How Starfighter Pilots Are Made

Magic Reviews: Shambling Towards Hiroshima

Final Grade: This is the best book I have read this year.  

(Well ok it's tied for first place, but still...wow)

Shambling Towards Hiroshima is a novella set at the end of World War II.  The main character is an actor in B horror films.  The settings, characters, and conversations are throwbacks to this delicious campy time in Hollywood.  With oddball characters and the larger than life pomp of Hollywood in the 40's as a backdrop our main character finds the role of his life in a top secret military operation involving the impersonation of a familiar fire-breathing giant lizard.

  This story gets four things perfectly right:
 
   Storytelling
  Sci-fi
  Backdrop
  Fun

Magic Reviews: The God Engines

Magic Reviews The God Engines:

The God Engines is a short sci-fi book by John Scalzi. It was recently nominated for a 2010 Hugo Award for the best novella category.

So you're all like "WHAT THE HELL THIS BLOG IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY CRAP AND NOT ABOUT SOME GEEKY BOOK!!!"

And I'm all like, "You aint my daddy. I review sci-fi on hhour.org if I want to. I read a book and I wanna talk about it - make me yo."

And you're like, "Yo dick I don't need this crap I can go to College Humor and get my jiggles instead of here - fuck this sci-fi bullsnap!"

And I'm like, "GO THEN!!! Click this link to College Humor and screw off!"

And then I'm like "HA HA HA YOU'RE BACK CAUSE I LINKED YOU BACK TO THIS POST! Eat. My. CAPSLOCK."

For those of you still with us, The God Engines is a short jaunt in a vague sci-fi world. There are enslaved gods that power space ships, a ruling god who commands his faithful, a heroic captain protagonist with, a love interest with a secret mission.

It's somewhat of your basic hero story. The protagonist has some choices and continuously tries to choose for the benefit of his crew. He needs to decide between his crew's safety and his faith, and in the process finds out some secrets about his god that doesn't sit so well with him.

The imagery in this novella is vague and brief. Some sci-fi you are painted a picture of the universe that is so in-depth and vivid that you can't tear yourself away from the page. The God Engines has little visual description. It's character and choice driven instead of world-driven. Although the action wouldn't take place without the world, it doesn't rely on the descriptions to move the story.

The ending is amazing. It makes this book. Reading this I had a pretty good idea of how it would end. The ending wasn't inconceivable, but it was unexpected. It was an ending you don't normally find in stories. Fantastic, and worth the entire read in my opinion.

Final Grade: Pretty cool - support your local library and check it out.

And you're like, "I DIDN'T READ YOUR DUMB REVIEW I JUST SCROLLED TO THA BOTTOM TO MAKE SURE NOBODY COMMENTED ON IT FOOL!"

And I'm like, "i got owned..." And then I frownyface.