Long after our civilization has disappeared, a strange new age arises from the ruins...
This is DARC AGES.
https://www.amazon.com/DARC-AGES-Book-One-Illustrated/dp/1520157495/
#darcages #scifi #books #literature #bookseries #postapocalyptic #postapocalypse #adventure #starwars #spaceopera #dune #postapocalypticfiction
Book review:
I, ROBOT (1950) by Isaac Asimov
An enormously influential classic.
This book is a collection of short stories published between 1940 and 1950, connected by the common theme of how intelligent, benevolent robots enter human society and gradually gain more influence. .
In these early robot stories, Asimov introduced the Three Robot Laws - a programming which (presumably) prevents robots from becoming a menace. The Three Laws have since become a common trope in the SF genre. .
You can read I, ROBOT mainly as a series of detective stories where the prime suspects are robots, and the human investigators must figure out the logical explanation of a robot "malfunction."
These robot mysteries are entertaining, but seem rather simplistic today. (And the depiction of female characters have in some cases aged badly.)
I enjoyed I, ROBOT when I was a kid. I've been asking myself: is it "relevant" today? Perhaps, because robots really are starting to enter our daily lives - though not quite in the way Asimov imagined in the 1940s.
One issue I have with the robots depicted in I, ROBOT is that they are just too flawless to be believable. This has become much more glaring after the year 2000, when real nanocomputers, "expert systems" and self-driving vehicles are being developed.
We can see clearly now that in the real world such machines would "fail" a lot more than the author allowed them to do. The complexity of the real world could frequently overwhelm even the most "logical" robot. (Don't get me started on how an Asimovian robot might handle the infamous "Trolley Problem"!)
Recommended only as light entertainment from the days of old, but should not be taken seriously now.
#asimov #isaacasimov #irobot #bookstagram #scifi #sciencefiction #book #literature #bookreview #bookreviews #bookcover #bookcovers #bookstagrammers #bookbloggers #reviews #robots #ai #artificialintelligence
Jag har skrivit historier sedan jag gick i skolan. Jag började med noveller, och det tog lång tid innan jag var redo att skriva en hel roman.
Sedan 2004 har olika förlag gett ut mina romaner och antologier/tidskrifter där mina noveller ingår.
A collection of space opera, pastiche, short shockers and humorous tales. Available in paperback & ebook format.
THE
ROT (2014) by Siri Pettersen (Book 2 of the RAVEN RINGS trilogy)
(Original title: RÅTA)
I have read the original Norwegian
edition of Book 1 in this series (see my review of it HERE) .... and it was so good, I felt
compelled to read Book 2 as well.
Instead of spoiling the plot
– which moves very rapidly, almost like a thriller with fantasy
elements – let's focus on what's going on underneath the
surface.
So: what is THE ROT ”about?”
I would say
it is mainly about the protagonist Hirka maturing. She goes from
merely surviving and being hunted to actually taking charge - and in
the process of maturing, she ”gets her hands dirty.”
She
has to fight, kill, deceive, make hard choices, think ahead, accept
unpleasant truths about others and herself, and figure out what she
really wants. She realizes that the line between good and evil is not
always easy to see, that people are complicated, emotions are messy, and she comes to
seriously doubt what she knows.
These are all good metaphors
for coming to terms with adult life.
Another major theme is
confronting the ”alien” - for example, strange beings that are
thousands of years old and may be impossible to understand. But also
when Hirka visits our ”real world” and experiences it as alien,
afflicted with some deep sickness or lack.
There's also an
interesting subtext about religion in THE ROT that I don't want to
spoil by telling too much. Suffice to say, quite a lot is going on
between the lines there.
The only part of THE ROT I struggled
with was how the magical qualities of the fantasy world related to
the ”real world” that Hirka entered. Why precisely was there less
magic in the ”real world” than in the fantasy world she left
behind? I wish that part had been a bit easier to follow (but then,
I'm not used to reading modern fantasy literature).
This is
obviously the second part in a trilogy, and with that comes typical
”middle-of-the-story” issues. You have to
have read Book 1 first to make sense of Book 2, and you are expected
to read Book 3 afterwards.
THE ROT reads like a tense ”urban
fantasy” thriller with many surprises and plot twists. It gets
quite dark and violent – but definitely not boring.
I
wholeheartedly recommend THE ROT - if you have read the first book in
the series. (I will have to read Book 3 to see how the story works
out...)
#bookstagram #bookreview #bookreviews #bookbloggers #bookcover
#fantasy #siripettersen #fantasybooks #bookseries #ravenrings
#ravneringene
