Difference between revisions of "Newest Science Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]
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==Science fiction==
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover
 
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|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
{{newreview
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|author=Stephen Mark Norman
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|rating=5
|title=Meklyan and the Fourth Piece of the Artefact
 
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Four billion years after our Sun has become a red giant and died, taking all life with it, there are still humans in the universe. How so? By man-made panspermia. When Earth's civilisation realised it couldn't master long distance space travel in sufficient time to avoid annihilation, it sent out DNA probes filled with bacteria far out into space, to planets in the temperate zones of solar systems; planets that could potentially sustain life. And on eight planets, sustain life they did.
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|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956202713</amazonuk>
 
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{{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=Simon Morden
 
|title=Equations of Life
 
|rating=3
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=It's a book that is certainly not short of action. We are not told what the Armageddon event was, although aspects of it are hinted at. Perhaps that will become explained later in the series. What we do know is that it has wiped out Japan, and one of the first victims of the event in London appears to have been the Congestion Charge as it is now a heaving metropolis with gridlock traffic (although this and the masses of people seem to mysteriously evaporate as the story unfolds).
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149948X</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|author=Paolo Bacigalupi
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|title=The Windup Girl
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|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Although only recently released in paperback in the UK, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl has been gaining considerable critical acclaim across 'the pond'. Set in a future version of Thailand, it's an interesting take on the environmental meltdown scenario that has garnered it a couple of science fiction awards (the Hugo and Nebula awards) and was named as the ninth best fiction book of 2009 by Time magazine. No less than three of the review extracts used by the publishers in this edition liken Bacigalupi to William Gibson. High praise indeed. Does it rise to these expectations?
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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>0356500535</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 0356522776
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1803816759
|author=K S Turner
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|title=The Unravelling
|title=Chronicles of Fate and Choice: Tumultus
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|author=Will Gibson
|rating=3
 
|genre=Fantasy
 
|summary=This is the follow up to [[Before the Gods (Chronicles of Fate and Choice) by K S Turner|Before The Gods]], a debut novel lauded for bringing a breath of fresh air to the world of speculative fiction and one of Bookbag's [[Bookbag's Christmas Gift Recommendations 2009|top picks of 2009]]. Tumultus is the second of the planned trilogy and I was looking forward to seeing how the author would really cut loose now that readers were already familiar with the Shaa-kutu and the story of their link to the origin of the human race.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956224210</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Tricia Sullivan
 
|title=Lightborn
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=In an alternate but contemporary United States, everyone uses Lightborn technology, or shine, as it's nicknamed. Providing entertainment, education and self-knowledge, people live in the ultimate plugged-in society. And then the Fall comes. Rogue AIs in the shine field around the city of Los Sombres start sending out bad shine and the adults all go loco - becoming violent and murderous, or broken down and reduced to performing repetitive tasks over and over.
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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>1841494070</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=B0CP95J1CG
|author=Philip Palmer
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|title=Of Ghosts & Broken Promises
|title=Version 43
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|author=Mark Lingane
|rating=4
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Version 43 is a Galactic Cop, a cyborg law enforcement officer sent from Earth to tackle an unusual murder case in Lawless City, a sort of sci-fi Baltimore on the distant planet of Belladonna. He gets sidetracked from his original objective and decides to rid the planet of its evil gang bosses while he's there. A huge war ensues in which all the bosses (and thousands of others) are killed, but it soon becomes apparent that the true rulers of the planet are the dead eyed 'children' he has seen dining in the most expensive restaurants, the sinister 'ancien régime' .
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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>1841499218</amazonuk>
 
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=K P O'Donnell
|author=Margaret Atwood
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|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)
|title=The Handmaid's Tale
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|summary=In the near-future USA that they call Gilead, society has changed.  For the worse, of course.  The population is dying out, and people who are capable of breeding the next generation are given a cherished status of Handmaid - gifted to any male of enough esteem, called a Commander, who balances the household with his wife and what is practically a walking womb.  Other women get drudge work, or run horrid finishing schools for the Handmaids, or are packed off to what are reported to be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for life.  Men are restricted too - Handmaids are off-limits to everybody but their Commander, and those households are patrolled carefully by other eunuch types.  It's up to our nameless narrator and main character, however, to show us just how cherished the status of Handmaid feels.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099511665</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Iain M Banks
 
|title=Surface Detail
 
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=It is perhaps appropriate for a book that centres around the battle for the afterlife to begin this review with a confession: this was my first encounter with Iain M Banks' Culture series of science fiction novels. At first, I worried that this put me at a significant disadvantage as for the first 100 or so pages, I spend most of the time being completely confused about what was going on. However, as the strands started to come together, it became apparent that this is partly Banks' style and indeed it's one he uses in his non-science fiction books too. Keep going, it does come together.
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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…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498939</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM
 
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}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Emily Tesh
|author=William Gibson
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|title=Some Desperate Glory
|title=Zero History
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Literary Fiction
 
|summary=It's almost obligatory when writing anything about William Gibson to recall that in an earlier short story, he invented the term 'cyberspace'. Gibson remains at the cutting edge of what is 'cool'. Like most of his books, Zero History is a thriller, but at its core are issues surrounding technology, how we interact with it, branding and marketing. It would be easy to criticise much of his content as being too shallow and concerned with 'nothing' - but then that's part of his point.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919527</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Charles Stross
 
|title=The Fuller Memorandum
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Our world is not as it seems. We share it with aliens, zombies, demonic spirits, with ancient god-like entities that are all keen to eat our bodies and devour our souls. It's lucky, then, that we have the British secret service to protect us, more specifically a top secret branch of the secret service called The Laundry. This organisation is so secret that even the bosses at MI6 don't know of its existence. The point of the Laundry is to keep all the myriad of terrors endangering the Earth at bay by the careful use of science, technology and magic, magic being a little known branch of applied maths.
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|summary=''While Earth's children live, the enemy shall fear us''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497703</amazonuk>
 
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{{newreview
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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.
|author=Ian McDonald
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|isbn=0356521834
|title=The Dervish House
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=The reader is plunged straight away into the busy, bustling centre of Istanbul.  And climate change appears to have arrived. In 2022 thousands of Istanbul's citizens died in a heatwave and now, only three years later it's 'Thirty-three degrees in April, at seven in the morning.  Unthinkable.'  You can almost hear the collective thrum of all those air-conditioning units trying to make life bearable for the local people.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575080531</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=M R Carey
|author=Jeff Somers
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|title=Infinity Gate
|title=The Terminal State
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=In this future, desolate, post-apocalyptic world, the last thing Avery Cates wants to do is choose a side.  The police are androids, artificial cases for clones of people who die in the making, and the other source of power is not much better.  But it's them that pressgang him into joining their army.  What little freedom and power he had as a lone gunman is lost, as he's given nanotech augments to make him a super-soldier.  Which is bad news - as is the fact the two most powerful and hated people in Cates's universe are the very people who buy him from the army to do one last job - and they can be very persuasive about him accepting it...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498750</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Terry Dehart
 
|title=The Unit
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=We all know about the nuclear family, well now meet the post-nuclear family in Terry De Hart's brutal vision of a post apocalyptic America.
 
 
 
We know the score; terrorists attack key US cities with nuclear devices, US retaliates on the nations supporting the terrorist. There is only one possible outcome, mass casualties and the breakdown of civil society leading to the rise of barbarism in a devastated landscape in the grip of a nuclear winter. Within this madness a family survives not knowing how much of the country or the world has been destroyed.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499331</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Ken MacLeod
 
|title=The Restoration Game
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|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 of a small ex-Soviet republic. Krassnia is where Lucy was born, where she lived for her first seven years, and where she spent the scariest day of her life. Amanda wrote a seminal work on Krassnian mythology and Lucy uses this to reshape the game, knowing that it's likely to be used as a tool in a hoped-for colour revolution.  
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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>1841496472</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356518043
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author= Michael Grothaus
|author=Chris Wooding
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|title=Beautiful Shining People
|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 low.  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
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre= Literary 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.
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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.''
  
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874626</amazonuk>
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''Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the question of identity and acceptance. Of what it means to be human. Of what is real and what is artificial, and whether the development of technology is exciting or frightening.
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|isbn=191458564X
 
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{{Frontpage
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|isbn=1739593901
|author=Pittacus Lore
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|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|title=I am Number Four
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=3.5
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|rating=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 (Humanity's Fire)
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=The planet Darien, once a lost outpost where earth colonists co-existed with the native Uvovo, is now the focal point of an intergalactic struggle.   Hegemony forces are in occupation mode, Earth is standing back reined in by inter-planetary politics, whilst planet-side local alliances are fighting back guerrilla-style.    This is the least of the galaxy's concerns, however.  It might even get air-brushed out as a little minor difficulty in the history-books-to-come. There is a much bigger problem to worry about.
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|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496332</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-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.  
|author=Mira Grant
 
|title=Feed
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|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 to form a terrifying plague that turned humans and large animals into the living dead. Now what's left 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.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184149898X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Mark Lingane
|author=Robert Edric
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|title=Galaxy
|title=Salvage
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Some time about a hundred years hence and the predictions have come to pass. The sea levels have risen; the Gulf Stream has shifted its path. Climate change has hit Britain with a vengeance.  Global Warming is the misnomer; of course the temperatures are, on balance, warmer. Snow is something most people only hear or read about. The real change, however, is the wet.
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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>0385617623</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B09X3NZ76W
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Tade Thompson
|author=Tom Holt
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|title=Far From the Light of Heaven
|title=Blonde Bombshell
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|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. She's the beautiful, talented, wealthy, CEO of PaySoft Industries - the revolutionary operating system that is running on every computer in the world. Of course, if that is indeed the case, then we've got 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 and a very smart bomb, but nevertheless a bomb. And she's been sent to destroy the planet. It kind of makes Bill Gates seem OK for the time being.
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|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship Ragtime, bound for the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter for the ship's AI captain. However, when she wakes up at the end of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in tow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagos. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497789</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356514323
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author=Claire North
|author=Scott Westerfeld
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|title=Notes from the Burning Age
|title=Extras
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=In the future city of this book, many people live with what is called a reputation economy.  With everybody practically a cyborg, they're online permanently, using optical and brain implants to see everybody's status, output and more.  Many people have hovercam companions, to make their own documentaries and film their own lives.  They rely on metablogs to interact and keep their popularity up.  They continuously spread their opinions and interests in order to become more well-known.  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 anonymity.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1847389228</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Scott Westerfeld
 
|title=Specials
 
 
|rating=4
 
|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 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 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 Prison
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|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...
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|summary=At its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North is a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. However, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a new and timely genre, cli-fi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497053</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356514757
 
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{{Frontpage
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|author= Adrian Tchaikovsky
|author=Orson Scott Card
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|title= Shards of Earth
|title=Ender in Exile
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|rating= 4
|rating=3.5
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|genre= Science Fiction
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary= Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architects. Humanity is scattered, constantly fleeing as world after world falls to the architect's reshaping. Then, just when they had the human race on the run, the Architects vanished. And so, the memories of the war fades, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins to fracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, a man genetically engineered to try and communicate with the Architects, does not want to be remembered. But, when he and the crew of the salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the spotlight. As he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, chased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started…
|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'.
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|isbn=1529051886
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841492272</amazonuk>
 
 
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+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Terry Miles
|author=John Dickinson
+
|title=Rabbits
|title=WE
+
|rating=4.5
|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
 
|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.
+
|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>0718155149</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1529016932
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=C J Carey
|author=Simon Law
+
|title=Widowland
|title=Bringing Forth the End of Days
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre=General 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 atmosphereAs 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 costWorse, 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.
+
|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 WallisFor 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 reprintThat 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>1608602036</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=152941198X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Everina Maxwell
|author=Peter Salisbury
+
|title=Winter's Orbit
|title=Passengers to Sentience
+
|rating=5
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|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.
+
|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>0755211596</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356515885
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Rob Winters
|author=Philip Palmer
+
|title=His Name Was Wren
|title=Red Claw
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|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.
+
|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 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.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496243</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B08KGVNVNB
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Mark Lingane
|author=K S Turner
+
|title=Note to Self: An Education
|title=Before the Gods (Chronicles of Fate 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 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
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1421527626</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Hiroshi Sakurazaka
 
|title=All You Need Is Kill
 
 
|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?
+
|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>1421527618</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
[[Category:Science Fiction]]
+
|author= Laura Lam and Elizabeth May
{{newreview
+
|title= Seven Devils
|author=Jonathan Luna and Joshua Luna
+
|rating= 4
|title=Girls Volume 1: Conception
+
|genre= Science Fiction
|rating=4.5
+
|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…
|genre=Graphic Novels
+
|isbn=1473231140
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1582405298</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)
|author=Charles Stross
+
|title=A Life Without End
|title=Wireless
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Short Stories
+
|genre=Literary Fiction
|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.
+
|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?
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497711</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=1642860670
 
}}
 
}}
  
{{newreview
+
Move on to [[Newest Short Story Reviews]]
|author=Robert Buettner
 
|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>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 17:18, 25 March 2024

AllTomorrowsFutureCover.jpg

Review of

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

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand. Full Review

0356522776.jpg

Review of

A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

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Review of

The Unravelling by Will Gibson

4star.jpg Science Fiction

It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected? Full Review

B0CP95J1CG.jpg

Review of

Of Ghosts & Broken Promises by Mark Lingane

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

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Review of

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

3.5star.jpg Science Fiction

VL-15, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a-century later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacy, building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers… Full Review

0356521834.jpg

Review of

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

Following the destruction of the Earth, amongst a rare number of survivors, Kyr has been raised on Gaea Station – the home of the last scraps of humanity – and trained relentlessly to avenge her people and the world that should have been hers. All her life, she has been conditioned to fall in line, to fulfil her duty and ensure that humanity perseveres. Full Review

0356518043.jpg

Review of

Infinity Gate by M R Carey

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

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Review of

Beautiful Shining People by Michael Grothaus

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

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

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

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Review of

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

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

I've got a couple of confessions to make. I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. It's human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it. Full Review

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Review of

Galaxy by Mark Lingane

4star.jpg Science Fiction

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

0356514323.jpg

Review of

Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard the sleeper ship Ragtime, bound for the world of Bloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter for the ship's AI captain. However, when she wakes up at the end of her trip to find dozens of her passengers butchered and the Ragtime's AI almost non-responsive, she begins to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on Bloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and his android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-alien daughter in tow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagos. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space… Full Review

0356514757.jpg

Review of

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North

4star.jpg Science Fiction

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

1529051886.jpg

Review of

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

4star.jpg Science Fiction

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

1529016932.jpg

Review of

Rabbits by Terry Miles

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Welcome to the world of The Game. Or should that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. It's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, and are still very short. However this time it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed... Full Review

152941198X.jpg

Review of

Widowland by C J Carey

4star.jpg General Fiction

It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, and watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. For yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it, and we are now a protectorate – well, we share enough of the same blood as the Germanic peoples on the mainland. But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the drudges, and beyond those, right on down to the childless, the husbandless and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouraged. And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, not every book can be banned, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint. That is her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's visit. Full Review

0356515885.jpg

Review of

Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

B08KGVNVNB.jpg

Review of

His Name Was Wren by Rob Winters

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

B08LY8J4KS.jpg

Review of

Note to Self: An Education by Mark Lingane

4star.jpg Science Fiction

In Kry's world, the discovery that human cells replace themselves every seven years results in a cascade of medical "advances": in 2030 it's found that radiation can return cells back to their regeneration state seven years before, in 2035 it's possible to cure cancerous tumours but with the side effect of erasing seven years of memory, by 2045 the cosmetics industry is using the same technique to "de-age" their customers by seven years. In a society obsessed with image and youth, who needs memories? Full Review

1529046505.jpg

Review of

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

5star.jpg Science Fiction

On the moon of a distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is helping with the efforts to make the planet habitable to human life. However, a discovery of an ancient alien bunker under the moon's surface leaves her bonded with a strange alien entity. After the entity bonded to her loses control and kills half the staff of the research station, the United Military Command cruiser Extenuating Circumstances arrives in the system to take Kira in for examination. Things go from bad to worse when the Extenuating Circumstances is attacked and destroyed by an alien ship, and she has to flee to the 61 Cygnus star system. She is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and a rag-tag bunch of misfits, and the news is grim. The same aliens that destroyed the Extenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space, and only a mythical weapon known as the Staff of Blue can stop them. As the death toll climbs and more players are introduced into this war, Kira slowly begins to realise that she may have had a greater hand in the conflict than she could've possibly imagined… Full Review

1473231140.jpg

Review of

Seven Devils by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May

4star.jpg Science Fiction

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

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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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