Storytime With Venessa: Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies

Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies by Andrea Beaty is about twins, Joules and Kevin, who have been sent to Camp Whatsitooya while their parents attend the annual SPAM convention. All is normal at camp until strange happenings begin to occur: missing candy, camp counselors acting strangely, large amounts of marshmallow fluff ordered and served to the campers. It’s up to Joules and Kevin, along with Nelson, a fellow camper, to figure out what is happening and try to save the other campers and the world from the Fluffs!

While I participated in the Science Fiction Experience, I thought it would be fun to find a book I could read to Venessa that fit in as well. Here is Venessa talking about how much she liked the book and I’ll follow with my opinion.

(Disclaimer: Things get a bit… out of hand. And we are in no way Detroit Tigers fans. Oakland A's all the way! (though we do not approve of the Manny Ramirez signing but anyways...) Venessa’s softball team is called the Tigers. This is her first year playing so she’s pretty excited.)

Alright, enough from me, here’s Venessa!

Additional thoughts about this book from a parent’s point of view: I purposely chose this book because 1) it was one of the few sci-fi books I was able to track down (not that my search was that intense) for children her age 2) the silly title seemed like something that would amuse Venessa and 3) the story included a female character.

A lot of the sci-fi children’s books I did find did not include any female characters in the summaries. I was very disappointed! I wanted my daughter to know that it’s not only the boys who can have all the fun adventures. I really like Joules in this book. She’s right there, on equal ground, ready to save the other campers, along with her brother, and was ready to fight the Fluffs!

This was a fun book to read aloud. There were some tongue tied moments but there’s some fun interaction in this book with short comic panels and charts. There are parts that really make you chuckle. It’s a book that’s best experienced with a young one where you can build up the suspense and use silly voices to entertain them as you read.

Second Foundation Group Read, Conclusion

This is it! The last of the group read for the Foundation trilogy. Once upon a time I felt very intimidated by Isaac Asimov. I have been cured of that after participating in these group reads during the Science Fiction Experience.

I really enjoyed these books a lot. They’ve introduced some very interesting ideas on government, control, free will and fate. There have also been some great discussions throughout January and February and I’m going to miss them.

As with the others, questions are in bold and my answers follow. There will be spoilers of course, and with that out of the way, let’s go!

1. Now that the trilogy is over, discuss your feelings on Asimov's portrayal of female characters?

In the end I did find I liked Asimov’s portrayal of female characters. More would have been nice but we got to see different personalities and ages, with motives both good and bad. And they were part of the story and not just there as eye candy.

2. After all the back and forth mind control of the first part of Second Foundation, what was your state of mind reading this second section of the book? Were you suspicious of everyone? Did you figure things out? Were you just going along for the ride?

Other than partly guessing correctly where the Second Foundation had been the whole time, I tried to keep an open mind and just go along for the ride, so certain revelations (which I'll mention later in Question #5) really surprised me. I was slightly suspicious of the old man and lady (sorry, don't have my library copy and I forgot their names!) that met Arkady on Kalgan and helped her get away to Trantor. I thought it a little convenient that they too were just happening to be on their way to Trantor and how easily they were able to get her off of Kalgan.

3. Throughout the three novels we were shown a couple of versions of Trantor. Which is more appealing to you? Which would you rather visit?

The version of Trantor Arkady got to see seems more appearling. It’s quiet, not so densely populated. That’s more my pace. But I would have liked to visit Trantor during Seldon’s time; just to see the hustle and bustle of an entire planet devoted to the administration of a galaxy wide empire.

4. How have your thoughts about Hari Seldon, his plan, and either or both Foundations changed, or not, during the course of these three novels?

I do think Seldon was doing something good to try and ease the troubles between the fall of the first Galactic Empire and the rise of the second. I thought he had a real grasp on people and their motives with his psychohistory. But when we discover in this book, that the Second Foundationers had the ability to affect people’s mind, then I began to doubt Seldon’s "all knowing-ness"; that it just came down, not to people acting on their own according to their nature, but because of Second Foundationers influencing them. From the way the book ended, it doesn't look like either Foundation changed. The First Foundationers think they've defeated the Second, but we know that is not the case so each Foundation will continue moving along as they always had.

5. What, if anything, surprised you in this last half of the book? How do you feel Second Foundation held up compared to the other two books in the trilogy?

The Pelleas and Arkady revelations surprised me! Second Foundation, the book, seemed more in line with the first, Foundation. A lot of talk and some tense situations. Not a whole lot of action like the second book.

6. Did any themes stand out for you in this series? What are you taking away from the experience of reading the Foundation trilogy?

Free will and what does that really mean? Is influencing people through mind control really the best course in order to establish this second Galactic Empire? (Sorry, for answering a question with more questions. It's a bad habit of mine. My husband hates it!)

Despite good intentions, the actions required to achieve them have not always been honorable. I wonder if it really will be for the good of the galaxy in the end. I hope so after all the turmoil.

I want to thank Carl of Stainless Steel Droppings for hosting the group read and everyone who read and commented. Below are links to all three group reads. These go to Stainless Steel Droppings site and below the post there are links posted by other bloggers who participated:

Foundation - Part 1/Conclusion

Foundation and Empire - Part 1/Conclusion

Second Foundation - Part 1/Conclusion

I think the second book, Foundation and Empire, is my favorite. It had a lot more excitement. There was the battle between the Foundation and the Galactic Empire, then later we have Bayta and Toran barely escaping just ahead of the Mule as he conquered each planet of the Foundation. And let’s not forget the revelation of the Mule and his powers!

As a whole it’s a great series of books I highly recommend. I had a great time and I hope everyone else did too.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

"Any decent person who knows what warfare is can never go into battle with a whole heart. But you didn't know. We made sure you didn't know. You were reckless and brilliant and young. It's what you were born for."

I read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card for the Science Fiction Experience. I wanted to get in some of those “standard” sci-fi reads and I had heard many good things about this book. And the book deserved them.

In Ender’s Game, Earth has already experienced two invasions by an alien race they call buggers. The military is anticipating another attack. Child geniuses have literally been bred so they can be trained as military commanders for this third attack. Six year old, Andrew “Ender” Wiggins, has been selected to attend the Battle School. He’s exceptional and he quickly proves himself to be a tactical genius so that he is then rushed through his training with impossible situations thrust upon him. He’s being groomed as the savior and because of that his training is grueling and cruel.

It’s scary thinking about these children doing nothing but learn battle tactics. Ender is six when he’s chosen for the Battle School and it’s so horrible the way he’s manipulated in this book, even by his own brother and sister - child geniuses like Ender - near the end, who had taken up false identities to spread their political ideas. But you keep reading because you want to find out how Ender overcomes his struggles and this book is well written. There are parts that left a lump in my throat, you can feel his loneliness. All Ender wants is to make friends. But each time he does they are then taken away from him. It was so hard to read it and not want to cry for him.

And then I get to the end. The last page and a half, actually, and it just really disappointed me. Throughout this whole book I’m cheering Ender on, hoping he gets through his trials. I don’t want to give it away but when I read that a book was written, explaining the buggers and their motives, I was excited. Until I found out how the book was received and it turned into some sacred religious text. That was the last thing I expected to come out of this story. We already had Ender, this boy built up as the last hope for mankind, then throw in the "good book" to wrap up the religious undertones in this book in a nice package. I think I've stated on this blog I'm just over religion and I don't want to get into it any further so I'll just stop.

Overall I did enjoy this book. It started out a bit slow but from Chapter Three on it’s a page turner and I’m really looking forward to see what the movie will be like. I’m actually looking forward to this one rather than The Hunger Games movie because that book has nothing on dystopian fiction when compared to Ender’s Game in my opinion. That is if you want to see children pitted against each other in battle situations done right and a future that seems more realistic!

Second Foundation Group Read, Part 1

The Science Fiction Experience is still going strong. I have continued with the group read of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings.

Below are the questions (in bold) for the group read and my answers follow. There will be spoilers so beware if you haven’t read the book and would like to in the future. These books are a great read if you remain spoiler free. Now for a quick summary of the story so far:

In the first book of the series, Foundation, Hari Seldon predicted the fall of the Galactic Empire and a thirty thousand year period that would follow that would see the galaxy in the midst of barbarism. Instead of a thirty thousand year period of barbarism, he established two Foundations on each side of the galazy to help guide the galaxy to a Second Galactic Empire that would only take one thousand years. Men such as Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow, guided the Foundation to success when threatened by stronger neighboring kingdoms to keep with Seldon’s Plan.

In the second book, Foundation and Empire, the Foundation was once again threatened but by the Galactic Empire as an ambitious general tried to conquer those kingdoms the Empire had lost hundreds of years ago. Once again these efforts failed and the Foundation survived. Then we were introduced to the Mule, a mutant who could manipulate emotions, an element Seldon’s Plan had not accounted for, who finally conquered the Foundation and the Galaxy.

We are now on the third book, Second Foundation, which continues the search for the Second Foundation by the Mule, who has sent out two men, Han Pritcher and Bail Channis, to assist. (On a side note: Han Pritcher/Han Solo. Bail Channis/Bail Organa. A Galactic Empire stretching across hundreds of planets. Hmmm…) The Mule is so close to discovering the location of the Second Foundation, but he seems to have met his match. Then (once again!) we jump several years to discover the Foundation is back on course and the Second Foundation may be involved more than we would have thought.

1. How have your perceptions of the Mule and his form of governing grown or changed, or not, after spending more time with him in this novel?

I don’t think my views have changed of the Mule. I was always rooting for him and we learn later in the book that his rule was a peaceful one, after he conquered the Foundation and after his entanglement with the Second Foundationers, which I think would have still been peaceful even without the Second Foundation intervening.

2. Having finally gotten a glimpse into the mysterious Second Foundation, what are your feelings/thoughts about this group and their methods (as revealed thus far)

And we questioned the Mule’s motives and actions! I find the Second Foundationers extremely sketchy, especially when we learn Channis was a spy of theirs and now we’ve learned something very interesting in the second half of the book, with the secret meeting between Pelleas Anthor, Dr. Darell, Jole Turbor, Dr. Elvett Semic and Homir Munn.

3. Has your understanding of the Seldon Plan changed at all with the revelations about the plan and the Second Foundationers near the end of this first part of our reading? Looking back does it alter any ideas you had about Seldon and his predictions?

“The laws of Psychohistory are statistical in nature and are rendered invalid if the actions of individual men are not random in nature. If a sizable group of human beings learned of key details of the Plan, their actions would be governed by that knowledge and would no longer be random in the meaning of the axioms of Psychohistory. In other words, they would no longer be perfectly predictable.”

I always felt it took an individual to make a crucial decision for the Foundation that kept with the Seldon Plan. We see that Seldon’s calculations are “dependant” on these random actions. But not I wonder if Hardin and Mallow’s actions were really random. We’re getting hints that the Second Foundation is infiltrating. So what if Seldon’s predictions only came true because these “random” actions were not so random? What if they worked because there was someone (or a group of people) secretly guiding things along but making certain these acts looked random? What if they were guiding Hardin and Mallow without their knowledge?

Then we get this, when Channis remembers the location of the Second Foundation: “Like Ebling Mis before him, he was conscious of only one vast, numbing surprise.”

What would surprise Channis and Mis so much? I can only think that it would be the true location of the Second Foundation being somewhere they least suspected because it was always said it was located on the other side of the galaxy. I think the Second Foundation was established on Terminus, along with the Foundation, in secret.

4. A simple one: How did you feel the first part of Second Foundation held up in comparison to the sections we've previously read?

It has the same flow and style. Not a whole lot of action as usual with a lot of talking and a lot of tension! Similar to the way the second half of Foundation and Empire ended, the first half of Second Foundation was quite tense. And we get resolutions to the tension without bloodshed which has usually been the standard throughout the series.

5. It is perhaps not surprising that Asimov's second important female character in the trilogy would be a direct descendent of the first. What do you think of young Arcadia "Arkady" Darell?

I like “Arkady” a lot. She’s smart and sassy and feels like a teenager. I remember when I was around the same age wanting to change my name to something more sophisticated so she definitely rang true. I’m looking forward to seeing what Asimov has in store for her and for the Foundation.

I have to say I’m glad I’ve participated in these group reads. This series has been a fun adventure. Return next week for the conclusion of the book and the series (and to see if I'm right about the Second Foundation)! And if you'd like to discuss Second Foundation, you can comment here or check out what others are saying here.

These Fuzzy Wuzzies are no bears and these Fuzzy Wuzzies have lots of hair!

Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi is about a stereotypical large corporation that exploits planets for its natural resources. Jack Holloway, a disbarred lawyer, now a contractor for the ZaraCorp, is mining a claim on the planet Zara XXIII. He’s been in some trouble not just as a lawyer, but as a contractor as well, accused of letting his dog set off explosives. But his luck is about to change when he discovers a sunstone seam (the diamonds of the future, that the ZaraCorp has a monopoly on already). In a paperwork snafu, he’s entitled to a share that will make him very wealthy. But his discovery of a sentient race on Zara XXIII puts that in jeopardy.

Think of this as a Law & Order/Erin Brockovich of the future. There are a lot of courtroom antics which I found surprising for a Sci-Fi book. But it was still engaging and I found I couldn’t put this book down.

Jack Holloway is an interesting character. He is selfish and rude but there is an honorable streak in him. Being a lawyer in the past, he can manipulate the system to get what he wants. It’s often hurt people in the past but he’s learned his lesson and you can’t help but root for him when he stands up for himself and the fuzzys.

You will also fall in love with the fuzzys, the sentient creatures discovered on Zara XXIII. My favorite parts of the book was their interaction with Jack and his dog; the way they just made themselves at home, making sandwiches, taking over Jack’s bed.

The dialogue in this book is great too. It flows easily, sounds natural, it’s interesting and funny. It felt like it could easily transfer to screen. Another big plus are the names. You can actually pronounce them out loud and not feel silly!

The courtroom scenes had me biting my nails wondering what Jack was up to and what would happen to the fuzzys. Overall the book was paced nicely. It didn’t have a lot of action but the character interactions, plot and dialogue made this a real page turner.

Foundation and Empire Group Read Discussion, Part 1

I’m still in the middle of the Science Fiction Experience and I decided to join along with the second group read, hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings, of Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov.

In the first book, Foundation, Hari Seldon predicted the slow collapse of the Galactic Empire and the years of barbarism that it would bring. Seldon proposed to establish the Foundation on two opposite ends of the galaxy. Their goal was to work on an encyclopedia to preserve the knowledge of the Empire. So instead of 30,000 years of barbarism, between the breakdown of the first Galactic Empire and the stronger second that would follow, the work of the Foundation would reduce that time to 1,000 years.

We saw in the first book the Foundation faced with 3 different crisis that threatened their lively hood. Each crisis was overcome with determination, and without resorting to violence, by two men, Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow. But the challenges they faced were against fringe kingdoms, that had broken away from the Galactic Empire, each stronger than the Foundation, with strength in numbers and natural resources. But weak in terms of being out of reach from the core of the Galactic Empire and having lost all knowledge of nuclear power and how to apply it to their economy.

Now, in the second book, Foundation and Empire, the Galactic Empire is ready to reclaim those fringe kingdoms they lost three centuries ago. Commanding the fleet is an ambitious general, Bel Riose, who has his sights not only on the fringe kingdoms, but the Foundation itself.

Following are discussion questions and my answers. There will be spoilers so carry on at your own risk.

1. In the opening chapters of Foundation and Empire we get to see things from the Imperial side. What are your thoughts on this part of the book? Were you surprised to find parts of the Galactic Empire that still seemed to be thriving?

I was not surprised the Galactic Empire was still thriving. It was the planets on the fringes they lost control of. As quickly as they descended into their “barbarous” state, it didn’t seem like they affected the core of the Galactic Empire all that much.

2. The examination of psychohistory continues in this book. What are your thoughts about the statement that was made: "Seldon's laws help those who help themselves" in light of our previous discussions about Seldon, his predictions, and the interaction of the individuals that we are exposed to in the story?

In Foundation, it was individuals (Hardin, Mallow) who were helping themselves but also trying to help the Foundation. I’ve always been of the opinion that Seldon knew there would be individuals who would act on their own that would help steer the Foundation out of a crisis.

3. How do you feel about Devers, Barr and Bel Riose? Did you like this section of the book and/or these characters? Was there anything about their stories that stood out to you, entertained you, annoyed you?

I did like it, up until the war was over and Devers and Barr basically did nothing. That was a bit of a letdown for me. I was expecting them to have more impact. I thought they’d be important. They did give us the first taste of action in this book with their escape from Trantor.

4. Perhaps continuing from Question 2, do you agree or disagree, and what are your thoughts on, Barr's devotion to Seldon and his belief that the "dead hand of Seldon" was guiding the events that led up to Riose's undoing.

The Foundation was definitely in the middle of a crisis and although previous crisis were solved without bloodshed, this one was still resolved in a similar manner of playing people against each other. Seldon could not foresee events but I’m sure through psychohistory he knew it was a matter of these individuals stepping up and making a critical decision. But in this case we had paranoia at work, with the Emperor recalling Bel Riose and having him tried and executed. This turn of events ended up helping end a war the Foundation would not have been able to win.

5. Did you think I was lying to you when I said in previous conversations that there are more female characters in books 2 and 3, LOL, since we didn't get to Bayta until near the end of this portion of the read?

I was hoping you weren’t. And I’m glad we finally have a female character that has appeared in more than one scene.

6. We haven't spent much time with them yet, but talk about your initial impressions of Toran and Bayta.

I don’t know about these two yet. They look upon each other as if they just acquired something valuable. I get the feeling they are trying to give the impression that they only married for convenience; a very profitable arrangement that works in both their favors. But the looks they give each other might suggest deeper feelings. I’m not quite sure what to make of it yet.

I’m really enjoying this second book despite the fact we spent a good portion of the book with characters that ended up not doing very much. But it was with these characters we were introduced to some action and a wild escape from Trantor, the central seat of the Galactic Empire. Part one of this group read stopped with Bayta and Toran, newlyweds on vacation on Kalgan to discover who the Mule is. I’m intrigued because I want to know who the Mule is too so onward I go!

To Read Or Not To Read: A Princess of Mars

Last week I started reading A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I feel bad saying this but I’m not feeling it. So far it’s been alright. It’s well written, too the point and moves at a nice steady pace.

I should want to read it. It’s a classic. I wasn’t that into A Tale of Two Cities at first but I’m glad I stuck with it because it got REALLY good in the second half. Maybe the same will happen with a Princess of Mars, but maybe not.

I really want to read it knowing the movie John Carter will be coming out next year and it’s directed by Andrew Stanton, who directed two Pixar movies: Finding Nemo and WALL-E. Then I watched the trailer and I didn’t feel anything for it. When I watched the teaser trailer for The Dark Knight Returns I was pretty excited even though I haven’t been a huge fan of the two previous Batman movies. When I saw The Three Musketeers trailer it angered me. The point is I felt something. With the John Carter trailer I felt nothing. I wasn’t impressed and I think it contributed to not wanting to continue reading A Princess of Mars.

But it wasn’t just the trailer. I was not feeling it even when I began. I was forcing myself to read it and I should have known better. Whenever I try to force myself to read something I lose interest, and not just in what I’m reading, but I lose interest when I try to read other books. Not good!

I love reading! I need a good book at all times! I’ll have to pause and return to A Princess of Mars when it’s the right time. It doesn’t feel good to be in a reading slump and I need to get out of it before it gets worse. Now, what to read... that is the question…

To be continued…