Dauntless by Jack Campbell

This is one of the best Military Sci-Fi / Space Opera books that I’ve read in quite some time! It’s filled with excellent science behind the fiction, great characters, and concepts. Author John Scalzi’s blog, Whatever, has a regular feature called “The Big Idea” where authors of new SF books explain the big concepts behind their books. I kept imagining Jack Campbell (whose real name is John G. Hemry) explaining the “big ideas” in Dauntless; there are at least three that seem obvious to me:

1) Captain John “Black Jack” Geary is rescued from hibernation sleep in a survival pod in deep space after a century of drifting. He was the hero of the battle at the very beginning of the now century old war, and the memory of him (everyone believed he died heroically fighting off the Syndicate) has grown into myth and legend. Now, circumstances are such that he must lead the Alliance fleet in a time vastly different from what, to him, was just weeks or months ago. Geary has quite a lot to adjust to, and also tries to re-introduce some ideas and practices from his era.

2) Campbell is the first SF author I’ve ever read to write about the relativistic effects of light travel and distance from other ships, stars, planets, etc. In other words, what one “sees” from the ship is minutes or hours old based on far away one is. We know that the light reaching the Earth is about six minutes old, so if a big, powerful spaceship was that far away, we wouldn’t know that they had launched weapons at us until six minutes after the fact. The same is true for communication between ships. Campbell does an excellent job of handling this complication in a very intelligent, yet understandable, manner.

3) Even in the far future, when humankind has spread amongst many hundreds of star systems and has developed two different methods of faster than light inter-stellar travel, our greatest enemy – the one we’ve been fighting for over a century – is still … mankind. The Alliance is made up of those star systems ruled democratically and the Syndicate worlds are those ruled by dictators who control their population through fear. There are a few brief, vague hints that there may be non-human intelligent life out there, but there has never been any proof and never any encounters – at least not on the Alliance side. I also enjoy the fact that in most military sci-fi, including this one, the main characters do not relish war or killing for its own sake, and mourn those lost in battle.

I’m definitely hooked on the Lost Fleet series of military sci-fi, and can’t wait to see what else Campbell does with “Black Jack” Geary and the rest of the “lost” Alliance fleet as they try to make their way home from deep inside Syndic space. In a way this book reminds me a bit of the Battlestar Galactica re-boot TV series. It’s a whole fleet ships, searching for home, with a tired, war-weary commander and a civilian Co-President representing the Alliance government.

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The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn’s The Ticking Is the Bomb is part memoir, part essay, part poetic text collage, and part diary, but above all it is a plea for empathy and compassion.

The book starts out with Nick Flynn holding the first ultrasound image of his unborn daughter.  At the same time the world is in a dark place – the photos from Abu Ghraib play a major part in the book – and the author feels that America – after the mass murders of September 11, 2001 – has lost its way.

The U.S. is involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Americans have been involved in torture of prisoners – a conduct George Washington once condemned with the words, “Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner] I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require [...] for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.”

But whilst the author acknowledges the troubles of the world he is not filled with despair, and he says that he hopes to one day be able to tell his daughter about a dark time “and how her coming was a ray of light. We got lost for a while [...] but then we found our way.”

Nick Flynn shares a meditation that the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh offers: “Knowing that my deeds are my true belongings, I breathe in/ Knowing that I cannot escape the fruit of my deeds, I breathe out.”

During the exploration that is this book, Nick Flynn visits the Vietnamese village My Lai, where more than 300 civilians were killed during the Vietnam War. In his company is a former boyfriend of his mother; he is an ex-Marine who served in Vietnam during the armed conflict. The man walks up to a woman who survived the massacre. He takes her hand, he kisses it, and asks her to forgive him and America.

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The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau

“What is it like to lose everything?” asked the man, the stranger who was there to help.
And Younis fixed him with his pale green eyes and said, “”What is it like not to?”"

These are big questions, with no easy answers.  They are the questions posed and explored in Stephen Dau’s beautifully written debut novel, The Book of Jonas.

The novel opens as Younis, a 15 year old boy, is in the process of being repatriated from his war ravaged country (which is never named) to the United States.  It’s not clear then what has happened to him, only that it was cataclysmic.  On the plane trip over he changes his name to Jonas, the English translation of his birth name, and begins a new life with an American host family in Pittsburgh.

But Jonas does not find it easy to fit in among his new family and schoolmates and eventually ends up in trouble and in counseling.  There, he slowly begins to allow himself to remember and reveal what happened to him and how it involved an American soldier, Christopher Henderson, who Jonas credits with saving his life.

This book is haunting me.  I read it just as the news about the killings of Afghan civilians by an American soldier broke.  It was impossible not to hear echoes of this book in the news coverage.  And even though Younis/Jonas’ story is heart rending, and it is tempting to turn away from such sadness, Dau’s beautiful writing and the importance of the moral issues he explores make that impossible too.

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Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and other books by Alexandra Fuller

Alexandra Fuller, born in England while her parents were briefly living there, moved to central Africa at the age of two, living there until her marriage in 1993 and a move to Wyoming.  She writes nonfiction books:  a reminiscence of her childhood (Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight); an acquaintance’s experiences during several African wars (Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier); her mother’s life (Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness); and The Legend of Colton Bryant, which portrays the life of an unusually interesting young cowboy from Wyoming, who died young in an oil rig accident.  I listened to audio versions of each of these, which enhanced the experience greatly: the first three are read by a narrator with a South African accent, while Colton Bryant’s narrator has a Western twang, putting the listener in mind of the wide open American West immediately.

Whether listened to or read silently, Fuller’s books immediately place you in her setting.  For instance, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight begins:

Mum says, “Don’t come creeping into our room at night.”
They sleep with loaded guns beside them on the bedside rugs. She says, “Don’t startle us when we’re sleeping.”
“Why not?”
“We might shoot you.”
“Oh.”
“By mistake.”

Fuller’s descriptions are so sensual that you hear, see, feel, and even smell exactly what she is portraying, as in “It is so hot that the flamboyant tree outside cracks to itself, as if already anticipating how it will feel to be on fire…our throats are papered with the heat.”  In addition to the immediacy of her writing, Fuller smoothly fills in pertinent facts and history lessons to help the reader make sense of the complex situations found both in a changing Africa and in oil rush Wyoming.  Nonfiction readers who aren’t simply looking for facts, but for nuance and personal experience, will be enticed by Fuller’s writing and choice of subject.  Fiction readers, too, will be drawn into the place and characters, which are fascinating and personify the old saying, truth is stranger than fiction.

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War by Sebastian Junger

In October 2011, the American military endeavor in Afghanistan entered its eleventh year of combat. Never before has the U.S. been involved in a war for so long, and never before has such a small share of the American population been directly involved in the war effort. At the height of the Second World War, nearly nine percent of the population was in the military, whilst only one half of one percent of the U.S. population has been on active military duty at any time during the last decade of sustained warfare – all according to The Pew Research Center’s study The Military-Civilian Gap.

A soldier participating in the study claims that the civilians do not know the military, and he says, “I fear they do not comprehend the full weight of the burden we carry or the price we pay when we return from battle.”

Those who wish to understand the soldiers employed by the U.S. military forces (not all are American) can read Sebastian Junger’s War. It is a journalistic tour de force about the nature of the warrior and war.

Junger spent 14 months embedded with a platoon – that’s about 30 men – of the 173rd Airborne brigade in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. It is a tiny outpost of U.S.A.’s mighty military machine, and out here the U.S. soldiers know that they may get overrun by the Taliban, who – heavily armed – engage in battle “as calmly as if they [are] organizing a game of cricket.”

The men portrayed in Junger’s book are not the polished soldiers that are on display during an NFL game. These men sometimes throw themselves into battle wearing shorts and flip-flops, some of them have big tattoos saying “Infidel” – as that’s how the enemy describes them – and when boredom sets in (and there is a lot of that) someone comes up with the idea of sending Junger and his colleague “down to Darbart wearing burkas made out of American flags. (Surely that would kick something off.)”

This is war as it is – not glorified, but not all hell either. Modern warfare moves furiously fast and is supremely violent, but it also has a certain beauty. And few civilians will ever experience the highs that a soldier may experience in combat, when endorphins and dopamine kick in.

War is a book that is well researched, engaging, and deeply moving. A large number of U.S. soldiers engaged in the war in Afghanistan come and go and only a few are portrayed in a multi-layered way, but overall Junger paints an image of the warrior that is complex and honest, and War offers anthropological, biological, historical, psychological, and sociological insights as it shows the warrior in fear, killing, and love.

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Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

This week I will be featuring books that are available in all of our formats. Print, Audio & Ebook. Enjoy!

Maybe this book should be called, “Breathless,” because that’s how I felt reading it. How much can one man endure? This book never lets up, yet the story kept drawing me forward, engaging me, making me marvel at mans ability to survive. My father and all of my uncles were WWII veterans and I was always eager to hear their stories of the War, but other than basic facts none of them would speak much about their experiences. Unbroken gave me insight as to why so many WWII veterans are reluctant to share their stories; some things are just too painful and downright awful to share.

Hillenbrand, best known for Seabiscuit: an American Legend, tells the incredible real life story of Louie Zamperini and moves the story along briskly from Louie’s childhood to his Olympic performances to a raft in the middle of the Pacific. In just a few fairly short chapters, Hillenbrand manages to paint a picture of Zamperini so vivid that you feel like you know him as well as a member of your own family. Having obviously done thorough research, she deftly mixes in anecdotal tales and numerical evidence that enhances Louie’s story flawlessly.

Unbroken takes war out of the John Wayne realm and tells us the true story of what heroism really is. Sent into a hellish war, under-equipped, under-trained,  incredibly young and with the odds stacked against them, they more than rose to the occasion, and Unbroken takes you on their horrific journey. This book will make you cry, cheer, and seethe. At times, I had to stop reading because I was so overwhelmed mentally and emotionally. It’s strong stuff.

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Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday – first he visited his wife’s grave, then he joined the army.  I had heard of this book a few years go, but it wasn’t until I read Scalzi’s introduction into the new edition of The Forever War by Joe Haldeman that I decided to add Mr. Scalzi to my ever-growing “to read” list.  Every couple of months I find myself caught up on reading for both of my book clubs and I can read something for pure pleasure – and boy, did I make a good pick with this one!

Perry joins the army – actually it’s the Colonial Defense Forces, or CDF – because it’s either that or remain on Earth, grow even older and become a burden on the rest of humanity.  Although Scalzi is barely entering middle-age (he’s just a couple of years older than me) he seems to have been able to get inside the head of a septuagenarian very well.  Early on, Perry tells us that “getting old isn’t one damn thing after another – it’s every damn thing, all at once, all the time.”  So, why not join up with the CDF?  After all, they promise the elderly a second chance at life in a new body.  The only catch is that well over half of the new recruits will die in combat within a couple of years (of course, that fact is not advertised on the recruitment brochures).  It turns out that there’s very little habitable real estate out there in the galaxy and that it’s every race for itself, which means constant war to both protect the existing Earth colonies and grab more land for us away from those nasty aliens.

In his foreword to the newest edition of The Forever War, Scalzi relates the story of when he first met Joe Haldeman and his wife at Worldcon in 2005.  Mrs. Haldeman told John Scalzi that she had read and enjoyed his book.  Joe then told John that he had not yet read his book, but that he’d heard good things.  John then told Joe that was okay because he hadn’t read his book yet, either.  John then goes to say how three seconds later he realized that he’s made a huge gaffe because The Forever War was a classic, as opposed to his newly published forray into military SF.  So, Scalzi’s whole foreword was a cleverly disguised open letter to say, “Hey Joe, I finally read your book. Everyone was right about it.”

Fans of The Forever War, as well as Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Card’s Ender’s Game, or military SF stories in general will want to be sure to give this one a try!  Scalzi also has a pretty cool and very active blog that he’s been running since 1998, called “Whatever.”  After discovering this talented author, I can’t wait to read the other books in this series, continuing with The Ghost Brigades, as well as Scalzi’s other stand-alone novels.

Find the very entertaining Old Man’s War in our catalog.

One Jump Ahead by Mark L. Van Name

As I mentioned yesterday, getting to meet authors can be a very interesting and gratifying experience for readers.  I first met local author Mark Van Name several years ago while he was appearing on an author panel at my local Barnes & Noble and as I listened to him speaking (including a somewhat disturbing story from his youth spent in a para-military youth group) I thought that this is a guy I would like to hang out with.  He’s extremely laid back (or so he seems), he’s very friendly and loves to talk about Sci-Fi, so what’s not to like?  I bought his first novel (One Jump Ahead) and had it signed.  As he signed it I let him know that I work for the library and that he had been featured in one of our quarterly book newsletters, and that I would be interested in hosting a Science Fiction author panel at the library.  He seemed pleased that we had featured him in one of our book newsletters and genuinely open to the possibility of coming to speak at the library.  Well, as these things go, it took me several years to get the author panel together, but true to his word, Mark was glad to be a part of it and even helped me recruit David Drake, as well.  Thanks Mark!

Prior to publishing his first novel in 2007, Van Name has run a technology assessment company, based here in the RTP area and had published over a thousand computer related articles.  He’d also had several short stories published in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The Year’s Best Science Fiction.  The year following its publication, One Jump Ahead won the Compton Crook Award for best new Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror novel at Balticon, the Baltimore Science Fiction Convention.  It’s the first in the Jon & Lobo series and is the story of Jon Moore, a retired warrior enhanced with nano-technology within his body, and his partner, Lobo, an artificially intelligent ship complete with a personality that more than occasionally irks Jon. The two seek some R&R on the lush and pristine planet Macken, but Jon is tricked into kidnapping a girl thinking that he’s returning her to her father.  This is just the latest event in a plot involving two mega-corporations battling for control of the planet’s “jump-gate.”  (The jump-gates are what allow humanity to travel quickly between the stars – entering a jump gate in one area and ending up somewhere else in the galaxy entirely.  No one is sure if they are a natural phenomena or artifacts from an  alien race.)  Jon naturally must set right the wrong he accidentally committed, enlisting the help of some of his former comrades in arms. Throughout this action packed story we learn a bit about Jon’s background and the sorry life of a mercenary as he shows that it takes brains even more than brawn to prevail.  I also loved the fact that it was Jon who came up with the brilliant plan to defeat the bad guys, and not the super-intelligent sentient ship, Lobo – proving that man can surprise even machines, at times.

The other books in the series include Slanted Jack (which provides more background information about Jon), Overthrowing Heaven (in which we learn more about Lobo), and the brand new Children No More, for which Mark is donating all of his proceeds from the hardcover to the charity Falling Whistles, -  which helps real child soldiers in the Congo region of Africa.

Mark also has a blog that is really quite cool and worth checking out – it covers a wide variety of topics – from his writing, his life and family, to movie reviews, from all kinds of food, to the UFC, the State Fair and much, much more.  He even blogged about his two appearances at our library (the Sci-Fi author panel and the Cary Library’s 50th Birthday).

Find and reserve One Jump Ahead in the library catalog.

The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman

Jan and Antonina Zabinski were typical zookeepers throughout the 1930s; doting on their animals, continuing their education through conferences and relationships with other zookeepers throughout Europe, and maintaining the grounds and cages in order for their numerous charges to thrive.

During the dawn hours of September 1st, 1939, their lives were altered forever when the Nazis began their occupation of Warsaw, the capital of Poland, and the home to the Zabinski’s zoo. The zoo animals were among some of the first casualties of the attack as cages were destroyed and the animals were quickly shot by German forces who feared what dangerous animals left to their own devices might do.

Ackerman paints a vivid picture of Warsaw during the time of the occupation, interspersing scenes from the Ghetto (created by the Nazis for the Jews to live in) with life for Jan, Antonina and their young son at the zoo. Using the abandoned cages and hidden areas within the zoo’s villa, the Zabinskis began to take in Jews fleeing the Ghetto and all the atrocities committed there. Over 300 Jews and Christian Poles protesting the war were housed at the zoo during the course of the occupation.

Ackerman uses Antonina’s journals to piece together the story of the zoo and its inhabitants during the war. Although she frequently wrote of her fears of being discovered (in fact, both Antonina and her husband carried cyanide capsules at all times in order to commit suicide rather than be killed or captured), she also speaks of the happy times in the zoo during those years. The larger animals were all killed or taken to German zoos but smaller animals were left behind, and others were gathered or found throughout the occupation. The humorous anecdotes about their “pets,” such as rabbits, muskrats, rabbits, and a badger bring levity to an otherwise weighty book.

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The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

I read this book last year for our Science Fiction & Fantasy book club and it is easily one of the “top 5″ books – of any genre – that I’ve read in the past few years.  There’s a reason that this novel won the Nebula, Hugo and Locus Awards when it was published in 1974 (before the first Star Wars movie, kids).  Haldeman wrote this book to convey his experiences in the Vietnam War, which many people felt was an unjust war that was fought due to the excessive pride of politicians who believed that the United States could never lose.  This is also the case in Haldeman’s novel, except he decided to tell his tale in the form of military sci-fi space warfare.  Fear not, however, even if you are not a “Sci-Fi reader,” you may still enjoy this book, as its lessons and themes can be applied to just about any war or conflict.

William Mandella is drafted into mandatory military service.  His aptitude tests place him in an elite group who are trained both in deadly combat and in the highly sophisticated technology they’ll use to survive in space.  The unit is sent across the galaxy though “collapsars” which allow for fairly speedy travel between star systems, although the humans are placed in a sort of suspended animation while they travel.  They train to fight an enemy that they do not know and that humanity has rarely encountered – yet a line has been drawn in the interstellar sand, and Earth will not back down until they destroy the Taurans.  Mandella will rise through the ranks of the military and participate in more battles than any other soldier, not because he enjoys military life or fighting, but because, as it turns out, the old saying is true after all: “you can’t go home again.”

One of the appeal factors of this novel, aside from the fantastic writing style and the engaging characters and plot itself, is that Haldeman’s astronomy and physics background makes the scientific details of the story very believable.  Part of the story involves Mandella traveling to Earth many years in the future, but instead of a time machine – Haldeman uses Einstein’s theory of relativity to cause “time dilation” in which Mandella has only aged a few years, while decades have passed on Earth.  The technical aspects of long distance space travel are also both believable and easy to understand (even though I enjoy Science Fiction, I have little actual scientific knowledge).  This book is such a modern classic (and did I mention multiple award winner?) that it’s quite hard to believe that a dozen different publishers rejected it before St. Martin’s finally picked it up.  Rumors of a movie adaptation have been around for years, and in 2008 Ridley Scott purchased the rights and began looking for a script writer.  In 2009 he confirmed that it would be a 3D epic, citing Avatar as proof that a big Science Fiction blockbuster could be made in in 3D.   I, for one, can’t wait!

If you enjoy this novel, you may also like his two other “Forever” titles: Forever Peace and Forever Free, as well as Orson Scott Card’s Hugo & Nebula Award winning Ender’s Game.

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