In previous novels of the Inverted Frontier series (Edges, Silver and Needle), Linda Nagata often posed the question of what it took to retain humanity in the face of alien power. In Blade Inverted Frontier 4 (out of a projected 5 volume series) she confronts as never before the potential of human destructiveness. Is it […]
The Last Gifts of the Universe by Rory August
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 […]
Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse by S.B. Divya
Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse and other Possible Situations by S.B. Divya, author of Machinehood and Meru, is a deeply interesting collection of fourteen stories, many quite short, all of them posing life-changing choices for each central character. The prose is supple, ranging from lushly sensuous description to stripped down action. The author perfectly matches […]
Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee
Fonda Lee has turned in a bravura performance in the new novella, Untethered Sky. Set in a vividly imagined desert kingdom of Dartha, a young woman named Ester narrates the story of how she came to devote her life to raising and flying giant hunter birds called rocs. From an early age, when her brother […]
Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds
Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds is a key book of short stories for understanding many aspects of the Revelation Space universe. The novels and stories within that universe follow human settlement of many star systems over several centuries. In the course of this future history, humans adapt in many ways, especially through the use of […]
Bliss Montage by Ling Ma
One of the things that makes Ling Ma’s stories in Bliss Montage so extraordinary is her ability to blend keen perceptions of human relationships with fantasy elements that somehow make the fantastic an intimate part of ordinary life. There is the house in “LA” the narrator shares with a hundred ex-boyfriends, the pickup date in […]
