Month: June 2014

Solaris Rising 3 (Ian Whates; Rebellion) is billed as an anthology showcasing the breadth of modern SF. It is that; unfortunately, it is also a demonstration that the editor and some of his authors have partly lost touch with what makes science fiction interesting and valuable. As I’ve observed before, SF is not an anything-goes… Continue reading Review: Solaris Rising 3

In Ark Royal (Christopher Nuttall; self-published) the ship of the same name is an obsolete heavy-armored fleet carrier in a future British space navy. The old girl and her alcoholic captain have been parked in a forgotten orbit for decades, a dumping ground for screwups who are not quite irredeemable enough to be cashiered out.… Continue reading Review: Ark Royal

Patton’s Spaceship (John Barnes; Open Road Integrated Media) is a new e-book release of an effort from 1996. Parts of the early action, in which the protagonist loses his family to a vicious terrorist group of unknown (and very exotic) origins, seem sadly dated in light of the even greater viciousness that terrorist groups of… Continue reading Review: Patton’s Spaceship

The Steampunk Trilogy (Paul diFilippo; Open Road Integrated Media) is three short novels set in a now-familiar sort of alternate-Victorian timeline replete with weird science, Lovecraftian monsters, and baroquely ornamented technology described in baroquely ornamental prose. What distinguishes this particular outing is that it’s hilarious. In the first chapter of the first book, a runaway… Continue reading Review: The Steampunk Trilogy

Unexpected Alliances (M.R. LaScola; Two Harbors Press) is, alas, a horrible example of why the absence of editorial gatekeepers in indie publishing can be a bad thing. Here’s a clue: if you see nothing wrong with a near-future first-contact scene in which the commander of an armada of 30,000 starships many light years from Earth… Continue reading Review: Unexpected Alliances

In Soulminder (Timothy Zahn; Open Road Integrated Media), an invented device called a “soul trap” can capture the personality and memories of a dying human in a form that can be restored into the person’s brain if the physical damage that killed them can be repaired. While the device is initially conceived as a device… Continue reading Review: Soulminder

The Human Reach novels are a planned trilogy by John Lumpkin of which two books have so far been published: Through Struggle, The Stars (2011) and The Desert of Stars (2013. A third, The Passage of Stars, is planned. These books bear comparison with Thomas Mays’s A Sword Into Darkness, previously reviewed here, in that… Continue reading Review: the Human Reach novels

Shadow of the Storm (Martin J. Dougherty; Far Future Enterprises) is a tie-in novel set in the universe of the Traveller role-playing game. It’s military SF set against a troubled political background, with the Solomani Confederation facing off against the Third Imperium in a tense peace and the Confederation’s border worlds restive.

A Sword Into Darkness (Thomas Mays; self-published) is better than I was expecting. There’s been a fair bit of buzz about it on G+ and elsewhere in the corners of the net I frequent; the buzz led me to expect a well-executed work of space opera and military SF that could stand comparison with (for… Continue reading Review: A Sword Into Darkness

The Mandala (Timothy R. O’Neill, Publish Green) is an airport thriller with an SF premise. In the badlands of northern Montana there appears something that produces gravitational pulses powerful enough to perturb satellite orbits, and drives people who wander too near it insane. Satellite imagery reveals a vast, intricate pattern of subtle changes in the… Continue reading Review: The Mandala

At the end of my review of The Devil’s Concubine I wrote “it would be nice to think that the sequels will be about something other than her approach-avoidance dance with the guy, but experience has taught me to be pessimistic in such matters.” To my pleased surprise, my pessimism was not fulfilled. In The… Continue reading Review: The Devil Incarnate

One of the trials of reviewing books is first novels that aren’t very good, but are so well-meant and earnestly attempted than simply panning them would feel like kicking a puppy. Patrick Swenson’s The Ultra Thin Man is a case like this.

Space Opera (Rich Horton, editor; Diamond Book Distributors) starts off with an introduction that gives a historical overview of the evolution of the term “space opera” from its disreputable beginnings in the 1940s to the self-conscious modern revival of the subgenre after 1985. It’s a pretty good summary with a few odd lapses. Missing, for… Continue reading Review: Space Opera

Trial By Fire (Charles E. Gannon, Baen) is the sort of book that divides those who notice it into two parts. One group will sneer “Yard goods from Baen, yet another space opera full of stuff blowing up”; the other will nod and smile and say “Good clean fun, I’ll take it.” I’m cheerfully in… Continue reading Review: Trial By Fire

M. C. A. Hogarth’s The Worth of a Shell (self-published) is a complex, serious, well-thought-out extrapolation of the consequences of alien sexual biology marred only by the fact that one of its central premises is not at all credible. The Jokka are presented as a humanoid species with three sexes; males, females, and neuters. There’s… Continue reading Review: The Worth of a Shell