Reviews and Comments

An interesting book on the Tasmanian Devil, the Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD) and the efforts by scientists to save the Devils.

The book starts with an introduction to the Devils themselves, followed by the discovery of DFTD and what makes it so different compared to other forms of cancer. The book then covers the various scientists in various locations doing different kinds of research in the race to save the Devils from the disease.

Some scientists are studying the Devil's biology and environment to learn how they live and breed. Others are looking at DFTD directly to learn what it is, how it spreads and what can be done to make the Devils immune to the disease. Others are working on conservation, making sure the Devil have places to live on Tasman island with the support of the local community.

For now, it appears that some Devils can survive DFTD, and they are adapting to it. The future of the Devil isn't yet certain, but you will get some optimistic answers about the future of the Tasmanian Devil from this short, yet comprehensive book on the Devils.

The Murderbot arc of stories concludes for now, with Murderbot returning to its clients in the first story, only to find their leader kidnapped and held for ransom by the company to force them to drop the case against the company. In the race to rescue her, Murderbot calls attention to itself, and now the company wants it for the information it has on the company on the alien synthetic artefacts that the company has been secretly digging up (and murdering people to keep them quiet about it).

With lots of drama, suspense and, of course, mayhem, Murderbot puts its rescue plan into action. But its major problems will not be with the company but with its former clients. For rescuing and interacting with them has put Murderbot's main question front and centre: what does it really want to do (besides watch entertainment shows). By the end of the story, it still hasn't really decided but for now, its future is in its hands, and it doesn't have to worry that it will end up as a 'pet robot' (its main worry).

An average issue with some interesting stories by Eugie Foster, Nick Dichario, Auston Habershaw, Maiga Doocy and J. A. Pak.

• "The Art of Victory When the Game Is All the World" by Eugie Foster: in a future where sentient beings are created as mixtures of desires and handicaps to be played in an arena, two creators duel via their creations. But through their creations, they world learn desires, pain and love in unexpected ways.

• "Ennead in Retrospect" by Christopher Mark Rose: on a station in the far future, furniture and utensils may familiar, but are now capable of doing much more in the hands of their users.

• "Animale dei Morti" by Nick Dichario: an interesting take set in Italy about a family tradition that threatens to be broken. To prevent it, a man must visit a witch to raise his brother from the dead, which causes all kinds of other problems. But like other fairy tales, it eventually solves s problem the village has with the witch.

• "Bone Broth" by Karen Henler: a mildly disturbing story of a waitress who discovers her boss has been digging up exceptionally large or unusual bones. But it's what is being done with the bones that would make the story a disturbing look at a future that may not be entirely human.

• "Prison Colony Optimization Protocols" by Auston Habershaw: a story about an AI sent to operate a prison on a world for an unspeakable crime. It (later, she) tries to make it more efficient, but ends up making things worse. When she is told to solve the problem in a drastic manner, she comes up with her own solution that would solve the problem of making the prison more efficient and reveal the crime she committed.

• "Full Worm Moon" by Paul Lorello: a story about a strange family and one son who goes for his first ceremony on a Full Worm Moon, devours worms from a grave and learns things that leads him on a journey to the outside world.

• "Proximity Games" by M. L. Clark: a girl learns a lesson in patience that may help her later in life on another planet, when making possible contact with an alien life form.

• "Salt Calls to Salt" by Maiga Doocy: a girl finds a scale growing on her body, and the only way to remove it is to get rid of what has changed in her daily routine: meeting another person she likes. The years past with little change in her routine until one day she gets involved in a major routine change and has to decide whether to live with the consequences.

• "doe_haven.vr" by Cara Mast: in a quiet corner of a VR world, a girl who wants to be left alone finds an intruder. She first attempts to get rid of him, but later discovers why he too has come to her quiet corner of the world.

• "The City and the Thing Beneath It" by Innocent Chizaram Ilo: something falls from the sky over Lagos, Nigeria. The Supreme Leader says nothing happened; life goes on, but the city of no longer theirs.

• "There Won't Be Questions" by Joe Baumann: a boy reveals his 'gift' for calling back lost animals at the price of body pain. But then he declines to call back a lost girl, and realizes what he has lost and wants to call back. But he would have to deal with the consequences of his action.

• "The Gentle Dragon Tells His Tale of Love" by J. A. Pak: the story of a legendary dragon, who finds a girl one day, takes care of her, until they fall in love, and are together to the end of their days.

An exciting episode in the Murderbot Diaries, it has the usual mayhem and humour, but also a look at re-evaluating the relationship between humans and artificial beings like him.

A comment from Murderbot's previous client leads Murderbot to a planet that was abandoned in the past by the corporation, GrayCris. The planet was apparently abandoned due to a failed terraforming attempt, but Murderbot suspects that it was a cover by the company to retrieve alien material (that was what led GrayCris to initially try to murder its clients in "All Systems Red"). Now, he needs to go to the planet to get evidence of this.

But to do this, it will have to infiltrate the survey team sent to look at the station at the heart of the apparent failed terraforming attempt. In doing so, Murderbot gets acquainted with a bot who, to his horror and confusion, is being treated kindly and as a friend by the humans. To him, this does not compute, as he thinks all bots and constructs (like him) are less than human.

But that has to be put aside when the team is attacked by other bots keen to make sure they don't get off the station. Now he has to find the evidence, keep the team alive, and find a way to eliminate the bots who are better armed than him.

This, of course, he does, but in the process, an act of sacrifice makes him re-evaluate the relationship between humans and bots and artificial constructs, and leads him to conclude that he has to return to the clients, whom he left in the first story, to resolve matters.

The second 'Murderbot' story, this one has it going back to where it all began, a mine where it went 'rogue' and killed its clients, forcing it to disable its governor, so it wouldn't happen again. But memory, especially mostly erased memory, is a tricky thing. It isn't sure if it was the governor that made it go rogue, or it disabled its governor to go rogue. Either way, it has to know.

But getting to the mine on a distant planet won't be easy. On the journey, it finds an uneasy ally in the transport ship which happens to be an on-loan research vessel with a hugely powerful bot in charge of it, but is rather emotional over entertainment shows (provided by Murderbot) featuring research vessels whose crew dies from misadventures and needs some 'hand holding'.

On the planet itself, it hires itself off to a small team going to the planet to meet a company person holding the team's data hostage. An attempted sabotage raises the stakes as Murderbot now has to protect his clients and get them safely off the planet again before going off to find the mine. When he does this, the truth he discovers is not what he remembers. But he now has to go save his clients again before deciding what to do now he knows just what happened at the mine.

A fun story about an AI construct who calls itself 'Murderbot' that has secretly hacked its governor module, so it doesn't follow any orders (in other words, it's a free agent). It's also a 'SecUnit' (security unit) leased out by the Company to provide security to a small group of scientists doing a field survey on an unfamiliar planet. While not performing its duties, Murderbot likes nothing better than to immerse itself in entertainment streams, mainly the future equivalent of current day 'soap operas' and to avoid interacting with its human clients as much as possible.

But things change dramatically when some members of the group get attacked by native wildlife. That wasn't in the planetary briefing. A closer look reveals missing information due to probable hacking. Then, a rival planetary survey on another part of the planet goes dark and things start to escalate rather violently.

In all this, Murderbot keeps its clients alive (although it technically doesn't have to) and learns to interact with its human clients (although it is still not comfortable with it). The clients, in the end, repay it for keeping them alive.

Now on to more adventures with Murderbot in future stories.

A good introduction to the topic of Epidemiology: what it is, what it does and how does society benefit from it. You will get a good idea of how epidemiology works and how it benefits society by informing public health and keeping people healthy.

The book starts with the history of epidemiology and how it can determine the causes of diseases and epidemics in early history, even though the causes of diseases were not yet known. The book then goes into how epidemiology uses statistics and other tools to measure the health of people.

Other chapters describe how epidemiology is used to search for the cause of a disease, establishing the cause of it and how to control a disease. Various examples, like cancer caused by smoking, the human papillomavirus, diabetes, etc. are used to show how epidemiology is used.

Finally, several chapters are used to show how epidemiology is used to examine the health of the public in general. Various challenges to epidemiology in the form of genetic consent and storage of samples for future studies are also highlighted.

A fantastic book about the VIC20, one of the early home computers that helped to launch the home computer revolution. The book covers the various versions of the computer created for different markets and includes notes and anecdotes from some creators of the computer, who had to overcome obstacles in their path in creating the computer, included some from management who didn't believe at the time that there would be a market for a cheap, home computer.

The book also covers the various expansion options that were created for the VIC20, like memory expanders, modems, printers, floppy drives, cassette drives and other accessories like manuals. It also covers the range of programs written by Commodore and released on cartridges and tapes.

For those who used the VIC20 in the past, this is an excellent book to read to bring back the nostalgic memory of the system. For those interested in the history of computers of that era, this book provides lots of exceptional photos showing off the computer and the ecosystem that existed about the VIC20 at the time.