113 reviews found
Showing 21 to 40 of 113 results
A little over a year ago, I curtailed my review of Embers of War because of my broken elbow. I have now returned, stronger than ever, to review this sequel, Fleet of Knives. I finished this book in a single day, taking a break only to make dinner and watch Mean Girls (because it was October 3). This book is like candy to me. It is an invigorating space opera that balances grand, epic…
Let’s pause for a moment and savour the feeling of completing a series. That’s not always an easy undertaking, especially when reading them entirely through the library! After five books, this series is ready for a conclusion. Elizabeth Moon delivers everything you might think you want—tension and build-up to a big, fancy space battle, and then a little resolution—but I’m not sure always delivers it how one would want. As always, this series has hovered…
I simultaneously enjoyed and loathed reading Foundation and Earth. This might be the best Foundation novel yet also the worst. I know I called Foundation’s Edge the best, but this one surpasses it in terms of plot. Asimov does as amazing a job of ratcheting up the tension surrounding the search for Earth as he does a terrible job of avoiding the objectification of women. Moreover, when we look at this novel in the…
This might be the best Foundation novel yet?
Foundation’s Edge departs from the formula of the previous installments in the series: instead of related novellas, this is an actual, honest-to-goodness novel. It follows two, parallel stories: Golan Trevize is a Foundation council member who suspects the Second Foundation was not actually destroyed, and he strikes off (not exactly of his own accord) to investigate; meanwhile, Stor Gendibal is a Second Foundation council member who believes…
I had finally caught up on my NetGalley reading, so I went on the hunt for more books to request, and Aethon Books was kind enough to grant my request for Black Sheep: A Space Opera Adventure. The description sounded very promising, and for the most part I would say that Rachel Aukes delivers on that promise. The protagonist is also disabled! Content note: the book contains ableist language, which I will discuss shortly…
Time travel stories are tricky. The best ones give me a headache but not too much of a headache. I guess it’s the literary equivalent of the adrenaline rush one gets from momentarily being upside down on a roller coaster (which is definitely not for me): I want my brain to hurt as I contemplate 4-, 11-, or 22-dimensional spacetime … but I don’t want to get so confused that I feel the author could…
I love fierce sister duos. You know, the kind where the two sisters have complementary skills and get on each other’s nerves yet always have the other’s back? That kind.
Yeah, Shadow Captain isn’t quite that kind of story.
Adrana and (Ara)fura Ness have managed to dispatch the fearsome space pirate Bosa Sennen, taking her ship in the process. These young women are way out of their league, however, and now that they are in…
Okay, so instead of five years passing between re-read books, I’ve only let a year elapse. That’s not too bad on the Ben Scale of Book Series Completion! My reception of Second Foundation is much more positive than my review of Foundation and Empire, in which I skewered Isaac Asimov’s writing style. Honestly, I found this book to be far more readable and even enjoyable at points!
As with the previous book, this one…
It’s fashionable among a certain throwback segment of science fiction fans to claim that the entrance of so many new women writers to the field has somehow diminished the quality of stories being published. This, despite the fact that women have always been writing in science fiction from its inception. But whatever—all I have to say is I don’t know what SF they’re reading, because much of the best SF I have read in recent…
This review will be shorter than usual because I broke my elbow and have one hand in a cast.
Trouble Dog is a sentient warship that developed a conscience after directly participating in a genocide that ended the last war between two human factions. Since then, she has joined up with the House of Reclamation, a kind of interstellar Red Cross, in an attempt to atone. The latest distress call she and her crew respond…
I stuck it out for 50 pages or so but was pretty sure 10 pages in that Space Opera isn’t for me.
Surprised? Me too. This has everything I usually like in humorous, Douglas Adams–inspired science fiction: lengthy infodumps, absurd alien species, human characters so over the top they might as well be on Everest … but it just … didn’t work.
Catherynne Valente’s prose just tries too hard for me. That’s not really a…
Not exactly what I was expecting from Alastair Reynolds (though I should probably know better) but maybe what I needed. It has been a hot 5.5 years since I read one of his books, and that is too long! I finished off the trilogy of main Revelation Space novels at the extreme tail-end of my enjoyment of high space opera. So it is fitting that, with Revenger, Reynolds introduces what might be a good…
Kind of space-opera, kind of not? Off Planet intrigues me because it’s kind of about interstellar war, or at least the tricksy politics that can lead to an interstellar war, yet its main characters aren’t (with a few exceptions) soldiers or politicians. The protagonist is literally just trying to live her life, mind her own business, but others can’t have that. Aileen Erin crafts some fairly interesting and intense situations and brings a fair amount…
Haha, so it seems like only yesterday I was talking about how Saga, Volume 8 was a refreshing respite from the dark, downer moments of his series.
Oh boy.
I get it, those 1-star and 2-star reviews from people throwing up their hands in the air and saying, “I just can’t even with this anymore.” That is a legitimate point of view and valid criticism of this book. Saga, Volume 9 takes any of the…
Did … did good things just happen to our protagonists?
Excuse me while I check if I’m actually reading Saga, Volume 8 and not some impostor. Because … because … GOOD THINGS HAPPENED, FOLX. I mean, yeah, shitty things happened too. Don’t get me wrong; there’s still conflict and loss here. But … good things! And Ghüs!! I missed Ghüs!!
This volume opens with Alana and Prince Robot looking for medical help in … Abortion…
You all might remember how I raved about the Linesman series of books two years ago (OMG, HAS IT REALLY BEEN THAT LONG ALREADY?). That series from sister act S.K. Dunstall literally reinvigorated my flagging love of space opera, no word of a lie. Go read my reviews for more on that.
Stars Uncharted is a new offering in a new universe, and it too is brilliant in so many ways. Far more ensemble in…
It is with no small amount of regret that I announce I have never been mistaken for a fearsome space pirate. On the other hand, that’s probably for the best. I’m not going to be sent to space army school like Ia Cōcha in Ignite the Stars. The result is an intense story from Maura Milan about divided loyalties and the necessity of questioning authority in the face of injustice.
Ia is seventeen years…
Space is big. Hugely, mind-bogglingly big. Travelling across the vast distances of space is daunting, especially if faster-than-light travel proves impossible. In Neptune’s Brood, Charles Stross rejects the luxuries of hyperdrive or warp speed in favour of good, old-fashioned laser-based transmissions of data—and people, who are just another type of data, after all. In such a universe, debt and the tracking of it is of great importance.
Krina Alizond-114 has travelled to the Dojima…
For a while now, I’ve been eschewing posthumanism. Walking on the wild side of nanotechnology was starting to get too much like science fantasy for my tastes. The Quantum Magician is an exception that I’m happy I made: Derek Künsken’s story of a genetically engineered con artist is delightful, and it explores posthumanist ideas in a way that feels fresh. Although I wouldn’t say any of the characters (not even the protagonist) endeared themselves to…
An interesting departure from Miles’ arc in the Vorkosigan universe, Ethan of Athos takes us to the outskirts of Lois McMaster Bujold’s fantastic future vision of a far-flung, loosely-connected group of human societies in space. The eponymous protagonist comes from a planet colonist by an extreme religious group comprising only men; they reproduce through artificial wombs, and Ethan is one of their reproduction specialists. With this set-up, Bujold not only reverses the “planet of a…
Showing 21 to 40 of 113 results