Prepare for a deep dive into the most intimate details of human-alien contact in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy. Step by step she takes you through the initial encounters between a human, Lilith Iyapo, and her Oankali captors (Dawn), the coming of age of a construct resulting from this union (Adulthood Rites) and the reconciliation […]
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany: Poet in Dystopia
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany seems to have many detractors as a work of science fiction but I find it a powerful portrait of a fractured mind, of a poet in dystopia, of a city broken the way its main narrator feels he might be breaking. Known mostly as the Kid, because he has forgotten […]
The Lost Solace Series by Karl Drinkwater: A Review
Karl Drinkwater starts off his Lost Solace series in a daring way. A deserter named Opal has stolen a ship with an experimental AI, which she names Clarissa, and sets off to a location in deep space. There she finds a mystery ship, a luxury liner abandoned and strangely altered. Could it be the one? […]
Comet Weather by Liz Williams: A Review
I guess I’m a bit late to join the Wyrd & Wonder group, but Liz Williams’ beautiful fantasy, Comet Weather, has won me over completely from my hard edged science fictional ways. Sad to think, I never would have known about Liz Williams, or discovered this latest novels of hers, if Alastair Reynolds hadn’t mentioned […]
The Book of Strange New Things: The Alien Language of Human Connection
There is a powerful moment in Michel Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things, when Peter Leigh, transported across light years to minister to a alien congregation on the planet Oasis, delivers a moving eulogy about a man he has hardly known. The scene captures Peter’s ability to get to the core of the life […]
Purpose and Redemption in the Embers of War Series by Gareth L. Powell
It’s no wonder that, in the vastness of space and amid the destruction of planets and whole populations, finding purpose and redemption for past misdeeds should preoccupy so many rootless characters in Gareth L. Powell’s Embers of War series. With his considerable talent Powell combines space opera action with these deeper shades of meaning. It’s […]
Red Desert Series by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli: A Review
Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli’s Red Desert four-part series reads like a single captivating novel with a fascinating character named Anna Persson at its core. She’s an exobiologist sent on a mission to colonize Mars, yet her impulsive, angry, headstrong nature breaks the psychological mold of an astronaut and plunges her into one difficult situation after […]
The Quantum Evolution by Derek Künsken: A Review
Derek Künsken’s series, The Quantum Evolution, so far consisting of two novels (The Quantum Magician and The Quantum Garden) is a brilliant space opera that probes the depths of a future human nature engineered to produce new subspecies. And they are wild, at times repulsive, at times capable of incredible breakthroughs in knowledge or massive […]
