Lee Hunts

I just finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by—I want to censor myself for the audience's sake—Phillip K. Penis. This is a science fiction novel written in the 1960s about 2021, a world where the Soviet Union still exists, where video calls have replaced phone calls, where cell phones don't exist, where hover cars are commonplace, and the world has largely been left in desolation due to some undisclosed nuclear conflict. At this point, mankind is now moving on, colonizing the wider solar system, namely Mars. Part of the incentive structure are androids, which are given out to people who leave earth. That is the carrot. The stick is the state of earth, itself. That said, many people remain, and Earth is where the novel is set. This is the book that inspired the movie Blade Runner. I have not seen it. I have seen the occasional out-of-context clip. And I've heard much about it. The biggest thing is that the movie is nothing like the book. I will probably watc...

I just finished reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein. This author is one of the OGs of science fiction, having shaped the genre from the mid-twentieth century on, so I was very eager to read this, as it was my first book of his. This book is about a libertarian revolution on the moon. A colony that is economically linked with earth, and is politically repressed by the so-called "Authority," seeks to liberate itself from its oppressive grip. At the center of this revolution are three people and an AI computer that has chosen to take part in the revolution for its own reasons. So, what did I think of it? No Spoilers I'm not going to mince words. I did not like this novel. At all. In multiple senses, I outright disliked the story: I did not like the characters, except on a shallow level. I did not like the shallow exploration of the ideas; this felt like a whole host of lost opportunities. I did not like the stakes of the story. And I did not like how the...

I just finished reading Chaos and Order, which is the fourth entry in the Gap Cycle by Stephen R. Donaldson. From the outset, I can say that this is probably my favorite book in the series so far, which is what I thought about each of the last entries. In other words, this is exactly what you want from a series. There might be some problems, but they aren't too crazy. Overall (No Spoilers) Much of what I enjoyed in this entry was much in line with what I talked about in the last review. The picture of the political landscape was made clearer in that last entry after the incremental buildup of the first two, and the story in this one is more or less a continuation of the third entry. As such, much of what I said in the last entries non-spoiler section could be placed here. This story more or less carries the story along in an immensely competent manner. The characters are also fascinating, as ever. As we saw Holt's character up close last time in the very beginning of the entry,...

I just finished reading A Dark and Hungry God Arises, by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is the third book in the Gap Cycle, a dark SciFi series set in the wake of humanity spreading out into the void beyond. The series started out small, and is progressively scaling up the complexity. The second book took that first step, keeping the focus tight, while introducing some of the players pulling strings in the background. This third entry has taken yet another step, introducing yet more players and more plot from this higher end of the story. Even still, the focus of the main story line with all the main characters from the original entries has not been lost. Donaldson has proved his ability to balance the higher level complexity with a smaller scale story that keeps the reader focused on a personal level. Overall (No Spoilers) The book opens in the perfect way. The master string puller, the Dragon, the man who basically controls the whole of space, is introduced for the first time—and in the ...

I just finished reading Forbidden Knowledge by Stephen R. Donaldson. This is the second entry in The Gap Cycle, which is a five book science fiction series that was written back in the nineties. With this book, the series is starting to inflate into something expansive and engrossing on an epic scale. I really enjoyed the first entry of this series, The Real Story; particularly the horrifying elements and the deeper questions about the nature of control and the human capacity for depravity. This entry continues those questions, carrying trains of thought along related tracks. But alongside this, the story expands to bring in the political intrigue and the worldbuilding elements that weren't mentioned but hinted at in the first entry. Apparently, the epic aspect of the story only grows further from here. While that is amazing and has me excited for the rest of the story, I also found myself rather captured by the subtleties that were evident in this story. Every action seems to matt...