It’s a bold idea for a debut novelist to choose the stories and legends of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar projected into a space opera. Bold, I think, because these were formidable people in life, and I’ve been disappointed too many times with thin fictional replicas of great historical figures. But Emery Robin’s The Stars Undying […]
Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I love a space adventure that lures me on with the promise of revealing the fundamental nature of a fictional universe, preferably through a dazzling experience that only the hero has earned the right to have. Well, no one can really explain the nature of everything, at least not very clearly, so far, but Adrian […]
Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi – A Review
Just as I was wending my way through various fantasy worlds, Goliath by Tochi Onyebuchi slammed me back into a near future that is just a little bit removed from the ugly realities of today. Onyebuchi’s novella Riot Baby may have been a great outcry of pain, told in powerful prose, but Goliath is a […]
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 […]
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 […]
Science Books for Science Fiction Readers
Science fiction has offered inspiration for many a scientific career, but the opposite is also true. Cutting edge science stimulates good fiction as well. Here are four science books for science fiction readers that provide the practical basis for visions of the near and far future. Each of them summarizes knowledge needed to think about […]
