The Gone-Away World (Nick Harkaway)

This post-apocalyptic tale is different from the ones I've been reading lately - it is much zanier, farther out, and still more human and believable than the others, not because the science is more convincing but because the people are. A fancy new weapon that makes your enemy Go Away is supposed to be clean, without fallout or collateral damage, but of course it doesn't work out that way - the whole fabric of reality is ruptured, creating monsters and turning dreams into reality, and swallowing up the real without a trace. In the midst of horror and death and destruction, it is the story of love and loyalty and finding truth. It is also about pirates, and ninjas, and mimes, and epic battles between good and evil. It also has a moment, about 2/3 of the way through, when absolutely everything goes sort of sideways, or maybe twists itself inside like a Mobius strip, and you spend a hundred or so pages wondering WTF very loudly before, amazingly, it all begins to make sense again. How could I not love this book!

Double Sin (Agatha Christie)

This collection of short stories is a mixture of classic Dame Agatha, including several Poirot mysteries and a couple of Marples, mixed in with a few strange, atmospheric mysteries of a darker type: a doll that haunts a dressmaker's shop, a medium who manifests a dead child physically. I've never been a great fan of short stories, and these are pretty typical of what one would expect.

The Waters Rising (Sherri Tepper)

A complex, fantastic tale of a post-apocalyptic land, after the Big Kill that resulted from the reckless use of technology. This world has talking animals (left over from genetic engineering experiments) and killing curses (from old biological weapons), and people drawn together by destiny to save humans from the rising waters and ancient killing machines. I found the mix of technology and fantasy unconvincing, along with the big underlying reality, which is that the waters are rising now not just because of climate change but because a huge icy comet that had been trapped in the earth when it originally formed had broached its boundaries, and the water it was made of was being squeezed out to drown the entire world, right up to the highest mountains. The solution to this problem didn't really convince me, either. So while it was a pleasant enough story, it didn't really work well for me.

Hull Zero Three (Greg Bear)

A mysterious, intriguing tale of a man who wakes up (or is created) on a giant interstellar ship in mid-voyage and must figure out what is going on. The ship is obviously damaged and malfunctioning: heat and gravity are erratic, monstrous things keep trying to kill him, and he is plagued by a faulty, untrustworthy memory. He finds others he thinks he can trust, and together they try to solve the mystery of the ship, its past and future. The mysteries were explained in the end, which made the story worthwhile. I enjoyed it, in a dark and frustrated kind of way. The author definitely accomplished what he set out to achieve.

The Cookbook Collector (Allegra Goodman)

This novel follows two sisters, their various lovers, their family (and their secret family) two different tech startups, neighbors, and assorted others as they deal with betrayals, secrets, the dot.com crash, September 11, and an amazing collection of classic cookbooks. The writing is lovely and the characters skillfully drawn, but the book seems unfocused and sprawling. I enjoyed it, but didn't love it.

Daemon (Daniel Suarez)

Matthew Sobol, a brilliant computer genius and online game designer, dies and unleashes the Daemon - an autonomous, web-based system that resides in bazillions of fragments distributed around the world, reading newsfeeds and responding to events in ways that he had pre-programmed, to make the world into what Sobol wanted. For example, he doesn't like spammers, so they are murdered in their thousands, and while I approve of the goal, I strongly disapprove of his methods. The Daemon is untraceable and unstoppable, because it is everywhere and nowhere and none of its many minions know its plans or what their part in those plans are. They get messages that, for instance, they are to go to X location, pick up an object from Y person, attach it to another object they already had, and deliver to Z person, and they never know why. I found the book frustrating, since the characters who were sympathetic and positive stand against the Daemon, but the overall message seemed to be that the Daemon is not only inevitable but is in fact a force for good overall. There's a cold calculus we are expected to accept, that the horrific murder of thousands (and the collateral deaths of more thousands who are in the wrong place at the wrong time) is OK because if the Daemon doesn't take over there will be a worse calamity in some abstract future. I also had trouble with the idea that one man's genius could really be that awesomely perfect, to have anticipated so much and planned in such detail as to be completely unstoppable. While the details of the technology are no doubt accurate and could really happen, no system is that perfect and free of bugs and glitches! So while I am glad I read this, and it gave me some interesting ideas to talk about, I didn't really enjoy it or buy it completely..