Books tagged with: multiple worlds

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...

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 backgr...

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 section...

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...

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, woman, and even as species b...

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, Charity is a...

A book filled with ideas and scenes that demonstrate a strong command of both language and writing, Dream Alchemy by Nicholas Boyd Crutchley is a tricky text to review, mostly because it lacks a coherent story. Crutchley is playing with a multiple reality concept. We have occasional hints of this wi...

Sequel to Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion – there's no reason to read this book if you haven't read those two books. Actually the question is if there's any reason to read this book at all! Fall of Hyperion ends the story of the Cantos and the Web quite nicely, with nearly no loose ends. So that's no...

Engine City is the third volume in the Engines of Light series by Ken Mcleod. I've been holding back on reading this the last book in the Engines of Light series, as I was rather disappointed with the second book. Luckily Newton's Wake was a wonderful book, as it gave me the strength to take on MacL...

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 hallucinat...

Finity is a science fiction novel by the author John Barnes. The writing of a Science Fiction story that takes place in an infinite-multiple-universe setting often runs into the basic problem of stopping the main character from just finding the best possible universe and then staying there. Once rem...

The Earth is an all but forgotten planet in the footnotes of mankind's history, a race who are now spread throughout the Milky Way as part of the vast Galactic Empire. An Dominion that looks after a quintillion souls and one that is becoming crippled by it's very size and complexity. A whole planet...

For most people, the race of the Sidhe are little more than legend, believed to be extinct for centuries after the males of the race rose up and fought alongside the humans subjugated and enslaved by the female Sidhe. Jarek Reen however know different, he's seen them alive and well, still messing wi...

I discovered Michael Moorcock’s work fairly late in life. I’d just started teaching in Higher Education and was pointed towards both Elric of Melibone and his academic text – Wizardry and Wild Romance. The latter I found disagreeable, but deeply insightful and the former a read I could begin but not...

Lessons Learned follows on from the life-changing events of Gentle Reminders serialised right here on SFBook. Finding themselves without a Captain, Maur and the Jump Cannon crew try to adapt to their new roles and face some of their deadliest missions yet. The Free Man group is still lurking in the...

Review by Luis Villazon. Ira Nayman bills himself as the proprietor of the “Alternate Reality News Service”, a sort of Reuters for the multiverse. This collection of short stories is structured like a newspaper, with technology stories, crime reports, obituaries and advice columns supplied by ARNS c...

Newton's Wake is a science fiction novel by Ken Mcleod I've been looking forward to this book for a while. The Engines of Light series kind of fizzled out for me with book two and I never got around to book three. And that got me worried a lot, since I really, really liked MacLeods Fall Revolution b...

Joe is a private detective who after a visit from the obligatory attractive but mysterious woman is tasked with finding the author of the pulp-fiction series "Osama bin Laden: Vigilante". In this alternative history which seems to have split some time after world war two, the horrific terror attacks...

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 "...

Richard is a Level 5 Artificial Intelligence and a Private Eye, his partner a German ex military cyborg named Klein. Their newest case takes them on the hunt for a killer who has jumped realities, hiding in the artificial construct of Reality 36. Unless Richard and Klein can stop him his powers coul...

Son of the Tree is a science fiction novel by Jack Vance. SON OF THE TREE-Jack Vance. I loved this story even more. Head in the clouds the arrogant druids of Kyril fed and nutured the 5 mile wide by 12 mile tall tree that was the cornerstone of their religion. They have a full slave society with man...

The Beautiful Land makes excellent use of the parallel dimensions theory as it relates to time travel. Here you don't directly travel in time but to a different point in a parallel world which could be almost like our own or vastly different depending on the changes that have taken place. Here thoug...

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 coupl...

The Cybernetic Walrus is a science fiction novel by the Jack L Chalker. On my version of this book the title contains the words Book One - which is, if you ask me, a good thing. All too often you have to read the fine print on the back of a book to find out that it's number one in a series - sometim...

The Fall of Hyperion is the follow up novel to Hyperian (winner of the Hugo award) by Dan Simmons. I've been putting of writing this review for the last few days, hoping that time would make it easier for me to write it. Unfortunately I don't find it any easier to write now – but I'll try, giving up...

The Fractal Prince is the follow-up to the hit début novel The Quantum Thief that was released to a great deal of acclaim last year. Like the Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince follows two distinct threads, which while written in a vividly descriptive and disarming style offers a vision that is so di...

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...

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...

The Long Earth follows the premise that there are an infinite number of alternative dimensions, all existing within one great "Multiverse", each universe containing a slightly different version of the Earth. A few years in the future and a device powered by the humble potato (it will make sense, tru...

Anyone who has been following the Long Earth series will be eagerly awaiting this fourth and penultimate novel in Stephen Baxter's and Terry Pratchett's series. The Long Mars was the strongest novel in the series so far and so The Long Utopia has a lot to live up to. The Long Utopia is set some time...

The Long Earth is an outstanding novel; entertaining with some great touches and a unique story that has Pratchett's touch of genius about it - combined with Baxter's hard-scifi edge and world building skill. All the ideas and the vast scope of the story carried the book forward really well but it s...

The Neutronium Alchemist is the second volume in the Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. In The Reality Dysfunction , the presence of an energy-based alien lifeform during the death of a human on the colony world of Lalonde somehow "jammed open" the interface between this universe and "the beyo...

The Nomad of Time trilogy (The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar), compiled into one volume in this paperback edition from Gollancz is a nostalgic treat for fans of steampunk and alternative history. These three stories are the memoirs of Oswald Bastable, Captain of the 53rd...

The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance, written by Sean Williams. A novel in The Star Wars series, the story is set 3650 years before A New Hope. It is a novelisation based on the new Bioware and LucasArts massively multiplayer online role-playing game. I must confess that I am a big fan of Star Wars, and...

The Shores of Tomorrow is the third volume in the Chronicles of Solace series by Roger MacBride Allen. In the far distant future, mankind has learned, thanks to Oskar DeSilvo, how to terraform planets. Once that operation was complete, humanity would colonize that world but what few people know is t...

The Stainless Steel Rat gets married, but rapidly gets involved in something that so far has proven impossible in the galaxy - the planet Cliaand has successfully been invading other worlds. Jim is sent to investigate, and discovers the mysterious Grey Men behind Cliaand's success, encounters a worl...

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 y...

In the near future, the world is falling apart. Wars, unrest, economic collapse and ecological disasters plague the globe - as it tries to hold the pieces together, the USA deploys a new weapon, the Tin Men. They are remote controlled drones piloted by American soldiers who have their minds virtuall...

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 Swift...

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...

Without warning, on the eve of the second Gulf war an unknown energy blast hits the USA - destroying all fauna while leaving flora and buildings intact. America as we know it vanishes in the blink of an eye. It's 2003 and in Kuwait US forces are poised for the invasion of Iraq, in Paris a covert age...

Spiders (or arachnids if you are being posh) provoke strong reactions in some. One of my brothers, who still considers himself tough (even though he's now over 40) will move astonishingly fast in the opposite direction when encountering such a beast - usually with the result that his teenage daughte...

A few weeks ago we reviewed the spider-infested book The Hatching . This was preperation for the launch of the much anticipated sequel Skitter . Skitter follows on directly from the dramatic events of the previous book and once more we are thrown into the middle of spidergeddon. Haven't read The Hat...

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 Sand w...

To anyone who has seen the latest Avengers movies you will know that Thanos is not a nice chap. He single handily (infinitely glovely) creates an intergalactic genocide. Despite this, the films try to give him some sympathetic elements; he only wipes out so many to save the whole. The Thanos of Stua...

Star Wars is a franchise rich with great characters, but who to choose? It is tricky writing a cannon book on the likes of likes Han Solo or Rey lest you impinge on the films themselves. Thankfully, with such an abundance of history to choose from, there is always an interesting character to expand...

The Star Wars tie in novels have a rich and varied galaxy to explore. An author can reach into the distant past or take on the history of an obscure character. Sometimes you just want to read about the big hitters. What happens between those massive blockbuster movies? Whilst we are waiting for 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...

Adrian Tchaikovsky has a talent for writing deep, meaningful scifi. He won the Arthur C Clarke award in 2016 for Children of Time and the 2019 BSFA best novel award for the follow-up Children of Ruin . There are few authors that can quite match his vision for non-human intelligence, or his flair for...

Making an author come up with a single science fiction  concept  is tricky enough, but to ask them to come up with an infinite number of multiverses is just plain mean. Tim Pratt only have themselves to blame  as they choice to take  Zaxony   Delatree  on an adventure across a multitude of worlds.  ...

I have conversations with my colleagues and a surprising number of them are dismissive of Science Fiction as being too farfetched and complicated. This is not true, as it is such a wide genre. There are Sci Fi books that will cater for readers who only want a touch of the unreal, but there are also...

Are you playing the game? Made you look. The idea of a metagame that embroils a hero is not a new one, but it is hard to pull off. The amount of financial resources and secrecy that is required to convince Michael Douglas to jump off a building is beyond what the average person can afford, unless yo...

Obsession can be a powerful emotion and lead you down a dark path. Being stalked causes the victim so much fear, not only because they are having to deal with the reality, but also what might happen. In the case of Madison May, she does not know she is being stalked until it is too late. A strange m...

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 one supervillai...

I love sleep and have a deeper appreciation of it since having a family. I find myself able to drop off in a second as I snatch any five minutes I can before being woken up again at 5 am. The number of naps that I have would not be advisable in the world of Zaxony Delatree as I may end up waking up...

Think too long on the multiverse and your mind will explode. Every tiny action you take splits off into another multiverse, then extrapolate that with everything making tiny actions. There will be an infinite number of universes that only differ from the way you tied your shoelace that morning. Popp...

As a species we are doing a good enough job of messing up our own chances of survival, but what if I told you that we could also mess up another distant planet too? In Stephan George’s The Distant Stars Are My Only Friends , Arax is a traveller who does not go into space, but instead projects his co...

The Trolley Problem is an interesting mental exercise that asks you would you let one person die to save many? To do so you would have to divert the trolley from the path of the five and be culpable for it hitting the one. In theory it makes sense, the many not the few, but could you really pull tha...

The public love a superhero crossover tale, the billion-dollar hauls of various Avenger movies will tell you this, but they do not always work and at this point they can feel like going over old ground. Original Sin was a comic book arc conceived by  Jason Aaron  and  Mike Deodato that brought vario...

There is a reason that you should avoid tackling the multiverse in a story as the very nature of them means that the possibilities are infinite. Every decision ever made split off to make two different pathways and so on. A story that spans multiple Earths will have to pick which ones to visit. Do y...

As a child you read books and imagine that you may be that child who is whisked away on an adventure. Perhaps you will be the chosen one to be taken through a magical wardrobe or told you are a wizard. By the time you are studying for a PhD such flippancy is no longer part of your character, so how...

As Star Wars fans we take the lore for granted. We know our Wookie from our Ewok, but to the casual person they are just two different types of furry alien. Take a step back and it is a complex universe, full of planets and species. It was tricky enough with just the three films, but six films later...

Over the years Star Wars has become a complicated beast, even the first film was a Space Opera that had a lot going on. Throw in various timelines and you have an epic on your hands, but some of the simpler stories are the ones that work the best. The Acolyte was series that expanded on The High Rep...

When I imagine the aliens coming, I always imagine that they would pick somewhere amazing to land their ship. Probably America as all the movies have trained my brain to think that way. The place I do not jump straight to is Manchester, or at least the hills around the city. I know those hills well...

What would you do if you had technology that no one else in the world had. Would you use it to better your life, make some money? Perhaps you would share it with others to develop society as a whole? Or maybe you would use it for revenge. A series of impossible murders is stumping Detective Ethan Kr...