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 […]
Breathing new life into the stories of Ray Bradbury
2015-06-12 · by ·
While many consider Ray Bradbury a pioneer in science fiction writing, the author considered himself an observer of life. “All my life,” he said in an interview, “I’ve been running through the fields and picking up bright objects. I turn it over and say, ‘Hey, there’s a story.’” It’s this ability to present very real […]
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: 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 […]
2015 Hugo Nominee: The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale by Rajnar Vajra
2015-04-19 · by ·
Every time I let my subscription to Analog expire, like I did in the middle of last year, a story from the periodical gets nominated for an award and I end up kicking myself. Rajnar Vajra’s The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale is one such story. Nominated for the 2015 Hugo in the novelette […]
2015 Hugo Nominee: Flow by Arlan Andrews, Sr.
2015-04-12 · by ·
Arlan Andrews’ “Flow” was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella (a story with a word count between 17,500 words and 40,000 words). “Flow” was originally published in the November issue of Analog and has since been posted on Analog’s site (here). This review is part of my effort to read and evaluate the 2015 Hugo […]
2015 Hugo Nominee | Totaled by Kary English
2015-04-06 · by ·
The Hugo nominees were announced last Saturday, and Totaled by Kary English was among the nominees for Best Short Story. I try to read and review as many of the nominees as possible, and since a quick Google search led me to English’s short story on Wattpad, Totaled became my first post-nominee announcement read (I’ve already […]
There aren’t enough scoundrels in your life: Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn
2015-04-03 · by ·
If, like Princess Leia, there aren’t enough scoundrels in your life, then Timothy Zahn’s heist novel Star Wars: Scoundrels might be for you. I’m a sucker for Star Wars, but after gobbling up The Thrawn Trilogy as a teenager, I somehow lost track of Star Wars fiction. I don’t know if it was disappointment with the […]
Author Guest Post | The Simulations by John Forelli
2015-03-16 · by ·
We’ve all asked ourselves the question before: “is this really happening?” We ask it after something bad happens—a death in the family, a car accident, a ‘D’ on the midterm you studied super hard for. We ask it after something good happens too—graduating high school, your favorite team winning the championship, running into an old […]
