Reviews of titles starting with A.
A Bag of Bedtime Tales is an anthology of diverse short stories set in a variety of worlds and genres. The stories are grouped into three sections, one series focuses on the fictional town of Durrington and the strange events that occur there, the next is firmly fantasy genre with stories set in...
As the world tears itself apart in front of us, there is something comforting about reading a good dystopian novel. If we are going to go out, at least it will not be due to zombies, bombs, viruses or all the bees dying out. Then again, it could be all of these together. Once the nuclear fallout...
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...
A Choice of Gods is a science fiction novel by Clifford D Simak. The novel raises a number of very interesting issues including: Robot society structure and religion Human society reaction to removal of technology Man developing psychic powers to travel to the stars and interstellar...
A Book that brings you Home: Becky Chambers’ A Close and Common Orbit.
It took me a while to work up the emotional energy to read Becky Chambers’ A Close and Common Orbit. This is Chambers’ second novel. Her first novel, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet,...
A Deepness in the Sky is the prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. Long awaited prequel to A Fire Upon the Deep. The stories are taking place in the same universe, but are otherwise not connected. I don't think that it matter what order you read them in – the important thing is...
A Disruptive Invention is a science fiction novel by Peter W Shackle. John Sykes is a young electronics engineer who is always coming up with new inventive methods but the discovery that leads to his greatest invention - as with so many other great inventions, was a complete accident. He has...
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...
Occasionally a book and a writer comes along that breaks rules left right and centre, but does so with panache and style that makes you tip your hat. The beginning of A Fistful of Clones clearly sets it out to be one of those books; an accessible science fiction comedy that...
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...
Graham Trevennan is one of those people who coast through life without great aspirations or desire to own the world (or even a secret hollowed out volcano). Having split with his girlfriend he's mooching about pretty aimlessly when he get's the shock of his life - secret lumps of rock, shady and...
Agustin de Rojas was a Cuban author of science fiction. Within that country he is thought of as a legend and has even been described as "Patron Saint of Cuban science fiction".
Agustin wrote A Legend of the future back in 1985, following his award winning novel Espiral (Spiral). El año...
Synopsis:
Kex is the administrator of the Eidon Academy, a college with an interdimensional porthole on campus, and the intellectual center of a recently seceded Southern California. Roberto and his wife Sasha are busy acting out a bad campus novel, with infidelities and academic...
A Memory called Empire is the debut of Arkady Martine, although reading the book you'd be forgiven for thinking she's been writing best-sellers for years.
The vast, interstellar Empire of the Teixcalaanli have appointed Mahit Dzmare as new Ambassador to the capital. When she arrives she...
A Million Open Doors is the first volume in the Thousand Cultures series by the author John Barnes. When I started on this I was quite surprised; Barnes starts the story off in a tavern, with tales of sword fights and honour. Afraid that Barnes had hidden a fantasy behind the rather futuristic...
Yoss is one of the most controversial and successful of Cuba's science fiction writers. As well known for his rock-and-roll style as he is for his portrait of Cuba under Communism, his work is modern, dynamic and yet deep and thoughtful. A Planet for Rent is set in the near future where Earth,...
A Princess of the Aerie is the second volume in the Jak Jinnaka series by author John Barnes. It's hard to stay away from series, in this world. There are a lot of upsides to them and, as long as they stay fresh, the downsides are few. You know what you can expect, you are already wise to the...
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 Scanner Darkly is the only Philip K Dick novel that I have been the slightest bit reluctant to read so far - to say I am not a fan of drugs would be a vast understatement and Scanner is PKD's exploration into drugs. My youngest brother has waxed lyrical on a number of occasions about the novel...
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...
A novel chronicling the beginning of the Stainless Steel Rat's career. Young Jim diGritz has only one abition in life, to become a master criminal. He intentionally gets caught trying to rob a bank so that he will go to jail where he can learn from the masters of crime, only to realize (too...
Artificial intelligence is an exciting field that could help enrich the lives of most people on the planet from simple things like shopping to making life more inclusive for those with disabilities. AI will also come with a human cost. Many of the jobs that we do today could...
The Space Wolves, those fiercely loyal and dependable Space Marines are sent to Propsero to enforce the Emperors justice after the Primarch of the Thousand Sons chapter makes a serious mistake that puts the safety of the very birthplace of humanity at risk.
The events of this story run...
Like many science fiction fans, I have been swept away by the recent influx of Chinese writers that have been translated. Many of these writers are only new to us but have established careers back in China. The most prominent is the Hugo Award winning Cixin Liu. I have enjoyed the style...
I was a big fan of the X-Files series in it's earlier days, although towards the later end of the show running I got fed up with hundreds of new questions rising without any real answers to the many others. I understand from a perspective of belief this makes perfect sense but it is also...
I have done my time at university where I drank too much and stayed out too late. Looking back now I can only think about my poor liver and the crazy never die attitude that many of the young have. I was never that adventurous and stuck to beer and whatever was on offer at...
I've always said that Hutchinson is an under-appreciated author. His Europe series not only being an accomplished trilogy, but also somewhat prophetic given the UK's current realtionship with the EU.
Acadie is a step away from his near-future,alternative fiction series,...
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...
On our first trip to Mars I hope that they send the best equipped, those with the skills and temperament to handle any situation that may occur. If disaster struck I would hope that these men and women would tackle the challenge dispassionately in an attempt to survive the oncoming end with as...
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...
Cyberpunk has always concerned itself with the transformational relationship of man and machine. Times and technology changes, but the contemporary cyberpunk story is still concerned with this and Ada King by E. M. Faulds wholeheartedly embraces that essence whilst invoking new dystopian themes...
Adam Robots is a collection of science fiction shorts by the irrepressible author Adam Roberts. Each little story explores a different style, sub-genre or convention and yet each is quite clearly a product of the authors mind. There is a certain momentum to Roberts prose, a hustling and yet...
After Atlas is Newman’s follow up to her science fiction debut, Planetfall. This story is not a sequel, instead it focuses on our future Earth, that has been left behind by the colonists on the Atlas mission.
This aftermath is the setting for a murder mystery plot involving a...
After the Flare is the second book in the series which describes the a near future Nigerian Space program. Since a massive solar flare wiped out much of the worlds electronics, Nigeria find themselves in control of one of the last working spaceships and functional spaceport.
Kwesi...
Against A Dark Background is a novel by the noted author of science fiction Iain M Banks. Yes, more Banks - Since Crow Road and Use Of Weapons he has definetly become one of my favorite authors. Against a Dark Background is Science Fiction at its best. Suspence, love, action and high-tech...
Aktiya The Ignition Sequence is a science fiction novel by JS Cooper. Julien suffers from raging nightmare's that leave him emotionally and physically drained, however when these turn into head splitting visions that seem to cause wierd things to happen nearby Julien seeks the help of a local...
Alien: It’s more than just a novelization of the movie.
Alan Dean Foster’s ALIEN is fantastic. That having been said, you can easily guess the direction of this book review. Normally, I do a formal review but this one just seemed to be stifled by a synopsis and straightforward...
WOW! I have not said that in a while and this reviewer surely did not expect that word to come from Alan Dean Foster’s 247-page novelization of Alien 3. Like so many—like millions— who were disappointed with David Fincher’s 1993 film, I did not expect Foster’s novel to change my mind...
There is no doubt that Tchaikovsky is a prolific author - I'm counting at least 38 novels and many novellas and short stories. Every few months, there seems to be a new book on the horizon. But that regularity of releases doesn't seem to impact the quality of his writing or the sharpness of his...
Alien Covenant - Origins is a prequel to the latest Alien story, describing the journey of getting the colony ship launched on it's ill-fated journey, bridging the gap between Prometheus and Alien Covenant.
Written by Alan Dean Foster - the author who has been writing about Aliens...
I've been a big fan of the Aliens series ever since I saw the first film back in the 1980's. I've read all the books, including the expanded universe (non-canonical) ones from Bantam, and more recently from Titan books. I've watched and read the Aliens vs Predator crossover...
I've always loved the Aliens films (well at least the first two), both films work for very different reasons. The first was totally ground breaking with it's unique style, examination of claustrophobia, fear - the combination of science fiction and horror that combined with some exceptional...
The second installment in the new Alien series by Titan books is quiet different from the first and doesn’t quiet fit in the way I expected. Yet, it delivers what any fan of the Alien franchise craves: insane amounts of Xenomorph action.
Alien: Sea of Sorrows takes place on LV178,...
It is not that the aliens in Alien are constantly evolving, it is that they are constantly adapting to the scenario they are in. We usually see them egging up humans, but if they landed in a world populated by cows it would only be a few days that a bovine Alien was ripping up the locals. Aliens...
Novelizations of movies are often jutted to the back of the bookshelf after one reading. Reviewers are critical, normally arguing that it is just an attempt to make money off a popular film franchise, and at times they do so justly. Yet, some novelizations often tell the story in a way film...
Steve Perry recruits his daughter, writer Stephani Perry, to conclude a separate storyline to one of the best SciFi franchises of all time. Filled with plenty of Xenomorph-action and a conclusion that no one would guess, Aliens: The Female War rocks hard and entertains like a champ!
Now...
Who doesn’t love the Alien series? But which subset are you talking about? Like any science fiction property, once you investigate it and expand upon it, the series begins to fragment. You have Alien, Aliens, Aliens vs Predator, Prometheus, and more. They are all the same universe but...
The Alien franchise can be seen as one of two things: an awesome series of Space based horror and action stories, or a textbook example of Corporate Malfeasance. The Aliens may be the most reoccurring characters, but the second is not Ripley, it is Weyland...
The story behind LV-426 is more terrifying than anything my childhood imagination lent after watching Alien and Aliens on VHS. Although before my generation, both Ridley Scott and James Cameron contributed to one of the most terrifying storylines in cinema history. And for this reviewer, it has...
As I write this, the fifth book and first full-length novel in the Murderbot diaries, Network Effect, has won the Hugo award 2021 for best novel, already having won the Nebula and Locus. The series itself has also won the 2021 Hugo for best series. I guess I have some catching up to do. All...
Just a month into the New Year and already I've found a must read book. All the Birds in the Sky is the debut novel of Charlie Jane Anders who has been editor-in-chief of the popular SF site IO9.com for quite some time.
All the Birds in the Sky follows the paths of two very different...
I will be honest—I was not thrilled about the idea of thinking about this book again in order to write a review. I was so bothered by the end of this series that I felt depressed about it for a week after I finished the novel.
I loved Divergent. I thought that Insurgent was a pretty...
If you read enough Near Future fiction you will start to see a trend. The future is not orange at all but bleak and a little depressing. It could be giant robots, aliens or the undead. There always seems to be something around the corner that is more dystopian than utopian. I can take all...
Many stories end abruptly with our heroes achieving their goal. The girl marries the Prince, the good guys win the fight. We all know that in real life stories don’t actually end, they carry on regardless whether you got married or now sport a medal. At the end of The Return of the Jedi...
Alternate Reality Ain't what it used to be by Ira Nayman is a collection of news stories from alternate realities, as told by the intrepid reporters from the Alternate Reality News Service. The book is split into different sections for technology, relationships, games, politics etc. and...
Karin Tidbeck has written a number of short-stories, her first english Language collection (firmly rooted in Weird Fiction), Jagannath, was nominated for the World Fantasy award and short-listed for the James Tiptree Junior award. It also received wide-spread critical acclaim. Amatka is her...
The Golden Era of comic books began around the Second World War and into the 1950s. It was a time of nationalism as the World prepared for war and then a time of hope and optimism for the US in particular. The US was now the main world power and life was...
Amortals is a science fiction thriller of high octane action and is the novel of Matt Forbeck, published by Angry Robot Books. The year is 2168 and Secret Service agent Ronan "Methusaleh" Dooley is hot on the trail of a vicious killer, but this case is a bit of a twist as the victim happens to...
Amped follows on directly from the events of Wired reviewed late last year. We rejoin the brilliant scientist Kira Miller who has discovered how to boost the human IQ to extreme post-human levels for short periods of time. With this extreme intelligence comes the danger that the same process...
Amped is a near future story that tells of the post-human singularity event, a world where humans are implanted with upgrades that make them capable of super-human feats. Fear of that which is different rears its ugly head and before long a new set of laws is put into place restricting the...
Billed as a ‘graphic novel, novel’ An Android Awakes tells the story, through pictures and words, of Android Writer PD121928 as it tries to produce stories that a publisher will accept before the submission limit on its programming runs out.
What we have here is an innovative...
Haimey is the engineer aboard the Singer, an interstellar salvage vessel named after its shipboard Intelligence. Haimey is genetically modified for zero-G, and she has brain-enhancing implants that connect her to the rest of the crew and chemically manage her emotional state. Haimey, Singer, and...
Ancillary Justice has won more awards this year than any book before it. Not only that but the awards it has won are most of the major ones in science fiction. The Hugo, the Nebula, the BSFA, the Arthur C Clarke and the Locus award (for first novel).
It's clear to see that the...
And another thing is the sixth novel in the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy series (created by the late great Douglas Adams) and has been written by the very successful author Eoin Colfer. The Hitchhikers Guide series stands as one of the greatest science fiction series of novels ever to grace...
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...
Reviewed by Matt Karder. I have never been an ardent fan of short stories but this collection certainly is an exception. The flow within the prose is a major factor. Short sentences bursting with content focus the reader’s attention very effectively. A Worm In The Well & The Worm Turns The...
What is your plan for when the apocalypse comes? One of the best things about reading speculative fiction is that you get loads of clever ideas on exactly what to do should a meteor plummet to Earth or the undead rise from their graves. The truth is that your plan is to curl up and inevitably...
Anvil of Stars is the sequel to The Forge of God, written by Greg Bear. Sometimes reviewing a sequel is nearly impossible without spoiling the first book for people who hasn't read it. This is one of those times and I'm not going to try, so if you haven't read The Forge of God (tFoG) yet, don't...
Apocalypse novels are all the rage these days, and with good reason, as any rational person can sense that we are rapidly approaching some kind of great calamity. There are plenty of choices: climate change, rapidly depleting resources, drug resistant disease, or even a straight up revolution of...
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...
Architect of Fate is a Space Marine Battles Anthology which collects together 4 novellas that make up the series featuring the infamous greater daemon of Tzeentch, Kairos Fateweaver. A master of manipulation who schemes and uses his prodigious power to play with the fates of thousands, even the...
Young adult science fantasy is a story type that has existed in various forms since the 1950s. The writing quality can vary, but the intention – to convey a vision where humanity has become an interstellar society always fires the imagination of impressionable readers.
Architects...
Area 51 - also known as Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Home Base, Watertown Strip, Groom Lake and Homey Airport - is one of the worst kept secrets in the world, a top secret government facility located within the Nevada Test & Training Area that even now, the US government refuses to admit...
I've been a gamer and science fiction fan since the very first home computers become popular. From the days of the ZX81 and even before that with the Intellivision and Atari 2600. I've been playing games ever since. Like the authors first novel, Armada seems to speak to the older gamers out...
The global success of The Martian and its subsequent film adaptation, catapulted Andy Weir into the public eye. Whatever he chose to write next was always going to draw attention.
Set in our near future, Artemis is the story of Jazz Bashara, a young girl living on the moon. Struggling...
Artificial by Jadah McCoy is the authors debut and the first book in a planned series called The Kepler Chronicles. Set in 2256, the story unfolds on Earth’s first colony amongst the stars, the aforementioned Kepler.
As humanity traversed through the deep dark of space, they decided to...
Artificial Condition is the second book in The Murderbot Diaries, and the follow up to All Systems Red. It won the 2019 Hugo and Locus awards for best novella, and like the others in the series, has received a great deal of praise. It is highly recommended (but not imperative) you read All...
Colin F. Barnes’ Artificial Evil, Book One of the Techxorist Series introduces readers to a familiar yet new experience in post-apocalyptic literature. The series is ongoing, the author’s website reveals book four as “in progress” (as of July 2014). Currently, the three part series...
A unique twist on the time-travel tradition! A mix of genres amalgamated into something unforgettable. This is a read to be experienced with your brain’s switch flipped on.
From the book’s synopsis:
Dr. Pip Lipkin has lived for 12,000 years, incarnated many times as man,...
A parallel world action drama with everyone urgently following mission briefings and investigating crimes, Asks the Dream pitches the reader into the centre of a grey shaded struggle where the characters feel cleaner than the corporations they are taking orders from.
When it suits her,...
Synopsis: Picking up where Artificial Evil concludes, Gerry returns to Earth and discovers that problems have only escalated in spite of everything previously achieved while saving City Earth. Petal’s story unfolds as the mysteries of her past unveil the complexity of our dystopian Earth....
I am not someone that goes in for Conspiracy Theories, I just don’t have the energy for them. Take for example the idea that nanobots are being injected into people so that the Deep State can track our every move. Why would they spend trillions of pounds on such technology when we...
Reading about a dystopia is not as farfetched as it was once as we are living through a couple of ongoing ones as I write, but there is always space for a little more terror to add to the reality. What about a situation that is eerily possible? The sun belches out radiation daily and according...
Aurora Rising is a stand-alone novel written within the authors Revelation Space universe, set before other novels and before the cataclysmic event of the Melding Plague.
It's worth noting that Aurora Rising was published in 2007 as The Prefect. Reynolds fan's who are looking for a new...
Paul McAuley is a vastly under-appreciated author. His books are inspiring, hypnotic and inventive. Austral is all of these and more, a book set in a plausible, climate-changed future where the planet has a new continent with a partial thawing of the Antarctic. There are still vast vistas of ice...
Science has taken humans to amazing places, prolonged our lives, made living better, but it has also created great harm. Have some diseases been developed in a lab then released, on purpose or by accident? Perhaps legitimate research led to tragic mistakes. In the world of Laura Elliott’s...
Axiomatic is a collection of science fiction short stories by Greg Egan. Most science fiction fans these days would agree what when it comes to hard science fiction, Greg Egan is one of the best. In ten years he has given us a good handful of novels, all every much driven by the laws of nature,...
Science fiction set in the near future, Azanian Bridges is a rough diamond, drawing on a variety of influences to deliver a real and wrenching story.
Our setting is an alternative South Africa, where Mandela was never released and Apartheid didn’t end. We follow two characters,...
Book of the month
