The Girl and the Moon — Mark Lawrence

The Girl and the Moon -- Mark LawrenceAnd so we’re back in the corridor, at Sweet Mercy, where it all began in the original trilogy.

Once again, i felt that dragging tedious feeling i had with the previous books in this trilogy, except this time it wasn’t due to plodding over the ice.   This time it mostly came down to this never ending cat and mouse game with Seus and Eular, both of which aren’t very exciting baddies and don’t exactly get one excited.   In fact they just continued to disappoint me with the fact that they keep not dying when that’s all i wanted them to do from about 50% in, just so we could get it all over with.

Ok, i have to admit that i read the whole trilogy all the way through, so it couldn’t have been that bad.   But, it definitely could have been a lot better and lot lot lot faster paced.

Anyways, it’s all over now and i can go and read some other more exciting things.

Mark’s Page

#fantasy #marklawrence

Caliban’s War — James S. A. Corey

Caliban's War -- James S. A. CoreyThe second full length novel in “The Expanse” series.   And what a novel it is.

The protomolecule has now taken over Venus and while it is now the most watched and analysed thing in the solar system, no one has any idea what is going on beneath Venus’ clouds.

Meanwhile, on Ganymede, a space monster attacks a whole load of UN and Martian marines, and leaves only one alive.   Then all hell breaks loose between Earth and Mars and Ganymede gets laid to waste.

And while all this is going on someone is kidnapping children with a rare immune disorder.

And so the stage is set for a super long read.

All our favourite characters from the first series are back, and a few more really good new characters are thrown into the mix.

Super good, great writing, all round awesome sci-fi.

Next up is Gods of Risk.

James’ Page

#theexpanse #scifi #jamessacorey

Leviathan Wakes — James S. A. Corey

Leviathan Wakes -- James S. A. CoreyAfter a few little novellas it’s been a joy to get into some real long distance reading: it’s a rather large book!

Great characters, superbly well written, non stop action, excellent dialogue (both internal and external); i really can’t fault this book.

Do remember to have a little break during this to read The Last Flight of the Cassandra.

And now i have the second huge tome, Caliban’s War, to dive straight into.

James’ Page

#theexpanse #scifi #jamessacorey

The Last Flight of the Cassandra — James S. A. Corey

The Last Flight of the Cassandra -- James S. A. CoreyThis story occurs immediately after Holden makes his announcement that the ice hauler was destroyed and a piece of tech with a Mars stamp on it was discovered.

The Cassandra is flying hand to mouth already and they realise that with the coming price fluctuations they won’t be able to continue flying.   So they go off to an asteroid in a last attempt at turning a profit: finding something that could change everything for them.

A good little story that i would suggest reading as soon as the Holden announcement goes out, or, you could wait until the end of Leviathon Wakes and read it then.

James’ Page

#theexpanse #scifi #jamessacorey

The Butcher of Anderson Station — James S. A. Corey

The Butcher of Anderson Station -- James S. A. CoreyAnother back story for one of the series main characters.   This time it’s Fred Johnson’s turn as we look back at the events of Anderson Station and how they shape his future self.

Next book in the series is Leviathon Wakes, and it’s a big, big long one: it might be a while before my next review.

James’ Page

#theexpanse #scifi #jamessacorey

Signal to Noise — Alastair Reynolds

Signal to Noise -- Alastair ReynoldsAvailable in the collection, Zima Blue and Other Stories.

Alastair wrote a love story: awwwwwww.

And . . . . . . it’s rather good.

Although . . . . . . i’m not really a fan of all this parallel universe nonsense, because it is nonsense, just like flat earth nonsense.

But . . . . . . done right, like Alastair can, you can find some good stories in a parallel universe as long as you ignore all the nonsense bits.

All that aside . . . . . . next up in Alastair’s bibliographic timeline is The Six Directions of Space, which i’ll be eagerly devouring in the next week or so.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Cardiff Afterlife — Alastair Reynolds

Cardiff Afterlife -- Alastair ReynoldsAvailable in the collection, Zima Blue and Other Stories.

Oh dear, just when i thought it was safe to read Alastair again he had to go and start writing parallel universe nonsense stories once more.

Oh please someone assure me that this is the last of Alastair’s delusions that parallel universe stories are any good, or that the theory holds any water at all. Seriously, it’s just utter twaddle.

Anyway, next up in Alastair’s publishings will be Terminal World, let’s hope that isn’t more parallel stuff twaddle nonsense.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds