Books tagged with: religion

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 with...

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 communication Un...

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 gadgets ar...

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 two...

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 suspicio...

Behold the Man was originally written as a novella in 1966 and won the Nebula award for best novella. It was later expanded into a very slim novel in 1969 — although at 128 pages it could still be considered novella length. Gollancz has quite rightly chosen to include it in their SF Masterworks Coll...

Blope is about segregation, plastic surgery gone wrong, and all sorts of messed up religion. For a little background, it is basically another version of history where the American Southwest becomes part of an extreme Taiwanese empire. Its ruler uses the American Southwest as an experiment & segregat...

Blue Earth is a science fiction novel and the début of author Jeff Stover. The Thrones are a group of biological "mistakes", genetic experiments that have resulted in something more or less than human. They have inspired the writings of new religious texts that many now regard as sacred. Ruth Long,...

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...

Desperate to find a new home amongst the stars, the last remnants of the human race are cast out into deep space. Thousands upon thousands asleep aboard a colossal colony ship, hibernating until a habitable planet is located. Eventually they discover a world which was terraformed by humanity long ag...

Philip K Dick first wrote this story as a short called "Your Appointment Will Be Yesterday" which was published in the August 1966 edition of the Amazing Stories magazine. Counter Clock World is the expanded, novel length version and was published a year later. The novel uses the Big Crunch theory t...

Distress is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. Once again Egan grabs an idea and takes it to the limit, this time to the ultimate limit. In Quarantine he tackled quantum Mechanics, this time he takes on nothing less than the Theory Of Everything (TOE). The year is 2055 and A...

Divine Extinction is the second volume in the Evilution series, a near future series set in an alternative history, written by Hylton H Smith. Four years after the narrow escape from a cataclymic disaster humanity thought itself safe and sound, recovered and with a stronger, safer SACRED system. But...

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 matter...

Divine Murder is a speculative fiction novel by Ward Kelley. One of the most fascinating elements of reading a fairy tale or a science fiction is the acceptance of a magical world where angels alight serenely with outstretched wings, birds and animals converse fluently, and uncommon things happen qu...

It's hard to believe that Dune is over 50 years old. Originally released in 1965 it won the inaugural Nebula award for best novel and tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award. It's sold well in excess of 12 million copies around the world and is one of the world's best-selling scie...

This is a very interesting book, a sort of post-apocalyptic, post-cyberpunk tale that also weaves in a good dose of historic fantasy and mythology while told in a very confident voice dripping with poetic, imaginative prose. Essentially the story goes that the human race almost wiped itself complete...

The last book in the series was, unfortunately, this reader’s least favorite, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a real gem. The reality of the series ending was saddening and expectations tend to be very high as a story culminates to its final chapters. Regardless, every series must conclude and writer...

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...

Hyperion is a science fiction novel by the author Dan Simmons. This is the first book that I've read by Dan Simmons, but definitely not the last - actually I've already started on the sequel. Hyperion is the tale of a bunch of pilgrims, on their way to the Time Tombs on remote planet of Hyperion. Al...

I first read one of Paul J McAuley's novels over 20 years ago, picked up completely at random for reason's that are shrouded in the midst of time. The book was Secret Harmonies and it became one of the most memorable novel's I have read before or since, managing to evoke a powerful feeling of travel...

Isle of the Dead is a classic science fiction novel by Roger Zelazny. This book never really took off for me. It kept reminding me of I. Bank's AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND, but it was no where near as nutty and multi layered as the Bank's book. This was only about 190 pgs and took an afternoon to read...

If you like your science fiction with a dystopian edge, this might be a good book for you. The Afterblight Chronicles is a shared world series published by Abaddon Books. Originating in 2006, with Simon Spurrier’s The Culled and passing through the hands of several different writers over the years,...

Lord of Light is a science fiction novel written by Roger Zelazny. Reading classics, isn't exactly what I would call a duty, but one should remember to pick up a classic once in a while and see why it became a classic. Some of them are actually quite good! I don't think that I've ever read any Zelaz...

Man Against The Future is a collection of short stories by Bryan Young, author of “Lost at the Con”. I love short story collections, not just because I have the attention span of a small yapping dog, but they can be a great introduction to a new author or genre. They can be quite hit and miss though...

After technologically superior aliens conquer earth, humanity survives very much like mice, living within the walls of the huge homes of the giant aliens. They scurry about under their feet, stealing food and avoiding the ever more devious traps set out for them. As time goes on humanity adapts and...

Radio Free Albemuth is a science fiction novel by the legendary author Philip K Dick. Radio Free Albemuth is like Valis but without Horselover Fat. Just Phil Dick and his buddy Nick getting too involved with Valis and the gestapo political system that is sending the commies to work camps. Like MAN I...

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...

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...

Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the most famous and controversial science fiction novels, by the legendary author Robert A Heinlein. A best seller and Hugo award winner - having never been out of print, Stranger in a Strange Land was written in 1961, almost 50 years ago. The original published...

Tech Heaven is a science fiction novel by Linda Nagata. This is Linda Nagata's second book and is in a lot of ways, a lot better than her first (The Bohr Maker(TBM)). It's easier to read, it has a better flow and it also has a lot more to say. At the same time I think that it has lost something when...

The Book of Adam: Autobiography of the first human clone is a science fiction novel and the debut of Robert M Hopper. On February 22, 1997, the world was shocked with the announcement that a lamb named Dolly had been born, the first mammal cloned from adult cells. The reaction was largely one of out...

There is something gritty and slightly dirty about Simon Spurrier's writing, making it an acquired taste in science fiction at times. Certainly in The Culled, the first book of the Afterblight Chronicles published by Abaddon Books, we are introduced to our main character in a way that parades his vi...

The Divine Invasion is a science fiction novel by the critically acclaimed author Philip K Dick. Couple of people live in some bubbles on a crispy cold methane planet. Bachelor pad one: the guy loves some Rondstadt type woman (Linda Fox) and is a dj from his home dome. The lady in the next bubble is...

The Everlasting Beyond of Eternal Happiness reminds me quite a bit of Harry Harrisons "Bill, The Galactic Hero" series, which itself is in part a parody of Heinlein's Starship Troopers - there is a very similar irony running throughout and the book even shares some of the same vernacular. There are...

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 Serv...

Reviewed by Philip Graham. Kurt Vonnegut was, until recently, my personal Leo Tolstoy. By that I mean that I knew his name, I knew he was a famed author, and I knew that I really should have read more, or even some, of his work. So finally I went out and got "The Sirens of Titan". I chose this book...

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...

Valis is a science fiction novel by the legendary author Philip K Dick. VALIS is an intelligence system in space somewhere that is beaming pink rays of intelligence to Horselover Fat, Philip K Dick's split personality half. He knows to get his kid to the hospital to avoid death, the Valis ray is rig...

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 Int...

The Ion Raiders is book two of Ian Whate’s Dark Angels series, however despite featuring some if the same characters as book one, Pelquin’s Comet , it is not a direct continuation of the same story so can be read without knowledge of the first.  Not to give to many spoilers, but the story does conti...

The War of the Worlds was originally written in 1897 and it's never been out of print. It's one of the earliest stories to depict conflict with an alien race and has been influential in film, radio, TV, music and even science. The Guardian has gone as far as to say: A true classic that has pointed t...

What is  religion? Most of us aren’t used to contemplating that question too hard. The answer seems self-evident. In the world around us now, we have Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as the big three monotheistic religions. India and East Asia provide numerous examples of the polytheistic variety. I...

Science fiction is a crowded market. There are a variety of ways in which a writer can try to tell a story that gives a sense of a possible future. Some of those ways are close to our reality, some are not. Complete Darkness by Matt Adcock certainly offers a glimpse into something futuristic. A worl...

For a span of twenty years, genre fiction fans had the opportunity to live through what many call the greatest science fiction tale of all tune, Frank Herbet’s epic Dune series. The saga consists of six novels: Dune (1965), Dune Messiah (1969), Children of Dune (1976), God Emperor of Dune (1981), He...

The Butterfly Effect is a device used to explore alternative  versions of our world. The simple action of a time travellers going back to the time of the dinosaurs and standing on a butterfly would alter everything that followed, ripples expanding from that one point. Robert Ferrigno  decided to exp...

Science Fiction has been inspired by religion ever since it started being written, Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus even has the Greek Gods in the title. The word science may be in the title of the genre, but it is also a genre about wonder, about questioning the things around us. Science fiction a...

The science fiction genre is open to exploring alien worlds and alien ideas, but many times you find it is a very Terran feeling society being all human about things. It may be an android as the main character, but that android is following a classic crime noir style plot you could find on Earth. Wh...

Unto Leviathan was originally released back in 2001, under the title Ship of fools , winning the Philip K Dick award in the process. It's since been re-released by Orbit under the current title. The generational ship Aragonos  travels the galaxy, looking for signs of life and a possible place to cal...

Science Fiction and Westerns have a long history, many stories are your classic stranger coming to a new town, but instead of carrying a six-shooter, they carry a Ray Gun. Fresh Start by Johnny Worthen is the latest and this is one strange stranger. Is Qays Mendoza a monk or a marine? Is his mission...