Category: Reviewed

Trident’s Forge — Patrick S Tomlinson

By 5t4n5

Trident's Forge -- Patrick S TomlinsonHumanity has finally begun to settle into their new home.   The new colony is coming along well with the ship locked in orbit at the end of an orbital lift providing all their needs, but Mei and the rest of the unbound have decided they don’t want to be any part of this new society and go off on their own across the ocean to meet the natives.

Then all hell breaks loose and Bryan, our illustrious detective from the first book (who is now the chief re-creation officer for the colony), ends up in the thick of it all on the other side of the planet.

All in all, a super good first-contact story, without none of that Star Trek first directive getting in anyone’s way: oh dear!

And now i’m really looking forward to Children of the Divide, the third book of this thoroughly enjoyable trilogy.

Patrick’s Page

#scifi #patrickstomlinson

Children of the Divide — Patrick S Tomlinson

By 5t4n5

Children of the Divide -- Patrick S TomlinsonI really couldn’t take any more of this story.   I gave up when Jian was about to crash into the orbital lift.

Yes folks, once again the last remaining humans manage to screw everything up.   Once again there’s a human faction trying to destroy everything.

Rinse, repeat, yawn, Zzzzzz.

Some people might like it, i suppose.

Patrick’s Page

#scifi #patrickstomlinson

Voice of the Whirlwind — Walter Jon Williams

By 5t4n5

Voice of the Whirlwind -- Walter Jon WilliamsThe third instalment in the Hardwired Series.

A super good story and certainly no complaints on that aspect of the book, but the telling of it leaves a bit to be desired.   As in Hardwired, we are told a tale without any explanation as to the background, only for that to be revealed later on.

At 6% i found myself suddenly realising what’s happening in this vagueness that i’d been reading which left me with no choice but to go back to the very beginning and begin again.   Why Walter can’t just tell you what you need to know before you read it instead of sometime afterwards i have no idea. There’s a few other places in the book that i was left feeling like i’m going back and forward in time and feeling like i’m not quite sure where i am any more.

It is rather annoying because he is certainly a great crafter of story, with great characters and world building, but then goes and lets it all down by writing things out of sequence and all over the place.

But, it is worth putting up with this downside to enjoy a really good story.

And this officially ends the trilogy, although i believe that Aristoi is kind of set in the same universe with a fair few references to Nero, one of our favourite characters from Solip:System: so i may just have to dive into that in the not too distant future.

Walter’s Page

#scifi #cyberpunk #walterjonwilliams

Solip:System — Walter Jon Williams

By 5t4n5

Solip:System -- Walter Jon WilliamsI believe this novella was written as an afterthought to attempt to bridge a gap between Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind, thus creating a trilogy once a few things got ironed out in Voice of the Whirlwind.

Which i think is a bit bad because this book is a very much needed sequel to Hardwired whether or not there was another book to follow.

I’m definitely pleased it was written as it does finish off Hardwired and Nero’s escapades as Roon rather nicely.

Brilliant novella, and now i dive straight into Voice of the Whirlwind.

Walter’s Page

#scifi #cyberpunk #walterjonwilliams

Hardwired — Walter Jon Williams

By 5t4n5

Hardwired -- Walter Jon WilliamsThis is one of those books with lots of jargon that isn’t explained in advance, and so you wander through a world with nomenclature and terminoloy that means nothing to you until, in the case of the term “thatch” for example, you get over 60% of the way into the story before someone explains what the word means. I would suggest that it’s definitely well worth reading the bit at the back named “Panzerboy” before you begin as that helps a little settling in.

Other than the nomenclature/terminology issue, which i suggest you just deal with it and accept it for what it is, it’s a super good story that became a very much couldn’t-put-downer towards the end — which is kinda once i’ve figured out all the nomenclature/terminology — and i found myself diving straight into Solip:System without a pause.

It’s certainly got me wanting to re-read the series again in a few years time now i know what things mean before i begin.

So yes, indeedy, it’s certainly rather good cyberpunk and worthy of it’s praises as a classic of the genre.

Walter’s Page

#scifi #cyberpunk #walterjonwilliams

Nightingale — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Nightingale -- Alastair ReynoldsWhat begins as a war-criminal hunt slowly turns more and more strange and out of control for our intrepid party of hunters.

I really enjoyed this super good novella.   It was nice of Alastair to throw a delicious little shorty between Revelation Space and Redemption Ark: both the size of trilogies in their own right.

And the ending is brilliant.

Available in the collection, Galactic North.

Next up in the series is Redemption Ark

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Revelation Space — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Revelation Space -- Alastair ReynoldsThis is one rather large book but, thankfully, it’s one rather good book as well that keeps those pages turn, turn, turning.

I think my only complaint is that when Volyova uses the Nostalgia for Infinity as a murder weapon by accelerating it and braking it in order to smash one of her crew to death, there’s no explanation as to what happened to everything else in this massive ship that wasn’t nailed down properly.   Like, what happened to all the ship-slime, rats, shuttle craft, the weapons cache and many other things besides: were all of the these things nailed down to protect them against such repeated high G acceleration and forward braking phases?   There were many ways of carrying out this killing that didn’t require any further explanation, but to use the method that Volyova did and then for Alastair to just fail to explain what happened to everything else in the ship does annoy me somewhat.

Because the ship isn’t designed to brake in the forward motion.   It’s designed to accelerate to one G continuously up to the half way point of the journey, then it will flip 180 degrees and use the same one G thrust to slow itself down.   Why would the engines suddenly be capable of huge 10 G burns in both directions just to kill one person?   I really think it’s needs a proper explaining.

But yeah, i know, that’s how picky i have to be to find any real criticism of this immense book.   It is the only fault i could find, and to be fair, most people would probably read this and not even think about it.

I do hope that doesn’t put anyone off (not that i think for one moment that it would ), because other than that one bizarre murder it’s super good, great writing, great characters, everything as we’ve come to expect so far in this series.

And i look forward to some more: next up is Nightingale.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #sfmasterworks #alastairreynolds

Grafenwalder’s Bestiary — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Grafenwalder's Bestiary -- Alastair ReynoldsThis one has call backs to A Spy in Europa, Diamond Dogs, and Chasm City, so if you missed reading any of those then you really need to go and read them first.

And it’s such a good short, like, really good.   The ending is brilliant.

Available in the collection, Galactic North.

And now, finally, at long last, we get onto the title work, Revelation Space.   Yes peoples, it’s finally the big books’ time to be read, so it may be a while between future reviews.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Turquoise Days — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Turquoise Days -- Alastair ReynoldsIn this book we go off to the planet Turquoise, so named because it’s an ocean planet covered in turquoise oceans.

Within the oceans are the Pattern Jugglers that got a mention in Diamond Dogs, and in this book we get a much deeper introduction to them.

So yeah, a really enjoyable novella adding yet another alien layer onto the growing alien layers of the Revelation Space universe.

Available in the duology, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days.

And the next book in the series is Grafenwalder’s Bestiary.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

The Last Log of the Lachrimosa — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

The Last Log of the Lachrimosa -- Alastair ReynoldsThe Lachrimosa is an Ultra vessel whose captain has bought some information which he believes will make him a lot of profit.   And so the ship ends up at a planet exploring a place the crew really don’t want to explore.

This has hints of the wars between the maggots and the machines that was mentioned in Chasm City, and it seems we’re getting info dumped for the big books at the end of the series.   Info dumping aside, it’s an enjoyable novella to whizz through in a day or so.

Available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.

This is folllowed by Turquoise Days.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds