Books tagged with: hopeful

Cory Doctorow has a unique way of capturing the technological challenges of current times that speaks volumes, provocative and blended perfectly into an entertaining, rewarding story. Pirate Cinema is no exception and the fact that it is labelled as a "Young Adult" book should not put the older read...

Day One - The Georgia flu sweeps the globe, a pandemic on a scale not seen before. Reports put the mortality rate at 99%. Week Two and most of Civilisation lies in ruins. Twenty years after the cataclysm and pockets of humanity have rebuilt settlements across the US. Things seem a lot less dangerous...

I have read many novels about the end of the world, probably more than strictly healthy at this point. After a while, you begin to notice that most of them are what you might call loud. They want the sirens and the looting and the screaming collapse of everything. Peter Heller's The Dog Stars does s...

And so we come at last to the final volume in the remarkable journey that is The Long Earth . It also happens to be the swansong of that singular author Sir Terry Pratchett. And what a finale it is. The Long Cosmos lives up to the promise the authors have been building with this series, it is quite...

Apocalyptic fiction has been growing in popularity for years, with most stories following some big cataclysmic event such as a zombie uprising, sweeping plague, nuclear war or the rise of artificial intelligence. Recently though novels have started to appear that seem much closer to reality, some of...

A Hopeful Future Review kindly provided by Vanessa Smyth.  Welcome to the third and latest instalment in The Wayfarers series, Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. This current narrative is set within the same captivating universe as the first two books and, despite a few oblique character l...

What do we expect from the future?  I consider myself a half glass full type of person, but even my positivity has taken a battering in the past few years. A world buried under a sea of sand sounds like it may be better  in some circumstances. If we do find ourselves roaming a desolate future what w...

Dystopian fiction has been becoming increasingly popular in recent years, probably because many of us can see the tell-tale signs of it coming along the tracks in real life. This is a depressing thought, but one worth exploring. How will humans continue to survive on a planet they are poisoning? Som...

Having a family is a beautiful thing, but they can also be a pain. They do not listen and when they do, they get it wrong. Days are made up of petty squabbles that have lived below the surface for decades, but the foundation is all built on love. Writing a flawed, realistic family is not easy, but S...

If Science Fiction is to be believed the only bright thing about the future will be the burning rays of the sun beaming down to burn our skin. The futures grim, the futures dystopian. However, sci fi also tells us that humans will do what it takes to survive. Despite inescapable heat and roving band...

Subgenres come and go and one that I have recently been enjoying is ‘Cosy Fantasy,’ what does that mean? Basically, fantasy with some of the trepidation taken out, a chance to get to know the characters and enjoy a fantasy setting in peace. Riley August’s The Last Gifts of the Universe opens my worl...

The Earth has exploded killing all the inhabitants, the only survivors are those humans that happened to be off planet at the time. Does not sound like the start of a fun Science Fiction novel, does it? Douglas Adams would beg to differ and so would Gareth L. Powell. Future’s Edge is the author’s la...

Last night a DJ saved my life. It can feel like that for some people as they crave the weekend, those hot sweaty nights dancing with the people they feel closest to. The community not of family or work colleagues, but the friends and family that you pick up on the way. In the case of The Disco at th...