Callisto 2.0 by Susan English – Review

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4 stars, artificial intelligence, Book Review, feminist, lgbtq, scifi, series, Susan English

About Callisto 2.0 by Susan English

Shambhala Space Station, 2097. Solitary physicist Callisto (physics, after all, is a jealous mistress) never accepted conventional wisdom. So when she’s recruited to work on faster-than-light technology by a beautiful and mysterious older woman, she eagerly accepts the career opportunity at the women-only research station orbiting Earth’s moon. But her enthusiasm suffers when her first discovery is unexpected heartbreak.

Throwing herself into work on a problematic warp drive prototype, Calli blossoms in the utopian female community that shows her love and acceptance for the first time in her life. But when a twisted conspiracy, a disingenuous affair, and a disastrous betrayal test her place in this unique environment, the brilliant scientist must dig deep to find her moment of truth.  Will Calli embrace her destiny in an unexplored cosmos?

Callisto 2.0 is the transformative first book in the Shambhala Saga feminist science fiction series. If you like compassionate characters, deep-space intrigue, and hopeful visions of the future, then you’ll adore Susan English’s cosmic adventure.

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Review of Callisto 2.0

Callisto 2.0 presents a lovely vision of a women’s society that is based on pure science, cooperation and friendship.  What scientist wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to do pure research?  No papers required.  No quotas to meet.  Just research for the sake of knowledge. Plus, no back-biting competition from other scientists.  Only cooperative, helpful scientists.  And, there are no men.

Susan English portrays a captivating feminist dream of a women’s community for scientific advancement.  I found myself lulled into a sense of happy satisfaction for these women of diverse backgrounds coming together to make a better world.

Mind you, not all types of scientific research are desired at Shambala.  The creators of this idyllic society do have a goal in mind.  What is not completely evident to the scientists at first becomes increasingly obvious to the reader as the story continues. This resulted in a lack of suspense that also made the story a bit of a dragger.

Not that I disagreed with the goal.  But the fact that the scientists did not question the ultimate goal of their research was not quite believable.  Also unbelievable was the absolute harmony that seemed to pervade the research station.  Believe me, I am on board for all the harmony I can get, but in real life, people naturally create conflict.

If you want believable science fiction, you might not appreciate this one.  Despite the drawbacks, I am still giving Callisto 2.0 four stars.  Why?  Because, I enjoyed reading about this graceful feminist conception of a women’s society aiming for a better life.  Want to read something hopeful?  Read Callisto 2.0.

Thanks to the author for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Machine (White Space, #2) by Elizabeth Bear – Review

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5 stars, aliens, artificial intelligence, Book Review, Elizabeth Bear, medical scifi, mystery, scifi, series, social government, space opera, Star Trek, Stargate SG-1

About Machine by Elizabeth Bear

Meet Doctor Jens.

She hasn’t had a decent cup of coffee in fifteen years. Her workday begins when she jumps out of perfectly good space ships and continues with developing treatments for sick alien species she’s never seen before. She loves her life. Even without the coffee.

But Dr. Jens is about to discover an astonishing mystery: two ships, one ancient and one new, locked in a deadly embrace. The crew is suffering from an unknown ailment and the shipmind is trapped in an inadequate body, much of her memory pared away.

Unfortunately, Dr. Jens can’t resist a mystery and she begins doing some digging. She has no idea that she’s about to discover horrifying and life-changing truths.

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Review of Machine

Machine starts out when Jens and the crew of I Race to Seek the Living (yes the ship names are a little absurd) investigate Big Rock Candy Mountain and I Bring Tidings from Afar. Two ships and passengers that could not be more different, yet experiencing oddly similar circumstances.  All the people on both ships are in deep sleep.  One crew sleeps in cryogenic pods, the other is unconscious.  Dr. Jens and her crew begin the rescue operation that is both a medical mission and an investigation.   This opening grabbed my attention and held it until the last page.

Back at the Core and the hospital, things get even more mysterious.  There is a lot going on.  I can’t possibly do a synopsis justice.  So I will just say, that what I though was going to be a science fiction tale of adventure and futuristic technology (see book title), turned out to be a mystery.  Machine is a mystery wrapped in space opera.  Jens likes mystery because she likes to figure things out.  She just doesn’t expect solving the mystery would be so treacherous.

There are so many thing I liked about this book.  First lets talk about the Synarche, a community of various races that includes humans, that has evolved to a relatively socially advanced cooperative society that considers the well-being of all its synizens. Individual tendencies that stray from the preferable ideal are considered to be sophipathic, but can be right-minded (an advanced therapy that uses memory replacement, brain chemical balancing and technology to make that all happen).   I find this to be a fascinating social government that seems at once idyllic and also oppressive.

I loved how all species are treated as people.  Right-minding means prejudice is undesirable.  Even AI’s (though they born into debt and owing service), are treated as people.   This also means that Jens interacts with several other species and AIs, so it is not just humans that are the heroes of this story.   The author often uses they/them/their to replace gender pronouns for many species.  At first this was disorienting, since I think of these as plural pronouns, but eventually my mind adjusted.

One of alien species is the Rashaqin.  From what I remember from my first meeting of a Rashaqin (Cheerilaq in Ancestral Night), the description of giant praying mantis was what I took away from it.  Normal sized praying mantises can be kind of scary looking to the bugs they prey on.  Imagine one towering over you.  Male Rashaqin are smaller, tiny enough to sit on a human’s shoulder, like Dr. Rilriltok.  Females however…..  But Goodlaw Cheeirlaq is only a threat to the bad guys, and in fact, is one of the heroes of this story.

One of the bad guys, aka the machine, reminds me a little of the spider-like replicators of the TV series Stargate SG-1.  Not that the machine is necessarily spider-like, but it does replicate with a purpose.

While we are talking about old scifi TV shows, Star Trek fans will also recognize a parallel to Nomad from The Changeling.

Machine is a 1st person narrative told from the perspective of the human Dr. Jens.  Since most of the people reading this books will also be human, this was a good choice.  Several other characters, human and other-worldly, have important roles, but this is Jens’ story.  Jens is not perfect and often questions not only what goes on around her, but also her own life choices, making her a character to sympathize with and invest in.

The author attempted to create a futuristic use of language for a few words, but did not stray too far from what we are familiar with.  Every now and then, 21st century western jargon creeps in.  In particular, I recall ‘stay frosty’.  I am pleased that the author envisions that humans of today will have their own influence on the use of language in the future.

Machine is not a light read.  It is complex and detailed but with enough suspense and sense of adventure to keep the story rolling along.  At 496 pages, it is longish, but I found I was sad when it ended. While the story takes place in the same universe as Ancestral Night, it is totally standalone.  If you read Machine first, you might find spoilers for Ancestral Night, but I think you can read them in any order.

As I was reading Machine, I highlighted several passages.  I thought I’d share a couple with you here:

The best we can do is not pretend that we don’t belong to a system; it’s to accept that we do, and try to be fair about using it.  To keep it from exploiting the weakest.

The most important thing in the universe, it turns out, is a complex of subjective and individual approximations.  Of tries and fails.  Of ideals, and things we do to try to get close to those ideals.

It’s who we are when nobody is looking.

Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Changed (The Made Ones Saga, #2) by Vicki Stiefel – Review

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5 stars, Book Review, cats, fantasy, genetic engineering, horses, parallel universe, paranormal, romance, scifi, series, Vicki Stiefel, wolves

About Changed by Vicki Stiefel

What if you could be young again? Would it be a dream come true or truly a nightmare?

That’s the startling reality retired circus trapeze artist Breena Balážová awakens to on the world of Eleutia in her own re-engineered younger body. For a woman whose death on Earth was inches away, it seems like a second chance at life. But in this parallel world, where horses fly and animals and humans are symbionts, Bree is intended as breeding stock to balance the plummeting female birthrate.

As she searches for her missing sisters, who were pulled to Eleutia with her, Bree also must survive assassination attempts, the growing threat of war, and her unexpected attraction to the arrogant animal Clan Alpha, Gato, a man with terrible burdens and secrets.

The animal Clans join forces to combat a dark conspiracy that will shake the foundations of their world, even as Bree’s search for her sisters grows more desperate and dangerous.

If Bree has any hope of finding her sisters and fulfilling her own destiny, she and Gato must carry out a perilous deception, their success or failure deciding not only their own fate, but that of all Eleutia.

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Review of Changed

A brief synopsis of the series is in order:  The Eleutians are dying out because very few females are born.  To save their species, the powerful Alchemic clan pulls women from parallel worlds (Earth), altering them into young healthy, younger versions of themselves and placing them within the Eleutian population, calling them Made Ones.

In Changed, Bree is one of three sisters snatched from near death to Eleutia.  The Cat clan home becomes her home and Alpha Gato becomes her guardian/jailer.  Gato’s life as an alpha is burdensome but he is still a very good leader.  It is impossible for Bree not to fall for the man.  But there are forces (see Alchemics below) that are trying to keep them apart.  The relationship between Bree and Gato is at once light and fun and also intense.  Part of what makes Bree and Gato so fun is their relationship with the CatGuard panthers.  The animals bond with humans and so Bree ends up bonding with two cubs.  Gato’s cat, Bartholomew, is a force to be reckoned with and a hero in his on right.

There is some interaction with the protagonists of the first book in the series, Altered.  Kitlyn, Bree’s sister, and Rafe, the wolf Alpha, are great characters and I am glad they continue to have a role in the ongoing story.

The Alchemists are being revealed as the troublemakers on Eleutia.  They have plans to that do not coincide with a happy, prosperous Eleutia.    Many of the animal clan members have begun to figure this out and watching them learn more and strategize a solution is at the heart of the story (after the romance).

As with Altered, I had a hard time classifying Changed.  You could call it fantasy.  Or scifi.  And you can call it romance.  Take your pick.

The world of Eleutia has some interesting overlaps with Earth.  Some of the foods are the same.  Much of the food is also new to the Made Ones.  Strangely enough, TV, cell phones and circus acts also exist on Eleutia.  At first I though, trapeze acrobats on Eleutia?  But after some consideration I realized that integrating Made Ones into the society, as well as interfering Alchemics, probably have something to do with the overlap.

In Changed, we meet the CastOuts.  These are the “imperfect” humans created when Alchemics messed with their DNA.  They have their own clan and, I think, they will prove to be the most interesting clan of all.

Kitlyn and Bree continue to look for their sister Sybil.  She is present in the story as an unrevived Made One.  I’m looking forward to the next book where Sybil will get her story.

Changed is complex, captivating, dangerous and heartwarming.  So if you are looking for fantasy, scifi, and/or romance you might want to check this one out.

Many thanks to the author provided a copy of her book in exchange for my honest review.

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