Category: Reviewed

The Tea Master and the Detective — Aliette de Bodard

By 5t4n5

The Tea Master and the Detective -- Aliette de BodardI liked the cover, i liked the title, i liked the synopsis, i liked that it was 99p, and …

… i rather liked the story as well.

The “Tea Master” is actually a mindship, which isn’t really explained fully in the story, but you kind of get the idea that some sentient being has been implanted into the heart of some kind of space ship.   There’s a real enigmatic element flowing through this story, and i think a lot of it is because this is a standalone from a much wider story line, that of Xuya, and i’m fairly sure if i go and read lots of stories from the Xuya Universe i’ll soon find out all about mindships and such like.

But for this book, not being fully up to speed on the hard facts of everything really doesn’t detract.   In fact, i quite like the brushing over of the science and just getting down to the real bones of the story: that of a damaged mindship turned tea maker because they can’t face deep space any more, and that of a detective, who also comes across as fairly damaged herself.   The two have to somehow get over their issues and investigate the death of a child and hopefully prevent more deaths.

Nebula Award winner and Hugo Award finalist for best novella, a sci-fi book doesn’t come with much better credentials.

After reading this i just had to go and read more from The Universe of Xuya, and so i gave this book a second reading when it was due in the series.   It’s much better read with the full Xuya background, and you can find that second review to The Tea Master and the Detective by clicking on it.

Aliette’s Page

#scifi #aliettedebodard

The Pied Piper of Hamelin — Robert Browning

By 5t4n5

The Pied Piper of Hamelin -- Robert BrowningA delightful, long poem telling the full story of the Pied Piper.   Great for reading out loud to children.   And much, much better than the Brothers Grimm version.

Best of all, it’s free.   So why not download and give it a read today.

Fairy Tales and Folklore Robert’s Page

#viclit #poetry #fairytale #fantasy #robertbrowning

Recursion — Blake Crouch

By 5t4n5

Recursion -- Blake CrouchThe description on Amazon states that Recursion is the follow up to Dark Matter, which, for those of you living under a rock, is another absolutely, definitely, must read, Blake Crouch book.

So, i admit, i was a little dubious as to how this book would hold up when compared against its predecessor.   Dark Matter is, most certainly, a very, very hard act to follow.

But it did hold up, and without a doubt Recursion is very much a worthy book to be proclaimed as Dark Matter’s follow up.

Blake has one incredible imagination.   Genius.   How a writer can conjure up novels like Dark Matter and then follow it up with Recursion is outstanding.   Awesome mind-bending sci-fi that Blake somehow manages to make complete sense out of for all of us readers to enjoy having our minds bent by.

If you haven’t read these two books yet, then stop reading this and go and read them instead.

Blake’s Page

#scifi #blakecrouch

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City — K. J. Parker

By 5t4n5

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City -- K. J. ParkerThis is another one of those books that i judged by its cover and title, and the fact that it was 99p in a Kindle deal certainly didn’t do it any harm in getting me to purchase it.   Was it worth it?   Oh yeah, very much worth every single one of those 99 pennies — and then some.

Although listed as fantasy, don’t be expecting any wizards, elves or things magical, it isn’t that kind of fantasy.   It’s the kind of fantasy of a completely different place with big walled cities that keep those in power nice and secure and those not in power kept well out of it, well away and firmly under the boot heel.   Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City is very much the story of the downtrodden of this world, a world ruled by people with dark blue skin, the Robur, where people with lighter skin are oppressed.

Telling this story is the colonel in charge of the Robur army’s engineers, Orhan, who, much to the chagrin of the Robur, just happens to be one of those light skinned “Milkface” types who only got the job through pure luck and because he’s very good at building bridges and fiddling the regimental accounts.

And this is the story of how Orhan suddenly finds himself in charge of defending a walled city against hoards of other pale skinned, Milkface savages on behalf of his Robur rulers.

From the very beginning one can’t help but really like Orhan.   He has a very amusing, sarastic world view fuelled by an intelligence fitting with being a military engineer, and is certainly one of the most enjoyable narrators of any story i can think of from recent memory.

As an ex army engineer myself i really got into Orhan’s attitude to it all: shouldn’t the real soldiers be doing all this horrible nasty fighting and killing stuff while we just fix and build things?

This was my first K. J. Parker/Tom Holt book and i’m certainly going to be reading more books from him.   Great style, great editing, great characters, great all round writing.

And i just found there’s a follow-up to this wonderful yarn: How To Rule An Empire and Get Away With It

K. J. Parker’s Page Tom Holt’s Page

#fantasy #kjparker

Through Time and Space — Julia Crane

By 5t4n5

Through Time and Space -- Julia CraneA fun, little re-make of Little Red Riding Hood with all the usual protagonists portrayed as Venusians being banished to Earth.

This is my first story from the anthology, Once Upon A Star, which, apparently, is all fairy tales re-told in sci-fi settings.   However, i would put Through Time and Space squarely in the fantasy genre as moving by magic from one planet is fantasy, not sci-fi.   One certainly wouldn’t put Raymond E Feist in the sci-fi category and he has plenty of rift gate planet hopping going on in his books.

I read this so i could add it to my Little Red Riding Hood collection, and, genre disputes aside, it’s a nice little addition to my fairy tale collection and worth a read for all fairy tale fans.

Julia’ Page

#fantasy #fairytale #juliacrane

Rendezvous With Rama — Arthur C. Clarke

By 5t4n5

Rendezvous With Rama -- Arthur C. ClarkeWhat’s there to say: proper, good, classic sci-fi.   As with Childhood’s End, it is well deserving of it’s place in the “SF Masterworks” series.

This time, instead of actual aliens coming to Earth and a prophecy of how humanity will eventually evolve, in Rendezvous With Rama we have a large alien vessel entering the solar system on a path that will take it inside the orbit of Mercury, around the Sun, and then, is anyone’s guess.   Will it adjust it’s trajectory, pull a breaking manouvre and find a stable orbit in the solar system, or will it use the Sun and sling shot elsewhere?   Where did it come from, who sent it, who or what is inside, what is it’s purpose?

Set in a time when humans have colonised several planets and moons in the solar system and space flight is quite normal, we have one space ship — the Endeavour, captained by a big fan of James Cook — that is able to get some fuel and rendezvous with this vessel and investigate it.   However, once the vessel has passed inside the orbit of Mercury, the Mercurians decide to take matters into their own hands and ignore what the rest of humanity has to say on the matter.

As i say, this is a proper old school sci-fi first contact story at its best and well deserving of its place as a “SF Masterworks”.

Arthur’s Page

#scifi #sfmasterworks #arthurcclarke

The Last Broadcast — Christopher Ruz

By 5t4n5

The Last Broadcast -- Christopher RuzAn AI is put in charge of looking after a space ship with thousands of people in hibernation pods.   The journey is to last thousands of years and the AI has no one to talk to …

… and so the AI starts to have a bit of a mental health crisis.

I really enjoy good AI stories and this is certainly a good one.   As machines become more intelligent one can imagine that they will begin to break down due to similar issues: what are we going to do with these machines when we don’t have them crunching data and they can do many years of thinking in a few seconds?

Food for thought.

My only complaint about this is that it is way to short for such a brilliant idea.   I would have loved this very premise to be played out in a novella at least.   But, sadly, us greedy and demanding readers can’t have everything we want.

Also available in Future Tides.

Christopher’s Page

#scifi #christopherruz

The Girl in Red — Christina Henry

By 5t4n5

The Girl in Red -- Christina HenryHaving read all of Christina’s previous books — which i’ve extremely enjoyed — i had very high hopes for this book: alas, it was not to be.

So “Red”, our protagonist and narator, is on a journey to her Grandma’s house across several hundred miles of the USA after a coughing plague has culled nearly all the people: basically it’s a post-apocalyptic survival story.

And the whole book is taken up with the first half of this journey until there’s an endoparasitoid-bursting-out-the-chest-thing — WTF!!!   Remember Alien and Sigourney Weaver?   Yeah, that’s what an endoparasitoid-bursting-out-the-chest-thing is.

The army turn up and the soldier guy who chases the endoparasitoid-bursting-out-the-chest-things admits to Red that the government made it in a lab.   He lets Red carry on with her journey instead of taking her to the quarantine camp, and in a few pages Red arrives at her Grandma’s.   It’s like the second half of Red’s journey didn’t happen, like she was just magically transported to her Grandma’s.   And no explanation as to the endoparasitoid and why the government would make such a thing.

And it’s this one single, silly, ridiculous idea of an endoparasitoid thrown into the story with no purpose whatsoever that completely ruins the book — and also the second half of Red’s journey being skipped over as though it didn’t really happen, or was in a completely different world to the first half.

We don’t even get to know how Grandma has been surviving or anything.

Basically, the ending is utter garbage and totally ruins the whole story.   It’s just a total nonsensical ending.

It just left me which such a disappointment.   This is far below Christina’s usual standard.

Ho hum: i suppose we all have to write something crap once in a while.

Christina’s Page

#fairytale #postapocalypse #christinahenry

The Path of Pins, the Path of Needles — KT Bryski

By 5t4n5

The Path of Pins, the Path of Needles -- KT BryskiSo this is a well weird tale to tell.

I like walking and other forms of exercise, and while i’m doing them i like to listen to various podcasts.   I usually have a good pile queued up on my phone to listen to, to make sure i never run out.

While i was out walking yesterday morning the next podcast on the list started to play and it was The Path of Pins, the Path of Needles, which, it just so happens, is a Little Red Riding Hood spin off.

How Lightspeed managed to justify shoehorning a Little Red Riding Hood spin off into a Sci-Fi magazine, and then also manage to shoehorn it onto my phone to play at exactly the same time i’m having a Little Red Riding Hood reading binge, i have absolutely no idea.   But it’s all pretty uncanny when you think about it: like there’s more to these fairy tales than we at first may think.

Best of all is that you can read it for free at Lightspeed magazine, or listen to the podcast like i did.

And why not sign up to Lightspeed Magazine Story Podcast while you’re here, or there, and make sure you never miss another great story?

KT’s Page

#fairytale #ktbryski