Rancid

A.I. Destroyer by Vaughn Heppner My rating: 2 of 5 stars At the beginning it seem it was going to be a good book like Heppner other series (Lost Ship) series. But it didn't make sense for an individual who likes hard science fiction. In short you have an AI that have conquered many civilization and can't beat a marine Sargent? Also Heppner "borrow" about every idea out there from every single sf series out there. all he does is change the name. Example, one character is called a "mentalist". This character is a mix of a Mentat from Dune, a Vulcan from Trek. etc. He does this a lot, which takes away from the story. View all my reviews

The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack My rating: 4 of 5 stars If one is a fan of the Star Trek universe and has already seen the series, Picard. The book "Star Trek, Picard: The best Last Hope." it's a very good book to read. It is a prequel to the TV series and it has a very good explanation of why Picard resigned from Starfleet. Many of you who do read a lot of Star Trek novels are aware that Star Trek normally reflects the social-economical cultures of the current time that we live in. This book is no exception. It deals with the following: Unforeseen natural disasters. Migration due to natural disasters and climate change. Political instability. Novel technologies to aid in rectifying the effects of natural disasters, and their misuse. En Fin, to understand the Picard series TV drama this book is a must to read. View all my reviews

Faith by John Love My rating: 4 of 5 stars A unique story even for science fiction. It is a military science fiction story, but the way the plot goes will definitely play with your head. Many readers enjoy trying to determine in what direction the plot will go. Don't try it, (but you will if you decide). Each character who is a member of the ship "Charles Manson" is...well... insane but they are geniuses. The book promo goes like this: ==Faith. Moby Dick meets Duel in John Love's...== No, not even close. As for the hard science you have: * Realistic aliens, one species are asexual they reproduce by pathogenesis. Another alien species is a herbivore and are the dominant species on a planet of carnivores. * Unique Weapons, as mentioned in other blog summaries every author wants to distinguish themselves. The same goes for FTL drives. Social sciences: * Social deviants due to childhood abuse independent of their background. They are the ultimate weapon. It reminds me

Terms of Service: Subject to change without notice by Craig Stanfill My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is a unique story. It is kind of a slow read at the beginning. One may even stop reading it. I know I would have. But I was interested in the computer science of artificial intelligence. So I kept on reading. Once you get involved with the plot and the aspect of how artificial intelligence is used you may find it fascinating. In fact, what you read in the book is very close to how artificial intelligence is used today. I hate to say this, but the book does hit on the "woke" Society of today as well. So I guess it may be said that's social sciences is also part of the book. As for the science, this is what you may find. * Artificial intelligence. * Smart appliances: -House-bots. -Refrigerators microwave combo. The appliance decides for you what are your nutritional needs and feed you even when you don't like the menu. * Virtual reality. Total immersion. The Orwellian

Hello there... In regards to the Lost starship series. I have already read books three and four. No doubt it gets better, but it gets boring, in the sense that the story is good but the author builds up old subjects. It almost seems the plot becomes predictable. The author and I'm not criticizing him in a negative way probably grabs every science-fiction concept out there and mash them together. Now if you don't know the science and hard science fiction, go on with the series but if you do know the science and hard science fiction you can see the holes in this plot. Here are some of his borrowed concepts" 1) The better chess player Theory. "there will always be a player that is better than you even if you're the top of your class. You haven't found him yet". The author builds on his previous concepts. 2) The unhackable AI. "if somebody wrote the program somebody else can hack it" 3) Imposter androids, "I leave this on for you to f

Good Morning.. It is 4:15 am I had some difficulties sleeping. But I know why. Last night I was talking to a good friend, who is now a ministerial servant. This brother was at one point in his life was being trained to be a CO, and his wife betrayed him. it happens, He had to struggle for 7 years to get back on his feet. He is still a young brother in comparison to myself. when I served as an Elder I knew his case personally and I was against the way his case was handled in other congregations. I won't go into details, but the Branch stepped in and now things are going better for him. What I've learned, it is not the organization. It is the imperfect individuals in it. Having responsibilities can get to ones head. More so if one does not have any external or secular authority outside of the congregation. I do have and had certain authority outside the congregation as a senior technician today, a manager in my youth, and a supervisor and other lead roles. I tried never to let t

The Lost Command by Vaughn Heppner My rating: 2 of 5 stars The Lost Command. Book II Of The Lost Starship series. The hard science subjects here are: Genetic Engineering. Long and short-term interstellar travel. Imprinted engrams AI. Ancient alien artifacts. Same topics as book one. One thing I did observe. The expansion of the human race. This has also been the topic of many science fiction stories. Once there was a way to achieve FTL colonization of exoplanets that are Earth-like the human race will unite to get to space then go on their separate ways. In this book, you can see this covered. So far I have noticed socio-political systems. You have the "commonwealth", "Wahabi Caliphate", "Brahma" and others. These systems make a grandiose effort to keep their culture religion and belief systems. We run into the Axiom: " the more things change the more thing stays the same" Of course, you have a genetically engineered new species of human calle

The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke My rating: 2 of 5 stars I think this is the second time that I have read this novel. It is hard science fiction no fantasy etc. As always if you need a summary of the plot. Google is your friend. As with all my reviews, my interest is in the science that fascinates me. Here are some of the highlights from this book. Seed ships Cryogenics Long-term space travel. Engineering. Politics. Undersea primitive alien life forms. If you had the opportunity to read the book or the summary. You will find it quite fascinating how a group of scientists work through the centuries to save the human race from dying. [What I learned about this event in the real world and that this was a concern during Arthur C Clarke. However, it was explained what was really going on inside the sun so we don't have to worry about the sun blowing up in a few thousand years] The first thing they did was to send out embryonic seed ships. Then they sent out DNA seed shi

Hello if you're reading this is because I am out of Facebook jail, it has been a month. I think being in Facebook jail shows you who your real friends are. I would like to thank all those who have made an effort to be in contact with me for the last 30 days. I am grateful, first to God then my wife, and a few of you. You know who you are so I'm not going to mention names. The social media Facebook has been altered and changed to the point that from my point of view is no longer usable or viable. I won't use it much. Some of the groups that I belong to have gone South. Let's be honest, Facebook as I said before, uses its members as a product and like any corporation they want to have the best product(your data) available people are willing to buy. They have engaged in heavy social engineering toward that goal. I am not going to go on a long rant if you don't get what I wrote above, I really do feel sorry for you. To my friends on JW blue the ancient list of the_f

The Lost Starship by Vaughn Heppner My rating: 3 of 5 stars The Lost Starship by Vaughn Heppner. This book has qualities of hard science fiction. No fantasy or magic. * Alien AI * Stardrives * Genetic engineering * Evolution * Weapons technology It is a typical science fiction book that starts off a series. I will not get into the plot of the book that could be found in a Google search. I am interested in science about the "alien AI". Can we really call it an AI? In the book, this particular AI of the alien's starship possesses the engrams of the original captain. This would explain the unbalanced personality of the expert system running the ship. For those of us in computer science, a program is only as good as the programmer who wrote it. In this case, the alien race found a way to attach and upload memory into a computer system this, of course, is not a new concept but it is an interesting one. As far as StarDrive goes, every author seems to want to invent their own

Weight of the Heart by Rosa Montero My rating: 3 of 5 stars Weight of the Heart (Bruna Husky book 2) by Rosa Montero Here are my thoughts on the book. It took me about a week to read the book. I was on a work assignment so I had some free time. It is a second book from a trilogy. On this occasion, I read the book in English. The original book is written in Spanish. I read it in English because I am cheap as dirt. I am multilingual so I shouldn't have a problem. However, The person who wrote the intro to the book in English. Should have done their research. The intro goes like this: "Part human and part robot, private investigator Bruna Husky..." Bruna Husky, it's not a cyborg she's a replicant a flesh-engineered creation that comes from the Phillip k. Dick universe. The promo then says: "Traveling from a distant planet populated by an extreme religious sect to landscapes destroyed by rising sea levels..." Uh... No. She does not travel to a distant wor

Good afternoon, I am writing to you from here in Long Island City. Long Island City is a section of Queens which is a borough of New York City. Queen is actually on Long Island the same as Brooklyn. I bet you didn't know that. Anyway this morning I went out with a brother and my wife to the diner before the meeting. And we were addressing our age and where we stand in our organization today. One of the things I talk about was maybe I should return to university just to keep my mind busy, a sense of purpose. But then reality kicks in. I did not do well the last time When the state sent me to college. In fact, I ended up with a Linux certificate and that was because the college was being merciful with me. They have to show the state that their programs work. One thing we did notice; the brothers and sisters inside our area have a tendency to be offended very easily. Not just in our area, I have observed it is becoming a trend. When one makes a factual observation and associate

Death's End by Liu Cixin My rating: 5 of 5 stars These are my thoughts on the novel Death's End by the Chinese writer Liu Cixin. I have to say, when it comes to hard science fiction this novel is right at the top or very close. It concludes the trilogy of "Remembrance of Earth's Past". One really has to take their time reading this book and also has to have read the first two books of the trilogy. In addition, one should be familiar with the latest and greatest theories in physics and astrophysics. The only real issue I have against the book is the inability of the author to conclude his plot. It gave me the impression that once he had out all his views and science points covered he couldn't really find a valid reason to finish off the book. He did finish it, but the conclusion of the plot was just weak. One of the reasons that I came to that conclusion, could be my bias against philosophy and beliefs that I am not very familiar with. The book was written i

Good morning from the wonderful city of Camden New Jersey. It is 9:40 a.m. I took my meeting yesterday from Mexico it was an interesting meeting and I enjoy the Watchtower Study. I haven't seen a Watchtower Study like this in a long time at least for me was relevant. And talking about Myself. Dan Burgess mentioned something that hasn't occurred to me. He made me realize that I have lost my sense of purpose. Since a young child, my focus has always been to accomplish the task given to me or achieve a goal. I'm not going to rant about my upbringing mostly you guys already know it. But it is true, I have no sense of purpose but I do have an acute sense of perceiving what is real (The Arm-chair scientist in me). Because I have no sense of purpose, I consider everything that I have done in the past to be a total loss. It is like inputting data in a template of an Excel sheet. The template only functions if there's data in it. If you erase the final sum or product of th

Eternals: To Defy the Apocalypse by Charles Knauf My rating: 3 of 5 stars I think this the end to the story of the dreaming celestial. I don't read Marvel much. I actually followed Jack Kirby with this series. The Eternals were created by Jack Kirby, and made their first appearance in The Eternals #1 (July 1976). In 1970, Jack Kirby left Marvel Comics to work at DC Comics, where he began the saga of the New Gods, an epic story involving mythological and science fiction concepts, and planned to have a definite ending. However, the saga was left incomplete after the cancellation of the titles. Kirby then began working on The Eternals when he returned to Marvel. The Eternals' saga was thematically similar to the New Gods' I also read and still continue to read the New Gods. View all my reviews

Lágrimas en la lluvia by Rosa Montero My rating: 4 of 5 stars Like Tears in the Rain" by Rosa Montero. I read the book in the original language which is Castilian. Here are my thoughts on the first book of a trilogy that was recommended by a friend. My friend is an author in her own rights. She has recently tasted science fiction and is enjoying it. So I won't spoil things for her :-). The story is based on the Philip K Dick Universe. He was a very interesting author with serious mental issues. Nobody perfect, you will see these issues in his writings and books. The entire setting for this particular book branches out from his novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". It was later Rewritten as Blade Runner and continuous in Blade Runner 2049. There have also been various books written stemming from that universe; not all of them follow a sequential timeline. In the original book, The Androids were made using organic material, this is a contradiction of the defi

The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Cat Who Walks Through Walls... Robert A. Heinlein As I read more of his novels, I realize we are walking into a multiverse. A more realistic multiverse. In fact, Wiki calls it the Heinlein multiverse. In a previous book, I read from the author "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" We read about a computer/AI that became a singularity (self-awareness) The AI-assisted with freeing the moon from the subjection of the Earth. The singularity has many names. In the "mistress" book it is named Mike but it is also known as Adam Seline. In "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" there is a human group that belongs to "The Circle". Their purpose is to of course better the human race in all the timelines where humans exist, even though the histories of each timeline do not match up (a real characteristic of a multiverse from a physics point of view.) In this particular novel, to accompl

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein My rating: 2 of 5 stars (just a note I use voice to text because I have a neurological disorder it becomes difficult for me to type, sad to say that's a program that I am using will put capitals in the wrong places the program may believe that I am speaking a title where a sentence of few words need to be capitalized it's become tiresome to me to hunt these down, therefore, I ask your forgiveness for my improper grammar) My thoughts on the Novel. Like many other science fiction novels that have to do with colonies, this one is no exception to the rule. In dozens of sci-fi stories, the plot is basically the same colonies separate from the planet that spawned them; in this particular novel the colony is about the Moon, of course, they called themselves Lunies from Luna. It is an entertaining novel but it is not spectacular. I have read many of Heinlein's books, and he seems fascinated with group marriages, or as we know it

Revolt in 2100 by Robert A. Heinlein My rating: 3 of 5 stars Revolt in 2100 is a 1953 science fiction collection by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, part of his Future History series. Interestingly when one looks at social political items in sci-fi what comes to mind is Isaac Asimov with his foundation series We know his foundation series is based on the Roman Empire and the decay from within. Robert Heinlein talks about the future in the United States. It's interesting because in the United States you have a lot of different groups of people that have different philosophies. Religion, Science and Atheism, etc. Heinlein wrote stories for his series in the middle of the 1940s and thought about what would happen if the United States became a theocracy. The short novel, "If This Goes On is a story about a rebellion against The theocracy. Wiki writes this " The Story served as the vehicle for Heinlein to criticize the authoritarian potential of Protestant Christian fun

Neuromancer by William Gibson My rating: 3 of 5 stars My thoughts on Neuromancer. Neuromancer was written by William Gibson, of course, if one looks up Google and Goodreads you would probably see all the all reviews about the story. This is your classical cyberpunk story. Wiki defines cyberpunk: "Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of low-life and high tech"[1] featuring advanced technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with a degree of breakdown or radical change in the social order" In fact, Neuromancer actually throws cyberpunk into a subgenre of science fiction. Cybernetics is a way of life, the interconnection of the artificial and the organic is combined very well. The author creates new terminology to define certain aspects of a cybernetic world. For example, the term 'Construct' is used to describe the person

Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book remind me of the biblical account of Joseph. Which brings up the age-old question where do science fiction authors get their ideas? Doing some research, Heinlein said he was inspired by Rudyard Kipling. I made the comparison with the biblical account of Joseph because of the similarities. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and he passed from owner to owner until he became the slave of the Pharaoh and later on became an important person... the second in command of all of Egypt. The main character of Heinlein was sold into slavery at a very young age was also passed from owner to owner and with time he was the heir of space ship construction company. The sub genre of this type of science fiction story is called juvenile, I guess today it is known as young adult science fiction like The hunger Games or Divergent. It is a good story and it is entertaining I would definitely recommend it to young adul

Now back to the issue of moderation and censorship which I did not even touch in the first part. There's one basic rule on the internet. "Nothing is private." The second rule is, everything is logged and recorded. The social networks of today are private entities; the technical name for them is Intranets. simplified it's just a big large chat room with a sophisticated name. Its sole purpose is communication. What about advertisers? If you think about it, they are communicating with you with the prospect of selling you a product. The advertisers pay good money to companies that are running social networks. Not all social networks are funded by advertisers. I am not going to get into the complexities of these companies. I do know how they work and function because as you know I worked in a company that was the backbone of the internet for many years. There is no such thing as freedom of speech in these companies, not one. They may claim it to get people to join the

On the issue of censorship and moderation. Most of you know I've been working on the internet or have worked on the internet before the internet became public and commercial (1989-2001), during my time with Sprint international that later became Alcatel. I created the JW mailing list known as The_folder. It was the second oldest JW mailing list on the internet. Most of the friends on the list worked and were heavy into technology; they knew how the technology worked. The membership exceeded 500. Many of the members were from different Bethels around the world; we had brother who had privileages and were prominent on that list some still are others dropped away. Those were the good old days when we kept just spiritual guidelines and the people who were on the list are mostly as I mentioned before, engineers and technicians with a certain focus and mindset. I was an Systems Test Commmunication Tech and network administrator. Not like today's definition of the network administra

The Far Shore of Time by Frederik Pohl My rating: 3 of 5 stars "The Far Shore of Time is a science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl. It concludes The Eschaton Sequence and the adventures of Dan Dannerman, an American government agent of the near future who becomes involved with the discovery of advanced and warring aliens." (wiki) The focus again is the technology, which is described in my last two review of the series or sequence is the ability to make copies of anything and transmit that information to reconstruct the object elsewhere at FTL almost as fast as Quantum Entanglement, the method used is Tachyons. Think of it as a 3D printer/startrek transporter. The difference is one can make multiple copies of living or inanimate objects. Some copies can be sent to different parts of the universe, the only set back is that there must be a receiver at the destination. The conveyance carrying the receiver doesn't have FTL capabilities. The Question here is h

The Siege of Eternity by Frederik Pohl My rating: 2 of 5 stars This book continues the Eschaton series, yeah you going to see that in the header. There really isn't much to say in this second book. All we know that two civilization is at war and the earth is just one of many civilizations where it has been targeted for assimilation to the "Beloved Leaders" empire. the interesting part is thru out the series is the Eschaton. I decided to look it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_time At least 2 advanced races/species are fighting to see who will rule... eternity. Frederick Pohl apparently believed in the Big Crunch theory and expressed his concept in this series the advanced species have given religion to the subjected races or species the other side's beliefs are not so credible. Their religion is very similar to Human beliefs of an afterlife which are present in the majority of cultures on our planet. In the end, the winning species and their allies or subject

The Other End of Time by Frederik Pohl My rating: 3 of 5 stars This the second time I read this book. In truth, I do remember bits of the first time. As I was reading it, some memories did come back. I remember the technology. Travel by tachyons cloning. The theory is the slowest a tachyon can travel is the speed of light. A computer breaks down anything into information and then transmit the information from one portal to another at the maximum speed a tachyon can travel. (billions of lightyears in a second. The drawback is sending the portal from one location to another. If the advanced civilization is sending a portal from one location to another, it must be done physically. There is no FTL in this series so the trip is under or at the speed of light. A trip may take thousands of years. Once the portal arrives at its destination, travel between the portals is almost instantaneous. Another aspect, remember (if you are familiar with Star Trek TOS) How Dr. McCoy did not like transpo

Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott My rating: 2 of 5 stars It is a space opera, more about SJW female empowerment. It is entertaining. The hierarchy in this novel is female based. The Empire is led by a queen Marshall and she can have many consorts. These marriages are for political reasons. The only interesting things that I saw with the book as I was reading had to do with what is called the "Banner soldiers". The banner soldiers are supposed to fight to the death because they are genetically created this way. It reminds me of the Jem Hadar from the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine. They were genetically-engineered to serve as shock troopers for the Dominion and were feared throughout the galaxy as the brutal face of Dominion oppression. Aggressive and independent, yet honorable, the Jem'Hadar were kept loyal to their creators by means of a congenital addiction to the Founder-controlled drug ketracel-whit. (trek wiki) Would I recommend anybody to read this book well i