Downtiming the Night Side by Jack L. Chalker (1985) As a longtime hard science fiction reader, I’ve always liked Jack Chalker books, especially his Well of Souls series. He’s a space opera kind of guy, and a reader can splash easily into one of his books. However, Downtiming is something completely different. Time travel books are by nature convoluted and this is probably one of the most convoluted time travel tales you’re ever going to read. Poor Ronald Moosic is having a really bad first […]
Degrees of Freedom: The Metrozone Series, Book 3
The third book in Morden’s Petrovich trilogy finds our hero standing as a figure of rebellion, symbolically trying to rescue the AI that the Americans tried to destroy in the previous book. His city is starting to rebuild itself, but his personal life has slid into a series of of soap opera plots. Once again, there are a series of international conspiracies that all seem to circle around him – the Americans want to make sure the AI named Michael is done once and for […]
Theories of Flight: The Metrozone Series, Book 2
The first book in this series, Equations of Life, left us with young super genius mathematician Samuil Petrovitch standing in the ruins of what had been London after taking in millions of refugees from an international nuclear disaster. While the city had been virtually destroyed by an AI, Theories of Flight finds Petrovitch in a slightly better place overall. He has invented an anti-gravity generator that makes him world famous; he ends up having married the nun-warrior he had met in the first book, and […]
Mission Improbable
Ring by Stephen Baxter (1994) This science fiction story is really two separate plots that don’t converge until almost the end of the 500-page novel. One story is of a multi-generation ship and the trials and tribulations of its colorful crew as it makes its way to a distant artifact on the other side of the universe. During the centuries that pass, the population of the ship grows into three factions: the natives in the jungle who have given up their immortality, the immortal captain […]
Hot Times in Polar City
Polar City Blues by Katharine Kerr (1990) A young derelict who can read minds tries to survive in the slums of the misnamed Polar City. The colonial world is so hot people need personal tents if they go into the open air. When he helps the police “read” a murdered alien ambassador, he places himself and his friends in danger. Cursed with his ESP gifts, he’s a second-rate baseball player, a junkie, and a bum. Fortunately, he’s got an occasional girlfriend, a retired space navy […]
What Have I Done to Deserve This?
A Virtual Soul by Kevin Teixeira (1999) NEVER have I felt more compelled to skim a 500-page science fiction story. This guy could teach a few things to George R. R. Martin about how to avoid story progression. It seemed like a likable premise – in the near future, genetically bred sub-humans (called Tubies because they are created in test tubes) are a separate race of submissive servants and a very competitive market because they only live seven years. One hyper-competitive business creates a virus […]
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