Sunday, June 27, 2021

Ancillary Justice

by Ann Leckie 

Space zombies! Well, okay, maybe not what you're thinking. This book doesn't tell about a cosmic invasion of flesh eating, ambulatory corpses. It's actually a bit more pedestrian--a bot closer to the original concept of a zombie. 

In the far future, humanity has reached the stars and has done what humanity does best: conquered it. The galactic empire is known as the Radch. The Radch conquers planets, in part, by using undead soldiers called ancillaries. These are conquered people who are killed, and then reanimated by the massive artificial intelligences that run Radch ships and space stations. Each ancillary is an extension of the central A.I., tending to the duties assigned by the human crew. A particular ancillary may serve as an invading soldiers, occupying troops, administrative assistants, or janitorial staff. But each ancillary is constantly connected to and perceives itself as the central A.I. Well, at least until the network breaks down and each ancillary has to fend for itself. 

That's what happened to ancillary One Esk 19 of the ship Justice of Toren. As the story opens, she is on a personal mission on a backward planet on the border of Radch territory. How an ancillary came to have a personal mission and what that mission is is slowly revealed as the story jumps back and forth between the present and events that occurred 20 years before. Ms. Leckie did a very good job of using that method to draw me into the tale while building the world (galaxy?) in which it occurs. 

 Check it out! 
LibraryThing link

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// posted by John @ 3:07 PM 0 Comments

Monday, June 14, 2021

Dreams of the Golden Age

by Carrie Vaughn

This one's a sequel to After the Golden Age. Years have passed since that adventure. Celia West is now married, the president of West Corp, and the mother of two teenage daughters. Her eldest, Anna, is acting moody and secretive. Is it just plain adolescence? Or has Anna developed super powers and a compulsion to don a costume and fight crime? After all, it does run in her family... 

Overall, the book was pleasant to read. But, like most sequels, it doesn't quite live up to the original.  

Check it out.
 LibraryThing link

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// posted by John @ 4:17 PM 0 Comments

Saturday, June 05, 2021

Reading the Bible with the Damned

by Bob Ekblad

Back in the day, Jesus was criticized by the reputable folks for eating with tax collectors and sinners. He countered that those were the people he came to help. Over the centuries, Jesus' followers tend to keep forgetting that lesson and we start making distinctions between the "good" folks and the "bad" ones. Dr. Ekblad has ministered to those who seem to fall into today's "disreputable" category: campesinos in Honduras, inmates in the Skagit County Jail, and migrant workers in Washington State. As a man who fits into none of these categories, he has been surprised as he shares the scriptures with these folks. Their experiences lead them to bring unique presuppositions about the Bible and God to their studies, as well as unique insights into the text. Dr. Ekblad shares some of these with the reader, as well as his attempts to demonstrating how he tries to draw out the good news of God's love for people who are tempted to think it's not for them. 

I think this is the first book of "liberation theology" that I've read and I find I can't fully embrace it. Given my own Lutheran tradition and beliefs, I can't so easily lay aside the words of law and judgment that the Bible contains, as Dr. Ekblad seems to do. However that doesn't negate the words of grace that were written for the damned, or the love of God that is for each one of us. 

 I think I need to get a copy of this one on my shelf.
LibraryThing link

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// posted by John @ 6:03 PM 0 Comments

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