Fortunately, The Milk by Neil Gaiman

Review by Shwetha H S

Title: Fortunately, The Milk
Author: Neil Gaiman
Imprint: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9781408873021
Genre: Fiction, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Children, Young Adults

Neil Gaiman is not new to people already submerged in the literary world. But, for those who don’t know, let me quote The Times from the back cover of this book, Fortunately, The Milk: “Gaiman is the nearest thing children’s books have to a rock star. If you enjoy fantasy, he is irresistible.” Well, he is not limited to children’s books. Go on, explore his world. Many of his books are with illustrations by Chris Riddell. If Gaiman’s words spark the reader’s imagination, Riddell’s illustrations bring the imagination to life.

A mother goes to a conference leaving the father in-charge of their two children; a son, the eldest and a daughter, the youngest. They trio are fine on day one. The next day, there is no milk to have a decent breakfast. Off the father goes to buy milk. The children wait and wait and wait. When the father comes back and is questioned about the delay, he tells his children how he got caught up in time-travel and went back and forth to the past and the future with pirates, dinosaurs, tribals, a demi-god, precious stones, unicorns, vampires, dwarfs, aliens and, of course, a carton of milk that he bought. What is this new breakfast recipe instead of milk with Toasties? Do the children believe their father? It is for you to find out by reading the book.

I finished reading Fortunately, The Milk by Neil Gaiman in one go because I couldn’t put it down. As the Observer has made an observation and quoted, it is truly an entertaining story for adults and children alike. Chris Riddell’s illustrations are an added bonus. Anybody can pick it up to read and nobody would be disappointed.

Chipless by Kfir Luzzatto

Review by Shwetha H S

Chipless is a dystopian fiction by Kfir Luzzatto. The story is set in a dystopian society  where people are inserted with a chip at birth. This chip receives the signals transmitted by the people who are controlling this society inside a barricaded town or a city. All the people living inside this society catch the signals through the chip in them which makes them see and hear things that the control group wants them to hear and see. Though the actual situation of this society is such that they have lost all their natural resources and have destroyed nature, but through the chip people are manipulated to think that all is good and natural. But there is a group of rebels who have removed their chips and leave outside the society and can see the reality. The story involves Kal, a scientist with a chip inside him, and Amber, a rebel who has come into the society just to have some fun with the other informants in a cafe. And the story takes off when the police start to randomly interrogate, checking for the infiltrators among the chipped people. When Amber escapes the place suspiciously, Kal notices her and follows her, in turn becoming a suspect. Amber, without any other option, takes him to her rebels who show him what is the reality.

The narration seems like the reasonably fine first draft with all tell and no show leading to passive imagination. From the beginning, everything seems to be falling into place for Kal. He doesn’t face much conflict being a fugitive in a dystopian society. He is plain lucky and doesn’t work much to gain anything. Also, there are loopholes in the plot. For example, after helping Marion, another character, escape from the barn, how did Kal escape from the barn because he was pretending to be her? No explanation given there. As if he ported from inside the barn to outside.

I wouldn’t suggest anyone to read Chipless. Not worth the time.

Domechild by Shiv Ramdas

Review by Shwetha H S

Genre: Dystopian Fiction, Cyberpunk Sci-Fi
ISBN: 9780143332985
Imprint: Inked – Penguin Books, India

Shiv Ramdas is a former media professional who is now completely into writing.

Albert is too emotional for someone who is a resident of the Dome. In his dystopian world, one day when he is going back home after finishing talking to random people on the network, that is what everybody does for work, he takes a route that is forbidden for people of the city. There he finds a child, Theo, gets fatally attacked by her and her friends, saves her from patrolling robots, and rescues her by taking her to his home. Next day, he gets blackmailed by a data management computer. It wants to die, and it wants Albert to file a petition to the governing body to pull its plug. It tells him if he doesn’t do as told, it will inform everyone about him sheltering a fugitive. What does Albert do? He can’t send the girl away as she has no one. If he doesn’t listen to the computer, he dies along with the girl. Read Domechild to know what Albert finally does.

Theo’s anxiety of not living up to people’s expectations is what I could relate to as a reader. Her grandfather, Robert, is the guy whose genius is misused. Albert is the frustrated guy who is fed up of waiting for a Messiah.

Domechild feels more like a dystopian satire than a cyberpunk sci-fi. Narration is not grippy in the beginning for such a genre. Conversations between the characters don’t have emotions in them though present in the words. As a reader, the murder of Castor in the story did not have any effect on me. The story gets intense only after 3/4^th of the book is over. That is when you realize the dystopia of the book is not in the far future, but is the current time that we live in. Information is the dope that gives high here. Just like the useful and useless trivia that we find on our Facebook newsfeed. The concept here is about businesses run on pay-per-view income. Here technology has taken over everything. This is a clever dystopia by Shiv Ramdas. The dome here signifies the bubble. Burst the bubble to face the truth kind of situation. The concept of Information Epidemic is simply a marvelous concept. If not for anything else, the book is worth reading for the sake of this Information Epidemic. But in the end, it feels like the author has brought in assumptions of Albert in a hurried manner to bring book one to an end and establish that Albert is clever.

Domechild is not your regular dystopian fiction. You can relate to a lot of things even in the present day. Read it. That’s it.

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Review by Shwetha H S

Genre: Sci-Fi, Steampunk

Robert Louis Stevenson is known for his works that are not with the usual stories. He is more famous for Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

A new man in the town is being notorious and is instantly disliked by the residents. He is Mr. Edward Hyde. He has no regard for others. But what baffles Mr. Utterson is the link between his friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and this abominable man, Mr. Edward Hyde. Though the whole town hates Hyde, Jekyll likes him and this makes Utterson worry about his friend. Jekyll even writes his will in favour of Hyde. Meanwhile, Hyde murders a prominent person of the town and goes into hiding when everyone starts looking for him. With this turn of events, Jekyll revokes his own will and modifies it. He also detaches himself from his friends and refuses to see anyone. In a span of few days, the household of Dr. Jekyll is scared to the core and come to seek Utterson’s help in solving a mystery that turns out to be the shock of their lives.

As one of the firsts of its kind, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is a masterpiece in its own terms. Apart from a good story and the element of surprise, well, shock, the author has depicted diabolical nature of a human as well as his helplessness in the best way possible to cater to a reader’s mind. On the whole, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a good one-time read. Maybe you will read again and that will be only for the diary part of Dr. Jekyll which is towards the end of the story.

Loose Strings by Dr. Dale A Grove

Review by Shwetha H S

What would have happened if many of our eminent scientists had not died or deviated from their scientific aims in their lives? Humanity would have technologically developed, but not sure for good or bad. In another universe, a world called Regnus is highly developed, so developed that its citizens are at the dead end of any kind of technological development because they have exhausted themselves in every possibility. To stay as the most developed world of theirs as well as neighbouring universes, the History Security Officers are assigned the tasks of distracting scientists of different worlds and hindering them from reaching their goals. On one such mission, Regnus’ History Security Officer Rakena meets Dr. Wolfe Sterling, who is trying to save science on Earth. What happens to the history science on Earth? Does Rakena succeed in altering Earth’s scientific history? Will Dr. Wolfe Sterling resist the alien beauty’s ventures?

Loose Strings has a good storyline with multiple time travelling and travelling between universes, complex ideas of physics which you don’t need to understand in depth to enjoy the story. Since all the characters are humans and similar to humans, the reader doesn’t have to think about the complexities of the alien anatomy. But the problem is there are so many characters; even the supporting characters have their own supporting characters and storylines. The story is fast paced, but there are times when there are abrupt shifts from one scene to another, or a character doing something which wasn’t actually necessary or called for. But the only point that becomes difficult to accept is the element of God in the Sci-Fi novel. It almost becomes like preaching Christianity to the readers with the help of aliens. Dr. Dale A Grove lets the readers down when he starts talking about God.

Except for the God part, the novel must be for its unique time travel and multiverse travel story. Sci-Fi lovers will enjoy this if they ignore the sudden inclusion of the Almighty.

The Time Machine by H G Wells

Review by Shwetha H S

To see the downfall of the entity for whose prosper you and the generations before yours have toiled is like losing faith in your purpose. No matter what you do, things will eventually turn out the way they are meant to be. Even if you go back and forth in time using a time machine, what is going to happen, will happen. The way H G Wells makes you understand this concept is worthier than the whole concept of time travel this story of The Time Machine is based on.

Through The Time Machine, H G Wells paints a grim picture of how mankind digs its own grave, one inch at a time. When the protagonist, the time traveller, travels far into future i.e. 802,701 A.D to find a sickeningly beautiful and frighteningly suffocating Earth inhabited by humans who are unlike us. Why? For one, humans have branched into two sub-species; one Eloi who are beautiful, delicate and petite midgets, and other Morlocks who are no lesser than beasts. Evolution has taken the good out of all the attempts of this age humans to make an organized society. Rich have evolved into Eloi who are good for nothing and poor have evolved into dreaded Morlocks. So, how does this dystopian world, which is far removed from the futuristic world that we hope and are working towards, function? What happens to this time traveller who chances upon this era?

The images that H G Wells has managed to paint through his words are quite moving, but not disturbing in these times of internet when we have almost new catastrophes to see day in and day out. But, back in the days when The Time Machine was written and published, to provide a glimpse into a possible future without a crystal ball must have been amazing. This was done without any loopholes in the narration. Lucky was H G Wells for having born in those times when new concepts were sprouting and desired. And lucky was that time which could witness the rising of sci-fi, most of which has come true by now. The Time Machine by H G Wells is a classic sci-fi that should not be missed.

Chaos Company by Christopher Slayton

Reveiw by Cezan Koby

It took me more than a few attempts to read the book.  Right from the explosive start to…. In fact I don’t think the senseless killings makes any sense. Liam King is a sonofb@#$ and I hated his character from the beginning and I wished the bugger did die on the operating slab.  Routinely burning a hole in someone else chest for fun is deprived and bordering on psychotic serial killer on a cocktail of crack, meth, speed and toilet cleaner  yet the higher up’s executive decision to give him permanent lasting geno-human powers makes me want to smack their head, couple of times and then some more.  The chaos company dwindles as it fights on the good side. Desmond the leader is one of least charismatic  character. All the blood & gore was too much for me.  There is hardly a pause in the killings, and any resemblance of a storyline is overshadowed by a adolescent lust for murder, mayhem and hallucination. I gave up after my sixth attempt to complete the book.

The Chorus Effect by Russell Boyd

Review by Shwetha H S

The Chorus Effect by Russell Boyd is a book, the one and only book so far, that has made me say “okay” with a meh feeling, “Oh, did that just happen?” and made me sit at the edge of my seat and a day ago made me plead “please don’t be over, let this not end” with this book in my hand as I turned the last few pages of this infinite times wonderful book. Throughout the book, Russell Boyd made me wonder how did he even come up with such lines for particular situations, well, most of the situations. My inner voice revolted with the idea of this book coming to an end. I almost prayed for a happy ending for the first time when Russell Boyd said three of the characters will be dead by the end of the story. Yes, he actually did that. The churning of the heart is inevitable. Russell Boyd, I love you man.

The Chorus Effect comes with heavy comparisons, especially with The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. With the concept of parallel universe, this story, now nearest to my heart, also has a few characters in sets, that is one found in an artificial universe created by three awesome physicists from some other universe, and another set in our world. To top this all, you have an entity of artificial intelligence that runs this artificial universe in which these three physicists reside and that they have built from the scratch. This entity, named Chorus, which later turns into Katie, a beautiful woman from simulations run by the physicists on Chintz from our world. How Chintz, along with his cat named Platelet, enters this universe known only to the three scientists is for you to find out by reading this amazing story. What more do you have here? Chorus/Katie falls in love with Chintz. Yes, you read that right. Chorus is the epitome of artificial intelligence. Having a female voice, Chorus is omnipresent in the universe created by Dr. Mitch Morley, Sam and Nelda. It takes some time to understand that they all don’t belong to the same universe, but the similarities establish the concept of parallel universe.

Apart from that, I would like to tell you this. This book is not for stupid people, as in not for people who don’t understand jokes and sarcasm. I say this because in this book there is magic/science baby named Tonk that only says Fuswah, which eats a piece of glass at some point of time in the story. Referring to that, Russell Boyd gives a note at the bottom of the page saying “Do not, under any circumstances, feed broken glass to a baby without thoroughly sterilizing both the glass and the baby.” Whether you feed glass to the baby with or without sterilizing, the baby will die anyway. Stupid people will not understand this.

Throughout the novel, Chintz calls out the name Barbara whenever he goes into an uncertain area. There is no character in the story by that name. Instead you will find Caroline and Quincy. During simulations, Chorus creates characters by name Katie and Penelope when a character by name Barbara could be created. This keeps you wondering about what is happening.

This book tells you in its own way that when humans are forgetting how to love each other, it is the machines that are learning how to love. This joyous story might make you even cry because of Nelda, Sam, Dr. Mitch Morley, Chintz and Chorus/Katie. Platelet and Tonk will always be around in their cute way. You will miss each of them badly after reading the last lines of the story.

A is for Apocalypse (Edited by Rhonda Parrish)

Review by Venkatesha M

A collection of 26+1 short stories was the first reason to pick up this book for reading. As the name suggests stories were weaved around apocalypse genre. Each story in the book is different in its own way; few plots fit very well to be extended to full length novels. Each story is written by a different author and all together edited by Rhonda Parrish.

Themes vary from end of civilization, deadly disease, nuclear war, catastrophe, vampire, epidemic virus, music, immortal souls and many more. “U is for Umbrella” is one perfect match with apocalypse theme with contemporary storytelling. This is about a mother and her daughter during last few days before an asteroid hitting Earth. This story perfectly explains how a common man could think of end of the World in current situation. My favourite from the this book is “V is for Vellum” which talks about preserving knowledge for the next generation and also the importance of Hope. There are other aspects in this story which I would leave it to other readers to explore. “K is for Kickstarter” is a different one in which entire story is in form of online comments. I also liked “D is for Dosimeter” and “E for Earth station 6”.

I enjoyed reading all the stories from this book; interesting part is that the title is revealed at the end of respective story. Though you might feel that the mood is gloomy, you will be amazed with the way different authors have expressed the feelings in form of stories. This is a must read for those who would like to pick up a short story collection and also for those who love sci-fi fiction.

The God Thought by Dave Cravens

Review by Shwetha H S

First of all, somebody make this book into a movie. Second and last, I loved the theme of this book. It is difficult to pull off a story with a concept as this one if you have no knack of keeping the reader engaged. Dave Cravens has not dragged any aspect of this story, necessarily or unnecessarily.

The story is based on the idea of what happens if a layman acquires infinite power just by a thought that rose in the mind, a thought that is said to have been conceived to birth this universe, a thought called The God Thought. So, it is not enough to just have a concept for a story. You also need characters in it. Well, we have a fantastic array of characters whose special powers will amaze you; Oliver Wells, Pamela Chance, Dr. Janet Pharaoh, Mr. Trevor, Charlie, John Douglas and Marilyn Douglas. What do these characters do? They are trying to save the world from one another. How? By working for an organization that claims to strive for everyone’s wellbeing. Oh, really? Read the story to know more. This book has neatly sewn plot. Men in Black meet Harry Potter.

You will not regret reading this book. It keeps you gripped to itself. How I wish somebody turned it into a movie already….