Books tagged with: telepathy

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...

A Quantum Murder is the second volume in the Greg Mandel Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. Greg Mandel on his second case for Julia Evans and the Eventhorizon company. If you have any of the other two Mandel books you'll know what to expect. QM isn't quite as well written as Nanoflower, but it's in the s...

The second installment in the new Alien series by Titan books is quiet different from the first and doesn’t quiet fit in the way I expected. Yet, it delivers what any fan of the Alien franchise craves: insane amounts of Xenomorph action. Alien: Sea of Sorrows takes place on LV178, which is what conn...

Young adult science fantasy is a story type that has existed in various forms since the 1950s. The writing quality can vary, but the intention – to convey a vision  where humanity has become an interstellar society always fires the imagination of impressionable readers. Architects of Destiny is a bo...

Science fiction set in the near future, Azanian Bridges is a rough diamond, drawing on a variety of influences to deliver a real and wrenching story. Our setting is an alternative South Africa, where Mandela was never released and Apartheid didn’t end. We follow two characters, Martin and Sibusiso a...

Dark Seeker is a speculative fiction novel by K W Jeter. This is basically a horror novel with group drug use/experimentation as the theme. Like a Tim powers or Phil dick book it's got a skewed version of Los Angeles where a group of kids under a university teacher -and a off track manipulative drif...

There is a kind of science fiction that uses a single fantastical premise not to build a world but to dismantle a man, and Dying Inside is perhaps the finest example the genre has produced. Robert Silverberg published it in 1972, at the height of his powers and at the close of an extraordinarily fer...

Fork in the Road to Apocalypse is the second volume in the Subnorms, written by Jeff Gonsalves. It's the middle of the 21st Century and much of the World's population have seen their genetic makeup mutated by insidious viruses and powerful radiation. A sub species of human has developed from these g...

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...

Guy Erma and the Son of Empire is a young adult science fiction tale which, to my mind is wrapped in the packaging of a fantasy novel at first glance. Granted it’s on the fantastical side, but the deception remains. The writing also holds a few quirks, initially in its spaced layout, but beyond this...

Mindstar Rising is the first volume of the Greg Mandel Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. First some ranting about the cover art: The cover "art" on this book is incredibly stupid looking - there's a picture of a "tough guy" (well, he looks more like a cheap actor to me) wearing a blue jacket with too sho...

No Safe Haven is the direct sequel to The Sixth Discipline and follows the fortunes of Ran-Del and Francesca who are now happily married parents. Ran-Del still doesn't know what vision his clan shaman had which forced him from his tribe however his own little known "psy" abilities have helped him to...

Corwin Menivie and Nika Sanitvan are decorated veterans of the Imperial Enforcement Coalition, and they solve cases the old fashioned way. However, when they are paired up with Westley Tavera and Gavin Hale, a powerful Reader/Ground team, things start off awfully rocky.   During a routine investigat...

Peter Hamilton doesn't just write Space Opera, he defines it . The Abyss Beyond Dreams is the start of a new series that takes place in his wonderfully rich Commonwealth universe. It's no secret that we love the works of Peter Hamilton at SFBook and The Abyss beyond Dreams is no exception. To co-ins...

The Demolished Man was the first ever novel to win a Hugo award for "Best Novel" in 1953. As with much of Alfred Bester's works, it remains an understated classic. The novel is set in the 24th Century with a society who can no longer hide their crimes following the rise of police telepaths (known as...

The Empire is a science fiction space opera by Elizabeth Lang. The Centuries old war with Andromedans is heating up and the Empire is the only force that can stand it's way. One brilliant scientist may hold the key to a weapon that could swing the tide and save the galaxy but the method's of the Emp...

The Reality Dysfunction is the first volume in the Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter Hamilton. In the far future, humanity has divided along a single major line. The Edenists are genetically engineered space-dwellers with telepathic affinity to their biotechnological homes and ships. Adamists are effecti...

A secret Russian mind research laboratory in Podol'sk is destroyed in a freak accident involving one of its patients. The resulting devastation leaves thousands dead and a mile wide crater where the ground has quite literally been pulverized. Plucked from discredited obscurity, parapsychologist Beau...

The Twilight of Briareus is a science fiction novel by Richard Cowper. Getting bad weather as after-effects of a nearby supernova, seems quite reasonable, but the people of earth are in for a lot more that they had expected. Humanity wakes up on the brink of a new ice age and is forced to recognise...

The World of Ptavvs is a classic science fiction novel by Larry Niven. A good old idea book from the good old days when a book didn't have to be 500+ pages – not that I don't like thick books, but once in a while it's nice to read something that you can actually see an end to. Ptavvs (how do you pro...

An Assassin's bullet strikes President Seth Jerrison on the eve of a top secret military operation, he is taken to the nearest hospital where doctors fight to save his life. At the very same hospital Dr Ranjip Singh is carrying out experiments with a device that can ease traumatic memories. In the o...

Death, the final frontier, the one inescapable and inevitable fact of that we call life, or is it? What if even after you died you could come back for a limited time and in some limited form to once again see your loved ones and experience the linear existence we so often take for granted. In the vi...

In the dark future of Defender , the majority of the worlds population have died. Killed by themselves and others who were listening to voices steering their horrific actions. Those who survived live in a hostile environment, unable to trust strangers and fighting over limited resources. On a long d...

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 ( EED ) that...

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...

I've been reading Reynolds books since he began writing them and have seen him grow over the years from a seriously talented writer to one of the best in his field. Revenger was one of his finest works to date, Shadow Captain eclipses it easily. It's the second in a planned trilogy but manages to av...

A surreal science fiction story, ostensibly set in 1992, Ubik tells the story of an alternative Earth where a range of telepathic abilities have manifested amongst all aspects of society and to counter them, a series of anti-talents have emerged that dampen and suppress these new gifts. Philip K. Di...

Bone Silence is the third book in Alastair Reynolds Revenger series and follows on from the events of Shadow Captain and Revenger . First off, if you haven't read the first two books in the series, I suggest you do before starting Bone Silence. You could read it stand alone but it wouldn't make as m...

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...

I have done my time at university where I drank too much and stayed out too late. Looking back now I can only think about my poor liver and the crazy never die attitude that many of the young have. I was never that adventurous and stuck to beer and whatever was on offer at the Student Union. I certa...

I am at an age where I genuinely believe that Science Fiction is the best genre there is and I have read enough books of all types to have developed this opinion. I love it because it can be so many different things. Space opera to speculative fiction. A Sci Fi book can also be a riddle wrapped in a...

The future is full of an almost infinite sea of possibilities and that’s what makes science fiction such a great genre. Whilst I may imagine a dystopian future of bleak radioactive zombies, you may think of a utopia. The best books should be a mix of the two, a dark future with a glimmer of hope, or...

The thought of travelling to space and living on the International Space Station has no interest to me. Stuck in a metal box, isolated, miles away from civilisation with only the same people as company sound like a one-way ticket to madness. You do not need to go into space to create such a feeling....