It’s still easy to forget how busy summers can get around here. Our campground opened for the season on May 15 and things get busier every week. My days are largely filled with mowing dozens of acres of grass; chopping, storing, and delivering firewood; collecting garbage; slinging beers (bar on-site); and occasionally disposing of the remains of recently-deceased rodents, birds, and small mammals. Oh, and I write when I can find / make the time.
This leaves very little time for reading. Fortunately for me, audiobooks are a thing so I’m able to supplement my eyeball reading with some earhole reading.
I read some pretty good ones this past month, including an anthology, a sci-fi classic, and a newer sci-fi. I want to remind you that my comments on each are not a review! These are just some thoughts I have on each.
K, here we go:
Illusions of Isolation by Brennan LaFaro
This is the book I’ve been looking forward to writing about the most. Brennan reached out for some readers to review his recent collection of short horror stories and was good enough to do a book swap with me. With indie authors (like myself), you never really know what you’re going to get. Fortunately this book was worth the read. I was unfamiliar with Brennan’s work when I reached out to him, but have since added the first book in his Slattery Falls series to my library.
Illusions of Isolation has something for everybody. Seriously. Brennan LaFaro has a real talent for crafting horror using a variety of devices and genres. From hauntings to demonic CEOs to post-apocalyptic wasteland warriors, he’s got you covered.
It’s hard for me to pick a favourite in this collection since each of the stories grabbed me in their own way. Gun to my head, though, I’d have to say The Last Little Piece of Civilization stands out among the rest. It’s a sci-fi / eco-horror that will long live in my memory.
Along with weaving a baker’s dozen of excellent stories, LaFaro does the reader the further consideration of including a brief note on each story on the page immediately following. I love this and plan on usurping the technique for my own anthology (which I hope to officially announce in the next year, but please be patient).
Awesome work, Brennan. Looking forward to Slattery Falls!
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (The Carls #1) by Hank Green
I discovered this gem of a modern sci-fi entirely by chance, as many great books are discovered. I was looking for an audiobook to listen to while stocking our woodshed with the first of this year’s supply of firewood, and did something in my Libby app that I’d never done before: I sorted by most popular. I was looking for a good sci-fi and a lot of the choices that came up under my preferences were the same books that are always recommended, many of which I’ve read already. I can’t even remember reading the blurb for this one, so I must have downloaded it based on the cover image alone—a faux pas, I know.
The book turned out to be fantastic. And they chose the perfect narrator in Kristen Sieh—something I’m finding is becoming more and more of a rarity in audiobooks.
The book follows twenty-something digital designer April May, who stumbles upon a ten-foot-tall transformer-like figure on the streets of New York. She names it Carl. After uploading a video in front of it, she wakes up to discover not only that her video has gone viral, but that there is a Carl in every major city in the world. And not everyone is happy to see them…
Hank Green launches straight into the action in this book and doesn’t let up. I found myself dying to know what happens next, what such-and-such could possibly mean, and who or what “the Carls” are.
This book is smart, zany, and witty. The protagonist, April May, is immediately likeable and relatable. Her poor friends provide a solid foundation of personality for her to stumble upon time and time again. I’m looking forward to the sequel!
The Donut Legion by Joe R. Lansdale
I’m a big fan of Joe Lansdale’s work. He’s written some of my favourite episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, wrote the novel that inspired the Bruce Campbell film Bubba Ho-Tep, and his novel The Thicket (which I hear is being adapted into a movie starring Peter Dinklage) is a solid western.
I went into The Donut Legion kind of blind, drawn to the UFO on the cover and the seemingly aloof title. It was getting some good buzz so I decided to make it the second audiobook I listened to last month.
The novel is a wacky romp into the world of missing persons and larger-than-life cults. It features an eclectic ensemble of characters as they search for protagonist Charlie Garner’s missing ex-wife, who appears to him in a sort of vision in the early pages. What follows is an insane game of cat-and-mouse between Charlie and his friends, and the sadistic members of the titular cult.
This was a fun, never-too-serious noir / thriller / mystery from the master of many genres. Gotta say, though, the audiobook has quite a bit to be desired, in my humble opinion. I’d recommend the physical book if you have the option.
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
I’ve been yearning to read something by Asimov for a long time now. Why I haven’t sooner is the same reason I haven’t yet read any of the other hundreds of books in my to-be-read pile: because the stack keeps growing, titles sliding up and down in priority on an almost daily basis. I’m also making a habit of reading more books by indie authors, to support the community I became a tiny part of a couple of years ago. But I digress.
I, Robot is a fascinating conglomeration of anecdotal stories regarding the history of robots as they exist in Asimov’s Robot universe. Throughout the book, Asimov presents his characters with unique problems posed by the robots being used by everyday citizens as well as deep-space explorers. In general, the problems are heavily caused by and solved through Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
The laws are hierarchal, in that the First Law supersedes the second, and that both of those are held above the third.
This book could be viewed as a philosophical thought experiment. As each situation is presented, it felt—to me—as if Asimov poked holes in his own laws, or created circumstances to do the same, and then set about solving the situation through sheer logic.
What moved me throughout the book is how often it is discovered that, within an apparently dire situation, the robots are not at fault. Humanity, it would seem, does not deserve robots, at least not those that operate as effectively as Asimov’s. It’s hard to argue this point without spoiling much of the book.
All in all, I loved this book and can’t wait to dive further into Asimov’s work.
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And that’s it for June's reads.
Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments, on social media, or through my contact page.
“If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.”
-Isaac Asimov