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
{{newreview
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|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt
|author=Ted Kosmatka
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|title=The Games
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=It's the near future and the Olympics go on, but not without changes.  A new event has been added to those that we'd recognise: genetically engineered gladiatorial combat.  This is no holds barred competition, with one rule: each country's gladiator must be devoid of any human DNA.  Indeed, America is so good that their team has won all the last three games' golds, thanks to geneticist Dr Silas Williams, but this year is different.  This year he has nothing to do with the design; someone sent a single design criterion to an experimental intelligence computer.  (You just know that was a bad idea day don't you?)  The design criteria is just one sentence, just words, but words can be misunderstood and misunderstanding can be devastating for more than just genetically manufactured gladiators.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781164142</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=David Brin
 
|title=Existence
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=We are a few decades further into the 21st Century at the start of this sci-fi novel.  The world is buckling under climate change, and over-population.  Those with enough funds are completely wired into a virtual world, but wherever they live out their existence things are going to be changed, when a space-based labourer, clearing space junk from orbit, finds an alien artifact containing contact with various races in a sort of memory bank cum virtual reality.  Where are the aliens that had previously been so silent while we sought for them with our Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence?  What is the purpose and message behind this capsule?  And who can be sure that this alleged First Contact was actually the first?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356501728</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Kim Stanley Robinson
 
|title=2312
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary='Intellectually engaged…intensely humane… exuberantly speculative' was Iain M Banks' blurb for ''2312''.  So who am I to disagree with one of the current masters of the genre?
 
 
 
No-one.  Just an ordinary reader.  And actually, the more I think about the less I do – actually – as such – disagree.  Banks' phrases are true and accurate.  They're just not the whole story. Not for me anyway.
 
 
 
For a reader, as opposed to another writer, the book is much more difficult than that.  ''Publishers Weekly'' called it ''challenging'' and that's much nearer the mark.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499978</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Garth Nix
 
|title=A Confusion of Princes
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Meet Khemri.  One of the universe's chosen, he has been selected as a Prince, giving him biological enhancements, mental connection to priests to aid his psychic ability, and so much more.  It has also probably led to the death of his parents, and meant he is alone except for a very close bodyguard, but - at least he is in the running to become Emperor, and thus almost godlike.  But in a world where you can have everything - including more than one chance at living - it might still be wise to think more about what you wish for...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0007298358</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Paolo Bacigalupi
 
|title=The Drowned Cities
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=The best thing about Paolo Bacigalupi's latest young adult novel is that you almost certainly wouldn't realise it was intended for a younger audience unless someone pointed it out to you. ''The Drowned Cities'' may lack the sex, swearing and amoral protagonists of his award-winning adult novel '[[The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi|The Windup Girl]], but it has all the needle-sharp description, complex world-building and brilliant characters that have rapidly made a name for Bacigalupi as one of this centuries preeminent science-fiction writers.
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|summary=''Opening up new ways of thinking about the shape of things to come.''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907411119</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Mike Lancaster
 
|title=1.4
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Peter Vincent lives a privileged life. His father is a world-renowned scientist and fully expects his son to follow in his footsteps. But Peter has other ideas. He wants to study literature. Although he enjoys gaming and social networking, he's uncomfortable about spending too much time on The Link, a system which connects the minds of every individual on the planet. So when he meets Strakerite Alpha, he is immediately attracted to her. Peter's father hates the Strakerites, who believe that human evolution depends on regular upgrades from alien aggressors.
 
 
 
So when Alpha contacts Peter to tell him that people are disappearing, he is more than willing to help. Together, they will uncover a conspiracy to hide the clock ticking down to the next upgrade...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405258187</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Dan Wells
 
|title=Partials
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Since the Break, no baby has lived longer than three days. Scientists have studied every baby to try and find a cure, but with no luck. The human race is on the verge of extinction after the Partials (genetically engineered soldiers who were made to fight for humans) turned on their makers and released the deadly virus that has wiped out most of the population. For those lucky to survive, they now spend their time trying to cure the virus that kills every baby.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>000746522X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime.  I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening.  Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
|author=Johan Harstad
 
|title=172 Hours On The Moon
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=It's 2018 and people at NASA want to go back to the moon. But no one's been there since the 70s, so with funding and public support limited, they need an angle. A draw. Something to get people all over the world buzzing. Their answer is a worldwide lottery to select three teens who can accompany the NASA team on their week long jaunt into space. The chance of a lifetime! An unforgettable, unrepeatable experience! An adventure that truly is out of this world!
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1907411518</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Sylvie Cathrall
|author=Matt Kindt
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|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep
|title=Revolver
 
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
|genre=Graphic Novels
 
|summary=Meet Sam.  He has a rather dull life, with a materialistic girlfriend, and a job in the arse-end of celebrity journalism and a boss he can't stand.  All of which is preferential to waking up and finding his home city under attack - munitions going off, skyscrapers burning and people falling from them.  He ends up fleeing with said editor, only to wake the next day back in this world.  He will indeed fall to being snatched from each reality in turn, at set times of day, forced to suffer consumerism in one, looting in another, basic pay raises here, producing Samizdat bare-bones journalism for survivors there.  But always with enough time to ask the important questions - how, and why?
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1401222412</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Martine McDonagh
 
|title=I Have Waited, and You Have Come
 
|rating=3.5
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Rachel's world is in a state of decay. Her house is falling apart, her boyfriend has left her and civilization has crumbled in the wake of plague and extreme climate change. Her only friend, Stephanie, is separated from Rachel by the now insurmountable barrier of the Atlantic Ocean, their communication dependent on an increasingly unreliable satellite connecting their phones. At Stephanie's prompting Rachel gives her number to local trader Noah, who promises to call. Instead the number falls into the hands of the mysterious and sinister Jez White, initiating a disturbing game of cat and mouse, where the line between stalker and victim becomes blurred as Rachel finally decides to take control of her life.
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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>1908434120</amazonuk>
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|isbn= 0356522776
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1803816759
|author=Ken MacLeod
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|title=The Unravelling
|title=Intrusion
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|author=Will Gibson
|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Pregnant Hope doesn't want to take the Fix, a genetic cure-all pill that corrects the DNA of an unborn child and protects it from all sorts of diseases. 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 of the Dead
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=A man stands on a ship checking that an iceberg has been missed. The year is 1912, the ship is the Titanic and the man is a time-traveller hoping to change history. History is in fact changed as a result of his meddling, but not in a good way.
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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>0857686666</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=B0CP95J1CG
|author=SD Crockett
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|title=Of Ghosts & Broken Promises
|title=After the Snow
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|author=Mark Lingane
 
|rating=4.5
 
|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>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Walter Jon Williams
 
|title=The Fourth Wall
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|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 to change!  Luckily change soon arrives in the form of 'Alternate Reality' magnate, Dagmar Shaw.
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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>1841498254</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=K P O'Donnell
|author=Philip Palmer
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|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)
|title=Artemis
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|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|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.
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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>1841499455</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Emily Tesh
|author=Marissa Meyer
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|title=Some Desperate Glory
|title=The Lunar Chronicles: Cinder
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|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 a realm of fairy queens and pumpkin carriages, but New Beijing, a massive city of just two and a half million, due 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-sisters.  And this is a very different world, where a global plague is going to be brought too close to home...
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0141340134</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Philip Palmer
 
|title=Hell Ship
 
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|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 a well paced read for the most part and I marked Palmer as a writer to watch.  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 either.
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|summary=''While Earth's children live, the enemy shall fear us''
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499447</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{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=Ira Levin
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|isbn=0356521834
|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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=M R Carey
|author=James S A Corey
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|title=Infinity Gate
|title=Leviathan Wakes
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|rating=5
|rating=4
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=Humanity has managed to venture into the solar system and colonise Mars, various moons and some asteroids and stations in the (asteroid) Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Those inhabiting the Belt have evolved to be significantly thinner and elongated compared to Earthers and Martians, 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 and uneasy relationships in the novel.
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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>1841499889</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356518043
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Michael Grothaus
|author=Jeff Somers
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|title=Beautiful Shining People
|title=The Final Evolution
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre= Literary 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 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...
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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>1841499439</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
  
{{newreview
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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.
|author=Daniel H Wilson
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|isbn=191458564X
|title=Robopocalypse
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=Rob is out to kill us all, and is going to take some beating.  He already has many advantages, and can adapt easily where he finds a fault in his plans.  He already has most of us dead, or in concentration camps.  Rob is the generic nickname for all robot-kind, all controlled by one supreme Artificial Intelligence, who is set on eradication of our species.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857204122</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|isbn=1739593901
|title=Back Dated
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|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Chris Niblock
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|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=
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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.''
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, 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>
 
}}
 
  
{{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=John Trevillian
 
|title=The A-Men Return
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|summary=It's been several years since the Phoenix Tower came down and the A-Men split. Dead City is a shadow of its former self: an urban wasteland and the centre of the sort of gang warfare that finds and exploits drugs and hopelessness with a ruthless talent.  
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>184876619X</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Mark Lingane
|author=Stephen Mark Norman
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|title=Galaxy
|title=Meklyan and the Fourth Piece of the Artefact
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|rating=4
|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=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>0956202713</amazonuk>
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|isbn=B09X3NZ76W
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Tade Thompson
|author=Simon Morden
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|title=Far From the Light of Heaven
|title=Equations of Life
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|rating=4.5
|rating=3
 
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|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).
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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>184149948X</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356514323
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Claire North
|author=Paolo Bacigalupi
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|title=Notes from the Burning Age
|title=The Windup Girl
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|rating=4
|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=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>0356500535</amazonuk>
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|isbn=0356514757
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Adrian Tchaikovsky
|author=K S Turner
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|title= Shards of Earth
|title=Chronicles of Fate and Choice: Tumultus
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|rating= 4
|rating=3
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|genre= Science Fiction
|genre=Fantasy
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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=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.
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|isbn=1529051886
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0956224210</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
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{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Terry Miles
|author=Tricia Sullivan
+
|title=Rabbits
|title=Lightborn
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|rating=4.5
|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.
+
|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>1841494070</amazonuk>
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|isbn=1529016932
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=C J Carey
|author=Philip Palmer
+
|title=Widowland
|title=Version 43
 
 
|rating=4
 
|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 régime' .
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841499218</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Margaret Atwood
 
|title=The Handmaid's Tale
 
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=General Fiction
 
|genre=General Fiction
|summary=In the near-future USA that they call Gilead, society has changed.  For the worse, of courseThe 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 wombOther 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 typesIt's up to our nameless narrator and main character, however, to show us just how cherished the status of Handmaid feels.
+
|summary=It's April 1953, and Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, and watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of Edward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis.  For yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as we know it, and we are now a protectorate – well, we share enough of the same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''the mainland''But this is most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the drudges, and beyond those, right on down to the childless, the husbandless and the widows.  Female literacy is actively discouragedAnd 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>0099511665</amazonuk>
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|isbn=152941198X
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Everina Maxwell
|author=Iain M Banks
+
|title=Winter's Orbit
|title=Surface Detail
 
 
|rating=5
 
|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.
+
|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>1841498939</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=0356515885
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=William Gibson
 
|title=Zero History
 
|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
 
|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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841497703</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Rob Winters
|author=Ian McDonald
+
|title=His Name Was Wren
|title=The Dervish House
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=The reader is plunged straight away into the busy, bustling centre of IstanbulAnd 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.
+
|summary=In September 1944 something came down in Oban Woods, near the village of HurstwickIt 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 wasGerman secret weapon was the local gossip, but there should have been an explosion and a crater, and there were neither of those things.
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575080531</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B08KGVNVNB
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
+
|author=Mark Lingane
|author=Jeff Somers
+
|title=Note to Self: An Education
|title=The Terminal State
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|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...
+
|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>1841498750</amazonuk>
+
|isbn=B08LY8J4KS
}}
+
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Christopher Paolini
|author=Terry Dehart
+
|title= To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
|title=The Unit
+
|rating= 5
|rating=3.5
+
|genre= Science Fiction
|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…
|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.
+
|isbn=1529046505
 
 
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
 
|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>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author= Laura Lam and Elizabeth May
|author=Chris Wooding
+
|title= Seven Devils
|title=Black Lung Captain: Tales of the Ketty Jay
+
|rating= 4
|rating=4.5
+
|genre= Science Fiction
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|summary= Eris is one of the foremost operatives of the Novantae, a resistance movement fighting against the ruthlessly expansionist Tholosian Empire – an Empire she was destined to inherit in her past life as Princess Discordia, whom everyone believed has been dead for years. Clo, an ace pilot for the Novantae, has a mission: hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to the war effort. Although she's less than pleased to discover that her former friend Eris is her partner on this mission. Things get more interesting as the mission commences; aboard the ship are three defectors with a secret that could potentially cripple the Empire. Eris's brother Damocles, the runner-up heir to the Empire, is plotting to disrupt peace talks between Tholos and the last of the free alien species. It's a race against time as the rebels move to put a stop Damocles' plans, with millions of lives hanging in the balance…
|summary=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...
+
|isbn=1473231140
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0575085177</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
+
{{Frontpage
{{newreview
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|author=Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)
|author=Chris Beckett
+
|title=A Life Without End
|title=The Holy Machine
 
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|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.
+
|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 goingBut how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice?
 
+
|isbn=1642860670
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848874626</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
 
 
{{newreview
 
|author=Pittacus Lore
 
|title=I am Number Four
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Meet John Smith.  By all appearances he is the usual fifteen year old American kid, except for the fact he and his 'father' shift location every few months.  John is certainly not his real name, but has to face up to reality - school bullies, hot girls and in fact any friends being unattainable with such a peripatetic lifestyle.  'Dad' stays at home, scanning the internet and all news sources, in order to protect the pair - for they are among the remaining dozen or so inhabitants of Lorien, living in hidden exile on Earth, but hunted by their enemies from yet another alien raceCan 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
+
Move on to [[Newest Short Story Reviews]]
|author=Michael Cobley
 
|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 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.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1841496332</amazonuk>
 
}}
 

Latest revision as of 17:18, 25 March 2024

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Review of

His Name Was Wren by Rob Winters

4star.jpg Confident Readers

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

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

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Review of

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

5star.jpg Science Fiction

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

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Review of

Seven Devils by Laura Lam and Elizabeth May

4star.jpg Science Fiction

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

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Review of

A Life Without End by Frederic Beigbeder and Frank Wynne (translator)

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

I looked at the calendar the other week, and disappointedly realised I have a birthday this year – I know, yet another one. It won't be one of the major numbers, but the time when I have the same number as Heinz varieties looms on the horizon. And then a few of the big 0-numbers, and if all goes well, I'll be an OBE. (Which of course stands for Over Bloody Eighty.) Now if that's the extent of my mid-life crisis, I guess I have to be happy. Our author here doesn't use that exact phrase, but he might be said to be living one. Determined to find out how to prolong life for as long as he wants – he would like to see 400 – he hops right into bed with the assistant to the first geneticist he interviews, and they end up with a child, which is at least a way of continuing the life of his genes, and a motive to keep on going. But how can he get to not flick the 'final way out' switch, especially when foie gras tastes so nice? Full Review

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