Review of Proxima by Stephen Baxter

Author:  Stephen Baxter
Title:  Proxima.
Publisher:  Roc Books.
Copyright:  2012.
Pages:  490.
Price:  $7.99 (US).

Overview: 

This book took about six months to read.  I spent one day a week reading four chapters.  I finished off the remaining 90 pages today.  Proxima is about the colonization of Proxima c by UN convicts left from Earth.  There's a cold war between China and the remaining UN states.  The UN gains access to "wormhole" technology.  The Chinese want it.  The two sides wind up destroying Mercury and killing off the human race on Earth....

Yuri Eden and Stef, a UN major wind up using a wormhole that takes them to another M class star system.  They wind up meeting a Roman who demands why they're there.

Stephen Baxter's books have a way of destroying the home world.  The idea of a new cold war in space was interesting.  But I have trouble accepting the same premise in two different books that the human race is too stupid to survive.  Yet, I still have to figure out who created the wormhole technology...

Regards,
Blake     

Late September 2016 reading....

Here's what I've read this week:

1)  Tour of the Merrimack:  The Myriad/Wolf Star by R. M. Meluch.  Read another chapter in The Myriad.  The UN earth politicians in the book are as nerve racking as the real one.  Chapter 8 had LEG (League of Earth Governments) gave the commander of the Merrimack flack for staying at an alien's home world in a globular star cluster.  The Merrimack was on a Bug hunt for the Hive, an alien life-form who likes eating other organic races.  The UN pols have trouble dealing with the fact that Hive can't be reasoned, they'll wind up on the lunch menu if they interfere too much....

2)  Proxima by Stephen Baxter.  Yuri Eden and his family go to Mercury from Proxima c.  His wife decides to become an astronaut again.  She takes her daughter back to earth.  Yuri can't go home because of the show trials of the Heroic Generation and their heirs.  Eden would wind up being punished again if he headed back to earth.  He chooses to go back to Proxima c the way he came through the alien gateway.  Stef, an engineer, joins him in their return trip to Proxima c...

3)  The Last Stand of Fox Company by Bob Drury.  The Marines endure more encirclement and besieging as the battle takes its toll on Fox Company's effectives.  Enough to move a grown man to tears...

  

Review of Andromeda's War by William Dietz

Author:  William Dietz.
Title:  Andromeda's War.
Publisher:  Ace Science Fiction.
Copyright:  2014.
Pages:  356.
Price:  $7.99 (US).

Overview:  This was my introduction to William Dietz's Legion of the Damned Series.  Andromeda McKee waa a human platoon leader in the Legion.  She hid from the current Empress who murdered her family in a palace coup.  Lt. McKnee had several chances to kill her Sovereign. 

However she balked each time.

Now, McKee was on a god forsaken world in charge of native pacification and given the task of bringing a local troublemaker alive or dead.  Her problems mounted from there.  An alien race decided to invade the star system.  The Empress's Imperial yacht crash-landed on the planet.  McKee is in race to find the Empress and rescue her former commander and lover, John Avery.

The novel was good.  I didn't have trouble following the writing.  I've read enough military sci-fi to know good from trash.  Dietz's workmanship showed in his craft.  The politics involving the Legion, Navy, Marine Corps, and Militia were realistic.  The Legion got the jobs the other services didn't want.  They also got the conscripts and cyborged criminals no one else wanted, either. 

Overall, recommended.

Mid-September 2016 reading....

Here's what I've read the past few days:

1)  Andromeda's War by William Dietz.  Finished reading it this morning.  A review is on the blog....

2)  Proxima by Stephen Baxter.  Yuri Eden and his family take a light speed subway ride back to Mercury from Proxima c via an alien gateway.  Things are getting interesting...

3)  The Last Stand of Fox Company by Bob Drury.  More Marines picking up ammo drops by US pilots.  The Marine pilots get their packages on target.  The Air Force just drops stuff out as wooden crates smash in the snow.  The remaining Marines get ready for another day of combat on the Chosin Reservoir with the Chinese PLA.  Ugly reading....

More "Real Life" getting in the way of reading....

Once again, "real life" got in the way of reading.  Here's what I accomplished:

1)  Andromeda's War by William Dietz.  Waiting to read more.

2)  Proxima by Stephen Baxter.  The survivors on Proxima c make contact with the UN personnel left to monitor their whereabouts on the planet.  The Per Adlux left everyone without coming back.  But Yuri Eden found an alien gateway leading somewhere....

The rest of my readings will have to wait until next week before I  can update them.

Regards,
Blake

Early September 2016 reading...

Here is what I read this week:

1)  Andromeda's War by William Dietz.  I read several chapters this weekend.  I'll going to try and read more this Friday and Saturday afternoon.

2)  Tour of the Merrimack:  The Myriad/Wolf Star R.M. Meluch.  The USS Merrimack is an globular cluster trying to find the alien Hive and put an end to their predations on sentient life.  It's getting interesting.

3)  Proxima by Stephen Baxter.  I didn't read anything this week.  I'm planning to read more next week.

4)  The Last Stand of Fox Company by Bob Drury.  It's the morning of day three of Fox Company's stand on their hill in the Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War.  Fox Company's Captain said they'll hold no matter what, because they're Marines...