Tag: #scifi
The Waking of Grey Grimm — Tony Bertauski
The Long War — Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
The Long Earth — Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Star Maker — Olaf Stapledon
I managed to get 31% into this and then just had to give up trying. I really couldn’t manage any more of it.
Imagine that William’s favourite book is Gulliver’s Travels and he decides to have a go at writing a sci-fi version of it having read Brave New World just before starting. I think that pretty much sums up the first 31%.
The problem is that while Gulliver’s Travels and Brave New World are both very good books, both are very well written and keep the reader’s attention, Star Maker is tedious, dull and plodding: at least that’s how i found it to be. I can imagine for its time it was very exciting, but sadly some books just don’t age well and i think this is one of them.
I don’t feel that it’s bad enough to warrant a place on “The Deleted” page, so it will get a reprieve and stay in my Amazon lists for now and i may give it another go at some future date when i’m feeling a lot better about life and stuff.
Olaf’s Page
#scifi #sfmasterworks #olafstapledon
The Phobos Experience — Mary Robinette Kowal
The Fated Sky — Mary Robinette Kowal
Annabel Scheme and the Adventure of the New Golden Gate — Robin Sloan
I really enjoyed Annabel Scheme and also everything else that Robin has written, so i went into this with very high expectations: sadly, i don’t think it reached them.
While it’s not a bad book and is quite an ok read, it just all felt a bit rushed.
Yes, i know, it was written as a serial article for a newspaper and maybe Robin was hobbled with some level of word count, or maybe Robin was in a rush to get on with other things: i’ve no idea. What i do have an idea about is that this book just isn’t as good as the original Annabel Scheme book.
But, hey ho, it’s enough to keep us Robin Sloan fans happy for a while and you can at least read it for free in it’s original form at the newspaper’s website.
In the meantime, we keep our fingers crossed for a full length novel coming from Robin soon.
Robin’s Page
#scifi #robinsloan
The Memory Hacker — JT Lawrence
This is just way too overdone for me with too many holes in it.
By far, the worse of the 4 stories in 2054.
Nuff said, move along, nothing to see here.
Janita’s Page
#scifi #cyberpunk #jtlawrence
Deep Ocean Blues — Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
An interesting little novella based in a deep ocean thorium mine with a human, an AI and a bunch of OctoPods as workers: OctoPods are cyborg octopuses in case you were wondering.
It mostly explores the same theme as Blade Runner, as in, what is it to be me.
I am left thinking that there’s at least a full length novel in this deep underwater world and the onshore world that supports it and squabbles over the rights. There’s certainly a lot of interesting space for a novel or three to explore and fill.
Available in 2054 and also to read for free at Yudhanjaya’s website.