Changes

[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]==Science fiction==__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip PalmerAllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=ArtemisAll Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=4.5

|summary=With every novel, Philip Palmer is going from strength to strength. I've not always enjoyed his writing style, but his eye for a story is wonderful and his imagination is seemingly endless. Every time I open one 'Opening up new ways of his novels, I wonder when he will find thinking about the limits shape of his inventiveness and it's never that timethings to come. ''Artemis'' is no exception to that rule.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499455</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Marissa Meyer|title=The Lunar Chronicles: Cinder|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=This Cinderella does not have to sweep the grate and clean the dishes - she has to mend maglev vehicle tracksI've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. This Cinders does not leave her shoe behind when invited to the ballWell, she has her entire foot fall off. This Cinder does not live in I must confess that there have been more than a realm few decades of fairy queens and pumpkin carriages, but New Beijing, a massive city of just two and a half million, due to the Fourth World Wartechnology in my lifetime. SheI've kept up reasonably well with what's a cyborg - hence advantageous to me but I'm left with the foot, but shefeeling that it's still owned by a crotchety bigot all getting away from me. Some of a stepit is -mother, with two stepfrankly -sistersquite frightening. And this is a very different worldOf course, where 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 global plague is going to be brought too close to home..way I could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141340134</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip PalmerSylvie Cathrall|title=Hell ShipA Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=45

|summary=Some time ago, I read Philip Palmer's debut novel [[Debatable Space by Philip Palmer|Debatable Space]]. Whilst there were aspects of that novel I didn't feel entirely worked, it was There are few greater joys than a well paced read for the most part and I marked Palmer as book which lives up to a writer to watchcompelling premise. His subsequent novels, [[Red Claw by Philip Palmer|Red Claw]] and [[Version 43 by Philip Palmer|Version 43]], have been well received here at The Bookbag and his fourth, ''Hell Ship'', isn't bad eitherAnd this is one of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841499447</amazonuk>0356522776

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ira Levin1803816759|title=The Stepford Wives|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary='It can't be a coincidence that Stepford women are all the way they are' says Bobbie, Joanna Eberhart's only friend in Stepford. Joanna has recently come to live in the idyllic suburban town of Stepford with her husband and two children. She is an independent woman with her own part-time career as a photographer, is intelligent, liberated and has a keen interest in feminism. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1849015899</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewUnravelling|author=James S A Corey|title=Leviathan WakesWill Gibson

|summary=Humanity has managed 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 venture get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the solar AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and colonise Marsriots start to spread. Finally, various moons and Joe gets to do some asteroids and stations in real policing. In the aftermath of the (asteroid) Belt between Mars rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and JupiterJoe is assigned to bring her home. Those inhabiting Joe isn't the Belt have evolved only one trying to be significantly thinner and elongated compared to Earthers and Martianssave Suki - Dylan, due the low gravity in which they live; their difference in appearance and a difference in attitude form the basis for a lot of the tension British superfan and uneasy relationships in tech nerd, is also on the novelcase.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499889</amazonuk>What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jeff SomersB0CP95J1CG|title=The Final EvolutionOf Ghosts & Broken Promises|author=Mark Lingane|rating=4.5

|summary=DonRonan't assume too much when starting this book. Certainly, do s not assume you can jump straight into this series at this, part five - start much nearer [[The Electric Church entirely sure why he decides to go to the party but his interest is piqued by Jeff Somers|the beginning]], as I didway it arrived. Don't assume the first person narrative means the narrator survives, for this is And it seems like a world good opportunity to get out of cyborgs, his room and psychic human intelligences stored in robot hardware, and more. Don't assume away from the lulling opening chapters herald online activities he makes a simple revenge actioner, as Avery Cates lives in a tangled web of vengeful villains, and nothing is very straightforwardliving at. And don't assume the unremarkable opening is from an author low on ideasSo he makes his way there, for when Cates is proven to be dodging the one man to save buses that make up most of the world, we find it suitably meaty, traffic and gripping, despite that old saw - and it's a rich nightmare of post-apocalypse for him to watching the local energy storage indicator lights. Should be saving, as well.enough power.Hopefully.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499439</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel H WilsonK P O'Donnell|title=RobopocalypseThe Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)

|summary=Rob VL-15, a prototype robot, is out desperate to kill us allunderstand 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 going starting to take some beatingrebuild. He already has many advantagesDr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacy, building a world where machines and humans can adapt easily where 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 finds unearths a fault in his plansprototype combat robot: none other than VL-15 herself. He already has most of us deadEven after being buried for 65 years, or her determination hasn't diminished in concentration camps. Rob is the generic nickname for all robot-kindslightest, all controlled by one supreme Artificial Intelligenceand no errant machine, who is set no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on eradication of our species.her quest for answers…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0857204122</amazonuk>B0CKRYFRZM

 {{newreviewFrontpage|titleauthor=Back DatedEmily Tesh|authortitle=Chris NiblockSome Desperate Glory|rating=34.5

|summary=Sci-fi writer Ray Flaxman returns home from a weekend away with his fiancee with a dealine to meet. But he finds his flat broken to into and trashed. Nothing of value has been taken. So Ray suspects his stalker is to blame. Serena has been calling and writing''While Earth's children live, declaring her love for Ray and her urgent desire to have his child. But Ray has never met her. Even so, he is keen to keep this mystery girl a secret because his fiancee, Frankie, has huge jealousy issues. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>B004W0JR7G</amazonuk>}}the enemy shall fear us''

{{newreview|author=John Trevillian|title=The A-Men Return|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=It's been several years since Following the Phoenix Tower came down and destruction of the A-Men split. Dead City is Earth, amongst a shadow rare number of its former self: an urban wasteland and survivors, Kyr has been raised on Gaea Station – the centre home of the sort last scraps of gang warfare humanity – and trained relentlessly to avenge her people and the world that finds should have been hers. All her life, she has been conditioned to fall in line, to fulfil her duty and exploits drugs and hopelessness with a ruthless talentensure that humanity perseveres. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184876619X</amazonuk>0356521834

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen Mark NormanM R Carey|title=Meklyan and the Fourth Piece of the ArtefactInfinity Gate|rating=35

|summary=Four billion years after our Sun has become I'm annoyingly picky when it comes to science fiction. Not because it's a red giant and died, taking all life with it, there are still humans in genre I dislike – nothing of the universesort. How so? By man-made panspermia. When EarthMy standards are high precisely because it's civilisation realised a hard genre to get right – and when it couldn't master long distance space travel in sufficient time to avoid annihilations bad, it sent out DNA probes filled with bacteria far out into space, to planets in 's often terrible. But the temperate zones premise of solar systems; planets that could potentially sustain lifeInfinity Gate had me hooked. And on eight planetsA concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble: if it was done well, sustain life they didit'd be fantastic. So this is where I sum up that premise. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0956202713</amazonuk>0356518043

 {{newreview|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>}} {{newreview|author=Paolo Bacigalupi|title=The Windup Girl|rating=3.5|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?|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356500535</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=K S Turner|title=Chronicles of Fate and Choice: Tumultus|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|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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841494070</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Philip PalmerMichael Grothaus|title=Version 43Beautiful Shining People

|genre=Science Literary 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 ('But fearing something and thousands of others) are killed, but having it soon becomes apparent that the true rulers of the planet come to pass are the dead eyed two different things. And I'children' he has seen dining in the m willing to bet most expensive restaurantsof what we fear will never happen, the sinister or we can take steps to change it.'ancien régime' .|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499218</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=Margaret Atwood|title=The Handmaid's Tale|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In the near-future USA that they call Gilead, society has changed. For 'Beautiful Shining People'' revolves around the worse, question of course. The population is dying out, identity 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 wombacceptance. Other women get drudge work, or run horrid finishing schools for the Handmaids, or are packed off to Of what are reported it means to be polluted hellholes abroad, for laborious work for lifehuman. Men are restricted too - Handmaids are off-limits to everybody but their CommanderOf what is real and what is artificial, 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 whether the status development of Handmaid feelstechnology is exciting or frightening.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099511665</amazonuk>191458564X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Iain M Banks1739593901|title=Surface Detail22 Ideas About The Future|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)

|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'Our future will be more complex than we expected. At first, I worried that this put me at a significant disadvantage as for the first 100 or so pages, I spend most Instead of the time being completely confused about what was going on. Howeverflying cars, as the strands started we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to come together, it became apparent that this is partly Bankstrack grandma.' style and indeed it's one he uses in his non-science fiction books too. Keep going, it does come together.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498939</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=William Gibson|title=Zero History|rating=4I've got a couple of confessions to make.5|genre=Literary Fiction|summary=It I's almost obligatory when writing anything about William Gibson m not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to recall that in an earlier short story, he invented the term 'cyberspacebook. There's got to be a very compelling hook to keep me engaged. Gibson remains at the cutting edge of what is Then there'cools science fiction: far too often it'. Like most of his books, Zero History is a thriller, but at its core are issues surrounding s the technology, how we interact which takes centre stage along with it, branding and marketingthe world-building. It would be easy to criticise much of his content as being too shallow and concerned with 'nothing' - but then that's part human beings who fascinate me: the technology and the world scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of his pointtwenty-two science fiction short stories? Well, I loved it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0670919527</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Charles StrossMark Lingane|title=The Fuller MemorandumGalaxy

|summary=Our world Spark, who is not as it seems. We share it with aliens, zombies, demonic spirits, an elite pilot 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 usSpace Academy, more specifically barely makes it through a top secret branch of the secret service called The Laundrybattle alive. This organisation is His co-pilot was not so secret fortunate. Waking from a coma that even the bosses at MI6 don't know of its existence. The point of the Laundry lasted years, he remembers little and is in no physical shape to keep all the myriad of terrors endangering the resume his duties. But Earth at bay is under threat and he must. Returned by his superiors to the careful use of sciencespace station, technology he finds himself amid a last ditch attempt to save humanity - and magicnot just from the alien threats against it, magic being a little known branch of applied mathsbut also from its own sins against itself.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497703</amazonuk>B09X3NZ76W

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Ian McDonaldTade Thompson|title=The Dervish HouseFar From the Light of Heaven|rating=4.5

|summary=The reader Michelle 'Shell' Campion is plunged straight away into fulfilling her lifelong dream of going to space. As first officer aboard the busysleeper ship Ragtime, bustling centre bound for the world of IstanbulBloodroot, she will essentially be a babysitter for the ship's AI captain. And climate change appears However, when she wakes up at the end of her trip to have arrived. In 2022 thousands find dozens of Istanbulher passengers butchered and the Ragtime's citizens died in a heatwave 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 nowhis android partner Salvo are sent up to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, only three years later itformer astronaut and friend of Shell's 'Thirtyfather Lawrence Biz takes a shuttle to Bloodroot, half-three degrees alien daughter in Apriltow, to see why the Ragtime has gone quiet, at seven in leaving behind the morningpoliticking and bureaucracy of Space Station Lagos. Unthinkable.' You can almost hear What the collective thrum five of all those air-conditioning units trying to make life bearable them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the local people.entirety of human space…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0575080531</amazonuk>0356514323

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeff SomersClaire North|title=The Terminal StateNotes from the Burning Age

|summary=In this future, desolate, post-apocalyptic world, At its core ''Notes From the last thing Avery Cates wants to do Burning Age'' by Claire North is choose a sidespy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming. The police are androidsHowever, artificial cases for clones of people who die in as with the makingbest novels, it wears many masks and the other source of power its most affecting one is not much better. But it's them that pressgang him into joining their army. What little freedom of a new and power he had as a lone gunman is losttimely genre, cli-fi, as heor climate change fiction. North's given nanotech augments novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to make him a super-soldierstart anew and live alongside nature without any of the modern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). Which There is bad news - as is the fact the two most powerful a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and hated people in Cates's universe are one group, the very people who buy him from Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the army cost to do one last job - and they can be very persuasive about him accepting it..the Earth.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841498750</amazonuk>0356514757

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Terry DehartAdrian Tchaikovsky|title=The UnitShards of Earth|rating=3.54|genre=Science Fiction|summary=We all know about Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed, warped into an unrecognisable shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the nuclear familyArchitects. Humanity is scattered, well now meet constantly fleeing as world after world falls to the post-nuclear family in Terry De Hartarchitect's brutal vision of a post apocalyptic Americareshaping. We know Then, just when they had the score; terrorists attack key US cities with nuclear devices, US retaliates human race on the nations supporting run, the terroristArchitects vanished. There is only one possible outcomeAnd so, mass casualties and the breakdown memories of civil society leading the war fades, heroes are forgotten, and humanity begins to the rise of barbarism in fracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, a devastated landscape in man genetically engineered to try and communicate with the grip of a nuclear winterArchitects, does not want to be remembered. Within this madness a family survives not knowing how much But, when he and the crew of the country or salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the world has been destroyedspotlight.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…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841499331</amazonuk>1529051886

 {{newreview|author=Ken MacLeod|title=The Restoration Game|rating=5|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. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496472</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris WoodingTerry Miles|title=Black Lung Captain: Tales of the Ketty JayRabbits

|summary=Things on board Welcome to the Ketty Jay have never been as lowworld of The Game. Darian Frey and his crew are even having trouble thieving from defenceless orphanages. So when Or should that be the next token job-they-can't-refuse comes alonggame, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, they fall under itnever leaves lower case throughout this book. It's spellalso 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. An explorer has returned with tales A bit like the game of untold richeslife then. Yes, courtesy this is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the most mysterious artefacts and treasures darkest of an unknown civilizationwebs. The fact People like our hero, K, named like that in the remains least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are those trying to be historians of an aircraft crashed 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 Arctic of rainforestspeculiar places, inhabited by and are still very short. However this time it's different. This time the game seems the most evil beast-men monstersdangerous, nay lethal, is neither here nor therethe most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. The problems start with Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what they find therethe game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, which he is worse than anyone could have expected - or indeed years ago, with a mysterious connection only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the remains game, and the more unusual crewmemberplaying it, is a very thin one indeed...|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0575085177</amazonuk>1529016932

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Chris BeckettC J Carey|title=The Holy MachineWidowland

|genre=Science General Fiction|summary=In the near futureIt's April 1953, only Illyria city stands for science, technology and progress in a world dominated by religious fundamentalism Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of every faith (and Joseph Stalin then some). The city was founded as within weeks coming to London, parading around a haven for those intellectuals not possessing any such religious convictionsbit, who advocated reason and logic insteadwatching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. For yes, and were persecuted for their 'blasphemies' Britain caved in the early stages of lead-up to the upheaval. George SimlingWorld War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it, the introvert protagonist and second generation Illyrian, falls in love with we are now a beautiful woman called Lucy. Unfortunately howeverprotectorate – well, 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 we share enough 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 same blood as the usual fifteen year old American kid, except for Germanic peoples on ''the fact he and his mainland'father' shift location every few months. John But this is most certainly not his real namea different Britain, but has to face up to reality for Nazi- school bulliesstyled phrenology, hot girls and in fact any friends being unattainable with such ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a peripatetic lifestyle. 'Dad' stays at homecaste system, scanning ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the internet drudges, and all news sourcesbeyond those, in order right on down to protect the pair - for they are among childless, the husbandless and the remaining dozen or so inhabitants of Lorien, living in hidden exile on Earth, but hunted by their enemies from yet another alien racewidows. Can the fact they are permanently pursued grant them any peace - especially when 'John' Female literacy 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=3actively discouraged.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=The planet Darien And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, once a lost outpost where earth colonists co-existed with the native UvovoRose Ransom, is now employed with the focal point task of an intergalactic struggle. Hegemony forces are in occupation modebowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, Earth is standing back reined in by inter-planetary politicsnot every book can be banned, whilst planet-side local alliances are fighting back guerrilla-style. This is the least of the galaxy's concernsand not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, however. It might even and so they just get air-brushed out as a little minor difficulty in hefty tweak towards the history-books-to-comeparty line before they're stamped ready for reprint. There That is a much bigger problem her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to worry aboutspoil Hitler's visit.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841496332</amazonuk>152941198X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Mira GrantEverina Maxwell|title=FeedWinter's Orbit

|summary=In 2014 Prince Kiem is a famous political disappointment. He's outgoing, carefree, and has gotten into many drunken scandals over the common cold was curedpast few years. So was cancer. But in their wake something terrible came when an important political alliance is to be arranged – the two viruses used one that is supposed to cure the ailments combined prevent an interplanetary war – no one expects him 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 be chosen for the virus they hold dormant in their bodies could go into amplification, causing them to turnrole. People stay indoors, stop meeting in crowds, and conduct most Least of their lives onlineall him. |amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184149898X</amazonuk>0356515885

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Robert EdricRob Winters|title=SalvageHis Name Was Wren

|genre=Science FictionConfident Readers|summary=Some time about a hundred years hence and In September 1944 something came down in Oban Woods, near the predictions have come to passvillage of Hurstwick. The sea levels have risen; It came down hard, taking the spire of the Gulf Stream has shifted its path. Climate change has hit Britain village church with it, destroying a vengeance. stone shack, Global Warming is and leaving a wide trail through the misnomer; wood, but no trace of course the temperatures are, on balance, warmerwhat it actually was. Snow is something most people only hear or read about. The real changeGerman secret weapon was the local gossip, howeverbut there should have been an explosion and a crater, is the wetand there were neither of those things.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385617623</amazonuk>B08KGVNVNB

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tom HoltMark Lingane|title=Blonde BombshellNote to Self: An Education|rating=4.5

|summary=The blonde bombshell In Kry's world, the discovery that human cells replace themselves every seven years results in question a cascade of medical "advances": in Tom Holt2030 it's latest book of found that name is Lucy Pavlov. If you are reading this review radiation can return cells back to their regeneration state seven years before, in 2017 of course you will know who Lucy Pavlov is. She2035 it's possible to cure cancerous tumours but with the beautifulside effect of erasing seven years of memory, talentedby 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, wealthy, CEO who needs memories?|isbn=B08LY8J4KS}} {{Frontpage|author= Christopher Paolini|title= To Sleep in a Sea of PaySoft Industries - Stars|rating= 5|genre= Science Fiction|summary= On the revolutionary operating system that moon of a distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is running on every computer in helping with the efforts to make the worldplanet habitable to human life. Of courseHowever, if that is indeed a discovery of an ancient alien bunker under the case, then wemoon've got s surface leaves her bonded with a problemstrange alien entity. A very big problemAfter 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. Because what Lucy doesn't know Things go from bad to worse when the Extenuating Circumstances is that attacked and destroyed by an alien ship, and she has to flee to the 61 Cygnus star system. She is literally revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and a blonde bombshell rag- well she knows she's blondetag bunch of misfits, just not and the news is grim. The same aliens that her body is destroyed the Extenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space, and only a shell for a bombmythical weapon known as the Staff of Blue can stop them. A very big As the death toll climbs and a very smart bombmore players are introduced into this war, but nevertheless Kira slowly begins to realise that she may have had a bomb. And greater hand in the conflict than shecould's been sent to destroy the planet. It kind of makes Bill Gates seem OK for the time being.ve possibly imagined…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841497789</amazonuk>1529046505

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott WesterfeldLaura Lam and Elizabeth May|title=ExtrasSeven Devils|rating=4.5|genre=TeensScience Fiction|summary=In Eris is one of the future city foremost operatives of this bookthe Novantae, many people live with what is called a reputation economyresistance 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. With everybody practically a cyborgClo, they're online permanentlyan ace pilot for the Novantae, using optical and brain implants has a mission: hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to see everybodythe war effort. Although she's status, output and less than pleased to discover that her former friend Eris is her partner on this mission. Things get moreinteresting as the mission commences; aboard the ship are three defectors with a secret that could potentially cripple the Empire. Many people have hovercam companionsEris's brother Damocles, the runner-up heir to make their own documentaries and film their own lives. They rely on metablogs the Empire, is plotting to interact disrupt peace talks between Tholos and keep their popularity upthe last of the free alien species. They continuously spread their opinions and interests in order It's a race against time as the rebels move to become more well-known. A girl called Aya is struggling to get any renownput a stop Damocles' plans, but things change, when she meets other people doing incredibly notorious things, but with millions of lives hanging in complete secrecy and anonymity.the balance…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847389228</amazonuk>1473231140

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Scott WesterfeldFrederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)|title=SpecialsA Life Without End

|genre=TeensLiterary Fiction|summary=In I looked at the un-named city of calendar the futureother week, 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 disappointedly realised I have 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 birthday this woman is our returning heroineyear – I know, Tallyyet another one. 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 It won't be one of the futuremajor numbers, all but the adults are pretty. They've had mental and physical surgery to make them calm, placid and perfectly aesthetic human beings. If they time when I have any trouble the same number as young adults it is Heinz varieties looms on the problem of what to wear at parties, or how to get rid of their hangovers when they wake up at 5pmhorizon. Unfortunately, one of these bright young things is our heroine, Tally, one of the And then a 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|summary=This book stands out in the highbig 0-energynumbers, hard-edged sci-fi adventure/thriller genreand if all goes well, in that it covers two stories at the same timeI'll be an OBE. In one chapter we have Avery Cates, practically the best gun-(Which of course stands 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 politicsOver Bloody Eighty. ) In Now if that's the other corner is Cates, being thrown in prison - one extent of those basic, hellmy mid-on-earthlife crisis, surrounded by miles of desert, prisonsI guess I have to be happy. Here, tooOur author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he will might be said to be told living one. Determined to find out how to do jobs prolong life for other people...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497053</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Orson Scott Card|title=Ender in Exile|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary='Ender in Exile' is the most recently published in the series set in the universe of 'Ender's Game', a as 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 he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the 'Speaker for the Dead', assistant to the first two (and probably the best two) novels in the sequence. Technically speakinggeneticist he interviews, '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 uninitiatedthey end up with a child, 'Ender in Exile' which is also at least a sequel to way of continuing the 'Shadow life of the Giant'his genes, and a parallel sub-series from the universe of the 'Ender's Game'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841492272</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Dickinson|title=WE|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 motive to man a tiny station built at enormous effort and expense keep on a desolate moon in the outer reaches of our solar system, going. But how can he will never be able get to return. Gravity is one-tenth that of Earth and his flesh has wasted, his bones enbrittled without not flick the strength of calcium. 'If he stood on the Earth now... his skeleton would splinter under his weight.final way out' It took eight years to get there and the rest of his life stretches before him fearfully. switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0385617895</amazonuk>1642860670

{{newreview|author=Ursula K Le Guin|title=The Left Hand of Darkness|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=It's hard Move on 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>}}[[Newest Short Story Reviews]]