Diving into the Wreck ~Kristine Kathryn Rusch

–published 2009
–Pyr Books
–268 pages
–4.25/5 stars

Boss, the protagonist of Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s latest novel, is a middle-aged wreck diver. She owns her ship, craves solitude, and alternates between taking tourists out for recreational dives and putting together crack teams to investigate the wrecks of ships she discovers in her travels. On a return trip she noticed a brief signal that her instincts prompt her to investigate. Doing so reveals something to her trained eye that simply cannot be: the derelict hulk of a 5,000 year old Earth ship that could not possibly exist this far out in space. Not willing to believe her eyes, she conducts some research and returns to the wreck with a hand-picked crew, searching for answers. Answers that will forever alter the lives of Boss and her crew and will put her face to face with a past that she would just as soon forget.

Diving into the Wreck is an intense, introspective, character-driven adventure that has moved to the top of my list of books to recommend to those who either have never tried science fiction, or are of the belief that science fiction isn’t for them.

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Gateway ~Frederik Pohl

–published 1977
–Del Rey Books
–278 pages
–1977 Nebula Award Winner, 1978 Hugo, Locus and John W. Campbell Award Winner
–3.25/5 stars

Frederik Pohl’s much-lauded novel is my latest foray into the books that have won speculative fiction’s biggest awards, in this case, the Hugo and the Nebula (and the Locus and the Campbell!). Pohl was up against some big names that year, George R.R. Martin (Dying of the Light), Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Forbidden Tower), Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (Lucifer’s Hammer) and Gordon R. Dickson (Time Storm) and while I can not legitimately have an opinion about whether it was the best of that group, having not ready any of these other novels, I can see, upon reading it, why it captured the imagination of the voters.

It captured my imagination as well, and there was much about it during the reading, and in retrospect, that I enjoyed. There were other parts of the story that bothered me, and I will attempt in this review to touch briefly on both.

While I make an effort in this review to not point out major plot spoilers, I do end up talking around various parts of the plot in ways that are not typical for one of my book reviews. I thought it fair to warn you ahead of time.

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Old Man’s War ~John Scalzi

–published 2005 (this version, 2006)
–Tor Books
–313 pages
–Winner of John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer 2006
–5/5 stars

Books beget books beget books. Sometimes the best laid plans, like knowing exactly what we are going to read next, go awry because of the influence of the book we are currently reading. That is precisely what happened as I closed the book on Starship Troopers. I have often seen Old Man’s War compared favorably to Heinlein’s classic (heck, I even did that in my original review without having read Starship Troopers), but after finishing Troopers and reading the various controversial accusations against it on Wikipedia, I wanted nothing more than to return to the world of John Perry and Jane Sagan.

Thus Sunday found me perched in my rocking chair partaking of a cover-to-cover read that I finished just after the NFC Championship game. Reading the classic, and the destined-to-be classic, back-to-back was an enriching experience that left me with an even deeper appreciation for both novels.

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