Keiree – a review

I have enjoyed a great many books in the last few years, but I have not reviewed all of them because…well because life gets in the way, doesn’t it? But sometimes a story grabs me enough for me to get off my butt and say why. This is the review I just left on Amazon for a scifi story called ‘Keiree’. I believe the book, and its author, deserve a great deal more attention from readers like us. So here it is:

Keiree, by C. Litka

I’ll start with Molly, a green silka cat whose breed has been genetically enhanced to understand human language, if not speak it.

That was enough for me to give ‘Keiree’ a go, but somewhere along the way the story snuck into my heart and took up residence there. I reached the end and kept swiping my Kindle, hoping for more. An epilogue, maybe. Or perhaps a link to a second book.

I found neither, and if the author reads this – please Sir, can I have more?

Not because the ending wasn’t right. It was perfect for /this/ story. But …I grew to love Gy and Molly. I’d really like to know what they did next. How they lived their lives /after/.

On a technical level, the definition of scifi is that the story could not have taken place without the technology, place or time of the world in which it’s set. Think Dune or The Left Hand of Darkness.

By that definition, Keiree is as scifi as you can get because it takes place on a terraformed Mars, many hundreds, or possibly even thousands, of years in our future. Cryosleep is commonplace, as is sophisticated genetic modification and all sorts of other, smaller, innovations that we would consider close to magic now. But while all these elements quietly define the place and time, it’s the people who truly shine.

People don’t change. Some are petty and avaricious. Some remain true, no matter the odds. Keiree is that kind of story. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

You can find ‘Keiree’ here. It’s at a ridiculously low price, so even if you don’t think you like scifi, please give it a go. I’m certain you won’t be disappointed. Hmm…unless you’re looking for space battles, lasguns and Terminator style robots. Wrong book, sorry. 😉

cheers
Meeks

Liquid water on #Mars

Okay, the liquid water is beneath 1.5 km of solid ice at the South Pole, but it is there!

It’s also incredibly salty [one reason why it isn’t frozen], but its discovery opens up huge new areas of research because it means that Mars really was much wetter in the past. I’m no geologist or climatologist, but I can’t help wondering what happened to Mars to turn it into the barren rock it is now. If there’s any chance that our own Earth can go the same way, we need to know.

Please visit the New Atlas website to read the whole story.

And finally, from me, an apology. I’m racing a July 31 deadline so this blog, and social media in general, have taken a huge back seat. I’ll be more sociable again once I. Get.This. Job. Done!

cheers

Meeks