I saw this at the suggestion of tptigger for whom it is an old favourite.

First thing I have to say is that I think I was too old for this. It also didn't help that the worldbuilding was straight from Zenna Henderson's "People" stories -- yes, yes, you can't steal an idea, but the similarity made for an unfortunate comparison.

That isn't to say I disliked it. I was just doing inappropriate things like laughing at the hairstyles of the country folk and the cars they were driving. And thinking that Donald Pleasance would make a good Phil Coulson (all unflappable and BAMF) but he would have been typecast as a HYDRA villain instead. I have to say that the foreshadowing of the dogs, from the title sequence onwards, was well done. And Tony and Tia had the siblings vibe going strong - supporting each other, but also eyerolling at each other - "No, Tia, we can't bring the bear with us..."

Plotholes... I won't talk about the plotholes...

Finished reading "The Android's Dream" by John Scalzi. First bit of non-fanfic fiction I've read in a while. Initially hard to get into, but soon got caught up in the shenanigans. So many shenanigans! It was fun. ( spoilery philisophical ramblings )

I did as I had promised myself, and set aside Good Friday and Easter Saturday to read rj_anderson's ULTRAVIOLET. I finished it sooner than I expected, possibly because I woke up at 5am this morning and continued reading.

Spoiler-free review here.

( spoilery discussion )

Military SF with a twist: Our Heroine has psi powers. Which she has to keep secret. Though that isn't the only thing that attracted me to this book. I was fortunate enough to hear the author reading an extract from it at WorldCon last year, and that taste was enough to make me think I would really like the lead character, Ia. And I did.

In some ways, this novel reminds me of Webber's "Off Armageddon Reef", in that you have a female soldier who is tasked with saving the entire human race against impossible odds, but who also has certain powers and abilities which make the odds not quite so impossible. Both of them have to conceal their natures and abilities. Both stories also require Our Heroine's plans to influence a lot of people and to unfold over a long period of time (and multiple books). That being said, the situations are also different, the characters are different, the problems are different, the abilities are different, and the solutions are different. Ia is more driven and more vulnerable than Nimue. Ia's task is both easier and more difficult than Nimue's task. Nimue's task is like herding a flock of sheep past a sleeping lion in order to escape from a dormant volcano that could erupt any time. Ia's task is like carrying a baby across a tightrope across the Niagara Falls while juggling multiple balls in the air, in order to get away from ravening super-locusts which will eat everything in their path, and are due to hatch in three hours time.

By the end of the book, Ia is a bit too much of a Superhero, but I can't really begrudge that, because the problem she's up against is as huge as the galaxy.

I like the way this story treats precognition; there are myriad possible futures, which Ia can see quite clearly, but there are also some parts of the close future which she can't see at all, obscured like fog. Her ability is both a strength and a weakness; she can see things in incredible detail, but she also has the risk of being dragged involuntarily into a vision if something triggers it. Ia knows too much; that is why she is so driven, because she needs to do something in order to stave off the nightmares.

Character is plot.

What would a society be like, if women, but not men, were immortal? (Presumably immortal in the mostly-immortal sense of "can't die of old age, but can be killed").

Interesting quote from the book I'm currently reading(*):
Their [human] language is equally confusing. Who can believe what they say if every word has several meanings?

Which makes one wonder... for of course, in human languages, one can lie while telling the truth. Yet what a poor language it would be if words had only one meaning.

Does poetry lie in ambiguity? Or does poetry lie in ambiguity?

(*) "City of Pearl" by Karen Traviss