I’m disappointed that it’s taken me nearly half a century to discover Ursula K. Le Guin. Perhaps “discover” isn’t the right word; I knew of her existence, but until she passed away earlier this year I hadn’t been motivated to read anything by her. I scored in my purchase of Penguin’s “great masterpieces of science fiction and fantasy” edition in that it contains not only a series introduction by Neil Gaiman, in which he describes Le Guin as having “a poet’s touch and an anthropologist’s […]
Murderbot needs a blankie!
I was so charmed by this little novella. People (including our very own emmalita) have been giving it great reviews, but I don’t normally get very emotionally involved in shorter pieces of fiction. I was emotionally involved with this one after about fifteen pages. All Systems Red is the first novella of four (the rest set to be released by the end of the year) in the Murderbot Diaries series. Our narrator is Murderbot. He calls himself that ironically. In reality, he is a SecUnit, an […]
New Vorkosigan Novella
I don’t think Lois McMaster Bujold has released a full-length novel since 2016’s Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, which I sort of read as a capstone to the Vorkosigan series. Since then, she seems to have been spending her time experimenting with self-publishing novellas. While I’ve found those to be mostly very good, they’ve all been set in the World of the Five Gods. So I’m really pleasantly surprised to see that she’s decided to duck back into the Vorkosigan universe after all! The […]
Scheming, Snark and a Society on the Precipice
IT’S HUGO TIME! Which means it’s time for me to tackle the best novel nominees! The Collapsing Empire is the first instalment in ‘The Interdependency’ series, which is John Scalzi’s take on a space opera. If you’re already a fan of Scalzi’s work, rest assured you’ll probably enjoy this one. All the tonal hallmarks of his previous writing – breezy, minimalist and snarky – are intact. So is his inclination to weave politics into otherwise lighthearted writing. What’s interesting about this series is that it […]
How to prove sentience? A meta-galactic version of Eurovision, of course!
It is the near future and life is far more prevalent in the galaxy than anyone had dreamed. Humanity learns this, much to their chagrin, when an Esca appears to each and every person on planet Earth simultaneously and explains they are not alone. It would be one thing to find out that aliens exist in an astonishingly wide variety but that was not the reason for the Esca’s visit. Instead, humanity was informed that they must prove their sentience in order to continue existence. […]
There is a cat in this book whose name is Donut.
Scalzi’s books are always such good palette cleansers. Head On was fast and fun (and a little bit infuriating). This is the second book in the Lock In series, which started with 2014’s Lock In. You don’t need to have read the first book if this one tickles your fancy, but you should, because it’s great. The premise here is that in the near future, a disease called Haden’s Syndrome (after the first lady of the US, it’s most famous victim) makes it so that […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- …
- 61
- Next Page »