Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]==Science fiction==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ken MacLeodAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=The Restoration GameAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|summary=Lucy Stone works for a videogame company in Edinburgh. She enjoys the job - particularly being one of the boys - and it's given her a sense of belonging that she'd craved but never had. And then her mother calls. A CIA spook, Amanda wants Lucy's firm to rewrite their upcoming game to feature the mythology Opening up new ways of a small ex-Soviet republic. Krassnia is where Lucy was born, where she lived for her first seven years, and where she spent thinking about the scariest day shape of her life. Amanda wrote a seminal work on Krassnian mythology and Lucy uses this things to reshape the game, knowing that it's likely to be used as a tool in a hoped-for colour revolution. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496472</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Wooding|title=Black Lung Captain: Tales of the Ketty Jay|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Things on board the Ketty Jay have never been as lowcome. Darian Frey and his crew are even having trouble thieving from defenceless orphanages. So when the next token job-they-can't-refuse comes along, they fall under it's spell. An explorer has returned with tales of untold riches, courtesy of the most mysterious artefacts and treasures of an unknown civilization. The fact that the remains are those of an aircraft crashed in the most Arctic of rainforests, inhabited by the most evil beast-men monsters, is neither here nor there. The problems start with what they find there, which is worse than anyone could have expected - or indeed years ago, with a mysterious connection between the remains and the more unusual crewmember...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575085177</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Chris Beckett|title=The Holy Machine|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=In the near future, only Illyria city stands for science, technology and progress in a world dominated by religious fundamentalism of every faith (and then some). The city was founded as a haven for those intellectuals not possessing any such religious convictions, who advocated reason and logic instead, and were persecuted for their 'blasphemies' in the early stages of the upheaval. George Simling, the introvert protagonist and second generation Illyrian, falls in love with a beautiful woman called Lucy. Unfortunately however, Lucy is actually a syntec, a robot ASPU: Advanced Sensory Pleasure Unit, a prostitute. As George obsessively visits her, he realises that she is starting to develop a level of consciousness and self-awareness outside of her programming. Lucy is due for a routine mind-wipe so George decides to flee with her to the technophobic outlands in order to save this newly discovered consciousness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874626</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pittacus Lore|title=I am Number Four|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Meet John Smith. By all appearances he is the usual fifteen year old American kid, except for the fact he and his 'father' shift location every few months. John is certainly not his real name, but has to face up to reality - school bullies, hot girls and in fact any friends being unattainable with such a peripatetic lifestyle. 'Dad' stays at home, scanning the internet and all news sources, in order to protect the pair - for they are among the remaining dozen or so inhabitants of Lorien, living in hidden exile on Earth, but hunted by their enemies from yet another alien race. Can the fact they are permanently pursued grant them any peace - especially when 'John' is about to undergo some rather prominent alien-style puberty?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141332476</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Michael Cobley|title=The Orphaned Worlds (HumanityI's Fire)|rating=3ve heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=The planet Darien Well, once I must confess that there have been more than a lost outpost where earth colonists co-existed 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 native Uvovo, is now the focal point feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of an intergalactic struggle. Hegemony forces are in occupation mode, Earth it is standing back reined in by inter-planetary politics, whilst planet-side local alliances are fighting back guerrillafrankly -stylequite frightening. This is Of course, I could research the least of possibilities and the galaxyprobabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I's concerns, howeverm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. It might even get air-brushed out as a little minor difficulty I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in the history-books-to-come. There is a much bigger problem to worry aboutway I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496332</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mira GrantSylvie Cathrall|title=FeedA Letter to the Luminous Deep

|summary=In 2014 the common cold was cured. So was cancer. But in their wake something terrible came – the two viruses used to cure the ailments combined There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to form a terrifying plague that turned humans and large animals into the living deadcompelling premise. Now what's left And this is one of the human race lives every day with the fear that the virus they hold dormant in their bodies could go into amplification, causing them to turn. People stay indoors, stop meeting in crowds, and conduct most of their lives online. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184149898X</amazonuk>0356522776

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Robert Edric1803816759|title=SalvageThe Unravelling|author=Will Gibson

|summary=Some time about It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a hundred years hence bit of adventure and the predictions have come to passget stuck into some really gritty crime detection. The sea levels have risen; But then something goes horribly wrong with the Gulf Stream has shifted its pathAI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Climate change has hit Britain with a vengeanceFinally, Joe gets to do some real policing. Global Warming is In the misnomer; aftermath of course the temperatures are, on balance, warmerrioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Snow is something most people Joe isn't the only hear or read about. The real changeone trying to save Suki - Dylan, howevera British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the wetcase.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0385617623</amazonuk>What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tom HoltB0CP95J1CG|title=Blonde BombshellOf Ghosts & Broken Promises|author=Mark Lingane

|summary=The blonde bombshell in question in Tom Holt's latest book of that name is Lucy Pavlov. If you are reading this review in 2017 of course you will know who Lucy Pavlov is. SheRonan's not entirely sure why he decides to go to the beautiful, talented, wealthy, CEO of PaySoft Industries - the revolutionary operating system that party but his interest is running on every computer in piqued by the worldway it arrived. Of course, if that is indeed the case, then we've got And it seems like a problem. A very big problem. Because what Lucy doesn't know is that she is literally a blonde bombshell - well she knows she's blonde, just not that her body is a shell for a bomb. A very big good opportunity to get out of his room and a very smart bomb, but nevertheless a bomb. And she's been sent to destroy away from the planet. It kind of online activities he makes Bill Gates seem OK for the time being.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497789</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Scott Westerfeld|title=Extras|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=In the future city of this book, many people live with what is called a reputation economyliving at. With everybody practically a cyborgSo he makes his way there, they're online permanently, using optical and brain implants to see everybody's status, output and more. Many people have hovercam companions, to dodging the buses that make their own documentaries up most of the traffic and film their own lives. They rely on metablogs to interact and keep their popularity upwatching the local energy storage indicator lights. They continuously spread their opinions and interests in order to become more well-knownShould be enough power. A girl called Aya is struggling to get any renown, but things change, when she meets other people doing incredibly notorious things, but in complete secrecy and anonymityHopefully.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389228</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott WesterfeldK P O'Donnell|title=Specials|rating=4|genre=Teens|summary=In the un-named city of the future, all the adults are living in the delusion that their city is right. After a teenage life as an ugly, they all undergo a welter of medical procedures, to make their minds and bodies conform to the bland, but gorgeous, society norm. But one young woman is not like that. She is going to a party, looking ugly, and she knows it is not what we look like, but how special we feel inside, that is of most importance. The good news is that this woman is our returning heroine, Tally. The bad news is that her ugliness is a temporary disguise, and worse than that - she knows how to feel special inside, because she IS Vital Link (A Special.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389082</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Scott Westerfeld|title=Pretties|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=In the unnamed city of the future, all the adults are pretty. They've had mental and physical surgery to make them calm, placid and perfectly aesthetic human beings. If they have any trouble as young adults it is the problem of what to wear at parties, or how to get rid of their hangovers when they wake up at 5pm. Unfortunately, one of these bright young things is our heroine, Tally, one of the few people Spark in the world to have learnt how damnably horrid and sapping the life of Riley can be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389074</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Jeff Somers|title=The Eternal PrisonAshes)

|summary=This book stands out in the highVL-energy15, hard-edged sci-fi adventure/thriller genrea prototype robot, in that it covers two stories at the same timeis desperate to understand who she is. In one chapter we have Avery CatesUnfortunately, practically the best gun-for-hire in his post-apocalyptic North Americabefore she could find any answers, being told to kill one of the most protected and important people left in the worldended, by other, almost as important people, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the cruel mix nations of powerplays that make up the current politicsDrexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. In the other corner Dr Amelia Wong is Catesdetermined to continue her father's legacy, being thrown building a world where machines and humans can live together in prison - one of those basicharmony, hell-on-earthbut internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, surrounded by miles leader of a group of desertsalvagers called the Exhumers, prisonshas his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. HereEven after being buried for 65 years, tooher determination hasn't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, he no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will be told to do jobs stop her on her quest for other people...answers…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497053</amazonuk>B0CKRYFRZM

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Orson Scott CardEmily Tesh|title=Ender in ExileSome Desperate Glory|rating=34.5

|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 'EnderWhile Earth's Game'. Confusingly for the uninitiated, 'Ender in Exile' is also a sequel to the 'Shadow of the Giant'children live, a parallel sub-series from the universe of the enemy shall fear us'Ender's Game'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841492272</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=John Dickinson|title=WE|rating=5|genre=Teens|summary=Paul Munro Following the destruction of the Earth, amongst a rare number of survivors, Kyr has been disconnected from raised on Gaea Station – the home of the World Ear in readiness for a mission that will last a lifetime. Sent scraps of humanity – and trained relentlessly to man a tiny station built at enormous effort avenge her people and expense on a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar systemworld that should have been hers. All her life, he will never be able she has been conditioned to return. Gravity is one-tenth that of Earth and his flesh has wastedfall in line, 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 fulfil her duty and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfullyensure that humanity perseveres. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>0356521834

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ursula K Le GuinM R Carey|title=The Left Hand of DarknessInfinity Gate

|summary=ItI'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 m annoyingly picky when it was originally written, and - deservedly - enjoys a classic status in the comes to 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' HitchhikerNot because it's Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six a genre I dislike – nothing 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 manysort. Why try and write a new HitchhikerMy standards are high precisely because it's Guide a hard genre to the Galaxy book, get right – and when way before the endit's bad, its creator Douglas Adams was proving quite hopeless at such a task? And why approach an Irishman, Eoin Colfer, when it's often terrible. But the originals - tempered with their humour which could only be described as Monty Python doing premise of Infinity Gate had me hooked. A concept this intriguing felt like a scihigh-fi Terry Pratchettstakes gamble: if it was done well, and with their cups of tea and dressing gowns, could only it'd be described as very English? Well the answer fantastic. So this is most evident - Colfer is a world-beater when it comes to knocking where I sum up a storythat premise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0718155149</amazonuk>0356518043

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon Law Michael Grothaus|title=Bringing Forth the End of DaysBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Science Literary 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 'But fearing something and independence, but at a freakish costhaving it come to pass are two different things. Worse, religion has mutated - the JehovahAnd I's Witnesses are now the m willing to bet most violent gangof what we fear will never happen, rushing or we can take steps to nudge whatchange it.'s left of humanity towards its final judgment. Worse still - even worse than all of that - you're living in Crawley.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1608602036</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Peter Salisbury |title=Passengers to Sentience|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Human beings are spread across ''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the galaxyquestion of identity and acceptance. The technology that allowed this Of what it means 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 informationhuman. Unmanned ships are sent to inhabitable planets across the furthest reaches of space Of what is real and upon arrivalwhat is artificial, and whether the automated cloning vats begin re-creating your body and entering your stored mind and personality datadevelopment of technology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0755211596</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Palmer 1739593901|title=Red Claw22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=45

|summary=New Amazon, home to some of the most violent and deadly alien life imaginable, is due to ''Our future will 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 faunamore complex than we expected. 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 Instead of acid rain) were not enough of a threatflying cars, the characters are also pursued by legions of we got night-vision killer robots. Life expectancy does not look good.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496243</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=K S Turner |title=Before the Gods (Chronicles of Fate drones and Choice)|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 automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets 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 godstrack grandma.''|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956224202</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Issui Ogawa |title=The Lords I've got a couple of the Sands of Time|rating=3|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Weconfessions to make. I're in m not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the third century, Japanbook. A queen and her young retainer are wandering There's got to the edge of their territory, when be a baddy appears - an alien seeming very compelling hook to be some local creaturekeep me engaged. Handily enough a saviour, warrior hero appears Then there's science fiction: far too, from way in often it's the future, complete technology which takes centre stage along with talking sword, and saves the dayworld-building. This incident is bad news for It's human beings who fascinate me: the queen to take back to court technology and discussthe world scape are purely incidental. So, but it's even worse for the messenger - sent on what did I think of a onebook of twenty-way ticket from his own lifetwo science fiction short stories? Well, to advise of timelines that need saved - and the people that might just save Earth from this cosmic battleI loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1421527626</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Hiroshi SakurazakaMark Lingane|title=All You Need Is KillGalaxy

|summary=In a global war between humans and invading aliensSpark, called Mimicswho is an elite pilot with the Space Academy, Keiji is barely makes it through a trooper at the beginning of his short career in the armybattle alive. Despite his highHis co-tech body armourpilot was not so fortunate. Waking from a coma that lasted years, he's not destined remembers little and is in no physical shape to last long - he's quickly deadresume his duties. But then Earth is under threat and he's quickly alive again, as somehow must. Returned by his life is rewound a day. It only makes for prolonged horror for superiors to the rookiespace station, but it happens again and again. Each time he gets finds himself amid a better intelligence of what his destiny might have been last ditch attempt to save humanity - can he learn enough each time round to make a difference, and possibly break not just from the loop?alien threats against it, but also from its own sins against itself. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1421527618</amazonuk>B09X3NZ76W

 [[Category:Science Fiction]]{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jonathan Luna and Joshua Luna Tade Thompson|title=Girls Volume 1: Conception|rating=4.5|genre=Graphic Novels|summary=Ethan, we see with a great, broad comic stroke or six, is not Far From 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 Light of the road.|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>}} {{newreview|author=Robert Buettner |title=Orphan's Triumph (Jason Wander)Heaven

|summary=Fantasy 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 science fiction are genres the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise that mesh well togetherher first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Some authors have written successfully across both genresDown on Bloodroot, but not usually in disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the same storyRagtime. Jaine Fenn has managed Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to combine both Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in one book tow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and it's an interesting readbureaucracy of Space Station Lagos.What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0575083239</amazonuk>0356514323

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bernard BeckettClaire North|title=GenesisNotes from the Burning Age

|summary=The reviewer sat down with the fancy hardback review copy of At its core ''GenesisNotes From the Burning Age'' by Bernard Beckett and turned the pagesClaire North is a spy thriller, 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 problemswith as many double crosses, global oil wars interrogations and animositynight time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. However, and so onas with the best novels, it wears many masks and a plague war has meant NZ its most affecting one is cordoned off with that of a Great Sea Fencenew and timely genre, cli-fi, or climate change fiction. It is living under a strange PlatoNorth's Republic, based on novel tells of a mix world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of ancient Greek life (naked wrestling and so on) with the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (relationships arbitrated by rampant gene testingread: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). One of the soldiers defending itThere is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, Adamand one group, takes it upon himself, howeverthe Brotherhood, aims to betray his state, and let a young girl alone on a raft through master these processes no matter the cordon, and befriend her. But it is not her that will provide the crux of cost to the bookEarth.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847247296</amazonuk>0356514757

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Neal AsherAdrian Tchaikovsky|title=Shadow Shards of the Scorpion (Novel of the Polity) Earth|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Shadow of the Scorpion'' is a better book than either the title or Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape by the cover (a cartoonmoon-ish mechanical scorpion) might at first suggest. It's an engaging espionage-type thriller of course, but sized aliens known as the emotional repercussions are sensitively dealt withArchitects.  The body of the novel Humanity is set during the aftermath of an interplanetary war between the Polityscattered, humans constantly fleeing as governed by benign AIsworld after world falls to the architect's reshaping. Then, and a vicious alien just when they had the human race named on the Prador. Cormacrun, the protagonist, is a 22 year old recruit for Earth Central Security (ECS)Architects vanished. And so, the military arm memories of the Polity. He is assigned war fades, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins to guard a crash-landed Prador spaceship on a remote planet fracture and prevent some alien weaponry from falling into the wrong handsfight among themselves. Due to circumstances outside of his ControlIdris Telemmier, Cormac is required a man genetically engineered to infiltrate an underground network of Separatists, try and communicate with the Terrorists of the futureArchitects, who rebel against the AI rule: a perfect set-up for some gripping interrogation and torture scenes of the technologically advanced typedoes not want to be remembered. But, there is more to when he and the crew of 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 salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to start with an admission. I know by now, having read three earlier books in this seriesbe recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the set-upspotlight. We have a demonic entity creating chaos As he and destroying life itselfhis allies bounce from star system to star system, territory chased by territoryalien crime syndicates, human secret police and a young teen and his friends, originally scattered across said territories one by onerich slavers, combatting the nasty and putting each and every world he slowly begins 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, realise that 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 real war 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?only just getting started…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847385060</amazonuk>1529051886

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip K DickTerry Miles|title=Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?Rabbits

|summary=World War Terminus 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 overthe 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 Earth is have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in ruinsthe most peculiar places, and are still very short. However this time it's different. While This time the game seems the most people have emigrated to Marsdangerous, nay lethal, some continue to live their lives on Earth while radioactivity slowly impairs their brain the most broken it's ever been – morally and reproductive functionotherwise.  Upon emigrating Unfortunately for K, in trying to Marssort out what the game is doing, all citizens were given a highly sophisticated android servantif it's even being played, and now six have escaped from captivity and fled to Earthhow his loved ones might be kept safe, killing all in their path. Rick Deckard he is only to find out that the bounty hunter commissioned to track down line between observing and destroy these androidslearning about the game, almost indiscernible from humansand playing it, in return for is a feevery thin one indeed...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0575079932</amazonuk>1529016932

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris WoodingC J Carey|title=Retribution FallsWidowland|rating=4.5|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=Things are never quiet when it comes 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 life on the Ketty Jaythrone of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. For Captain Frey yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it, and his mismatched band we are now a protectorate – well, we share enough of friendsthe same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''the mainland''. But this is most certainly a different Britain, colleaguesfor Nazi-styled phrenology, call them what you willand ideas of female purpose, has put all of that make the ragglegender into a caste system, ranging from high-taggle crew of brow office bigwigs to the craftdrudges, will always find a dodgy scrapeand beyond those, right on down to the childless, a damsel the husbandless and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in distress or some risky cargo this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature to transport take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, not every book can be banned, and up til now have survived 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 consequencesfirst emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0575085142</amazonuk>152941198X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Walter Jon WilliamsEverina Maxwell|title=This Is Not A GameWinter's Orbit|rating=3.5

|summary=Dagmar Prince Kiem is trapped in a hotel, with rioting Jakarta burning around herfamous political disappointment. When the conventional attempts to get her out failHe's outgoing, 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 lifecarefree, not on the computer screen or and has gotten into many drunken scandals over the Internetpast few years. Dagmar writes such games, working 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 Charlie, a phenomenally successful owner the role. Least of a software companyall him.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184149657X</amazonuk>0356515885

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Heath A HagueRob Winters|title=The Unique CreationHis Name Was Wren

|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers|summary=Terrorism – a happenstance where one might truthfully say an unwitting heroism can be bornIn September 1944 something came down in Oban Woods, near the village of Hurstwick. But never as in this book.  Steve Westerman is in It came down hard, taking the spire of the village church with it, destroying a malaise after a car crash killed his wife stone shack, and children, when leaving a nuclear bomb is set off in wide trail through the centre wood, but no trace of Londonwhat it actually was. It all appears to our eyes to be a mysterious techno-cultGerman secret weapon was the local gossip, but the act has caused there should have been an explosion and a big change to Westermancrater, and launched him as one there were neither of the Uniquesthose things.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1438928424</amazonuk>B08KGVNVNB

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Harry HarrisonMark Lingane|title=Make Room! Make Room!Note to Self: An Education

|summary=A young man practically living on In Kry's world, the streets finds discovery that human cells replace themselves every seven years results in a change cascade of fortune with a job as a messenger boymedical "advances": in 2030 it's found that radiation can return cells back to their regeneration state seven years before, but will in 2035 it lead 's possible to quite cure cancerous tumours but with the right kind side effect of luck? A political Mister Big Nasty gets killed, leaving behind a lovely and glamorous moll-type character, Shirl. Andyerasing seven years of memory, by 2045 the policeman from cosmetics industry is using the incredibly undersame technique to "de-resourced police forceage" their customers by seven years. In a society obsessed with image and youth, 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.who needs memories?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>014119023X</amazonuk>B08LY8J4KS}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert Buettner Christopher Paolini|title=Orphan's Alliance (Jason Wander 4)To Sleep in a Sea of Stars|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=[[:Category:Chris Bunch|Chris Bunch]] was On the moon of a distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is helping with the first efforts to make the sci-fi space army genre his ownplanet habitable to human life. However, but Robert Buettner is certainly following close behind. Whilst I've always preferred Buncha discovery of an ancient alien bunker under the moon's work over Buettner's, that by no means makes Buettner surface leaves her bonded with a bad writer strange alien entity. After the entity bonded to her loses control and his work has always been enjoyable. Once againkills half the staff of the research station, Buettner has included much of what makes his work so much fun the United Military Command cruiser Extenuating Circumstances arrives in the system to readtake Kira in for examination.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497525</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Marianne De Pierres |title=Chaos Space (Sentients of Orion)|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=I have Things go from bad to admit that worse when I first opened this book I was at a loss. It the Extenuating Circumstances is Book 2 of the ''The Sentients of Orion'' seriesattacked and destroyed by an alien ship, so I did encounter some confusion as and she has to what had happened before to lead flee to the events I was reading about61 Cygnus star system. I stuck with it thoughShe is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and as I read alonga rag-tag bunch of misfits, things became much clearer though I would heartily recommend reading and the first book in news is grim. The same aliens that destroyed the series before jumping into this oneExtenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space, and only a mythical weapon known as the plot has many threads and is quite complicated.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841494291</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Michael Cobley|title=Seeds Staff of Earth (Humanity's Fire)|rating=3Blue can stop them.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=It's a strange fact of As the human psyche that while we send out our travellers in peace death toll climbs and exploration…we fear that whoever else is travelling out theremore players are introduced into this war, towards here, does so with malice aforethought. Cobley is no exception Kira slowly begins to this rule. In his future world Earth's first contact with aliens came with realise that she may have had a greater hand in the Swarm: a species of 'many reptilian similarities yet their appearance was unavoidably insectoid. With six, eight, ten or more limbs they conflict than she 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.ve possibly imagined…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841496324</amazonuk>1529046505

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ken MacLeod Laura Lam and Elizabeth May|title=Night SessionsSeven Devils|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=The world post Faith Wars (or Oil WarsEris 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 fundamentalists are inclined Novantae, has a mission: hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to the war effort. Although she's less than pleased to call them) discover that her former friend Eris is both very different andher 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, at the same time runner- as it should be in relatively close-future s-f - uncannily similar up heir to the Empire, is plotting to oursdisrupt peace talks between Tholos and the last of the free alien species. It's a world of race against time as the Second Enlightenmentrebels move to put a stop Damocles' plans, where, at least with millions of lives hanging in Europe, religion has been truly separated from politics and became a genuinely private and societaly marginalised activity.the balance…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841496510</amazonuk>1473231140

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert BuettnerFrederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)|title=OrphanageA Life Without End

|genre=Science Literary Fiction|summary=I recently enjoyed Chris Bunchlooked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won's [[The Last Legion by Chris Bunch|Last Legion]] seriest be one of the major numbers, which told but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the story horizon. And then a few of trainingthe big 0-numbers, combat and down time in if all goes well, I'll be an army marooned without help and seemingly without hope in deep spaceOBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty. ) Robert BuettnerNow if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn''Orphanage'' promised more 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 samelife of his genes, although based and a little closer motive to homekeep on going. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so I was greatly looking forward to it.nice?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497541</amazonuk>1642860670

{{newreview|author=Charles Stross|title=Saturn's Children|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=My first encounter with Charles Stross was through Move on to [[Halting State by Charles Stross|Halting StateNewest Short Story Reviews]], a William Gibson-meets-Christopher Brookmyre near-future post-cyberpunk crime caper.''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>}} {{newreview|author=Sean Williams |title=Saturn Returns (Astropolis)|rating=4|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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841495190</amazonuk>}}