Ray Nayler’s haunting novel, Where the Axe Is Buried, draws us into a dystopian world governed in most countries by AIs, and in one Federation, by a single human mind successively incorporated into different bodies to achieve a kind of immortality. While some of the AI governed countries see themselves as free and the Federation […]
The Folded Sky (White Space Book 3) by Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear’s The Folded Sky, the third novel in her White Space series, tells a stand-alone story, full of grand space opera tropes, including Alcubierre-White drives that fold space for faster than light travel, space pirates, sentient ships, a diverse crew of “syster” species, and a star about to go nova. But it’s not just […]
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
In 1953 Alfred Bester won the first Hugo award for his novel, The Demolished Man. It’s easy to see why. This is a fast-paced story in an interesting world, written in tight prose and delivering a haunting climax. The Demolished Man is partly a police procedural but also a crime procedural, much like the story […]
Sleep Phase by Mohamed Kheir, Translated by Robin Moger
Mohamed Kheir’s Sleep Phase, beautifully translated by Robin Moger (who also translated Kheir’s story collection, Slipping) brought to mind related neurodivergent conditions that I once wrote about on my mental health blog, Storied Mind. To experience the world as derealized is the feeling that the world around you is not quite real or completely strange […]
The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older
Malka Older, activist, scholar, teacher, international humanitarian worker and author of The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses is one of my culture heroes for her ability to combine multiple activities, any one of which would constitute a demanding career for less gifted people. This is the third installment in her Mossa and Pleiti mystery series (the […]
Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s gripping novel Shroud reworks one of the oldest stories in the world of a hero lost in a hostile world and trying to get home. Facing the unknown, those who are cast adrift have to use every resource at their disposal and their own wits and training to survive. Of course, in Tchaikovsky’s […]
She Who Knows and One Way Witch by Nnedi Okorafor #Wyrd&Wonder
She Who Knows and One Way Witch are the first two novellas in Nnedi Okorafor’s She Who Knows trilogy. This series, in turn, is part of her larger Africanfuturist epic that reaches back 500 years to The Book of Phoenix. I’ve read three parts of Okorafor’s epic story. Who Fears Death is the story of […]
Lake of Darkness by Adam Roberts
Adam Roberts’ Lake of Darkness is an absorbing story of utopia and evil in a space opera drama that spans multiple worlds, all of which enjoy a post-scarcity civilization. It’s probably not for everyone, though, since it is heavy on philosophical talk and dense descriptions of the physics of black holes and faster than light […]
