Revelation Space is a big series. Sure, it’s a trilogy, but it also has two related novels and a treasure trove of short stories. I’ve only scratched the surface on the shorter fiction by Alastair Reynolds, but the little I have read has been just as exciting as the sprawling epics. Now I’m writing this…
Continue reading ➞ Chasm City – Not Splitting Hairs On This One
Catching up on the year’s previous releases is a double edged sword. It feels good to read something that so many people have already weighed in on, but said novel carries the baggage of having to live up to expectations. While I didn’t read any reviews of this next book until after I had finished…
Continue reading ➞ How High We Go In The Dark – Treading Water in a Cave
I have been spending the better part of this summer catching up on Alastair Reynolds’ intimidating library. I have nearly finished the Revelation Space series (Looking at you, Inhibitor Phase) and have been having an absolute blast. Lo’ and behold Andrew shows up at my door with an ARC of Eversion, I couldn’t have been…
Record heat waves are starting to rear their ugly heads. Food shortages, through a combination of war, finance and climate change are featured news on the daily. It’s easy to retreat from a world on the brink and cozy up with a book…about climate change. But rarely does our climate science fiction feel more than…
Continue reading ➞ A Half-Built Garden – Forget The Pesticides
In “normal” conditions, it would be hard to avoid a title as striking as Ion Curtain. It is profoundly simple, yet it carries decades of baggage. Such a mild change carries the possibility of re-negotiating the phrase for a new crop of science fiction readers and writers. Whether or not this was what the author…
It’s not often that Appalachia becomes the focus of a science fiction story, despite the unending talk of turning coal miners into coders. So when I first noticed the ominous cover of These Prisoning Hills and learned that it takes place within that fabled range, I had to get my hands on the novella. Christopher…
Rosebud is a word that is unfathomably ingrained within my psyche, even as someone who has never seen Citizen Kane. I am both at once entranced by it, yet so utterly helpless to explain its allure. So, upon seeing a book with the title Rosebud, by Paul Cornell, I had to pick it up. I…
Continue reading ➞ Rosebud – Could Have Used A Little More Compost
Two years ago, I read a short little novel titled Hearts of Oak and came away as bitter as old bark. It was bland with a few twists and turns that kept the plot moving, and ended with such a slap in the face, I was turned off from Eddie Robson for a while. Lo…
Continue reading ➞ Drunk On All Your Strange New Words – Tired From All These Bland Stories
I’m a sucker for time based shenanigans, whether it’s time loops or alternate histories I get an itch that needs to be scratched. So when a new book threatens me with some timey-wimey antics, I prefer to seize the day. Ren Hutchings answers the call with a different sort of temporal prank by having the…
Continue reading ➞ Under Fortunate Stars – A Little Too Bright For Me
Up Against It, by Laura J. Mixon, was a novel I missed upon its initial release in 2011 (published with the pseudonym M.J. Locke). I was only a wee sci-fi book baby, lost in the bookstore, lured by flashy titles and flashier book covers. But with Tor Essentials providing readers with a reprint and a…
Continue reading ➞ Up Against It – Between Many Space Rocks and Several Hard Places
