Category: Sci-fi
Darkness Rising — C. Gockel
Self Aware — Matt Martinez
A.I. and that — and it was free so i thought i’d may as well give a new writer a try.
It was rather a disappointment.
At no point does it explain how this AI is a cyborg — or how a cyborg could be classed as an AI. It makes clear that it was completely manufactured so where the term cyborg is relevant to this i have no idea. One would think that a when one sets out to write about a cyborg one would spend at least a minute or two at Wikipedia and find out what the term meant.
This is also a short-story/novella kind of thing and one would also think that with the couple of minutes at Wikipedia the writer would get a friend who can read to go quickly through the book and point out the errors. Missing words and jumbles are pretty inexcusable for a book this size.
And the story is quite unimaginative and wishy washy, with no effort being made to the actual realism of experimenting with a military cyborg or AI or whatever it is. How did this get out of the laboratory, why wasn’t it isolated from the facility’s mainframe/network?
Nothing much here to make me want to read anything else by this writer.
Matt’s Page
#scifi #mattmartinez #whataloadofcrap
All the Retros at the New Cotton Club — DeAnna Knippling
A free book that i received when i signed up to the Wonderland Press newsletter. I think you get a different free book now so you’ll have to go to Amazon and buy it now.
This is my first book by DeAnna and i was delightfully impressed with it. Although it’s just a short little novella, it does allow you to sit quietly for an hour or so and read the whole book, quite easily in one sitting, with a cup of coffee and slice of cake — or whatever your reading thing is.
If you’re into the AI/VR stuff with downloaded/uploaded human minds (a bit like what goes on in Altered Carbon) then you’ll most probably really enjoy this.
I do hope that DeAnna writes some more stuff in this sci-fi arena: the New Cotton Club seems like a wonderful playground for many more literary adventures.
Wonderful stuff for a freebee, but worth paying for as well.
DeAnna’s Page
#scifi #deannaknippling
Jeff Wayne’s The War of The Worlds — H. G. Wells
Wooohooo…. finally, an audiobook gets to make an appearance on Kindleworm, whatever next?
If you go to Audible you get a 30 day free trial and you’re allowed to keep the audiobook you chose. I chose this because i remember the original Jeff Wayne double album from years gone by; yeah, real vinyl played on a record player and all that — showing my age here. Anyway, i got this because i thought it was like a super extended full story version of that.
It’s a bit of an annoyance as you can only listen to it using the “Audible App”, but you can still listen to your audio book after you cancel your free trial membership as long as you keep the app cluttering up your chosen device.
So onto the review:
As i said above, i got this because i really liked the original version from way back in the long ago and i genuinely thought that this was a super extended version of that, but it isn’t.
It’s a completely redone thing with different actors — sorry ladies, no David Essex on this one . . .
And worse of all, there’s none of the original music. No songs whatosever. Just crappy remade, piecemeal versions of the original music playing in the background and foreground far too occasionally — and, worse of all, without any lyrics whatsoever.
Sadly, i’m very disappointed with the whole thing. It’s basically a simple radio play of the book with some mood music thrown in.
It would have been superb if the original double album had been built up with the full story, but alas, it wasn’t to be.
So my first attempt at an audio book, after all these years of resistance, has ended in woe.
Final thoughts: if you enjoyed and loved the original version you’ll probably not like this at all — especially if you liked, loved, or had a schoolgirl/boy crush on, David Essex. 
H. G. Wells’s Page
#scifi #hgwells
Let There Be Light — C. Gockel
An enjoyable little short story that hops back and forth between past and present a few times. You have to pay a bit of attention to where you are, but if you do it works ok and builds up nicely towards the wonderful ending.
I look forward to reading more from this writer.
C. Gockel’s Page
#scifi #cgockel
The Martian Chronicles — Ray Bradbury
It Does Not Follow — Joseph R. Lallo
A short story that is a conversation between a scientist and an AI — with an interesting twist in the tail.
For those who have read Joseph’s Big Sigma series, you’ll know how good he is writing AI’s into his books.
Originally only available to Joseph’s Patreon subscribers but now also in the collection Paradoxes and Dragons.
Joseph’s Page
#scifi #josephrlallo
Obsidian Worlds — Jason Werbeloff
I only recently discovered Jason’s writing and i have to say that i’m really enjoying it.
Obsidian Worlds is a whole book full of short stories about random sci-fi things which i chose to read as inbetweenies between chapters of How Emotions Are Made. It worked out really well giving nice little breaks to allow Lisa’s cutting edge science to percolate through my synapses, although, unfortunately, there aren’t enough shorts in this collection to cover all the chapters in Lisa’s book. Ho hum, i’ll just have to find some other shorts to read.
So yeah, Jason has a Phd in philosophy and i think that kinda adds a certain flavour to Jason’s sci-fi, and i do like philosophers who chose to write stories instead of academic papers — much more fun for all of us.
Other philosophers who write stories that i recommend would be Aldous Huxley and Pascal Mercier.
Your Averaged Joe
The Cryo Killer
Falling for Q46F
Visiting Grandpa’s Brain
The Photons in the Cheese Are Lost
The Time-Traveling Chicken Sexer
The Man with Two Legs
F**king Through the Apocalypse
Bleed Me Silicone
Dinner with Flexi
The Experience Machine
Jason’s Page
#scifi #cyberpunk #jasonwerbeloff
The Camille — Colby R. Rice
This novella is titled as ‘Til Dolls Do Us Part on Colby’s website and Colby says it is the first episode in what i hope will be a rather long series.
Set in 2054 when nano technology and AI has taken over most things and even the nano technology is intelligent.
As this is a novella don’t expect too much, but it’s certainly a great taster for what may be coming from Colby in the future. That being said, it can also be read as a stand alone if you’re just wanting something quick to read.
Colby is a great writer and really keeps your attention once you start reading. Do check out her other books.
Also available in the 2054 anthology.