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[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]==Science fiction==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Margaret AtwoodAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The HandmaidAll Tomorrow's Tale|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In the near-future USA Futures: Fictions that they call Gilead, society has changed. For the worse, of course. The population is dying out, and people who are capable of breeding the next generation are given a cherished status of Handmaid - gifted to any male of enough esteem, called a Commander, who balances the household with his wife and what is practically a walking womb. Other women get drudge work, or run horrid finishing schools for the Handmaids, or are packed off to what are reported to be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for life. Men are restricted too - Handmaids are off-limits to everybody but their Commander, and those households are patrolled carefully by other eunuch types. It's up to our nameless narrator and main character, however, to show us just how cherished the status of Handmaid feels.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099511665</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewDisrupt|author=Iain M Banks|title=Surface DetailBenjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=It is perhaps appropriate for a book that centres around the battle for the afterlife to begin this review with a confession: this was my first encounter with Iain M Banks' Culture series 'Opening up new ways of science fiction novels. At first, I worried that this put me at a significant disadvantage as for thinking about the first 100 or so pages, I spend most shape of the time being completely confused about what was going on. However, as the strands started things to come together, it became apparent that this is partly Banks.' style and indeed it's one he uses in his non-science fiction books too. Keep going, it does come together.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498939</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=William Gibson|title=Zero History|rating=4.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=ItI's almost obligatory when writing anything about William Gibson to recall ve heard it said that in an earlier short story, he invented the term 'cyberspacetechnology'. Gibson remains at the cutting edge of is what is 'coolhappens after you're eighteen. Like most of his books Well, Zero History is I must confess that there have been more than a thriller, but at its core are issues surrounding few decades of technology, how we interact with it, branding and marketingin my lifetime. It would be easy to criticise much of his content as being too shallow and concerned I've kept up reasonably well with what'nothings advantageous to me but I' - but then m left with the feeling thatit's part all getting away from me. Some of his pointit is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919527</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles StrossSylvie Cathrall|title=The Fuller MemorandumA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Our world is not as it seems. We share it with aliens, zombies, demonic spirits, with ancient god-like entities that There are all keen few greater joys than a book which lives up to eat our bodies and devour our souls. It's lucky, then, that we have the British secret service to protect us, more specifically a top secret branch of the secret service called The Laundry. This organisation is so secret that even the bosses at MI6 don't know of its existencecompelling premise. The point of the Laundry And this is to keep all the myriad of terrors endangering the Earth at bay by the careful use of science, technology and magic, magic being a little known branch one of applied mathsthem.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497703</amazonuk>0356522776
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ian McDonald1803816759|title=The Dervish HouseUnravelling|author=Will Gibson
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=The reader It's 2038 and Joe is plunged straight away a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the busyAI system that now runs everything, bustling centre of Istanbulmaking life easier for many, and riots start to spread. And climate change appears Finally, Joe gets to have arriveddo some real policing. In 2022 thousands the aftermath of Istanbul's citizens died in a heatwave the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and now, only three years later it's 'Thirty-three degrees in April, at seven in the morning. UnthinkableJoe is assigned to bring her home.Joe isn' You can almost hear t the collective thrum of all those air-conditioning units only one trying to make life bearable for save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the local peoplecase.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575080531</amazonuk>What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeff SomersB0CP95J1CG|title=The Terminal StateOf Ghosts & Broken Promises|author=Mark Lingane|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=In this future, desolate, post-apocalyptic world, Ronan's not entirely sure why he decides to go to the last thing Avery Cates wants to do party but his interest is choose piqued by the way it arrived. And it seems like a side. The police are androids, artificial cases for clones good opportunity to get out of people who die in the making, his room and away from the other source of power is not much betteronline activities he makes a living at. But it's them that pressgang him into joining their army. What little freedom and power So he had as a lone gunman is lostmakes his way there, as he's given nanotech augments to dodging the buses that make him a super-soldier. Which is bad news - as is the fact up most of the two most powerful traffic and hated people in Cates's universe are watching the very people who buy him from the army to do one last job - and they can local energy storage indicator lights. Should be very persuasive about him accepting it.enough power.Hopefully.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498750</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Terry DehartK P O'Donnell|title=The UnitVital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=We all know about the nuclear familyVL-15, well now meet the post-nuclear family in Terry De Hart's brutal vision of a post apocalyptic Americaprototype robot, is desperate to understand who she isWe know Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the score; terrorists attack key US cities with nuclear devicesworld ended, US retaliates on consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations supporting the terroristof Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. There Dr Amelia Wong is only one possible outcomedetermined to continue her father's legacy, mass casualties building a world where machines and the breakdown of civil society leading to the rise of barbarism humans can live together in a devastated landscape in the grip harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a nuclear winter. Within this madness a family survives not knowing how much group of salvagers called the country or the world Exhumers, has been destroyedhis entire life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself.Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841499331</amazonuk>B0CKRYFRZM
}}
 {{newreview|author=Ken MacLeod|title=The Restoration Game|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Lucy Stone works for a videogame company in Edinburgh. She enjoys the job - particularly being one of the boys - and it's given her a sense of belonging that she'd craved but never had. And then her mother calls. A CIA spook, Amanda wants Lucy's firm to rewrite their upcoming game to feature the mythology of a small ex-Soviet republic. Krassnia is where Lucy was born, where she lived for her first seven years, and where she spent the scariest day of her life. Amanda wrote a seminal work on Krassnian mythology and Lucy uses this to reshape the game, knowing that it's likely to be used as a tool in a hoped-for colour revolution. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496472</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris WoodingEmily Tesh|title=Black Lung Captain: Tales of the Ketty JaySome Desperate Glory
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Things on board the Ketty Jay have never been as low. Darian Frey and his crew are even having trouble thieving from defenceless orphanages. So when the next token job-they-can't-refuse comes along, they fall under it'While Earth's spell. An explorer has returned with tales of untold riches, courtesy of the most mysterious artefacts and treasures of an unknown civilization. The fact that the remains are those of an aircraft crashed in the most Arctic of rainforests, inhabited by the most evil beast-men monsterschildren live, is neither here nor there. The problems start with what they find there, which is worse than anyone could have expected - or indeed years ago, with a mysterious connection between the remains and the more unusual crewmember...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575085177</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Beckett|title=The Holy Machine|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=In the near future, only Illyria city stands for science, technology and progress in a world dominated by religious fundamentalism of every faith (and then some). The city was founded as a haven for those intellectuals not possessing any such religious convictions, who advocated reason and logic instead, and were persecuted for their enemy shall fear us'blasphemies' in the early stages of the upheaval. George Simling, the introvert protagonist and second generation Illyrian, falls in love with a beautiful woman called Lucy. Unfortunately however, Lucy is actually a syntec, a robot ASPU: Advanced Sensory Pleasure Unit, a prostitute. As George obsessively visits her, he realises that she is starting to develop a level of consciousness and self-awareness outside of her programming. Lucy is due for a routine mind-wipe so George decides to flee with her to the technophobic outlands in order to save this newly discovered consciousness.
Following the destruction of the Earth, amongst a rare number of survivors, Kyr has been raised on Gaea Station – the home of the last scraps of humanity – and trained relentlessly to avenge her people and the world that should have been hers. All her life, she has been conditioned to fall in line, to fulfil her duty and ensure that humanity perseveres.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1848874626</amazonuk>0356521834
}}
 {{newreview|author=Pittacus Lore|title=I am Number Four|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Meet John Smith. By all appearances he is the usual fifteen year old American kid, except for the fact he and his 'father' shift location every few months. John is certainly not his real name, but has to face up to reality - school bullies, hot girls and in fact any friends being unattainable with such a peripatetic lifestyle. 'Dad' stays at home, scanning the internet and all news sources, in order to protect the pair - for they are among the remaining dozen or so inhabitants of Lorien, living in hidden exile on Earth, but hunted by their enemies from yet another alien race. Can the fact they are permanently pursued grant them any peace - especially when 'John' is about to undergo some rather prominent alien-style puberty?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141332476</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Cobley|title=The Orphaned Worlds (Humanity's Fire)|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=The planet Darien, once a lost outpost where earth colonists co-existed with the native Uvovo, is now the focal point of an intergalactic struggle. Hegemony forces are in occupation mode, Earth is standing back reined in by inter-planetary politics, whilst planet-side local alliances are fighting back guerrilla-style. This is the least of the galaxy's concerns, however. It might even get air-brushed out as a little minor difficulty in the history-books-to-come. There is a much bigger problem to worry about.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496332</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mira GrantM R Carey|title=FeedInfinity Gate
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=In 2014 the common cold was cured. So was cancer. But in their wake something terrible came – the two viruses used I'm annoyingly picky when it comes to cure the ailments combined to form a terrifying plague that turned humans and large animals into the living deadscience fiction. Now whatNot because it's left a genre I dislike – nothing of the human race lives every day with the fear that the virus they hold dormant in their bodies could go into amplification, causing them to turnsort. People stay indoors, stop meeting in crowds, and conduct most of their lives online. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149898X</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert Edric|title=Salvage|rating=4|My standards are high precisely because it's a hard genre=Science Fiction|summary=Some time about a hundred years hence to get right – and the predictions have come to pass. The sea levels have risen; the Gulf Stream has shifted its path. Climate change has hit Britain with a vengeance. Global Warming is the misnomer; of course the temperatures are, on balance, warmer. Snow is something most people only hear or read about. The real change, howeverwhen it's bad, is the wet.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617623</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Tom Holt|title=Blonde Bombshell|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=The blonde bombshell in question in Tom Holtit's latest book of that name is Lucy Pavlovoften terrible. If you are reading this review in 2017 of course you will know who Lucy Pavlov is. She's But the beautiful, talented, wealthy, CEO premise of PaySoft Industries - the revolutionary operating system that is running on every computer in the world. Of course, if that is indeed the case, then we've got a problemInfinity Gate had me hooked. A very big problem. Because what Lucy doesn't know is that she is literally concept this intriguing felt like a blonde bombshell high- stakes gamble: if it was done well she knows she's blonde, just not that her body is a shell for a bomb. A very big and a very smart bomb, but nevertheless a bomb. And sheit's been sent to destroy the planetd be fantastic. It kind of makes Bill Gates seem OK for the time being.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497789</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Scott Westerfeld|title=Extras|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=In the future city of So this book, many people live with what is called a reputation economy. With everybody practically a cyborg, they're online permanently, using optical and brain implants to see everybody's status, output and more. Many people have hovercam companions, to make their own documentaries and film their own lives. They rely on metablogs to interact and keep their popularity where I sum up. They continuously spread their opinions and interests in order to become more well-known. A girl called Aya is struggling to get any renown, but things change, when she meets other people doing incredibly notorious things, but in complete secrecy and anonymitythat premise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847389228</amazonuk>0356518043
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott WesterfeldMichael Grothaus|title=SpecialsBeautiful Shining People
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=In the un-named city of the future, all the adults are living in the delusion that their city is right. After a teenage life as an ugly, they all undergo a welter of medical procedures, to make their minds and bodies conform to the bland, but gorgeous, society norm. ''But one young woman is not like that. She is going to a party, looking ugly, fearing something and she knows having it is not what we look like, but how special we feel inside, that is of most importance. The good news is that this woman is our returning heroine, Tally. The bad news is that her ugliness is a temporary disguise, and worse than that - she knows how come to feel special inside, because she IS A Special.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389082</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Scott Westerfeld|title=Pretties|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=In the unnamed city of the future, all the adults pass are prettytwo different things. TheyAnd I've had mental and physical surgery m willing to make them calm, placid and perfectly aesthetic human beings. If they have any trouble as young adults it is the problem bet most of what to wear at partieswe fear will never happen, or how we can take steps to get rid of their hangovers when they wake up at 5pm. Unfortunately, one of these bright young things is our heroine, Tally, one of the few people in the world to have learnt how damnably horrid and sapping the life of Riley can be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389074</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeff Somers|title=The Eternal Prison|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=This book stands out in the high-energy, hard-edged sci-fi adventure/thriller genre, in that change it covers two stories at the same time. In one chapter we have Avery Cates, practically the best gun-for-hire in his post-apocalyptic North America, being told to kill one of the most protected and important people left in the world, by other, almost as important people, in the cruel mix of powerplays that make up the current politics. In the other corner is Cates, being thrown in prison - one of those basic, hell-on-earth, surrounded by miles of desert, prisons. Here, too, he will be told to do jobs for other people...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497053</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Orson Scott Card|title=Ender in Exile|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary='Ender in Exile' is the most recently published in the series set in the universe of 'Ender's Game', a long standing and one of the best known series of science-fiction by Orson Scott Card. It's been defined as an 'interquel', fitting chronologically between 'Ender's Game' and the 'Speaker for the Dead', the first two (and probably the best two) novels in the sequence. Technically speaking, 'Ender in Exile' actually fits in-between the last chapters of 'Ender's Game' and describes in more detail events outlined in the resolving sections of 'Ender's Game'. Confusingly for the uninitiated, 'Ender in Exile' is also a sequel to the 'Shadow of the Giant', a parallel sub-series from the universe of the 'Ender's Game'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841492272</amazonuk>}}
{{newreview|author=John Dickinson|title=WE|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Paul Munro has been disconnected from ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the World Ear in readiness for a mission that will last a lifetimequestion of identity and acceptance. Sent Of what it means to man a tiny station built at enormous effort and expense on a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar system, he will never be able to returnhuman. Gravity Of what is one-tenth that of Earth real and his flesh has wastedwhat is artificial, his bones enbrittled without the strength of calcium. 'If he stood on the Earth now... his skeleton would splinter under his weight.' It took eight years to get there and whether the rest development of his life stretches before him fearfullytechnology is exciting or frightening. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>191458564X
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ursula K Le Guin1739593901|title=22 Ideas About The Left Hand of DarknessFuture|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=It's hard to believe that ''The Left Hand Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of Darkness'' dates back to 1969: forty years on, it reads as well, or even better, then when it was originally writtenflying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and - deservedly - enjoys a classic status in the science-fiction canon, as well as being perhaps the best known sci-fi novel by Ursula LeGuinautomated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496065</amazonuk>}}''
{{newreview|author=Eoin Colfer|title=And Another Thing I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Douglas Adams Then there' Hitchhikers science fiction: far too often it's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6) |rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Of all technology which takes centre stage along with the big books announced for this year, this one must have raised more eyebrows than manyworld-building. Why try and write a new HitchhikerIt's Guide to human beings who fascinate me: the Galaxy book, when way before technology and the end, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such a task? world scape are purely incidental. And why approach an IrishmanSo, Eoin Colfer, when the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described as Monty Python doing what did I think of a scibook of twenty-fi Terry Pratchett, and with their cups of tea and dressing gowns, could only be described as very Englishtwo science fiction short stories? Well the answer is most evident - Colfer is a world-beater when , I loved it comes to knocking up a story.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon Law Mark Lingane|title=Bringing Forth the End of DaysGalaxy
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Imagine Spark, who is an elite pilot with the hell of a dying worldSpace Academy, less than barely makes it through a generation from nowbattle alive. World War Three has been and gone His co- ended with conventional bombs galore but started by pilot was not so fortunate. Waking from a plague on all plant-lifecoma that lasted years, that removed all the oxygen from the planet's atmospherehe remembers little and is in no physical shape to resume his duties. As a result, the few survivors But Earth is under threat and he must live in air-tight houses with special oxygenating equipment - . Returned by his superiors to the ultimate in air conditioning - orspace station, they must have got in early with he finds himself amid a special biomechanical adaptation that allows them mobility last ditch attempt to save humanity - and independencenot just from the alien threats against it, but at a freakish cost. Worse, religion has mutated - the Jehovah's Witnesses are now the most violent gang, rushing to nudge what's left of humanity towards also from its final judgment. Worse still - even worse than all of that - you're living in Crawleyown sins against itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1608602036</amazonuk>B09X3NZ76W
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Peter Salisbury Tade Thompson|title=Passengers to SentienceFar From the Light of Heaven|rating=34.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Human beings are spread across Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship Ragtime, bound for the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter for the galaxyship's AI captain. The technology that allowed this However, when she wakes up at the end of her trip to happen? Not faster than light travelfind dozens of her passengers butchered and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, suspended animation or matter transfer but cloning. Want she begins to start a new life elsewhere? Your mind and personality can realise that her first mission won't be mapped going as smoothly as informationshe hoped it would. Unmanned ships Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to inhabitable planets across discover exactly what went wrong on the furthest reaches Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of space and upon arrivalShell's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in tow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the automated cloning vats begin re-creating your body politicking and entering your stored mind and personality databureaucracy of Space Station Lagos.What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755211596</amazonuk>0356514323
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip Palmer Claire North|title=Red ClawNotes from the Burning Age
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=New AmazonAt its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North is a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. However, home to some of as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most violent affecting one is that of a new and deadly alien life imaginabletimely genre, cli-fi, is due to be razed to the ground in order to make way for human habitationor climate change fiction. A team North's novel tells of scientists, led a world devastated by the charismatic Richard Helms, climate change where humans have been stationed on this planet under military protection, in order forced to study start anew and catalogue live alongside nature without any of the flora modern and faunacorrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). HoweverThere is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the computer super brain handling all the technology has inconceivably turned on her human chargesBrotherhood, forcing soldier and scientist alike aims to abandon base head quarters. As if master these processes no matter the planet's hostile environment (including bouts of acid rain) were not enough of a threat, cost to the characters are also pursued by legions of killer robots. Life expectancy does not look goodEarth.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841496243</amazonuk>0356514757
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=K S Turner Adrian Tchaikovsky|title=Before the Gods (Chronicles Shards of Fate and Choice)Earth|rating=54|genre=FantasyScience Fiction|summary=''Before The Gods'' Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architects. Humanity is presented scattered, constantly fleeing as an enigmaworld after world falls to the architect's reshaping. Then, just when they had the human race on the run, the Architects vanished. And so, the memories of the war fades, heroes are forgotten, wrapped in a puzzle and shrouded in mysteryhumanity begins to fracture and fight among themselves. The front is adorned by Idris Telemmier, a beguiling image created by man genetically engineered to try and communicate with the authorArchitects, does not want to be remembered. A glance at But, when he and the back cover serves only crew of the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to tantalise rather than reveal what might be in store. ''This recent Architect activity, suddenly he is where it all beganthrust back into the spotlight. Everything. LoveAs he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, hatechased by alien crime syndicates, goodhuman secret police and rich slavers, evil, us and them. This he slowly begins to realise that the real war is before they were gods.''only just getting started…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956224202</amazonuk>1529051886
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Issui Ogawa Terry Miles|title=The Lords of the Sands of TimeRabbits|rating=34.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=We're in Welcome to the world of The Game. Or should that be the third centurygame, Japanfor while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. A queen It's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and her young retainer are wandering to the edge average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of their territorylife then. Yes, when this is the game of life for a baddy appears - an alien seeming certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be some local creature. Handily enough a saviourhistorians of the game, warrior hero appears tooand have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, from way for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the futuremost peculiar places, complete with talking swordand are still very short. However this time it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and saves the dayotherwise. This incident is bad news Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the queen to take back to court and discussgame is doing, but if it's even worse for the messenger - sent on a one-way ticket from being played, and how his own lifeloved ones might be kept safe, he is only to advise of timelines find out that need saved - the line between observing and learning about the people that might just save Earth from this cosmic battlegame, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1421527626</amazonuk>1529016932
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hiroshi SakurazakaC J Carey|title=All You Need Is KillWidowland
|rating=4
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, and watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. For yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it, and we are now a protectorate – well, we share enough of the same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''the mainland''. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the drudges, and beyond those, right on down to the childless, the husbandless and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, not every book can be banned, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint. That is her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit.
|isbn=152941198X
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Everina Maxwell
|title=Winter's Orbit
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=In a global war between humans and invading aliens, called Mimics, Keiji Prince Kiem is a trooper at the beginning of his short career in the army. Despite his high-tech body armour, he's not destined to last long - he's quickly deadfamous political disappointment. But then heHe's quickly alive againoutgoing, as somehow his life is rewound a day. It only makes for prolonged horror for the rookie, but it happens again and again. Each time he gets a better intelligence of what his destiny might have been - can he learn enough each time round to make a differencecarefree, and possibly break has gotten into many drunken scandals over the loop?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1421527618</amazonuk>}} [[Category:Science Fiction]]{{newreview|author=Jonathan Luna and Joshua Luna |title=Girls Volume 1: Conception|rating=4past few years.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Ethan, we see with a great, broad comic stroke or six, So when an important political alliance is not the best when it comes to girls. Letting his mouth run away with him too often, he be arranged – one that is not very successful at relationships. But let us look at what happens when he drives away from supposed to prevent an altercation at interplanetary war – no one expects him to be chosen for the local bar, and sees a gorgeous - and very naked - young woman standing in the middle role. Least of the roadall him.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1582405298</amazonuk>0356515885
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles Stross Rob Winters|title=WirelessHis Name Was Wren
|rating=4
|genre=Short StoriesConfident Readers|summary=In his introductionSeptember 1944 something came down in Oban Woods, Stross explains that one of near the reasons he likes writing shorts stories is because they are the ideal format in which to focus on a particular concept village of the future and play around with itHurstwick. It doesn't matter so much if came down hard, taking the idea doesn't ultimately work because neither spire of the reader nor the author has invested in village church with it the way they would in , destroying a novel. ''Wireless'' thenstone shack, is something of an experiment. Stross employs many different styles, tackles many different subjects and is very skilful at creating mood. His stories are leaving a strange blend of wide trail through the technical and the archaic.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497711</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Robert Buettner |title=Orphan's Triumph (Jason Wander)|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction |summary=One wood, but no trace of the major problems with science fiction series is that the titles aren't always terribly imaginativewhat it actually was. At first glanceGerman secret weapon was the local gossip, but there should have been an explosion and a crater, the cover and there were neither of ''Orphan's Triumph'' gives away exactly how the story is going to turn out. It's great credit to Robert Buettner that what I expected wasn't what happenedthose things.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497622</amazonuk>B08KGVNVNB
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 {{newreview|author=Stephen Woodworth |title=Through Violet Eyes (Violet Series)|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction |summary=To every generation, a few souls are born with violet-coloured eyes. These Violets can channel the dead. Viewed by the government as a commodity, they are taken into the care of the School from an early age and taught to use their abilities. While the School does teach them to control the souls constantly trying to invade their bodies from the black of death, it also trains them to serve the government – calling on the victims of murder and horrific accidents to ascertain exactly how they died or who killed them.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749941278</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle |title=Graphic Classics, Volume 17: Science Fiction Classics|rating=4|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=So, an introduction. The Graphic Classics collection is a series whereby the best in genre fiction, from sources both highly likely and remarkably unexpected, is collected and dressed up for us in graphic novel form. This seventeenth edition, a belated best-of sci-fi volume, is their first foray into full colour, and is headlined by a version of The War of the Worlds. The supporting material ranges from a one-page strip to thirty-page stories.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0978791975</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Sean Williams |title=Earth Ascendant (Astropolis)|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction |summary=Science-fiction has come a long way since H G Wells first looked up at the night sky and thought how cool it would be to have giant Martian tripod war machines trampling all over the Home Counties. Now that the most daring innovations of even quite recent science-fiction can be found readily in your home - from videophones to genetically modified food - the genre continues to evolve and develop.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495212</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Samantha HuntMark Lingane|title=The Invention of Everything Else|rating=4|genre=Literary Fiction |summary=Nikola Tesla, born in 1856, was a young engineering student in Croatia, a Serb with a ferocious talent for invention when he sailed to America armed only with a note of introduction from his former employer Note to Thomas Edison which saidSelf: ''I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.'' Promised prodigious amounts of money to reorganise Edison's workshops, he was in the end cheated by Edison, who made a joke about the American sense of humour when Tesla asked to be paid.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099524007</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jaine Fenn|title=Consorts of Heaven|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Fantasy and science fiction are genres that mesh well together. Some authors have written successfully across both genres, but not usually in the same story. Jaine Fenn has managed to combine both in one book and it's an interesting read.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575083239</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Bernard Beckett|title=GenesisAn Education
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=The reviewer sat down with In Kry's world, the fancy hardback review copy discovery that human cells replace themselves every seven years results in a cascade of medical "advances": in 2030 it's found that radiation can return cells back to their regeneration state seven years before, in 2035 it'Genesis'' s possible to cure cancerous tumours but with the side effect of erasing seven years of memory, by Bernard Beckett and turned 2045 the cosmetics industry is using the pages, not knowing at all what same technique to expect"de-age" their customers by seven years.In a society obsessed with image and youth, who needs memories?|isbn=B08LY8J4KS}} * What did he find?{{Frontpage |author= Christopher Paolini* He found a science fiction tale set |title= To Sleep in a futuristic New Zealand. The setting Sea of Stars|rating= 5|genre= Science Fiction|summary= On the book is based on current concerns - environmental problemsmoon of a distant gas giant, global oil wars and animosity, and so on, and a plague war has meant NZ Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is cordoned off helping with the efforts to make the planet habitable to human life. However, a Great Sea Fence. It is living discovery of an ancient alien bunker under a strange Platothe moon's Republic, based on surface leaves her bonded with a mix of ancient Greek life (naked wrestling strange alien entity. After the entity bonded to her loses control and so on) with kills half the modern (relationships arbitrated by rampant gene testing). One staff of the soldiers defending itresearch station, Adam, takes it upon himself, howeverthe United Military Command cruiser Extenuating Circumstances arrives in the system to take Kira in for examination. Things go from bad to worse when the Extenuating Circumstances is attacked and destroyed by an alien ship, and she has to flee to betray his statethe 61 Cygnus star system. She is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and let a young girl alone on a raft through the cordonrag-tag bunch of misfits, and befriend herthe news is grim. But it is not her The same aliens that will provide destroyed the crux Extenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space, and only a mythical weapon known as the bookStaff of Blue can stop them.As the death toll climbs and more players are introduced into this war, Kira slowly begins to realise that she may have had a greater hand in the conflict than she could've possibly imagined…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847247296</amazonuk>1529046505
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 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neal AsherLaura Lam and Elizabeth May|title=Shadow of the Scorpion (Novel of the Polity) Seven Devils|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Shadow of the Scorpion'' Eris is a better book than either the title or the cover (a cartoon-ish mechanical scorpion) might at first suggest. It's an engaging espionage-type thriller one of course, but the emotional repercussions are sensitively dealt with.  The body foremost operatives of the novel is set during Novantae, a resistance movement fighting against the aftermath of ruthlessly expansionist Tholosian Empire – an interplanetary war between the Polity, humans Empire she was destined to inherit in her past life as governed by benign AIsPrincess Discordia, and a vicious alien race named the Pradorwhom everyone believed has been dead for years. CormacClo, an ace pilot for the protagonistNovantae, is has a mission: hijack a 22 year old recruit for Earth Central Security (ECS), Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to the military arm of the Politywar effort. He Although she's less than pleased to discover that her former friend Eris is assigned to guard a crash-landed Prador spaceship her partner on this mission. Things get more interesting as the mission commences; aboard the ship are three defectors with a remote planet and prevent some alien weaponry from falling into secret that could potentially cripple the wrong handsEmpire. Due Eris's brother Damocles, the runner-up heir to circumstances outside of his Controlthe Empire, Cormac is required plotting to infiltrate an underground network of Separatists, disrupt peace talks between Tholos and the Terrorists last of the future, who rebel free alien species. It's a race against time as the AI rule: rebels move to put a perfect set-up for some gripping interrogation and torture scenes stop Damocles' plans, with millions of lives hanging in the technologically advanced type. But, there is more to the novel than that.balance…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0230738591</amazonuk>1473231140
}}
 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=D J MacHaleFrederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)|title=Quillan Games (Pendragon)A Life Without End
|rating=4
|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=I would like to start with an admission. I know by now, having read three earlier books in this series, looked at the calendar the set-up. We have a demonic entity creating chaos and destroying life itself, territory by territoryother week, and disappointedly realised I have a young teen and his friendsbirthday this year – I know, originally scattered across said territories yet another one by . It won't be oneof the major numbers, combatting but the nasty and putting each and every world to rights. What time when I don't know is to what extent this is a religious allegoryhave the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. I saw And then a lot few of sloth in book four (or, if you prefer, the first commandment)big 0-numbers, and gluttony and covetousness in books five and sixif all goes well, which had similar plotsI'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty. ) But I wasnNow if that't helped by s the ending extent of book sixmy mid-life crisis, in wondering if this is a straightforward Christian tale, disguised as teen fantasyI guess I have to be happy. Does acolyte equate Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to apostle? be living one. How messianic are the characters going Determined to turn find out how to be? Do prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the ten planets and ten adventures here point us assistant to the Decalogue?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385060</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip K Dick|title=Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=World War Terminus is overfirst geneticist he interviews, and Earth they end up with a child, which is in ruins. While most people have emigrated to Marsat least a way of continuing the life of his genes, some continue and a motive to live their lives keep on Earth while radioactivity slowly impairs their brain and reproductive functiongoing.  Upon emigrating to Mars, all citizens were given a highly sophisticated android servant, and now six have escaped from captivity and fled But how can he get to Earth, killing all in their path. Rick Deckard is not flick the bounty hunter commissioned to track down and destroy these androids'final way out' switch, almost indiscernible from humans, in return for a fee.especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0575079932</amazonuk>1642860670
}}
{{newreview|author=Chris Wooding|title=Retribution Falls|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Things are never quiet when it comes to life Move on the Ketty Jay. For Captain Frey and his mismatched band of friends, colleagues, call them what you will, that make the raggle-taggle crew of the craft, will always find a dodgy scrape, a damsel in distress or some risky cargo to transport – and up til now have survived the consequences.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575085142</amazonuk>}}[[Newest Short Story Reviews]]

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