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[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
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[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
==Science fiction==
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
{{newreview
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|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Jeff Somers
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|title=The Eternal Prison
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=This book stands out in the high-energy, hard-edged sci-fi adventure/thriller genre, in that it covers two stories at the same time.  In one chapter we have Avery Cates, practically the best gun-for-hire in his post-apocalyptic North America, being told to kill one of the most protected and important people left in the world, by other, almost as important people, in the cruel mix of powerplays that make up the current politics.  In the other corner is Cates, being thrown in prison - one of those basic, hell-on-earth, surrounded by miles of desert, prisons.  Here, too, he will be told to do jobs for other people...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497053</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Orson Scott Card
 
|title=Ender in Exile
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary='Ender in Exile' is the most recently published in the series set in the universe of 'Ender's Game', a long standing and one of the best known series of science-fiction by Orson Scott Card. It's been defined as an 'interquel', fitting chronologically between 'Ender's Game' and the 'Speaker for the Dead', the first two (and probably the best two) novels in the sequence. Technically speaking, 'Ender in Exile' actually fits in-between the last chapters of 'Ender's Game' and describes in more detail events outlined in the resolving sections of 'Ender's Game'. Confusingly for the uninitiated, 'Ender in Exile' is also a sequel to the 'Shadow of the Giant', a parallel sub-series from the universe of the 'Ender's Game'.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841492272</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=John Dickinson
 
|title=WE
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Paul Munro has been disconnected from the World Ear in readiness for a mission that will last a lifetime. Sent to man a tiny station built at enormous effort and expense on a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar system, he will never be able to return. Gravity is one-tenth that of Earth and his flesh has wasted, his bones enbrittled without the strength of calcium. 'If he stood on the Earth now... his skeleton would splinter under his weight.' It took eight years to get there and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfully.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ursula K Le Guin
 
|title=The Left Hand of Darkness
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=It's hard to believe that ''The Left Hand of Darkness'' dates back to 1969: forty years on, it reads as well, or even better, then when it was originally written, and - deservedly - enjoys a classic status in the science-fiction canon, as well as being perhaps the best known sci-fi novel by Ursula LeGuin.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496065</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Eoin Colfer
 
|title=And Another Thing ... Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three (Hitchhikers Guide 6)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Of all the big books announced for this year, this one must have raised more eyebrows than many.  Why try and write a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, when way before the end, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such a task?  And why approach an Irishman, Eoin Colfer, when the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described as Monty Python doing a sci-fi Terry Pratchett, and with their cups of tea and dressing gowns, could only be described as very English?  Well the answer is most evident - Colfer is a world-beater when it comes to knocking up a story.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Simon Law
 
|title=Bringing Forth the End of Days
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Imagine the hell of a dying world, less than a generation from now.  World War Three has been and gone - ended with conventional bombs galore but started by a plague on all plant-life, that removed all the oxygen from the planet's atmosphere.  As a result, the few survivors must live in air-tight houses with special oxygenating equipment - the ultimate in air conditioning - or, they must have got in early with a special biomechanical adaptation that allows them mobility and independence, but at a freakish cost.  Worse, religion has mutated - the Jehovah's Witnesses are now the most violent gang, rushing to nudge what's left of humanity towards its final judgment.  Worse still - even worse than all of that - you're living in Crawley.
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|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1608602036</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.
|author=Peter Salisbury
 
|title=Passengers to Sentience
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Human beings are spread across the galaxy. The technology that allowed this to happen? Not faster than light travel, suspended animation or matter transfer but cloning. Want to start a new life elsewhere? Your mind and personality can be mapped as information. Unmanned ships are sent to inhabitable planets across the furthest reaches of space and upon arrival, the automated cloning vats begin re-creating your body and entering your stored mind and personality data.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0755211596</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|author=Philip Palmer
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|title=Red Claw
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=New Amazon, home to some of the most violent and deadly alien life imaginable, is due to be razed to the ground in order to make way for human habitation. A team of scientists, led by the charismatic Richard Helms, have been stationed on this planet under military protection, in order to study and catalogue the flora and fauna. However, the computer super brain handling all the technology has inconceivably turned on her human charges, forcing soldier and scientist alike to abandon base head quarters. As if the planet's hostile environment (including bouts of acid rain) were not enough of a threat, the characters are also pursued by legions of killer robots. Life expectancy does not look good.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496243</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=K S Turner
 
|title=Before the Gods (Chronicles of Fate and Choice)
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=''Before The Gods'' is presented as an enigma, wrapped in a puzzle and shrouded in mystery. The front is adorned by a beguiling image created by the author. A glance at the back cover serves only to tantalise rather than reveal what might be in store.
 
 
''This is where it all began. Everything. Love, hate, good, evil, us and them. This is before they were gods.''
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956224202</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Issui Ogawa
 
|title=The Lords of the Sands of Time
 
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=We're in the third century, Japan.  A queen and her young retainer are wandering to the edge of their territory, when a baddy appears - an alien seeming to be some local creature.  Handily enough a saviour, warrior hero appears too, from way in the future, complete with talking sword, and saves the day. This incident is bad news for the queen to take back to court and discuss, but it's even worse for the messenger - sent on a one-way ticket from his own life, to advise of timelines that need saved - and the people that might just save Earth from this cosmic battle.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1421527626</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1803816759
|author=Hiroshi Sakurazaka
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|title=The Unravelling
|title=All You Need Is Kill
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|author=Will Gibson
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=In a global war between humans and invading aliens, called Mimics, Keiji is a trooper at the beginning of his short career in the army.  Despite his high-tech body armour, he's not destined to last long - he's quickly dead. But then he's quickly alive again, as somehow his life is rewound a day.  It only makes for prolonged horror for the rookie, but it happens again and again. Each time he gets a better intelligence of what his destiny might have been - can he learn enough each time round to make a difference, and possibly break the loop?
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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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1421527618</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
[[Category:Science Fiction]]
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|isbn=B0CP95J1CG
{{newreview
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|title=Of Ghosts & Broken Promises
|author=Jonathan Luna and Joshua Luna
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|author=Mark Lingane
|title=Girls Volume 1: Conception
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Graphic Novels
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|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Ethan, we see with a great, broad comic stroke or six, is not the best when it comes to girls.  Letting his mouth run away with him too often, he is not very successful at relationships. But let us look at what happens when he drives away from an altercation at the local bar, and sees a gorgeous - and very naked - young woman standing in the middle of the road.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1582405298</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Charles Stross
 
|title=Wireless
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Short Stories
 
|summary=In his introduction, Stross explains that one of the reasons he likes writing shorts stories is because they are the ideal format in which to focus on a particular concept of the future and play around with it. It doesn't matter so much if the idea doesn't ultimately work because neither the reader nor the author has invested in it the way they would in a novel. ''Wireless'' then, is something of an experiment. Stross employs many different styles, tackles many different subjects and is very skilful at creating mood. His stories are a strange blend of the technical and the archaic.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497711</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=K P O'Donnell
|author=Robert Buettner
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|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)
|title=Orphan's Triumph (Jason Wander)
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=One of the major problems with science fiction series is that the titles aren't always terribly imaginative.  At first glance, the cover of ''Orphan's Triumph'' gives away exactly how the story is going to turn out.  It's great credit to Robert Buettner that what I expected wasn't what happened.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497622</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Stephen Woodworth
 
|title=Through Violet Eyes (Violet Series)
 
 
|rating=3.5
 
|rating=3.5
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=To every generation, a few souls are born with violet-coloured eyes. These Violets can channel the dead. Viewed by the government as a commodity, they are taken into the care of the School from an early age and taught to use their abilities. While the School does teach them to control the souls constantly trying to invade their bodies from the black of death, it also trains them to serve the government – calling on the victims of murder and horrific accidents to ascertain exactly how they died or who killed them.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0749941278</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle 
 
|title=Graphic Classics, Volume 17: Science Fiction Classics
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=So, an introduction.  The Graphic Classics collection is a series whereby the best in genre fiction, from sources both highly likely and remarkably unexpected, is collected and dressed up for us in graphic novel form.  This seventeenth edition, a belated best-of sci-fi volume, is their first foray into full colour, and is headlined by a version of The War of the Worlds.  The supporting material ranges from a one-page strip to thirty-page stories.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0978791975</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Sean Williams
 
|title=Earth Ascendant (Astropolis)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Science-fiction has come a long way since H G Wells first looked up at the night sky and thought how cool it would be to have giant Martian tripod war machines trampling all over the Home Counties. Now that the most daring innovations of even quite recent science-fiction can be found readily in your home - from videophones to genetically modified food - the genre continues to evolve and develop.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495212</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Samantha Hunt
 
|title=The Invention of Everything Else
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=Nikola Tesla, born in 1856, was a young engineering student in Croatia, a Serb with a ferocious talent for invention when he sailed to America armed only with a note of introduction from his former employer to Thomas Edison which said: ''I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.'' Promised prodigious amounts of money to reorganise Edison's workshops, he was in the end cheated by Edison, who made a joke about the American sense of humour when Tesla asked to be paid.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099524007</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Jaine Fenn
 
|title=Consorts of Heaven
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Fantasy and science fiction are genres that mesh well together.  Some authors have written successfully across both genres, but not usually in the same story.  Jaine Fenn has managed to combine both in one book and it's an interesting read.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575083239</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Bernard Beckett
 
|title=Genesis
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=The reviewer sat down with the fancy hardback review copy of ''Genesis'' by Bernard Beckett and turned the pages, not knowing at all what to expect.
 
 
* What did he find?
 
 
* He found a science fiction tale set in a futuristic New Zealand.  The setting of the book is based on current concerns - environmental problems, global oil wars and animosity, and so on, and a plague war has meant NZ is cordoned off with a Great Sea Fence.  It is living under a strange Plato's Republic, based on a mix of ancient Greek life (naked wrestling and so on) with the modern (relationships arbitrated by rampant gene testing).  One of the soldiers defending it, Adam, takes it upon himself, however, to betray his state, and let a young girl alone on a raft through the cordon, and befriend her.  But it is not her that will provide the crux of the book.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847247296</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Neal Asher
 
|title=Shadow of the Scorpion (Novel of the Polity)
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Shadow of the Scorpion'' is a better book than either the title or the cover (a cartoon-ish mechanical scorpion) might at first suggest. It's an engaging espionage-type thriller of course, but the emotional repercussions are sensitively dealt with.
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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
The body of the novel is set during the aftermath of an interplanetary war between the Polity, humans as governed by benign AIs, and a vicious alien race named the Prador. Cormac, the protagonist, is a 22 year old recruit for Earth Central Security (ECS), the military arm of the Polity. He is assigned to guard a crash-landed Prador spaceship on a remote planet and prevent some alien weaponry from falling into the wrong hands. Due to circumstances outside of his Control, Cormac is required to infiltrate an underground network of Separatists, the Terrorists of the future, who rebel against the AI rule: a perfect set-up for some gripping interrogation and torture scenes of the technologically advanced type. But, there is more to the novel than that.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230738591</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=D J MacHale
 
|title=Quillan Games (Pendragon)
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=I  would like to start with an admission.  I know by now, having read three earlier books in this series, the set-up. We have a demonic entity creating chaos and destroying life itself, territory by territory, and a young teen and his friends, originally scattered across said territories one by one, combatting the nasty and putting each and every world to rights.  What I don't know is to what extent this is a religious allegory.  I saw a lot of sloth in book four (or, if you prefer, the first commandment), and gluttony and covetousness in books five and six, which had similar plots.  But I wasn't helped by the ending of book six, in wondering if this is a straightforward Christian tale, disguised as teen fantasy.  Does acolyte equate to apostle?  How messianic are the characters going to turn out to be?  Do the ten planets and ten adventures here point us to the Decalogue?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847385060</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Emily Tesh
|author=Philip K Dick
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|title=Some Desperate Glory
|title=Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=World War Terminus is over, and Earth is in ruins. While most people have emigrated to Mars, some continue to live their lives on Earth while radioactivity slowly impairs their brain and reproductive function.
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|summary=''While Earth's children live, the enemy shall fear us''
  
Upon emigrating to Mars, all citizens were given a highly sophisticated android servant, and now six have escaped from captivity and fled to Earth, killing all in their path. Rick Deckard is the bounty hunter commissioned to track down and destroy these androids, almost indiscernible from humans, in return for a fee.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575079932</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356521834
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=M R Carey
|author=Chris Wooding
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|title=Infinity Gate
|title=Retribution Falls
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|rating=5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Things are never quiet when it comes to life on the Ketty Jay. For Captain Frey and his mismatched band of friends, colleagues, call them what you will, that make the raggle-taggle crew of the craft, will always find a dodgy scrape, a damsel in distress or some risky cargo to transport – and up til now have survived the consequences.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575085142</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356518043
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Michael Grothaus
|author=Walter Jon Williams
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|title=Beautiful Shining People
|title=This Is Not A Game
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Dagmar is trapped in a hotel, with rioting Jakarta burning around her. When the conventional attempts to get her out fail, she decides to request help form the Group Mind: the on-line community of gamers who participate in  Alternate Reality Games: games that happen in real life, not on the computer screen or over the Internet. Dagmar writes such games, working for Charlie, a phenomenally successful owner of a software company.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149657X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Heath A Hague
 
|title=The Unique Creation
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre= Literary Fiction
|summary=Terrorism – a happenstance where one might truthfully say an unwitting heroism can be born. But never as in this book.  
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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.''
  
Steve Westerman is in a malaise after a car crash killed his wife and children, when a nuclear bomb is set off in the centre of London. It all appears to our eyes to be a mysterious techno-cult, but the act has caused a big change to Westerman, and launched him as one of the Uniques.
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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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1438928424</amazonuk>
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|isbn=191458564X
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1739593901
|author=Harry Harrison
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|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|title=Make Room! Make Room!
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=4
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=A young man practically living on the streets finds a change of fortune with a job as a messenger boy, but will it lead to quite the right kind of luck?  A political Mister Big Nasty gets killed, leaving behind a lovely and glamorous moll-type character, ShirlAndy, the policeman from the incredibly under-resourced police force, while surprised at the amount he is ordered to concentrate on this murder for, falls in love with Shirl.  But the biggest character in this book remains the setting.
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|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expectedInstead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>014119023X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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 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-buildingIt's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidentalSo, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories?  Well, I loved it.  
|author=Robert Buettner
 
|title=Orphan's Alliance (Jason Wander 4)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=[[:Category:Chris Bunch|Chris Bunch]] was the first to make the sci-fi space army genre his own, but Robert Buettner is certainly following close behindWhilst I've always preferred Bunch's work over Buettner's, that by no means makes Buettner a bad writer and his work has always been enjoyableOnce again, Buettner has included much of what makes his work so much fun to read.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497525</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mark Lingane
|author=Marianne De Pierres
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|title=Galaxy
|title=Chaos Space (Sentients of Orion)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=I have to admit that when I first opened this book I was at a loss. It is Book 2 of the ''The Sentients of Orion'' series, so I did encounter some confusion as to what had happened before to lead to the events I was reading about. I stuck with it though, and as I read along, things  became much clearer though I would heartily recommend reading the first book in the series before jumping into this one, as the plot has many threads and is quite complicated.
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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>1841494291</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B09X3NZ76W
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tade Thompson
|author=Michael Cobley
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|title=Far From the Light of Heaven
|title=Seeds of Earth (Humanity's Fire)
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=It's a strange fact of the human psyche that while we send out our travellers in peace and exploration…we fear that whoever else is travelling out there, towards here, does so with malice aforethought.
 
 
 
Cobley is no exception to this rule.  In his future world Earth's first contact with aliens came with the Swarm: a species of 'many reptilian similarities yet their appearance was unavoidably insectoid.  With six, eight, ten or more limbs they could be as small as a pony or as large as a whale…' and they ravaged through our home galaxy like locusts destroying all in their path.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496324</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ken MacLeod
 
|title=Night Sessions
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=The world post Faith Wars (or Oil Wars, as the fundamentalists are inclined to call them) is both very different and, at the same time - as it should be in relatively close-future s-f - uncannily similar to ours. It's a world of the Second Enlightenment, where, at least in Europe, religion has been truly separated from politics and became a genuinely private and societaly marginalised activity.
+
|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>1841496510</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356514323
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Claire North
|author=Robert Buettner
+
|title=Notes from the Burning Age
|title=Orphanage
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=I recently enjoyed Chris Bunch's [[The Last Legion by Chris Bunch|Last Legion]] series, which told the story of training, combat and down time in an army marooned without help and seemingly without hope in deep space. Robert Buettner's ''Orphanage'' promised more of the same, although based a little closer to home, so I was greatly looking forward to it.
+
|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>1841497541</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356514757
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Adrian Tchaikovsky
|author=Charles Stross
+
|title= Shards of Earth
|title=Saturn's Children
+
|rating= 4
|rating=4
+
|genre= Science Fiction
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|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…
|summary=My first encounter with Charles Stross was through [[Halting State by Charles Stross|Halting State]], a William Gibson-meets-Christopher Brookmyre near-future post-cyberpunk crime caper.
+
|isbn=1529051886
''Saturn's Children'' is a different species within broadly the same habitat, a not-so-near-future space-opera thriller, more of a Asimov-meets-Philip K Dick-with-a-sprinkling-of-Douglas Adams.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495670</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Terry Miles
|author=Sean Williams
+
|title=Rabbits
|title=Saturn Returns (Astropolis)
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Imre is surprised to wake up in a bunk in an alien spacecraft. It's an alien with a hive-mind, drifting around the outer rim of the Milky Way trying to find God, and/or the first ever life-forms of the galaxy. Imre quickly finds out he has a form of amnesia – quite unsurprising, given that the aliens have had to built him from scratch, using a stash of data contained within an iron casket, sent into space millennia ago. Imre also quickly finds out he is now a female.
+
|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>1841495190</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1529016932
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Cherith Baldry
 
|title=The Reliquary Ring
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=In an alternate Venice ruled by The Church, genetically engineered beings called genics are bought and sold as the servants and playthings of wealthy aristocrats.  They are considered heretical, outside the laws of both man and God and even their touch is believed to be unclean.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0330492071</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=C J Carey
|author=Jeff Somers 
+
|title=Widowland
|title=The Digital Plague
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=I have to admit the previous book to be written about, and narrated by, killer-for-hire Avery Cates, did not last long in the memoryThere is some gratitude that this book mentions the first literary outing in very oblique ways, to maximise the way this adventure is a self-contained one, but I did need reminding of the global scope of the first book, where a world-stifling religion, and a police force even more guilty of the same, were in conflict.
+
|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>1841497045</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=152941198X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Everina Maxwell
|author=Frederik Pohl 
+
|title=Winter's Orbit
|title=Gateway 
+
|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Gateway'', by Frederik Pohl, is very much in the grand tradition of 'hard SF'. Whereas much of what gets put in the science-fiction section of bookshops is actually little more than fantasy with lasers instead of swords, ''Gateway'' is part of the Arthur C Clarke, Bradbury and Asimov school that seeks to extrapolate fantastic worlds from real current science, and examines how science and technology could affect the peoples of those worlds.
+
|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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575078995</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356515885
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Rob Winters
|author=D B Shan 
+
|title=His Name Was Wren
|title=Procession of the Dead (The City Trilogy)
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Capac Raimi arrives in the City full of ambition. He intends to make a name for himself in his Uncle Theo's protection business. And, as he always knew he would, Capac turns out to be good at it. He loves the seedy side of the City and he has no compunction in using any dirty tricks to climb the gangster ladder. Capac's ultimate aim is to work directly for the Cardinal, the City's godfather. The Cardinal is the City and the City is the Cardinal. But when Capac finally gets his wish, things start to unravel.
+
|summary=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 shackand 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>0007261306</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B08KGVNVNB
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Neal Asher  
 
|title=Line War
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=This new addition to the Polity universe starts off where the ''Polity Agent'' left off. Polity is still suffering from the onslaught of Jain tech, a lethal nanotechnology designed to destroy civilisations. Jain-infested Erebus and all his subjugated AIs are at war with the Polity and Agent Cormac, Orlandine and Dragon all are trying to their best, in their unique ways, to thwart Erebus's plans, whatever they might be.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405055014</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Derek Gunn  
 
|title=Vampire Apocalypse: A World Torn Asunder
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Given the recent success of the film version of Matheson's [[I Am Legend by Richard Matheson|I Am Legend]], it's not a surprise that anything featuring humans fighting vampires should be optioned for a film version.  Admittedly, the identity of the enemy is really the only thing the two books have in common, but on reading this one, I can see exactly why the film industry would be interested.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>097679148X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Mark Lingane
|author=Stephenie Meyer 
+
|title=Note to Self: An Education
|title=The Host
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=The healer Fords Deep Waters is a Soul, so ''by nature he was all things good: compassionate, patient, honest, virtuous and full of love… However, because Fords Deep Waters lived inside a human body, irritation was sometimes inescapable.''
+
|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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847441831</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B08LY8J4KS
 +
}} 
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|author= Christopher Paolini
 +
|title= To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
 +
|rating= 5
 +
|genre= Science Fiction
 +
|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…
 +
|isbn=1529046505
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author= Laura Lam and Elizabeth May
|author=Ken MacLeod
+
|title= Seven Devils
|title=The Execution Channel
+
|rating= 4
|rating=5
+
|genre= Science Fiction
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|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…
|summary=In a post flu pandemic Britain not so far into the future, a nuclear explosion rocks the US base at RAF Leuchars. Several thousand people die. The War on Terror is being lost, perhaps has already been lost. Russia and China are gradually reverting back to old-style Communism, Britain is a seething mass of racial tension, and a goodly proportion of Americans are subsisting in FEMA camps, refugees from global warming and debt. India leads the profitable race in designing technological consumer goods, China does the skilled manufacturing, leaving the newly-impoverished American workers the crumbs of slave-labour assembly work. Conspiracy theorists and state disinformation networks have become indistinguishable from one another and someone, somewhere has set up the Execution Channel, which shows loop after loop of the murder, execution and torture, nobody knows how.
+
|isbn=1473231140
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496677</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
 
+
|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)
{{newreview
+
|title=A Life Without End
|author=Iain M Banks
 
|title=Matter
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|summary=A king of Sarl dies - seemingly in battle, but really by the hand of his right-hand man and friend. On of his sons runs away with his trusty servant to seek help from the representatives of civilisations so advanced that they are practically gods. A Special Circumstances agent, once the unruly princess and daughter of the king, on learning of his demise decides to get de-fanged and go back to a world which she thought she had left for good. The other son, for now Prince Regent, dodges several assassination attempts while personally supervising the discovery of a mysterious, unimaginably ancient and seemingly sentient artefact. Two of the most advanced civilisations in the Galaxy, the Morthanveld and The Culture, dance round each other trying to figure out why exactly one of the client cultures of Morthanveld created a phantom fleet of warships.
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841494178</amazonuk>
+
|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
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Short Story Reviews]]
|title=The Serrano Succession
 
|author=Elizabeth Moon
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|rating=3
 
|summary=The politics of the empire of great noble families is still up in arms about the newish medical practice of rejuv – is the drug process at fault, or poisoned, and how far-reaching are its effects on the military officers that have been able over the past generation or so to afford this anti-aging process?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149674X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

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

1803816759.jpg

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

B0CKRYFRZM.jpg

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

191458564X.jpg

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

B09X3NZ76W.jpg

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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