John J. Vinacci

Clearly not one of Arthur C. Clarke’s best works. Childhood’s End begins with the presence of aliens Overlords already established, with a human – U.N. Secretary-General Stormgren – as their mouthpiece. The Overlords begin their occupation as a veiled force that thrusts utopia upon humanity at the cost of humanity’s freedom and cultural identities with their human collaborators appearing to be largely trustful of the aliens’ unknown motives. But are the aliens trustworthy; do they have our best interests in mind? Or do they have some other motive for foisting utopia upon humanity? One would think this would be a major theme of the book but it’s actually not. Instead, the book meanders its way to being an occasionally interesting analysis of human purpose. The meandering is the book’s greatest flaw as it reads more like a series of loosely connected, extended vignettes rather than having a univocal message, or at least not an obvious one. For instance, with almost a fifth of the boo...

First, a synopsis from Amazon: " The Employees  chronicles the fate of the Six-Thousand Ship. The human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes strangely and deeply attached to them, even as tensions boil toward mutiny, especially among the humanoids."  Apparently, this book had been shortlisted for several sci-fi book awards and honestly, I can't even begin to understand why.  As stated in the book's synopsis, each chapter is a report/statement from an employee aboard the Six Thousand Ship t o a corporate investigatory board concerning the attachment of the employees to 'objects' that are taken on the ship. What the objects are exactly is never stated. There is no particular character to root for. A murder mystery is teased but never properly addressed. There is no deep philosophical exploration (much le...

 A man-vs-nature book set slightly in the future and on a different planet to boot, The Martian excels at something very particular: Making math relevant and accessible. Mathematical skills have never been my strong suit, but reading about an unintentionally stranded astronaut fighting to stay alive by having to do numerous calculations (that the story walks you through!) captivated me. Given our protagonist is a mechanical engineer and botanist with an everyman's sense of humor made astronaut Watney a character to root for when there are really no other characters to be found, not until more than a quarter of the way through the book. None of those characters are fleshed out, mind you, as this serves to keep the focus on 'the Martian' and this is a bit distracting as it makes the team at NASA working to save Watney caricatures. So, there is that flaw, while the eventual rescue attempt seem a bit rushed (yet thrilling nonetheless) and the book begins switching narrative pe...

Before coming into this year as the Year I Read Only Sci-Fi books, 'fun' is not a word I would have used to describe any sci-fi book I've read before. But this year I did have some fun reads, first with The Kaiju Preservation Society and now with Drunk On All Your Strange New Worlds . Drunk On All Your Strange New Worlds begins as a seemingly straight-forward murder mystery in which an alien cultural attaché's murder casts suspicion on his translator, Lydia, who sets out to prove her innocence by finding the real killer(s). Driven by dry wit and a clever finger on the pulse of the intersection between technology and conspiracy theories, this book was a joy to read. Moreover, we're given a realistic, relatable protagonist in Lydia who not only has to deal with the fact that translating for the aliens makes her drunk but has to deal with recognizing her other limitations and the mistakes she has and does make. While she takes on more than many of us might in her sit...

I've been wanting to read this book for some time as it's on every Booktuber's hotlist of modern first-contact, hard sci-fi. For the most part, I was not disappointed... The book begins set during China's cultural revolution which serves to highlight man's cruelty to man and the tension between science and politics. In fact, a good portion of the book - almost it's entire first half - is dedicated to driving this point home. While not a major strike against the book, it does serve notice that the book does not move along at breakneck speed and often spends vast amounts of time dedicated to particular scenes. Fortunately, the book is so beautifully written (or should I say beautifully translated save some remote juvenile-sounding passages) that I completely forgave this particular criticism. The story is vast and infused with intriguing ideas both scientific and philosophical - and I love this - which ultimately culminates in contact with an alien civilization th...

The last book I read was such a deeply soft sci-fi book I felt like going in the opposite direction for my next novel, the hard sci-fi classic The Mote in God’s Eye . Published in 1974, this is an epic, galaxy spanning, militaristic story that finds humanity making first-contact with aliens in the year 3017 after mankind has spread through several other solar systems. I did feel like the first two chapters of the book were a bit of a drudgery but the third chapter picked up business long enough to pique my interest and propel me the rest of the way. Sure, but did I like it? This book is somewhat vexing. Well-written most of the way with an interesting-at-times but also too-familiar take on the mostly humanoid aliens, the book is occasionally ahead of its time (pocket computers, the Langston Field) while simultaneously being a product of the era it was written in (largely traditional patriarchal male/female roles and notes of feudalism, where a ‘romance’ that feels tacked on and immatur...

Solaris is a classic sci-fi drama that follows the story of Kris Kelvin, a psychologist, as he arrives on a space station that is surveying the planet Solaris below. Solaris – the planet itself – appears to display signs of what might be intelligence, implying the planet is conscious. However, this intelligent consciousness is not like anything human, raising the question of why humans use themselves as the standard of consciousness for all ‘life.’ This however, is but a subplot of the book.   The book’s main focus is upon the humans studying it. Shortly after Dr. Kelvin arrives on the station, he is soon plagued by ‘visitors’ of which I will say nothing more other than said ‘visitors’ are implied to be explorations of the human psyche by the planet for reasons that are not readily apparent. The book’s strength lies in how Dr. Kelvin rationally, successfully – and emotionally, unsuccessfully – deals with the station’s ‘visitors.’ This is what makes the book more about the human psy...

He’d climbed this hill a hundred times. It’d been 60 years, though, but the hill was still the same steep sonofabitch in the foothills few people bothered to summit. Jarod climbed, step-by-step, his cane steadying his once proud legs over the path’s occasional scree. Now, just like then, the journey bothered his left knee, only now a needling pain ricocheted from the outside of his knee to his ankle and back. It made Jarod gasp each time and he would chuckle; the pain, the hill, the memories – they were not long for this world. His silver mane tussled by the wind, Jarod scooped his head up towards the sky despite the sharp pinch in his neck and shoulder; it’s not here yet. His sexagenarian pocket watch – a gift from an unforgotten paramour – confirmed it. There was still time.   Time for what he wasn’t sure. To tell his human life to go fuck itself in the face of an Earth-shattering asteroid? To sigh in resignation that, well, at least it’s finally over? (And not just for him, ...