Paperback: 376 pages Publisher: Night Shade Books; First Edition edition (January 3, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 1597803901 Official Description: Moby Dick meets Duel in John Love”s debut novel of Space Opera and Military Science Fiction! Faith is the name humanity has given to the unknown, seemingly invincible alien ship that has begun to harass the […]
Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Roc; Original edition (December 6, 2011) Language: English ISBN-10: 0451464311 Official Description: Matt Lowell is in hell-and there’s no place he’d rather be. At a training camp on the backwater planet of Earth, he and his fellow cadets are learning to ride Mechas: biomechanicals sporting both incredible grace and […]
Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers (February 7, 2012) Language: English ISBN-10: 1442420294 Available: February 7, 2012 Editor: John Joseph Adams Authors: Peter S. Beagle Jonathan Maberry Catherynne M. Valente Tobias S. Buckell Joe R. Lansdale Robin Wasserman Austin Grossman Garth Nix Celebrate 100 years of John Carter of Mars […]
Kafkaesque Adjective Marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity e.g. Kafkaesque bureaucracies. Marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger. In the manner of something written by Franz Kafka. There are precious few writers whose names have transcended their status as a proper noun. Dickens has become an adjective to […]
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card may possibly be the best novel I’ve ever read. That’s not a statement I make lightly. While my other favorites – Stranger in a Strange Land, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Death World – have all effected me in different ways, none has moved me as much as this […]
Captain Darian Frey has had some more reversals of fortune. Despite the encounter at Retribution Falls, keeping his beloved aerium fueled airship The Ketty Jay is serious business. His navigator is still weird and possibly inhuman, his daemonologist is still haunted by something he won’t talk about, his outrider fighter pilots are still a […]
“The book does prominently feature three of the foundational touchstones of all things steampunk: giant airships, brass computers, and kinky feminine underwear.” ~ Bruce Sterling, Afterword, The Difference Engine When I first delved into The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, I had no previous experience reading the work […]
Its late 19th Century Seattle. The gold rush of the Klondike a couple of decades earlier meant that the city was large and growing when inventor Leviticus Blue’s magnum opus due too greedily and too deep, releasing a gas that turns those who breathe it too deeply into the walking dead. Those bitten or injured […]
Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest, grabs the reader from page one and refuses to let go. The characters stand out, the setting is fantastic, and the situation dire. What better way to start a horror story? Set in the late 1800’s during the Civil War, the scientist Leviticus Blue invents an incredible drilling machine called […]
Dealing with the running of Heaven, the creation of a new Earth, and a literal administrative Hell has the newly deified Kate and Daniel both frazzled and emotionally drained in Earth, the third book of Mur Lafferty‘s Afterlife series. Despite their godly powers and knowledge, they lack the experience to handle their new […]
(Author’s Note: BEWARE: here there be spoilers!) “We tell the truth best by becoming lies.” – Avice Benner Cho To start this review, I need to make a brief confession: I have had Embassytown in my possession for a few months, and finished reading it weeks ago. But when I sat down to write my […]
Take a captain of a beat up old ship that sometimes can barely fly, but he loves it to death. He’s a veteran of a recent war, has no love for the Navy, and seeks freedom and profit, from trading between ports to a bit of light piracy and theft now and again. He […]
Galileo’s Dream, by author Kim Stanley Robinson, takes the reader on a time traveling adventure between the moons of Jupiter and the most famous cities of the Renaissance, between the political turmoil of the distant future to the inner turmoil of Galileo’s own mind. Our guides throughout the journey are a man named […]
A Review of Engineering Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan Jonathan Strahan is a freelance editor known for the wide variety of anthologies and author collections he has helped mold into shape. Ranging from collections of Jack Vance and Larry Niven to the New Space Opera to the Sword and Sorcery anthology Swords and […]
Hex, by Allen M. Steele, is the sixth book in his Coyote series, taking place a number of years after the original novel. It’s a fast, exciting read, but one that fails to live up to expectations. Humanity has been opened up to the stars via a network of gates and tentative connections with other […]
Do I dare disturb the universe? – (TS Elliot) quoted by The Mastermind Timecaster by Joe Kimball, a self described Eco-punk novel set in a green utopean future, promises all the thrills, violence, sex, and groin punches that you probably wouldn’t expect in that setting. It’s not short on humor either. In […]
The creature stalked forward, bent, its talon like hands flexing, and Burton saw that his first impression was accurate: the thing walked on two-foot-high stilts. Its lanky body was clad in a skintight white scaly suit that glittered in the dim light of the single guttering gas lamp. Something circular glowed on its […]
Cowboy Angels A novel by Paul McAuley Review by Paul Weimer “There are white-tailed deer and woodland caribou and mule deer. Wolves and black bears, and short-faced bears too-those are as big as grizzlies. A few panthers.” “Pretty good hunting in Manhattan” “We call the island New Amsterdam here…If you want to hunt something […]
In Starbound, Joe Haldeman tells the breathtaking tale of a select few who journey to save humanity from the Others – an enigmatic and possibly immortal race of beings. Humanity’s newly acquired space travel is seen as a possible threat by them – a threat they are unwilling to accept. Given the Others‘ superior technology, […]
Hellhole, a novel by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson Review by Paul Weimer “What is your opinion of this, Mr. Jenet?” Vincent drew a deep breath, gave his honest response. “I believe something amazing happened to him, General. Beyond that…I can’t say. Will it be worth the expense and effort to dig into the […]
Xombies: Apocalypso by Walter Greatshell begins after the world has already been infected by Agent X – killing and resurrecting almost the entire human race. The scientist Uri Miska created the formula in a desperate effort to save mankind from an impending world-wide disaster. Former humans, resurrected as xombies, can survive virtually anything. Death holds […]
New York Times Bestselling author, Alan Dean Foster, has written a science fiction mystery – The Human Blend. Two stories intertwine, the first about a thug and a doctor who team up to find out the contents of a high-tech silver thread, the second a story about two complete opposites that meet and grow as […]
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