Book Review: Nemo Rising by C. Courtney Joyner

It’s a long time since I read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne, so I don’t remember a great deal about it. Admittedly, it’s even longer than that since Jules Verne wrote it in 1870. Nemo Rising features the return of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus, as well as more sea creatures, marvellously advanced technology and dodgy seamen.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi

In a complete change from his high concept, far future Jean le Flambeur trilogy, Hannu Rajaniemi takes us back to 1938 for his latest novel, Summerland. It’s a world of espionage, brewing conflict and political intrigue, set amongst various government departments where Rachel White is trying to discover the truth behind a Russian defector’s claim that there is a traitor in the British government’s security services.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: After Atlas by Emma Newman

‘Planetfall’ was a fabulously engaging novel of deep characterisation and otherworldy intrigue that left me highly impressed. ‘After Atlas’ and ‘Before Mars’ are both dubbed as ‘Planetfall’ novels, as they are set in the same universe, but the stories are seemingly unconnected other than a shared background and references to the departure of Atlas, the ship that carried the colonists featured in ‘Planetfall’.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

The Unextraordinary Day of the Bodger

My eldest son Alex has a new podcast story out this week on YouTube channel Tall Tales TV.

Book Review: Altered Seasons - Monsoonrise by Paul Briggs

Relative newcomer Paul Briggs brings us a cli-fi novel with an eye-catching and dramatic cover in the form of Altered Seasons: Monsoonrise. Cli-fi, by the way, is climate fiction, this being a near-future story of climate change, which is one of those categories that skirts the edges of SF in that it’s slightly in the future and includes a few scientific advances but mostly posits a what-if future based on current trends.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Before Mars by Emma Newman

In the third of her Planetfall books, Emma Newman returns to a loosely-related setting in Before Mars, a book with the same background but this time set on Mars several years after the departure of the colonists who feature in Planetfall. Just as in the first book, the setting and plot are intriguing but once again Emma Newman’s strength is her astonishingly complex characterisation of realistically flawed people.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: From Distant Stars by Sam Peters

Sam Peters’ 2017 debut novel From Darkest Skies was one of those addictive books that I didn’t want to put down, filled as it was with mystery and intrigue, conspiracies and dangers. His follow-up novel, From Distant Stars, does not disappoint, taking us straight back into the action with agent Keon Rause, an investigator on the heavy gravity planet Magenta called in to investigate the death of a patient and three Fleet officers in Mercy Hospital.

Read the rest of my review st SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

Two books came to mind as I started reading Sam J. Miller’s book Blackfish City: Austral by Paul McAuley and America City by Chris Beckett. Of course, it turns out the book is not particularly like those novels at all, except in some superficial sharing of tropes. It’s set in a future where climate change has drowned much of the world and where political breakdown, riots, disease and violence have radically changed society.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Book Review: The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson

The idea behind dating apps meshes with social media to create compatible social groupings known as Affinities in Robert Charles Wilson’s near-future novel that initially seems to be heading towards a utopian tale of co-operation and acceptance, but soon turns into a wonderfully complex tale of social revolution.

Read the rest of my review at SF Crowsnest.

Putting the Science in Fiction Official Anouncement

Putting the Science in Fiction has been officially announced by Writers Digest. The book is due out in the autumn and includes a chapter by me on waste management in science fiction.