Copyright © 2021 Roswell Daily Record
By Veronica Scott
I thought for this post, after the UFO Festival, I’d talk about some hard science fiction I’ve been reading of late. This genre of science fiction deals more with science, technology and engineering, with much less — if any — emphasis on the emotions. Romance is often completely missing from the mix, or will have a minimal role to play. “Soft” science fiction deals more with themes from the so-called softer sciences like sociology and psychology, and the plots incline more toward politics, history retold or reshaped to fit the far future.
First and foremost of my recent hard high tech reads would be the latest Murderbot book from Martha Wells, “Fugitive Telemetry” (Murderbot Diaries Book 6). The entire Murderbot series has been great and with this new entry, it’s taking a turn into the main character having other adventures in a more episodic fashion. Murderbot is a nonhuman construct with cyborg-type parts and humanlike parts and it is not human in the least. The author has done a great job of giving Murderbot a unique personality. Two things I enjoy most about this character are its utter devotion to the entertainment serials it’s downloaded to view and the way it can accomplish so many things in nanoseconds. Kind of a superhero of multitasking! Murderbot had become self-aware at some point prior to the first book in the series and has been evolving as a person ever since. I highly recommend the entire series and I would start with “All Systems Red.”
A vastly different robot becoming self-aware is the basis for “Day Zero: A Novel” by C. Robert Cargill. Pounce is a nannybot in the shape of a whimsical tiger and this tiger has a lot of useful abilities which go beyond mere claws. He’s utterly devoted to the boy for whom he was bought, Ezra, and quite flummoxed to discover he can be boxed up and returned to the company when the boy outgrows the need for a nannybot. Pounce thought he was in Ezra’s life forever. As he’s grappling with the issues this discovery raises for him, other robots are plotting the end of the human overlords entirely. As the book begins, we join a world in which an old robot has been given person status through a legal fluke, which of course, started a revolution of other robots wanting the same thing — self determination and self rule. Everything is peaceful until it isn’t. But who started the war? The robots? The humans? There isn’t time to get to the bottom of that question right now. Pounce has to make hard choices and hustle to keep Ezra alive as almost all other robots flip a switch, so to speak, and embark on a mass killing streak. It doesn’t help matters that humans have a hard time accepting their outwardly passive household cleaning robot might actually hate them.
I could see quite a sequel coming at some point. No idea if the author plans one or not, but the book was a good read and I enjoyed the different perspectives Pounce cycled through and the uncertain allies he finds.
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“Robopocalypse” by Daniel H. Wilson actually came out 10 years ago, but I’m just re-reading it. Good science fiction is timeless, in a way, and I enjoyed the second read of this one.
The novel is written in a series of interviews and transcribed messages and accounts of various events during a robot rebellion. This format annoys some readers but I’m okay with it. There is a loose overall arc tying the various characters together, so each new account advances the plot. I was reminded of the old “Second Variety” story written by Philip K. Dick in 1953, in which robots turn on their human creators and become very devious indeed about luring unwary humans to their deaths, as well as doing the straightforward attacks with slashing instruments of death. I was also reminded of the Terminator movie canon, about the computer Skynet becoming self-aware and immediately turning every robot in the world against humans, as well as building new robots. This book felt to me a little what it might have been like living through the activation of Skynet, if it hadn’t waged a nuclear war on humans.
I’m not being critical in any way – I like the fact this novel pulled up other hard science fiction references for me while telling its own story. I felt the author made quite an effort to employ different characters than one often encounters in apocalyptic fiction. The Osage tribe comes in for a lot of the action, as well as one lone inventor in Japan. I found the latter character the hardest to understand and relate to, frankly, but I kind of skimmed his sections of the book. The action and my curiosity as to how it would all turn out kept me up late turning the pages.
Leaving the world of computer and robots but remaining in a science fiction galaxy, here’s a new anthology: “We Dare: No Man’s Land: An Anthology of Strong Female Leads” by various authors. A portion of the blurb: “… a collection of 15 all-new stories with female leads. Whether it’s changing an engine on the outside of a spaceship’s hull or chasing SimNACs through the jungle, these heroines have only one goal in mind — to win at all costs! From defending asteroid bases to searching giant space stations, these women get the job done! … beware…this is No Man’s Land!”
I love a strong woman hero, from Ripley of the Aliens franchise to Sarah Connor in the various Terminator movies, to Lessa of Pern in Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders books.
I’ll close with another new anthology, “Cyber Pulse: A Limited Edition Collection of LGBTQ+ Sci Fi Romance” (A Dangerous Words Publishing Collection) by various authors. I couldn’t step away from romance entirely! Here’s the blurb: “Whether they meet on alien planets or spaceships, through mate lotteries or by chance, the characters in these stories of aliens and humans, alphas and omegas, M/M, F/F, bisexual, transgender, and more will leave you breathless. Love is love … anywhere in the universe.”
Wishing you exciting adventures and good books to read, wherever you may go in the universe!
USA Today bestselling author Veronica Scott is the proud recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job, not her books. She had a long career at NASA/JPL, where the Mars rovers were built, among other exciting projects. Scott is seven-time winner of the SFR (Science Fiction Romance) Galaxy Award, as well as a National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award. One of her favorite achievements is that she read the part of “Star Trek Crew Member” in the official audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s, “The City On the Edge of Forever.” For more information, visit her blog at veronicascott.wordpress.com or find her on social media.
The Link LonkJuly 05, 2021 at 11:27PM
https://www.rdrnews.com/2021/07/05/from-afar-hard-science-fiction-robots-and-cyborgs/
From Afar: Hard science fiction, robots and cyborgs - Roswell Daily Record
https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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