Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: The Far Reaches Collection (Various Authors) by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: The Far Reaches Collection (Various Authors)

by Karen S. Wiesner

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C4TJRRRV?ref=cm_sw_em_r_ao_rw_y8NZEpV1821Ca 

The universe is bigger than we can imagine... 

Look outward beyond the stars with six stories from bestselling visionary authors. With a sweeping sense of wonder, these stories explore the galaxy...and the horizons of humanity’s potential. 

So there's a bunch of short stories published on Amazon in ebook and audiobook (no print editions available) collections in which the basic theme is what all the entries have in common, but none of the stories are actually connected in any other way. In other words, they can be read separately and in any order. I knew James S. A. Corey (a favorite author of mine) had a story in this particular collection and later found out Veronica Roth also did. This first collection I purchased, The Far Reaches, is filled with science fiction tales--right up my alley. I initially only bought the first two stories on Kindle. I didn't realize at the time that you could get a discount for purchasing the entire collection at once. (As a collection, it's $9.94; purchased separately $11.94.) I paid somewhere around $8.38 total for all the books, including tax. I think I got some stories on sale. Amazon Prime members can get them free, you know, somehow (I'm not a member anymore). I was looking for fast, solid reads, and I think I got what I was looking for with this one. They're actually published by Amazon, which I also didn't realize right away. I'm not thrilled with that idea, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the offerings. I was able to read each of them in a couple hours and at least some of them were intriguing, though, of course, several weren't my cup of tea. While I generally don't review stories I don't enjoy, I did in this case because most people will purchase the entire series, so it feels useful to me to give my opinion on all the entries, whether or not I liked them. 

Beware potential spoilers! 

 

"How It Unfolds" by James S. A. Corey (38 pages/53-minute read) 

Summary: In this short story by the author of The Expanse series, technology has been discovered in the future that allows human beings to be sent over space in a packet (much like ebooks!) to other planets already set up with what's needed to try to survive in that place. A tremendous amount of time and planning has gone into this endeavor. Once the packet is delivered where it's intended to go, the human "unfolds" (launches or materializes; is physically in this new place). This doesn't always work, but, as the packets are sent to innumerable worlds, it does occasionally; the success rate is a spectacular failure. One astronaut joins this mission with the hope that his ex-wife, also being sent across the universe in this way (a woman he loves and lost on Earth) will be able to reconcile with him in just one of these countless worlds. 

Review: This very enjoyable, clever little story is quite a feat in that, considering its compact size, it managed to be packed with everything crucial that's needed and nothing extraneous. The account of this love story searching for the right time and place to unfurl was tragically moving, beautiful, and unavoidably a little sad. 

 

"Void" by Veronica Roth (50 pages/70-minute read) 

Summary: Set aboard an intergalactic luxury cruiser that has the unfortunate name of Redundancy, Veronica Roth (Divergent series) tells a very short murder mystery story from the point of view of one of the crew members. 

Review: I was actually pleasantly surprised by this delightful little whodunit. The setting and characters captured me and made me want to know more about all. My only issue was, happily, minor: For the most part, only two dimensions were explored of the sleuthing main character Ace and only just barely enough of either. I wanted a better balance between the external and internal conflicts. The internal was definitely lacking. Brevity is, no doubt, the cause of this shortfall, but it was still an intriguing read, such as it was. 

 

"Falling Bodies" by Rebecca Roanhorse (35 pages/49-minute read) 

Summary: A juvenile delinquent is cleaned up, his appearance and identity changed, so he can be integrated back into the universe. But he's caught between two worlds in this futuristic story, and those worlds are playing a cruel tug-of-war with him. 

Review: I think the one thing everybody has too much of these days are politics. It's constantly being shoved in our faces with social media and the like, and we're being battered raw from it. This story is all about insane politics and "moral majorities". The author set up her character in a no-win situation and proceeded to make him as unlikable as she possibly could. The end result was what you'd expect, no surprise there. I guess I could have avoided the tragedy by not reading it. Too late for me. 

 

"The Long Game" by Ann Leckie (31 pages/43-minute read) 

Summary: In this futuristic story set on another planet, an octopus-like (or at least I got that impression) life-form that survives only a short time learns about life and death and how much of an impact he can make even if he has only a short space of time to do it in, something that can last long after he's gone.

Review: This short tale was both touching and inspiring. If only everyone could realize what good they can do for the present and future of our species just by putting a positive dream in motion catapulted by a little ingenuity and a lot of hard work. All lives are short but our legacies don't have to be. 

 

"Just Out of Jupiter's Reach" by Nnedi Okorafor (45 pages/63-minute read) 

Summary: In this story, the main character is one of only seven others on Earth able to connect with sentient "ship" beings that will explore the cosmos. Five years into the decade-long mission, the chosen seven end the total isolation with their individual ships in order to meet up with the others for a single week. 

Review: As much as I initially enjoyed the extravagant detail in this unusual tale, I couldn't help wondering 1) if there was a point to such fleshing out--i.e., how did it further the story purpose?, and 2) whether the author could have devoted the precious space to more important internal and external conflicts. Ultimately, I found myself disappointed by this story because of the overabundance of set-up aspects and so little to deeper main character development that would have made me not only like but also root for the main character Tornado. For example, very late in the story, we finally learn how she got her nickname. This shocking, tragic explanation from her past distanced me even further instead of drawing me in because all we'd learned thus far of this character was that she didn't like people, in general. and her own life and that of her ship were her sole focuses--a stunning reflection of today's me-focused society. Unfortunately, the potential in "Just Out of Jupiter's Reach" was greater than the actual result, in my opinion. 

 

"Slow Time Between the Stars" by John Scalzi (28 pages/39-minute read) 

Summary: An AI is set to explore to the farthest horizons of human potential and ensure humanity's legacy continues. In the process, it ponders its own purpose and responsibility to its creators. 

Review: I made the presumption that this story would have a plot…you know, in fiction, this is something that actually happens in the process of putting down words. A reader hopes something will happen in fiction, preferably something exciting; otherwise, why? But nothing really does happen in this story. The AI doesn't hate human beings so much as it simply has no love or respect for them. Nevertheless, it goes along with its programming though it's fully capable of changing it. I say it goes along with it up until it sees no reason to proceed with that (foolish) course. Centuries pass as it travels the cosmos. The last few pages tell us (instead of showing) the AI's plan to do the minimum duty to its creators and then it can do whatever it wants. And still, absolutely nothing worthwhile happens. The story ends after the AI informs the reader about what might have been the story if it'd actually been written. Warning: There's no Terminator, no A.I. Artificial Intelligence, no Blade Runner, no Ex Machina here. At this point, I would have been content with a full-on rip-off of something with an AI being trusted by humans or betraying the trust of humanity; just so long as there was a story--any story--actually being told. I guess the best I can say about this one is that at least it was the shortest in the collection. 

~*~

I suppose because I've been reading so many long series for the past year, each having at least three massive tomes, I've been feeling a strong need to find something short that takes me just a few hours to complete. This collection fit the bill if for no other reason than two out three ain't bad. I liked that these were cheap (under twelve bucks for six stories). If I'd purchased them in print, I would have paid probably two to three times more and inevitably been upset about the stories I didn't actually like. This seems like a good trade-off, though I sure hope I like all the installments in the next Amazon Originals collection. 

After I figured out Amazon has a whole slew of these usually genre-tied theme collections (visit https://www.amazon.com/b?node=17506527011&ref=AOS_footer), I purchased the entire collection of Forward (futuristic stories) at once, which I'll be reviewing next month. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Karen S. Wiesner: The Hit List: Young Adult Series Favorites {Put This One on Your TBR List} Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

The Hit List: Young Adult Series Favorites

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

by Karen S. Wiesner

In the first half of the 2000s, Young Adult series were all the rage, dominating the attention of teenagers and adults alike. Several that became household topics at the height of their popularity, enjoying fame as both book and movie series, seem to have fallen by the wayside since. Even still, I find many of those unique tales are well worth returning to for a fresh perspective. Over the next month or two, I thought I'd revisit a few series that would make any hit list of past favorites.

Divergent captured me the very moment Four (Tobias) made an appearance. Before that point, only the very unique, unexpected plot kept me turning the pages. The basic story here is set in a dystopian future where society is divided into each faction, each dedicated to a particular virtue in order to remove any one person exercising independence and freewill, which is seen as a threat. Those who don't fit nicely into any of the factions, or refuse to, are factionless and live on the fringes of society, poor and shunned. Those who are divergent are required to hide within their chosen factions because such a thing is illegal and feared. As one might expect, in this series, one of the factions wants to dominate all the others and set up their own leader.

Although this series has been around a long time and, if people wanted to read it, they probably already have, in fairness, I'm including this disclaimer: Warning! Spoilers ahead!

I didn't find the initial chapters particularly well written, though I didn't notice that as much as my first taste was of the audiobook of the first book in the series, listened to nearly from start to finish on a trip across the country. After that, I knew I had to read the rest of the series, but I started by reading Book 1 myself. The beginning was underwhelming, but I kept reading more out of intrigue of the faction concept until Four became the highlight of the book and, in my opinion, the series. The main character, Beatrice (who becomes Tris after she makes the choice to join Dauntless instead of remaining in Amity), never won me over. There was almost nothing likeable about Tris after, in the first few chapters of the first book, she stood up bravely and changed her whole life to join the faction that best fit her, even when it meant leaving her family. In fact, the major issue I had with the series was that this weak-playacting-strong heroine who turns into (sorry for the bluntness but it's the most accurate description) a total bitch and basically disintegrates her way through the series until she just gives up at the end and sacrifices herself needlessly, making everything they'd fought for worthless. Tris and Four's romance in Divergent, Book 1, is beautiful, passionate, worth every effort they made to be together when it was forbidden. It was simply breathtaking. But that fragile miracle was destroyed by the author's mistreatment after the initial series offering, and the relationship was hard to even look at in what followed.

Four was the whole reason for following the story to its bitter, disappointing conclusion. His character was complex, admirable, strong and yet vulnerable. If this series had been written from his point of view instead of Tris's, it could have been all it was meant to be. I think the author must have agreed with that because she followed up the trilogy a year later with a collection of short pieces (a prequel and disjointed other not-quite-a-story offerings, retelling parts of the first book) from Four's viewpoint. Unfortunately, this set of contributions felt too little, too late for me, after the crushing letdown of the last two Divergent books, which, albeit exciting, suspenseful, and very readable, did little but show us Tris shattering beyond repair when Four's love and their efforts leading the rebellion should have been able to heal her. Always, she was stuck in Book 1--in all she'd lost instead of finding any new motivation and purpose in her life. How unfair to Four and all who followed her lead.

A movie adaptation was made with the intention of it being four movies--the final book Allegiant was split into two (just like for Hunger Games' Mockingjay). However, the second part of the film was never completed, for which I've always been grateful. The Allegiant movie ended on such a high note. For the first time, we see Tris in a good place, finding strength and healing with Four, proud of their accomplishments and ready to begin a new life, rebuilding their world, for all. Why would fans have wanted to see the outcome of the second part of the book, where Tris sacrifices herself for absolutely no reason and leaves Four grieving? The end of the book relegates the reader to a sense of such devastation that there seems no reason to go on. I prefer to accept the movie's conclusion as the proper ending that should have been provided by the author.

While researching this review, I found that yet another story was added to the series four years after the last. We Can Be Mended was a short-story epilogue taking place 5 years after the final book in the trilogy. It's Tobias's redemption story--along with another character from the original trilogy, in a romance that I'm not sure I could feel right about accepting. As much as I disliked Tris, the thought of her best friend taking her place in Four's life just seems like a tragedy pile-on. I do intend to read it, but I don't have high hopes for being satisfied by this ending any more than I was with the previous.

Ultimately, I recommend this series, mainly for the first book, for the strong, admirable hero, for Four and Tris's early romance, and for the unique story introduced here.

Next week, I'll review another favorite YA series published in the early 2000s.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/