Obsidio (The Illuminae Files #3)

Today I finished the 3rd and final concluding book in the Illuminae Series, Obsidio.

Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza--but who knows what they'll find seven months after the invasion? 

Meanwhile, Kady's cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza's ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys--an old flame from Asha's past--reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.

The series, created and written by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, may be listed as YA  but is also an exciting story for any fan of science fiction. All three books are partly as a a written story and partly, perhaps mostly in graphic novel style. All are brilliantly done.

In Obsidio, the storylines from the previous two novels, Illuminae and Gimina, come together as the survivors of both novels are racing to free the now enslaved planet, Kerenza, from the conquering company BeiTech. I really enjoyed the depth the characters are given plus the twists, turns and surprises the story takes.

Obsidio is a terrific conclusion to a really enjoyable series.

Leaving Earth by Helen Humphreys

Today I finished reading Leaving Earth, by Helen Humphreys.

On August 1, 1933, Two Young Women, the famous aviatrix Grace O'Gorman and the inexperienced Willa Briggs, take off in a tiny Moth biplane to break the world flight endurance record. Their plan: to circle above the city of Toronto for twenty-five days.So begins Leaving Earth, a haunting evocation of an era when heroic women defied the limitations of their sex by embarking on perilous ventures. 

Sponsored by the Adventure Girl Almanac, "Air Ace Grace" and Willa soar above the city while below the Depression takes its toll and the shadows of the coming war lengthen. But as the days pass, the women's ties to humanity fall away, and the growing intensity of their connection becomes as gripping as the perils that besiege them. 

For the two pilots, there is no speech over the wind's rush, only an elaborate sign language in which they must invent the world anew. All the while, the endurance test wears on, its outcome jeopardized by fatigue, weather, mechanical breakdown, and the lethal efforts of a saboteur.

This was Humphreys first novel which not only won the won the 1998 City of Toronto Book Award, but it also was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. I can see why.

The story was interesting and suspenseful. From all which I've read and researched of the period, Humphreys did an excellent job of capturing the Toronto of 1933, both in her description of the city itself and the events which took place during the time frame of the book.

The story is not only of the flight, which is described mostly by Willa in the rear cockpit seat, but also on the family of Maddy Stewart, a young 12 year old girl who idolizes Grace O'Gorman. Maddy is the child of a Jewish mother and her Scottish father. The family runs the amusement park at Hanlan's point.

Leaving Earth is a story of endurance, growing a trusting friendship without being able to verbally communicate, the rise of Nazism in Canada and the world below the two aviators struggling with the depression.

It's a novel worth reading.

About Helen Humphreys 

Helen Humphreys is the author of four books of poetry, five novels, and one work of creative non-fiction. She was born in Kingston-on-Thames, England, and now lives in Kingston, Ontario with her dog, Hazel. Her first novel, Leaving Earth (1997), won the 1998 City of Toronto Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. 

Her second novel, Afterimage (2000), won the 2000 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her third novel, The Lost Garden (2002), was a 2003 Canada Reads selection, a national bestseller, and was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Wild Dogs (2004) won the 2005 Lambda Prize for fiction, has been optioned for film, and was produced as a stage play at CanStage in Toronto in the fall of 2008. Coventry (2008) was a #1 national bestseller, was chosen as one of the top 100 books of the year by the Globe & Mail, and was chosen one of the top ten books of the year by both the Ottawa Citizen and NOW Magazine. Humphreys's work of creative non-fiction, The Frozen Thames (2007), was a #1 national bestseller. Her collections of poetry include Gods and Other Mortals (1986); Nuns Looking Anxious, Listening to Radios (1990); and, The Perils of Geography (1995). Her latest collection, Anthem (1999), won the 2000 Canadian Authors Association Award for Poetry. 

Humphreys's work has been translated into many languages.

  

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Quantum Night by Robert J. Sawyer

I'm a fan of Robert J. Sawyer but haven't read one of his books for awhile. This week I corrected that by reading his 2016 sci-fi novel, Quantum Night.

Experimental psychologist Jim Marchuk has developed a flawless technique for identifying the previously undetected psychopaths lurking everywhere in society. But while being cross-examined about his breakthrough in court, Jim is shocked to discover that he has lost his memories of six months of his life from twenty years previously—a dark time during which he himself committed heinous acts.

Jim is reunited with Kayla Huron, his forgotten girlfriend from his lost period and now a quantum physicist who has made a stunning discovery about the nature of human consciousness. As a rising tide of violence and hate sweeps across the globe, the psychologist and the physicist combine forces in a race against time to see if they can do the impossible—change human nature—before the entire world descends into darkness.

Like many of his books, the science involved in the story is deep but well explained. There were places in the story where I was a little confused, but after pressing on, the idea would become clear. It's a well thought out story line and an interesting read.

About Robert J. Sawyer

Robert J. Sawyer is one of Canada's best known and most successful science fiction writers. He is the only Canadian (and one of only 7 writers in the world) to have won all three of the top international awards for science fiction: the 1995 Nebula Award for The Terminal Experiment, the 2003 Hugo Award for Hominids, and the 2006 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Mindscan.

Robert Sawyer grew up in Toronto, the son of two university professors. He credits two of his favourite shows from the late 1960s and early 1970s, Search and Star Trek, with teaching him some of the fundamentals of the science-fiction craft. Sawyer was obsessed with outer space from a young age and he vividly remembers watching the televised Apollo missions.

Sawyer graduated in 1982 from the Radio and Television Arts Program at Ryerson University, where he later worked as an instructor. Sawyer's first published book, Golden Fleece (1989), is an adaptation of short stories that had previously appeared in the science-fiction magazine Amazing Stories. This book won the Aurora Award for the best Canadian science-fiction novel in English.

A passionate advocate for science fiction, Sawyer teaches creative writing and appears frequently in the media to discuss his genre. He prefers the label "philosophical fiction," and in no way sees himself as a predictor of the future. His mission statement for his writing is "To combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic."

14th Canadian Reading Challenge