Books shelved under “Science Fiction”

“And then … AND THEN … THEN THEY HAVE TO TURN INTO BEAVERS—fucking beavers!—to save the day. By building a DAM. Because they’re BEAVERS.”

Occasionally I like to imagine how a book might have been pitched if the pitch meeting involved lots of drinking. (Disclaimer: I have never been drunk. Maybe beavers are inherently sobering.)

The Resistance is such a weird instalment in the Animorphs series. On the one hand, the fate of the…

Yes, Gnomon is a behemoth of a book, one I am glad I saved for the beginning of March Break. Even then it took me several days to get through it. Nick Harkaway’s story is intricately layered and nested, and while I wasn’t sure about it at first, the more time I spent with it, the more I came to appreciate and enjoy its construction. Gnomon is a lot of things, and a simple summary…

I want to start by listing a few critiques of Nyxia, any one of which I can understand would make you like the book less. Then I’ll explain why, despite these issues, I still loved this book so much.

Warning: there is a spoiler in the very last paragraph of this review regarding the death of a character. The rest of the review is spoiler-free.

First, this is absolutely a “set up” novel. The…

I began this book wondering which Joe Haldeman I’d get. Would it be the author of the celebrated classic The Forever War? Or would it be the author of the ho-hum thriller Work Done for Hire? Turns out Forever Peace is a little bit of both.

This is a book that asks a simple philosophical question: is making war an essential part of human nature? As with most simple philosophical questions, the answer…

Previously, on Animorphs…

The Animorphs have literally just succeeded in contacting the Andalite command. The Deception picks up with no time passing. The conversation goes about as poorly as you might expect. After the Animorphs narrowly escape with their lives, they discover that the former Visser Three is now Visser One (!!!!!) and there’s a new Visser Two in town who wants to fuck everyone up by starting a nuclear war.

So what do our…

As with Sophie’s World, I had the opportunity to re-read The Speed of Dark because I’m giving a copy to a friend for her birthday (this time it’s Rebecca—so many birthdays in February!). Here’s my first review, from 2010. I still agree with most of it, particularly my past self’s views on the one-dimensional antagonists. However, I think my understanding of autism or otherwise neurodivergent people is slightly better than it was 8…

I’m wrekt.

The Revelation reminds me of the beginning of that final seven-episode story arc of Deep Space Nine. And I was not ready.

I was not ready for so much to change.

In a very Marco-centric book, Marco’s dad find himself inadvertently working on a Yeerk-controlled project to build a better zero-space communicator. The Animorphs narrowly manage to extract Marco’s dad before the Yeerks make him into a controller. Meanwhile, Visser One—the slug…

Time travel: tricky stuff. Meta-fiction: tricky stuff. Combining time travel and meta-fiction? Extremely tricky stuff. Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe aims high by doing just this. I read it at a time when I was precisely in the mood for this kind of timey-wimey, universe-bending confusion of a narrative, so that was a point in its favour. And by and large I think Yu manages to pull it off,…

Unless I’m mistaken, I haven’t read anything by A.E. van Vogt, so this is me rectifying that. Reading so-called Golden Age is always interesting. Some of it holds up to the test of time; some of it … does not. Slan, while it has its moments, falls into the latter camp in my opinion. Nevertheless, for contemporary readers, Golden Age SF never fails to provide an invaluable view not of our future but of…

What a gutsy way to title a book! Another book that I took some time to warm up to, Want is a YA dystopian thriller that reminds me a little bit of William Gibson’s work. There’s an edge to this book that I wasn’t expecting. Cindy Pon’s plotting and characterization results in a tight-rope–walk of suspense. At times cinematic, other times somewhat shallower than I wanted, this is a really intriguing adventure.

The year is…

Nobody expects the Australian Inquisition!

Animorphs #44: The Unexpected is a wildly uneven book that vacillates from cringe-worthy to touching and back, with little to no regard for anything resembling a unified plot, coherent characterization, or actual writing skills. It’s not that it’s a bad story; it’s just a mess.

Cassie ends up in Australia after inadvertently stowing aboard a passenger jet bound for that country. The first half of the book comprises her hiding…

Loves me some time travel, so of course when I saw this on NetGalley, I jumped on it. Thanks NetGalley and World Weaver Press for the eARC. The Continuum is a quick jaunt, if you will, into both past and future. Wendy Nikel keeps us guessing with numerous twists and turns, though I wish I were more interested in both the protagonist and the overall plot.

The Continuum opens with Elise Morley in 1912. She…

Alternative title: Tobias is Not OK. Another extremely well-written, gut-punching character story with an otherwise uninteresting plot to keep it chugging along.

The Test reveals that Tobias is still basically shattered from his torture at the hands of the sadistic, and possibly mad, Yeerk Taylor. While the rest of the Animorphs have been dealing with their own shit, apparently, for the last ten books, Tobias has been keeping it together around them…

Oh wow, remember how I thought Engaging the Enemy was boring and plodding? Command Decision is the complete reverse of that. With this book, Elizabeth Moon revitalizes the Vatta’s War series. She advances the storyline considerably, for everyone involved. The result is a slick, faster-paced adventure that leaves the galaxy on the brink of hope—and war.

As usual, spoilers for previous books but not this one.

Command Decision opens not with Kylara Vatta but rather…

Oh. Em. Gee. Saga, Volume 7 might just be the saddest, most heart-wrenching thing I’ve read this year. It’s not quite at the nadir of A Fine Balance, but it comes close. I am struggling to recall a single positive and redeeming moment in this book. There’s … there’s a lot of bleakness and heartbreak here.

As with many a long-running series, I’m starting to run out of new and creative commentary. Brian K.…

Jim C. Hines has been on my radar for a long time, but I haven’t actually read any of his books until now! When I saw this on NetGalley, I was intrigued. I know Hines mostly as a fantasy writer, so I was curious to see how his science fiction would be. Turns out Hines’ Terminal Alliance reminds me a lot of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War universe.

Side note: This book was published in…

You have to watch out for those robots. Never know when they might develop thoughts of their own. Or sexual orientations, kinks, and an understanding of the way humans misunderstand them.

Autonomous plumbs the depths of humanity through split narration. Annalee Newitz follows a very human, and very flawed, anti-patent crusader and a pair of patent-enforcement agents, one of whom is a self-aware robot just starting out. As the two stories unfold, so too does…

I want to give this entire series 5 stars even though I probably won’t give any of its individual instalments that rating. Does that make sense? Vatta’s War is just such a fun and compelling space opera with a strong central character, and Elizabeth Moon is a great storyteller. I say this while simultaneously admitting that, even though I really, really enjoyed reading Engaging the Enemy, I don’t think it’s actually all that good…

One of the hallmark tropes of the Golden Age of Science Fiction is colonies on the moon. You couldn’t swing a cat in a lunar lander without hitting a 1950s moon colony. Artemis reminds me a lot in vibe and atmosphere of these books, like what Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress could have been if we had more accurate knowledge of lunar and astro chemistry and physics in the 1950s. That’s not to…

Mmm, nearly 600 pages of comfort food.

Going to make a few assumptions here, namely, that you have read the first two books in this omnibus series, and so you’ll be fine with me spoiling those books (but not this one). If that isn’t true, you might want to stop reading now.

Similarly, since you have read the first two books, I’m not going to spend any time explaining or justifying why this series is…