mostly harmless books

[Part 1]
Jack McDevitt - Never Despair. One of my favorites. In a distant future, a diminishing group of people tries to find a legendary cache of knowledge left by the “old ones” before civilization collapsed. That premise alone is enough for me to become very interested, but the way it is explored makes it even better: far-future woman talking to a hologram of Winston Churchill after she takes shelter in some ruins that accidentaly house some computer that can still work. I love it when future characters meet people we are very familiar with. Even though we never find out if they reach their goal, we are left with hope.

Cory Doctorow - When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth. At first, this sounded like another cyberpunk story, and I don’t like cyberpunk. But it turned out to probably be my favorite. If you don’t know anything about computers, you’ll go “huh?” and hate it. I do know computer stuff, however, and I loved it. The end of the world is here, and some of the surviors are the sysadmins in various centers. The Internet might be a way for the world powers to coordinate attacks, so it should be shut down; the Internet might be a way to restore at least a semblance of order and government, so it should be preserved. Plans are made, but are shortlived. And a sysadmin is a sysadmin in the end… And Google survives, by the way :P

James Van Pelt - The Last of the O-Forms. O-forms, or original forms, are extremely rare; mutations are everywhere. Trevin is the owner of a freak show of mutant animals which is no longer popular with the people and the father of Caprice, a 12-year old girl smarter than her years who looks about 2. A story with a very cool (and slightly disturbing) twist at the end.

Richard Kadrey - Still Life with Apocalypse. A really short story, only 2 pages long, and a different take on the apocalypse. There wasn’t any nuclear war or deadly virus or meteorite from space. Just random, unconnected events that got out of hand. Very out of hand. The end of the world is here, but life still goes on… No plot to speak of, but the story stayed with me.

Catherine Wells - Artie’s Angels. End of the world scenario: nuclear war. But that’s only the backdrop for a story about youth and friendship. Artie manages to gather a group of young people around him and give them a purpose in a world that’s already half-gone; then love and tragedy intervene. Re-reading it now (it’s short), I liked it more than the first time around.

Jerry Oltion - Judgement Passed. I really loved the premise of this one. Eight people come back from Mars and discover everyone else is gone, and the left over newspapers are full of articles about the Rapture. The story explores the way the characters (rational scientists) deal with almost-proof of the existence of God.

Gene Wolfe - Mute. This is actually my first contact with Gene Wolfe, and, since someone I know is a big fan of his, I was looking forward to it. And I wasn’t dissapointed. The story is intriguing and it leaves you guessing, which I like. I admit I did not really understand the end, but this only gives it more potential for re-reading.

I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on this… They go to the house on Poplar Hill and they find their own kitchen? Supernatural or something I missed on the way?

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