science fiction author
The head of a biotech company is under investigation for the use of his nanotechnology in a terrorist attack in Las Vegas. With nowhere to turn, his wife suggests they seek help as a last resort from an old friend. And then the mystery thickens. This is a near future hard SF book that has some surprising twists and turns–some of which I probably should have seen coming. This is not the type of SF…
We return again to James Holden and his crew, this time exploring a world out beyond the ring. I’ve been super busy at work and so this one took me more than 2 months to read, but it was as enjoyable as the rest. Maybe I am getting used to the characters or the way this author plots, but there were a few places (that I won’t spoil) where I knew what the solution was…
A Black woman moves into her new home with her husband on her birthday. While unpacking, she gets nauseous, and finds herself transported back to Maryland in the early 1800s where a child is drowning. Her great-great-great grandfather points a gun at her. Her terror sends her back to her shocked husband. This novel is fantasy, and it explores dark themes. And sadly, it is just as relevant today as it was when it was…
This is book 3 in the Expanse series and it continues to follow James Holden and his crew as they travel around the solar system. There isn’t a lot I feel I can say about this book that you won’t find reading a review on Amazon, and I don’t want to give any spoilers. This series continues to be good quality hard SF and I really have enjoyed reading it. The authors are careful to…
I’ve heard a lot about this book. It was highly recommended and for me this book checked all the boxes. A new crew member joins a starship to take over record keeping but she has a complicated and secret past. The captain is a good man, trying to keep everyone happy with a firm but gentle hand, and yet he too has a secret… his girlfriend must be kept secret because the xenophobic race she…
I became aware of Dotson’s writing on social media (twitter, specifically), mostly because Gareth Powell regularly lifts her up. I love space opera and so I decided to look into this author. In many ways, her life story sounds a lot like mine. We both created worlds as children and young adults, wrote stories and fleshed out our characters, but are not full time fiction writers. The difference, of course, is that she has followed…
Shards of Earth is a space opera that takes place in a future where the Earth has been destroyed. This is not a spoiler, as it is in the prologue. The Architects have come, giant moon sized entities who do not respond to our communication attempts, and they destroy settled worlds while leaving empty worlds alone. There is a rich cast of characters including heroes from that war, merchants, bureaucrats, religious cult leaders, several alien…
I really enjoyed the first installment of the Expanse series so I was looking forward to this one and I was not disappointed. The book follows the same set of main characters from Leviathan Wakes, Holden, Amos, Naomi and Alex, and introduces/focuses on some additional characters, such as Bobbie, a Martian marine, Prax, a botanist on Ganymede, and Chrisjen Avasarala, a high ranking member of the UN. The switching between the four PoV characters (Holden,…
The author described this book as wanting to experience what Guardian’s of the Galaxy felt like. If he meant a wild ride with a fast-paced plot and a varied collection of aliens working together, then I think he succeeded. The story is principally a story about a collection of three aliens who work on the same ship. One is a human from Earth (Max) who accidentally stepped on a portal and got teleported to a…
This book popped up on my “recommended reading list” on Amazon and I read the preview. I am a big fan of military SF and the first three chapters hooked me in, so I bought it. I ended up reading it in one day while on a quick start of summer vacation. The book is action packed, following the exploits of a young space marine, Cam Alvarez, who joins up to avoid a lengthy “hibernation”…
