Books tagged with: humorous

Mankind has long lost it's connection to mother nature, to the wildlife of Earth and all the natural wonders contained. In an effort to recreate that which was lost a remote planet is terra-formed to resemble mankind's first home and then populated with all of the plants and animals that existed in...

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 littl...

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 arm...

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 late) th...

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 each...

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...

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 first tw...

Bête has one of the best opening chapters I've ever read. It begins with farmer Graham Penhaligon as he is preparing to kill a cow. Nothing unusual about that except this cow is pleading with Graham (the narrator of this fine story) not to do it. The gift of speech given to animals forms the core o...

Harry Harrison was a genius. The way he managed to use absurdity, satire and slapstick humour to talk about some pretty grim subjects is nothing short of remarkable. Way before Pratchett, Holt, Adams and Naylor, Harrison was creating some of the funniest books on the planet. Bill, the Galactic Hero...

Brothers in Arms is a novel in the Miles Vorkosigan Adventures by Lois McMaster Bujold. Admiral Naismith (aka. Miles Vokosigan) and the Dendarii mercenaries are taking a well-earned rest at Earth. Did I say rest? Ha! There's never any rest for Miles, who's forced to juggle his identities, the Denda...

Cat's Cradle is my first foray into the world of Kurt Vonnegut, I have heard his name mentioned over the years but for one reason or another I have never actually picked up one of his novels. My youngest brother recommended his works (specifically siting Slaughterhouse five) and I have been picking...

In Channel Blue the Earth is essentially an entertainment show, think "The Truman Show" on a world-wide scale. For many years Earth was Galaxy Entertainments most successful show attracting the western galaxy's richest and savviest viewers. Nothing lasts forever though and lately ratings have begun...

Corrupting Dr. Nice is a science fiction novel by John Kessel. It has been a couple of years since I last read any John Kessel – not that I didn't like it, I just haven't gotten around to it. I didn't really know what to expect, Good News From Outer Space had been so off beat and different that Cor...

I'm often saying that there just isn't enough well written comic fantasy, aside from the likes of Pratchett, Holt, Howard and Rankin the laugh-out-load novels still being written are few and far between and in large the genre is being propped up by writers such as Rob Knipe and RJ Astruc. Thankfull...

Divine Fanaticism is the fourth novel in the Jim Long series by Robin G Howard. Long ago on the planet Thraeot a religous order was created that was shrouded in miraculous mythology, now the political environment of the planet has become unbalanced and mass scale war appears imminent. To make matte...

Docking is Difficult, so is trying to escape a backwards planet who's only exports are methane and a type of plant that superficially resembles a pig in taste and a triffid in shape. Misha dreams of escaping the mud and mundane life to become an Elite pilot and live a life full of adventure. He als...

If you've ever read a Simon Spurrier novel, you will understand how his voice has an almost dirty quality to it. His novels have a raw edge that isn't quite horror but manages to lend some of the gritty reality that the finest horror posses. Nemorensis has that edge, an unusual style and very diffe...

Elite: Mostly Harmless is the second Elite: Dangerous tie-in novel reviewed here on SFBook. Catch up with that first review and a bit about Elite here: Elite: Lave Revolution. Written by Kate Russell, Elite: Mostly Harmless follows Commander Angel Rose who is forced into a life of crime. She is dete...

Escape from Bagdad! is a novel riding the wave of modern, alternative fiction that provides a fresh and marked difference to the over-subscribed European / American setting. As the title implies the story is set in Bagdad during the US invasion. With the American military, Religious fanatics, Mercen...

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 misunde...

Finders Keepers is a comedy scifi novel and the debut of Russ Colchamiro. On a backpacking trip through Europe, Jason Medley and Theo Barnes stumble through hash bars and hangovers; religious zealots and stalkers; food poisoning and thunderstorms; cute girls; overnight trains; fever pitch hallucina...

A companion volume to the collection Stainless Steel Visions, this volume collects several of Harrison's best stories, such as Space Rats of the CCC; At Last, the True Story of Frankenstein; and Bill, the Gallactic Hero's Happy Holiday. Includes a hilarious new adventure of Bill, the Galactic Hero....

It's a fact that following the explosion of technology we now give away vast amounts of information freely and often unknowingly. Big companies have got smart at figuring out just how best to get such information. Many sell that data on without compunction. Fast forward to the year 2066 and big corp...

If you thought a book written on a plane might be a bit rough around the edges - a few plot holes, perhaps, or precious little scene setting - think again, because when Brandon Sanderson does it, the result is nothing less than first class. The celebrated author’s 2011 novella Legion (rep...

Makers is a near future science fiction novel of economic, social and technological change, written by the very talented author Cory Doctorow. Perry and Lester are inventors, but more than that they make things from Junk, the most environmentally friendly inventors possible. Some of their invention...

Mostly Harmless is a novel by Douglas Adams, published in 1992, and the fifth book of what Adams himself liked to call a four-part trilogy: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The title derives from a joke early in the series. When Arthur Dent discovers that the entry for Earth in The Hitchhiker's...

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...

At 75 years old, John Perry takes stock of his remaining life, with his wife dead and buried and a retirement of increasing dotage to look forward to he does the only sensible thing possible - he joins the army. Now known as the Colonial Defense Force (CDF) the war of the 22nd century is fought out...

Power Trip is a novel featuring the Wondering Koala, a mute superhero who always manages to stand up for those who need help. This time we are in "Firebird City", home to 8 million people and one power company. After six months of job hunting following college René thinks he's finally hit the jackpo...

Raise the Gipper! is a satire about the forthcoming American presidential elections (The Gipper is a nickname given to the late ex-president and former actor Ronald Reagan) and plays on the current political climate to great effect. The story goes that the Republicans - who are currently fronting m...

I was seriously impressed with the first novel I read by Scalzi, the book was Old Man's War and the exceptional prose and clever story really won me over; so much so that I picked up Fuzzy Nation soon after - although I haven't had to read that book yet. It was therefore with more than 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 stor...

The Rough Guide to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is the ultimate guide to the ultimate guide, written by Marcus O'Dair and published by the Rough Guides. Don't Panic. The Rough Guide to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy explores the ever-expanding universe created by Douglas Adams- the mus...

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....

Snow crash is an acclaimed speculative fiction novel by the award winning author Neal Stephenson. Never getting into the Cyberpunk thing and hating the much-hyped use of the word Cyber, I've stayed away from everything that fell within the Cyberpunk category, with William Gibson as the centre of my...

Terra is a very different novel. It doesn't take itself too seriously and on the surface appears very light-hearted, a safe novel with prose full of soft curves rather than sharp edges. This is after all a young-adult novel and yet there is much more to this book than meets the eye. The story follo...

"Originally written 24th July 2008, expanded 2026" The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories is a collection of eleven Isaac Asimov short stories and a poem, first published by Doubleday in 1976 to coincide with the United States Bicentennial year, and the title is not accidental. Asimov had been commi...

The Duke of Uranium is the first volume in the Jak Jinnaka series by the American author John Barnes. The Duke of Uranium introduces Jak Jinnaka. Jak is Barnes try at an arse-kicking, undercover agent for the thirty-sixth century. Somebody who can compete with Miles Vorkosigan, The Stainless Steel...

Imagine a world where cloning was not only advanced enough to create real bodies but where the technology was inexpensive and simple enough to be viable on a large scale. Of course making copies of real people would be wrong and there would bound to be a law against such a thing but what if a loopho...

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 adaptat...

John Scalzi is a household name as character-driven sci-fi goes. The Human Division, 5th in his Old Man’s War series detailing the fate of the Colonial Union and it’s increasingly tenuous relationship with the Earth, is actually the first I’ve read. This sequel to Zoe’s Tale concerns the new diploma...

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 Martian is one of those books that if many authors had attempted it, wouldn't have worked. The majority of the novel follows one man surviving on Mars with little more than a shelter, 2 rovers, a few space suits, air, water and potatoes. There are no monsters, no antagonists (unless you count t...

The Origami Man begins with the death of the protagonist, Greg Samson. This however doesn't prevent Greg from returning home and then off to work. It does however mean he now has to carry around an incredibly deadly alien warship which has burrowed into his neck and is now in a symbiotic relationsh...

Towards the end of the 21st Century Earth appears as a very different place, a post-singularity existence and a fractured future of a billion earthbound souls, preserved at the bottom of a gravity well. Huw is a technophobe and somewhat of a misanthropist - a natural selection for the Tech Jury Ser...

The Sky Road is the fourth volume in the Fall Revolution Series by Ken Mcleod. Expectations are a funny thing. It has been nearly ten months since I read the first three books by MacLeod and loved them, and now I that I've read his fourth book I'm unsure as to the reason as to why I'm disappointed...

The Stainless Steel Rat and Angelina enjoy a belated honeymoon on a planet run by a dictator who rigs elections to get into office, so they set the Rat up as a candidate instead. Very much a satire on banana republic politics and a parody of adventures set in Latin America I regretted buying this...

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 and l...

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 read as...

The Year of the Flood is the second novel in Margaret Atwood's post-apocalyptic series and follows the viewpoints of Toby and Ren, members of a religious cult. The book tells the story of some of the events leading up to the cataclysm mentioned in the previous novel Oryx and Crake and there is a goo...

I have a sort of self imposed resolution to read all of the books that have won a Hugo award and to be honest this is the only reason I first picked up this book. I haven't read anything else by the author although I am of course aware of him, however as a more "literary" author he's not som...

Transitor is a hard science fiction novel and the debut of David Sharrock. The Human race have spread out across the Galaxy by the means of the iNet transportation network - a vast sprawling system that allows Galactic travel by means of a subethernet. Controlling this mindbendingly complicated sy...

USU is a clever, clever book. Set after some cataclysmic event has rendered the Earth free of it's human infestation, the novel follows the stuffed and robotically animated rabbit known as Usu. He searches the broken, twisted wasteland for something, something he will only know when he finds it. The...

Noomi Rapier is a rookie investigator with the Transdimensional Authority, a force who police the travel between dimensions. When Noomi and her partner "Crash" Chumley find a dead body slumped over an altered transdimensional machine in one of the many dimensions they patrol, they must discover not...

What were once Miracles are now Children's Toys by Ira Nayman is a collection of news stories from alternate realities, as told by the intrepid reporters from the Alternate Reality News Service and is the second volume in the collection. The Author Ira Nayman is the recent winner of the "2010 Sw...

The crew of the Keiko are back. Mike Brooks hammers out the sequel to his epic, sci-fi adventure, Dark Run; Dark Sky, and it truly is an incredible adventure. It continues the rapid-fire wit from the first, harkens back to the space opera/western of Firefly and blends two different perspectives on t...

I was quite unprepared for Mechanical Failure. While the blurb mentions it as a "sarcastic adventure", such a description doesn't do justice. Set in the far future after Humanity has spread to the stars and now live in a different Galaxy, mankind has managed to endure Two Hundred years (and c...

Space Team is one of those rare gems, a genuinely funny science fiction story that manages to entertain from beginning to end. The book follows the miss-adventures of small-time conman Cal Carver, abducted by aliens from incarceration due to a case of mistaken identity. His day goes from bad to w...

While many stories depict the fight between man and machine, Sea of Rust shows a future where the machines have already won. Humankind has been wiped off the face of the Earth by the very robots that were built to serve them. Now the planet is controlled by vast intelligences (known as One World...

You hear about those couples having the ill-concieved notion of getting matching permanent tattoos shortly after they've met, despite the real probability their relationship may not last. Crossover goes one further with that premise. Instead of tattoos it's a "simple" medical procedure (E...

I have always been a fan of Roger Zelazny. When I was a teenager, The Chronicles of Amber were a library book quest to find the whole set, which never quite happened, so it wasn’t until later in adult life that I was able to purchase the bumper edition that contained them all. Doorways in the San...

The Quanderhorn Xperimentations is a book thats been adapted backwards via the future from the Radio 4 series before it was made. It's pure, british comedy gold from the genius minds of Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall. The story is set in England, 1952. A time of (relative) peace and regenerati...

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 Systems...

By the pricking of her thumb follows on from The Real Time Murders published last year, but can be read as a stand-alone novel. Set in a future where almost everyone spends all their time in a virtual world, private investigator Alma is caught up in another impossible murder. She has been asked to i...

Murderbot, the gruff yet lovable, media obsessed Security AI is back in Rogue Protocol, the latest tale in Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries, a Tor.com series of novellas. In the first story, the Nebula Award winning All Systems Red, Murderbot, a self-nicknamed security robot, secretly hacks...

The sassy, media loving AI ‘Murderbot’ returns in Exit Strategy, the fourth entry in The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Murderbot first burst on to the scene in 2017’s All Systems Red. In that first instalment, Murderbot was hired as a security unit (SecUnit) to protect a team...

Any show on the US TV network Fox has to realise that its days could be numbered. Fox have the reputation of axing cult shows before their time from Arrested Development to Family Guy. Despite their cancelation these shows are still being made. Firefly was not so lucky. This was a science fiction/we...

There seem to be a worryingly large number of ways we, as a species, could become extinct. From huge extra terrestrial rocks hurtling through space or climate change making our world uninhabitable to Trump pressing the wrong button at the wrong time. A virus that seems to strike at random, causing t...

There is a certain type of film that I love. It has a central character wronged in some way and this gives them the flimsy premise to basically kill all the bad guys. Death Wish, John Wick, The Equaliser, to name but a few. Red Noise by John P Murphy is the science fict...

As a football fan it is sometimes hard to understand that some people just don’t care about it. They see it as a frivolous game of kicking a pig’s stomach around a patch of grass. In the context of life and death, it is just something to keep you busy on a Saturday afterno...

For those who haven't heard of him, Yoss is a Cuban science fiction author. He's one of Cuba's most iconic figures in literature, having written over twenty books so far, run science fiction workshops and even found time to be the lead singer of Heavy Metal band Tenaz. Red Dust (translated from Span...

When an intellectual property becomes huge it can go one of two ways, a homogeneous blob of the same stories on repeat, or a vibrant universe full of different adventures. Star Wars was already massive, but recently has branched out even wider. This included a reset of the tie in...

If I lived in a Star Trek universe I would always travel by shuttlecraft and refuse to use the transporter. I am just uneasy with the idea of being split into atoms and reformed elsewhere. I am, for all intents and purposes, the same person, with the same memories, but am I? Is it not true that one...

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 Systems R...

That one time you saved the world with stick with you for a lifetime. You may bask in the glory one day and wake up with cold sweats the next, either way, the event will be forged in your memories forever. What about two times? Three or four? Do you think that James Bond can remember ...

Constance Verity is anything but normal, blessed as a child to live an adventurous life, this may sound exciting, but the reality is much different. Now in her 30s, she is fed up with having to save the world all the time and just wants some normal downtime. By Constance Verity Saves the World, some...

By this, her third outing, Constance Verity has saved the world countless times and the Universe itself just as many. Fighting off otherworldly threats is an everyday occurrence. It is the more mundane things in life that worry Constance like assuring her best friend’s wedding is not ruined by...

What are you going to do if Godzilla arrives. You must have a plan in mind. At least one for home and one for the office. I used to have a great plan that would see me have an almost 100% chance of surviving, but then I went and started a family. Now I have no chance as their little legs are just no...

Comedy combined with Science Fiction is rare because it is so hard to do. When it clicks though it is worthwhile as you get some absolute classics such as Red Dwarf or Hitchhiker's. Those are mighty large shoes to try and fill, but Chris Panatier is giving it a go in Stringers, a book that feel...

What is the near future going to be like, utopian, dystopian, a bit of both. Chances are that it will be just as messed up as the past and the present. The future may be a little grim, but that does not mean it cannot be fun. Aubrey Wood’s future is as bright as neon, but also as dark as pitch...

Inheritance should never be something that you look forward to, but when you receive some, it can make a huge change to your life. I may be enough to pay a deposit on a house or pay for a child to go to university. It can also be a real pain in the bureaucracy. Think of the taxes that need...

Any Doctor Who fan knows that this year is a big anniversary for the series and there is so much content coming that even the wider community may be aware that the Doc is turning 60. How do you stand out from the new books, audio series and episodes all incoming around the festive period? Perhaps a...

After a string of novellas that were, frankly, brilliant, the fifth book and first full-size novel in The Murderbot Diaries, Network Effect stormed the science fiction scene when it was released, winning the holy trinity of Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards for best novel. As I write this the first...

The world will not die with a bang, but with a whimper. Similarly, it won’t be the robots that uprise and destroy humans, but our own incompetence when it comes to programming. Build and programme things correctly and everything should be fine, but this is modern life and doing things correctl...

There are all diverse types of people that make a successful working environment. If everyone were the same, we would all be doing the same thing and loads of stuff would not get done. Some people like to stand out in the crowd and pitch ideas, others are happy to lead. Engineer may be the second in...

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 autho...

There is more than one tradition in science fiction. You can have your epic space battles, but here in Blighty we have the tradition of an every person getting wrapped up in something far above their pay grade. Arthur Dent had his towel, and Johnny Gomez has his mop and bucket. It can’t just b...

I stumbled across this one at WorldCon in Glasgow last year. You know how it is, wandering the dealer's room, picking up flyers, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone who looks like they want to talk about their self-published epic. But I’d previously attended a panel about Scottish sci-fi a...

Invent any innovative technology and it won’t be long until someone finds a way to use it to make money via base entertainment. We are talking wine, woman, and song. The same can be said of future worlds; the Emperor may have thought he had an iron grip on all his subjects, but just below the...