Books shelved under “Ebook”

I imagine being a detective is difficult enough without specializing in the supernatural. It probably helps that in Justin Gustainis’ alternative world, the existence of supernatural beings from vampires to ghouls to witches has been public knowledge since after World War II. So at least you don’t run into the common problem of everyone thinking you’re crazy. Still, solving mysteries is difficult enough when you don’t have to worry about failure meaning the end of…

Corporations are legally people—how long before they become nation-states? Some of them own islands, or indeed, virtually entire countries. I’m not as pessimistic as some about our short-term survival odds in the coming century. Sure, we have problems, but we’ll muddle through—somehow. Yet if I had to pick which chilling dystopian vision of the future I feel is most likely, the corporations-own-us-all future is the one I’d choose. It’s feudalism all over again, baby—party like…

Living in space is hard. Like, really hard. Like, super almost-impossibly-crazy-stupid hard. Leviathan Wakes has some great moments that illustrate the various hazards of living in space, and it underscores the importance of Earth’s continued existence to the otherwise estranged colonies and stations. Yet even it has a fairly optimistic outlook on our ability to harness the solar system for our needs. Containment, on the other hand, makes even starting up a colony on…

What do you do when you undergo an accident that leaves you unable to interact with the basic technology underpinning your society? What do you do when that accident leaves you fit for one task few others would care to assume? What do you do when your new status leaves your old friends uncomfortable and your new ones unimpressed with you?

What do you do when it turns out your accident was no accident, and…

Well, this concludes my reading of this year’s nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and I’m struggling to decide which, if any, I should support. Last year The Dervish House hacked my brain and made it an easy choice. This year, not so much. Of all the nominees, however, I think Leviathan Wakes comes closest—it’s certainly the novel I enjoyed the most. (A Dance with Dragons is probably the second choice, but…

So here we are again, almost one year later. Another Newsflesh novel nominated for a Hugo. I’ve decided that everything I want to discuss about this book takes me into hella spoilers territory. So that spoiler flag I put on here? Don’t ignore that if you were thinking I was kidding. I wasn’t. From here on out, we will be knee deep in zombie guts and spoilers. If you want a non-spoilery review, check out …

Some books are just made for readers. Embassytown, with its focus on the way language shapes our perceptions and our thoughts, is one such book. As readers we are conoisseurs of language, we inhale it and revel in it and cultivate it and all of its diversity. Language informs us, sways us, entertains us, engages us … it is everything to us.

Science fiction seems, to me, like a perfect vehicle for exploring our…

I read this book on a plane over the Atlantic as I travelled to England for job interviews. It even tickled me to see the place where I would be staying (Bury St Edmunds) mentioned in passing. Jo Walton’s familiarity with England, Wales, and presumably girls’ boarding schools all comes through clearly in these diary pages. As Morwenna unspools the story of her recovery after the accident that claimed her twin sister’s life, we learn…

I don’t know how I first got into Star Trek, but I owe almost the entire trajectory of my life to it. I’m not exaggerating. Aside from my interest in teaching (and even that might have been influenced by Star Trek’s love for exploration and knowledge), that TV show profoundly influenced my decisions. The first online community I joined was a Star Trek roleplaying group. Connections I made on that community led…

Round two of Owen Pitt vs. the Old Ones/Elder Gods/Creepy Extradimensional Squid Monsters. Fight.

Monster Hunter Vendetta continues the storyline from the first book in the series. This time instead of rushing to stop the shadowy Lord Machado from opening a portal to the realm of the Elder Gods, Owen must stop a shadowy English necromancer from opening a portal to the realm of the Elder Gods. It sounds very similar, I know, but there…

I have a thing for demon-summoning.

Wait, that didn’t come out right. I don’t have a thing for demon-summoning. As in, I don’t like summoning demons. Actually, I’ve never summoned a demon, but I imagine that if I did summon a demon, I wouldn’t much enjoy it. However, I suppose that there is a small chance that if I do, one day, summon a demon, then I might discover I enjoy it and start off…

I ended last year, and started this one, by discovering a great new writer of science fiction. In Reality 36, Guy Haley combines smartass private investigators with artificial intelligence, creating a truly entertaining posthuman thriller. There was just one problem.

It ended on a cliffhanger.

Fortunately, by the time I got around to reading the book, its sequel’s release date was fast approaching. So I was eagerly awaiting this month’s subscription email from Angry…

With its hundredth anniversary just last month, Titanic was all over the media, much to my dad’s chagrin. He doesn’t understand why everyone seems so fascinated by Titanic (the ship or the James Cameron movie). I personally don’t care much for the movie, but I can see why the ship has captured so many imaginations. It was a huge testament to human ingenuity—and hubris. Its sinking was a monumental event in the early twentieth century.…

There’s something about the King Arthur legends that fascinate me and tug at my imagination. It’s probably the tragedy of the tale mixed with that message of hope—Arthur’s body spirited away to Avalon to await his return. Merlin is literally the wizard who helps Arthur answer the Call, and I’ve always identified with that archetype on account of my intellectual and autodidactic leanings. So I’m always happy to try a book that attempts to put…

Culture is a conversation. So intertextuality is an important part of literature, because literature is one of the vehicles of that conversation. What we think of books and stories is influenced by what we’ve previously read. Similarly, authors are influenced by what they read, and the books that sell give rise to trends in the types of fiction (and even non-fiction) that make it to the shelves. Sometimes I find myself reading a book and…

Whole brain emulation and mind uploading are science-fiction concepts that I love, because they raise really complicated questions related to philosophy of mind, a particular field in philosophy that I find very fascinating. Moreover, it’s scary how close we might be to achieving these in real life. Some critics have made very compelling cases for why this isn’t possible—but no one has been able to prove it, one way or another. Where scientists cannot yet…

Reality 36 is a mystery novel wrapped inside a science-fiction story wrapped inside a fun, technologically-oriented thriller. Richards & Klein are PIs in 2129. Richards is a Class Five AI, while Otto Klein is an ex-military German cyborg. And their day gets complicated when they have to solve the murder of Zhang Qifang—he was murdered twice, you see.

The stakes are high. Qifang’s disappearance and murder have sent ripples throughout the Grid, and the people…

I have an itch when it comes to artificial intelligence. Guy Haley scratches that itch, and then some. My hang-up on AI probably has to do with my interest in the philosophy of mind, the nature of consciousness itself. Will we ever be able to model human consciousness? Will we ever be able to create sentient AI? (These questions are related but not necessarily equivalent.) AI brings with it difficult issues that we will have…

So after finishing The Time Traveler’s Wife I realized that the next book on my shelf was Family Matters. The last Rohinton Mistry book I read cut me up, so I decided that before I attempted this next one, I would need something I was guaranteed to enjoy. Fortunately, my awesome limited edition of Palimpsest had just arrived from Subterranean Press. I first read Palimpsest when it was a nominee for the Hugo Award…

Last time, on Kara's reviews:

… there's a very palpable, somewhat ironic fear here, because in a way these three are more frightened of the Blitz than the stalwart contemporaries (or "contemps" as the historians call them).… So for a moment, there's a justifiable and interesting suspense. Unfortunately, Willis attempts to sustain that suspense entirely too long…

… all the characters in this book are ninnies … They complain about the retrieval team not

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