[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE--> <!-- Reynolds -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Reynolds_Fire.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0575090588/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{newreview{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] What happens when Utopia is achieved? When everyone is linked neurologically to everyone else and people vote on each minor decision so every aspect of life is truly democratic? Everyone knows everything and everyone decides everything so what can possibly go wrong? Except people are dying, melting to be precise, and no one knows how, or why, or who could be next. In such a circumstance who can be trusted to solve this crime and do so without spreading panic? What if the only people who can be trusted have already let you down once before? [[Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds|Full Review]] <!-- Quine -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Quine Beasts.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992754941/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Beasts of Electra Drive by Rohan Quine]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]] Meet Jaymi. He's a world-class video games designer, and fresh to a new mansion in the Hollywood Hills on the basis of some recent success. But he's seen the future and he doesn't like it. His current employers, able to bring any amount of class, skill and culture to the world of gameplay, are beset on appealing to the most lunkheaded and lowest common denominators instead. Indeed, their next big thing will change the world for the worse – it will be a massively disturbing environment, where people progress through the world of the entity by spreading fake news about anyone and everyone else on the planet, whether they're playing along or not, and by getting kind of prestige points on spoiling and shaming anything beyond a user-accepted, algorithm-designed, status quo. With a much more Reithian approach, Jaymi goes freelance, and sets up a way of restoring the balance with a launch of his own, where aspects of his more humanitarian mind are played out by avatars of him in the game. He sees this as a way to improve society and get his own back – but the chance of getting revenge more quickly comes about when those avatars leave their encoded background, and become fully playable characters in reality… [[The Beasts of Electra Drive by Rohan Quine|Full Review]] <!-- Doescher -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Doescher_Will.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/159474985X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=159474985X]] |authorstyle="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link= Philip K DickCategory:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good… [[William Shakespeare'sthe Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher|Full Review]] <!-- Brookmyre -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Brookmyre_Places.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/035650624X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=035650624X]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Living in 2017 has me longing to live in some sort of futuristic Utopia, in a world of free thinking and no major crime. Perhaps in a Space Station high above the Earth were the greatest minds have travelled so that they can build a vessel that will send the next generations of humans to populate new planets. You know that as soon as you arrive it will be the same old problems. You can't really have a Utopia with people in it, can you? [[Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre|Full Review]] <!-- Curtis -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Curtis_Water.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0995465754?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0995465754]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Water & Glass by Abi Curtis]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Dystopian Fiction|Dystopian Fiction]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Something has happened, something very nasty and on a submarine a pregnant elephant is one of only a handful of animals living below the waves. We follow Nerissa Crane, a vet, as she remembers recent events, looks after the animals and falls into a world of intrigue. It is difficult to properly review this book without giving too much away. There will be mild spoilers throughout this right from the start but I will try to avoid the main ones. [[Water & Glass by Abi Curtis|Full Review]] <!-- Dick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dick_Electric.jpg|left|titlelink=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1473223288?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473223288]] === [[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreamsby Philip K Dick]]=== |ratingstyle= 3"vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|[[image:3star.jpg|genrelink= Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] |summary= Philip K Dick's stories were originally published in the 50s, but they are more present than past. On the big screen ''Blade Runner 2049'' relaunched the Dick-inspired cult classic to reviews of pure praise; and on slightly smaller screens, Channel 4 has adapted the author's short stories for TV. Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction and into the factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss of privacy to the increasing machination of society are all headline material in today's news. It is as if half a century after their inception, Dick's electric dreams are becoming reality.[[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick|Full Review]] <!-- Goss -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Goss_600.jpg|left|amazonuklink=<amazonuk>1473223288<https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/amazonuk>1785942719?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785942719]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}}Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Children's Rhymes and Verse|Children's Rhymes and Verse]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] Consider the Doctor. Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were he to keep in touch with even half of his companions? He would certainly need a few novelty gifts for some of them, say, for example, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a Time Lord and that of some of his friends and enemies. As luck would have it, he has the space in his TARDIS to stock up in advance, so my advice to him – sorry, her – would be to pop along to his local Earth-based book emporium and get himself ready. And if you're working on a shorter timescale, with a shorter lifespan, and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the same. [[Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies|Full Review]] |}
{{newreview
|author=George Mann
|summary=Taking on a band of undead Mummies will take it out of the best of us and a holiday may be needed. If you are from New York there are not many other cities worldwide that could impress you, but London is one of them. Surely, a nice visit to England, far from the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, will help you to relax. It is not as if Russian Tsarists are on the loose with magical powers or the events are conspiring to raise the sleeping power of Albion from its slumber. Is it?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783294183</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Ian Doescher
|title=William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh
|rating=4.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474985X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=James Goss and Russell T Davies
|title=Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who)
|rating=4.5
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
|summary=Consider the Doctor. Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were he to keep in touch with even half of his companions? He would certainly need a few novelty gifts for some of them, say, for example, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a Time Lord and that of some of his friends and enemies. As luck would have it, he has the space in his TARDIS to stock up in advance, so my advice to him – sorry, her – would be to pop along to his local Earth-based book emporium and get himself ready. And if you're working on a shorter timescale, with a shorter lifespan, and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the same.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785942719</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|summary= Jamie Allenby wakes, alone, and realises her fever has broken. But could everyone she knows be dead? Months earlier, Jamie had left her partner Daniel, mourning the miscarriage of their baby. She'd just had to get away, so took a job on a distant planet. Then the virus hit. Jamie survived as it swept through our far-flung colonies. Now she feels desperate and isolated, until she receives a garbled message from Earth. If someone from her past is still alive – perhaps Daniel – she knows she must find a way to return. She meets others seeking Earth, and their ill-matched group will travel across space to achieve their dream. But they'll clash with survivors intent on repeating humanity's past mistakes, threatening their precious fresh start. Jamie will also get a second chance at happiness. But can she escape her troubled past, to embrace a hopeful future?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509833528</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Elizabeth Moon
|title= Cold Welcome: Vatta's Peace
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=''I'm convinced we can survive anything''
After saving the empire, Admiral Kylara Vatta wants nothing less than to return to her home planet. But after her cousin's request, that's exactly where Ky finds herself, enroute to tie up some family business. Promised a hero's welcome, Ky plans to stay as little time as possible back in the place filled with such horrible memories. But as soon as she arrives, Ky finds herself in perilous danger, caught in the middle of an assassination attempt. Now stranded at sea and without communication links with the outside world, Ky must use every ounce of skill she possesses to battle for survival. But with an unfamiliar crew who don't trust her, sabotaged equipment and a traitor in the midst, the odds aren't in her favour. While the survivors hunt for land, Ky's family members are doing everything possible to ensure her rescue. Old friends are called in and new alliances are made, but will it be enough? Will they get to Ky before it's too late?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356506282</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Sam Peters
|title=From Darkest Skies
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=No one likes to see a loved one die, but when they do we can reflect on how they lived and eventually move on with a piece of them inside us. However, what would happen if we could take all the memories we have saved on the internet and combine them into an Artificial Intelligence that represented them? Would this work to keep them close, or just give you a false facsimile that prevents you from moving on?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473214750</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=M R Carey
|title=The Boy on the Bridge
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=It's ten years since mankind was almost wiped out by a virus that turned the great majority of it into the hungries – zombies by any other name. A lone, heavily armoured vehicle is travelling from the British redoubt on the south coast the length of the Kingdom, tracing a previous expedition that failed to return, and hoping to find evidence somewhere, somehow, of something that can either counter the virus or rid the survivors of their enemy. As a result the vehicle is divided in personnel between scientists and the military, and as neither side is completely cohesive it's no surprise to see the crew split along partisan lines. That's not helped by one of the scientists, Samrina Khan, being heavily pregnant. But she's also rubbed people up by insisting on an intriguing character being on board – a teenaged savant, no less, called Stephen Greaves. But that source of the unusual is nothing perhaps to the bizarre the team will find on their explorations…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356503534</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= John Scalzi
|title= The Collapsing Empire
|rating= 5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary='' ''Just out of curiosity if this is the smaller problem, what is the bigger problem?'' ''
'' ''The complete collapse of the Flow, the end of the interdependency, and the possible extinction of the human race.'' ''
In the distant future, mankind has been forced to leave Earth behind and has subsequently built an impressive empire compromising of 47 human colonies all connected by The Flow: a river of alternate space-time which makes travel across the Interdependency possible. Dependent on trade, the Holy Empire's survival is all thanks to the Flow… which is now collapsing.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509835075</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Geoff Gaywood
|title= Omnipotence: Odyssey Book I
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= Against a backdrop of relentless global warming and deepening social conflict on Earth, an expedition sets out to secure a foothold on a distant planet thought suitable for human habitation. Almost immediately, the crew are sorely tested by a violent internal conspiracy, alien aggression and simmering emotional tensions. They complete a spectacular transition to a remote solar system where they find that their goal, as dangerous as it is exotic, already has the ominous attention of another civilisation. Moreover, a series of perplexing events suggest that their mission may be subordinate to a much greater power with its own strategic agenda.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178589918X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Kim Stanley Robinson
|title= New York 2140
|rating= 5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=By 2140 sea level has risen by around fifty feet, leaving coastal cities the world over with major problems. Some places will always be desirable, however, and when you've invested a lot of time and money somewhere you're reluctant to leave. Consequently New York remains a thriving, popular place even though half of Manhattan is under water and the streets are now canals. There are still financial traders, local politicians, celebrities, street urchins (albeit known as water rats) sharing the city and getting by. It seems like New York has stabilised into a new, watery normal but when a couple of programmers go missing from a building on Madison Square and some of the other residents start looking into it, a question begins to be asked: Does it have to be this way?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356508757</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Stefan Mohamed
|title= Stanly's Ghost: Book 3 (The Bitter Sixteen Trilogy)
|rating= 5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= Cynical, solitary Stanly Bird used to be a fairly typical teenager – unless you count the fact that his best friend was a talking beagle named Daryl. Then came the superpowers. And the super powered allies. And the mysterious enemies. And the terrifying monsters. And the stunning revelations. And the apocalypse. Now he's not sure what he is. Or where he is. Or how exactly one is supposed to proceed after saving the world. All he knows is that his story isn't finished. Not quite yet …
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630764</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Tom Toner
|title= The Weight of the World (The Amaranthine Spectrum)
|rating=4
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= One thing great science fiction needs is solid world building. When I pick up a book like this, I need to imagine that the universe has existed before the plot has started and will continue to do so after: it needs a strong sense of history and future. With this book, and series, I feel like I have just had a brief glimpse into something much larger. A great deal happens in the plot, but even more is happening, and has happened, across the Firmament.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473211395</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Amanda Hocking
|title= Freeks
|rating= 3.5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= In the spring of 1987, the carnival comes to small-town Caudry, Louisiana. Then events take a dangerous turn. For Mara Beznik, the carnival is home. It's also a place of secrets, hidden powers and a buried past - making it hard to connect with outsiders. However, sparks fly when she meets local boy Gabe Alvarado. As they become inseparable, Mara realizes Gabe is hiding his own secrets. And his family legacy could destroy Mara's world. They find the word 'freeks' sprayed on trailers, as carnival employees start disappearing. Then workers wind up dead, killed in disturbing ways by someone or something. Mara is determined to unlock the mystery, with Gabe's help. But can they really halt this campaign of fear?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509807659</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Alec Birri
|title= Condition: Book Two - The Curing Begins...
|rating= 4
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= Discovering an infamous Nazi doctor conducted abortions in Argentina after the Second World War may not come as a surprise, but why was the twisted eugenicist not only allowed to continue his evil experiments but encouraged to do so? And what has that got to do with a respected neurologist in 2027? Surely the invention of a cure for nearly all the world's ailments can't possibly have its roots buried in the horrors of Auschwitz? The unacceptable is about to become the disturbingly bizarre. What has the treatment's 'correction' of paedophiles got to do with the President of the United States, the Pope and even the UK's Green Party?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785898779</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Alastair Reynolds
|title= Slow Bullets
|rating= 4
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=When hundreds of worlds have been at war for a long time, the announcement of a ceasefire takes a while to reach everyone. It's perhaps not surprising that the worst of the soldiers using the war as an excuse for crimes, don't immediately give up. Scur, a conscript who has just been given the hope of returning to her family, has the misfortune to run into one of these war criminals before the peacekeepers arrive. He leaves her to die, but she subsequently wakes up from hibernation on a prison ship, only to discover that he is there too. And that's the least of her worries.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147321842X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Alec Birri
|title= Condition: Book One - A Medical Miracle?
|rating= 5
|genre= Thrillers
|summary= It's 1966, but RAF Pilot Dan Stewart isn't celebrating England's win in the World Cup – instead he's awakening from a coma following an aircraft accident. Waking in a world where nothing makes sense, he's unable to recall the crash – but struggles to remember the rest of his life…And what's stopping him from taking his medication? Is it brain damage causing paranoia about the red pill, or is he right to think there's something more sinister going on…And, having suffered almost 100% burns, how is he alive? Are his hallucinations trying to tell him something?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785899686</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Charlie Laidlaw
|title= The Things We Learn When We're Dead
|rating= 5
|genre= General Fiction
|summary= On the way to a dinner party, Lorna Love steps into the path of an oncoming car. Waking up in what appears to be a hospital, but a hospital in which wine is served for supper, everyone avoids her questions, and her nurse looks suspiciously like Sean Connery, it soon transpires that Lorna is in Heaven, or, at least, on HVN. Because HVN is a lost, dysfunctional spaceship, and God the aging hippy captain. At first Lorna can remember nothing, but as her memories return – some good, some bad, she realises that she has a decision to make, and that maybe, she needs to find a way home…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786150352</amazonuk>
}}
