The Book Club: An Asimov AI tale, a ramen-shop fantasy and more reader reviews
Editor s note The opinions of the smart well-read women in my Denver book club mean a lot and often determine what the rest of us choose to pile onto our bedside tables So we inquired them and all Denver Post readers to share their mini-reviews with you Have any to offer Email bellis denverpost com Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao Del Rey Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao Del Rey Endings and beginnings are the same point in time People wait in line outside the door to this simple Tokyo ramen shop but upon entering specific find instead a pawnshop like no other Here clients pawn the choices they are weary of carrying This genre-blending book was a comfort read for me The fantasy elements were incorporated matter-of-factly and the main characters intrigued The twists and the evocative imagery kept me reading with pleasure stars out of Neva Gronert Parker Flight by Lynn Steger Strong Mariner Books Three siblings and their families gather to mark the first Christmas following their mother s death Underlying the festivities are unresolved family issues including how or whether to dispose of the family home Nearly every character is fully drawn and for multiple flight is a motif of longing for its soaring beauty its solitude its freedom While the final scene is a bit heavy-handed it does bring everyone together in admiration of flight stars out of Kathleen Lance Denver The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov Spectra Books by Bantam Books reissue Part of the classic Robot series by one of sci-fi s masters this novel substantiates that the concept of AI artificial intelligence has been a bedrock of speculative fiction for eons In this tale human detective Elijah Baley is drafted to solve the murder of a human on Solaria an Outer Planet where humans are scarce and never mix with their peers So who committed the crime and how Could the criminal be a robot Elijah calls in his robot AI partner R Daneel Olivaw As innovative as Asimov s Laws of Robotics were in the s No robot will cause harm or allow harm to come to a human Asimov seemingly would be surprised had he lived to contemporary times and seen the competition between intellectual abilities Which is smarter able to do more and affect civilization human or robot Asimov possibly would have come up with a more clever dilemma than the traditional one or even one created by AI stars out of Bonnie McCune Denver bonniemccune com Dead Wake The Last Journeying of the Lusitania by Erik Larson Crown Publishers Another signature Larson work with exhaustive research that illuminates the perspectives of all affected by a big historic moment In this event Larson takes us inside the lives and thinking of several of the Lusitania s passengers and crew the men on the German U-boat that sunk the Lusitania plus executive representatives in the U S England and Germany All the evidence points to various blunders assumptions policies choices and unlucky circumstances that led to the tragedy Larson masterfully builds the tension and sense of foreboding even though we already know the outcome stars out of Kathleen Lance Denver Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin Europa Death and I are too well acquainted for me to want to read about it so this book was a surprise The tale of a lonely woman the keeper of a small cemetery in Burgundy France should not have appealed to me Perrin s perceptiveness and intelligence make this book much more than appealing it is charming poignant shocking infuriating and amusing Perrin even slips in an unexpected mystery storyline A less skilled writer would have ended up with a garish mishmash Perrin presents an understated bouquet tender and elegant stars out of Neva Gronert Parker
