science fiction author
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…
I read this book about 3 weeks ago while backpacking in the Eastern Sierra. I enjoyed it. It was the tale of “The Lost Colony” from Zoe’s perspective, and after reading the afterward, I felt like I understood the difficulty of writing such a piece. Scalzi says there that writing a story that fit between the cracks of another story was way more difficult than he thought it was going to be. I can see…
It’s been more than a month since my last post. I’ve done a little writing but work has gotten in the way. I’ve spent as much time as I could reading this book, which is now up to a series of 7 more the same length. It is a long read, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I watched part of The Expanse on a streaming service a few years ago and never got back to…
Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson. This book was a trip. I really enjoyed it. 3 teenagers, one October evening, sneak outside during a grown up party. And the stars and moon disappear. The Earth has been encased in a permeable membrane that slows time, so that for every minute, 3 years go by outside. This novel is broadly sweeping, discussing the technological, social, political, and religious fervor that grow up as millions of years go…
This novella is by Nnedi Okorafor, known for Africanfuturism. This is a term she coined because she did not agree with how her work was being portrayed in reviews. She states on her website that “Africanfuturism is a sub-category of science fiction. Africanjujuism is a subcategory of fantasy that respectfully acknowledges the seamless blend of true existing African spiritualities and cosmologies with the imaginative.” This was probably the first book I have ever read where…
I first read Old Man’s War about 8 years ago and it was one of those books that I couldn’t put down. I am only 2 years younger than him, and I feel like the SF that motivated him in his debut novel was similar to what I read. I read Starship Troopers multiple times, enjoyed Friday for its strong female lead (I know that Heinlein is problematic in some ways but to have a…
This is the 2nd half of the 2000 page epic space opera by Peter F. Hamilton. I’ll start out by saying that I read the first half, Pandora’s Star, more than 8 years ago. I did enjoy the universe and the story but I never got around to starting (and committing myself to finishing) the continuation. I’m glad I did, because I think it resolved ok, but overall I think that this was a relatively…
This book is the first of a trilogy by Card and Johnston that predates Ender’s Game by about 100 years. I am going to assume that you have read Ender’s game, but like all my reviews, there will be no spoilers. This was a good book. Not as good as the original but it sets up the Formic wars. Very early in the book, an object is seen /decelerating/ towards the Earth from outside of…
