Rex’s reviews of anything (but mostly books)

They called themselves “the Atoners,” but they didn’t tell anyone for what they should atone. They first made themselves known to humans in 2020, seeking recruits, young volunteers to be “Witnesses.” That’s when they first made themselves known, but it wasn’t the first time they’d interacted with  human beings – the first time was about 10,000 years ago… when they did “it” — “it” being whatever sin for which the Atoners came to Earth seeking expiation. They won’t say what it is; they won’t even show themselves to anyone. Every transaction with Earth is carried out as if by remote control, including the “interviews” to select their twenty-one Witnesses.

Meet Lucca, Cam, and Soledad: one among seven sets of three Witnesses. This particular trio has been transported in an Atoner ship to the Kular system, where Cam will observe Kular A and Lucca will observe Kular B. The binary planets are populated by the descendants of humans uprooted from Earth millennia ago by those who now call themselves the Atoners. The Witnesses have no idea what they’re supposed to witness, but they’ve been told that they’ll know it when they see it…
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America – or the vast majority of it – disappeared off the face of the world on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in this overblown thriller by John Birmingham. Some inexplicable… something… covered most of the North American continent, and – in the wink of an eye – all mammalian life within the continental US except western Washington (along with hunks of Canada and Mexico) turned into small splotches of stinky goo. The next few weeks find hardy – and, of course, violent – folks collecting themselves to build some kind of new world order. What that might be, readers of Without Warning will not know until (at the very earliest) 2010, when Birmingham churns out a sequel to this wad of rubbish. In deference to my library, I didn’t write all over the book; but I did write a warning to all and sundry on a PostIt® and pasted it to page one. Never let it be said that I don’t try to help out my fellow man (and woman).

On its surface, Without Warning appears to be about the lives of a widely-scattered group of survivors – Americans in Gitmo, Iraq, Paris, Seattle, and Acapulco – who (according to the unwritten rules of bad post-apocalyptic fiction) will most assuredly meet up somewhere in Book Two to form a perfect society. Or maybe it’ll be in Book Three – all I know is that I won’t be there to see it happen.

Instead of an interesting novel about the near end of the world (like, for example, Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, or Pat Frank’s Alas Babylon), Without Warning is little more than  512 endless, gut-wrenchingly dull pages of gratuitous violence; pneumatic (and ultraviolent) women; and drool-splattered, ultratech descriptions of weapons ranging from handguns to triggers for nuclear device. As far as the people themselves might be concerned, however, their backstories are non-existent and the various characters are about as well-developed (not to mention stereotypical) as they might be in a kindergarten fairy tale. Consider, for instance, the violent redneck Fifi, daughter of Larry Flynt’s first “Hustler” girl; whose idea of a good time is firing RPGs at cigarette boats. And then there’s Jules (Julianna, mind you), every bit as beautiful, stacked, and brutish as Fifi – and Caitlin, a spy/assassin/whatever, fully capable of kicking the hineys of half a dozen snipers even with a tumor growing inside her brain. Oh, yes, Birmingham’s nothing if not realistic. I should’ve known: he thinks Corona is good beer.
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The 3 Rs used to mean “Readin’, Writin’, and ‘Rithmetic”; these days it’s more “reduce, reuse, recycle.” Now on the cusp of his seventies, scifi legend (multiple Hugo, multiple Nebula winner) Larry Niven seems to be confusing the two versions – instead of “writin’,” he’s begun “recyclin’.”

Niven and his Fleet of Worlds co-author, Edwrd Lerner, collaborate once more on Juggler of Worlds. The new novel takes place in the same time frame as Fleet, making Juggler likewise a prequel to Niven’s classic Ringworld. Juggler’s action, however, takes place mainly in Known Space, setting of dozens of Niven short stories written decades ago. Therein, as the Bard might say, lies the rub…
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Only weeks shy of her nineteenth birthday, Carmen Dula will embark on what may well be the most extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey in human history. Along with her parents and younger brother Card, Carmen will travel to the new world. That’s new world, literally: Carmen is Marsbound. The spunky teen has quite a journey ahead of her, a journey in more than merely the 90-plus million-mile spatial sense: she is destined to complete the process of becoming an adult as one of only 100 or so humans living in a tiny bubble of Earth’s environment on an inhospitable world; a world where a single misstep could mean disaster.

Her plans for her next six years include lots of “normal” things, like college degrees and first love. Her plans for the next six years don’t include some of the events that Fate has lined up for her, however. If making history means “being the Right person in the Right place at the Right time,” Carmen Dula is about to get a galactic-class education in the 3 Rs! Read the rest of this entry »