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

|summary=Pregnant Hope doesn't want to take 'Opening up new ways of thinking about the Fix, a genetic cure-all pill that corrects the DNA shape of an unborn child and protects it from all sorts of diseasesthings to come. Hope's husband Hugh doesn't really understand her objections to the Fix - in fact, Hope never really articulates them at all - but supports her right to choose. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499390</amazonuk>}}

{{newreview|author=David Kowalski|title=The Company 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 Dead|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=A man stands on a ship checking feeling that an iceberg has been missedit's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. The year is 1912Of course, I could research the ship is possibilities and the Titanic probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the man is a time-traveller hoping to change historylatest conspiracy theorist. History is in fact changed as a result of his meddling, but not I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a good wayI could understand.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857686666</amazonuk>

 {{newreview|author=SD Crockett|title=After the Snow|rating=4.5|genre=Teens|summary=On a near future Earth, Willo lives with his family in an isolated community without technology. His parents remember a time when there were machines but all this has changed. Now there's only enough petrol for the sinister government trucks. One day Willo finds himself totally alone, his parents missing, presumed taken. Armed with his father's cryptic sayings and his only friend, (a dog's skull that speaks through his imagination) Willo leaves all that's familiar in order to find his loved ones. The unknown is a ruthless place filled with Stealers and starvation but there's escape from what he needs to do.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0230759351</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Walter Jon WilliamsSylvie Cathrall|title=The Fourth Wall|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Sean Makin was a cute, much demanded child actor. Then he grew up and the cute became creepy as the baby face that had made him famous remained (due to a physical condition) but was unsuited to an adult's body. So the demand dried up and Sean tries to come to terms with his change of fortunes by writing a 'how to act' blog, intoxicating substances and appearances on a reality celebrity martial arts fight show. One day, whilst being beaten up for the cameras in a wrestling ring full of cottage cheese, he realises the depths to which he's sunk. Something has A Letter to change! Luckily change soon arrives in the form of 'Alternate Reality' magnate, Dagmar Shaw.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841498254</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Philip Palmer|title=ArtemisLuminous Deep|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 of his novels, I wonder when he will find the limits of his inventiveness and it's never that time. ''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 tracks. This Cinders does not leave her shoe behind when invited to the ball, she has her entire foot fall off. This Cinder does not live in There are few greater joys than a realm of fairy queens and pumpkin carriages, but New Beijing, a massive city of just two and a half million, due book which lives up to the Fourth World War. She's a cyborg - hence the foot, but she's still owned by a crotchety bigot of a step-mother, with two step-sisterscompelling premise. And this is a very different world, where a global plague is going to be brought too close to home..one of them.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141340134</amazonuk>0356522776

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Philip Palmer1803816759|title=Hell ShipThe Unravelling|author=Will Gibson

|summary=Some time ago, I read Philip PalmerIt's debut novel [[Debatable Space by Philip Palmer|Debatable Space]]2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Whilst there were aspects 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 novel I didn't feel entirely workednow runs everything, it was a well paced read making life easier for the most part many, and I marked Palmer as a writer riots start to watchspread. His subsequent novelsFinally, [[Red Claw by Philip Palmer|Red Claw]] Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and [[Version 43 by Philip Palmer|Version 43]]Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki - Dylan, have been well received here at The Bookbag a British superfan and his fourthtech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki''Hell Ship'', isn't bad either.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499447</amazonuk>s kidnapping connected?

 {{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Ira LevinB0CP95J1CG|title=The Stepford WivesOf Ghosts & Broken Promises|author=Mark Lingane

|summary=Humanity has managed Ronan's not entirely sure why he decides to go to venture into the solar system and colonise Mars, various moons and some asteroids and stations in party but his interest is piqued by the (asteroid) Belt between Mars and Jupiterway it arrived. Those inhabiting the Belt have evolved And it seems like a good opportunity to be significantly thinner and elongated compared to Earthers get out of his room and Martians, due away from the low gravity in which they live; their difference in appearance and online activities he makes a difference in attitude form living at. So he makes his way there, dodging the basis for a lot buses that make up most of the tension traffic and uneasy relationships in watching the novellocal energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefully.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499889</amazonuk>

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Jeff SomersK P O'Donnell|title=The Final Evolution|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Don't assume too much when starting this book. Certainly, do not assume you can jump straight into this series at this, part five - start much nearer [[The Electric Church by Jeff Somers|the beginning]], as I did. Don't assume the first person narrative means the narrator survives, for this is a world of cyborgs, and psychic human intelligences stored in robot hardware, and more. Don't assume the lulling opening chapters herald a simple revenge actioner, as Avery Cates lives Vital Link (A Spark in a tangled web of vengeful villains, and nothing is very straightforward. And don't assume the unremarkable opening is from an author low on ideas, for when Cates is proven to be the one man to save the world, we find it suitably meaty, and gripping, despite that old saw - and it's a rich nightmare of post-apocalypse for him to be saving, as well...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499439</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Daniel H Wilson|title=RobopocalypseAshes)

|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

 {{newreview|author=Stephen Mark Norman|title=Meklyan and the Fourth Piece of the Artefact|rating=3|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. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956202713</amazonuk>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Simon MordenM R Carey|title=Equations of LifeInfinity Gate|rating=35

|summary=ItI'm annoyingly picky when it comes to science fiction. Not because it's a book that is certainly not short genre I dislike – nothing of actionthe sort. We My standards are not told what the Armageddon event washigh precisely because it's a hard genre to get right – and when it's bad, although aspects of it are hinted at's often terrible. Perhaps that will become explained later in But the seriespremise of Infinity Gate had me hooked. What we do know is that A concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble: if it has wiped out Japanwas done well, and one of the first victims of the event in London appears to have been the Congestion Charge as it 'd be fantastic. So this is now a heaving metropolis with gridlock traffic (although this and the masses of people seem to mysteriously evaporate as the story unfolds)where I sum up that premise.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>184149948X</amazonuk>0356518043

 {{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>}} {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Tricia SullivanMichael Grothaus|title=LightbornBeautiful Shining People

|genre=Science Literary Fiction|summary=In an alternate but contemporary United States, everyone uses Lightborn technology, or shine, as it's nicknamed. Providing entertainment, education 'But fearing something and self-knowledge, people live in the ultimate plugged-in societyhaving it come to pass are two different things. And then the Fall comes. Rogue AIs in the shine field around the city I'm willing to bet most of Los Sombres start sending out bad shine and the adults all go loco - becoming violent and murderouswhat we fear will never happen, or broken down and reduced we can take steps to performing repetitive tasks over and overchange it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841494070</amazonuk>}}''

{{newreview|author=Philip Palmer|title=Version 43|rating=4|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 régimeBeautiful Shining People' .|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499218</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Margaret Atwood|title=The Handmaid's Tale|rating=4.5|genre=General Fiction|summary=In revolves around the near-future USA that they call Gilead, society has changed. For 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 winter. Within this madness a family survives Architects, does not knowing how much of the country or the world has been destroyedwant to be remembered.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499331</amazonuk>}} {{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 But, when he and the job - particularly being one crew of the boys - and it's given her a sense of belonging that she'd craved but never had. And then her mother salvage ship he calls. A CIA spookhome discover what appears to be recent Architect activity, Amanda wants Lucy's firm to rewrite their upcoming game to feature suddenly he is thrust back into the mythology of a small ex-Soviet republicspotlight. Krassnia is where Lucy was bornAs he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, where she lived for her first seven yearschased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and where she spent the scariest day of her life. Amanda wrote a seminal work on Krassnian mythology and Lucy uses this rich slavers, he slowly begins to reshape realise that the game, knowing that it's likely to be used as a tool in a hoped-for colour revolution. real war is only just getting started…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1841496472</amazonuk>1529051886

 {{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 future, only Illyria city stands for scienceIt's April 1953, 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, and were persecuted for their 'blasphemies' Queen Wallis. For yes, 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 Illyrianwe are now a protectorate – well, falls in love with a beautiful woman called Lucywe share enough of the same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''the mainland''. Unfortunately however, Lucy But this is actually most certainly a syntecdifferent Britain, a robot ASPU: Advanced Sensory Pleasure Unitfor Nazi-styled phrenology, a prostitute. As George obsessively visits herand ideas of female purpose, he realises has put all of that she is starting to develop gender into a level of consciousness and selfcaste system, ranging from high-awareness outside of her programming. Lucy is due for a routine mind-wipe so George decides to flee with her brow office bigwigs to the technophobic outlands in order drudges, and beyond those, right on down to save this newly discovered consciousness. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874626</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Pittacus Lore|title=I am Number Four|rating=3.5|genre=Teens|summary=Meet John Smith. By all appearances he is the usual fifteen year old American kidchildless, except for the fact he husbandless and his 'father' shift location every few monthsthe widows. John Female literacy is certainly not his real nameactively discouraged. And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, but has to face up to reality - school bulliesRose Ransom, hot girls and in fact any friends being unattainable is employed with such a peripatetic lifestyle. 'Dad' stays at home, scanning the internet and task of bowdlerising classical literature to take all news sources, in order to protect the pair - encouragement for they are among the remaining dozen or so inhabitants female emancipation out of Lorienit – after all, living in hidden exile on Earthnot every book can be banned, but hunted by their enemies and not every story excised immediately from yet another alien race. Can British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the fact party line before they are permanently pursued grant them any peace - especially when 'John' re stamped ready for reprint. That is about her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to undergo some rather prominent alien-style puberty?spoil Hitler's visit.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0141332476</amazonuk>152941198X

 {{newreviewFrontpage|author=Michael CobleyEverina Maxwell|title=The Orphaned Worlds (Humanity's Fire)|rating=3.5|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 galaxyWinter'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.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496332</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Mira Grant|title=FeedOrbit

|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 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 futuremajor numbers, all but the time when I have the adults are living in same number as Heinz varieties looms on the delusion that their city is righthorizon. After a teenage life as an ugly, they all undergo And then a welter few of medical proceduresthe big 0-numbers, to make their minds and bodies conform to the blandif all goes well, but gorgeous, society normI'll be an OBE. But one young woman is not like that(Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty. ) She is going to a party, looking ugly, and she knows it is not what we look like, but how special we feel inside, Now if that is 's the extent of most importancemy mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. The good news is Our author here doesn't use that this woman is our returning heroineexact phrase, Tallybut he might be said to be living one. The bad news is that her ugliness 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 temporary disguiseway of continuing the life of his genes, and worse than that - she knows a motive to keep on going. But how can he get to feel special insidenot flick the 'final way out' switch, because she IS A Special.especially when foie gras tastes so nice?|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1847389082</amazonuk>1642860670

{{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|summary=This book stands out in the high-energy, hard-edged sci-fi adventure/thriller genre, in that it covers two stories at the same time. In one chapter we have Avery Cates, practically the best gun-for-hire in his post-apocalyptic North America, being told to kill one of the most protected and important people left in the world, by other, almost as important people, in the cruel mix of powerplays that make up the current politics. In the other corner is Cates, being thrown in prison - one of those basic, hell-on-earth, surrounded by miles of desert, prisons. Here, too, he will be told to do jobs for other people...|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497053</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Orson Scott Card|title=Ender in Exile|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary='Ender in Exile' is the most recently published in the series set in the universe of 'Ender's Game', a long standing and one of the best known series of science-fiction by Orson Scott Card. It's been defined as an 'interquel', fitting chronologically between 'Ender's Game' and the 'Speaker for the Dead', the first two (and probably the best two) novels in the sequence. Technically speaking, 'Ender in Exile' actually fits in-between the last chapters of 'Ender's Game' and describes in more detail events outlined in the resolving sections of 'Ender's Game'. Confusingly for the uninitiated, 'Ender in Exile' is also a sequel to the 'Shadow of the Giant', a parallel sub-series from the universe of the 'Ender's Game'. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841492272</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John Dickinson|title=WE|rating=5|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 Move 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>}}[[Newest Short Story Reviews]]