Difference between revisions of "Newest Science Fiction Reviews"

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[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:Science Fiction|*]]
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Science Fiction]]__NOTOC__<!-- Remove -->
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author= Geoffrey Arnold
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|author= Philip K Dick
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|title= Ripped Apart
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|title= Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams
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|rating= 3.5
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|rating= 3
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary= Qwelby and Tulia are teenage aliens, growing up in a world and environment far removed from our own. When the twins interfere with a forbidden experiment, they find themselves transported to opposite ends of our Earth – Qwelby in Finland and Tulia in Africa. To survive, they must re-establish their telepathic connection, find each other, avoid capture, and return home. They say that their people arrived on Earth 75,000 years ago, were the cause of the development of the human race, and now need the help of those humans if their race is to survive.
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|summary= Philip K Dick's stories were originally published in the 50s, but they are more present than past. On the big screen ''Blade Runner 2049'' relaunched the Dick-inspired cult classic to reviews of pure praise; and on slightly smaller screens, Channel 4 has adapted the author's short stories for TV. Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction and into the factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss of privacy to the increasing machination of society are all headline material in today's news. It is as if half a century after their inception, Dick's electric dreams are becoming reality.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784624756</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473223288</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
 
|author=George Mann
 
|author=George Mann
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|title=Ghosts of Karnak
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|title=Ghosts of Empire
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=The superhero market is crowded and sometimes a little boring.  Who cares about what a God-like person can do when the rest of us are scrambling around trying to avoid papercuts, never mind trying to repel a rogue asteroid.  The best heroes are those that are just normal blokes or ladies dressed up in some fancy outfit.  When it comes down to it Batman or The Shadow are just men, but it is their vulnerability that makes them ace to read about.  Add to this list George Mann's 'The Ghost', a World War One veteran who returns to New York no longer willing to watch the criminals taking over his home town.
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|summary=Taking on a band of undead Mummies will take it out of the best of us and a holiday may be needed.  If you are from New York there are not many other cities worldwide that could impress you, but London is one of them.  Surely, a nice visit to England, far from the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, will help you to relax.  It is not as if Russian Tsarists are on the loose with magical powers or the events are conspiring to raise the sleeping power of Albion from its slumber. Is it?
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783294167</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783294183</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author=Jenny T Colgan, Jacqueline Rayner, Steve Lyons, Guy Adams and Andrew Lane
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|author=Ian Doescher
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|title=Doctor Who: The Legends of River Song
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|title=William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh
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|rating=3
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|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=''Hello, sweetie.'' And with those words we know where we are – in the company of River Song, one of modern TV's more infuriating characters.  Now she's likeable enough, it was just the timey wimey stuff she was lumbered with that made her hard to live with.  I would say this was a return to her side, but have we had that pleasure yet – isn't it in our future, which is her past, and vice versa at the same, er, time? Either way, five tales here bring a selection of her escapades to a YA audience.  The results can be bordering on the written ''Who'' as seen elsewhere, but can certainly frustrate as usual.
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|summary=A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy.  You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken'', but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good…
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785940880</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>159474985X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author= Alex Lamb
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|author=James Goss and Russell T Davies
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|title= Nemesis
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|title=Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who)
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Children's Rhymes and Verse
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|summary=Consider the Doctor.  Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were he to keep in touch with even half of his companions?  He would certainly need a few novelty gifts for some of them, say, for example, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a Time Lord and that of some of his friends and enemies.  As luck would have it, he has the space in his TARDIS to stock up in advance, so my advice to him – sorry, her – would be to pop along to his local Earth-based book emporium and get himself ready.  And if you're working on a shorter timescale, with a shorter lifespan, and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the same.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785942719</amazonuk>
 +
}}
 +
{{newreview
 +
|author= Andy Weir
 +
|title= Artemis
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|rating= 3.5
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary= I'm not a great lover of back-cover blurb, but every now and again it tells you everything you need to know…if you read between the lines.  ''Hugely promising'' said SFX. ''Hits the ground running'' said the Guardian. I can't disagree with either of those two statements.  Unfortunately for this particular reader, it ran very quickly into a swamp of dense pseudo-scientific-explicatory-strangle-weed. And didn't live up to the promise.
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|summary=Welcome to Artemis, the first city on the moon. A powerhouse for the rich and a once in a lifetime trip for earth tourists, and also a place a small community of citizens call home. Jazz Bashara is one such citizen. She came to Artemis with her father aged six, it's the only place she's ever known but she wouldn't say she's flourishing. In fact, the phrase most often used to describe Jazz is a waste of talent. Jazz lives in the low end of town, sleeping on a bunk, using a shared bathroom, which is all she can afford through her job as a porter. However, Jazz dreams above all else of being rich and to this end, she has set up a side business of illegal smuggling activity. When one of Jazz's regular clients wants her to step up from petty criminal to major criminal for a handsome reward, it is just too tempting to refuse. What Jazz doesn't know is all the facts behind what she is being asked to do.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473206111</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0091956943</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author=Emma Geen
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|author= Wes Stuart
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|title=The Many Selves of Katherine North
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|title= My Name is Sam
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|rating=3.5
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|rating= 4
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary=As a Bristol-area 'phenomenaut', nineteen-year-old Kit projects herself into the lab-grown bodies of all sorts of creatures. She's recently spent a lot of time as a fox (appropriate given her nickname) and got particularly close with a vixen named Tomoko. It's becoming much harder for her to leave the animal world behind at the end of her 'jumps'. Even after Buckley, her neuroengineer, signals her to 'Come home' and she resumes her original body, she has trouble giving up animal tendencies like territorialism, toileting outdoors and raiding bins.
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|summary=Who is the real enemy? This is the question which confronts Sam, the champion of the Sereia in their cosmos-spanning war with the Gibbus, and the main character in this story. Sam is an unimposing boy who has no past and no memory of who he is, yet he possesses extraordinary abilities. He is also Earth's last hope for salvation from the Gibbus who, in seven days, will destroy the planet and everyone on it. This is not his choice however: that is the decision of the alien Sereia, his mentors and guides, as he is forced to confront this hazardous task. They have their own reasons for wanting Earth to be saved, but are too weak to challenge the Gibbus themselves. In their search for a human champion they find the unlikely and ill-prepared young boy, Sam – but this child is not quite as he appears…
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1408858436</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1540504506</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author=Philip Martin
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|author= C Robert Cargill
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|title=Doctor Who: Vengeance on Varos
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|title= Sea of Rust
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|rating=4
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|rating= 4.5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary=If only those critiquing ''Doctor Who'' had access to a time machine, they would be able to temper all their responses.  When Mary Whitehouse found the likes of [[Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks by Terrance Dicks|Genesis of the Daleks]] to be too violent, she and her coterie had no idea the series would soon turn to a prison world, where soon-to-be victims of snuff movies are trapped in a reality-show styled existence, and a hard-done-by populous are sat at home doing nothing other than watching the feeds from the executions, the morgues and worse. If those watching ''Doctor Who'' had the benefit of foresight they might have responded to ''Vengeance on Varos'' differently.  They were quite vocal in complaining about a horrific character being a trade delegate who is half-man, half-slug and wholly stupid evil laugh, and such an artificial premise. Little did they know the series would soon lumber people with Bonnie Langford, and aliens looking like liquorice bleeding allsorts…
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|summary=Have you ever watched the ''Terminator'' movies or some similar 'Robo-geddon' franchise and wondered what would have happened if the robots had actually ''won?'' Well wonder no more, because ''Sea of Rust'' hinges on that exact premise; a world where the robots have wiped out every living thing from planet earth. Only artificial life remains; there is no trace of organic matter anywhere, since the robot uprising that devastated the planet. Now two huge mainframes compete for world domination: CISSUS and VIRGIL. They capture robots and turn them into drones; uploading their minds into a hive consciousness. The few remaining bots are called 'freebots,' and inhabit a desert called the Sea of Rust, where they do what they can to survive, including cannibalising other bots for spare parts.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785940406</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473212782</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author=Eric Saward
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|author= Paul McAuley
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|title=Doctor Who: The Visitation
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|title= Austral
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|rating=3
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|rating= 3.5
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary=Have you ever given your children a time machine?  No?  Are you sure? What about that thing in the corner upstairs called a dressing-up box – have they never been transported bodily to the 1970s by some orange cords and wide-collared shirts or whatnot? Have they never been in a museum and put on a mediaeval smock and told they're now in the middle ages? Well adults can get involved in that, too, of course – the cast of this ''Doctor Who'' adventure had to put on 17th Century garb, and that was pretty much it as far as looks go.  Yes, there is an evil-seeming alien, yes there are some control bands he makes us poor humans wear, and yes there is a giant android dressed as Death, but on the whole it was one of the more simple episodes.  Still, who's to say the novel isn't much more substantial, rich and varied?
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|summary= Austral has no doubts about who she is.  Her birth was, as she puts it, ''a political act. Conceived in a laboratory dish by direct injection of sperm into an egg. I was customised by a suite of targeted genes…''  She was, as the jargon of her world has it ''edited''.  She is, as a result, a Husky.  A human modified to withstand the cold temperatures of the Antarctic continent.  Those temperatures are still hard for un-modified humans to survive in, but maybe not for much longer.  This is a world in which the threats of global warming went unheeded…a world in which the ice has retreated and continues to retreat…a world in which the harshest of environments is being opened up for exploitation.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785940392</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473217318</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author=Terrance Dicks
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|author= Geoffrey Arnold
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|title=Doctor Who and the Genesis of the Daleks
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|title= Hunted
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|rating=5
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|rating= 4
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary=If you were to randomly travel in time and space, where would you end up?  Well, if our own battle-torn history was anything to go by, you'd like as not end up in a time and place of war. The thing is, however, the Doctor is not, for once, travelling randomly – he's been charged with carrying out errands for the Time Lords. And the most tricky of those is to go the planet Skaro, deeply enmeshed in a thousand year war, and put paid to one of the most heinous plans that could risk the universe – that of Davros to create his Dalek race.
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|summary=Tullia learns about survival in the bush when she is taken hostage and later saves a youth's life during a hunt. Adopted into a Bushman family and the tribe, her presence stirs disparate feelings amongst the young men and women, a mixture of awe, desire, fear and hate. Living a very different life, Qwelby, Tullia's twin, is deeply shocked by the violence on Earth. As he is rescued by his four best friends from the Pit of Despair, he experiences his first feelings for Tamina, a girl he has known for years. Feelings which become much stronger for another girl he tries to help during a violent attack from his own world as he and Tullia seek to restore their telepathic link. Forming a connection with the twins during the attack, the girl, Xaala, is charged by her master with monitoring their attempts to mentally reconnect – and to prevent them. Xaala is torn between her mixed feelings for the twins and obeying her orders. Meanwhile, on the planet Vertazia and in secret, Quelby's family and friends build what they hope will be the first ever inter-dimensional transport. On a short test run, the village where he is staying is discovered. When Quelby finds out he is being watched, he flees from the village...
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785940384</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785891855</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author=Malcolm Hulke
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|author=Daniel Suarez
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|title=Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion
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|title=Change Agent
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|rating=4.5
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|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=What effect do you think you'd have if you were to time travel? I dare say it depends who or what you were to begin with, and when you went and what you did.  The creatures in this story only seem to stay in the same place, and do just what comes natural – but as they're giant rampaging dinosaurs and they suddenly appear in the middle of modern-day Central London they do kind of get noticed. As a result the entire place has been evacuated, all ten million people shipped out, and the Government resettled in that hotbed of politics, Harrogate.  As a result, when the Doctor and Sarah Jane turn up they immediately get accused of being looters – and UNIT are just a touch too much out of contact. What is causing time to leave the dinosaurs moving around London, and what is a mediaeval man, complaining of witchcraft under King John, doing there too?
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|summary=I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I had blue eyes, I wish, I wish, I wish. In the genetic lottery that is our lives we are given a selection from our mother and our father to work with.  However, although they may be over six foot, you could still end up being shorter.  You can't currently choose what coding you get, but what if you could cherry pick the best aspects of your family traits? It would be a great way to save people from hereditary disease, but would we end up with a world full of identikit humans all following the latest genetic fashions? In the future someone would need to be in charge of stopping science going too far.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785940376</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>110198466X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author=Terrance Dicks
+
|author= Stephen Baxter 
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|title=Doctor Who and the Web of Fear
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|title= Xeelee: Vengeance 
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|rating=4
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|rating= 2
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|genre=Science Fiction
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|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary=What do you look like if you time travel?  Perhaps like a lunk-headed Austrian, naked and with fizzy blue stuff all over you.  Or perhaps, to the confusion of Professor Travers, you look exactly as you did when he met you in Tibet forty years ago. That escapade has had a legacy, as he has brought back a deactivated robot Yeti – and has mistakenly managed to reactivate it. Or perhaps, you look very much like yourself if you're a time traveller, for just by reading this book you won't change your appearance, but you'll be sent back to 1968, by way of 1975, when this book-of-the-series was first published.
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|summary=Michael Poole, Earth's greatest living engineer, changed the galaxy when he opened a worm hole to allow for quick and easy transportation across the solar system. However, such a thing was created with a degree of naivety and a lack of foresight because out of the worm hole flew an unknown vessel of alien origin. Unlike anything seen by human eyes before, it is unstoppable and unfathomable. Bent on an unknown path, the vessel is unresponsive to the human life around it. It ignores hails and even direct attacks. Nothing affects it, not even the surface of the sun. All it seems to want is energy, and Earth has plenty of that to be absorbed.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785940368</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473217172</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author=Bill Strutton
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|author=Daniel Godfrey
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|title=Doctor Who and the Zarbi
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|title=Empire of Time (New Pompeii)
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|rating=3.5
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|rating=5
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=Consider the time machine.  You probably know of it as looking like either some fancy Edwardian sit-upon machine that the Morlocks nick, or perhaps a battered old English police call box.  I would suggest it can also look like a small paperback book – pretty much like the subject at hand.  This reprint of a ''Doctor Who'' novel, first presented in 1973 from the series shown in 1965, certainly has the ability to take you back.  I grew up with the series on TV and the books in a Target imprint, but this predates that – it was, apparently, the second ever Who book-of-the-series.  In it, the good Doctor and his three companions arrive on a certain quarry-like planet.  One stays in the TARDIS, only to find it and her nicked by aliens; another needs rescuing from alien mind control by a different species of aliens; and the third with our irascible hero work out what actually took control of their ship and stranded them there in the first place…
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|summary=Warning: Spoilers for [[New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey|Book 1]] from the beginning.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178594035X</amazonuk>
+
The experiment to study Ancient Romans by transporting them through time to a new Pompeii just before the disaster hits the old one sounded great in theory.  The practice has been going on for years now, but the modern and old worlds living alongside each other in an uneasy peace.  Scientist Nick Houghton only ever wanted to live within the experiment out of curiosity but it's more dangerous than he ever dreamt.  Since he arrived, he's watched the Romans kill the inventors of the machine that saved them.  Nick, or Decimus Horatius Pullus to give him his Roman name, is the only non-Roman living in New Pompeii and that's not a safe position or location in which to live.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785653156</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author= David Wingrove
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|author= Cixin Liu
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|title= The Ocean of Time
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|title=The Wandering Earth
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|rating= 3.5
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|rating= 5
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary= The War for Time continues. From the frozen tundra of 13th Century Russia to the battle of Paltava in 1709 and beyond, Otto Behr has waged an unquestioning, unending war across time for his people. But now a third unidentified power has joined the game across the ocean of time, and everything Otto holds dear could be unmade…
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|summary= If anyone thought that the short story as a form had been relegated to the pages of women's magazines (no disrespect) – think again. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter and encourager of the short form is Sci-fi.  So when you pick up a collection of Sci-fi shorts, you know that it will have just as much depth and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novel.  Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached by someone from China which – to be polite – has a somewhat different world-view in many ways to much of the rest of the planet…and add to that an author who is not only a best-seller in his home country but has the distinction of having produced the first translated work of SF ever to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good!
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009195617X</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author= Holly Jennings
+
|author= Jack Campbell
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|title= Arena
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|title= The Genesis Fleet: Vanguard
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|rating= 3.5
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|rating= 5
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary= Kali Ling competes in the RAGE tournaments – a competition of Virtual Gaming, where the world's best gamers compete in a fight to the digital death. Every fights is broadcast to millions, and each player leads lives of fame. Although the weapons are digital, the players feel every blow… Kali Ling – the first female captain in tournament history, is famed for her prowess – but has her world shaken when her teammate and lover overdoses. Now, she must win the tournament and uncover the truth about the tournament, for the Virtual Gaming League has dark secrets. And the only way to change the rules is to fight from the inside…
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|summary=The human adventure continues! As humanity spreads to the stars it takes with it both the best and the worst examples of itself. The isolation and edginess of a Spaghetti Western meets hard Sci-Fi in this tale of far-flung colonies and bullying neighbours. We follow our protagonists, each failures in their own careers (crisis management, space navy, politics and marines) as they become heroes.
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1101988762</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785650408</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author= Michael Cobley
+
|author= Anne Corlett
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|title= Ancestral Machines
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|title= The Space Between The Stars
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|rating= 3
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|rating= 4
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary=Having completed the Humanity's Fire trilogy with the Ascendant Stars, I expected to go off and do something completely different. He didn't.   In Ancestral Machines, we're back in the same universe. The Construct (an ancient AI on a mission) is still doing its best to protect sentient species, and the drone Rensik is still one of its key agents.
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|summary= Jamie Allenby wakes, alone, and realises her fever has broken. But could everyone she knows be dead? Months earlier, Jamie had left her partner Daniel, mourning the miscarriage of their baby. She'd just had to get away, so took a job on a distant planet. Then the virus hit. Jamie survived as it swept through our far-flung colonies. Now she feels desperate and isolated, until she receives a garbled message from Earth. If someone from her past is still alive – perhaps Daniel – she knows she must find a way to return. She meets others seeking Earth, and their ill-matched group will travel across space to achieve their dream. But they'll clash with survivors intent on repeating humanity's past mistakes, threatening their precious fresh start. Jamie will also get a second chance at happiness. But can she escape her troubled past, to embrace a hopeful future?
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356501779</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509833528</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author= Jo Walton
+
|author= Elizabeth Moon
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|title= The Philosopher Kings
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|title= Cold Welcome: Vatta's Peace
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|rating= 3.5
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|rating= 4.5
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary= Twenty years have passed since the Goddess Athene founded the Just City. The god Apollo is still living there, albeit in human form. Now married, and the father of several children, the man/god struggles to cope when tragedy befalls his family. Beset by grief and a need for revenge, Apollo sets sail to find the man who caused him such pain, but discovers something that may change everything…
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|summary=''I'm convinced we can survive anything''
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1472150791</amazonuk>
+
 +
After saving the empire, Admiral Kylara Vatta wants nothing less than to return to her home planet. But after her cousin's request, that's exactly where Ky finds herself, enroute to tie up some family business. Promised a hero's welcome, Ky plans to stay as little time as possible back in the place filled with such horrible memories. But as soon as she arrives, Ky finds herself in perilous danger, caught in the middle of an assassination attempt. Now stranded at sea and without communication links with the outside world, Ky must use every ounce of skill she possesses to battle for survival. But with an unfamiliar crew who don't trust her, sabotaged equipment and a traitor in the midst, the odds aren't in her favour. While the survivors hunt for land, Ky's family members are doing everything possible to ensure her rescue. Old friends are called in and new alliances are made, but will it be enough? Will they get to Ky before it's too late?
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356506282</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author=Mike Brooks
+
|author=Sam Peters
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|title=Dark Sky
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|title=From Darkest Skies
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|rating=4.5
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|rating=4
 
|genre=Science Fiction
 
|genre=Science Fiction
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|summary=Making money is not easy, especially if you live life on the edges of known space scraping a living doing odd jobs with your crew; some legal, some not so legal.  You may not have much money, a good ship or even adequate washing facilities, but what you do have is the friendship and comradery of your fellow crewmates. That is unless you have all just discovered that the captain used to be a space pirate who once suffocated his entire crew so that he could escape.  Welcome to the jolly ship Keiko.
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|summary=No one likes to see a loved one die, but when they do we can reflect on how they lived and eventually move on with a piece of them inside us.  However, what would happen if we could take all the memories we have saved on the internet and combine them into an Artificial Intelligence that represented them? Would this work to keep them close, or just give you a false facsimile that prevents you from moving on?
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009195665X</amazonuk>
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473214750</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author= Samuel R Delany
+
|author=M R Carey
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|title= Nova
+
|title=The Boy on the Bridge
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|rating= 5
+
|rating=3.5
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|genre= Science Fiction
+
|genre=Science Fiction
−
|summary=In the 31st century the rare element Illyrion is a crucial energy source, and naturally enough a whole lot of politics and power are bound up with whoever controls the supply. Lorq Von Ray, daring spaceship captain, has this mad idea that flying into an imploding star will – as long as he can get out again – allow him to gather Illyrion in unimaginable quantities. Luckily his rag-bag crew don't know about this when they sign on.
+
|summary=It's ten years since mankind was almost wiped out by a virus that turned the great majority of it into the hungries – zombies by any other name.  A lone, heavily armoured vehicle is travelling from the British redoubt on the south coast the length of the Kingdom, tracing a previous expedition that failed to return, and hoping to find evidence somewhere, somehow, of something that can either counter the virus or rid the survivors of their enemy.  As a result the vehicle is divided in personnel between scientists and the military, and as neither side is completely cohesive it's no surprise to see the crew split along partisan lines. That's not helped by one of the scientists, Samrina Khan, being heavily pregnant.  But she's also rubbed people up by insisting on an intriguing character being on board – a teenaged savant, no less, called Stephen Greaves.  But that source of the unusual is nothing perhaps to the bizarre the team will find on their explorations…
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|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473211913</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356503534</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author= Emma Newman
+
|author= John Scalzi
−
|title= Planetfall
+
|title= The Collapsing Empire
 
|rating= 5
 
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
−
|summary= Ren believed in Lee Suh-Mi's vision of a world far beyond our one, calling to humanity. A planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, and untainted by overpopulation, pollution and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything, and followed the pathfinder Suh-Mi into the unknown. Twenty two years later, the new colony still functions – based around a mysterious alien structure into which Suh-Mi has resided in isolation. Ren works hard alone, generating the tools needed for survival – and harbouring a secret that could destroy everything they have worked to build. When a stranger appears, bearing a strong resemblance to the hidden Suh-Mi, secrets can no longer be hidden – secrets that may just destroy the colony…
+
|summary='' ''Just out of curiosity if this is the smaller problem, what is the bigger problem?'' ''
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0425282392</amazonuk>
+
 
 +
'' ''The complete collapse of the Flow, the end of the interdependency, and the possible extinction of the human race.'' ''
 +
 
 +
In the distant future, mankind has been forced to leave Earth behind and has subsequently built an impressive empire compromising of 47 human colonies all connected by The Flow: a river of alternate space-time which makes travel across the Interdependency possible. Dependent on trade, the Holy Empire's survival is all thanks to the Flow… which is now collapsing.
 +
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509835075</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author= Stephen Hickman
+
|author= Geoff Gaywood
−
|title= The Art of Stephen Hickman
+
|title= Omnipotence: Odyssey Book I
−
|rating= 4
+
|rating= 4.5
−
|genre= Fantasy
+
|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary= Stephen Hickman has been a well known artist in the Fantasy and Science Fiction worlds for a number of years now, having created covers for authors such as Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, and Larry Niven. His paintings are vibrant, kinetic, sometimes scary, often sensual, traditional, and yet modern. ''The Art of Stephen Hickman'' collects hundreds of these paintings, and the artist himself provides an intriguing commentary alongside which offers a fascinating glimpse into the artistic process.  
+
|summary= Against a backdrop of relentless global warming and deepening social conflict on Earth, an expedition sets out to secure a foothold on a distant planet thought suitable for human habitation. Almost immediately, the crew are sorely tested by a violent internal conspiracy, alien aggression and simmering emotional tensions. They complete a spectacular transition to a remote solar system where they find that their goal, as dangerous as it is exotic, already has the ominous attention of another civilisation. Moreover, a series of perplexing events suggest that their mission may be subordinate to a much greater power with its own strategic agenda.
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783298456</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>178589918X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author= Ursula K Le Guin
+
|author= Kim Stanley Robinson
−
|title= The Wind's Twelve Quarters and The Compass Rose
+
|title= New York 2140
−
|rating= 4
+
|rating= 5
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
−
|summary=I'll start by saying that I think the SF Masterworks series are pretty much always and without fail a really interesting read. I've bought quite a few from this publisher now and I find they will always pick interesting titles from the science fiction genre, making them a great place to start if you are either just dipping your toe into science fiction for the first time or if you're looking to build up your collection.
+
|summary=By 2140 sea level has risen by around fifty feet, leaving coastal cities the world over with major problems. Some places will always be desirable, however, and when you've invested a lot of time and money somewhere you're reluctant to leave. Consequently New York remains a thriving, popular place even though half of Manhattan is under water and the streets are now canals. There are still financial traders, local politicians, celebrities, street urchins (albeit known as water rats) sharing the city and getting by. It seems like New York has stabilised into a new, watery normal but when a couple of programmers go missing from a building on Madison Square and some of the other residents start looking into it, a question begins to be asked: Does it have to be this way?
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147320576X</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356508757</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
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|author=Jason M Hough
+
|author= Stefan Mohamed
−
|title=Zero World
+
|title= Stanly's Ghost: Book 3 (The Bitter Sixteen Trilogy)
−
|rating=3.5
+
|rating= 5
−
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre= Science Fiction
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|summary=Memory is an important element of making us who we are. Do we avoid certain courses of action knowing that the memory of it would haunt us for the rest of our lives?  Most of us would not kill, but what if you could forget that you just ended someone's life?  Then you may be a sociopath, but a useful sociopath that can be trained to be an assassin who kills, forgets and kills again. This type of person may even forget that they have visited new worlds.
+
|summary= Cynical, solitary Stanly Bird used to be a fairly typical teenager – unless you count the fact that his best friend was a talking beagle named Daryl. Then came the superpowers. And the super powered allies. And the mysterious enemies. And the terrifying monsters. And the stunning revelations. And the apocalypse. Now he's not sure what he is. Or where he is. Or how exactly one is supposed to proceed after saving the world. All he knows is that his story isn't finished. Not quite yet …
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783295252</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1784630764</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author=Philip K Dick
+
|author=Tom Toner
−
|title=Nick and the Glimmung
+
|title= The Weight of the World (The Amaranthine Spectrum)
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
−
|genre=Confident Readers
+
|genre= Science Fiction
−
|summary=Meet Nick. He lives on a future Earth, where multiple large classrooms are taught by just one holographic teacher, which might sound impractical but can actually help with advice when you declare to the class that you are breaking the law.  Nick, you see, has a pet cat, and in this massively over-populated and under-resourced world, pets are illegal.  There's a simple solution – wait for the ''anti-pet man'' to turn up with his weaponry and armour and dispose of it, but the family have decided to take the other way out – emigrate to an entirely different world. Hence they embark on the trip to be pioneer farmers on Plowman's Planet, even when they're forewarned of a host of different and most unusual animals already resident there. That advice still doesn't really prepare them for the battle whose crossfire in which they immediately get caught…
+
|summary= One thing great science fiction needs is solid world building. When I pick up a book like this, I need to imagine that the universe has existed before the plot has started and will continue to do so after: it needs a strong sense of history and future. With this book, and series, I feel like I have just had a brief glimpse into something much larger. A great deal happens in the plot, but even more is happening, and has happened, across the Firmament.
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057513299X</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473211395</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author= Paul McAuley
+
|author= Amanda Hocking
−
|title= Confluence
+
|title= Freeks
−
|rating= 5
+
|rating= 3.5
−
|genre= Dystopian Fiction
+
|genre= Science Fiction
−
|summary=Yama is a foundling orphan adopted as a baby by the Aedile (chief civil servant) of a small city downriver of the mighty, ancient city of Ys, capital of the man-made world of Confluence. Longing to become a soldier and take his late brother's place in the long-running war against the heretics, the restless seventeen year old is about to be taken as an apprentice clerk despite his young age, to keep him out of trouble. Destiny, however, has other plans for him.
+
|summary= In the spring of 1987, the carnival comes to small-town Caudry, Louisiana. Then events take a dangerous turn. For Mara Beznik, the carnival is home. It's also a place of secrets, hidden powers and a buried past - making it hard to connect with outsiders. However, sparks fly when she meets local boy Gabe Alvarado. As they become inseparable, Mara realizes Gabe is hiding his own secrets. And his family legacy could destroy Mara's world. They find the word 'freeks' sprayed on trailers, as carnival employees start disappearing. Then workers wind up dead, killed in disturbing ways by someone or something. Mara is determined to unlock the mystery, with Gabe's help. But can they really halt this campaign of fear?
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>057511942X</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1509807659</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author= Walter M Miller Jr
+
|author= Alec Birri
−
|title= Dark Benediction
+
|title= Condition: Book Two - The Curing Begins...
−
|rating= 5
+
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Science Fiction
 
|genre= Science Fiction
−
|summary= Walter M. Miller Jr is rightly placed among the science fiction giants H.G. Wells, Michael Moorcock, and Philip K. Dick in the ''Masterworks'' series, a large selection of genre-defining writers and works at the centre of what is now such a popular and diverse range of literatures, films, and television productions. Miller is considered one of the finest science fiction writers of the 1950s, and in ''Dark Benediction'', fourteen of this author's best short stories are brought together in one collection.
+
|summary= Discovering an infamous Nazi doctor conducted abortions in Argentina after the Second World War may not come as a surprise, but why was the twisted eugenicist not only allowed to continue his evil experiments but encouraged to do so? And what has that got to do with a respected neurologist in 2027? Surely the invention of a cure for nearly all the world's ailments can't possibly have its roots buried in the horrors of Auschwitz? The unacceptable is about to become the disturbingly bizarre. What has the treatment's 'correction' of paedophiles got to do with the President of the United States, the Pope and even the UK's Green Party?
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1473211948</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785898779</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author=Eli Horowitz, Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett
+
|author= Alastair Reynolds
−
|title=The Silent History
+
|title= Slow Bullets
−
|rating=4.5
+
|rating= 4
−
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre= Science Fiction
−
|summary=Well, they kept this quiet – for reasons that will become obvious.  A couple of years ago people in America were giving birth to problematic kids. They (the children) were soon found to be unnaturally quiet – perhaps crying with hunger or pain, but never even trying to 'ooga-wooga' their way into their parents' hearts.  They were later found to be completely unable to speak, they could not read and indeed they could not understand anything said to them, or shown them, as an instruction. They were physically unable to parse anything as language, and were in a silent world of their own.  But right about now they and we are combining worlds – schools are being set up, and funds are being made available, and people are coming down on the endless divide as to whether they are just problematic, disabled – or even the blessed.  In a couple of years, however, the problems the virus that is causing these people to be born with will be shown to be a major problem – and that is before the kids themselves change. For they will be able to switch their mental abilities much like a blind man can hear more than the average, and will be able to comprehend body and facial language much more coherently than anyone else. Throughout this timeline, however, people will be working hard to try and study the problem, and put it right – if indeed 'right' is the correct word…
+
|summary=When hundreds of worlds have been at war for a long time, the announcement of a ceasefire takes a while to reach everyone. It's perhaps not surprising that the worst of the soldiers using the war as an excuse for crimes, don't immediately give up. Scur, a conscript who has just been given the hope of returning to her family, has the misfortune to run into one of these war criminals before the peacekeepers arrive. He leaves her to die, but she subsequently wakes up from hibernation on a prison ship, only to discover that he is there too. And that's the least of her worries.
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>009959286X</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>147321842X</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author=Kieran Shea
+
|author= Alec Birri
−
|title=Koko the Mighty
+
|title= Condition: Book One - A Medical Miracle?
−
|rating=5
+
|rating= 5
−
|genre=Science Fiction
+
|genre= Thrillers
−
|summary=Many people have dreamed of packing up their old jobs and opening a B&B or hotel with their partner somewhere in a picturesque holiday destination.  You may just deserve this new life, but running a hotel is not easy, especially when it is on a pleasure island known for its indiscriminate violence and hedonism.  Koko Martsteller had her last hotel/brothel blown up, but after a series of extraordinary events she has a new hostelry and a new partner.  It's a shame then that nothing is ever easy for Koko.
+
|summary= It's 1966, but RAF Pilot Dan Stewart isn't celebrating England's win in the World Cup – instead he's awakening from a coma following an aircraft accident. Waking in a world where nothing makes sense, he's unable to recall the crash – but struggles to remember the rest of his life…And what's stopping him from taking his medication? Is it brain damage causing paranoia about the red pill, or is he right to think there's something more sinister going on…And, having suffered almost 100% burns, how is he alive? Are his hallucinations trying to tell him something?
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1781168628</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1785899686</amazonuk>
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{newreview
 
{{newreview
−
|author=Rob Boffard
+
|author= Charlie Laidlaw
−
|title=Tracer
+
|title= The Things We Learn When We're Dead
−
|rating=3
+
|rating= 5
−
|genre=Science Fiction  
+
|genre= General Fiction
−
|summary=Just because the Earth has been destroyed does not mean that humans are now extinct.  As a bunch, humans are resourceful, so rather than sit on a dying Earth we all pack our bags and get a place on the orbiting station called New Earth. However, after a couple of hundred years the old space station is starting to feel a little cramped and appears to be falling to pieces.  What is the common link to both Earth and New Earth being destroyed?  Perhaps it is time someone did something about these pesky humans who ruin everything.
+
|summary= On the way to a dinner party, Lorna Love steps into the path of an oncoming car. Waking up in what appears to be a hospital, but a hospital in which wine is served for supper, everyone avoids her questions, and her nurse looks suspiciously like Sean Connery, it soon transpires that Lorna is in Heaven, or, at least, on HVN. Because HVN is a lost, dysfunctional spaceship, and God the aging hippy captain. At first Lorna can remember nothing, but as her memories return – some good, some bad, she realises that she has a decision to make, and that maybe, she needs to find a way home…
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0356505138</amazonuk>
+
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1786150352</amazonuk>
−
}}
 
−
{{newreview
 
−
|author=Lev Rosen
 
−
|title=Depth
 
−
|rating=4
 
−
|genre=Science Fiction
 
−
|summary=The private investigator genre is a great one. Not because they all feel pretty similar so that picking one up is like slipping on a pair of comfortable slippers, but because you can put a PI anywhere – even the future.  Writing about a New York that is partially underwater could be done in many ways; action, cerebral, but why not use an investigator for hire?  Mixing a solid crime story with an intriguing glance at the future is sure to be a winner, but you better put on your best trench coat as you are going to get wet.
 
−
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1783298634</amazonuk>
 
 
}}
 
}}

Revision as of 11:17, 19 October 2017

Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick

3star.jpg Science Fiction

Philip K Dick's stories were originally published in the 50s, but they are more present than past. On the big screen Blade Runner 2049 relaunched the Dick-inspired cult classic to reviews of pure praise; and on slightly smaller screens, Channel 4 has adapted the author's short stories for TV. Startlingly, Dick's current relevance reaches beyond fiction and into the factual: his topics from intrusive advertising and loss of privacy to the increasing machination of society are all headline material in today's news. It is as if half a century after their inception, Dick's electric dreams are becoming reality. Full review...

Ghosts of Empire by George Mann

4star.jpg Science Fiction

Taking on a band of undead Mummies will take it out of the best of us and a holiday may be needed. If you are from New York there are not many other cities worldwide that could impress you, but London is one of them. Surely, a nice visit to England, far from the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, will help you to relax. It is not as if Russian Tsarists are on the loose with magical powers or the events are conspiring to raise the sleeping power of Albion from its slumber. Is it? Full review...

William Shakespeare's the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a man called William Shakespeare, who was able to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foul, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdy. You may or may not have noticed the cinematic version of his original stage play for The Force Doth Awaken, but here at last we get the actual script, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvre, and people keeping it in the family til it hurts. And if you need further encouragement, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on to part seven – surely making this over twice as good… Full review...

Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies

4.5star.jpg Children's Rhymes and Verse

Consider the Doctor. Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were he to keep in touch with even half of his companions? He would certainly need a few novelty gifts for some of them, say, for example, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a Time Lord and that of some of his friends and enemies. As luck would have it, he has the space in his TARDIS to stock up in advance, so my advice to him – sorry, her – would be to pop along to his local Earth-based book emporium and get himself ready. And if you're working on a shorter timescale, with a shorter lifespan, and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the same. Full review...

Artemis by Andy Weir

3.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Welcome to Artemis, the first city on the moon. A powerhouse for the rich and a once in a lifetime trip for earth tourists, and also a place a small community of citizens call home. Jazz Bashara is one such citizen. She came to Artemis with her father aged six, it's the only place she's ever known but she wouldn't say she's flourishing. In fact, the phrase most often used to describe Jazz is a waste of talent. Jazz lives in the low end of town, sleeping on a bunk, using a shared bathroom, which is all she can afford through her job as a porter. However, Jazz dreams above all else of being rich and to this end, she has set up a side business of illegal smuggling activity. When one of Jazz's regular clients wants her to step up from petty criminal to major criminal for a handsome reward, it is just too tempting to refuse. What Jazz doesn't know is all the facts behind what she is being asked to do. Full review...

My Name is Sam by Wes Stuart

4star.jpg Science Fiction

Who is the real enemy? This is the question which confronts Sam, the champion of the Sereia in their cosmos-spanning war with the Gibbus, and the main character in this story. Sam is an unimposing boy who has no past and no memory of who he is, yet he possesses extraordinary abilities. He is also Earth's last hope for salvation from the Gibbus who, in seven days, will destroy the planet and everyone on it. This is not his choice however: that is the decision of the alien Sereia, his mentors and guides, as he is forced to confront this hazardous task. They have their own reasons for wanting Earth to be saved, but are too weak to challenge the Gibbus themselves. In their search for a human champion they find the unlikely and ill-prepared young boy, Sam – but this child is not quite as he appears… Full review...

Sea of Rust by C Robert Cargill

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Have you ever watched the Terminator movies or some similar 'Robo-geddon' franchise and wondered what would have happened if the robots had actually won? Well wonder no more, because Sea of Rust hinges on that exact premise; a world where the robots have wiped out every living thing from planet earth. Only artificial life remains; there is no trace of organic matter anywhere, since the robot uprising that devastated the planet. Now two huge mainframes compete for world domination: CISSUS and VIRGIL. They capture robots and turn them into drones; uploading their minds into a hive consciousness. The few remaining bots are called 'freebots,' and inhabit a desert called the Sea of Rust, where they do what they can to survive, including cannibalising other bots for spare parts. Full review...

Austral by Paul McAuley

3.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Austral has no doubts about who she is. Her birth was, as she puts it, a political act. Conceived in a laboratory dish by direct injection of sperm into an egg. I was customised by a suite of targeted genes… She was, as the jargon of her world has it edited. She is, as a result, a Husky. A human modified to withstand the cold temperatures of the Antarctic continent. Those temperatures are still hard for un-modified humans to survive in, but maybe not for much longer. This is a world in which the threats of global warming went unheeded…a world in which the ice has retreated and continues to retreat…a world in which the harshest of environments is being opened up for exploitation. Full review...

Hunted by Geoffrey Arnold

4star.jpg Science Fiction

Tullia learns about survival in the bush when she is taken hostage and later saves a youth's life during a hunt. Adopted into a Bushman family and the tribe, her presence stirs disparate feelings amongst the young men and women, a mixture of awe, desire, fear and hate. Living a very different life, Qwelby, Tullia's twin, is deeply shocked by the violence on Earth. As he is rescued by his four best friends from the Pit of Despair, he experiences his first feelings for Tamina, a girl he has known for years. Feelings which become much stronger for another girl he tries to help during a violent attack from his own world as he and Tullia seek to restore their telepathic link. Forming a connection with the twins during the attack, the girl, Xaala, is charged by her master with monitoring their attempts to mentally reconnect – and to prevent them. Xaala is torn between her mixed feelings for the twins and obeying her orders. Meanwhile, on the planet Vertazia and in secret, Quelby's family and friends build what they hope will be the first ever inter-dimensional transport. On a short test run, the village where he is staying is discovered. When Quelby finds out he is being watched, he flees from the village... Full review...

Change Agent by Daniel Suarez

3.5star.jpg Science Fiction

I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I had blue eyes, I wish, I wish, I wish. In the genetic lottery that is our lives we are given a selection from our mother and our father to work with. However, although they may be over six foot, you could still end up being shorter. You can't currently choose what coding you get, but what if you could cherry pick the best aspects of your family traits? It would be a great way to save people from hereditary disease, but would we end up with a world full of identikit humans all following the latest genetic fashions? In the future someone would need to be in charge of stopping science going too far. Full review...

Xeelee: Vengeance by Stephen Baxter

2star.jpg Science Fiction

Michael Poole, Earth's greatest living engineer, changed the galaxy when he opened a worm hole to allow for quick and easy transportation across the solar system. However, such a thing was created with a degree of naivety and a lack of foresight because out of the worm hole flew an unknown vessel of alien origin. Unlike anything seen by human eyes before, it is unstoppable and unfathomable. Bent on an unknown path, the vessel is unresponsive to the human life around it. It ignores hails and even direct attacks. Nothing affects it, not even the surface of the sun. All it seems to want is energy, and Earth has plenty of that to be absorbed. Full review...

Empire of Time (New Pompeii) by Daniel Godfrey

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Warning: Spoilers for Book 1 from the beginning. The experiment to study Ancient Romans by transporting them through time to a new Pompeii just before the disaster hits the old one sounded great in theory. The practice has been going on for years now, but the modern and old worlds living alongside each other in an uneasy peace. Scientist Nick Houghton only ever wanted to live within the experiment out of curiosity but it's more dangerous than he ever dreamt. Since he arrived, he's watched the Romans kill the inventors of the machine that saved them. Nick, or Decimus Horatius Pullus to give him his Roman name, is the only non-Roman living in New Pompeii and that's not a safe position or location in which to live. Full review...

The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu

5star.jpg Science Fiction

If anyone thought that the short story as a form had been relegated to the pages of women's magazines (no disrespect) – think again. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter and encourager of the short form is Sci-fi. So when you pick up a collection of Sci-fi shorts, you know that it will have just as much depth and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novel. Add to that the intrigue of seeing how the concepts are approached by someone from China which – to be polite – has a somewhat different world-view in many ways to much of the rest of the planet…and add to that an author who is not only a best-seller in his home country but has the distinction of having produced the first translated work of SF ever to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good! Full review...

The Genesis Fleet: Vanguard by Jack Campbell

5star.jpg Science Fiction

The human adventure continues! As humanity spreads to the stars it takes with it both the best and the worst examples of itself. The isolation and edginess of a Spaghetti Western meets hard Sci-Fi in this tale of far-flung colonies and bullying neighbours. We follow our protagonists, each failures in their own careers (crisis management, space navy, politics and marines) as they become heroes. Full review...

The Space Between The Stars by Anne Corlett

4star.jpg Science Fiction

Jamie Allenby wakes, alone, and realises her fever has broken. But could everyone she knows be dead? Months earlier, Jamie had left her partner Daniel, mourning the miscarriage of their baby. She'd just had to get away, so took a job on a distant planet. Then the virus hit. Jamie survived as it swept through our far-flung colonies. Now she feels desperate and isolated, until she receives a garbled message from Earth. If someone from her past is still alive – perhaps Daniel – she knows she must find a way to return. She meets others seeking Earth, and their ill-matched group will travel across space to achieve their dream. But they'll clash with survivors intent on repeating humanity's past mistakes, threatening their precious fresh start. Jamie will also get a second chance at happiness. But can she escape her troubled past, to embrace a hopeful future? Full review...

Cold Welcome: Vatta's Peace by Elizabeth Moon

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

I'm convinced we can survive anything

After saving the empire, Admiral Kylara Vatta wants nothing less than to return to her home planet. But after her cousin's request, that's exactly where Ky finds herself, enroute to tie up some family business. Promised a hero's welcome, Ky plans to stay as little time as possible back in the place filled with such horrible memories. But as soon as she arrives, Ky finds herself in perilous danger, caught in the middle of an assassination attempt. Now stranded at sea and without communication links with the outside world, Ky must use every ounce of skill she possesses to battle for survival. But with an unfamiliar crew who don't trust her, sabotaged equipment and a traitor in the midst, the odds aren't in her favour. While the survivors hunt for land, Ky's family members are doing everything possible to ensure her rescue. Old friends are called in and new alliances are made, but will it be enough? Will they get to Ky before it's too late? Full review...

From Darkest Skies by Sam Peters

4star.jpg Science Fiction

No one likes to see a loved one die, but when they do we can reflect on how they lived and eventually move on with a piece of them inside us. However, what would happen if we could take all the memories we have saved on the internet and combine them into an Artificial Intelligence that represented them? Would this work to keep them close, or just give you a false facsimile that prevents you from moving on? Full review...

The Boy on the Bridge by M R Carey

3.5star.jpg Science Fiction

It's ten years since mankind was almost wiped out by a virus that turned the great majority of it into the hungries – zombies by any other name. A lone, heavily armoured vehicle is travelling from the British redoubt on the south coast the length of the Kingdom, tracing a previous expedition that failed to return, and hoping to find evidence somewhere, somehow, of something that can either counter the virus or rid the survivors of their enemy. As a result the vehicle is divided in personnel between scientists and the military, and as neither side is completely cohesive it's no surprise to see the crew split along partisan lines. That's not helped by one of the scientists, Samrina Khan, being heavily pregnant. But she's also rubbed people up by insisting on an intriguing character being on board – a teenaged savant, no less, called Stephen Greaves. But that source of the unusual is nothing perhaps to the bizarre the team will find on their explorations… Full review...

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Just out of curiosity if this is the smaller problem, what is the bigger problem?

The complete collapse of the Flow, the end of the interdependency, and the possible extinction of the human race.

In the distant future, mankind has been forced to leave Earth behind and has subsequently built an impressive empire compromising of 47 human colonies all connected by The Flow: a river of alternate space-time which makes travel across the Interdependency possible. Dependent on trade, the Holy Empire's survival is all thanks to the Flow… which is now collapsing. Full review...

Omnipotence: Odyssey Book I by Geoff Gaywood

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Against a backdrop of relentless global warming and deepening social conflict on Earth, an expedition sets out to secure a foothold on a distant planet thought suitable for human habitation. Almost immediately, the crew are sorely tested by a violent internal conspiracy, alien aggression and simmering emotional tensions. They complete a spectacular transition to a remote solar system where they find that their goal, as dangerous as it is exotic, already has the ominous attention of another civilisation. Moreover, a series of perplexing events suggest that their mission may be subordinate to a much greater power with its own strategic agenda. Full review...

New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson

5star.jpg Science Fiction

By 2140 sea level has risen by around fifty feet, leaving coastal cities the world over with major problems. Some places will always be desirable, however, and when you've invested a lot of time and money somewhere you're reluctant to leave. Consequently New York remains a thriving, popular place even though half of Manhattan is under water and the streets are now canals. There are still financial traders, local politicians, celebrities, street urchins (albeit known as water rats) sharing the city and getting by. It seems like New York has stabilised into a new, watery normal but when a couple of programmers go missing from a building on Madison Square and some of the other residents start looking into it, a question begins to be asked: Does it have to be this way? Full review...

Stanly's Ghost: Book 3 (The Bitter Sixteen Trilogy) by Stefan Mohamed

5star.jpg Science Fiction

Cynical, solitary Stanly Bird used to be a fairly typical teenager – unless you count the fact that his best friend was a talking beagle named Daryl. Then came the superpowers. And the super powered allies. And the mysterious enemies. And the terrifying monsters. And the stunning revelations. And the apocalypse. Now he's not sure what he is. Or where he is. Or how exactly one is supposed to proceed after saving the world. All he knows is that his story isn't finished. Not quite yet … Full review...

The Weight of the World (The Amaranthine Spectrum) by Tom Toner

4star.jpg Science Fiction

One thing great science fiction needs is solid world building. When I pick up a book like this, I need to imagine that the universe has existed before the plot has started and will continue to do so after: it needs a strong sense of history and future. With this book, and series, I feel like I have just had a brief glimpse into something much larger. A great deal happens in the plot, but even more is happening, and has happened, across the Firmament. Full review...

Freeks by Amanda Hocking

3.5star.jpg Science Fiction

In the spring of 1987, the carnival comes to small-town Caudry, Louisiana. Then events take a dangerous turn. For Mara Beznik, the carnival is home. It's also a place of secrets, hidden powers and a buried past - making it hard to connect with outsiders. However, sparks fly when she meets local boy Gabe Alvarado. As they become inseparable, Mara realizes Gabe is hiding his own secrets. And his family legacy could destroy Mara's world. They find the word 'freeks' sprayed on trailers, as carnival employees start disappearing. Then workers wind up dead, killed in disturbing ways by someone or something. Mara is determined to unlock the mystery, with Gabe's help. But can they really halt this campaign of fear? Full review...

Condition: Book Two - The Curing Begins... by Alec Birri

4star.jpg Science Fiction

Discovering an infamous Nazi doctor conducted abortions in Argentina after the Second World War may not come as a surprise, but why was the twisted eugenicist not only allowed to continue his evil experiments but encouraged to do so? And what has that got to do with a respected neurologist in 2027? Surely the invention of a cure for nearly all the world's ailments can't possibly have its roots buried in the horrors of Auschwitz? The unacceptable is about to become the disturbingly bizarre. What has the treatment's 'correction' of paedophiles got to do with the President of the United States, the Pope and even the UK's Green Party? Full review...

Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds

4star.jpg Science Fiction

When hundreds of worlds have been at war for a long time, the announcement of a ceasefire takes a while to reach everyone. It's perhaps not surprising that the worst of the soldiers using the war as an excuse for crimes, don't immediately give up. Scur, a conscript who has just been given the hope of returning to her family, has the misfortune to run into one of these war criminals before the peacekeepers arrive. He leaves her to die, but she subsequently wakes up from hibernation on a prison ship, only to discover that he is there too. And that's the least of her worries. Full review...

Condition: Book One - A Medical Miracle? by Alec Birri

5star.jpg Thrillers

It's 1966, but RAF Pilot Dan Stewart isn't celebrating England's win in the World Cup – instead he's awakening from a coma following an aircraft accident. Waking in a world where nothing makes sense, he's unable to recall the crash – but struggles to remember the rest of his life…And what's stopping him from taking his medication? Is it brain damage causing paranoia about the red pill, or is he right to think there's something more sinister going on…And, having suffered almost 100% burns, how is he alive? Are his hallucinations trying to tell him something? Full review...

The Things We Learn When We're Dead by Charlie Laidlaw

5star.jpg General Fiction

On the way to a dinner party, Lorna Love steps into the path of an oncoming car. Waking up in what appears to be a hospital, but a hospital in which wine is served for supper, everyone avoids her questions, and her nurse looks suspiciously like Sean Connery, it soon transpires that Lorna is in Heaven, or, at least, on HVN. Because HVN is a lost, dysfunctional spaceship, and God the aging hippy captain. At first Lorna can remember nothing, but as her memories return – some good, some bad, she realises that she has a decision to make, and that maybe, she needs to find a way home… Full review...

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