Book reviews and ramblings

[bjornwilde]

  First up ORVIS by H.M. Hoover. A fun little all ages novella that really reminds my of short SciFi stories from the 60s and 70s when SciFI was still learning to fly. The story is more about the characters than the technology and the writing flows easily. The basic idea is that most humans live off world in space ships or space station colonies and rarely visit Earth anymore. The planet has mostly gone back to being wild but several cities still feature the high tech civilization one would expect in a SciFi story. Toby and Thaddeus (two of the main characters) are from off world but their parents, for various reasons, leave them on Earth at a boarding school which is self sufficient. The two meet an old, self aware robot named ORVIS which freaks out the adults who demand it be destroyed. ORVIS has had its memory erased but enough clues exist to convince the adults that the robot is an ex-military model and thus potentially dangerous, especially as it's sentient.

The kids decide to save the robot by giving it to Toby's great grandmother whom lives on Earth (she's seen as a embarrassing eccentric by the rest of the family) but along the way they get stranded in the wilds of Earth. Now the two space born kids and ORVIS must make their way with their own two feet, or spider like legs, as the case may be and travel more than one hundren miles to Toby's great grandmother.

 Next is Catherynne M. Valente's Deathless and where to begin? At it's most basic, this is an old Russian folktale set at the beginning of the Soviet Union. I have a soft spot for Russian folktales so I have been waiting for this book but what's really nice is the author writes...no weaves the traditional wording and pace of the folktale into a modern story and makes it flow. There is no abrupt change from old phrasings (think of how often 'Dawn's rosy fingers' is used by Homer) and the modern story. Some examples are how the Domonvoi have embraced Communism, deciding everything by comity yet still cling to the personal items of their respective families.

I'm about half way through at this point but the story seems to center on the transformation of the main character, Marya Morevna, into being a worthy bride for Koschei the Deathless. I suspect the story isn't going to be this clear cut and that Marya has a surprise or two in store for the reader and Koschei. If you love folktales, and not just Russian folktales, pick this up.