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The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar

By John Folk-Williams

The Circumference of the World

The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tidhar is even grander in scope than its title at first suggests. Like many Tidhar novels, it is uniquely brilliant, but this one draws together in its luminous writing many perspectives that take some time to sort out. There is a young woman from Vanuatu, a mathematician in […]

Filed Under: SciFi Mystery-Thriller Tagged With: alien life forms, imagination, Lavie Tidhar, religion, seeing and unseeing, universe

The Last Gifts of the Universe by Rory August

By John Folk-Williams

The Last Gifts of the Universe

The Last Gifts of the Universe by Rory August is the winner of the second Self Published Science Fiction Competition, and it’s easy to see why it came out ahead of the hundreds of other novels. But before I get into my review, I’d like to say how grateful I am that SPSFC exists. Without […]

Filed Under: Indie SciFi, Space Opera Tagged With: adventure, alien civilizations, alien life forms, family, loss, love, spaceships

Ethera Grave by Essa Hansen (Part 3 of The Graven Trilogy)

By John Folk-Williams

Ethera Grave by Essa Hansen

Essa Hansen’s Ethera Grave may be the conclusion of her Graven trilogy (following Nophek Gloss and Azura Ghost), but it does far more than bring to an exciting and powerful conclusion a complex story. The novel expands its multiverse in dazzling ways and probes numerous questions of moral choice, diversity, transformation, time, the power of […]

Filed Under: Great Series Read Project, Space Opera Tagged With: alien life forms, consciousness, diversity, Essa Hansen, family, multiverse, time, transcendence, transformation

Strange Encounters – 3 Science Books for SFF Readers

By John Folk-Williams

Under Alien Skies - Strange Encounters

Strange encounters with alien places and intelligences are the staple of science fiction and fantasy, yet it’s not only in fiction where these can be explored. Many recent popular science books look with great sensitivity and imagination at forms of intelligence on Earth that have been overlooked in the past and at the real environments, […]

Filed Under: Science and Related Books for SFF Readers Tagged With: alien life forms, black holes, consciousness, forests, galaxy, memory, octopus, Peter Wohlleben, Philip Plait, spaceships, Sy Montgomery

Translation State by Ann Leckie

By John Folk-Williams

Translation State by Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie has written a strange and compelling story in Translation State that is set in a part of her Imperial Radch universe different from what we know from the Ancillary novels. For all its trappings of space opera and bizarre species, it’s very much a captivating story about family, loneliness, friendship, and the need […]

Filed Under: SciFi Mystery-Thriller, Space Opera Tagged With: alien life forms, Ann Leckie, family, friendship, gender, human, politics, self-worth

Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky

By John Folk-Williams

Lords of Uncreation

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Lords of Uncreation is the third and final volume of the Final Architecture series, including Shards of Earth and Eyes of the Void. What draws me most to this series are the amazing descriptions of the encounters of the Intermediary Idris Telemmier with the creatures of unspace, a level of space beneath the […]

Filed Under: Space Opera Tagged With: Adrian Tchaikovsky, alien life forms, altered minds, multiple worlds, power, spaceships, universe, war

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Something is struggling to be born in this damaged and inspiring world, and I believe science fiction and its speculative cousins are helping us figure out what it is. It’s pushing the imaginations of fiction writers to bend and twist familiar forms to try to capture the forces that are hurling us into a barely conceivable future. This blog is my small way of exploring the half-perceived … Read More about About

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