The 4 Rs Challenge

I saw the 4 Rs challenge announced on Fyrefly's blog and decided it sounded like a lot of fun.

The 4 Rs are:
1. Recommend
- You register for free on the forum and give 5 recommendations to other challenge participants.
- You also start a thread for yourself where others give you recommendations based on your interests

2. Read
- Pick a book out of those recommended and read it!

3. Review
- Post a review of the book somewhere
- Leave a link to the review in the forums for drawings and giveaways

4. Repeat
- The process starts over every 3 months!

You can read more at the blog for the challenge.

I am done with my recommendations now and waiting to see what others will recommend for me. Fun!

Out of This World Mini-Challenge Wrap-Up

The clock strikes midnight and I am done with this weekend's science fiction short story mini-challenge. Huge thanks to Carl for hosting this challenge. It was not just fun to read all these stories, but to see what others are reading and be able to discuss some of the stories. Carl's reviews and winner announcements can be found here.

As for me, I've read and reviewed 7 science fiction stories this weekend. Starting with my favourite:

1. The Merchant and the Alchemist Gate by Ted Chiang

2. The Nine Billion Names of God by Arthur C. Clarke

3. What's Expected of Us by Ted Chiang

4. The Crystal Spheres by David Brin

5. The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin

6. Falling Onto Mars by Geoffrey A. Landis

7. When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth by Cory Doctorow

I also found based on others' reviews that I'd like to pick up The Starry Rift anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan and Eclipse 2 edited by the same. So perhaps more story reviews are still to come.

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth

Title: When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth

Author: Cory Doctorow

Published: Baen's Universe, 2006

Genre: Science fiction, short story

Url: http://craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-_Overclocked_-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html

Rating: 7/10

Thoughts: I don't think you would enjoy this story unless you have met some sysadmins before. I have met and worked with them and from the story it's easy to tell Cory Doctorow has first-hand experience with them too. Many of sysadmin descriptions are very spot-on for the sort of people you find configuring the servers into wee hours of the morning.

This story deals with a postapocalyptic scenario where the major cities are all attacked by a bio-weapon and a number of sysadmins all over the world survive in the data ceters with good isolation and their own power generators. The protagonist of the story is Felix who finds himself watching the CN tower topple over from his data center in Toronto. The rest of the story deals with the consequences of the catastrophe.

Overall, it was an interesting story with some good internet-related humor. However, I felt the ending wasn't as strong as it could be and I was a little taken aback by the way Felix coped with the catastrophe aftermath. I will consider reading some other Cory Doctorow fiction now, I imagine I might like some of his other writings better.

The Nine Billion Names of God

Title: The Nine Billion Names of God

Author: Arthur C. Clarke

Published: Star Science Fiction Stories No. 1, 1953

Genre: Science fiction, short story

Url: http://lucis.net/stuff/clarke/9billion_clarke.html

Rating: 9/10

Thoughts: I was snickering a little bit in my head throughout the first part of this story. A lama orders a computer/typewriter from a Western company that will be able to write out all permutations of 9 letters of a certain alphabet the monks devised. Of course to do the task on a modern machine would take 3 lines of code and less than a millisecond of time. But in 1953, this is a stretch of imagination and the machine will take 3 months to go through all permutations and print them out.

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed reading the story. It is well written, deeply inquisitive, and the last line of the story is breathtaking. I am very glad other participants of the Out of This World Mini-Challenge steered me to it.

The Crystal Spheres

Title: The Crystal Spheres

Author: David Brin

Published: Analog, 1984

Genre: Science fiction, short story

Url: http://www.grouplite.com/f4a/the_crystal_spheres.html

Rating: 8/10

Thoughts: I felt a bit frustrated as the start of the story by the author throwing around future-world terminology without explaining what it means. However, in a way that was part of building tension for the story, this discovery of what the author is talking about and it was effective.

In the story, a group of deepspacers travels to a planet whose crystal sphere has shattered. I will let the story tell you what that means, but in a nutshell it is a SETI-themed story that is told quite well. It examines human psychology when it comes to finding new species and living in the stars. Overall, a well-written story with a nice thought-through ending.

Falling Onto Mars

Title: Falling Onto Mars
Author: Geoffrey A. Landis

Published: Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 2002

Genre: Science fiction, short story

Url: http://www.analogsf.com/Hugos/Falling.shtml

Rating: 7/10

Thoughts: The story is fairly short, probably around 4 pages. In that time the author manages to paint a rather brutal picture. Incorrigible prisoners from Earth are piled onto flimsy space ships and sent to Mars. This is a story of who survived and how.

The story is good and has an interesting twist at the end. It also does a great job presenting a certain grim mood inherent to the setting. The downside seemed to be that the details of how humans managed to survive were often skimmed over. It seemed strange that people managed to survive given the description of available technology. It bothered me in places, but overall is probably not too important to the story.

There is also one scene that can be interpreted two ways and I wonder what the author intended there. It is a scene where Kayla is found, she speaks of how to get oxygen. However, I wavered to understand whether what she said was a sabotage attempt or a true advice. It also doesn't mention whether her advice was taken. I feel like motivations here could be interpreted in several ways... If you have read the story, let me know what you thought. 

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

Title: The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
Author: Ted Chiang
Published: The Subterranean Press, 2007

Genre: Science Fiction, short story
Url: http://podcast.starshipsofa.com/podcast/Ted_Chiang_The_Merchant_and_the_Alchemists_Gate.mp3 (Read by James Campanella)
Unfortunately the full-text got taken down, I am glad I saved a copy.

Rating: 10/10

Thoughts: I loved this story! I am not surprised it has won both Hugo Award for Best Novelette and Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 2008. The story is lyrical, poignant, and at the same time examines the questions of time travel and human nature.

The premise of the story is that a man in Baghdad discovers a shop at the back of which there is a gate that will allow one to travel 20 years into the future. Before the main character makes up his decision on whether he wants to try the gate, the shopkeeper tells several tales of other people who have done the journey previously.

The whole story is told in the Arabian Nights style, the images are very vivid and the conclusion is satisfying without being predictable. I can't recommend it enough!

The Cold Equations

Title: The Cold Equations

Author: Tom Godwin

Published: Astounding, 1954

Genre: Science Fiction, short story

Url: http://www.oakmeadow.com/curriculum/overviews/english10_sample.pdf (Skip the english part of the lesson -- the story starts below)

Rating: 7/10

Thoughts: The story takes place on an EDS (Emergency Dispatch Ship) where the pilot discovers a stowaway on the ship. However, there is not enough fuel in the ship to take both of them to their destination and the two on the ship must deal with that.

I am of two minds about the story. On one hand it was quite touching, there was lots of tugging on the heartstrings and there were some very nice descriptions. On the other hand, I did not feel impacted by the story beyond the immediate pity that the situation warranted.

The story does bring up a number of ethical questions and questions of human nature, but I feel Tom Godwin doesn't supply any of the answers in the story. The ending did not surprise me, but I was glad of it. Good story overall, but I guess I was expecting more as it came recommended by Carl.

What's Expected of Us

Today is Out of this World Mini-Challenge! I am reading and reviewing science fiction stories. As I mentioned in a post before, I am starting with Ted Chiang.

Title: What's Expected of Us

Author: Ted Chiang

Published: Nature, 2006

Genre: Science fiction, short story

Url: http://www.concatenation.org/futures/whatsexpected.pdf

Rating: 8/10

Thoughts: The whole story is only one page, but it gives something to think about. Ted Chiang introduces a device called Predictor which is a box that blinks a light a second before the button on it is pressed. Then implications of the box on human free will is discussed.

I thought the format of the story was tied quite well into the message itself. And I feel like my take-away from the story is that discussing whether free will exists does not change much -- lots of circular arguments abound and at the end they don't matter. And that's a little ironic in the context of the story. But decide for yourself!

Ted Chiang

When I was in university I took a course on science fiction and fantasy literature as an elective. It was a perfect course: read a sci-fi or fantasy novel each week, then discuss it during the lecture. I have discovered several new authors by taking this course, one of them is Ted Chiang. He is the author of a short story collection Story of Your Life and Others. My favourite stories from the book were Story of Your Life and Hell is the Absence of God though the quality was amazing across the board. I definitely recommend you check out his stories.

In preparation for the short story reading mini-challenge coming up this weekend, I decided to find whether Ted Chiang has published any new stories. Here are the links to the ones I found:

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

What's Expected of Us

There is also a new story called Exhalation, but I am having trouble tracking down a copy.  Let me know if you know where I can find it.

Out of This World Mini-Challenge

Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings is running a mini-challenge on Jan 17th and 18th. All the details can be found in his post, but to summarize it's a sci-fi short story reading challenge. You read short stories (there is a bonus drawing for reading a story from Best Science Fiction Stories Site) and then you comment on it in Carl's blog posting for the mini challenge.

I think this mini-challenge is going to be excellent for me because it doesn't require a big commitment and will allow me to explore some science fiction. One of the most memorable science fiction collections I have ever read is Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang made me realize how amazing short stories can be and how much you can get out from just a couple dozen pages. I am looking forward to looking up some of his newer stories on the 17th and also reading stories by other classic authors. In fact, I can't wait!