Tag Archives: science fiction

Fortress On The Sun

Posted on April 1, 2012 | Comments Off on Fortress On The Sun

There’s nothing typical about this space opera, with some intricate overtones of hard science involving the biochemistry of the brain. The more you read the more the clever story unfolds until, pretty soon, you’re in a very different place from where you started—which is all the spoiler I’m giving.

Really nice work by author Paul Cook in this second tale of his that I’ve read since the equally-intriguing The Engines of Dawn. I took one star off, however, for the recurring and very annoying typos in the Kindle edition, none of which, I’m sure, are the author’s fault.

They’re mainly proper end-of-line hyphens turned into improper middle-of-a-line hyphens in the process of formatting the text in HTML. There’s really no excuse for such lazy proofreading (or, more likely, no proofreading) by a mainstream publisher who ought to be thoroughly ashamed.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering

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Virga: Cities of the Air

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Comments Off on Virga: Cities of the Air

A world where free-fall is normal and gravity is a luxury you have to pay for. A world where sunlight is not available to all and even those who have the machines that produce it have to get used to full-dark hours of sun-off with no moonlight. Some even live in full-dark all the time.

Virga, life inside a Fullerene balloon thousands of miles in diameter, on the edge of the Vega solar system, is scifi author Karl Schroeder’s five-book (so far) series of swashbuckling tales. This is steampunk Victoriana where computers and other electronic devices cannot exist—unless a crucial part of the central “sun of suns” is turned off.

Great stuff, truly, though it’s not a future world I would care to actually live in, unlike the future world of Jack McDevitt’s Alex Benedict detective series. Virga’s hard science instructs as the romance entertains and the characters introspect, change and grow.

Well worth your time and money to read the first in the epic and don’t be surprised if you find yourself hooked. Unfortunately, they are fast reads. They go lickety-split. Having finished No. 4, a cliff-hanger, I must now wait until Valentine’s Day to receive No. 5. Sigh.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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Flood

Posted on September 5, 2010 | Comments Off on Flood

Frightening. Plausible. Sad. I couldn’t stop reading, until the Kindle battery ran down and I had to let it charge for a while. Like no flood story ever. I liked the characters, well, the likable ones. But even the unlikable ones resonated. No question I’ll be moving on to the sequel Ark. And many more of Stephen Baxter’s works.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Space

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Uncharted Territory

Posted on June 15, 2010 | Comments Off on Uncharted Territory

A funny yarn for the Kindle that doesn’t seem to go anywhere–until it does. And leaves you with a satisfying tale of two planetary explorers, man and woman, chosen by the bureaucrats for their “gender balance” but whose relationship matures into something closer to love.

While their indigenous scout has romantic notions of his (her?) own. Meanwhile, it’s a wickedly funny satire on political correctness, sensitivity training, and multiculturalism. All science fiction authors seem to delight in sending up bureaucracies, but Connie Willis does it better than most.

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Posted in Library, Scribbles, Space

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The Devil’s Eye

Posted on May 25, 2010 | Comments Off on The Devil’s Eye

Literary agent Nathan Bransford is always coming up with something interesting to post. The other day it was one that sounds old but was new to me: If you could live in the world of one novel, which would you choose? I’d choose the space opera world of Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath, as created by SciFi author Jack McDevitt. Actually there are four novels. Any one of them would do fine.

I’ve read all four. Began with Polaris and then its wonderful sequel Seeker, only to discover that I missed the first one A Talent for War. So I read and enjoyed it, too, before finishing the fourth, The Devil’s Eye. Now it seems there will be a fifth one, Echo, this fall. Their world, in which there is so little crime the police are happy to get a new case, seems ideal. Their planet, Rimway, is in a galaxy far, far away, in the arm of Orion–my favorite constellation.

Not everyone gets to travel by starship like Alex and Chase do, but the opportunity is there. Just flitting about in gravity-free skimmers would be pleasant enough. (Although I do wish they would realize that someone is always tampering with theirs and plan accordingly.) Also having one’s personal AI, linked in to the galaxy-wide net to help research anything by voice or avatar. But what I like most is the way McDevitt writes. Conversationally. I flow along with the story, happily ensconced in the moment,  not entirely concerned about where events are going. Just enjoying the ride and hoping it never ends.

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Posted in Library, Science/Engineering, Space

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Flawed book covers

Posted on April 30, 2010 | Comments Off on Flawed book covers

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This is one of Heinlein’s older juveniles. Note the ninety-five cent price. It’s from this site that mocks some book covers, this one for the astronaut’s day-glo orange trousers. Hmm. Mr. B. and I enjoyed the tale as a bedtime story a few years ago, despite the tedious courtroom passages which weren’t near as funny as the author tried to make them.

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Posted in Library, Mr. Boy, Scribbles, Space

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