Archives 1999
1999 was our very first year of reviewing the best fiction on the planet.
Mars Plus is the sequel to the science fiction classic Man Plus, by Frederik Pohl. Long awaited follow-up to the excellent novel Man Plus, takes place forty years after Man Plus - Mars has been settled, not only with Cyborgs (read the review of Man Plus), but also with normal people and...
Realtime Interrupt is a science fiction novel by James P Hogan. This book has a theme somewhat similar to Permutation City by Greg Egan - Again it's about VR and how far it can be taken. Hogan does a nice job of it, but I wasn't as fascinated by Realtime Interrupt as I was with Permutation...
The Cybernetic Walrus is a science fiction novel by the Jack L Chalker. On my version of this book the title contains the words Book One - which is, if you ask me, a good thing. All too often you have to read the fine print on the back of a book to find out that it's number one in a series -...
Slippery Jim diGriz, the future's master criminal tumed super-spy, is recruiting for an all-out interstellar war! Loathsome, mind sucking creatures from an unknown star are closing in on Earth. Once again it's up to the Stainless Steel Rat to save humanity. In a daring caper packed with action...
Orsinian Tales is a novel by the award winning author Ursula K Le Guin. This is not only the first non science fiction, but also the first short stories that I've read by Le Guin. Orsinian Tales is eleven stories and 215 pages of stories more alien to me than anything that I've read in a long...
First published in 1972, Rendezvous with Rama is set in the 22nd century, and the story involves a cylindrical thirty-mile-long alien starship that passes through Earth's solar system. This story is told from the perspective of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt...
Carrion Comfort is a Dan Simmons horror novel, best known for the Hyperion and Endymoin series. Except for the stories in Dark Visions this is the first horror by Dan Simmons that I've read. I'm not sure what kind of expectations I had for this book before I started on it, but I can't say that...
This Frank Herbert fella wrote the book Dune which was a semi sleeper for me as it walked around this barren planet with some aristocracy stuff going on, got to try to read it again maybe I'm missing something? This other "WHIPPING STAR" is swell though. Frank's little obtuse and abstract words...
The first Pratchett book that I've read in a long time. I kind of overdosed on Pratchett a few years ago and haven't read anything of his for a while. As it often is with Pratchett's books, they are rather hard to describe or even retell – it's very easy to fail miserably to convey just what...
So Bright The Vision is a short story collection by the award winning author Clifford D Simak. A small collection of four stories written in the late fifties: The Golden Bugs Are they bugs or are they aliens? And why are they cleaning house? Leg. Forst. Collecting stamps is a whole other ball...
The Bohr Maker is a science fiction novel by the writer Linda Nagata. This is the first book that I have read by Linda Nagata and I'm not quite sure what I feel about it. The basis for the book is interesting enough - it takes place in a world where nanomachines, bio-engineering and...
Hyperion is a science fiction novel by the author Dan Simmons. This is the first book that I've read by Dan Simmons, but definitely not the last - actually I've already started on the sequel. Hyperion is the tale of a bunch of pilgrims, on their way to the Time Tombs on remote planet...
Ghost Story is a tale of horror by Peter Straub. It's hard to review this book without talking about the Chowder Society as most of the story centres around this group of old men and their acquaintances. As we meet the Chowder Society, they are a bunch of old guys who meet every couple of weeks...
One of the newer books in the (never-ending) Discworld saga. I'm finding it extremely hard to say anything interesting about this book – not because it's bad, but it's a Discworld novel and …well that's it. It's no worse and no better than all the other Discworld novels. Pratchett is funny,...
The Mote In God's Eye is a classic science fiction novel by Larry Niven with Jerry Pournelle. I not sure how I have managed to put off reading this classic for so long - but better late than never. The Mote takes place in 3017 when the human empire makes its first contact with an alien...
Deception Well is a science fiction novel by Linda Nagata. In this, the third book from this new master, Linda Nagata takes us to the far future and away from earth - paradoxically the characters in this book aren't quite as strange as the characters in her first two books (The Bohr Maker and...
This is the first Ben Bova that I've read in a long time. Chet Kinsman will do just about anything to get into space, and luckily for him he gets to go to space with the space marines. He's not so lucky when he gets grounded after a "small" accident. He's lucky again when NASA lets him go to...
The Turing Option is a science fiction novel by Harry Harrison. I have always enjoyed Harry Harrison's stories - he knows how to write a fast paced and interesting story, but what I know him best for is his space opera stories (The Stainless Steel Rat, Bill The Galactic Hero and the Deathworld...
I feel kind of ambiguous about this book – one thing is certain it will never be my banks favourite, but on the other hand it's a must read if you are interested in the Culture.
First of all I found it hard to follow, all too often I found myself in doubt as to who was who (or maybe...
The Song of the Swan is a science fiction novel by Arthur D'Alembert. Normally I don't comment on the finish of a book or the price of the book that I'm reviewing. Normally there's no reason to. The Song of the Swan is different. First of all it mainly published in electronic form as an Acrobat...
The Twilight of Briareus is a science fiction novel by Richard Cowper. Getting bad weather as after-effects of a nearby supernova, seems quite reasonable, but the people of earth are in for a lot more that they had expected. Humanity wakes up on the brink of a new ice age and is forced to...
Quarantine is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. Yet another book, by an author that I have never read anything by before, but with Greg Egan I have a good excuse: He's a fairly new writer - On third page of the book there's a Books by Greg Egan and all it says is...
A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post apocalyptic science fiction novel by Walter M Miller. It is a strange story of a post apocalyptic monastery, which tries to save information about the time before the great destruction. The idea is good enough, but I can't say that I like what Miller has done...
Above our planet hangs a hollow stone, vast as the imagination of Man. The inner dimensions are at odds with the outer: there are different chambers to be breached, some containing deserted cities; the furthest chamber contains the greatest mystery ever to confront the Stones scientists... But...
Vast is a science fiction novel by Linda Nagata. Taking off where Deception Well ends, this book tells the story of Lot and friends as they fly around in the good ship Null Boundary. They are of to find the truth about the Chenzeme, the strange robot starcrafts/alien race that is trying to...
A Fire Upon the Deep is a science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge.
This is the first book, by Vinge that I've read and it couldn't have started much worse than it did or end much better. aFud starts off with a family crash-landing their space ship on an uncharted planet, the parents get...
Mystery is a horror novel by Peter Straub. This is the first book by Peter Straub that I have read. I have seen his name mentioned in the alt.books.stephen-king newsgroup a few times and when I found this book at the library, I thought "why not?". The About the Author thing on one of the last...
Ringworld is a science fiction novel by the award winning author Larry Niven. I'm sure that I have already read this book once a long time ago - probably about ten to twelve years ago, and that was probably in danish - anyway I had forgotten most of the important stuff and everything that...
Timelike Infinity is a science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter. Having read Baxter's The Timeships I had quite high expectations for this book, maybe too high, because I found Timelike Infinity to be rather disappointing. In the first two thirds of the book nothing really happens and when I...
The Moat around Murcheson's eye is the sequel to the scifi classic The Mote in God's eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. (Released as "The Gripping Hand" in the US) The Gripping Hand is the sequel to The Mote In God's Eye and as that I think that it's utterly uninteresting for people...
In 3001, the human race has, unbelievably, survived, living in fear of the trio of monoliths that dominate the solar system. Then a small hope flickers to life. The body of Frank Poole, thought dead for a thousand years, is recovered from the deep frozen reaches of the galaxy. Restored to...
Orion is a time travel science fiction novel by Ben Bova. The idea is so neat, that this easily could have been one of my all time favourites. It's not, but I'll get back to that. Two warriors Orion, The Hunter, and Ahriman, The Dark One, travel from each end of time and meet at important...
The Player of games is a Culture series novel by the noted author Iain M Banks.
I've been looking for Player of Games (PoG) for quite some time now (it has been out of print for some years) but finally I got lucky and found it in Gatwick Airport - So the big question for me was...
Distress is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. Once again Egan grabs an idea and takes it to the limit, this time to the ultimate limit. In Quarantine he tackled quantum Mechanics, this time he takes on nothing less than the Theory Of Everything (TOE). The year is 2055...
The Forge of God is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear. First Europe (as in the sixth moon of Jupiter) disappears, then a strange cinder cone/spaceship including a sick and dying alien is found in Death Valley and a giant new mountain/spaceship including robots is found in the desert of...
Inversions is a Culture series novel by the noted British author Iain M Banks.
If I had to sum up Inversions with one word it would probably be "Different". It's released under Iain M. Banks which usually means that it's a Science Fiction story. You have to look really closely to find...
These books are the third and fourth in the Rama series (number one being Rendezvous with Rama and number two being Rama II). I have decided to review them together - as they should be read together and right after each other. If you haven't read the first two Rama books, do not read these books...
The March Hare Network is a science fiction novel by Jack L Chalker and follows on from the events of The Cybernetic Walrus. I'm not happy with this book, it takes off where book one ends and goes on and on in the same track, with nothing really new happening. The strange thing is that Chalker...
Startide Rising is a science fiction novel by the acclaimed author David Brin. Finally I have some luck with a Brin book. SR has its good sides even if parts of it make me kind of sick. Sorry, but intelligent dolphins not my cup of tea. I'm not sure why, but I think its because I really loath...
Ringworld Engineers is the sequel to the science fiction classic Ringworld, by Larry Niven. This is the sequel to Ringword (doh!). There's not much to say about it, other than it is as good as the original Ringworld and you if you liked the original Ringworld book, you will probably like this...
Buying Bank's Use of Weapons was a long shot - a friend had recommended the danish translation of Player of Games, but the (American) bookstore where I mail order most of my books didn't have PoG stocked, so I decided to try another Banks book (I have been wanting to read something by him, for...
Permutation City is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. Having liked Egans Quarantine, I was looking forward to reading this one and I was not disappointed. Again Egan has written a fantastic story by grabbing an idea and taking it to the limit. This time we are in a...
Dagger of the Mind is a speculative fiction book by Bob Shaw. Dagger of the Mind, is a strange book. It takes off normally (well..) enough, Redpath is an epileptic living in a small english town. To make a buck, he participates in a series of experiments involving a new drug Compound 183. The...
Greg Bear's Dinosaur Summer is a follow up to the old The Lost World a novel written by Sir Author Connan Doyle, taking place in 1947. After Professor Challanger returned from the Lost World, there were a lot of follow up expeditions and dinosaurs were taken back to civilisation, where...
Kaleidoscope Century is the second volume in the Century Next Door series by the author John Barnes. I'm quite sure that I haven't read any John Barnes before and that can only be classified as a big mistake. Barnes is writing like nobody else that I can remember or try to compare him to. It's...
The Vor Game is a science fiction novel by the author Lois McMaster Bujold. The Vor Game takes place in the same universe as Mirror Dance and it has the same main character - only it takes place before Mirror Dance, so I would recommend that you read The Vor Game first. The Vor Games starts...
The Stainless Steel Rat gets married, but rapidly gets involved in something that so far has proven impossible in the galaxy - the planet Cliaand has successfully been invading other worlds. Jim is sent to investigate, and discovers the mysterious Grey Men behind Cliaand's success, encounters a...
Rockets, Redheads and Revolution is a short story collection by James P Hogan. RR&R is a mixed bag of science fiction short stories and non-fiction essays. The mix is a bit too heavy on the essay side for me, but that doesn't make it a bad book as HogRockets, Redheads and Revolution is a short...
The Ringworld Throne is the third book in the Ringworld series and centres on a variety of races banding together to kill a large nest of Vampires on a world that is the shape of a ring.
Third book in the Ringworld series. It hasn't been easy for me to keep a positive attitude towards this...
And some were human is a collection of short science fiction stories by Lester del Ray. If I tell you that this book contains nine of Lester del Reys finest stories, that they are copyrighted 1938-43, where published in Unknown and in Astounding Science Fiction (now Analog) and that the book is...
Frameshift is a science fiction novel by Robert J Sawyer. I've waited a bit before I started on this review, in the hope that my feelings for this book would somehow clarify. But the truth is that I still don't really know whether I like it or not. I'm not even sure that I can classify this...
Crow Road is a novel by the noted British author Iain M Banks. Craving for more books by Bank and needing a few books to bring with me on my holiday (mostly consisting of doing nothing but reading and being on the beach) I started by taking a trip to my local library. I didn't really find...
Earth is a science fiction novel by David Brin. Normally I never give up on a book, but I guess that it had to happen and now I have to decide whether it is fair to review a book that I have not read all the way through. But then again, why do I have to be fair to a book that has wasted so much...
Entoverse is the fourth novel in the Giants series, written by James P Hogan. Having just finished The Giants Novels I thought my self lucky when I found the fourth (and for now final) giant novel Entoverse at my local book dealer. I had read a bit about it on the net and my expectations for it...
Podkayne of Mars is a science fiction novel by the legendary author Robert A Heinlein. One of the good old stories from the golden age of SF. One that I for some strange reason hadn't read before. I've always had strange feelings about Heinlein - I love most of his stories, but almost all of...
Contact is the first I have read by Carl Sagan and (shame on me) I don't know anything about him, so I do a search on his name on the web and it takes me about two minutes to find that he has just died, this December (1996)! I find myself in a very strange situation, thanks to the free flow of...
Another fun filled and action packed book from the man who has given us The Stainless Steal Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero. The Deathworld stories are much like these other two series, the main difference being that the Deathworld stories are a bit more bloody and a lot less humorous. Not that...
Needful Things is a horror story by Stephen King. The cover says The Last Castle Rock Story, and I guess that King will have a hard time topping this one - if the poor citizens of Castle Rock ever decide that it's worth the trouble to rebuilding their town. Needful Things is about the...
The Star Fraction is a science fiction novel by Ken Mcleod. This is the first book by MacLeod that I've read but certainly not the last, not just because I've already bought The Stone Canal and The Cassini Diversion, but because MacLeod is a damn good writer. I mostly picked up these books on...
The Cassini Division the third volume in the Fall Revolution series which began with the Star Fraction, written by Ken Mcleod. My second read by Ken MacLeod (how do you pronounce that?). Humanity has come a long way since the Star Fraction and the struggles of Moh Kohn. Humanity has split into...
Methuselah's Children is a science fiction novel by the author Robert A Heinlein. Another golden oldie from Heinlein. Through a selective breeding program, the Howard Foundation has managed to breed a much longer living human. Today there are about a hundred thousand people (The Howard...
Falling Free is a science fiction novel by the award winning American author Lois McMaster Bujold and takes place within the Vorkosigan Saga. Taking place in the same universe as the Vorkosigan adventures, but not featuring any of our beloved characters, for the simple reason that Falling Free...
The Stone Canal is the second volume in the Fall Revolution Series, following on from the events of the Star Fraction, written by Ken Mcleod. The third book from this soon to be grand master (if I have anything to say about the matter). Stone Canal takes place in two threads, the first one...
The Regulators is a novel by the master of horror, Stephen King. Released in the name of Richard Bachman. I'm not sure why he has decided to release it under the name Bachman, but I've theory that it is because it is a piece of crap. Small boy gets possessed by evil pyschic "thing". Boy...
The Terminal Experiment is a science fiction novel by Robert J Sawyer. After the bad experience with Frameshift, I didn't really want to starting on a new story by Sawyer. But, everybody deserves a second chance and when a friend ruthlessly dumped The Terminal Experiment (TTE) on me, I decided...
The Business is a science fiction novel by the acclaimed British author Iain M Banks. Thinking that it maybe was about time for something not so spectacular, I grabbed this book by Iain Not-M Banks while I was at the bookstore (getting The Naked God). Good thing. Even with it's high finance...
Mindstar Rising is the first volume of the Greg Mandel Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. First some ranting about the cover art: The cover "art" on this book is incredibly stupid looking - there's a picture of a "tough guy" (well, he looks more like a cheap actor to me) wearing a blue jacket with...
City of Golden Shadow is the first volume in Tad Williams Otherland series. Eight hundred pages in a rather small font and only the first in a series. This somewhat ups the stakes when one has to decide whether to recommend a book or not. It's so easy when a series is so clearly good (like...
Geralds Game is a novel by the master of Horror, Stephen King. This is the first Stephen King book (please notice that I wrote book and not story) I have read that really doesn't have anything supernatural in it. Not that I missed it, GG is still a terrific story. The story starts off...
Dolores Claiborne is a horror novel by the master of the genre Stephen King. I got Dolores Claiborne (DC) as a gift over half a year ago, but after having read The Regulators I haven't really felt like reading any King. Having read about DC in alt.books.stephen-king, I definitely didn't want to...
The Two Faces of Tomorrow is a science fiction novel by James P Hogan. Hogan starts of well enough in this book, where he tries to tackle the quite interesting question of whether an artificial intelligence could be a threat to mankind or not. The premis is that anything worthy of the label...
A Good Old Fashioned Future is a collection of science fiction short stories written by Bruce Sterling. Seven stories and 250 pages by Bruce Sterling. I once started on Heavy Weather, but couldn't get into it, but I can easily say that that wasn't a problem with this one. Maneki Neko Strange...
A Quantum Murder is the second volume in the Greg Mandel Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. Greg Mandel on his second case for Julia Evans and the Eventhorizon company. If you have any of the other two Mandel books you'll know what to expect. QM isn't quite as well written as Nanoflower, but it's in...
A Second Chance At Eden is a stand alone collection of short stories set within the Confederation Universe of the Nights Dawn Trilogy. Written by Peter F Hamilton. Seven stories in 430 pages (the typeface and line spacing is fairly generous in the hardcover version I have - the normal paperback...
Uplift War is the third volume in the Uplift Series by David Brin. The Uplift War is not exactly a follow up to Startide Rising, but it does take place in the same universe as Startide Rising and it takes place chronologically right after it. There are a few small spoilers in The Uplift War for...
Feersum Endjinn is a science fiction novel by Iain M Banks. I don't really feel that I can do a fair review of this book, as I only read about 3/4 of it. The reason for this is that about a quarter of it is written in a kind of phonetics, that I just couldn't read. I'm not sure why I couldn't...
The Status Civilization - Mindswap is a collection of two science fiction stories by Robert Sheckley. This book contains two stories of about a hundred and fifty pages each. The stories are very different, so I'll review them as separate stories. The Status Civilization. Most of this story...
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a novel by Stephen King. Probably one of the shortest novels by Stephen King that I've ever read. Two hundred and twenty five pages in the hardcover edition is a lot less that we are used to, but King manages to do, what he set out to do, in those pages...
Sometimes when I've read a really bad book it's hard for me to write a review about it - I just want to leave it at "this book is bad - stay away from it" and then forget about the book as fast as possible. With Stephen King's The Gunslinger it's the other way around. A short "Go buy this book...
Bag of Bones is a horror novel by the master of the genre Stephen King. After having been a bit disappointed with the last few King books and having read nothing about this new one, I felt rather brave, when I brought it last friday. Luckily Bag of Bones is one of the best King books that...
Four Past Midnight is a collection of four short stories by the master of horror, Stephen King. I guess that four stories in just under a thousand pages, means that each of the stories deserves their own review and that's just what you are going to get. Before I get to the stories,...
Acts of the Apostles is a science fiction novel by John Sundman. I'm a bit less qualified to review this books, than normal, as it's part of a genre that I know next to nothing about, namely the conspiracy genre (if there's such a thing), or maybe it the techno-thriller genre, I don't know. But...
Cetaganda is a science fiction novel in the Miles Vorkosigan Adventures series by Lois McMaster Bujold. This time Miles go to Cetaganda to attend the funeral of the Empress and ends up in a lot of trouble (now where have I heard that before?). The Cetagandan empire is build on a power division...
The Nano Flower is the third volume in the Greg Mandel Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. Greg Mandel is back, Julia is back and, well actually a hole bunch for people from Mindstar Rising is back in this book. Ready for more post-warming big corporate dealings and mercenary action. This book is the...
The Dispossessed, a novel by the distinguished and award winning author Ursula K Le Guin It's been some time since I last read anything by LeGuin (I think that it was The Word for World is Forest, which I liked); I've never really been much into her for some reason. Got no idea why. She writes...
Book of the month
