You searched for book_author:"Allen M. Steele"
Does every science-fiction writer have to write a Big Dumb Object novel? (TVTropes) Is it some kind of rite of passage? That’s basically what Spindrift is, or at least what it starts out as. Later it becomes a novel about first contact and an attempt to evoke that kind of humble, “we are not alone” sensation other such stories play with. Perhaps what sets it apart from similar novels is Steele’s smart decision to set…
Do you ever read a book only for it to be exactly what you expected? Not exactly what it promises, mind you, but to have all your expectations confirmed. That’s what happened here with Coyote Horizon. With only vague memories of Allen Steele’s first colonial SF adventures, I was vaguely optimistic about this book. I was looking forward to some politics, some wilderness, some alienness—and that’s what I got. Coyote Horizon, like its…
Something's been nagging me ever since I began reading Allen Steele's Coyote series. I enjoyed both Coyote and Coyote Rising, for the most part, yet something was missing. Coyote Frontier brings that missing piece of the puzzle to the series, for we finally get to see Earth with our own eyes, and Steele reminds us why space travel isn't just for science fiction.
In Coyote Frontier, a starship belonging to the European Alliance,…
I'd like to love Coyote Rising more; Allen Steele has created a very original tale of interstellar colonization. Unfortunately, I found the plot and the characters lacking the substance required to truly distinguish a novel, no matter how original its premise.
The first book in the series, Coyote, depicted a fantastic new world, Earth-like in so many ways yet also devastatingly alien. Even as the original colonists began to settle the planet, more ships…
In Coyote, Allen Steele demonstrates the versatility of science fiction as a medium for storytelling. There are no advanced alien species (that we know of so far), no ray guns, and no evil battle droids. Instead, Coyote is a pioneer tale set in a very distant, very exotic locale. In fact, it's interesting that I chose to read it, considering my distaste for "pioneer" and "survival" type literature. Nevertheless, Steele's writing and the story…