It’s an intriguing and dangerous universe Edward M. Lerner’s Championship B’tok attempts to create. The Hugo nominated novelette opens on a universe that is shrunken and more interconnected than ours, complete with hostile alien races and interstellar computing networks connecting the disparate planets and races. The Snakes are a race that has been conquered after […]
2015 Hugo Nominee: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
2015-07-22 · by ·
When the Emperor and all of his sons die in a tragic accident, Maia becomes the unexpected heir to the throne Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor. The son of a political marriage, Maia is half goblin, half elf, but more his mother’s son than fathers, and so is more goblin than elf. After years living […]
2015 Campbell Award Nominee | Flight of the Kikayon by Kary English
2015-07-06 · by ·
I enjoyed Kary English’s short story Totaled, but Flight of the Kikayon is a tale that knocks it out of the park. English has been nominated for the Campbell for best new author, and I’m inclined to think she should get serious consideration for it. Flight of the Kikayon was a finalist for Writers of […]
2015 Campbell Nominee | Murder World: Kaiju Dawn by Jason Cordova and Eric S. Brown
2015-07-05 · by ·
I hope Murder World: Kaiju Dawn is the worst that Jason Cordova and Eric S. Brown write, because if this is their best, and Cordova is up for the Campbell Award for best new writer, science fiction is seriously hurting for good new authors. Honestly. I read it because Cordova was nominated for the Campbell Award, but […]
Book Review | Mormon Rivals: The Romneys, the Huntsmans and the Pursuit of Power by Matt Canham and Thomas Burr
2015-07-05 · by ·
Mormon Rivals: The Romneys, the Huntsmans and the Pursuit of Power is an engrossing political drama, an in-depth look at the lives, families, history of and connections between two of the biggest names in politics to come out of Mormon ranks in a generation. Authors Matt Canham and Thomas Burr are masters of their subject, […]
Book Review: Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #3, Witches #1)
2015-06-11 · by ·
What more can be possibly said about the late and great Terry Pratchett? I’ve yet to open a book bearing his name that I do not like, that does not amuse and delight, and does not leave me thoughtful and wiser. Well, wiser at least in my own estimation. I’m sure Pratchett would have something […]
2015 Hugo Nominee: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
2015-06-10 · by ·
Ancillary Sword is the second in Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch series and the sequel to Ancillary Justice (my review here). Picking up chronologically almost immediately after the events of that book, it follows Breq, the once ship, but now the last remaining ancillary of her ship, as she is given command of a ship and […]
Book Review: The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu (Tao, #1)
2015-05-20 · by ·
As I read The Lives of Tao, I started to get that sinking feeling that comes when you arrive at the party late. Most of the food and drink is gone, the entertainment is almost over, and people are starting to move on to the next thing…and you can tell it was a good time. […]
Book Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
2015-05-19 · by ·
For the longest time, I had no idea what to say about Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel. Not only does it defy description, but the description it does get is pretty accurate …and yet, so wrong. Here, for example, from the last paragraph of the Amazon description: “Spanning decades, moving back and forth in […]
Book Review: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
2015-05-18 · by ·
There’s something weirdly cool about the story Jeff VanderMeer tells in Annihilation, and like a bad accident on the highway, it’s impossible to look away. Weighing in at just under two hundred pages, the first in VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy reads like something between the Twilight Zone, Strange Tales, and Alien. It is the story of […]
