science fiction author
I read this book on the strong recommendations I’ve seen online, but in the end I don’t feel like I got very much out of it. This book is a collection of short stories and novel excerpts that were chosen by his fans and collected. They are presented in chronological order so you can see his growth as a writer. That is the theory. I saw a change in tone of the stories but honestly,…
I decided to review these two together, having read the first of the series about a month and a half ago. Overall, I really enjoyed this trilogy. It was good “fluff” reading, by which I mean, I could read it during an extremely busy time at work and still get a good story out of it. The main character, Hail Bristol, is a former gunrunner who has now become the empress of Indrana. But her…
One of the people in my writing support group Discord server was begging us all to read this novella this week. I did a little research and found that it is very much a different voice for Scalzi. Since I really enjoyed his voice in Redshirts and the Old Mans War series, I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t like this so I downloaded the first chapter as a free sample. I was hooked.…
This book has received an enormous amount of press (at least I’ve seen a lot) and accolades for a first novel, so I went in expecting to really love it. There is a lot to like about this book, but I found some aspects of it less convincing. This book is set in a universe (possibly even our universe) that has bubbled off smaller universes at its growing edge. these universes are covered by “rinds,”…
I started this book about a week ago but got behind at work and didn’t get to finish it. Then over the last 2 days I read and read and read and could barely put it down. I was really pulled into this world and I love it. Behind the Throne is a story about a gun runner, Hail, who ran away from her life in court as 2nd heir to the throne in order…
This is a story set in a post-apocalyptic future about 400 years after “the collapse,” which is never described in detail, though from context it seems to be a global warming and other human caused extinction events. Humanity has barely made it to the stars in time to get off the dying Earth, and now with the benefit of time, Earth has begun to heal. This is not the point of the book, but it…
It was bittersweet to finish the book today. I really love this world, and you could sort of begin to see how he was going to tie it all up and end the novel (and series) about halfway through. That is when my interest began to peak, and I read the last 150 pages or so in one sitting… I wanted to know how it ended! I felt less connected to this book than the…
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…
