Tor Books, © May 2016 ISBN 9780765378002 Hardcover, 432 pages, $11.42 Several hundred years in the future, Earth—and human civilization—is completely unrecognizable. Religion has been outlawed. Gender pronouns are eradicated, as is a binary gender system. Select criminals are no longer imprisoned. Instead, they are put to work as Servicers in whatever capacity best benefits…
Category: Reviews
The Queen of Blood: Book One of the Queens of Renthia
by Sarah Beth Durst HarperCollins Publishers, L.L.C. © 2016 ISBN 978-0-06-241334-5 Print length 368 pages, $19.99 Renthia’s spirits want to create, according to their nature. Earth spirits wish to make things grow. Wood spirits build. Water spirits flow, and so on. But more than anything else, they long to destroy. Not just each other. Not…
Arkwright
by Allen Steele Tor Books/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC © 2016 ISBN 978-0-7653-8215-3 (Hardcover) Print length 336 pages, $23.58 Nathan Arkwright, best-selling science fiction writer and wealthy philanthropist, dies without providing for his daughter Sylvia or granddaughter Kate. Instead, he leaves his entire considerable fortune to the Arkwright Foundation, a nonprofit organization to be established and…
A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers
Harper Voyager, © 2016 ISBN 9780062569400 Print length 384 pages, $16.99 This stand-alone sequel to Becky Chambers’ debut novel, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, begins 28 minutes after a sentient AI personality has been transferred from the body of a ship to a human-like body. Nothing could have prepared her for such…
Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson
HarperCollins Publishers © 2015 ISBN 978-0-06-233451-0 880 pages, $35.00 When the moon blows up for no apparent reason, people first wonder what happened. Then the fuzzy, expanding cluster of seven enormous boulders that once made up Earth’s sole satellite becomes a curiosity. But once the scientists realize what’s going to happen next, the novelty quickly…
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
HarperCollins Publishers, LLC, © 2014 ISBN 9780062444134 Print length 467 pages, $10.81 When Rosemary’s feet leave Mars for the first time, it’s to take a cramped pod shuttle to rendezvous with her new employer, Captain Ashby Santoso, aboard the Wayfarer, a tunneling ship that digs passages through space, shortcuts for travel throughout the Galactic Commons….
Hyperion, by Dan Simmons
Spectra Publishing, © 1990 ISBN 978-0553283686 Mass Market Paperback, 481 pages, $6.82 In a dark and foreboding universe, Hyperion is only one among many terraformed human worlds, though it may well be the oddest. Home to the Time Tombs, which move backward through time, Hyperion is also home to the Shrike, a horrific monster said…
Bad Blood, by Lucienne Diver
Samhain Publishing, © 2012 ISBN 978-1-60928-594-4 219 pages, $14.00 Any book that includes Apollo—the Apollo—hiding among humans as an adult film star is bound to grab my attention. And he isn’t alone; Circe, Poseidon, Hephaestus, Hermes, and other Big Names make appearances in this first book of the Latter Day Olympians series. Add in skeptical…