Books tagged with: faster-than-light travel

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 that you r...

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 killed nearly...

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 cover...

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 the m...

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 read...

Cosmonaut Keep is the first volume in the Engines of Light trilogy by Ken Mcleod. This is the first book in a brand new universe, called "Engines of Light", and as that the first book that MacLeod has written outside the universe of Star Fraction and Cassini Division. As I've understood it the unive...

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 book review....

Future Hope is a science fiction novel written by David Gelber. The novel is set in the year 2156 and the Earth is getting a pretty crowded place. While many of the social and economic problems have been eradicated - along with most illnesses, new problems have taken their place. Principal amongst t...

There is a particular pleasure in returning to an Arthur C. Clarke novel that nobody talks about much, and Imperial Earth is one of those. It does not have the reputation of 2001 or Rendezvous with Rama , it rarely turns up on best-of lists, and when it is mentioned at all, it tends to be with a sli...

After saving the world twice, the fight continues for Flynn "Fly" Taggart and Arlene Sanders! Hugh and Linaweaver do a lot of things right with the series. As an obvious fan of the franchise since childhood, I will do my best to highlight the best aspects of the novel. Despite my opinions, this revi...

Man over Mind is a science fiction novel by Dean Warren. After about a thousand years of expansion, humanity has pretty much conquered the Milky Way with their FTL ships. The Plastowich – descendants of the guy who invented the hyperdrive – are doing a good job of running the show. Not really rulers...

Mirror Dance is a science fiction novel by the author Lois McMaster Bujold. A friend gave this to me to read after I had given him Use of Weapons by Banks, and again I'm positively surprised at how many excellent writers there are out there - all of which have written tons of books, just waiting for...

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 stories (t...

Pandora's Star is the first volume in the The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton. "Part one of the Commonwealth Saga" it says on page five. "Main characters" it says on page seven and then it goes on to list 44 characters. Then follows nearly nine hundred page of story which ends with the text "...

Poseidon's Wake is set in the same universe as Reynolds previous two Poseidon's Children novels ( Blue Rembered Earth and On the Steel Breeze ) but is written as an informal conclusion to the trilogy, a book that works equally well as a stand-alone story. The story begins on Crucible, a distant plan...

Ringturn is a science fiction novel by British Author John C Mawson. A number of people are abducted from earth during the time of the black death by alien forces and repopulated on a planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, eleven light years from Earth. Slowly those frightened humans build a new civilisat...

Schild's Ladder is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. Egans latest hard physics thriller Schilds Ladder, presents his yet hardest to understand story. This time I'm actually unsure whether it's worth the effort, to try to understand what he’s saying. I normally find great pl...

Selected Shorts and other methods of time travel is a collection of short stories especially created for Young Adults, written by David Goodberg. The Year is 2051 and time travel has become a commercial success. Opportunities abounded for curious history buffs, futurists, and corrupt entrepreneurs....

Spaceship Earth is a science fiction novel by Tom Schwartz. Scientists have discovered that the universe is a "closed system" and that the rate of expansion is slowing. This means that eventually the universe will stop expanding and begin collapsing upon itself, ultimately resulting in the opposite...

Speaker for the Dead is the second volume in the Ender Saga, by Orson Scott Card and has won the Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards. This book could probably be read on it’s own, but it contains numerous spoilers for Enders Game and I can’t think of any good reasons why you wouldn’t want to read that one...

The genuine autobiography of one of the bravest, most dashing and heroic starship captains to ever bodly-go into the depths of space. You may be pleased to know that this Kirk is the real one, not the imposter who has more recently been seen in the latest films. This Kirk doesn't get command of the...

The Confederation Handbook is a stand alone novel set within the same universe as the Nights Dawn Trilogy. "A Vital Guide To the Night’s Dawn Trilogy" the subtitle of The Confederation Handbook says and that pretty much says it all. Two hundred and thirty pages of facts about the culture, politics,...

The Daleth Effect is a science fiction novel by Harry Harrison. Denmark has the Anti Gravity Device! Wouldn't it be nice if one of the non-bully invade the world and dominate countries got a hold of the perfect insta travel to the moon devices? Denmark gets it and does everything it can with it's ti...

The Forever War is the Hugo and Nebula award winning military science fiction novel by Joe Haldeman. Originally written in 1974, the novel begins in the relative future of 1997 where thanks to the discovery of the collapsars - wormhole type gates that allow faster than light travel between the stars...

This Omnibus Edition Includes the First 4 books in the "Hitchhikers guide Trilogy" 5 book set. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is also the title of the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. The novel is an adaptation of the f...

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet was originally funded as a small kickstarter project and self-published as a result. It was such a hit that it found a big publisher, got nominated for a ton of awards and has been raved about by many, many people. What struck me in particular wasn't just what ev...

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 species. Two...

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 fast...

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 and...

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 the...

Time is relative. We use this term in our everyday lives to explain why boring tasks seem to last an age, but the day flies by when we are having fun. Sounds good, but it is not what Einstein had in mind. His thought process was far more interested in physics and what happens as we approach the spee...

I have a love hate relationship with time travel stories. I love the mind-bending physics and puzzles that they create but hate the fact that most of them just could not work. How can people from the past learn what they need to from those in the future if they have not lived their own futures yet?...