Tag: future

Online Reading Challenge – October Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read something set in the future that you enjoyed? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Klara stole my heart from the start and had me rooting for her to find her family.

Klara is an Artificial Friend anxiously awaiting a customer to choose her. Readers are introduced to Klara as she sits in a store full of other Artificial Friends. What marks Klara as different and ultimately helps decide her fate is her keen observational skills. She spends her days watching the people who come in to browse as well as the people who pass outside the store. Klara is highly intelligent, but misses the abilities to pick up on some nuances and cues that humans have. This book highlights relationships between humans and artificial intelligence, and the impact that artificial intelligence would have on society. As the world changes, Klara is there to see it all, but does she understand what is happening around her? That’s a whole other story.

I listened to the audiobook version of Klara and the Sun, which I felt lent more of an insight into Klara’s world as hearing her voice highlighted how much she wanted to adjust and do everything right. (I did try reading the print book first, but had a hard time engaging with the text). While I found Klara’s story and her interpretations of the lives of everyone around her intriguing, I was left wanting more. I felt dropped into a new world with little to no explanation of what was happening with hardly any world building. As I was reading, I was able to figure some issues out myself, but not others. With time away from the book, I realize that the way I felt mirrored how Klara felt when she changed environments. The author scattered tidbits of information throughout the book that you had to weave together. He writes scenes that surface level seemed pretty self-explanatory, but once you thought about them, they were actually quite complex. I think this is a book that I will appreciate more as time passes.

Next month, we will be spanning decades and time!

Online Reading Challenge – October

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge travels to the Future. Our main title for October is Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love? (Vintage)

This title is also available in large print.

Looking for some other books set in the future? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune

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“Everyone loses their way at some point, and it’s not just because of their mistakes or the decisions they make. It’s because they’re horribly, wonderfully human. And the one thing I’ve learned about being human is that we can’t do this alone. When we’re lost, we need help to try to find our way again.” – T.J. Klune, Under the Whispering Door

Under the Whispering Door was an incredibly powerful read that had me feeling a wide variety of emotions. (If you haven’t read The House in the Cerulean Sea by Klune, you should do that too – check out Anna’s blog to learn more about it). Klune sprinkled so many profound nuggets of wisdoms throughout this book that I still find myself thinking about it days after finishing.

Wallace Price is troubled. He spends his entire life at the office trying to understand why people behave the way they do. As a lawyer, Wallace craves order. His life changes when he wakes up at his own funeral. When a woman approaches him and says that she is a reaper come to collect him, he is confused and outraged. First of all, he can’t be dead. Secondly, there is only a handful of people at his funeral. Utterly ridiculous.

The reaper takes him to Charon’s Crossing, a slightly irregular tea shop. It sits on the outskirts of a small village off the beaten path that runs through the mountainous woods. Hugo, the owner, is there to help Wallace in any way he can. He works as a ferryman who helps souls cross over.

The more time Wallace spends time at the tea shop talking with Hugo and the others, the more Wallace thinks he might actually be dead. He isn’t ready to abandon his life just yet though. He didn’t actually live his life to the fullest. Wallace spent his time alive at work, but he spends his time dead really living: joking with the others at the tea shop, manifesting new clothing, and noticing the stars with Hugo. Just as Wallace settles into a comfortable rhythm however, the all-powerful Manager descends upon Charon’s Crossing with a deadline that will change them all forever.

This book is available in the following formats:

Online Reading Challenge – Mid-Month Check-in

- Ann 2 Comments

Hello Online Reading Challengers!

How is your March reading going? Are you still scrunching up your nose at the idea of science fiction? Try a movie! They’re like an adventure story, only with lots more makeup! Here are some ideas to get you started:

Mad Max: Fury Road starring Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy is a non-stop action, can’t-catch-your-breath, edge-of-your-seat survival story. But beyond all that sand and all those crazy people, there’s a lot of humanity.

Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford) is a “blade runner”, stalking genetically replicated criminal replicants in a chaotic society that is nearly impossible to tell what’s real. The new film takes place 30 years further into the future and a new blade runner (Ryan Gosling) and his search for the former blade runner.

Her. Starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson. Is it possible to fall in love with an Artificial Intelligence? What happens when the AI believes it has outgrown you and wants to “break up”? It’s a question that hits closer to home in this age of Alexa. Quirky, touching and cautionary.

Tired of all the scarey, dystopian visions of the future? Then go for Star Trek, which presents a future that, while we’re still not perfect, at least we haven’t blown up the Earth (yet) and have managed to live among the stars. You have lots to choose from – television series, movies, original, spinoffs, alternate universes.

Prez, Vol. 1: Corndog-In-Chief by Marl Russell

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prezIn a world where corporations have the power to rule the world, where social media has infiltrated presidential elections, and when the age restriction on who can run for president has been abolished, you know things are bound to get interesting really quick. Prez, Vol. 1: Corndog-In-Chief tells the tale of this messed-up world and all the deals happening behind the scenes.

In the not so distant future, 2036 to be exact, the world is topsy-turvy. People vote for elections via Twitter, corporations have the ability to run for President, and a strain of cat flu has infested the world, one that costs millions of dollars to cure and that is infecting people worldwide. One of the people infected and dying is Beth Ross’ father. Beth becomes viral-video famous, an internet celebrity named Corndog Girl, after an unfortunate incident at the fast food restaurant where she works.

The country is in the midst of a presidential election, one that is being controlled behind the scenes by a few major corporations. Two candidates have been presented, but a famous video blogger has chosen to endorse Corndog Girl for President instead! She’s eligible to become president, something the corporations never believe would happen, so they write her off. Joke’s on them! She becomes president and soon finds herself thrown into a messed-up world of politics and corporate power grabs. Beth is left to fill her cabinet with people she can trust and all the while try to figure out how if she has the power to take back control of this upside-down world. This graphic novel is full of snark, witty social media commentary, and a glimpse into what our lives could possibly be like if corporations are given more control over our way of life.

Low, Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope by Rick Remender

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low v1Low, Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope by Rick Remender blew all of my science fiction/fantasy/graphic novel expectations out of the water. Even though the woman on the cover, Stel Caine, the matriarch of the Caine family, is wearing heels, she is an incredibly strong and powerful leader who leads her family and community through despair. Her belief that human consciousness can change your reality pushes her through dark times, leading her to believe deeply that hope can change anything, no matter what the people around her may say or do or what her current circumstances are.

In this first volume, Low begins by introducing you to the Caine family, mom Stel, dad Johl, and their three kids. Many millennia in the future, humanity was forced to abandon the earth’s surface and take refuge underwater because of the sun’s intense radiation. They knew that living underwater would only prove to be a temporary solution as the sun’s radiation would reach them eventually. As a result, the first batch of mankind to live under the waves sent probes into the galaxy to look for inhabitable worlds, knowing their great-great grandchildren would be the only ones who would benefit from the results. Generations later, the Caine family is in control, fighting off invaders and trying to keep their lives together. A great disaster alters their family forever and the Caines are forced to reach deep within themselves to try to find the strength to survive. Grief cannot be given control leading Stel to work to find a solution to both the loss of her family and the necessity of finding a new inhabitable world quickly.

Tocchini’s artwork grew on me. His work is sketch-like with colors that are rich, but also at the same time, muted. His style of drawing really leads you into the different scenes and the different places underwater that the characters find themselves traveling to. I recommend you check this out! (I’m currently deep in the second volume, so stay tuned for a review of that one!)

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong

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futuristic violence and fancy suitsScience fiction and fantasy are not genres that I normally read, but I decided that I needed to expand outside of my comfort zone and started to look for a book that I would enjoy. On a list of best adult books for young adult readers, I discovered Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong. This book immediately intrigued me based on two parts: the machine gun/cat cover and the fact that the cat is named Stench Machine. (It’s a bit scary just how little it takes to get me interested in a book, isn’t it?) Cracking this book open, I was hooked.

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits tells the story of Zoey Ashe, a young girl from a trailer park who lives with her very smelly cat, Stench Machine, and her mother, a waitress at a topless bar. Zoey is living her normal day-to-day life, unaware that a pack of villains from her nightmares that are armed with superhuman enhancements are gunning for her death. Finding herself in a life-and-death situation, Zoey has to decide quickly who she can trust and whether the stories being told to her by “the Suits” are actually the truth.

Traveling to a futuristic city where an all-seeing social network can track your every move, one where there are powerful players controlling everything behind the scenes, Zoey soon realizes that everything outside of her Midwestern trailer park may be more than she can handle. Forced to reconcile her low upbringing with her sudden encampment in her dead father’s mansion, Zoey realizes that she is one of the key players who will decide the future of mankind. Anyone in the world has the ability to get the powers of a god or become as famous as a pop star, thanks to the all-seeing social network and various fantastic and violent elements are popping up all over. Zoey’s fate is entangled in this futuristic city and it’s up to her to figure everything out.

The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys by Gerard Way and Shaun Simon

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killjoysIn The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Better Living Industries, a megacorporation with a ruthless and tyrannical leader, is working to take over more of the world and to cut off the freedoms and emotions of everyone living on the planet. This has been going on for years with revolutionaries and groups popping up every now and then trying to save what they can of the life they used to live and the people that they used to know. A group of four said revolutionaries became THE group of revolutionaries in this world with their likenesses splattered all over the news. Sadly over ten years ago, they were all killed while trying to save the life of a mysterious young girl that Better Living Industries, aka BLI, was trying to kill. This young girl becomes one of the main subject lines of The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. Follow along as the Girl works to figure out why BLI tried to kill her, what BLI is doing to all the defunct robots around the world, how these rogue groups are surviving and getting their news, and how the system BLI has set up is really affecting the civilized people in the world and how BLI is able to control the world and its employees.

The writers, Gerard Way and Shaun Simon, along with artist Becky Cloonan, have crafted a very strange, mysterious, and science fiction heavy graphic novel that is rich in details and colors that pop into your subconscious as you follow along with the characters. This graphic novel does not have a traditional linear structure, in the sense that readers will have to pay attention to context and art clues to figure out the difference between the past and the present, but the ideas presented are so intriguing and seemingly plausible that the quick transitions between past and present and also between different characters’ storylines only serve to add to the complex and supremely creative nature of this graphic novel. I highly recommend reading through this graphic novel more than once.