Synopsis Am I making it worse? I think I’m making it worse. Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the […]
Artificial Intelligence
Review: Earth Retrograde by R.W.W. Greene (The First Planets Duology #2)
You will struggle to find a better literary Sci-Fi embodiment of the space girl lofi hiphop videos on YouTube than Mercury Rising and Earth Retrograde. There is no drawback to this duology. No downside. Greene nailed it.
Review: The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu
The Death I Gave Him has a great hook and, like a cyborg Agatha Christie, Em X Liu presents a sombre Sci Fi STEM mystery. Dare I say … STEMpunk?
Review: The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence #1) by Emma Mieko Candon
Emma Mieko Candon is clearly a very talented writer, she’s created this incredibly unique world filled with fascinating ideas and intricate characters. The idea of AI Gods who corrupted and ruined the cities they created and kept is what really hooked me. Add in humans who can communicate with these AI and control what I imagined as huge mechs, this is a great book for anyone who loves a complex tale with sci-fi elements.
Review: Descendant Machine (Book #2 of the Continuance Series) by Gareth L. Powell
Synopsis When Nicola Mafalda’s scout ship comes under attack, she’s left deeply traumatised by the drastic action it takes to keep her alive. Months later, when an old flame comes to her for help, she realises she has to find a way to forgive both the ship and her former lover. Reckless elements are attempting […]
Review: World Running Down by Al Hess
There’s a huge amount of love in this book. WRD was meant to be a palette cleanser for me in the all-you-can-eat buffet of space opera sci-fi out there at the moment but it shone as a wonderful book in its own right.
Book Review: The Dark Heart of Redemption (A Chronicles of Actaeon Story, Book 2) by Darran Handshaw
Synopsis “Some secrets are best left undiscovered.” Pyramid, the great heart of Redemption, lies under siege by tribal invaders that threaten to destroy the very civilization that the Dominions have created. The Engineer, Actaeon, leads a force of Raedelleans from the south, where they pause to investigate the secrets of abandoned Travail in search of […]
Review: Wormhole by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown
Synopsis An eighty-year-old cold case murder investigation stretches across light years, and could risk the future of humanity’s new home. Gordon Kemp is a detective working in the cold case department in London. Usually he works on cases closed ten, twenty-five years earlier. Now, however, he has been assigned a murder investigation closed, unsolved, over […]
Review: The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan
Lakshminarayan’s narrative style is playful and crushing in equal measure. This makes for a strong debut and a whole new sense of unease about our overreliance on technology.
Book Review: The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown
Synopsis As acting captain of the starship Calypso, Jacklyn Albright is responsible for keeping the last of humanity alive as they limp back to Earth from their forebears’ failed colony on a distant planet. Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn’s crew has reached their breaking point. […]
Review: Tales From Another Dimension by Robbie Sheerin
Synopsis How will HG Wells react when he wakes 200 years in the future on a strange planet, faced with a terrible truth? Two young brothers make a frightening discovery about their neighbours. Do robots secretly want to rule us all? A scientist goes to the extreme in order to change the future of mankind. […]
Review: Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I’m happy to announce that Children of Memory exceeded my expectations and was a wild ride from the front to back. It may not be perfect, but it is a great science fiction novel with signature Tchaikovsky creativity all wrapped in a great philosophical question.