ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY Shroud. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Adrian Tchaikovsky imagines a planet inhabited by intelligent life yet toxic to the humans who urgently need to understand it. Hot on the heels of the third book in his incredible Tyrant Philosophers fantasy series, prolific and multi-award-winning British science...
OLIVER K LANGMEAD Calypso. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Oliver K Langmead combines science fiction with poetry to deliver a fresh and thought-provoking take on the genre. Just when you think you have come across every possible version and trope of the generation-ship (taking hundreds of years to take colonists to a new...
MYKAELA SAUNDERS Always Will Be. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Mykaela Saunders’ stories imagine a future where the connection to land and culture is central. Mykaela Saunders won an Aurealis award for her exciting and thought-provoking anthology of First Nations speculative fiction This All Come Back Now. In the same year her...
NICK HARKAWAY Titanium Noir. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Nick Harkaway’s dystopian new novel features a classic noir detective. While it is always true to say genre is fluid, occasionally something magical can happen when crime fiction meets science fiction. This may be because the best crime fiction uses its tropes...
RAY NAYLER The Mountain in the Sea. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Octopuses and artificial intelligence feature in ‘one of the best science fiction novels of 2022’. While there are plenty of great space-battle and apocalypse and time-travel stories out there, some of the best science fiction deals in ideas. Ray Nayler’s...
ANDREW NETTE and IAIN McINTYRE (eds) Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical science fiction 1950 to 1985. Reviewed by Michael Jongen
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds explores how science fiction reflects the times in which it is written. In this lavishly illustrated collection of essays, Nette and McIntyre take a third loving look at the era of pulp fiction, following on from their Girl Gangs,...
DAN FREY The Future is Yours. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Dan Frey’s novel is both a critique of Silicon Valley and an exploration of what it might mean if we really could see into the future. Time travel is one of the most persistent and fun tropes in science fiction. The list of time travel books, TV shows and movies...
MICAIAH JOHNSON The Space Between Worlds. Reviewed by Robert Goodman
Micaiah Johnson delivers a fresh take on multiple worlds and explores issues of power, nature and fate in her novel The Space Between Worlds. The idea of multiple worlds or multiple realities is a common one in science fiction. In her debut, The Space Between...
BECKY CHAMBERS The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Reviewed by Chris Maher
Becky Chambers assembles an intriguing cast of species in a spacecraft on a mission into deep space. Compared in its publicity to cult TV sci-fi show Firefly, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is both more and less than that cowboy western in space. The...STEPHEN BAXTER Proxima. Reviewed by Keith Stevenson
Alien technology, interplanetary travel, Artificial Intelligence and the origin of the universe are among the many ideas explored in this complex and entertaining novel. Analog Science Fiction and Fact was my magazine of choice as a teenager. Often it featured stories...NEAL STEPHENSON Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing. Reviewed by Matthias Schreck
This book of essays and stories adds new perspective to Stephenson’s interests and plot devices. Reviewing a collection of essays is a tricky task at the best of times, since they have often been written over a long period, with differing levels of...
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