Review of 'Shift' by Hugh Howey (it's amazing)

'Shift' is the sequel to the phenomenally successful novel 'Wool' and the second in Hugh Howey's Silo Trilogy. You can read my review of Wool here, but by way of a brief recap, in the near future humans live in a large underground 'silo' (think of a cylindrical 150 storey tower block buried in the ground). How they got there is a mystery but the very air outside is poisonous and as far as they are aware they are the only people left of mankind. They don't know much about 'before' only occasional picture books, strange stories handed down through the generations and the like.

In a desperate attempt to avoid any spoilers for Wool, I'll just say that Shift is a prequel that 'catches up' by the end of the book with the events in Wool. Shift is divided into three parts, or 'Shifts'.The first part of the book is a real futuristic rip-roaring thriller set initially in the mid 21st century, in a world not unlike ours today. You learn some of how the world of Wool and the Silo comes about. The end of the world scenario here is one of the scariest I've ever come about, and is definitely plausible. I've heard people say that you don't need to have read Wool to read this, and while as far as it goes this is true, you are going to get so much more out of it for having read Wool first. So please, please don't go straight into Shift. The second and third parts move forward in time and start to catch up with 'Wool'. By the end of Shift you are at exactly the same time as you are at the end of Wool (in fact I think the same conversation happens in each but I'd have to go back and check). Now normally, I don't like this kind of setup, i.e. knowing what's going to happen, but Shift isn't like that at all. They are two very, very different stories, and knowing roughly when the book ends doesn't mean you have any idea 'how' it ends or what happens to all the characters in Shift. The main characters in Wool don't appear until the final pages of Shift. One of the minor characters in Wool - Solo - has a big role in part 3 of Shift, but this is really good and fills in this characters story which I was really wanting to learn more about when I was reading Wool.

What I'm trying to say - badly - is that Shift just really works, so, so well, despite the fact that the whole prequel/catch-up mechanism shouldn't really work, not in my mind anyway. The first half of the book is in my mind (and in the opinion of some other reviewers) better than the second half, but that doesn't detract from the book at all. The first half of this book is the best fiction writing I've read this year and I've read at least 30 books so far. In fact overall I think the only book that's rivalling this year is its predecessor. Just like Wool, I'm giving this 5 stars on Goodreads. Can't wait to read Dust, which comes out in hardback next week in the UK (already out in paperback in the US), but actually is already out in the Kindle store - whoop!

Board Gaming Update - Dungeon Petz, Runewars and Fleet

This is kind of a catch up post, as there's several new games I've played recently to talk about - new games to me anyway.

Dungeon Petz (ranked 110 on BoardGameGeek.com) is a 2011 game by renowned board game designer Vlaada Chvatil (of games like Galaxy Trucker, Space Alert & Through the Ages). It is a sort of sequel or companion to his earlier game 'Dungeon Lords'. Both Dungeon Lords and Dungeon Petz effectively reverse the dungeon crawler genre. Rather than be a hero exploring dungeons, killing monsters, collecting treasure etc, you are the bad guy responsible for setting up a Dungeon so that would be adventurers and heroes can venture in. In Dungeon Lords you are the Dungeon master, in Dungeon Petz you are a pet shop owner, except your pets aren't cute fluffy rabbits and hamsters, but various types of monsters! You have to hatch baby monsters, feed them, clean out their cage, entertain them and so on. Think The Sims Pets, but a board game and not quite so cute... Dungeon Petz is a smaller game than Dungeon Lords, with more of a comic element, but it is very fun. I've only played one game so far, and there was quite a bit of a learning curve, with a lot of bits and pieces and rules to learn. After a round or two you start to get the hang of it, and by the middle of the game you've really got a handle on what is going on. I'm looking forward to playing again when I get the chance. Rating it an 8 on BoardGameGeek at the moment, but has the potential to go higher than that after multiple plays.

Runewars (ranked 51 on BGG) is a big game in every sense of the word as it is a long game - 4 to 5 hours - is quite a complex game with lots of bits and pieces, and comes in an absolutely huge box. It is fantasy adventure board game. You start off by taking it in turns to lay out the large terrain hexes that make up the game board. You then start off with your own territory, and set out to expand, conquer new territories and pick up runes. The object of the game is to be the first player to control six territories containing Dragon Runes.

The game takes place over a number of years and in each year there are four seasons - spring, summer, autumn and winter. You have a number of action cards, and get to pick one in each season. You can't usually play the same action card more than once per year. There's also secondary events that happen in each season - some are fixed and take place each season, but others are more random, and you don't know what you are going to get. If after 7 years no one has got to 7 Dragon Runes, the player with the most runes wins the game.

What I really like about this game is that despite being a big, complex game with quite a few rules and lots of components, at heart you simply get to choose one action each season, so four actions in total in a year. This means that there isn't much downtime. You quickly get the hang of the game too. The first couple of years the emphasis is more on exploring until you meet other players in the middle of the game board. When they do come about the battles resolve quite quickly and simply which is really good, though the outcome isn't always quite what you'd expect - the way the battle mechanic works, even if you've got lots of really powerful troops you can end up fleeing from some relatively small imps! You also get hero adventurers that get to move and possibly resolve a quest once per year - early on these are quite an important part of the game, but towards the end they get a bit redundant which is a shame (you run out of quest cards to complete about half way through). Overall though this is a great epic fantasy game, and one that I'm really eager to play again. I'm rating this a 9 on Board Game Geek, though only with the right group of people.

Fleet (492 on BGG) is a small-ish card game which I believe started out life as a Kickstarter Game. In it, you acquire fishing licences for different types of fish, which allow you to buy different kinds of fishing boats and go fishing to get fish. You get victory points for your fishing licences, boats and the amount of fish you manage to harvest. There's also some extra fishing licences that allow you to get bonus points.

As with many other card games, the currency in the game is the cards, although it is not always one card for one coin, different cards are worth either 1, 2 or 3 coins. The coin values are in inverse proportions to the victory points you get for them. At the start of the game you've got to make sure you get enough money to be able to buy the licences and boats you need to get going, and each boat needs a captain which costs money too.

Overall this is a nice little card game that probably take about an hour to play with four people. Admittedly part of what I liked about it was that we played two games and I won both, but there was a lot else to like as well. The theme wasn't just pasted on, it did actually feel like I was managing fleets of fishing boats which was a big success. At heart it is an economic game as it managing your money so you've got enough to buy the good cards later on in the game, but there's a lot of uncertainty too as you never know when the good cards are going to come up in the game. Some of the iconography and rules attached to the different licences got a bit confusing in places, and if you play a lot of games you might get a bit bored of it, but these are the only downsides I could think of. A good, fun card game, giving it a 7 on BoardGameGeek.

Review of 'Wool' by Hugh Howey

My review of Wool, originally posted on Goodreads earlier in the year. Posting now in anticipation of reviewing the sequel 'Shift' very soon.

Only a few months ago I hadn't heard of this book, or the author. Then I listened to an interview with him on 'Geek's Guide to the Galaxy' podcast, then it was chosen as the Sword & Laser book of the month, following which I decided to give it a read. In the indie book community at least, it has received a lot of hype, thousands of glowing reviews. Would it live up to its reputation?


First of all a word on how it is put together. Hugh Howey wrote these as a series of linked novellas, and when he wrote the first I don't think he had any idea that he'd write the rest, or that it would be so popular. The first 'book' is in fact a short story, and would work well as a standalone short story. There are five books in total making up the 'Wool Omnibus', each getting progressively longer.




Wool revolves around the 'silo', a subterranean structure of about 150 floors, completely sealed off from the outside world which incidentally is deadly poisonous such that no one can survive outside. There's quite a bit of world building and backplot developing in the early books, which is really quite fascinating. The story really starts to get going around book 3 when it becomes a gripping page turner.

Overall, I thought this was a fabulous book, really quite different to anything else I've read. It is a fascinating world, and a good story too. There are two sequels to Wool, 'Shift' which is mostly a prequel I'm told, and the forthcoming 'Dust' which wraps up the story.

Incidentally - this book works really well for an online book club, as you can have separate threads to discuss each of the five 'books', with no risk of spoilers for the later books.

'Redshirts' by John Scalzi

Redshirts is  a relatively short novel by American science fiction author John Scalzi, best known for his 'Old Man's War' military science fiction novel and its sequels. The book is about 300 pages, but the last 80 or so pages actually form three 'codas', linked short stories that add extra content to the book. The book won the 2013 Hugo Award, arguably science fiction's greatest accolade, but reader reviews on Amazon are decidedly mixed and some think a book as light and frothy as this shouldn't have won a Hugo.

Redshirts follows a group of junior Ensigns on a starship, the flagship of the United Union fleet. The main character, Andrew Dahl, is a new crew member who gradually realises that being an Ensign or 'redshirt' on the ship is a very dangerous occupation, as people keep dying horrible, meaningless missions on a seemingly endless stream of away missions. Senior officers never die however... What is going on?

The book starts off as a spoof on Star Trek - even referencing it in a couple of places. It gradually develops a rather interesting storyline. It's also rather funny, I laughed out loud in a few places, and quoted several bits to my wife - much to her delight! I read a few reviews of this on Amazon before picking it up, the most helpful of which said something along the lines of: 'If you read the first couple of chapters and think it is a really badly written story, then persevere. It intentionally starts out like this, and is an important part of the story.' Good advice, because this is exactly what happens.

A final note about the 'codas' at the end of the book. I got to about page 220 and went 'huh?'. The story had ended and what were these things at the end. Should I read on? I actually googled it and found a blog post from the author explaining about them. I did read them. The first was quite interesting, but not spectacular. The final two were shorter, and really good. The first coda adds a funny, interesting perspective. The other two add quite a touching, emotive and thought provoking element to the book and round off the whole thing nicely.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. It a good story that had me hooked, it was very funny and also touching towards the end. While I see why some people complained, I feel it is a worthy winner of the Hugo Award, and am going to give it 9/10.

Classic Science Fiction TV - Crime Traveller

Crime Traveller was a 1997 British science fiction crime drama produced by the BBC, and created & written by Anthony Horowitz, prolific novelist and tv writer (most famous for his Alex Rider children's books and for creating the hit historical drama Foyles War).

Crime Traveller starred Michael French as police detective Jeff Slade, and Chloe Annett as a Holly Turner, a police scientist. Slade discovers that Holly has a working time machine built by her late father, and the two team up to use it to solve crimes. The workings of the time machine were quite clever - it would send someone - Slade - back in time but for a random amount of time, it could be a day or two or it could just be a few minutes. Slade has to use whatever time he is randomly allotted to try and solve the crime at hand, but he must get back to the time machine before the present (i.e. the time he started out) or he gets caught in an infinity loop and is lost forever. This adds quite a bit of edge of the seat drama to each episode - will he get back in time? Though secretly know he always will.

I liked this show because it was a clever concept, and the stories were all rather good. I also liked the problems they had coming up with explanations as to how they solved the crime that didn't involve time travel, to satisfy their boss Grisham, excellently played by Sue Johnston, who starts to get a bit suspicious after a while.

Unfortunately despite getting over 8 million regular viewers, the show was cancelled after one season due to management changes at the BBC. It may seem a little dated now, but is still fun to watch, or re-watch if you were fortunate enough to catch it first time!

Crime Traveller: The Complete Series on Amazon UK

Crime Traveller: Complete Series on Amazon.com

Patrick Leigh Fermor's final book

Patrick Leigh Fermor is considered by many to be one of the English Language's finest travel writers, and he was a real old school adventurer. In the early 1930/31, aged 18, he upped and left home after deciding to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople... thousands of miles. This involved walking through pre second world war Europe, a contintent with one foot in the past, one in the future. It was a fascinating time, and Leigh Fermor is an excellent chronicler of it, as well as an extremely intelligent, erudite scholar and writer.



Later, during the war he become a war hero, working behind enemy lines in occupied Crete, during which he orchestrated the kidnapping of the German commander of Crete (dramatised in the film 'Ill Met by Moonlight' where Leigh Fermor is played by Dirk Bogarde), and later become a writer.

In 1977 he published an account of the first part of his journey in 'A Time of Gifts', considered one of the best travel books of all time. It is not to everyone's taste but it is well worth checking out. There's more packed into this slim book than in 10 lesser books.  In 1986 he published part two, 'Between the Woods and the Water' finished it with 'To Be Concluded'. However the author went through a long period of writers block and it never quite happened. He died in 2011 aged 96, but now finally, the third and final book of his journey has been published. All the words are his own, it has just benefited from editing and polishing as well as introduction by his biographer Artemis Cooper and acclaimed travel Colin Thubron. I can't wait to read it.

If you want to read more about Patrick Leigh Fermor, check out his obituary, or read the recent article from the Telegraph about his final book including extracts.

Breaking all the rules of blogging

Ask anyone who is anyone in the online world, and they'll tell you that to have a successful blog, you've got to pick a good niche and burrow down. People don't want a mash up blog of this, that & the other. Well I've started lots of blogs over the years, picking a niche related to whatever I'm most into at the time. And you know what? It never works. After a few posts it just sort of peters out. I'm just not that sort of person that sticks on one topic or interest forever. A lot of my interests are kind of related, and most appeal to the same sorts of people but its still going to be a bit of a hodge podge. This is what I'm expecting to write about:

SF & Fantasy
Board Gaming
Science & Tech
History
Misc other stuff

I wanted to have tabs across the top for each of these areas, with a 'misc' catchall. Unfortunately it appears blogger doesn't do that, at least not easily. So instead once I get going I'm going to have a tag cloud which will link to the different sorts of posts.

I'll also over time be using this blog to pull in other content I've written over the years on other blogs, article sites etc, so the best stuff at least is all in one place.

Am I going to get thousands of people reading? Nope? Am I going to have fun? I hope so!

Edit: Just discovered the 'import/export blog' function, so I've imported some of my recent blogs here. So there's a few posts up already.