science fiction author
This story opens with a trope that I’ve been told you should never do… the POV character wakes up in a sleep/med pod and struggles to survive. I suppose that the lesson here is that “never” means that it needs to be done well. I have a story where my main POV character also wakes up in a sleep/med pod, but as I’ve thought about that story over the years, I realize it isn’t essential…
This is book 2 of the Embers of War trilogy and I have to say I could hardly put it down. I read it in two days, and I stayed up way past my bed time to finish the last 100 pages. I really enjoyed it. The book picks up several months after the conclusion of the first book. The Trouble Dog (sentient space ship, which I love) is in orbit while Sal (the captain)…
This book hooked me right in. A salvage crew is working on a wreck in orbit around a planet and they find something that gets right into their minds. Only later do we find out the truth. The main character is a non-citizen, an indenture, working to free herself to become a free citizen, but she has a terminal illness that she is trying to hide from her captain and crew, but it might be…
When the first scene of a novel involves a starship captain covered with scratches crawling along the passageways of her ship to disentangle psychic space cats from the wiring, it seems pretty clear what you’re going to be in for, and I don’t think the first chapter mis-sells the product. This is space opera, with no effort or attempt at hard SF. Ships travel FTL through portals left behind by an ancient race, and that…
I read this novella on a short weekend getaway in the desert near Mono Lake. I had no idea what to expect, having read nothing about this book, but I saw the author speak at the Dream Foundry con earlier this year and I figured I would like her writing based on what I heard there. This is a space exploration story which is simultaneously optimistic and pessimistic about the future of the human race,…
I bought this book earlier in the summer because I specifically wanted to broaden my horizons and read books by Black authors. Later, this book was nominated for several awards and it kept appearing on lists. It is a novella, so at the end of a busy and stressful couple of days I decided to sit down and read it yesterday. I read it in two bursts, and I’ll be honest, this is not my…
I only learned of this author this past summer as I began more deeply (broadly) exploring the world of speculative fiction after attending the virtual con. Actually, I first discovered Gareth because someone I followed on Twitter shared his space art and I really loved it. Then his name started popping up more and more frequently on lists of space opera authors and I figured I had to give this book a try. I was…
Well, I finished the series. This book, like the one before it, was a collection of related novellas that worked independently as well as telling a whole story. I really am impressed at his ability to pull that off. The series ended well, in my opinion. Not everything was tied up in a neat bow, but the major antagonist was handled and the future is uncertain. Not a cliffhanger, but certainly a way back in…
I joined a discord server back this summer after the Flights of Foundry con I attended. It has been refreshing to hear from other writers (most of them being actual writers and not aspiring like myself) but I have critiqued and received critiques from several members of the group, which was the main thing I wanted to get out of the con. Well I was recently invited to join a small “local” writing group that…
I was really going to read a different author but I’ve also really wanted to finish the Old Man’s War sextet so I went ahead and read this instead. I loved it. Which is really no surprise. I really like Scalzi’s writing style, sense of humor, and the OMW universe. I started reading this book about 6 weeks ago and got hammered by work and only finished it this past weekend while on a short…
