Deus ex machina

Deus ex machina

I just like this phrase. I will tease you with this phrase. At one point in the book "Ready Player One" this comes into play. I recently listened to the book on CD version of this with Wil Weaton as the narrator. He does a pretty good job, but I would have preferred a full cast recording with sound effects by the BBC Radio. Did you read that BBC? Get on that.

I was also thinking about the Percy Jackson series and how the gods sometimes tweak the outcome of events.

Wither: The Chemical Garden Trilogy

Wither: The Chemical Garden Trilogy
by
Lauren DeStefano
young adult/adult science fiction/romance

Sixteen year old Rhine lives in a society after a great catastrophe. Scientists had figured out how to engineer embryos to live long lives and be perfect human beings, but something went dreadfully wrong and now women only live to be 20 and men only live to be 25. In addition, the world's land has been wiped out except for the U.S.A.
Rhine is living a meager existence with her brother when she is kidnapped and forced to marry a rich architect. Will Rhine resign herself to a life of relative luxury, but with a lack of freedom or will she try to escape?
This story is well told and suspenseful, but the science behind it is definitely lacking. There is some kind of mention of a virus causing people to die, but this doesn't make sense. Is it genetic or a virus? Also, it doesn't make sense that the world except the U. S. A. would be underwater. Elevations of land vary greatly across the globe. As far as I know North America is not the highest continent above sea level.
If we suspend the science part, this is a good tragic romance, teen angst tale. I am waiting for the 2nd and 3rd books to come out since a lot of things are left unresolved at the end of book 1.
The cover and interior design are clever - alluding to genetic tables with the headers, footers, and chapter marks.
The title of the series isn't very appealing. Who came up with "Chemical Garden Trilogy"?

NoMANSland

NoMANSland
by
Lesley Hauge
young adult science fiction

Keller is a young woman who is learning her career. She is a border guard on an island after some kind of horrible disaster. Civilization has collapsed and humankind has ended up deformed and mutated. Somehow an island of strong women was shielded from this genetic catastrophe and has formed a closed society where only women may dwell. Hauge obviously has modeled the society after the mythical Amazons.
Men are not welcome on the island and they do not trade with the outsiders. New girls are added to the society by some kind of bringing of the Seed. We assume this is some kind of frozen sperm.
Not everyone embraces such a strict, conformist society and can the women continue on like this? Are changes in order? They are fearful that their pure society will end up perishing.
This is in the YA section of my library, but some parents may object to their children reading this kind of book. It is violent and cold blooded at times. The main character is rather rigid as she observes the world around her. She and her friends dabble with the forbidden concepts of friendship and femininity, but are largely repulsed by them.

X-Isle

X-Isle
by
Steve Augarde
Young adult science fiction

The world has been flooded. A few people survive. A boy and his father are barely surviving. There is a rumor that there is an island where boys can work to earn their keep. The father manages to get his son on a boat to the island. On island the boys have to work very hard in a salvage operation led by a minister and his scuba diving sons. This is no pleasant mission field, though. It is more like "Lord of the Flies". It is survival of the fittest on the island. The boys make alliances and plot to overthrow the despot. This was a tense, stay-up-to-read-it book.
This is a British book and there were a number of words that I didn't know, but I didn't want to take a break in the action to look them up.

Margarets

Margarets
by
Sheri Tepper
Adult Science Fiction

I saw this book on a number of Best lists, but when I browsed it I saw that the author used a lot of sci fi weird names, so that put me off. Do you know what I mean? Weird sci fi names use the K' and T' and a whole lot of consonants in a row like a Slavic language.
Since it had been highly recommended, I decided to try it anyway. The plot is original and fascinating. One girl - Margaret - somehow splits off into being 7 different people on 7 colonies of Earth. In the end, the Margarets must work together to combat a great evil that threatens to wipe out humanity. The discussable part is how we can become different people based on the decisions we make about our lives. One Margaret marries a doctor and they go off to be medical missionaries on a low tech planet. One does not marry. They then become two different people.
This is a very rewarding book, but I would not recommend it to people who don't like sci fi already. Not everyone enjoy the cat aliens, the waygates, and other sci fi machinations.