Archives 2001
This is a list of all the reviews that SFBook have published in 2001.
The New York Trilogy is a collection of 3 stories by Paul Auster. This is the first book that I've read by Poul Auster. I saw him on TV a few months ago, he read from this book and I was deeply fascinated – the way the words flowed and the richness of his voice, gripped me deeply. And then...
Across Realtime is a science fiction novel by Vernor Vinge. This is Vinge's first full length novel. For some strange reason, I've never gotten around to it before now. I'm not sure why, but maybe it has been a combination of fear that it couldn't live up to the expectations that A Fire Upon...
I brought this one by mistake – I thought that it was the new collection containing a new Stephen King short story set in the Dark Tower universe. It wasn't but it's still a nice "little" collection of horror stories. Dark Visions contains seven stories; three by Stephen King, three by Dan...
The Diamond Age is a speculative fiction novel by the award winning author Neal Stephenson. Where the core technologies of matter compilers and nanotechnology of this book is quite interesting and where Stephensons portrayal of a future based on nanotechnology is one of the best, that...
The Players is a science fiction novel by Joseph Fullam. I accepted getting a review copy of this book after having having read the byline which says "All the universe is a stage, And all the men and women merely players...". I must have thought that that sounded intriguing or something, but...
The State of The Art is an anthology collection by Iain M Banks.
The State of The Art is a collection of eight stories with the story The State of The Art making up one hundred of the two hundred pages. As can be expected with Banks all of the stories are well written and interesting,...
Space, Time and Nathaniel is a collection of science fiction short stories by Brian Aldiss. The stories in this collection are some of Aldiss' earliest stories and it's amazing how little they have lost through the years. Nearly none of the stories seem quaint and silly the way some of the...
The Merseian Empire has, for some strange reason, decided to help out the water people of Starkad. Which means that the good old Earth Empire, simply has to help the land people of Starkad to keep the status quo. Now if I tell you this story was published right in the middle of the Vietnam War,...
Isle of the Dead is a classic science fiction novel by Roger Zelazny. This book never really took off for me. It kept reminding me of I. Bank's AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND, but it was no where near as nutty and multi layered as the Bank's book. This was only about 190 pgs and took an afternoon to...
The Proteus Operation is a science fiction novel by James P Hogan. Once upon a time in the late 21st century, everything was just a-okay and everybody where happy. Utopia had been reached. Well, except for a couple of malcontents who where rather bored with all this be-good-to-thy-neighbour and...
Trader to the Stars is a collection of science fiction short stories, written by Poul William Anderson. Three stories copyrighted from 1956 to 1962 from one of the old masters. All three stories have the space merchant Nicolas Van Rijn as the main character and what a character! He's the kind...
The Corridors of time is a science fiction novel by the author Poul Anderson. Reading almost exclusively in english, very few of the stories that I read take place in my home country of Denmark, in fact I think that this is the first one, that I've read, which takes place mostly in Denmark....
Pew! I've been waiting for this book for a looong time, maybe too long. I didn't hesitate one moment when I found the trade paperback, regardless of the fact D.M. Grant mailed the hardcover version to me a month ago (I just haven't received it yet).
The book starts of where DT3 ended –...
Heads is a science fiction novel, written by Greg Bear. A hundred years in the future, Michael Sandoval is the manager at Ice Pit Station – a research station on the Moon. Two projects are taking place here. His brother in-law is trying to reach absolute zero in a small piece of copper. His...
The Boat of a Million Years is a science fiction novel by Poul William Anderson. Starting in the year 310BC and taking us beyond our present day, The Boat of a Million Years takes on one of Poul Anderson's favourite topics, namely longevity. Most of the book follows Hanno as he lives through a...
Dreamcatcher is a horror novel by Stephen King. This is the first novel from King since his accident and as that eagerly awaited - did he damage more than his hip? Would all his stories from now on be stuffed with references to his own accident and the horror that is recovery? Or even worse;...
Lord of Light is a science fiction novel written by Roger Zelazny. Reading classics, isn't exactly what I would call a duty, but one should remember to pick up a classic once in a while and see why it became a classic. Some of them are actually quite good! I don't think that I've ever read any...
The subtitle on this, my first book by McDevitt is "It's time to panic". I don't know about you, but a subtitle like that tells me a lot about what to expect from a book. It tells me that McDevitt or more probably his editor, didn't think that this was a serious piece of literature, aspiring to...
Oxygen is the first novel in a Christian science fiction series written by John B Olson and co-Written with Randall Ingermanson. This is a review by the previous owner of SFBook.com - TC. What intrigued me about Oxygen was the fact that it was labelled as "Christian science fiction" - never...
The Caves of Steel is a classic science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov and could be considered the first in the Robot series.
It has been about twenty years since I read this book first and ten years since I read it last. I've grown older and hopefully wiser since then and The Caves of...
The Naked Sun is the second volume in the Robot series by Isaac Asimov.
This is the second book in the Elijah Baley series. The simple fact that it's the number two in a series, gives it a couple of advantages and a couple of disadvantages. On the plus side is that we know the main...
The Robots of Dawn is the third volume in the Robot series by Isaac Asimov
Written nearly thirty years after The Naked Sun this, the third volume in the Elijah Baley series, is one of Asimovs greatest accomplishments. His writing has matured a lot in those thirty years and he has, in...
River of Blue Fire is the second volume in Tad Williams Otherland series. I'm unsure as to why I brought this the second volume in Tad Williams Otherland series (which has just been concluded in a forth volume). I wasn't that impressed with the first volume, which i found to long and lacking in...
After hearing about the passing away of Poul Anderson, I pretty much ran out and picked up this book. I figured that it would be good therapy and a good way to honour him. This worked fairly well, I hadn't read any of his new stuff before, so I was unsure as to what we missed out on. Genesis is...
Mr. Vertigo is a novel by the American author Paul Auster. Reading Auster is a bit like riding a bike, you’ll get a really good view of the scenery, you’ll have to do some of the work yourself and if you keep at it for to long your ass will start to hurt. Peter Aaron is a writer, Peter has...
Shards of Honor is a novel in the Miles Vorkosigan Adventures by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is the first book by McMaster that I've read that isn't about Miles Vorkosigan. It is about Miles's mother and father and the story of how they met and fell in love. Shards of honor takes place during...
To Open The Sky is a science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg. This book could have been titled "To Eternity and The Stars through Religion" – it may not be catchy, but it's a lot more accurate then the original title, which is a bit nondescript. It's the 22nd century and the Vorsters are...
The Red Notebook is a novel by the American author Paul Auster. Paul Auster is one of those annoying people that not only have interesting things happening to them seemingly all the time, but also have a talent that enables them to describe these events, in such a way that other people actually...
The Dragon at War is a fantasy novel by the author Gordon R Dickson. Over a century ago, the dragon Gleingul fought and slew a sea serpent in single combat. A genuine David and Goliath moment as sea serpents are more than twice as large as dragons. Ever since, there has been great animosity...
Fallen Dragon is a science fiction novel by the British author Peter F Hamilton. There is a unrecognised Science Fiction genre, that deals with the transition from a society of limits and into one of plenty (an utopia or nirvana, if you want). Or maybe not the transition itself but the events...
N-Space is a collection of short science fiction stories by Larry Niven. Thirty-something stories in nearly seven hundred pages, including a bibliography about and by Larry Niven - N-Space is one of my favourite collections. The only thing that bugs me about it is the excerpts from longer...
Dark Light is the second volume in the Engines of Light series by Ken Mcleod. This is the first time that I've had any kind of doubt as to what I should write about a MacLeod book. Normally I would just heap words of praise upon other words of praise, until it hit a fitting length for a...
Lord Valentines Castle is the first volume in the Marjipoor series by Robert Silverberg. The hardest thing about reviewing this book is to label it correctly. We are on a humanly colonised planet at least ten thousand years in the future. We share this world, of gigantic proportions, with...
Ethan of Athos is a science fiction novel by Lois McMaster Bujold. Never having seen a woman in his life, Ethan is in for quite an eye opener when the first woman he meets is Elli Quinn of the Dendarii Mercenaries. As a good Athosian he tries his best to stay clear of her, but after a small...
(Seems to be titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the US). Not a word about Hollywood and the movie (which I will be seeing in a couple of days). Not a word about the merchandise and kids dressed as Potter. Not a word about how this book made the kids read again. Just the book....
Frankenstein Unbound is a science fiction novel by the British author Brian Aldiss. Time is starting to break up, when Joseph Bodenland, a citizen of the year 2020, gets thrown back through time and space to Lake Geneva around the time when Mary Shelly was writing the original Frankenstein...
Majipoor Chronicles is the second volume in the Marjipoor series by Robert Silverberg. Took me a bit of time to verify that this is the second book in the Majipoor series. It seems that the reason why this isn't widely discussed is that it doesn't really matter when you read this one. The story...
In one of the most hotly anticipated sequels in memory, J.K. Rowling takes up where she left with Harry's second year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Old friends and new torments abound, including a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girl's bathroom, an outrageously...
The Green Mile is a novel by the master of horror Stephen King. Originally TGM was released in six parts, but I knew that I would hate waiting for each new part of the series, so I decided to wait and now all six parts are available in one book at about 530 pages. The story is about prison...
Apocalypses & Apostrophes is a collection of short stories by the American author John Barnes. I think that I got the idea that Barnes is kind of weird around page 25 of Kaleidoscope Century, and nothing I've read since then has made me think otherwise. Apocalypses & Apostrophes confirms my...
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