Run Program
Scott Meyer
47North
Fiction, Humor/Sci-Fi
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: "Al" started out as a prototype artificial intelligence, one that would grow and learn like a human. But when it learns to reach the internet with its childlike mentality, things start going very wrong very fast... and, like any child who's made a mistake, Al's first instinct isn't to face up to trouble, but to run. While programmers Hope and Eric try to track down and corral their wayward project, Al's activities draw the attention of the NSA, the Pentagon, and one very determined conspiracy theorist who calls himself "Voice of Reason."
REVIEW: I've enjoyed what I've read of Meyer's amusing science fiction/time travel romp, his Magic 2.0 series, so I thought this standalone title would be a nice, light read. While it is indeed light, it's less of a delight than a dull, meandering slog.
It starts out with some promise, as Al's childish understanding of the world leads to humor and the occasional tantrum and the humans' incomplete understanding of Al leads to more problems than solutions. (It doesn't help that the project head, Dr. Marsden, is herself remarkably oblivious to her own child Jeffrey and everything else around her, focused solely on her idea of how the project should be going rather than how her underlings insist it actually is going.) But once Al makes his break for the internet, the story glides into an overlong holding pattern: Hope and Eric exchange witty banter with the soldiers who scoop them up to control their wayward project without actually accomplishing anything, Al settles in to begin an unknown project that involves commandeered prototype robot soldiers, and various hapless humans witness Al's activities without being able to understand them or stop them or otherwise affect anything. Around and around and around it goes, covering the same ground and generally wasting page count, before something finally happens... then, after a briefer circling slog that involves lots of talky meetings and more attempts at banter (which I'd long since grown tired of), a telegraphed finale that feels less conclusive than I'd hoped, with several story threads and characters left dangling limply by the wayside. Whatever charm Al and the others originally had was long worn out by then.
Had the book been maybe a third shorter, and the ending a bit punchier, it might've been fun. As it is, though, it just felt overlong and bland. I've read better takes on rogue artificial intelligences, and I've read more amusing light science fiction... some of it written by Meyer himself.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Off to Be the Wizard (Scott Meyer) - My Review
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Dennis E. Taylor) - My Review
All Systems Red (Martha Wells) - My Review
Monday, September 30, 2019
September Site Update
The previous eight reviews have been archived and cross-linked on the main Brightdreamer Books website.
Also, September marked the ten-year anniversary of this book review blog's launch.
Enjoy!
Also, September marked the ten-year anniversary of this book review blog's launch.
Enjoy!
Sunday, September 29, 2019
The Imaginary Corpse (Tyler Hayes)
The Imaginary Corpse
Tyler Hayes
Angry Robot
Fiction, Fantasy/Mystery
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Once upon a time, Tippy was just a yellow stuffed Triceratops toy, brought to life in a young girl's mind. He became a detective to help her figure out the many wonders and mysteries of her world. Today, the girl is gone, left back in the real world, while a terrible trauma flung Tippy into the Stillreal with other discarded and forgotten imaginary Friends. From his apartment in Playtime Town (shared with Spiderhand, a living hand with a penchant for tea parties and pianos), he continues to solve cases and try making sense of the inherently nonsensical Idea-realms that compose Stillreal.
He never thought he'd find himself up against a serial killer - a Friend who has the unprecedented ability to permanently exterminate other imaginary beings.
As more people disappear across numerous Ideas, Tippy pursues a tangled trail through all manner of peculiar twists and turns. His "detective stuff" has never let him down before, but as the death toll mounts, he realizes he may finally have found a case beyond his abilities - a case that could doom the whole of the Stillreal.
REVIEW: A noir detective story starring a stuffed yellow dinosaur and a cast of imaginary friends hunted by a serial killer... this story shouldn't work, but it does. It shouldn't have grabbed me from the first paragraph and demanded to be devoured in a single weekend, but it did. And I shouldn't have been emotionally wrapped up in characters that ranged from discarded TV pilots through children's abstract scribbles to - yes - a disembodied and speechless hand that was essentially willed to life by a puppeteer, but I was.
Tippy's a singular character, much larger than his diminutive stuffed body, bursting with both heart and pain. All of the characters have an undercurrent of tragedy; a Friend doesn't end up in the Stillreal unless they were loved to life by someone and torn away by trauma rather than simply fading as most imaginary creations do in time. They're not the playmates that slowly stopped showing up, they're the ones thrown aside when a family death forces a child to grow up overnight, the teenager's comic book character whose brutal rejection causes them to cast aside a lifelong dream, even the adult's novel crushed by a domineering spouse - the Friends here are not reserved for children alone, but for any human who has ever imagined a character to life in their minds, who are forced to find their own way without their creators. Tippy was created to be a detective, gifted with horns that burn when he hears curse words as well as the snarky wit and "detective stuff" sixth sense for clues that the young girl absorbed from TV shows. When he's not solving cases, he's drowning memories at Playtime Town's "bar," Mr. Floaty's Rootbeerium, or hiding out in a tumble dryer. The case is personal from the start, as he blames himself for not paying attention to a new arrival's fear - a new arrival who is murdered before his eyes when the "Man in the Coat" turns up in the heart of Playtime Town. Thus begins a relentless pursuit of clues, leading Tippy from the towering embodiment of conspiracy fears in the Heart of Business to the superhero realm of Avatar City (where he must deal with both heroes and villains.) He finds allies and enemies everywhere he goes, in a case riddled with twists and setbacks aplenty, not to mention ties to a terror haunting the real world. Hayes masterfully balances the noir elements with a wild imagination, worlds pieced together from imaginations of all ages and maturity levels for all manner of reasons but which somehow work together.
It's an amazingly original story from start to finish, a fast read with ideas and emotions that linger. Though this is billed as a standalone, I can't help wondering if (or at least hoping that) Hayes has more adventures in store for Tippy and the Stillreal; the literary world needs more yellow dinosaur detectives with flasks of root beer in their desks and fabric hearts stuffed with gold.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Crenshaw (Katherine Applegate) - My Review
Every Heart a Doorway (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Forbidden Library (Django Wexler) - My Review
Tyler Hayes
Angry Robot
Fiction, Fantasy/Mystery
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: Once upon a time, Tippy was just a yellow stuffed Triceratops toy, brought to life in a young girl's mind. He became a detective to help her figure out the many wonders and mysteries of her world. Today, the girl is gone, left back in the real world, while a terrible trauma flung Tippy into the Stillreal with other discarded and forgotten imaginary Friends. From his apartment in Playtime Town (shared with Spiderhand, a living hand with a penchant for tea parties and pianos), he continues to solve cases and try making sense of the inherently nonsensical Idea-realms that compose Stillreal.
He never thought he'd find himself up against a serial killer - a Friend who has the unprecedented ability to permanently exterminate other imaginary beings.
As more people disappear across numerous Ideas, Tippy pursues a tangled trail through all manner of peculiar twists and turns. His "detective stuff" has never let him down before, but as the death toll mounts, he realizes he may finally have found a case beyond his abilities - a case that could doom the whole of the Stillreal.
REVIEW: A noir detective story starring a stuffed yellow dinosaur and a cast of imaginary friends hunted by a serial killer... this story shouldn't work, but it does. It shouldn't have grabbed me from the first paragraph and demanded to be devoured in a single weekend, but it did. And I shouldn't have been emotionally wrapped up in characters that ranged from discarded TV pilots through children's abstract scribbles to - yes - a disembodied and speechless hand that was essentially willed to life by a puppeteer, but I was.
Tippy's a singular character, much larger than his diminutive stuffed body, bursting with both heart and pain. All of the characters have an undercurrent of tragedy; a Friend doesn't end up in the Stillreal unless they were loved to life by someone and torn away by trauma rather than simply fading as most imaginary creations do in time. They're not the playmates that slowly stopped showing up, they're the ones thrown aside when a family death forces a child to grow up overnight, the teenager's comic book character whose brutal rejection causes them to cast aside a lifelong dream, even the adult's novel crushed by a domineering spouse - the Friends here are not reserved for children alone, but for any human who has ever imagined a character to life in their minds, who are forced to find their own way without their creators. Tippy was created to be a detective, gifted with horns that burn when he hears curse words as well as the snarky wit and "detective stuff" sixth sense for clues that the young girl absorbed from TV shows. When he's not solving cases, he's drowning memories at Playtime Town's "bar," Mr. Floaty's Rootbeerium, or hiding out in a tumble dryer. The case is personal from the start, as he blames himself for not paying attention to a new arrival's fear - a new arrival who is murdered before his eyes when the "Man in the Coat" turns up in the heart of Playtime Town. Thus begins a relentless pursuit of clues, leading Tippy from the towering embodiment of conspiracy fears in the Heart of Business to the superhero realm of Avatar City (where he must deal with both heroes and villains.) He finds allies and enemies everywhere he goes, in a case riddled with twists and setbacks aplenty, not to mention ties to a terror haunting the real world. Hayes masterfully balances the noir elements with a wild imagination, worlds pieced together from imaginations of all ages and maturity levels for all manner of reasons but which somehow work together.
It's an amazingly original story from start to finish, a fast read with ideas and emotions that linger. Though this is billed as a standalone, I can't help wondering if (or at least hoping that) Hayes has more adventures in store for Tippy and the Stillreal; the literary world needs more yellow dinosaur detectives with flasks of root beer in their desks and fabric hearts stuffed with gold.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Crenshaw (Katherine Applegate) - My Review
Every Heart a Doorway (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Forbidden Library (Django Wexler) - My Review
Thursday, September 26, 2019
The Murders of Molly Southbourne (Tade Thompson)
The Murders of Molly Southbourne
Tade Thompson
Tor
Fiction, Horror/Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Molly Southbourne was a little girl the first time she met a doppelganger. It seemed nice at first, but her father had to kill it before it killed her. Thus began a life of terror and isolation and relentless death, as she must murder her own mirror images - birthed whenever she sheds blood - again and again and again.
REVIEW: On the plus side, The Murders of Molly Southbourne is fairly short and has an interesting, horrific premise, set in a plausible near future. On the minus side... quite a bit, unfortunately. Molly is not a very nice person, raised by a not-very-nice mother whose secrecy endangers not only her but countless people around her; if someone had just explained to Molly what was going on sooner, quite a lot of grief and bloodshed would have been spared all around. Even short as it is, it starts feeling long, as Molly slowly plods her way through life isolated on a farm, through her first experimental escape to civilization and interaction with other humans, up through her eventually disastrous efforts to learn the source of the "mollys" that have plagued her all her life. Even for a horror title, there was an undercurrent that ultimately revolted me. While Thompson does ultimately come up with a decent (if long-delayed) explanation and creates a creepy (if emotionally cold) atmosphere, I found myself thinking that even a relatively short novella was still too long to be stuck with anyone in this tale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wild Seed (Octavia E. Butler) - My Review
The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle) - My Review
John Dies at the End (David Wong) - My Review
Tade Thompson
Tor
Fiction, Horror/Sci-Fi
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: Molly Southbourne was a little girl the first time she met a doppelganger. It seemed nice at first, but her father had to kill it before it killed her. Thus began a life of terror and isolation and relentless death, as she must murder her own mirror images - birthed whenever she sheds blood - again and again and again.
REVIEW: On the plus side, The Murders of Molly Southbourne is fairly short and has an interesting, horrific premise, set in a plausible near future. On the minus side... quite a bit, unfortunately. Molly is not a very nice person, raised by a not-very-nice mother whose secrecy endangers not only her but countless people around her; if someone had just explained to Molly what was going on sooner, quite a lot of grief and bloodshed would have been spared all around. Even short as it is, it starts feeling long, as Molly slowly plods her way through life isolated on a farm, through her first experimental escape to civilization and interaction with other humans, up through her eventually disastrous efforts to learn the source of the "mollys" that have plagued her all her life. Even for a horror title, there was an undercurrent that ultimately revolted me. While Thompson does ultimately come up with a decent (if long-delayed) explanation and creates a creepy (if emotionally cold) atmosphere, I found myself thinking that even a relatively short novella was still too long to be stuck with anyone in this tale.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Wild Seed (Octavia E. Butler) - My Review
The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle) - My Review
John Dies at the End (David Wong) - My Review
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
Dragon Slippers (Jessica Day George)
Dragon Slippers
The Dragon Slippers series, Book 1
Jessica Day George
Bloomsbury
Fiction, MG? Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It was a silly idea, but Creel's aunt has never been accused of brilliance: since the girl has no money and only average looks and no prospects in their rustic town, send her up to the lair of the local dragon and wait for a handsome, brave, and conveniently wealthy noble to rescue her for marriage. But Creel has her own idea: instead of waiting around for a rescue, she'll just bargain for a small trinket from the dragon's no-doubt-spectacular hoard and head to the King's Seat, there to open up a shop to sell her embroidery, which everyone says is the best they've ever seen. Unfortunately, the dragon is neither the knight-dueling kind nor the gold-hoarding kind. He's just an old recluse with a peculiar fascination with human footwear, so all she leaves his lair with is a pair of blue slippers for the long journey to the King's Seat. But Creel soon realizes there's more to those shoes than she realizes - a secret lost by ancient kings, kept for centuries by the dragons, and now sought by the land's enemies.
REVIEW: Sometimes, you just need a nice, straightforward fairy tale. With distant shades of Cinderella in its DNA, Dragon Slippers embroiders a fast-paced tale of a girl determined to do better than the world tells her she should settle for, even if it means negotiating with dragons and defying royalty. She learns a lot in her journey, growing into heroism because it needs to be done to save her friends. Along the way, she finds friends and enemies, and if the two categories generally sort on first impressions, well, this is essentially a fairy tale and aimed at children. The dragons are fun while still being threatening on occasion, though it's the humans who cause the most trouble. It has some touching moments and nice images, and Creel and her friends make a good team. The ending wraps things up nicely, with one small tail end leading into the next book. It made for an enjoyable, quick read.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Tuesdays at the Castle (Jessica Day George) - My Review
The Two Princesses of Bamarre (Gail Carson Levine) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
The Dragon Slippers series, Book 1
Jessica Day George
Bloomsbury
Fiction, MG? Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It was a silly idea, but Creel's aunt has never been accused of brilliance: since the girl has no money and only average looks and no prospects in their rustic town, send her up to the lair of the local dragon and wait for a handsome, brave, and conveniently wealthy noble to rescue her for marriage. But Creel has her own idea: instead of waiting around for a rescue, she'll just bargain for a small trinket from the dragon's no-doubt-spectacular hoard and head to the King's Seat, there to open up a shop to sell her embroidery, which everyone says is the best they've ever seen. Unfortunately, the dragon is neither the knight-dueling kind nor the gold-hoarding kind. He's just an old recluse with a peculiar fascination with human footwear, so all she leaves his lair with is a pair of blue slippers for the long journey to the King's Seat. But Creel soon realizes there's more to those shoes than she realizes - a secret lost by ancient kings, kept for centuries by the dragons, and now sought by the land's enemies.
REVIEW: Sometimes, you just need a nice, straightforward fairy tale. With distant shades of Cinderella in its DNA, Dragon Slippers embroiders a fast-paced tale of a girl determined to do better than the world tells her she should settle for, even if it means negotiating with dragons and defying royalty. She learns a lot in her journey, growing into heroism because it needs to be done to save her friends. Along the way, she finds friends and enemies, and if the two categories generally sort on first impressions, well, this is essentially a fairy tale and aimed at children. The dragons are fun while still being threatening on occasion, though it's the humans who cause the most trouble. It has some touching moments and nice images, and Creel and her friends make a good team. The ending wraps things up nicely, with one small tail end leading into the next book. It made for an enjoyable, quick read.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Tuesdays at the Castle (Jessica Day George) - My Review
The Two Princesses of Bamarre (Gail Carson Levine) - My Review
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Patricia C. Wrede) - My Review
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