Books shelved under “Ebook”

For the past three years, I’ve paid for the privilege of voting in the Hugo Awards. I do this not because I love voting in the Hugo Awards (though that’s cool) but because, for the past few years, they have made available a voter packet containing digital copies of most of the nominated works. All I need do is purchase a supporting membership at the year’s WorldCon, which is always cheaper than if I were…

I had trouble describing The Human Division to friends, because the Old Man’s War universe is military science-fiction, but this particularly novel isn’t so heavy on the “military” aspect. Following the events in The Last Colony (which I haven’t read yet), the Colonial Union has to let military operations take a back seat and resort to democracy to get what it wants. The State Department is suddenly important, meaning that even the diplomats who don’t…

An evil, corrupt sorcerer has a pact with a family of demons. Every few years, the big demon on campus rolls up and impregnates all of the women in the sorcerer’s family. In return for the demonic-looking hellspawn of this union, the demon uses its influence to get lesser denizens of the supernatural world to fall into line and obey the sorcerer’s commands. But now that demon has been slain, and with the time to…

I wasn’t overly fond of Debris, Jo Anderton’s first book in this series, and I approached Suited with trepidation. I wasn’t sure Anderton had what it would take to grab me and make me enjoy this book. And as I started reading, and the characters felt flat and uninspiring, I resigned myself to another dull review. Then it got interesting. The characters began changing. The stakes got higher. And by the end of the…

I love heist movies. It’s a weird addiction that I can’t shake. It doesn’t matter what type of heist movie: Ocean’s Eleven, Foolproof, The Perfect Score, that one episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where they rob the holosuite casino to help their holographic friend (don’t ask). I love that moment in the middle where we get walked through the plan, usually as a montage set to a voiceover. It feels…

Darkness Falling chronicles the struggle of several survivors as they realize they probably should have paid attention to that last zombie movie. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and genre savviness is nowhere to be found.

I checked out about halfway through the first act. I love reading on my tablet, but it’s so easy to get into the rhythm of tapping to turn the page, skimming through each page as…

City of Hope & Despair jumps between two narratives. Tom, the street-nick turned unlikely hero with the ability to hide himself and others in plain sight, sets off as part of a small expedition upriver. Back in Thaiburley, Kat, her sister, and the Tattooed Men hunt the Soul Thief. Meanwhile, there is the distinct impression of a ticking clock, as a mysterious calcifying disease afflicts those in the city who have magical talent.

Whates flicks…

Have you made a deal with the devil? Worried about how your soul will be conveyed to its eternal torment upon the expiry of that deal? Not sure you can trust the Grim Reaper with so important a task? Never fear: the Collectors are here! And they are going to take you straight to Hell.

Chris F. Holm mashes up the concept of the damned, human soul collector with the tradition of noir pulp fiction.…

So you solved Hell’s labour problems, foiled a fake kidnapping plot, and have successfully become a crimefighting superhero with the help of a demon. Oh, and you got the girl! What’s next? Try stopping your mother’s new lover from bringing about the end of the world (and the start of a new one) by writing the next draft of the book that is our lives! Costume Not Included hews pretty closely to its predecessor, The…

Now this is how you write a novel!

I love fiction set in Tudor and Elizabethan England. It seems an era particularly rich in epic, empire-spanning events and internal religious and royal conflict. If an author can make historical figures come alive and explore the emotions and motivations that might have been involved in these intrigues, the resultant novel can be an intense, interesting invocation of history. This era is also a rich source of…

Identity is a very fragile and ephemeral concept, and the philosophy surrounding identity fascinates me. If, in the immortal words of Ke$ha, “we R who we R”, then who we are differs depending upon whether we are alone or with people, with friends or with enemies (or, if you are Ke$ha, with frenemies). We perform identity, wearing it like a costume. But it’s not something we entirely control. Identity is not so much a costume…

Full disclosure: I received a copy of this story free from its author. Loves me the free short stories.

At the time I write this, I have 196 followers on Twitter. I’m pretty sure most of them are bots of one kind or another, because that number seems rather inflated. I have 147 Facebook friends. I have 97 followers on Goodreads, though again, many of those may be automated people attempting to profile me or…

Editor’s note (2020): Since writing this review in 2012, Adams’ behaviour has continued to deteriorate. He now regularly espouses views I find reprehensible, and as such, I can neither recommend nor endorse Dilbert or any of Adams’ other writings. This review remains for posterity.

Scott Adams is an interesting figure. I'm an unabashed Dilbert fan; I have the massive, slipcase-clad twentieth anniversary book, and I particularly love the short-lived TV series. I don't regularly read…

I read Pretty Little Dead Things with shivers down my spine. It’s that kind of book: Gary McMahon creates suspense and no small amount of dread as he introduces us to Thomas Usher, a sometime private investigator who sees dead people. Usher becomes mixed up in a series of grisly murders that all point to something much more sinister going down (yes, more sinister than murder). And he isn’t the only one who is slinging…

Immediately after finishing Shards of Honour, I jumped into Barrayar with gusto. I’d say this is the payoff to Shards of Honour, but that might give you the wrong idea. Both novels are good—but this is where it gets really interesting. Cordelia has married Aral Vorkosigan and left everything she knows behind to live with him on Barrayar, capital planet of the interstellar empire of the same name. Things are complicated: she’s pregnant…

The Vorkosigan Saga is one of those series I’ve been meaning to read for a while. And, in fact, I read Cryoburn last year for the Hugo Awards voting. Going back to the beginning and reading the series in order has been a task long overdue, so let’s get this party started.

I love space opera. Technically speaking, Shards of Honour and its sequel, Barrayar, which I read in omnibus form, is probably more…

Seeing the future is never a good idea.

Setting aside the question of whether the future is fixed or malleable, our linear existence dooms any glimpses of the future. It provokes us into acting in strange, contradictory ways—and so even if the future isn’t predetermined, we tend to fulfil our own prophecies. Miriam Black is a good example of this: in Blackbirds, she sees how someone is going to die the first time she…

Empire State is a frenetic concoction of noir mystery, Prohibition-era gangster-style criminal conspiracy, and Golden Age superhero fiction. Reading it is like sitting in a bare room, concrete walls and a single steel table with an uncomfortable chair, as the clock above the door ticks steadily towards 3 AM. It’s minimalist and rough, sometimes surreal and always uncomfortable. Just when I thought I had it figured out, Adam Christopher changes gears and leaves me in…

The robot apocalypse pops up all the time in science fiction, and with good reason. Humans are generally bad at getting along with each other; sharing this planet with intelligent life of an entirely different variety would probably not go down well. Isaac Asimov, of course, famously developed three laws of robotics that were designed to avoid android armageddon. All of them were designed to sanctify human life, to make it inviolable in the eyes…

Thanks to the Internet, it’s very easy to transmit information around the world much faster than it used to be. It’s also easy to spread misinformation. “Democratization” of the Web and media aside, we still rely on authorities and experts for our news—and often their job, even if they are doing it properly, is made much more difficult by secretive and uncooperative governments and organizations trying to obscure what’s really happening on the ground. It’s…