Changes

I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to me but I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people I knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.}}{{Frontpage|author=Sylvie Cathrall|title=A Letter to the Luminous Deep|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.|isbn= 0356522776}}{{Frontpage|classisbn=1803816759|title=The Unravelling|author=Will Gibson|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary=It's 2038 and Joe is a bored cop policing the wealthy and peaceful New York City. Joe longs for a bit of adventure and to get stuck into some really gritty crime detection. But then something goes horribly wrong with the AI system that now runs everything, making life easier for many, and riots start to spread. Finally, Joe gets to do some real policing. In the aftermath of the rioting global pop star Suki is kidnapped and Joe is assigned to bring her home. Joe isn't the only one trying to save Suki -"wikitable" cellpaddingDylan, a British superfan and tech nerd, is also on the case. What went wrong? Did the system fail or was it hacked? And how is Suki's kidnapping connected?}}{{Frontpage|isbn=B0CP95J1CG|title=Of Ghosts & Broken Promises|author=Mark Lingane|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary= Ronan's not entirely sure why he decides to go to the party but his interest is piqued by the way it arrived. And it seems like a good opportunity to get out of his room and away from the online activities he makes a living at. So he makes his way there, dodging the buses that make up most of the traffic and watching the local energy storage indicator lights. Should be enough power. Hopefully.}}{{Frontpage|author="K P O'Donnell|title=The Vital Link (A Spark in the Ashes)|rating=3.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=VL-15" <!, a prototype robot, is desperate to understand who she is. Unfortunately, before she could find any answers, the world ended, consumed in an apocalyptic war between the nations of Drexel and Renada. Over half-a- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HEREcentury later, civilisation is starting to rebuild. Dr Amelia Wong is determined to continue her father's legacy, building a world where machines and humans can live together in harmony, but internal frictions and external enemies might bring it all crashing down again. Craig Anderson, leader of a group of salvagers called the Exhumers, has his entire life turned upside down when he unearths a prototype combat robot: none other than VL-->15 herself. Even after being buried for 65 years, her determination hasn't diminished in the slightest, and no errant machine, no savage human tribe and not even Drexel's ravaged ecosystem will stop her on her quest for answers…|isbn=B0CKRYFRZM}}{{Frontpage|author=Emily Tesh|title=Some Desperate Glory|rating=4.5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''While Earth's children live, the enemy shall fear us''

<!-- Reynolds -->Following the destruction of the Earth, amongst a rare number of survivors, Kyr has been raised on Gaea Station – the home of the last scraps of humanity – and trained relentlessly to avenge her people and the world that should have been hers. All her life, she has been conditioned to fall in line, to fulfil her duty and ensure that humanity perseveres.|isbn=0356521834}}{{Frontpage|-author=M R Carey| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Infinity Gate|rating=5[[image:Reynolds_Fire.jpg|leftgenre=Science Fiction|linksummary=httpI'm annoyingly picky when it comes to science fiction. Not because it's a genre I dislike – nothing of the sort. My standards are high precisely because it's a hard genre to get right – and when it's bad, it's often terrible. But the premise of Infinity Gate had me hooked. A concept this intriguing felt like a high-stakes gamble://wwwif it was done well, it'd be fantastic.amazonSo this is where I sum up that premise.co.uk/dp/0575090588/ref|isbn=0356518043}}{{Frontpage|author= Michael Grothaus|title=Beautiful Shining People|rating=4|genre=nosim?tagLiterary Fiction|summary=thebookbag-21]]''But fearing something and having it come to pass are two different things. And I'm willing to bet most of what we fear will never happen, or we can take steps to change it.''

| style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds]]=== [[image:5starI've got a couple of confessions to make.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Crime|Crime]] What happens when Utopia is achieved? When everyone is linked neurologically I'm not keen on short stories as I find it easy to read a few stories and then forget to return to the book. There's got to everyone else and people vote on each minor decision so every aspect of life is truly democratic? Everyone knows everything and everyone decides everything so what can possibly go wrong? Except people are dying, melting be a very compelling hook to be precise, and no one knows how, or why, or who could be nextkeep me engaged. Then there's science fiction: far too often it's the technology which takes centre stage along with the world-building. In such a circumstance It's human beings who can be trusted to solve this crime fascinate me: the technology and do so without spreading panic? What if the only people who can be trusted have already let you down once beforeworld scape are purely incidental. So, what did I think of a book of twenty-two science fiction short stories? [[Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds|Full Review]] Well, I loved it. }}<!-- Quine -->{{Frontpage|-author=Mark Lingane| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Galaxy|rating=4[[image:Quine Beasts.jpg|left|linkgenre=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992754941/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]] Science Fiction| stylesummary="verticalSpark, who is an elite pilot with the Space Academy, barely makes it through a battle alive. His co-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[The Beasts of Electra Drive by Rohan Quine]]=== [[image:3pilot was not so fortunate. Waking from a coma that lasted years, he remembers little and is in no physical shape to resume his duties.5starBut Earth is under threat and he must.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]]Returned by his superiors to the space station, [[:Category:Fantasy|Fantasy]] Meet Jaymi. He's a worldhe finds himself amid a last ditch attempt to save humanity -class video games designer, and fresh to a new mansion in not just from the Hollywood Hills on the basis of some recent successalien threats against it, but also from its own sins against itself. But he's seen |isbn=B09X3NZ76W}}{{Frontpage|author=Tade Thompson|title=Far From the future and he doesn't like itLight of Heaven|rating=4. His current employers, able to bring any amount 5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=Michelle 'Shell' Campion is fulfilling her lifelong dream of class, skill and culture going to space. As first officer aboard the world of gameplaysleeper ship Ragtime, are beset on appealing to bound for the most lunkheaded and lowest common denominators instead. Indeedworld of Bloodroot, their next big thing she will change the world essentially be a babysitter for the worse – it will be a massively disturbing environmentship's AI captain. However, where people progress through the world when she wakes up at the end of her trip to find dozens of the entity by spreading fake news about anyone her passengers butchered and everyone else on the planet, whether theyRagtime're playing along or nots AI almost non-responsive, and by getting kind of prestige points she begins to realise that her first mission won't be going as smoothly as she hoped it would. Down on spoiling and shaming anything beyond a user-accepted, algorithm-designed, status quo. With a much more Reithian approach, Jaymi goes freelanceBloodroot, disgraced investigator Rasheed Fin and sets his android partner Salvo are sent up a way to discover exactly what went wrong on the Ragtime. Meanwhile, former astronaut and friend of restoring the balance with Shell's father Lawrence Biz takes a launch of his ownshuttle to Bloodroot, where aspects of his more humanitarian mind are played out by avatars of him half-alien daughter in the game. He sees this as a way tow, to improve society and get his own back – but see why the chance of getting revenge more quickly comes about when those avatars leave their encoded backgroundRagtime has gone quiet, leaving behind the politicking and become fully playable characters in reality… [[The Beasts bureaucracy of Electra Drive by Rohan QuineSpace Station Lagos. What the five of them discover on the Ragtime has ramifications not just for Bloodroot, but potentially the entirety of human space…|Full Review]]isbn=0356514323}}<!-- Doescher -->{{Frontpage|-author=Claire North| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Notes from the Burning Age|rating=4[[image:Doescher_Will.jpg|leftgenre=Science Fiction|linksummary=https://www.amazon.coAt its core ''Notes From the Burning Age'' by Claire North is a spy thriller, with as many double crosses, interrogations and night time escapes as Le Carre or Fleming.uk/gp/product/159474985X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=159474985X]]  | style="verticalHowever, as with the best novels, it wears many masks and its most affecting one is that of a new and timely genre, cli-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[William Shakespearefi, or climate change fiction. North's novel tells of a world devastated by climate change where humans have been forced to start anew and live alongside nature without any of the Force Doth Awakenmodern and corrupting "luxuries" (read: Star Wars Part fossil fuels, weapons of mass destruction, intensive farming). There is a growing unhappiness with this limiting world, and one group, the Seventh by Ian Doescher]]==Brotherhood, aims to master these processes no matter the cost to the Earth.|isbn=0356514757}}[[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science FictionFrontpage|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humourauthor= Adrian Tchaikovsky|Humour]]title= Shards of Earth|rating= 4A long time |genre= Science Fiction|summary= Eighty years ago, in a galaxy far away, there Earth was a man called William Shakespearedestroyed, who was able warped into an unrecognisable shape by the moon-sized aliens known as the Architects. Humanity is scattered, constantly fleeing as world after world falls to create a series of dramatic histories full of machinations most foulthe architect's reshaping. Then, rulers most evil and rebellious heroes and heroines most sturdyjust when they had the human race on the run, the Architects vanished. You may or may not have noticed And so, the cinematic version memories of his original stage play for ''The Force Doth Awaken''the war fades, but here at last we get the actual scriptheroes are forgotten, complete with annoying-in-different-ways-and humanity begins to-before droids anew, returning heroes from elsewhere in his oeuvrefracture and fight among themselves. Idris Telemmier, a man genetically engineered to try and people keeping it in communicate with the family til it hurtsArchitects, does not want to be remembered. And if you need further encouragementBut, don't forget his audience only demanded three parts when he and the crew of Henry VI – here the series is so popular we're on salvage ship he calls home discover what appears to part seven – surely making this over twice as good… [[William Shakespeare's be recent Architect activity, suddenly he is thrust back into the Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh by Ian Doescher|Full Review]]spotlight. As he and his allies bounce from star system to star system, chased by alien crime syndicates, human secret police and rich slavers, he slowly begins to realise that the real war is only just getting started…|isbn=1529051886<!-- Brookmyre -->}}{{Frontpage|-author=Terry Miles| styletitle="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"Rabbits|rating=4.5[[image:Brookmyre_Places.jpg|leftgenre=Science Fiction|linksummary=https://wwwWelcome to the world of The Game.amazonOr should that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book.co.uk/gp/product/035650624X?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=035650624X]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Places in It's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre]]=== [[image:4staraverage person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Living in 2017 has me longing to live in some sort Yes, this is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of futuristic Utopiathe conspiracy, the computer game, in a world of free thinking and no major crime. Perhaps in a Space Station high above the Earth were hack from the greatest minds have travelled so that they can build a vessel that will send the next generations darkest of humans to populate new planetswebs. You know People like our hero, K, named like that as soon as you arrive it will in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the same old problems. You can't really game, and have a Utopia with people in itstudied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, can you? [[Places for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre|Full Review]] <!-- Curtis -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Curtis_Watermost peculiar places, and are still very short.jpg|left|link=https://wwwHowever this time it's different.amazonThis time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise.co.uk/gp/product/0995465754?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0995465754]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Water & Glass by Abi Curtis]]=== [[image:5star.jpgUnfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed...|linkisbn=Category:1529016932}}{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:General FictionFrontpage|author=C J Carey|title=Widowland|rating=4|genre=General Fiction]], [[:Category:Dystopian Fiction|Dystopian Fiction]]summary=It's April 1953, [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]] Something has happenedand Adolf Hitler's schedule includes going to Moscow to attend the state funeral of Joseph Stalin then within weeks coming to London, parading around a bit, something very nasty and on a submarine a pregnant elephant is one watching over the sanctioned return to the throne of only a handful of animals living below the wavesEdward VIII with his wife, Queen Wallis. We follow Nerissa Crane, a vet For yes, Britain caved in the lead-up to the World War Two that certainly didn't happen as she remembers recent eventswe know it, looks after the animals and falls into we are now a world protectorate – well, we share enough of intriguethe same blood as the Germanic peoples on ''the mainland''. It But this is difficult to properly review this book without giving too much away. There will be mild spoilers throughout this right most certainly a different Britain, for Nazi-styled phrenology, and ideas of female purpose, has put all of that gender into a caste system, ranging from high-brow office bigwigs to the start but I will try drudges, and beyond those, right on down to avoid the main oneschildless, the husbandless and the widows. Female literacy is actively discouraged. [[Water & Glass by Abi Curtis|Full Review]] <!-- Dick -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Dick_Electric.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co And in this puritanical existence, our heroine, Rose Ransom, is employed with the task of bowdlerising classical literature to take all encouragement for female emancipation out of it – after all, not every book can be banned, and not every story excised immediately from British civilisation, and so they just get a hefty tweak towards the party line before they're stamped ready for reprint.uk/gp/product/1473223288?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1473223288]] ===[[Philip K Dick That is her job, at least, until the first emerging signs of female protest come to light, with their potential to spoil Hitler's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick]]==visit.|isbn=152941198X  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|[[image:3star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Short Stories|Short Stories]] 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. [[Philip K Dick's Electric Dreams by Philip K Dick|Full Review]] <!-- Goss -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Goss_600.jpg|left|link=https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1785942719?ie=UTF8&tag=thebookbag-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1785942719]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Children's Rhymes and Verse|Children's Rhymes and Verse]], [[:Category:Science Fiction|Science Fiction]], [[:Category:Humour|Humour]] 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. [[Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies|Full Review]] <!-- Mann -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mann_Ghosts.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1783294183/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Ghosts of Empire by George Mann]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|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? [[Ghosts of Empire by George Mann|Full Review]] <!-- Weir -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Weir_Artemis.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0091956943/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Artemis by Andy Weir]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|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. [[Artemis by Andy Weir|Full Review]] <!-- Stuart -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Stuart_Name.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1540504506/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[My Name is Sam by Wes Stuart]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|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… [[My Name is Sam by Wes Stuart|Full Review]] <!-- Cargill -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Cargill_Sea.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473212782/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Sea of Rust by C Robert Cargill]]=== [[image:4.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|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. [[Sea of Rust by C Robert Cargill|Full Review]] <!-- McAuley -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Mcauley_Austral.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473217318/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Austral by Paul McAuley]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|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. [[Austral by Paul McAuley|Full Review]] <!-- Arnold -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Arnold_Hunted.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1785891855/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Hunted by Geoffrey Arnold]]=== [[image:4star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|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... [[Hunted by Geoffrey Arnold|Full Review]] <!-- Suarez -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Suarez_Change.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/110198466X/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Change Agent by Daniel Suarez]]=== [[image:3.5star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|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. [[Change Agent by Daniel Suarez|Full Review]] <!-- Baxter -->|-| style="width: 10%; vertical-align: top; text-align: center;"|[[image:Baxter_Xeelee.jpg|link=http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1473217172/ref=nosim?tag=thebookbag-21]]  | style="vertical-align: top; text-align: left;"|===[[Xeelee: Vengeance by Stephen Baxter]]=== [[image:2star.jpg|link=Category:{{{rating}}} Star Reviews]] [[:Category:Science Fiction|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. [[Xeelee: Vengeance by Stephen Baxter|Full Review]]  <!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE --> |}}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Daniel GodfreyEverina Maxwell|title=Empire of Time (New Pompeii)Winter's Orbit

|summary=Warning: Spoilers for [[New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey|Book 1]] from Prince Kiem is a famous political disappointment. He's outgoing, carefree, and has gotten into many drunken scandals over the beginningpast few years.The experiment So when an important political alliance is to study Ancient Romans by transporting them through time be arranged – one that is supposed to a new Pompeii just before the disaster hits the old prevent an interplanetary war – no one sounded great in theory. The practice has been going on expects him to be chosen 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 dreamtrole. Since he arrived, he's watched the Romans kill the inventors Least of the machine that saved them. Nick, or Decimus Horatius Pullus to give all 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.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785653156</amazonuk>0356515885

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Cixin LiuRob Winters|title=The Wandering EarthHis Name Was Wren|rating= 54|genre= Science FictionConfident Readers|summary= If anyone thought that the short story as a form had been relegated to In September 1944 something came down in Oban Woods, near the pages village of women's magazines (no disrespect) – think againHurstwick. One genre that has always been a stalwart supporter and encourager It came down hard, taking the spire of the short form is Sci-fi. village church with it, destroying a stone shack, So when you pick up and leaving a collection wide trail through the wood, but no trace of Sci-fi shorts, you know that what it will have just as much depth and thought-provoking philosophy as any similar novelactually was. Add to that German secret weapon was 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 local gossip, but there should have been an author who is not only explosion and a best-seller in his home country but has the distinction crater, and there were neither of having produced the first translated work of SF ever to win the Hugo Award…this has got to be good!those things.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1784978493</amazonuk>B08KGVNVNB

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Jack CampbellMark Lingane|title= The Genesis FleetNote to Self: VanguardAn Education|rating=4|genre=Science Fiction|summary= In Kry's world, the discovery that human cells replace themselves every seven years results in a cascade of medical "advances": in 2030 it's found that radiation can return cells back to their regeneration state seven years before, in 2035 it's possible to cure cancerous tumours but with the side effect of erasing seven years of memory, by 2045 the cosmetics industry is using the same technique to "de-age" their customers by seven years. In a society obsessed with image and youth, who needs memories?|isbn=B08LY8J4KS}} {{Frontpage|author= Christopher Paolini|title= To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

|summary=The On the moon of a distant gas giant, Xenobiologist Kira Navárez is helping with the efforts to make the planet habitable to human adventure continues! As humanity spreads to life. However, a discovery of an ancient alien bunker under the stars it takes moon's surface leaves her bonded with it both a strange alien entity. After the best entity bonded to her loses control and kills half the worst examples staff of itselfthe research station, the United Military Command cruiser Extenuating Circumstances arrives in the system to take Kira in for examination. Things go from bad to worse when the Extenuating Circumstances is attacked and destroyed by an alien ship, and she has to flee to the 61 Cygnus star system. The isolation She is revived aboard the freighter Wallfish, crewed by Captain Falconi and edginess of a Spaghetti Western meets hard Scirag-Fi in this tale tag bunch of far-flung colonies misfits, and bullying neighboursthe news is grim. We follow our protagonists, each failures in their own careers (crisis management, The same aliens that destroyed the Extenuating Circumstances are now wreaking havoc across all of human-occupied space navy, politics and marines) only a mythical weapon known as they become heroesthe Staff of Blue can stop them.As the death toll climbs and more players are introduced into this war, Kira slowly begins to realise that she may have had a greater hand in the conflict than she could've possibly imagined…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1785650408</amazonuk>1529046505

{{newreviewFrontpage|author= Anne CorlettLaura Lam and Elizabeth May|title= The Space Between The StarsSeven Devils

|summary= Jamie Allenby wakesEris is one of the foremost operatives of the Novantae, alonea resistance movement fighting against the ruthlessly expansionist Tholosian Empire – an Empire she was destined to inherit in her past life as Princess Discordia, and realises her fever whom everyone believed has brokenbeen dead for years. But could everyone she knows be dead? Months earlierClo, Jamie had left her partner Danielan ace pilot for the Novantae, mourning has a mission: hijack a Tholosian spacecraft to gather information vital to the miscarriage of their babywar effort. SheAlthough she'd just had s less than pleased to discover that her former friend Eris is her partner on this mission. Things get away, so took more interesting as the mission commences; aboard the ship are three defectors with a job on a distant planetsecret that could potentially cripple the Empire. Then Eris's brother Damocles, the virus hit. Jamie survived as it swept through our farrunner-flung colonies. Now she feels desperate and isolatedup heir to the Empire, 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 plotting to return. She meets others seeking Earth, disrupt peace talks between Tholos and their ill-matched group will travel across space to achieve their dreamthe last of the free alien species. But they'll clash with survivors intent on repeating humanityIt's past mistakes, threatening their precious fresh start. Jamie will also get a second chance at happiness. But can she escape her troubled past, race against time as the rebels move to embrace put a hopeful future?stop Damocles' plans, with millions of lives hanging in the balance…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1509833528</amazonuk>1473231140