Blog | Eric Hendel

(Cover Artist: Ernst Haas) There's a way that Ursula Le Guin's 1971 novel The Lathe of Heaven is often described, and I want to start this review by talking about why this is a summary of this book which I disagree with. Generally, the way I've seen The Lathe of Heaven characterized is that it is the story of a man named George Orr, who believes that everything he dreams becomes real. Terrified of this power, George is assigned therapy with a psychiatrist named William Haber, who sets out to cure George of these (supposedly) delusional beliefs in his brain's ability to change the world. In time however Haber reveals himself to actually be a mad scientist with a god complex--a man obsessed with finding a way to manipulate the reality-bending power of George's dreams so as to remake the world in his own image. Soon, George realizes that he must do whatever he can to keep the power of his dreams from Haber's control, and in so doing protect the universe from h...

Myst: The Book of Atrus by Rand and Robyn Miller with David Wingrove

(Cover Artist: The Leonheardt Group) Some books end up succeeding not necessarily by the skill with which they were written, but instead the dedication and enthusiasm which the authors devote towards their work. Myst: The Book of Atrus is this sort of novel. While this is a story that often struggles with some awkward writing and occasionally stilted dialogue, there's nevertheless a genuinely original narrative at the core of this book that animates much of the resulting material. Written by sibling game designers Rand and Robyn Miller (along with the help of professional novelist David Wingrove), The Book of Atrus opens by introducing its title character, Atrus--a young boy living in the desert with his solitary grandmother, Anna. Set some 40-30 years before the events of the first installment in the video game series upon which this story is based (1993's Myst ), Atrus grows up in the shadow of a dormant volcano in an unnamed desert, and is raised on tales of th...

Lock In by John Scalzi

(Cover Artist: Peter Lutjen) I don't mean it as a bad thing when I say that the plot of John Scalzi's 2014 novel Lock In outwardly resembles that of a slightly tired TV crime drama. In fact, this is a major part of the book's charm. On the surface, Lock In is very unapologetically a noir-mystery centering around the exploits of a chain-smoking FBI agent struggling to solve a set of gruesome murders, with the novel's sci-fi elements manifesting via the fact that this otherwise familiar story is told (essentially) from the perspective of this woman's android coworker. Predictable to the crime-thriller genre, there is an elaborate plot-line involving murder and corporate espionage, and a long list of suspects whom the protagonists must investigate one by one as the mystery deepens. All the while, this story takes place within the context of a larger narrative involving hundreds of thousands of beings who, at least outwardly , appear to be sentient androids who in t...

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