Putting the Science Fiction

Putting the Science in Fiction is out today, including my chapter on Waste Management in Science Fiction.

Parsec Award Finalist

My story 'The Long Afternoon of Sir Rupert Moncrief' is shortlisted in the Best Speculative Fiction Story: Small Cast (Short Form) category of the Parsec Awards!

Book Review: By the Pricking of Her Thumb by adam Roberts

Adam Roberts is a great player with words, constructing lyrical prose and playful dialogue without any care as to whether it falls strictly within the rules of English grammar or whether indeed the words could be found in a dictionary. 

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Game of the Gods by Jay Schiffman

The first thing that struck me about Jay Schiffman’s debut novel Game Of The Gods was the characters’ quirky names, which struck me as somewhat Vancian and made a nice change from the usual run-of-the-mill popular name derivatives.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: One Way by S.J. Morden

I guess comparisons with Andy Weir’s The Martian are inevitable for S.J. Morden’s near-future Mars thriller, One Way. I can’t really make those comparisons directly though as I’ve only seen the film and not read the book of The Martian.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu

Another of renowned Chinese author Cixin Liu’s novels has been translated for our enjoyment by Joel Martinsen in the form of Ball Lightning, a hard-SF, physics-based tale of obsession, complicated mathematics and the force of nature.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Quivira

My 16,000 word novelette Quivira, co-written with Jonathan Gillespie, is now available at The Society of Misfit Stories.

Described (by me) as Avatar meets Lord of the Rings, I'm hoping it will be picked up by a major film director!

Book Review: Planetside by Michael Mammay

Set around two millennia in the future in a society of planetary colonisation and terraforming, Planetside is Michael Mammay’s debut novel of mystery and conspiracy against the backdrop of a prolonged planetary war.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Quoted on the Cover

I received a copy of the new paperback version of Our Memory Like Dust by Gavin Chait, and I was rather excited to see that my review of the hardback version was quoted on the back cover. It's the third book to add to my 'Quoted on the Cover' shelf!

Book Review: The Quanderhorn Xperimentations by Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall

Like other great comedy Science Fiction novels before it, The Quanderhorn Xperimentations is based on a BBC Radio series or, at least so the cover of the book says, though it also claims to have travelled back in time to be written before it occurred and also possibly to be a true story, so who knows what to believe?

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.