Tag: #scifi

Troika — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Troika -- Alastair ReynoldsOriginally published in Godlike Machines, and also available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.

The story starts with an escapee from a mental hospital in Siberia desperately trying to reach the local town.

The escapee was one of three cosmonauts sent to investigate an alien vessel that had appeared in the solar system years before.

The story bounces back and forth between the escapee trying to reach someone in town and when he was a cosmonaut at the alien vessel.

Quite a good twist in the tail of this one as well.

Another good novella from Alastair, a master of short fiction as well as the super long stuff too.

Next up on Alastair’s timeline will be Sleepover.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Terminal World — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Terminal World -- Alastair ReynoldsA rather strange mix of steampunk and sci-fi with a hint of fantasy thrown in.   All in all, a rather good mix.

This is another one of Alastair’s trilogy in a single novel book, so if you aren’t in for a long haul then don’t bother.   But if you don’t mind a thousand Kindle Loc points of reading to get through this’ll keep you going.

While i didn’t find it anything like the normal page turners that Alastair generally puts out, i did keep coming back to it twice a day for a little read and soon got through it.

So, while not the greatest thing that Alastair has ever written, and personally wishing he’d just stick to the sci-fi that he’s so brilliant at, it’s still a fairly good read.

Next book in Alastair’s timeline is Troika.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Inhibitor Phase — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Inhibitor Phase -- Alastair ReynoldsIt had been a bit of a wait since Galactic North but now that Inhibitor Phase has arrived, was it worth the wait?

Well, ok, i’m gonna get my rant out of the way before i go any further.

To begin, we find ourselves on one of the few remaining human colonies that the Inhibitors haven’t got to, that of Sun Hollow.   We’re lead to believe that the people of Sun Hollow live inside a star scoured planet where resources are incredibly tight and the struggle to survive is always right on the edge.

Ok, that’s fair enough.

So why, oh why, oh why the fuck, does Alastair have to put sheep farming into this already over-stretched and under-resourced ecosystem?   This is the most imbecilic thing that is possible to write into this situation.   Where, for a start, do the sheep get their feed from?   Surely, if there are resources enough to keep a viable gene pool of sheep going just so these idiots can taste mutton every day then Sun Hollow must be a paradise to live with resources and space aplenty.

I put the question to anyone who disagrees with me: how many calories of plant foods does it take to make a calorie of mutton?

And as there is absolutely no nutritional need for Homo sapiens, or any other monkey/ape to eat dead animals, why would the people of Sun Hollow be throwing good plant food (that humans do need to eat) away like this?

Yes, Alastair, you screwed up royally on this one.

Anyway, rant over.

The rest of the book is good though, picking up after the events upon Hela that we left off in Absolution Gap, we get to meet Scorpio and Aura again with a new bunch of interesting characters thrown into the mix.

And best of all is that the ending certainly leaves things well and truly open for further books in the series: which i do look forward to as long as Alastair realises that there is no place for animal agriculture in the future of humanity because Homo sapiens have no nutritional needs that can be met by eating dead animals, and animal agriculture is the biggest contributor to environmental destruction on the planet Earth so it certainly won’t be part of any future space colonies that we set up, unless we want them to fail miserably.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Deep Navigation — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Deep Navigation -- Alastair ReynoldsI’ve rearranged the stories into date order, rather than the order they are in the collection: coz that’s juse how i roll, darlings.   Obviously, you can read them in any order you chose as well.

Revelation Space Universe

Monkey Suit – 2009

Standalones

Nunivak Snowflakes – 1990
Byrd Land Six – 1995
Stroboscopic – 1998
On the Oodnadatta – 1998
Viper – 1999
Fresco – 2001
Feeling Rejected – 2005
Tiger, Burning – 2006
The Fixation – 2007
The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter – 2007
Fury – 2008
The Star Surgeon’s Apprentice – 2008
Soirée – 2008
The Receivers – 2009

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

The Year’s Best Military and Adventure SF, Volume 4 — Anthology

By 5t4n5

The Year's Best Military and Adventure SF, Volume 4 -- Anthology

The Secret Life of Bots – 2017 — Suzanne Palmer
The Snatchers – 2017 — Edward McDermott
Imperium Imposter – 2017 — Jody Lynn Nye
A Thousand Deaths Through Flesh and Stone – 2017 — Spilogale, Inc.
Hope Springs – 2017 — Lindsay Buroker
Orphans of Aries – 2017 — Brad R. Torgersen
By the Red Giant’s Light – 2017 — Spilogale, Inc.
Family Over Blood – 2017 — Kacey Ezell
A Man They Didn’t Know – 2017 — David Hardy
Swarm – 2017 — Sean Patrick Hazlett
A Hamal in Hollywood – 2017 — Martin L. Shoemaker
Lovers – 2017 — Tony Daniel
The Ghost Ship Anastasia – 2017 — Rich Larson
You Can Always Change the Past – 2017 — George Nikolopoulos
Our Sacred Honor – 2017 by David Weber

#scifi #lindsayburoker

Ghost in the Shell — James Swallow

By 5t4n5

Ghost in the Shell -- James SwallowBasically, it’s just the film in writing.   Which, if you’re just wanting to read what happens in the film, then great, but personally i feel that this is just totally lazy on the part of the writer: or maybe this is all they were told to do by the rights holder???

The great thing about books, as opposed to film, is that you don’t have to pay for the sets, the extra cameras, the costumes, etc..   In a book the writer is simply limited by their own imagination and language skills, whereas in a film the director/writers are totally and absolutely constrained by finite resources such as finances, but also logistics, cgi limitations, the human elements of everyone involved (remember the pandemic and the disruption that caused to films and tv shows?) and many other things besides.   So to sit down and write a novel based upon a film, one would think a really good writer would have a fucking field day with it, but, with Ghost in the Shell, they didn’t.

Like is say, maybe this was the brief, and when someone throws a bag of money in the direction of writers and tells them what they want writing i would imagine they’ll get plenty of writers clamouring to take on such an easy task as this “novelisation” must have been.

At less than 2300 Kindle Loc points you’re pushing it to label this as a novel anyway.   At this length you’re seriously riding the boundaries between novella and novel.

I suppose they didn’t want to upset the film fans who only have attention spans of two hours.

So yeah, sadly, a total let down.   There could have been so much more background and detail that could have really added to the story.   A seriously wasted opportunity.

James’ Page

#scifi #cyberpunk #jamesswallow

The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne — Yudhanjaya Wijeratne

By 5t4n5

The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne -- Yudhanjaya WijeratneI came across Yudhanjaya’s writing in the anthology 2054, where i found his very enjoyable Deep Ocean Blues.   So having really enjoyed that novella i thought i’d go and have a hunt around and see what else Yudhanjaya has written.

The Slow Sad Suicide of Rohan Wijeratne is, i believe, Yudhanjaya’s first book, albeit just a short story.   It tells the tale of a poor little rich kid who has never had to work for anything and has essentially squandered his life.   He’s now so fed up with his pointless rich existence he just spends his time trying to kill himself.   But he’s so rich his parents had him filled with nanites that heal his every wound and illness, preventing him from ending his own life, no matter how hard he tries.

Then, one day, while driving a tuk tuk, Rohan hears about a space program wanting volunteers to be shot straight into a black hole: even the nanites won’t save him this time.

All in all, this is a really good short story, well written, but it does get lost here and there in the terminology and theories of black holes.   But Rohan is also completely lost with all the science of it, his nanites stopped working after 30 years in cryo-sleep to get to the black hole and he’s lost a lot of his intelligence.   Essentially, being baffled by all the science nonsense puts you right in the mind of Rohan as he plummets into the abyss.   Have fun!

Yudhanjaya’s next book is Numbercaste, which i shall get around to reading at some point in the future.

Yudhanjaya’s Page

#scifi #yudhanjayawijeratne

Fugitive Telemetry — Martha Wells

By 5t4n5

Fugitive Telemetry -- Martha WellsAlthough Fugitive Telemetry is tagged as book 6 and Network Effect is tagged as book 5, it seems to me that Fugitive Telemetry is in the time line before Network Effect.   If i read this series again, i would read Fugitive Telemetry before Network Effect.

As to the story:

Murderbot finds himself still on Preservation Station with Dr. Mensah, waiting for the inevitable visit from GrayCris agents when he ends up getting involved in a murder investigation.   Dr. Mensah thinks it would do him some good to work with station security and port authority agents, and so Murderbot decides to help.

This is one of those, no-one-trusts-the-AI-murder-machine, stories, with murderbot having to become a more public person now that it is going to be hanging around with Dr. Mensah doing her security.   But how can Murderbot help in the investigation if it’s not allowed access to any non-public systems and no one else on the investigation trusts it?

All in all, it’s really good but, like i mention, the timeline is a bit screwy and the flow between books could be better managed as it was in the earlier books where it was clear that where we started one book where we left off the previous book.

Martha’s Page

#scifi #marthawells

Network Effect — Martha Wells

By 5t4n5

Network Effect -- Martha WellsThe next Murderbot installment after Home.

After all the previous books that have all been novellas and two short stories, this book is like The Big Book of Murderbot.   At over 5000 Loc points this is a book to really settle down with and enjoy for a while.

So yeah, lots and lots more of Murderbot shenanigans, with Murderbot finding himself kidnapped, kidnapped again, and then held hostage and lots of other enjoyable escapades besides.   And Murderbot even seems to make a few friends along the way.

Only two books to go after this, i do hope there’s more because Murderbot is one brilliant protagonist.

Next up, Fugitive Telemetry.

Martha’s Page

#scifi #marthawells