Well, this book is nice. Entertaining. It helps to pass away time. A kind of fantasy story in a carribean setting.

Nalo Hopkins, Blackheart Man. Simon & Schuster, London 2024. ebook, 384 Seiten

There is a people who are making their living on the island of Chinchin where their ancestors had found refuge on their escape from slavery. They had fought off their former slave masters back then and created a society of equals (sort of) consisting of the different slave groups and the survivors of their slave masters' soldiers. Now, 200 years after this fight, the slavers try to get access to the island again. On Chinchin there now exists a scientific academy of high reputation, where knowledge is not only collected but also memorized so that it never can be destoyed again. The former slave masters are trying to get access to this academy and thereby try to conquer the island. But they are fought off. During this struggle an old threat is rising that has to be fought, too.

This novel has everything a modern fantasy novel needs to become successful, some magic, but also a lot of modern buzzwords are dealt with: gender fluidity, economy without money, anticapitalism, colonialism, general equality, gender equality, racist oppression, stratigraphed society, drug abuse, transsexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and even heterosexuality. The novel talks about polyamorous relationships, polyandrous marriages, raising children, religious tolerance, fighting oppression and open prisons. Reading it I often felt like being in a lecture about the latest fads in modern societies' discussions on being modern.

The carribean setting is mainly constructed by carribean dialects of the protagonists. For me as a non native speaker this is sometimes very difficult to understand. I also wondered troughout my lecture how this book might be translated into german. Depicting black protaginists with pidgin language would be regarded as quite racist. But I will never know, since I won't read any translation of this book. It is nice and entertaining but reading it once is enough.

My recommendation is: borrow it and give it back after reading.

This is a real space opera. Humanity is starting to conquer space by beginning to exploit near earth asteroids. For now it consists of two volumes but I'm certain at least a third and a fourth one is coming along.

Daniel Suarez, Delta-V Series

• Delta-V
• Mass Effect

This is a real space opera. Humanity is starting to conquer space by beginning to exploit near earth asteroids. For now it consists of two volumes but I'm certain at least a third and a fourth one is coming along.

The first book starts with a mad multi billionaire called Nathan Joyce who is planning to kick humanity into space and to be the first one to profit from it. He gathers possible candidates for an asteroid mining mission, embezzeles billions of dollars to run a mission beyond the moon to Ryugu, a NEA that had been first targeted by a JAXA mission in the 21 century. Everything is prepared for a long term stay in space, the spacecraft is rotating and produces artificial gravity for its crew. We witness how the crew is chosen, how Joyce („Call me Nathan“) is dealing with the financial situation, creates juridical fictions for his enterprize and handles the interactions with the governments of Earth. The plan is to create facts, to mine Ryugu and to send these products into a lunar orbit. With these resources in an orbit beyond earth all spacefaring nations would be forced to accept Joyces' superiority in space and deal with him on an equal basis, so the plan. The mission is launched and arrives at Ryugu in total secrecy. Nobody outside the Joyce corporations knows about the plans. It turns out that mining the asteroid is very well possible and so the crew stays in orbit around Ryugu for the nex four years. They are waiting for a new launch window towards earth and are mining the riches of Ryugu in the meantime.

Long parts of the story describe how the crew of eight overcomes problems, how they succeed building transport ships for their produce and how they defend against unwelcomed interference by other terrestrial space billionaires. Some of the crew die but in the end they manage to make their way back to earth after four years just when their billionaire runs into problems. His ploys have unraveled, his financial construct is deteriorating, but the mining mission is still a secret to the world. Joyce commits suicide, his enterprizes collapse. It looks like the easy way out for the billionaire but this appearance will change.

The second book consists of the rescue mission to Ryugu. When leaving Ryugu after four years of mining two crew members had to stay back on the station to control the leaving ship's trajectory. They had to be left behind and now - of course - need to be rescued. The best next possibility will be eight years after the arrival of the mining crew on earth. But those who made it back soon are learning that setting up a rescue crew is much more difficult than expected. In the end they have to kickstart a translunar economy to be able to build a rescue ship. And they realize that exactly this was what Joyce had planned and prepared for. The second book is just about this kickstart, how the Ryugu mission is slowly unveiled to the public. They have to deal with criminal organisations, with state actors trying to prevent them from starting up. But they overcome all obstacles and finally manage to get their lunar L2 space station built, get started mining on the moon and to build their rescue ship. The new economy is thriving, built on blockchain and automated contracts. The rescue mission manages to get off in time and savely arrives at Ryugu. There they notice that some criminal state actors had tried to take over but failed. Everything ends happily but with a twist that hints to more books in these series.

These books are very entertaining. Best fiction if you ever deplored the general complacency towards a human future in space after the moon landings. But as I understand it the good guys in the book are avatars of the bad guys here in reality. According to Suarez earth is doomed if we let governments run the show, eg anti climate change measures. We only will be saved by multibillionaires. They are the ones to show financial proficiency and sufficient creative energy to save us all from our fates we created for us. So claims Suarez.

There's not a single side note that hints at the fact that these billionaires today are creating the environment, financially and economically, that is about to destroy our environment ecologically. I can well understand that you have to create a space economy to make space livable. Space ships cost money, space stations too. So you might need lots of money. But this unfettered flattering of crazy billionaires as the saviors of the earth is way beyond anything I can sustain. At the moment they are the horrors of the earth regarding production of climate gaz. Regarding free speech and the development of democracy they are horrible too. Their attempts to conquer public civil communication and turn it into billable data are abominable.

With these books Suarez has been writing some very entertaining pages about the initial conquest of space. Unluckily these are all propaganda for the untethered billionaires we all know. These volumes are a long justification for why it's good for everybody when wealth concentrates into billionaires. Musk and his ilk like Bezos and such will love the books. It's a great space opera but abominable propaganda.