breakfast of Champions and in Galapagos. One thing to note about Vonnegut is that he really did serve in the army. In several other stories he also had characters who served in a war. One final note about Kurt is that he passed away in 2007 at the age of 87.

Summary time (hehe get it, it sounds like the season.) So the story is written from the perspective of an autobiography written by Rabo Karabekian. In his book he talks about the past but is drawn to talking about the present when an interruption occurs from a widower who is staying with him. Her name is Circe Berman. She is not the only one staying in the house as a guest with Rabo, there is also Paul Slazinger a writer who severed in the army with him and his cook Allison White and her daughter Celeste. In the past there is his parents and his two ex wives Dorothy who had his two children, and Edith who when she died left him with her fortune and house. The last people I will mention are Dan Gregory and Marilee Kemp. The former is a master artist who apprenticed Rabo, and the latter is Dan’s mistress.  I don’t want to give to much more information on the plot so I would just say one final point. What Rabo is writing in his autobiography is mainly how he grew up poor and his apprenticeship with Dan and then joining the army. Then he writes about the post war and the events leading up to the present which he also writes about through the story.

In my opinion Kurt has manifested himself as the main character, Rabo Karabekian. For one they both have low self-worth and served in the army and saw mass death. The reason for me saying that about Kurt’s self-worth is that he tried to kill himself and the reason for him seeing the mass death is that he was at the bombing in Dresden. I am assuming here but I think that Kurt was underappreciated as a writer just like Rabo was as an artist. Another character that I liked was Dan Gregory or Gregorian as Rabo’s mother refers to him as. It was quite interesting to have a character who worshiped Mussolini.

I loved this book very much and I believe that you will too. I loved it for several reasons the first being the ties between the book and Kurt’s life. Like as I mentioned earlier they both served in the war and witnessed a mass killing during a war that was the goal was extinction of a race. I also liked how coincidences were weaved in through-out the book I don’t want to go into specifics because that might ruin it for you but one that was very funny was the man who tricked Rabo’s parents for almost all their money and near the end of the book a relative of this man has a connection to Rabo again. Finally, and you may not understand what I am talking about but the thing that is in the potato barn is quite poetic but you have to think back after you have read what is in there. Another thing I have to say is that after reading every Kurt Vonnegut book I have been content with everything and it also seems to send me into a thought provoking state which lasts for hours. His work is just so amazing so I am going to give it five super awesome stars. If you would like to buy Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut it is available at Amazon.ca
, Amazon.com
and Chapters along with Barnes & Noble

After reading Prey I realized that I had a smile on my face, it took me a minute to figure out why but then realized that I enjoyed the book. (Sometimes I don’t realize what is going on lol. XP) Michael Crichton has such a command over the pen and paper it is an enjoyable experience to read his work and I encourage anyone who has not read  this or any book by him to do so quickly.  I am obligated at this point to give you a disclaimer, for you see this book its chalk full of awesome. You have been warned.

Michael Crichton just happens to be one of my favourite authors. He has written Jurassic Park and Disclosure among others, but these just happened to be so good that they have been made into movies and famous ones at that. (Who hasn’t seen Jurassic Park?) He is also the creator of the show E.R. which I am sure most of you have heard of. One thing I like about Michael is since he has a PHD in medicine he knows what he is talking about and some of his other books like The Andromeda Strain are better because of his knowledge of biology.

Now I should probably tell you a little about Prey. The main character, Jack Forman, is an out-of-work software programmer with a wife who works for a technology company called Xymos Technology. He takes care of his 2 children whilst his wife works. Lately she has been almost non-existent in their lives spending all her time at work leaving Jack wondering if she is having an affair. Xymos is currently making nanobots for use as a small but large camera and to make it work they used a program called Pred/Prey which Jack had created. They call him up to help them with the programming when they run into difficulties but when he gets there he discovered the horrible truth of the situation. They had lied; there was nothing wrong with his programming the nanobots are evolving! (dun dun duuunn)

Rating time, a occasion full of happiness and glad tidings in the land of books, during this happy time I am delighted to say that Prey deserves 4.25 stars. One of the things that I really enjoyed about this book is the indeapth explanations of the programming of the code to the production of the nanobots. It really helps toward a fuller understanding of the story. Another reason why Prey deserves this rating is the ending which I won’t give away but I will tell you that it’s full of suspense and action. The third reason is the characters, they are all very well written. There are several programmers at the Xymos building who made me laugh during the description of them, they are a perfect example of stereotypical programmers. The reason why I gave Prey a 0.75 deduction is although I like the thorough explanations they could have been a little shorter and my favorite character gets killed off  but it was still an excellent read. If you would like to buy Prey by Michael Crichton, it is available at Amazon.ca,
, Amazon.com
and chapters along with Barnes & Noble.

The book is taken from several different characters’ perspectives. The first perspective is Beenay, an astronomer, who hears about some information being discovered by other scientists which has startling implications. The second is Sheerin, a psychiatrist who is hired to investigate the effects of a ride where customers are moved on a cart through a dark tunnel. The results are disturbing as Sheerin later goes through the tunnel himself and finds that the warnings were true. The ride makes you go insane. The third perspective is Theremon a reporter for the local newspaper and friend to Beenay. He uses his instincts as a journalist to investigate a belief that there is something deeper behind the cultists who think that god will destroy civilization as they know it in a rain of fire.

This exciting book of 339 pages is full of action and mystery which make it well worth the time of reading it. Nightfall is very interesting to read for the reason of it being written from the perspective of a planet without darkness, a concept that probably none of us have ever experienced. What is even more exciting and intriguing about this book is what happens after night comes. The authors deserve extra credit for theorizing about the effect of this occurrence on living beings. In fact let’s give them a little clap for this feat right now. (Insert clapping noise)

Now it’s time for the ratings. The overall score for Nightfall is a definite 5/5 for several reasons. The first is for the perspectives; in my opinion using different people’s views for writing is an ingenious way to tell a story. It allows different parts of the story to be told without a main character being there and secondly it adds another quality that I can only describe at the moment as tomato, tomato. The other reason for its rating is the effects that the author depicts that would happen to a civilization that has only experienced perpetual light when thrown suddenly into darkness. If you would like to buy Nightfall it is available at Amazon.ca,
Amazon.com
and chapters along with Barnes & Noble.