Sci-Fi
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I don’t often read YA fiction because of all the adult fiction I haven’t read yet. Last year I accidentally read some and wasn’t sure how to judge it. I couldn’t decide whether it was rubbish because it wasn’t well written or it was rubbish because my expectations were inappropriate for YA fiction. I didn’t…
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The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks is the first of his science fiction novels that I read. At the end of last year I read two of his more recent ones that I was blown away by and wished I could nominate them for my book club. I couldn’t because we have a…
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Tiger of Talmare by Nina Scott is a novella that I stumbled across while I was browsing Amazon for contemporary science fiction written by women. Mel is a space pirate who has been hired to hijack a spaceship carrying the cryogenically frozen Zach to be tried for a massacre on Talmare. Zach is a tiger-human…
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The Hidden Empire by Kevin J. Anderson is the first book in The Saga of Seven Suns series which runs to seven books. It’s a meaty space opera of around 660 pages. A nice substantial book to really get my teeth into. In theory. Humanity expanded out into the universe in generation ships. They encountered…
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Line of Polity is the second in the Ian Cormac series by Neal Asher, which is sci-fi spy thriller, basically James Bond in space. A rogue scientist is experimenting with ancient alien technology far more advanced than that of the Polity, and his intention is to use that technology to make himself all-powerful. The outlink…
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Continuing on with wrapping up the last few book reviews for the 100 books in 2011 challenge we have Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks. Lededje Ybreq is an indentured servant who is killed by her owner. She is revived on board a Culture ship, courtesy of a neural lace given to her by a…
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Winter Song by Colin Harvey is the third book I’ve read from small press Angry Robot. As I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of them and have paid for none of them (they’ve all been freebies from conferences or joining the British Fantasy Society), I’m feeling a bit uneasy. I think I might have to make a…
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All the Windwracked Stars by Elizabeth Bear is a bit genre-busting. It is heavily grounded in Norse mythology with liberal sprinklings of sci-fi, steampunk and high fantasy. After Ragnarok, of which there are and will be many, one Valkyrie survives because she ran away. Her name is Muire. When she comes back after the battle,…
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Gridlinked by Neal Asher is essentially James Bond in a space opera setting. Ian Cormac has been an agent for Earth Central Services for thirty years and has been linked to the AIs that govern the Polity for all of that time. His latest mission involves coming off the grid and learning to problem solve like…
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Aces High is the second in a shared world series edited by George R. R. Martin. It’s alternate history sci-fi which takes the 1950s as its jumping off point and postulates that a virus outbreak creates mutated humans. Some get superpowe rs and others get physical and mental disfigurements. The first book deals with people coping…
Boudica Marginalia 