The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman

I had been looking at this book for a long time before I got a chance to read it. I admit that the simplicity of the cover grabbed my attention, as well as the story description. The feel and pace of the story reminded me very much of the campaigns we had when playing Deadlands, the role-playing game. Gilman does an excellent job of bringing his world to life for the reader.

The Half-Made World is the story of an alternate American Wild West. Our protagonist is Liv Alverhuysen, a female psychologist who decides to respond to a job offer sent to her late husband to work in a hospital in the unmade west. The hospital serves both sides of a conflict for control of the West, the Guns and the Line. The hospital maintains its neutrality because it is protected by a spirit that will allow no violence to be done within its realm.

The Gun recruits dangerous men and women of ill-repute and character using fear to maintain control, while the Line overcomes towns and incorporates all into their fold and making them slaves. Both sides are seeking a General who fell in battle to one of the Line's noisemaker bombs. They both hope to gain the secret of a weapon that he holds in his head, one that could destroy their enemy or themselves. The Guns and the Engines of the Line are possessed by some strange demons. The Line moves towards the hospital, while the Gun sends John Creedmoor to infiltrate the facility.

Once all the main actors in the tale reach the hospital, the action steamrolls (forgive the pun) forward extremely rapidly. Characters must wrestle with internal conflicts as well as external ones. I look forward to the sequel when it comes out in November.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

This is my first time reading a Margaret Atwood novel, it was a gift to my husband and he insisted I read it after he was done. I hadn't read her before because the majority of her titles and book covers looked like romance novels. (I know, I know, don't judge a book by its cover.) Once again I listened to the audio book while on my commute. The reader did an excellent job.

The story opens with Snowman, a.k.a. Jimmy, awaking on the beach. It is revealed that the world has gone wrong as we watch Snowman go through his morning routine of checking his stash of supplies, draping his bed sheet around his body properly, and scratching around the bug bits to avoid a chance of infection.

We are then introduced to the Children of Crake. They are very different than Snowman. They are thick skinned and do not have to worry about ultra-violet rays. They have startling green eyes and skins of all colors. They only eat grass and vegetables. They come to Snowman to learn about the things they find washed up on the shore.

Atwood does a masterful job of telling the reader how the world got to this point through a series of flashbacks into Snowman's past. They are random and out of sequence, just as these things tend to be for us all. They offer titillating glimpses into past events and Snowman's life.

I have to admit I was actually a little angry when the story ended, I wanted it to keep going. Luckily for me there is a sequel. Unluckily, I don't have a copy.

Amped by Daniel H. Wilson

Amped is another book that I won from Goodreads. It is a near future science fiction story. It is a world in which some people have brain implants. Many of these implants are used to fix epilepsy, ADD, or other disabilities. They are even given to poor and disadvantaged students by the government through grants to level the playing field in the school systems.

Owen is a school teacher who has an implant to help with his epilepsy.  His father installed the implant after he suffered a horrible accident due to a seizure. Things begin to go wrong for Owen when the Supreme Court disenfranchises people with implants, also called "Amps". This action was pushed through by a political group called Pure Pride. In the course of a day he loses his job and is thrown out of his apartment with no warning. They can no longer makes contracts with "regular" people as they have an unfair advantage, hence Owen losing his job and home.

The situation escalates. Owen discovers he is wanted for questioning, and that his amp is more than he realized. There are also some violent incidents between amps and regular people. The amps are moved into clusters for their own protection. Owen flees to a cluster called "Eden" to meet with a friend of his dad's named John.

There is action, political intrigue, and social discrimination. Wilson uses his robotic expertise to help explain how the amps work and what they do to the brain. I really enjoyed the descriptions and the characters. It was a very fast paced and easy read, perfect for a summer day.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

This was a case in which I saw the movie long before I read the book. We saw the film in 3D, it was amazing, and I'm usually not a big fan of 3D. The images were striking, riveting, and sometimes upsetting.

I am a fan of Gaiman's work in general, I really enjoyed Coraline. I know that many adults find it much too scary for children because it terrifies them. Children have a different perspective on the story, they see it as an adventure story.

Coraline is the tale of a young girl with rather inattentive parents. They are loving just very busy. The family has recently moved into a new home that is part of a larger house divided into several apartments. There is a pair of sisters who are aging stage actresses with dogs downstairs. Upstairs is a Russian man who is training a mouse circus.

Coraline is unhappy and bored with her life, as many kids get. (Especially when they have moved to a new place and don't have any friends.) She begins exploring the house and the area around it, this includes a strange door that leads to a brick wall. Well, it leads to a brick wall some of the time. One day while her mother is out shopping, she opens the door and there is a tunnel. Being a curious child, she follows it. 

 

On the other side of the tunnel, she discovers a world much like her own yet full of disturbing differences.  The "other mother" is awaiting on the other side of the door. She wishes Coraline to stay with her forever, but Coraline senses that something is wrong. She challenges the "other mother".

I really enjoyed the book, and the movie was an absolutely fabulous adaptation. Sadly, my imagination couldn't live up to the visuals provided by the movie. This is a great book for boys and girls of all ages.

Stiff, The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

I ran across this book while browsing through my recommendations on Goodreads. I am a firm believer in organ donation. I have checked the box on my driver's license, assuming that they would harvest any organs that were worth taking to save a life. In the course of reading this book, I have learned that organ donation and donating your body to science aren't the same thing. I have never looked into what could be done with a body once passed it along to science, and I was curious how those that have left us can continue to help us.

I have long been aware that cadavers have been used for medical and criminal research. I was aware of some of the history of mummification, but learned a bit more while reading this book. I'm sure there are many that consider this topic morbid or disturbing. I personally find it fascinating. How do they help improve lives outside of organ donation or criminal research? How long have people been utilizing cadavers to learn about themselves?

Roach is very informative and uses humor well to dis-spell any discomfort the reader might be feeling. She is careful to balance the strangeness and absurdity of some of the situations with respect for those that volunteered their remains for scientific use. She covers topics such as medical school dissection, forensic body farms, crash analysis, heart death vs. brain death, head transplants, and ecological burial.

It was interesting to see how time has changed the way cadavers are treated by scientists. In the past it was illegal, so bodies had to be stolen. Often they were treated callously, and gallows humor was used to put the researchers at ease (this often led to insensitive jokes).  Though the departed didn't notice these slights, it left an uncomfortable feeling with any outside the field and could greatly offend surviving relatives. The attitude towards the cadavers has changed greatly in recent years. It seems partly a PR move (to make it more acceptable to the families of the volunteers), and a result that they volunteered for this important duty.

Another segment I found fascinating was the section about medicinal cannibalism. The old men in Arabia that reportedly dined on nothing but honey for a few months before their death and were then sealed in a stone coffin filled with honey. They were sealed inside for 100 years, then it was unsealed and the honey concoction was sold as medicine for a variety of ailments. What most amazes me is that I know such beliefs still exist, and that often the person that is turned into medicine did not volunteer. There are cases in Africa of albinos being killed for such medicines, which is horrific. I truly wish that this was a thing of the past.

The final segment in the book is about ecological burial, it did not feel as well developed as the other segments but I found it interesting none-the-less. I have always planned to be cremated. I consider cemeteries land that is wasted (it could be used for housing or growing food, etc.) and the embalming chemicals can't be good for the environment. In this segment I learned that cremation can cause mercury to get into the air, I already had figured there was some issues with greenhouse gasses but that it was a relatively small amount in comparison to other things we humans do. I have now learned of two methods that are more environmentally friendly (at least one is even cheaper than cremation): Water reduction and organic burial. I will leave the methods used a mystery for you to discover through the book or in other research. Sadly, I was only able to find them located in Scotland and Sweden. I'm in the process of seeing if there are any places in the US that provide either of these options. I will choose one of these methods if my body is determined unfit for organ donation/scientific research. I see no reason why I should stop being useful after my death.

Good reading!