[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
{{Frontpage
|author= Stephen Baxter
|title= World Engines: Destroyer
|rating= 4
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= Hundreds of years in the future, on a stagnating and almost empty Earth, a space shuttle pilot from the early days of the 21st century is awoken from the cryogenic sleep he entered after a devastating accident. As he comes to terms with this new world, he begins to realise that their history does not match what he remembers - and that only he may be able to stop the coming catastrophe destined to destroy the planet. Until he meets a young woman who seems to have a drive of her own, and a plan...
|isbn=1473223172
}}
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{<!-- Graves -->|class-| style="wikitablewidth: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;" cellpadding|[[image:194927201X.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/194927201X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="15vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Aaron Sheridan doesn't want to live anymore. His entire family is dead by his own hand, killed in a shuttle crash. Unable to deal with the guilt, he signs up for the Fleet expecting a fatal deployment to the Rim War, but instead ends up at their most prestigious command school, Corinth Station. Initially, he's detached from the brutality of his instructors and the Machiavellian tactics of the other students there, but after he sticks up for his only friend he makes himself a target of the most feared cadet on the station, Caelus Erik. Unsure of whom to trust and worried that anything he does will make others on his flight team targets as well, Aaron retreats deeper and deeper inside himself. However, when he discovers that officer training is not the station's only purpose, it becomes increasingly clear that risking everything is the safest thing he can do. [[Lakes of Mars by Merritt Graves|Full Review]]
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===[[Sunlight 24 by Merritt Graves]]===
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category: Science Fiction|Science Fiction]]
If the game wasn’t fair before, it’s definitely not fair now. Or so thinks Dorian Waters, part of the ever-expanding portion of humanity who can’t afford the nano-implant and genetic augmentation regimen known as Revision. And because he can’t afford Revision, he can’t get into college. He can’t get a job. And when he sees the brilliant and mesmerizing Lena for the first time, he knows he doesn’t have a chance with her, either. Feeling thoroughly lost and exasperated, Dorian robs a house with his best friend, Ethan. Then they do it again. It’s thrilling and terrifying and deeply unsettling. But since they take so little each time that their targets don’t notice, they’re able to keep at it until they have enough money saved up. Once they do their first Revision, their initial choices in self-enhancement start impacting their future choices, which in turn impact their future Revision––on and on in a downward spiral of self-destruction. Dorian desperately wants to slow things down and figure out the kind of person he really wants to be, but with the police one step behind them and a contentious relationship with his brother, Jaden, threatening to unravel everything, it’s the expedient choices that he’s finding himself more and more compelled to make. [[Sunlight 24 by Merritt Graves|Full Review]]
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===[[Elysium Fire Salvation Lost by Alastair ReynoldsPeter F Hamilton]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction]]
[[imageIn the twenty-third century, humanity is enjoying a comparative utopia. Yet life on Earth is about to change, forever. Feriton Kane's investigative team has discovered the worst threat ever to face mankind – and we've almost no time to fight back. The supposedly benign Olyix plan to harvest humanity, in order to carry us to their god at the end of the universe. And as their agents conclude schemes down on earth, vast warships converge above to gather this cargo. Some factions push for humanity to flee, to live in hiding amongst the stars – although only a chosen few would make it out in time. But others refuse to break before the storm. As disaster looms, animosities must be set aside to focus on just one goal:5starwiping this enemy from the face of creation. Even if it means preparing for a future this generation will never see.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:CrimeSalvation Lost by Peter F Hamilton|CrimeFull Review]]
What happens when Utopia is achieved<!-- Megan E O'Keefe -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:0356512223.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0356512223/ref=nosim? When everyone tag=thebookbag-21]] | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Velocity Weapon by Megan E O'Keefe]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction]] The last thing Sanda remembers is linked neurologically her gunship exploding. She expected to everyone else and people vote on each minor decision so every aspect of life is truly democratic? Everyone knows everything be recovered by salvage-medics and everyone decides everything so what can possibly go wrong? Except people are dying, melting to be preciseawaken in friendly hands, patched-up and no one knows howready to rejoin the fight. Instead she wakes up 230 years later, on a deserted enemy starship called The Light of Berossus - or why, or who could be nextas he prefers to call himself, 'Bero'. Bero tells Sanda the war is lost. That the entire star system is dead. In such a circumstance who can be trusted to solve this crime and do so without spreading panicBut is that the full story? What if After all, in the only people who can be trusted have already let you down once before? vastness of space, anything is possible . . . [[Elysium Fire Velocity Weapon by Alastair ReynoldsMegan E O'Keefe|Full Review]]
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===[[The Beasts of Electra Drive Across the Void by Rohan QuineS K Vaughn]]===
[[image:3.5star4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], Sea epics? So 20th century. Try a space epic. [[Across the Void by S K Vaughn|Full Review]] <!-- Chiang -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align:Categorycenter;"|[[image:Fantasy1529014484.jpg|Fantasylink=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1529014484/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
Meet Jaymi. He's a world| style="vertical-align: top; text-class video games designer, and fresh to a new mansion in the Hollywood Hills on the basis of some recent successalign: left;"|===[[Exhalation by Ted Chiang]]=== [[image:5star. But he's seen the future and he doesn't like it. His current employersjpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], 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 [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] Over 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 userpast twenty-acceptedeight years Ted Chiang has published fifteen science fiction short stories, algorithmthese magnificent stories have won twenty-designed, status quo. With seven major science fiction awards so if you are a much more Reithian approach, Jaymi goes freelance, and sets up a way science fiction fan it is likely that you have already come across some of restoring the balance with a launch of his own, where aspects of his more humanitarian mind are played out work by avatars of him in the gameTed Chiang. He sees If you haven't than take this as a way opportunity 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… do so now. Trust me; your imagination will be grateful. [[The Beasts of Electra Drive Exhalation by Rohan QuineTed Chiang|Full Review]]
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===[[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Humour|Humour]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]]
A long time ago, in a publishing house far away, [[:Category:Ian Doescher|someone]] thought it wonderfully wacky to rewrite the story of Star Wars in Shakespearean pentameter, colliding two entirely different genres and styles in such a clever way they seemed perfectly suited. It was then duly repeated for all the other films in the main Star Wars cycle, and clearly someone's buffing their quills ready for Episode Nine, the title of which became public knowledge the day before I write. In the hiatus, however, the effort has been made to see if the same shtick works with other texts, and to riff on other seemingly unlikely source materials in iambs. And could we have anything more suitably unsuitable-seeming than Back to the Future, with its tales of time travel, bullying, and parent/child strife like no other? [[William Shakespeare's Get Thee Back to the Future! by Ian Doescher|Full Review]]
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===[[William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh A Memory Called Empire by Ian DoescherArkady Martine]]===
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]]
A long time ago, The problem with Martine's fiction debut is that she makes the two commonest errors in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able SF writing: she tries to be too clever and she wants her fictional languages to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil be complex and rebellious heroes rich and heroines errs on the side of making them unpronounceable by most sturdyreaders. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for I can see why she does both, but it's a disappointment because they'The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get re 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 blocks against which the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts brilliance of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good… book stumbles. [[William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh A Memory Called Empire by Ian DoescherArkady Martine|Full Review]]
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===[[Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre]]===
===[[The Rose, the Night, and the Mirror by Mark Lingane]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Julian's family are getting pretty fed up with his perma-student status. They feel that the maths PHD candidate should start earning some money. To that end, they have managed to find him a job tutoring the children of a highly regarded politician. Julian bowls up at their strange, austere mansion with little in the way of expectation. Victor, the politician is not at home. But Esis, his wife, is. A beautiful but isolated woman, Esis shows little interest in her children and not much more in Julian. She directs him towards his room, the library in which he will teach the children, and the kitchen, whose chefbot will provide him with food. [[The Rose, the Night, and the Mirror by Mark Lingane|Full Review]] <!-- Arnold -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1789016525.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789016525/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[Betrayed by Geoffrey Arnold]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] In an extension of the story begun by Geoffrey Arnold in ''Ripped Apart'', he continues to tell the story of the Quantum twins. Born on a parallel world, these genetically identical twins interfered with an experiment and were hurtled through space-time to our earth - and a series of adventures ensued in the following books. When we rejoin them in ''Betrayed'' we find Tullia struggling to adapt to life in the bush - adopted by a Bushman family and made part of a tribe. Twin Qwelby however, is not doing so well - shocked by the violence on the earth. Rescued by an old friend, he then tries to help a girl called Xaala - but her ulterior motives may well prove to drive a wedge between the twins as they try to reconnect... [[Betrayed by Geoffrey Arnold|Full Review]] <!-- Marrs -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:1785038885.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785038885/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[The Passengers by John Marrs]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Thrillers|Thrillers]]
Living in 2017 has me longing to live in some sort of futuristic UtopiaIn the near future, in self-drive cars are the norm - a world convenient and easy way of free thinking and no major crimetransport. Perhaps in However, when someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a Space Station high above the Earth were fatal collision course. As everyday commutes turn into terror-filled journeys, the greatest minds public have travelled so that they can build a vessel that will send the next generations of humans to populate new planetsjudge who should survive. You know that as soon as you arrive it But with every aspect of these passangers being examined by the public - will they turn out to be the same old problems. You can't really have a Utopia with people in it, can youwhat they seem? [[Places in the Darkness The Passengers by Chris BrookmyreJohn Marrs|Full Review]]
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===[[Water & Glass Beneath the World, A Sea by Abi CurtisChris Beckett]]===
[[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General Fiction|General Fiction]], [[:Category:Dystopian Fiction|Dystopian Fiction]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]]
Something has happenedSouth America, something very nasty and on 1990. Ben Ronson, a British police officer, arrives in a submarine mysterious forest to investigate a pregnant elephant is one spate of only a handful killings of animals living below the wavesDuendes. We follow Nerissa CraneThese silent, vaguely humanoid creatures - with long limbs and black button eyes - have a vetstrange psychic effect on people, as she remembers recent eventsunleashing the subconscious and exposing their innermost thoughts and fears. Ben becomes fascinated by the Duendes, but the closer he gets, looks after the animals and falls into a world of intriguemore he begins to unravel, with terrifying results...[[Beneath the World, A Sea by Chris Beckett|Full Review]]
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. <!-- Hill -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[Water & Glass by Abi Curtisimage:1789090016.jpg|Full Reviewlink=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1789090016/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Zero Bomb by M T Hill]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Meet Remi. He's a fan of running, and indeed has been – from the wife and life he abandoned when they buried their seven year old daughter. Now working in London as a courier, he's taking a routine piece of samizdat literature across town when he's seemingly attacked by a driverless car. Struggling to keep to his schedule, he takes to the Tube, where mysterious people sit with him – and regale him with cryptic clues that mention his dead child. Slowly, woozily, he's drawn into a completely surreal scenario, as he tries to find out what is wanted of him, and by whom – and indeed, who he himself even is. [[Zero Bomb by M T Hill|Full Review]] <!-- Dick Jason Boggs -->
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| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Philip K DickThe Dragon's Electric Dreams Harvest by Philip K DickJason F Boggs]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Young Nelson Jones was a young and gifted military cadet in the fascist new world order called the 'New Era'. As his experiences led him on a path of conflict and self-discovery, he became a changed man. Picking up 20 months after the events of ''The Devil's Dragon'', Nelson is on an expedition to uncover the mystery of the sungates, when a terrible secret leads to horrifying discoveries for all involved. Meanwhile, the humans and the Aesini fight for their very existence, as Nelson's nemesis, Major Ira Billis, finds a terrifying new ally in a quest to restore the New Era to glory. As Nelson and his friends race against the clock in order to defeat this new threat, they find themselves facing a power beyond imagination… [[The Dragon's Harvest by Jason F Boggs|Full Review]] <!-- Anders -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:1785653199.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785653199/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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===[[The City In The Middle Of The Night by Charlie Jane Anders]]=== [[image:3star3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]
Philip K DickJanuary is a dying planet. It wasn's stories were originally published t exactly pleasant to begin with. One half is scorching sunlight, pure, blazing heat, and totally uninhabitable. The other half is pure darkness and ice, where a creature can freeze to death in the 50sseconds, but they are more present than pastand totally uninhabitable. On In the big screen ''Blade Runner 2049'' relaunched the Dickmiddle is a brief twilight that is barely survivable. Life is a knife-inspired cult classic edge, stray too close to reviews of pure praise; and on slightly smaller screensone side you die, Channel 4 has adapted to close to the author's short stories for TV. Startlinglyother, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction you die and into yet the factual: his topics heat from intrusive advertising the sun and loss of privacy to the increasing machination of society water from the ice are all headline material in today's newsnecessary for life. It Life for the inhabitants of January is as if half a century after their inceptionlong, and hard, and arduous, Dick's electric dreams are becoming reality. will anything ever change? [[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams The City In The Middle Of The Night by Philip K DickCharlie Jane Anders|Full Review]]
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===[[Doctor WhoSalvation by Peter F Hamilton]]=== [[image: Now We Are Six Hundred3.5star.jpg|link=Category: A Collection {{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Apparently the term ''space opera'' was coined in 1941 as a pejorative. It was borrowed not from the high-brow musical art form, but from the common or garden 'soap opera'. It related to a particular kind of Time Lord Verse science fiction which the coiner (Dr Whoone Wilson Tucker) described as a ''hacky, grinding, stinking, outworn, spaceship yarn". It would be fifty years later before the term started to be re-appropriated to cover – if still the same themes of distant futures, military conflict, heroism and a simplistic set of values – more literary, more expansive works. The term is now taken as compliment. [[Salvation by James Goss and Russell T DaviesPeter F Hamilton|Full Review]] <!-- Chadwick -->|-| style=''width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;''|[[image:0349700249.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0349700249/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
[[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 | style=''vertical-align: top; text-align: left;''|===[[XX by Angela Chadwick]]=== [[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:LGBT Fiction|LGBT Fiction]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Angela Chadwick's debut novel explores the Doctorpossibility of two women being able to produce a baby girl through a process called Ovum-to-Ovum fertilisation. Just how many birthday It centres around Rosie and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were he to keep Jules who take part in touch with even half of his companions? He the first ever clinical trial that would certainly need allow them to have a few novelty gifts for some child of them, say, their own without the need for example, whimsical books of verse a sperm donor or any other male intervention. What follows is a story that pithily encapsulate shows the life of a Time Lord harshness and that at times disgraceful behaviour 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 – sorrymedia, 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 timescalethe general public, when faced with a shorter lifespan, and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much controversial technique that could lead to the samedemise of men. [[Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) XX by James Goss and Russell T DaviesAngela Chadwick|Full Review]] <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->
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{{newreview
|author=George Mann
|title=Ghosts of Empire
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
|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= Andy Weir
|title= Artemis
|rating= 3.5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=Welcome to Artemis, the first city on the moon. A powerhouse for the rich and a once in a lifetime trip for earth tourists, and also a place a small community of citizens call home. Jazz Bashara is one such citizen. She came to Artemis with her father aged six, it's the only place she's ever known but she wouldn't say she's flourishing. In fact, the phrase most often used to describe Jazz is a waste of talent. Jazz lives in the low end of town, sleeping on a bunk, using a shared bathroom, which is all she can afford through her job as a porter. However, Jazz dreams above all else of being rich and to this end, she has set up a side business of illegal smuggling activity. When one of Jazz's regular clients wants her to step up from petty criminal to major criminal for a handsome reward, it is just too tempting to refuse. What Jazz doesn't know is all the facts behind what she is being asked to do.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091956943</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Wes Stuart
|title= My Name is Sam
|rating= 4
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=Who is the real enemy? This is the question which confronts Sam, the champion of the Sereia in their cosmos-spanning war with the Gibbus, and the main character in this story. Sam is an unimposing boy who has no past and no memory of who he is, yet he possesses extraordinary abilities. He is also Earth's last hope for salvation from the Gibbus who, in seven days, will destroy the planet and everyone on it. This is not his choice however: that is the decision of the alien Sereia, his mentors and guides, as he is forced to confront this hazardous task. They have their own reasons for wanting Earth to be saved, but are too weak to challenge the Gibbus themselves. In their search for a human champion they find the unlikely and ill-prepared young boy, Sam – but this child is not quite as he appears…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1540504506</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= C Robert Cargill
|title= Sea of Rust
|rating= 4.5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=Have you ever watched the ''Terminator'' movies or some similar 'Robo-geddon' franchise and wondered what would have happened if the robots had actually ''won?'' Well wonder no more, because ''Sea of Rust'' hinges on that exact premise; a world where the robots have wiped out every living thing from planet earth. Only artificial life remains; there is no trace of organic matter anywhere, since the robot uprising that devastated the planet. Now two huge mainframes compete for world domination: CISSUS and VIRGIL. They capture robots and turn them into drones; uploading their minds into a hive consciousness. The few remaining bots are called 'freebots,' and inhabit a desert called the Sea of Rust, where they do what they can to survive, including cannibalising other bots for spare parts.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473212782</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Paul McAuley
|title= Austral
|rating= 3.5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= Austral has no doubts about who she is. Her birth was, as she puts it, ''a political act. Conceived in a laboratory dish by direct injection of sperm into an egg. I was customised by a suite of targeted genes…'' She was, as the jargon of her world has it ''edited''. She is, as a result, a Husky. A human modified to withstand the cold temperatures of the Antarctic continent. Those temperatures are still hard for un-modified humans to survive in, but maybe not for much longer. This is a world in which the threats of global warming went unheeded…a world in which the ice has retreated and continues to retreat…a world in which the harshest of environments is being opened up for exploitation.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473217318</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Geoffrey Arnold
|title= Hunted
|rating= 4
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=Tullia learns about survival in the bush when she is taken hostage and later saves a youth's life during a hunt. Adopted into a Bushman family and the tribe, her presence stirs disparate feelings amongst the young men and women, a mixture of awe, desire, fear and hate. Living a very different life, Qwelby, Tullia's twin, is deeply shocked by the violence on Earth. As he is rescued by his four best friends from the Pit of Despair, he experiences his first feelings for Tamina, a girl he has known for years. Feelings which become much stronger for another girl he tries to help during a violent attack from his own world as he and Tullia seek to restore their telepathic link. Forming a connection with the twins during the attack, the girl, Xaala, is charged by her master with monitoring their attempts to mentally reconnect – and to prevent them. Xaala is torn between her mixed feelings for the twins and obeying her orders. Meanwhile, on the planet Vertazia and in secret, Quelby's family and friends build what they hope will be the first ever inter-dimensional transport. On a short test run, the village where he is staying is discovered. When Quelby finds out he is being watched, he flees from the village...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785891855</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Daniel Suarez
|title=Change Agent
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I had blue eyes, I wish, I wish, I wish. In the genetic lottery that is our lives we are given a selection from our mother and our father to work with. However, although they may be over six foot, you could still end up being shorter. You can't currently choose what coding you get, but what if you could cherry pick the best aspects of your family traits? It would be a great way to save people from hereditary disease, but would we end up with a world full of identikit humans all following the latest genetic fashions? In the future someone would need to be in charge of stopping science going too far.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>110198466X</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Stephen Baxter
|title= Xeelee: Vengeance
|rating= 2
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=Michael Poole, Earth's greatest living engineer, changed the galaxy when he opened a worm hole to allow for quick and easy transportation across the solar system. However, such a thing was created with a degree of naivety and a lack of foresight because out of the worm hole flew an unknown vessel of alien origin. Unlike anything seen by human eyes before, it is unstoppable and unfathomable. Bent on an unknown path, the vessel is unresponsive to the human life around it. It ignores hails and even direct attacks. Nothing affects it, not even the surface of the sun. All it seems to want is energy, and Earth has plenty of that to be absorbed.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473217172</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author=Daniel Godfrey
|title=Empire of Time (New Pompeii)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Warning: Spoilers for [[New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey|Book 1]] from the beginning.
The experiment to study Ancient Romans by transporting them through time to a new Pompeii just before the disaster hits the old one sounded great in theory. The practice has been going on for years now, but the modern and old worlds living alongside each other in an uneasy peace. Scientist Nick Houghton only ever wanted to live within the experiment out of curiosity but it's more dangerous than he ever dreamt. Since he arrived, he's watched the Romans kill the inventors of the machine that saved them. Nick, or Decimus Horatius Pullus to give him his Roman name, is the only non-Roman living in New Pompeii and that's not a safe position or location in which to live.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785653156</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Cixin Liu
|title=The Wandering Earth
|rating= 5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary= If anyone thought that the short story as a form had been relegated to the pages of women's magazines (no disrespect) – think again. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter and encourager of the short form is Sci-fi. So when you pick up a collection of Sci-fi shorts, you know that it will have just as much depth and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novel. Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached by someone from China which – to be polite – has a somewhat different world-view in many ways to much of the rest of the planet…and add to that an author who is not only a best-seller in his home country but has the distinction of having produced the first translated work of SF ever to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good!
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Jack Campbell
|title= The Genesis Fleet: Vanguard
|rating= 5
|genre= Science Fiction
|summary=The human adventure continues! As humanity spreads to the stars it takes with it both the best and the worst examples of itself. The isolation and edginess of a Spaghetti Western meets hard Sci-Fi in this tale of far-flung colonies and bullying neighbours. We follow our protagonists, each failures in their own careers (crisis management, space navy, politics and marines) as they become heroes.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785650408</amazonuk>
}}
{{newreview
|author= Anne Corlett
|title= The Space Between The Stars
|rating= 4
|genre= Science Fiction
|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>
}}
