scifi | St. Gallen's Scribblings

Chapterhouse: Dune

Posted on February 23 by Remy St. Gallen

Chapterhouse: Dune by Frank Herbert
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Frank Herbert’s final Dune novel before his death follows the action of Heretics of Dune, chronicling the continued conflicts of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood against the Honored Matres, who are attempting to control the universe and destroy factions and worlds that oppose them. In his introduction, Herbert notes the novel’s setting, over ten millennia in the human future, when women rule the Known Universe. The story begins with Mother Superior Darwi Odrade celebrating the birth of a ghola-baby (in other words, a clone) from an axlotl tank of the recently deceased military genius Miles Teg. Meanwhile, Great Honored Matre Dama, nicknamed the “Spider Queen,” tortures Reverend Mother Sabanda.

Odrade enjoys seeing the cloned Miles at play, with the boy being trained in the military arts just like the original, as the Honored Matres plan to use a mysterious “weapon” to further their conquest of the universe. The Honored Matres destroy Lampadas, a center for Bene Gesserit education, with one of the survivors, Reverend Mother Lucilla, escaping with the shared minds of millions of Reverend Mothers from the past and finding sanctuary with an underground group of Jews. The Rabbi who leads them reveals a “wild” Reverend Mother named Rebecca, who has gained her Other Memory, a well of genetic memory, without formal Bene Gesserit training.

Duncan Idaho returns in ghola form like Teg, retaining memories from his previous incarnations due to being a Mentat. The time eventually comes for the assault upon the Honored Matres, with Teg becoming the Bashar of the military forces, and the tides constantly turn in each other’s favor. Throughout the story, the Bene Gesserit attempt to terraform the eponymous planet, Chapterhouse, to accommodate sandworms, given that the native homeworld of the creatures, Arrakis, had been decimated by the Matres. The story ends with a cliffhanger, which Herbert’s son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson would resolve with the final two chronological books in the Duniverse a score later.

In brief, Chapterhouse does have many positive aspects, such as Herbert’s trend (which his son would continue) of including various philosophical quotes at the beginning of each chapter, alongside the intricate outer space setting, discussion of ecology, and the presence of the Kindle X-Ray feature, which alleviates some confusion readers unversed in the franchise’s unique terminology and many characters may have. However, confusion frequently abounds regarding character ages (namely, the gholas), many lines and terminology are unclear, and it can be hard to keep track of who is talking in conversations given the infrequent mention of names and constant use of pronouns. Though not a bad book, this is one that readers will need to meticulously focus on while being incredibly familiar with the plots of its predecessors.

View all my reviews

Earth Awakens

Posted on November 26, 2022 by Remy St. Gallen

Earth Awakens by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The third and final entry of Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston’s science-fiction trilogy covering the First Formic War, backstory to the chronologically-future Ender’s Game books, opens with the eight-year-old Chinese boy Bingwen wondering where Mazer Rackham is, expecting to rescue him from the Chinese. In space, Victor gets ready to confront the Formics whilst wondering about the whereabouts of his missing mother. Moreover, Lem Jukes ponders his status as a war hero and celebrity, with the Russians and Chinese in the meantime fighting, and Lem yearning to cancel an interview due to the mention of Benyawe while mulling the use of glasers against the Formic vessels.

Back in outer space, Victor infiltrates a Formic vessel, discovering ship wreckage within yet losing his duffel bag and falling, afterward discovering radioactive pipes and the secrets of the antlike aliens’ life support. On Earth, Mazer finds himself in the captivity of the Chinese, remembering his mother and finding that some of them are cooperative, whereas others aren’t, and Rackham ultimately receives an escort to a hotel, where he meets Wit, who wishes him to pilot a heavily-armored military vehicle targeting a Formic transport, commencing one of the first counteroffensives against the aliens.

The media on Earth doesn’t seem much to care about the war against the Formics, with the insectoid extraterrestrials landing reinforcements in China and slaughtering millions. A Formic tower constructed upon a peak known as Mount Pig becomes a target, and Lem believes that special shields are necessary to guard against the aliens’ vessels. Victor receives a revelation about his mother, while still distrusting Lem, who desires an alliance with him. Bingwen finds himself among Wit’s forces and befriends a girl named Pipo who has some knowledge of the Med-Assist device mentioned in prior books.

A Formic weakness comes to light, with Wit seeking to establish a strike team to exploit said vulnerability of the antlike aliens. Trains on Earth begin to evacuate civilians and transport military personnel, although bandits impede their progress at times. Victor is confident at the potential seizure of a Formic vessel, although early on in the battles that conclude the story, the strike team comes under heavy fire. Mazer mulls the strategy of using a key Formic vessel against the other Formics, and Victor uses spray paint to indicate where to cut into one of them, the fate of the aliens and many human characters ultimately resolved.

Overall, I definitely had a good time reading Card and Johnston’s science-fiction series and would gladly read the chronologically-future entries of the former author’s beloved franchise. The action is good, and there’s plenty of character development and commentary about the bias and selective reporting of the media all across Earth. Even though I skimmed over a few parts of the concluding entry at times, I still had little trouble following what was generally going on in the primary narrative. The twist in the epilogue that follows the main chapters is sure to disappoint some, although I really wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the trilogy to those interested in engaging sci-fi reads.

View all my reviews

Earth Afire

Posted on November 11, 2022 by Remy St. Gallen

Earth Afire by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second installment of authors Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston’s science-fiction trilogy focusing on the First Formic War, a significant piece of backstory in the world of the former author’s futuristic Ender’s Game series, opens with the eight-year-old Chinese boy Bingwen attempting to warn his librarian about aliens, although his admonition falls upon deaf ears. The spacefaring Victor, in the meanwhile, is distraught at no one he tells taking seriously his own warning about the forthcoming Formic invasion, despite the rising casualties resulting from the assaults of the antlike extraterrestrials. However, entrepreneur Lem Jukes does believe the aliens exist, mourning the initial losses.

Victor proceeds to a speech held by Lem’s father Ukko Jukes, who makes the agreeable point that time can be an easily-wasted resource, to tell him about the Formics. The Juke Limited corporation seeks to deploy HERCs, or heavy equipment recovery copters, into hostile territory, with help from the Chinese, and Mazer takes fascination in Kim’s Med-Assist, the two devolving into relationship talk. Victor seeks to assemble an international coalition in the impending conflict with the Formic invaders, although great splinters still exist on Earth. The Formics eventually reach the planet, with a few of their landers making contact with Earth’s surface.

Wit O’Toole eventually gets word of the alien landers in China, although the capabilities of the Formics remain unknown. The extraterrestrials deploy defoliants on the countryside to eradicate vegetation, crops, and civilians in an attempt to terraform their target planet, and while Victor seeks to enlist in the war versus the aliens, he cannot due to his birth in space. Wit makes his way into China to confront the Formics, evacuating civilians from the aliens’ mist in the first throes of battle. Mazer in the meantime wakes among the Chinese, having suffered injuries that knocked him unconscious, and while Lem reunites with his father, he wishes not to engage in war profiteering.

Further battles with the Formics round out the latter chapters of the book, along with a plan from Victor on how to infiltrate the insectoid extraterrestrials. All in all, the second installment of the First Formic War trilogy is a satisfying read, decently touching upon the theme of international cooperation not to mention the dangers associated with alien contact, and while the returning characters from the initial entry receive further action and development, many of the dramatis personae introduced later on, especially in a few of the last chapters, don’t seem really relevant. Regardless, I enjoyed the second book and fully intend to read its sequel and conclusion.

View all my reviews