Books shelved under “Science Fiction”

A very welcome change in pace after reading a couple of historical fiction novels and a non-fiction book about sex! Trading in Danger is strategy-filled space opera. Kylara Vatta, or Ky for short, is a young woman kicked out of military academy for being a little too trusting. Relegated to commanding an obsolete ship that is on its last voyage as part of her family’s massive trading empire, Ky senses the opportunity for profit ……

The Animorphs save everyone with the Power of Love™, and it would be disgusting if they didn’t need this win so very much.

The Attack is notoriously the last Animorphs book written exclusively by K.A. Applegate for a very long stretch. As such it is regarded (accurately) as an island of quality among otherwise mediocre, or at least uneven, books. Indeed, this is a great book—not quite five stars, because it didn’t really move me…

Look, this isn’t really a novel.

Seriously. I know that it has that stupid “A Novel” subtitle that dangles off the end of a book’s cover like an appendix because some publishers worry that readers are too dumb or lazy to look at a book’s description to figure out if it’s fiction or non-fiction. But in this case, that label is a lie—or at the very least, a simplification. Seveneves is not a novel. It…

And so we’ve reached the ghostwriter era, with The Extreme delivering a fairly dull adventure to an exciting place: the Arctic.

There’s not actually much wrong with this book. The trouble is that it comes on the heels of a particularly strong moment in the series—the David trilogy and The Hork-Bajir Chronicles—and most stories would look boring in comparison. Unfortunately for a story called The Extreme, Marco and the other Animorphs don’t get…

Another Cassie book, more in the vein of #14: The Unknown than #19: The Departure. Applegate experiments with absurdism here With slightly more sophisticated humour than “hah hah, it’s an Andalite toilet!”—riffs on gender and politics and, of course, bureaucracy—The Suspicion holds a little more appeal on the comedic front. Also, the story is better, even if the ending is a hot mess.

Instead of Area 51 and horses, this time we get…

The real meaning of the title The Best of All Possible Worlds doesn’t become apparent until the end of the book. Nevertheless, Karen Lord makes a strong case from the beginning that Leibniz’s pronouncement is correct, although whether it’s because of Caretakers, angels, or simply the strong anthropic principle might ultimately be left up to you. Science fiction likes to tantalize with the prospect of alternative realities—and it is a great idea, to be…

Why not finish out 2015 by reading a book called Year Zero? I was ambivalent about this one, and I figured this for a win–win proposition. Either I love it, so my year ends with a bang; or I hate it, but if so, then there’s always next year! I was correct—and I’m coming down on the “hate it” side. So here’s to 2016: a brand new year for reading! But first, let’s sweep…

I’m not sure how much of a compliment this is, what with the low opinion I have of most CW shows (Supernatural notwithstanding), but Zeroes is one of the first superhero novels I’ve read that could be a CW show. It reminds me a lot of the well-intentioned but ill-fated attempts like Alphas (which I know wasn’t the CW, but that’s neither here nor there), in that it follows the standard formula: a group…

Art is one of humanity’s most constructive, creative impulses, yet we spend so much time chronicling our darker, more tragic moments. Science fiction in particular is fascinated by the paradox of our humanity: we strive for, and are capable of, great acts, but underneath it all we are still the product of millions of years of evolution and prone to acts of irrationality, tribalism, and prejudice. Kim Stanley Robinson continues this great tradition in Aurora…

Alana and Marko have escaped danger for now, but they are still fugitives. Their unique child, Hazel, will be recognized for what she is no matter where they go. So they are living in disguise on a backwater planet called Gardenia, and it’s causing no end of tension. Alana tries to support her family through a superhero soap opera, while Marko takes care of Hazel. Life seems both easier and harder than it was before.…

This isn't a review so much as a disjointed collection of thoughts about Saga, Volume 5. I mean, the problem with these reviews is that it always boils down to more of the same. Buy Saga. Read it, in order. Do it!

Whenever I read graphic novels, I try to talk about the art and artist, since these are obviously important parts of the medium. And it’s with great respect when I say…

Back on the Animorphs re-read train with The Pretender, our first Tobias book in what feels like forever. Tobias leads the Animorphs in rescuing a captured free Hork-Bajir child; meanwhile, he has to deal with the usual teenage angst: some woman claiming to be his cousin wanting to take care of him, a letter from his departed father to be read on his birthday, and another red-tailed hawk muscling in on his prime…

For the first time in a while, I actually regret sticking out this book instead of DNF-ing it. It was bad. Just as I was starting to lose all hope, there was a glimmer a couple of hours in that made me hang on a bit longer. And then I figured I might as well finish the whole thing just to learn why Jeff keeps replaying parts of his life. Because when you get right…

It feels like just yesterday that Ann Leckie took the science fiction scene by storm with Ancillary Justice. I enjoyed her debut novel for what it was—a ripping good story set in a universe with just enough originality to make it fun and familiarity to make it conceivable. Now, suddenly, here we are at the conclusion of the trilogy with Ancillary Mercy. I'm all a-tingle!

Breq has come a long way since she…

Instalments like this one make me sad that regular Animorphs novels were sandwiched into bite-sized morsels that …

… wait, let me restart this with a metaphor less likely to make me hungry.

Instalments like The Hork-Bajir Chronicles demonstrate what K.A. Applegate can do when she can write longer-form stories. The shorter Animorphs novels have their advantages—they are easy to read, almost episodic, and obviously we wouldn’t have as many of them if they were…

I’m trying to be sparing with my five stars in this series, but oh man … Rachel. Applegate just always breaks my heart with her, and The Solution is yet another perfect example. In the conclusion to the David trilogy, Rachel is instrumental in implementing the titular “solution” to the Animorphs’ problem. It is ironic that a human enemy, rather than a Yeerk one, forces the Animorphs to be at their coldest yet.

Let’s just…

For the three and a half of you who don’t know already, Unlocked is the companion novella to Lock In, John Scalzi’s thriller set in a future where Haden’s syndrome leaves millions locked in their bodies, conscious but incapable of voluntary movement. Where as Lock In was a mystery set within this world, Unlocked explains how Haden’s developed and how the technology and culture around Hadens sprang up.

This is billed as an “oral…

What is this I can’t even.

#21: The Threat strips away any remaining pretensions that this is a “children’s” series. This is YA at its grittiest. Long before we had people volunteering themselves as tribute and running through mazes and choosing which Personality House they belong to, we had David the Traitor betraying the Animorphs because he is a terrible human being.

We’ve seen this theme before in the book. Applegate reminds us that humans…

So in the last book we were down an Animorph, sort of, and in this book we gain an Animorph, sort of. The Discovery is the start of the Third Age of Animorphs: the stakes are higher, the action is more intense, and the consequences are further reaching than we’ve ever seen.

(One day I hope to have a successful sideline as a writer of “next week” TV promos.)

If memory serves, this is all…

Whenever I need a dose of the future past, I turn to William Gibson. I’m catching up. Soon I’ll be able to read The Peripheral. But first we need to return to Northern California, circa sometime in the near future that never was. All Tomorrow’s Parties definitely has a conclusive feel to it. The Bridge trilogy has always felt somewhat laid-back in its connections across books—characters in common, vague references to events, but each…