Three Latest Reads

WOOL by Hugh Howey

 I put off purchasing this for months (thrown by the title, I suppose) but it kept popping up on "best of sci-fi" lists, which intrigued me.  It's the first book in a series by Howey about a dystopian future, featuring a girl with a curious mind and uncommon mechanical skill growing up in the "Silo": an enormous, vibrant underground city. In the Silo's culture, capital punishment consists of banishment into the toxic atmosphere above ground.  The accused are given an environmental suit that lasts long enough for them use wool scrubbers to clean the outside camera lenses that feed surface video to those below. Soon after that task is accomplished, the seals of the suit break down and the condemned succumb to the noxious environment.  The protagonist is eventually sentenced to this fate but defiantly refuses to clean the lenses and marches off into the wasteland, with astonishing results.
The book is being made into a movie, which makes sense: it's exciting, fresh and filled with enough twists to make you dizzy.  Worth a look for you Hunger Games fans!

The Martian by Andy Weir

Another book that showed up on everyone's sci-fi lists, and for good reason - this is the best book I've read so far this year!  If you loved Robinson Crusoe or MacGuyver and have enough knowledge of physics and chemistry to be dangerous, you'll enjoy this story.  The main character is left behind on a Mars mission and must use his wits to survive.  This book is also being made into a movie, starring Matt Damon - I can't wait to see it!

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

This magical, light-hearted youth fiction was tough to put down, but that's ok, because it only takes a few hours to read.  It has enchantments, curses, witches, wizards, talking scarecrows, kings, falling stars, smart-mouthed fire, a hat-maker, instant-drying powders, animated walking sticks, three sisters, cream cakes, seven-league boots and, of course, a moving castle.  Charming and inventive, this book is The Hobbit of the tweener generation - it's a pop culture must! There is an anime movie of the same name which I've not seen but about which I've been told two Important Facts: it is River's favorite movie, and while it is based on the book it must be very loosely based, as it bears no resemblance whatsoever.