Difference between revisions of "Newest Science Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
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|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
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|rating=5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
  
{|class-"wikitable" cellpadding="15" <!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
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I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen.  Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime.  I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it 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.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
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|rating=5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
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|isbn= 0356522776
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1803816759
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|title=The Unravelling
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|author=Will Gibson
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|rating=4
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=It's 2038 and Joe is 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 AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B0CP95J1CG
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|title=Of Ghosts & Broken Promises
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|author=Mark Lingane
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary= Ronan's not entirely sure why he decides to go to the party but his interest is piqued by the way it arrived. And it seems like a good opportunity to get out of his room and away from the online activities he makes a living at. So he makes his way there, dodging the buses that make up most of the traffic and watching the local energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefully.
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=K P O'Donnell
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|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)
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|rating=3.5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=VL-15, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacy, building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his 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…
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|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Emily Tesh
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|title=Some Desperate Glory
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|rating=4.5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=''While Earth's children live, the enemy shall fear us''
  
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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.
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|isbn=0356521834
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[[image:Reynolds_Fire.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0575090588/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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{{Frontpage
 
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|author=M R Carey
 
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|title=Infinity Gate
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|rating=5
===[[Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds]]===
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|genre=Science Fiction
 
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|summary= I'm annoyingly picky when it comes to science fiction. Not because it's a genre I dislike – nothing of the sort. My standards are high precisely because it's a hard genre to get right – and when it's bad, it's often terrible. But the premise of Infinity Gate had me hooked. A concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble: if it was done well, it'd be fantastic. So this is where I sum up that premise.
[[image:5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]]
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|isbn=0356518043
 
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}}
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]]
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{{Frontpage
 
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|author= Michael Grothaus
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|title=Beautiful Shining People
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|rating=4
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|genre= Literary Fiction
[[image:Quine Beasts.jpg|left|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992754941/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]
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|summary= ''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''
  
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''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.
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|isbn=191458564X
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}}
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1739593901
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|title=22 Ideas About The Future
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
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|rating=5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected.  Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
  
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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 bookThere's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short storiesWell, I loved it.  
===[[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]]
 
 
 
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===[[William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{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 hurtsAnd 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's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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===[[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]]
 
 
 
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===[[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]]
 
 
 
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===[[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick]]===
 
 
 
 
 
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[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]]
 
 
 
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]]
 
 
 
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===[[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]]
 
 
 
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===[[Ghosts of Empire by George Mann]]===
 
 
 
[[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]]
 
 
 
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? [[Ghosts of Empire by George Mann|Full Review]]
 
 
 
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|}
 
 
 
{{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
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{{Frontpage
|author= Wes Stuart
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|author=Mark Lingane
|title= My Name is Sam
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|title=Galaxy
|rating= 4
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|rating=4
|genre= Science Fiction
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|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…
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|summary=Spark, who is an elite pilot with the Space Academy, barely makes it through a battle alive. His co-pilot was not so fortunate. Waking from a coma that lasted years, he remembers little and is in no physical shape to resume his duties. But Earth is under threat and he must. Returned by his superiors to the space station, he finds himself amid a last ditch attempt to save humanity - and not just from the alien threats against it, but also from its own sins against itself.  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1540504506</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B09X3NZ76W
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= C Robert Cargill
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|author=Tade Thompson
|title= Sea of Rust
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|title=Far From the Light of Heaven
|rating= 4.5
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|rating=4.5
|genre= Science Fiction
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|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.
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|summary=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 ship's AI captain. However, when she wakes up at the end of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell'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 politicking and bureaucracy 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473212782</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356514323
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Paul McAuley
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|author=Claire North
|title= Austral
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|title=Notes from the Burning Age
|rating= 3.5
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|rating=4
|genre= Science Fiction
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|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.
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|summary=At 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, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a new and timely genre, cli-fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473217318</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356514757
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Geoffrey Arnold
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|author= Adrian Tchaikovsky
|title= Hunted
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|title= Shards of Earth
 
|rating= 4
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|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...
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|summary= Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architects. Humanity is scattered, constantly fleeing as world 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, and humanity begins to fracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, a man genetically engineered to try and communicate with the Architects, does not want to be remembered. But, when he and the crew of the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the spotlight. As he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, chased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785891855</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529051886
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author=Daniel Suarez
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|author=Terry Miles
|title=Change Agent
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|title=Rabbits
|rating=3.5
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|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.
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|summary=Welcome to the world of The Game. Or should that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. 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 to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for a 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 historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, and 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 otherwise. Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed...
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>110198466X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529016932
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
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{{Frontpage
|author= Stephen Baxter 
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|author=C J Carey
|title= Xeelee: Vengeance 
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|title=Widowland
|rating= 2
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|rating=4
|genre= Science Fiction
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|genre=General 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.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473217172</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=152941198X
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author=Daniel Godfrey
+
|author=Everina Maxwell
|title=Empire of Time (New Pompeii)
+
|title=Winter's Orbit
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Warning: Spoilers for [[New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey|Book 1]] from the beginning.
+
|summary= Prince Kiem is a famous political disappointment. He's outgoing, carefree, and has gotten into many drunken scandals over the past few years. So when an important political alliance is to be arranged – one that is supposed to prevent an interplanetary war – no one expects him to be chosen for the role. Least of all him.
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.
+
|isbn=0356515885
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785653156</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Cixin Liu
+
|author=Rob Winters
|title=The Wandering Earth
+
|title=His Name Was Wren
|rating= 5
+
|rating=4
|genre= Science Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= If anyone thought that the short story as a form had been relegated to the pages of women's magazines (no disrespect) – think againOne 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 novelAdd 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!
+
|summary=In September 1944 something came down in Oban Woods, near the village of HurstwickIt came down hard, taking the spire of the village church with it, destroying a stone shack, and leaving a wide trail through the wood, but no trace of what it actually wasGerman secret weapon was the local gossip, but there should have been an explosion and a crater, and there were neither of those things.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B08KGVNVNB
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Jack Campbell
+
|author=Mark Lingane
|title= The Genesis Fleet: Vanguard
+
|title=Note to Self: An Education
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Science Fiction
 +
|summary= In Kry's world, the 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's possible to cure cancerous tumours but with the side effect of erasing seven years of memory, by 2045 the cosmetics industry is using the same technique to "de-age" their customers by seven years. In a society obsessed with image and youth, who needs memories?
 +
|isbn=B08LY8J4KS
 +
}} 
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author= Christopher Paolini
 +
|title= To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
 
|rating= 5
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|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.
+
|summary= On the moon of a distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is helping with the efforts to make the planet habitable to human life. However, a discovery of an ancient alien bunker under the moon's surface leaves her bonded with a strange alien entity. After the entity bonded to her loses control and kills half the staff of the research station, the 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 the 61 Cygnus star system. She is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and a rag-tag bunch of misfits, and the news is grim. The same aliens that destroyed the Extenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space, and only a mythical weapon known as the Staff 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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785650408</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1529046505
 
}}
 
}}
{{newreview
+
{{Frontpage
|author= Anne Corlett
+
|author= Laura Lam and Elizabeth May
|title= The Space Between The Stars
+
|title= Seven Devils
 
|rating= 4
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|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?
+
|summary= Eris is one of the foremost operatives of the Novantae, a resistance movement fighting against the ruthlessly expansionist Tholosian Empire – an Empire she was destined to inherit in her past life as Princess Discordia, whom everyone believed has been dead for years. Clo, an ace pilot for the Novantae, has a mission: hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to the war effort. Although she's less than pleased to discover that her former friend Eris is her partner on this mission. Things get more interesting as the mission commences; aboard the ship are three defectors with a secret that could potentially cripple the Empire. Eris's brother Damocles, the runner-up heir to the Empire, is plotting to disrupt peace talks between Tholos and the last of the free alien species. It's a race against time as the rebels move to put a stop Damocles' plans, with millions of lives hanging in the balance…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509833528</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1473231140
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)
 +
|title=A Life Without End
 +
|rating=4
 +
|genre=Literary Fiction
 +
|summary=I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one.  It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon.  And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE.  (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.)  Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants he would like to see 400 he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on going. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?
 +
|isbn=1642860670
 
}}
 
}}
 +
 +
Move on to [[Newest Short Story Reviews]]

Latest revision as of 17:18, 25 March 2024

AllTomorrowsFutureCover.jpg

Review of

All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.

I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it 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. Full Review

0356522776.jpg

Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them. Full Review

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Review of

The Unravelling by Will Gibson

4star.jpg Science Fiction

It's 2038 and Joe is 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 AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected? Full Review

B0CP95J1CG.jpg

Review of

Of Ghosts & Broken Promises by Mark Lingane

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Ronan's not entirely sure why he decides to go to the party but his interest is piqued by the way it arrived. And it seems like a good opportunity to get out of his room and away from the online activities he makes a living at. So he makes his way there, dodging the buses that make up most of the traffic and watching the local energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefully. Full Review

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Review of

The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes) by K P O'Donnell

3.5star.jpg Science Fiction

VL-15, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacy, building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his 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… Full Review

0356521834.jpg

Review of

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

While Earth's children live, the enemy shall fear us

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. Full Review

0356518043.jpg

Review of

Infinity Gate by M R Carey

5star.jpg Science Fiction

I'm annoyingly picky when it comes to science fiction. Not because it's a genre I dislike – nothing of the sort. My standards are high precisely because it's a hard genre to get right – and when it's bad, it's often terrible. But the premise of Infinity Gate had me hooked. A concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble: if it was done well, it'd be fantastic. So this is where I sum up that premise. Full Review

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Review of

Beautiful Shining People by Michael Grothaus

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.

Beautiful Shining People revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening. Full Review

1739593901.jpg

Review of

22 Ideas About The Future by Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.

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. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it. Full Review

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Review of

Galaxy by Mark Lingane

4star.jpg Science Fiction

Spark, who is an elite pilot with the Space Academy, barely makes it through a battle alive. His co-pilot was not so fortunate. Waking from a coma that lasted years, he remembers little and is in no physical shape to resume his duties. But Earth is under threat and he must. Returned by his superiors to the space station, he finds himself amid a last ditch attempt to save humanity - and not just from the alien threats against it, but also from its own sins against itself. Full Review

0356514323.jpg

Review of

Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

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 ship's AI captain. However, when she wakes up at the end of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell'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 politicking and bureaucracy 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… Full Review

0356514757.jpg

Review of

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North

4star.jpg Science Fiction

At 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, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a new and timely genre, cli-fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth. Full Review

1529051886.jpg

Review of

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

4star.jpg Science Fiction

Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architects. Humanity is scattered, constantly fleeing as world 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, and humanity begins to fracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, a man genetically engineered to try and communicate with the Architects, does not want to be remembered. But, when he and the crew of the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the spotlight. As he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, chased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started… Full Review

1529016932.jpg

Review of

Rabbits by Terry Miles

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Welcome to the world of The Game. Or should that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. 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 to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for a 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 historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, and 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 otherwise. Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed... Full Review

152941198X.jpg

Review of

Widowland by C J Carey

4star.jpg General Fiction

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. Full Review

0356515885.jpg

Review of

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Prince Kiem is a famous political disappointment. He's outgoing, carefree, and has gotten into many drunken scandals over the past few years. So when an important political alliance is to be arranged – one that is supposed to prevent an interplanetary war – no one expects him to be chosen for the role. Least of all him. Full Review

B08KGVNVNB.jpg

Review of

His Name Was Wren by Rob Winters

4star.jpg Confident Readers

In September 1944 something came down in Oban Woods, near the village of Hurstwick. It came down hard, taking the spire of the village church with it, destroying a stone shack, and leaving a wide trail through the wood, but no trace of what it actually was. German secret weapon was the local gossip, but there should have been an explosion and a crater, and there were neither of those things. Full Review

B08LY8J4KS.jpg

Review of

Note to Self: An Education by Mark Lingane

4star.jpg Science Fiction

In Kry's world, the 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's possible to cure cancerous tumours but with the side effect of erasing seven years of memory, by 2045 the cosmetics industry is using the same technique to "de-age" their customers by seven years. In a society obsessed with image and youth, who needs memories? Full Review

1529046505.jpg

Review of

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

5star.jpg Science Fiction

On the moon of a distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is helping with the efforts to make the planet habitable to human life. However, a discovery of an ancient alien bunker under the moon's surface leaves her bonded with a strange alien entity. After the entity bonded to her loses control and kills half the staff of the research station, the 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 the 61 Cygnus star system. She is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and a rag-tag bunch of misfits, and the news is grim. The same aliens that destroyed the Extenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space, and only a mythical weapon known as the Staff 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… Full Review

1473231140.jpg

Review of

Seven Devils by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May

4star.jpg Science Fiction

Eris is one of the foremost operatives of the Novantae, a resistance movement fighting against the ruthlessly expansionist Tholosian Empire – an Empire she was destined to inherit in her past life as Princess Discordia, whom everyone believed has been dead for years. Clo, an ace pilot for the Novantae, has a mission: hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to the war effort. Although she's less than pleased to discover that her former friend Eris is her partner on this mission. Things get more interesting as the mission commences; aboard the ship are three defectors with a secret that could potentially cripple the Empire. Eris's brother Damocles, the runner-up heir to the Empire, is plotting to disrupt peace talks between Tholos and the last of the free alien species. It's a race against time as the rebels move to put a stop Damocles' plans, with millions of lives hanging in the balance… Full Review

1642860670.jpg

Review of

A Life Without End by Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on going. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice? Full Review

Move on to Newest Short Story Reviews