Trapper Markelz

Contagious by Scott Sigler

I started listening to Scott Sigler's podcast back when he first launched them with Earth Core... I don't remember how I found hih, but from the first book on, I loved his style... I didn't really become a "junkie(tm)" per se... but I listened in on all the stories during my morning commutes.

A while later, I stopped listening because my commute got so short that I really didn't have the time to fit in an episode... I remembered he was in the middle of getting published... so it was a bit of a surprise the other day when I was in Borders and there on the shelf was Contagious.

Contagious is a sequel to the book Infected. I don't want to give anything away as both books are a quick and fun read. If you like crazy alien invasion scenarios and psychological battles that really test your ability to read without covering your eyes, than Scott's writing is for you. Both Infected and Contagious are a fun an revealing journey of sci-fi horror.

The best part of the book for me was a realization on the last few pages... about how the relationships of Perry Dawson and the people around him had changed over time. By the end, I was really feeling it all... and seeing how the relationships evolved based on the situations. You can't help but enjoy the main character Perry Dawson... read both books and you will see what I mean. The transformation in that character is pretty freakin' huge.

I will say that I did fall asleep reading Contagious one evening and had some pretty terrible nightmares... don't be surprised if the same happens to you!

The Hemingway Hoax by Joe Haldeman

I was in Marblehead, MA one afternoon this summer... taking a little local road trip with the family. There was a rare book store there. I like looking through the sci-fi stacks in places like that... who knows when you might come across a hard-cover first edition of some favorite book right?

There happened to be a Joe Haldeman novel there I had never heard of: The Hemingway Hoax.

I never really read the jackets on books. I feel like they often give too much away... so I just dove into The Hemingway Hoax a few days ago not knowing what to expect. For the first few chapters, the book has no real sci-fi focus... so a part of me started to think this was some sort of -pre-sci-fi writing by Haldeman... a few more chapters in and parallel universes make an appearance... awesome.

After recently reading The Accidental Time Machine, I was stoked to enter another exploration of time loops and causality. In fact the ending of this book gets so confusing that I had to go to Wikipedia to figure out actually what happened!

I am on a role with Haldeman lately... loving his books! More! MORE!

Looks like this book is so old, the Amazon link doesn't even have the cover art! Looks like you can only get it used. Glad I found it at a book store!

Saturn's Children by Charles Stross

I have been tearing through the books lately... mainly because I have been trying to go to bed earlier and therefore making time to read. I have decided to only read fiction these days... there is enough non-fiction happening in my REAL life... I don't need to fall asleep thinking... I would much rather fall asleep imagining.

Stross has been a favorite author since I read Accelerando... still one of the craziest and mind-bending books I have ever tackled... a book that informs many of my hopes about science. If you read sci-fi, I suggest it, but it is pretty challenging... so you might want to work up to it.

Saturn's Children isn't one of my favorite books... the premise is neat... Mankind created androids to serve us... then we died off and left these androids behind... centuries in the future, how are they coping? They were raised to serve and satisfy humanity... they are no longer able to fulfill their life's purpose. This leads to all sorts of cultural evolution within their android societies.

In the end, the book was ok... had some interesting parts... but I never really got into it and it felt like many of the awesome moments were cut short with convenient tie-ups. The #1 question I wanted to know: Where did humanity go? How did they vanish? This was never covered... I was looking forward to a mystery that never materialized.

So the book was thought provoking, but not really satisfying in the end. On to the next book!

85% chance it is a girl!

85% chance it is a girl!
Originally uploaded by Markelz Family

This week we found out that child #3 will be a girl. As was told me by a friend, "You are destined to raise beautiful women!" I'll take that challenge.

Right now the name we are going with is June Markelz. Right now, the name June is not very popular (according to nametrends.net) so it is a good pick. We don't have a middle name yet... we are working on a variety of possibilities and symbolic meanings... I think I already have a nickname for June though. Nicknames so far and including:

1. Bannana (Hannah)
2. Goose (Lucy)
3. Bug (June)

Everyone keeps asking me if I am disappointed that our last child didn't come out a boy. While a part of me wanted to carry on with the John William Markelz IV name, at the same time it means I won't ever find myself having to share the Xbox with anyone. So the answer is, I am disappointed in the same way that you are when someone eats the last piece of pizza... you find yourself saying "Awwww...." but you just had PLENTY of pizza so you can't really be that upset about anything.

In the end, I am just happy we made it through the ultra sound and the doctor says "You have a beautifully perfect child". Hearing that trumps the specific gender any day.

Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist

This book was a bit of an impulse buy. I was actually in the market for some new science fiction during my 2008 Christmas vacation, and remembered that this book had been on my list for some time. People who were recommending Life of Pi said to check out The Alchemist. I sort of forgot about that until I saw the trade paperback in a stack at Borders.

It was a short read. I hammered through it in a few hours. Ultimately I was surprised that I seemed to discover this book at the right moment. I was sort of pondering some of the questions about risk... purpose... adventure... in my own life. The fact that The Alchemist is all about these themes was rather coincidental.

What I found most striking was the thought that when you pursue a purpose you believe in, the universe seems to conspire to help you achieve it. This is a classic theme among the latest trends in self-help... The Secret comes to mind... but one can't help but agree that there is something strange about how things often fall into place right when you need them to... and it is equally easy to see how an optimistic person sees a new opportunity or a learning experience while a pessimistic person sees yet another set back. The Alchemist beats you over the head with this idea... but that doesn't make it unsatisfying in the least.

In the end, I was slightly disappointed near the end of the book when the reader is presented with an overly spiritual/magical confrontation that feels contrived and unnecessary... however the very last moments redeem the ending with a nice little twist that made all the concepts of fate and destiny make sense.

Ultimately, The Alchemist put me in a frame of mind to renew my optimism. It is an optimism that believes pursuing your dreams is always safer than being safely unhappy. Our options belong to us and at any moment, we can make our life what we want it to be. Make no mistake, to do so is often really hard and uncomfortable... But as Paulo Coelho tells in the book, the greatest lie is telling ourselves that we don't control the choice to face the difficulties and overcome them.

I have always thought that the greatest form of personal betrayal is hypocrisy. There is nothing I hate more than people who say one thing and do another... so I take almost absurd steps in some cases to ensure that I don't behave that way (like never using my car horn!). I am now starting to think a worse betrayal is believing that the world acts on us instead of the other way around. To make excuses why something can't be how you want it, or how something beyond your control is preventing you from obtaining your goals. There are far too many examples of people who just went out and did it... maybe not the first time... maybe not the second or third or forth time. But they just kept at it and did it. That is what Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy does in The Alchemist... it takes him years... but he just keeps after it.

Sure all of this seems rather "duh" when you think about it... take risks... work hard... keep after it... never walk away from your dreams... blah blah blah... but sometimes the repetition helps... These fables are constant reminders and inspiration. The repetition builds on itself and over time becomes a part of your instincts. I was open to being inspired. The Alchemist did that. The right book at the right moment.

Joe Haldeman's Accidental Time Machine

This book flew under my radar. I normally like to buy hard cover editions of new sci-fi from my favorite authors, but I didn't find out about The Accidental Time Machine until it was well into paperback.

I have to say that this is one of my recent favorites of Haldeman's lately. I have a soft spot for time travel and especially time travel that happens over large spans of time. The mechanic that is used in this book is slightly unique (given that it is accidental) and therefore a bit more believable that a person might find themselves in these types of situations.

The end of the book gets a bit confusing (like all time travel books do) and I found myself re-reading certain pages to really understand what was going on... but I smashed through this book in a single afternoon... I just had to keep going... had to find out what would happen and where the main character Matt would go next.

Like most of his other books, Haldeman uses the story as an opportunity to explore certain cultural realities. He takes things to extremes and explores plenty of "what if" scenarios about how cultural evolution can occur just as biological evolution does. What would a nation look like if it was run by the far right? What would a culture look like if everyone was rich consumers? It makes for a fun read.

Like I said, one of my favorite Haldeman novels now. I recommend it to sci-fi fans.

Joe Haldeman's Marsbound

I like Joe Haldeman. He is a go-to author for me. I buy anything that he writes and I always seem to like it. Marsbound is no different. I happened to nab a hardcover of this one afternoon on a lunch break. There is a little comic/sci-fi shop down the street from where I work... I stopped in to by some little star wars models and ended up with Marsbound too!

What I liked about this book was the coverage around extended space travel. If humans do travel to Mars, it is a multi-month (or multi-year) affair... so dealing with the passage of time in that small of space requires certain psychological attributes as well as technological distractions.

What I enjoyed most was probably the thoughts about non-biological beings... and what those beings might seem like to us... silicon based... with the ability to think at the speed of light yet move physically at a speed we can't even comprehend as it is so slow. To them, we seem like fruit flies... born, living and dying in a blink of their eyes.

I plowed through this sucker in two sittings.... one on the plan got me half way through in a few hours... and another few hours I finished it out. A good sci-fi speed read.