Black Adam And Isis (Justice Society of America TPB #'s 23-28

So just finished another Justice Society Graphic Novel.

This one dealt with Black Adam and Isis mainly and those some of the stories didn't include them as actual characters they are also how both Black Adam and Isis affected the world of the JSA. I must say I freaked on the last few pages finding out that Scar, an Oan and Guardian was watching over the JSA. From the looks of things Scar, who may be the Guardian of the Black Lanterns in the Blackest Night story arc in Green Lantern, was not sting something in a large book, similar to the Book Of Oa. Freaky.

I'm really enjoying the JSA read. They are a little old school and it's cool.

The Tomorrows Issue 01 (A Dark Horse Comic)

So this week I picked up some comics. A lot of changes in Marvel and DC and I wanted to check it out. But that's not all there is in the world. So when I saw The Tomorrows from Dark Horse and how it was about a time when art was illegal, the first thing I thought of was the Christian Bale movie, "Equilibrium", where it is now illegal to feel because the movie opens wit lh the law taking out these armed men who had a stash.... of ARTWORK! I'm talking, the Mona Lisa. So anyway. I read this on my lunch hour and I felt like I was missing something. Like is there a companion guide that fills in parts of the story. Every time I flipped a page I had to go back and see if I had skipped over one. As a whole the comic was a tiny bit out there, but good. I'm curious how the 2nd issue will go as the first one was a get to know the cast kind of thing.  So in terms of looking for something different, I accomplished that. Maybe this is something that'll interest you. Who knows.

Defenders

Defenders is a science fiction novel written by Will McIntosh and published May 2014 by Orbit Books. It follows the experiences of Oliver Bowen, Kai Zhou, Lila Esterlin and at times Dominique Wiewall. Broken into chronological instances more than chapters, divided into three "parts", the book discusses the invasion of an alien race that fell from the sky, their occupation of the planet as-well-as human's hail-mary plan to rid the world of the aliens by bio engineering a race of warriors, designated: Defenders. As the synopsis on the book and many websites questions, What do you do with the perfect combatant when there is no longer a reason to fight?

The book's organizational style is similar to those found in Max Brooks' World War Z or Daniel H. Wilson's Robopocalypse. Even though the experiences are happening then and there they are broken out by character or group. I did enjoy this story. It was different from what I had been reading and that was a welcome change. The aliens, known in the story as Luyten resemble Earth's starfish but big enough to tower over humans. For me it was slightly difficult not to picture the giant starfish looking like Starmie and Staryu from Pokemon. But I hope that was just me.

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**

This is the meat and potatoes of the book. But as always a good science fiction story teaches at lease one moral lesson. At least that is how I've come to view the small amount of books that I've read. What I took away from Defenders is looking at the long term affect of a brilliant plan. People sometimes are so wrapped up in handling the obstacle directly in front of them they don't seem to realize that the solution could be far worse. Another moral is that we as a race tend to fight first. We like to think there are enough enlightened individuals in the right places that should we ever be faced with a serious and unprecedented even that it would addressed with wisdom not fear. That also brings to mind an old episode of C.S.I. where the team was investigating the death of a man on an airplane. None of the passengers or plane crew would say who killed him because almost every adult was involved since the man was upset and out of control. At the very end of the episode each of the team weighed in on how they probably would do the same thing. The leader of the group stops when it's his turn to talk and says something to the affect that, no one on the plane once bothered to ask him if he was okay. As it turned out the air pressure mixed with meds or something caused him to have some kind of episode and instead of trying to take care of him the people on the plane hit and trampled him because they were afraid for their lives and the lives of their families. 

The Luyten land on Earth and do not immediately interact with humans, but then start attacking isolated, low population areas and a few key spots like power plants and what not. Militaries rally and fight the "enemy". No communication on either side, attacks that seem like they were completely unprovoked. Until you learn, and this was extremely early in the book, like the first few pages, that the Luyten have the ability to read any and everyone's mind in an eight mile radius. It seems that is the way they communicate with one another. The human race's leaders, driven by desperation, agree to share technology and in doing so come up with plan to engineer sixteen foot tall three legged warriors that would be appropriately called Defenders. These warriors were engineered to hate Luyten, to the point of where their fist instinct was to kill them on site. They were also developed with a strategic advantaged. The Luyten would not be able to read their minds. These Defenders also operated separately from the humans to lessen the chances the Luyten would read the human's mind and know when and where the Defenders would attack. However after the Luyten decide to surrender a treaty is signed and shortly after the Defenders, with no purpose, must discover a new reason for living and so take property (I say take because you can't really say no to an army of warriors more than three times the size of most humans) they also decide to take custody of the Luytons who were in prison. It was noted they would be executed and yet we later find out they became slaves to the Defenders because of their technical expertise and fine motor skills where the Defenders, being only bred for war had only three fingers which was the proper amount to operate machinery and weaponry. Here enters their similarity to Star Trek's Klingon race. War like, paranoid and kill first ask questions later type attitude. Everything comes to a head when the Defenders show the human race the military might they've created in the form of weapons, fighter plans, tanks and other creations that oddly resembled Luyten technology. War is once again upon the Earth as humans attack their creations for fear of what they will do once their kind spreads to all the continents and who do they find as their willing ally's? None other than the aliens they tried so hard to destroy. But through all this the main characters are told that the Luyten are not like the Defenders. Their first course of action is not violence. It may take people a while through the story to figure it out, but also addresses a similar question that is often posed in many Tv shows and some movies. What could you do if you could read everyone's mind. The human mind is a place where our thoughts run wild, some a litter mean and crueler than the words we let out of our mouth. The Luyten hear these thoughts of how hideous they look and how they need to be killed, but more than just the government and military, so what do you do when you hear so many individuals of a strange race want to shoot you on site. You attack first. You figure there is no point in talking you just need to be the better, faster killer. I know I've explained almost all of the book, but maybe you'll still read it even after reading this. In the end the human races is practically decimated as well as the Luyten. It was insightful to reach the end of this book and think, yeah it is kind of like that. And that i think was the main moral of this story. Communicate, rule out the good so that we are sure we need to go through the bad.

Maybe that isn't what the writer intended to tell me, but thats what I read between his lines. To me it seems all this could have been avoided if people would talk first. It was also sad to see that even at the end of the story humans still couldn't tolerate the Luyten and wanted them to build a ship and leave the Earth. As if the writer was saying, humans are not the best at admitting they lay at fault just as much as the aliens. 

Anyway I gave this book four out of five stars on Goodreads. I felt it is a great story for any science fiction reader and also enjoyed that the main characters were not squeaky clean. They made mistakes, they were injured, some of them didn't make it. You have to take the good and the bad and most of all learn from past experiences. 

I hope you'll find a copy of Defenders and enjoy the story as much as I did. I purchased my copy at Barnes and Noble while traveling on a business trip. Though I am sure you can find a copy of the book at your local bookstore and if not, demand to know why they aren't carrying it. 

Currently reading World War Z...

Bowl of Heaven by Gregory Benford & Larry Niven

So the Bowl of Heaven. I took a chance on this one. I mainly pick out books by first their cover art and then the title. Then i look at the back or inside the jacket to see a little more about the story itself. This one the title seamed interesting. The back of the book got my attention i'll give it that. So i went ahead and bought it. I won't lie i enjoyed the book, but I think it was one of the longer stories I've read to date, not including The Order omnibus since that was three books in one.

I was very aggravated in the beginning. I was like, "Did i skip a chapter somewhere?????". However once I got passed the first parts where they are still on Earth, everything was good. So this book is basically about, from what i understood in the obscure beginning, we've outdone ourselves on turning back the clock on Earth. Pollution amounts and other bad things have been reduced to the point of matching centuries long gone. But the technology came too late (Lost in Space anyone, yes the remake). So the crew has this last hazzah on Earth the night before they are launched into space to head to a planet found light-years away. A planet that might mean humanity's salvation as they can no longer live on their original planet for generations to come. Tons of people are on this ship, but it is run on a skeleton crew (think Pandorum). But one of the main characters a biologist is revived from cryo because the current crew is stumped by a discovery deep in space. A structure the size of which everyone has trouble wrapping their head around. and with in this structure a star. But this star not only gives off light and heat, it is used as a propulsion system pushing this enormous entity (the size of galaxies) through the universe. So what do the humans do? Hey, lets board the dam thing thats large enough to fit millions of Earths within it's borders. Crazy humans... Anyhow a landing crew sets out to explore and of course, THINGS GO WRONG! But isn't that when the fun starts too? Of course there are tragedies along the way, you can't win all the time. So the landing crew gets visited by the, what we assume at the time is, indigenous inhabitants of this giant structure, and wouldn't you know it they are larger than humans! Part of the crew is in a tent of sorts attempting to gain access to the structure, the other part of the crew is milling about taking readings from outside and stuff. The crew outside gets scooped up by a strange tank/trash collector looking thing. Yes operated by this new alien species. The other half breaks through and gains access to the structure. They bolt past the large beings, who all happen to look like an evolved form of birds. This group, spends their time on the run learning the hard way about vegetation and creatures that live on this ginormous land. The crew that were kidnapped are taken to a holding area and a form of dialect is established between them and the new species. The humans are studied and shown things that are safe to eat. They are educated and shown off to on the marvels of these bird folk's technology and accomplishments. Not everything is shared. They aren't taught about how the bowl came to be or what their purpose is. I loved how this book had two story lines, the captives and the fugitives. The fugitives later hook up with a race of, i believe cats, that are inspired and start a small rebellion aligning themselves with the humans. The captured group eventually stages a jailbreak and goes on the run as well. but they are gifted with the knowledge that has been passed down to them by the aliens. This group eventually makes their way into one of the large cities and recons areas learning more about the bowl and about their captors. The book is really drawn out in the sense that it does not really skip time. Or at least it doesn't feel that way. A lot happen every day with one group or the other.  I will be buying the next book, because what Bowl of Heaven does so well is tick you off. It ends on... well.. you'll just have to read it to find out. Known as a "hard science" novel. It does that very well. I found myself at times feeling like an idiot unable to follow the "logic" in their calculations and estimates prior to boarding the bowl. All in all Gregory Benford and Larry Niven did an okay job in my opinion. I need to know what happens next.

Archon (The Book of Raziel #1) by Sabrina Benulis

Yes, this is an extremely short review.

I didn't finish reading Archon written by Sabrina Benulis. This was going to be my first urban fantasy, well probably dark urban fantasy. I read I don't' know how many pages, maybe a chapter... or three? The main character was too depressing to me. i couldn't bare to read another page. So i gave this book away to my cousin who i believe gave it to his ex-girlfriend who loves those types of books. But i'll be dam if i don't stare at a copy of the book at Half Price Books every time i swing by to see if there is anything i can't live without. Maybe someday I'll try branching out again and checking out this book. For now I'm sad to say I can't recommend this book.

Amped by Daniel H. Wilson

Before I start, let me say that I hate negative reviews and by negative I mean author bashing. So I won't ever do that, I hope. Especially Daniel H. Wilson. I love his Robopocalypse & Robogenesis books.

Amped started out interesting. It was a sudden and new form of racism, in my opinion. I expected to be sucked in the way Robopocalypse swallowed me up whole. I was so ready for another book from this author, i raced to the book store and purchased a copy the day it was available. Owen Grey finds himself in the middle of a purge basically when "amplified" people, that is to say people that have had medical implants that improve their way of life, are no longer considered human beings, which means that are not subject to the same laws, but more importantly, they are not protected by them any longer. The implants may have started and been installed in the majority of people that needed them, but they soon became purchased by the wealthy as well. So anyhow, it throws you right into it basically. Owen goes for a check up and hears on the news how people were being evicted, beaten, shunned all kinds of nasty stuff. He has to flea. ends up on the run avoiding normal humans headed almost aimlessly. but his father told him there is someone he needed to find and a general area he could find them. So Owen heads there, a little community in almost the middle of no where. There he is found by people like him. People who actually make normal human beings fear amplified individuals. It is from them that Owen finds out, he doesn't have a run-of-the-mill implant. What he has is something more. Learning from this group of outlaws Owen discovers what his implant is capable of and what he is capable of. It all comes down to choices and Owen eventually needs to figure out what side he's going to be on.  All this was going good until we started reaching the end. Which to me felt rushed. I hate myself for not enjoying this book because the start of really made me feel like it was going for a whole freedom fighter vibe or at least a civil rights story. I really started to think it'd be a lot like Robert Sawyer's, "Mindscan", but with more action. however when Owen finally accessed the more interesting parts of his implant the book was already ending. the finally battle lasted only a couple of pages and left me wanting, not for a sequel, but for more substance in this story. Amped was not for me. Maybe there are other readers who will say this is their cup of tea. Having wrote this review late and just after finishing Robogenesis, I can tell you that Daniel H. Wilson has not lost the creativity, because Robogenesis ended up being my most favorite story to date. I tell anyone who likes to read and some that don't read about Robopocalypse and Robogenesis. They are wonderful books that I will never get rid of. I am sorry to say Amped does not fall into this category.