The Scifi-punk Bookfeed

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue StarWars : The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Rise of Skywalker from Lucasfilm SPOILERS: Yes. During the production of The Force Awakens the hype train was full steam ahead and I was riding on it! Writer/director JJ Abrams spoke of wanting to give something good to the existing fans, but also wanting to create a 'new mythology' for a new generation of Star Wars fans for whom this new trilogy would be their first experience and have ownership of it. I respected this approach and it excited me. I wanted something new and fresh in the Star Wars universe, that would take the galaxy far, far away in new directions, which would be thrilling for old fans like me and capture the imagination of new young fans.  I grew up with the original trilogy. My dad took us to stand in lines that wrapped around the blocks to watch the movies when I was seven to ten years old. I watched those original trilogy movies so many ti...

Robust, whirlwind adventure that will give you feels, make you laugh, and long for more! Network Effect by Martha Wells (Murderbot Diaries #5) published May 2020 by Tor.com Books Please forgive me for the cliche, but it feels apropos for this book: Like a fine wine that improves with age, The Murderbot Diaries just keep getting better the more Martha Wells writes it. This book, Network Effect, is the first full length novel in the series and continues the trend of growing and improving with age! We finally get the space (no pun intended) to flesh out a bit more of the human clients (friends? no it would not admit to that) Murderbot takes care of. The fallout from the first four books is having effects on everyone. Then the plot brilliantly goes from bad to much worse, and continues to escalate! Murderbot does his level best to muddle through the confusion while dealing with the most mammoth of difficulties, emotions, while trying not to simply kill everything. With clients in constant...

A potent and powerful warning for today and tomorrow! Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow, coming from Tor Books in October 2020 I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. I’m not going to recap all the plot points of this book, blurbs exist for a reason. I am going to express my opinions on the story, the writing, and the message.  Attack Surface is potent and powerful in its message and extremely timely given current world events. This book will scare the crap out of you, in a good way, because it’s meant to wake you up. To make you think about the ways technology is being used and manipulated, to use and manipulate people. A very plausible and frightening warning of where this world could be a few weeks from now.  But I also had some real problems with this book: I found it very frustrating to read until I was in the last 25%. Basically, when the author stopped jumping backwards in time to earlier parts of the main characters life, and stu...

Multiple Award nominated, must read sci-fi thriller! Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty, from Orbit Books, published January 2017 This is a locked room murder mystery in space among the six crew members of a colony ship headed to a new world. But one of them is a murderer. They awake to find their previous clone bodies murdered, the ship off course and the ship's computer intelligence offline. As the story progresses on the ship, as each crew member works through mounting tension, we are taken into the backstory of each crew member which deepens the characters and simultaneously makes each of them seem a more likely suspect. Each crew member is a criminal in one fashion or another, and they all have a common link! By far, the most fun and exciting and engrossing book I read in 2018. Its extremely well thought out and kept me on the edge of my seat, turning pages rapidly! This book is just so much fun to read, keeps you guessing to the end and kept the tension ratcheted. This is a...

A lighthearted fun adventure for young teens or tweens. I Have A Hunch by Jeremy DeCoursey, Self-Published, out November 2019 This is a quite charming, young teen mystery that sometimes occasionally becomes a little silly. (Which the author freely acknowledges) Our heroine visits her eminently famous, private detective Uncle as a summer job. Her uncle then gets hired to solve a murder, and Alice, our protagonist, is swept along investigating the site, interviewing witnesses, all of whom seem suspicious. Eventually even running afoul of the murderer and having to try to apprehend the killer while not becoming the next victims! But all is brought to a happy conclusion. Running in the background is another more curious mystery, one that is not resolved in this book but appears to be setup to run throughout a series, of which this is the first book. There are many classic Holmesian tropes in play here: Alice's uncle is the brilliant detective, Alice is a Watsonish every-pe...

Epic Space Opera, Big Action, Big Thrills Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell from Titan Books I admit to binging on space opera's lately: Last year I went through Ann Leckie's Ancilliary Justice trilogy, which was so incredible it reenergized my passion for space opera, (I do plan on reviewing here soon!) The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds, an absolute nail biter with fascinating concepts, and Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott was breathless entertainment and intrigue on a grand cinematic scope. Now that Mr. Powell's full Embers of War trilogy is released and on my bookshelf, I plan on tearing through them with all speed. His first book, Embers of War, sets the bar high and did an excellent job drawing me in and establishing the pace quickly! Mr. Powell did a nice job handling the difficult emotions of regret over past deeds and the harm you cause the world, or universe in this case. I also greatly enjoyed his take on space ship AI and their origins and how that affe...

Unexpected, masterfully crafted, original epic fantasy. Updraft by Fran Wilde, published September 2015 by TOR Books A wholly original world, unlike anything I’ve read before! I would classify this superb novel as technically an epic fantasy, but in a world without magic, with shades of steampunk technology, a conspiracy that rocked me to the core, and a mystery that drove me to devour this book as fast as I could. I say epic fantasy because of it's scope, but not geographically as most epic fantasies are: making arduous journeys across continents to fulfill terrible fates, or find fabled lost quarry, battling with their enemies, their own fears and against nature itself. And I love that about epic fantasy. But this story stays isolated geographically into a large city in the sky whose very existence itself, and the question of why there are no other cities like this, is part of the very deep mystery. As the beginning of a series, do not expect the answers to many of th...

Admittedly I am a big fan of Hank’s YouTube series and podcast. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green from Dutton Books Couldn’t put this book down! Devoured it in practically one day, and that’s saying something as I am a slow reader, something I wish to change about myself. Hank wrote an exciting, witty, and insightful book about first contact and the deceptive power of fame. A book of first contact (perhaps) approached in a way I’ve never read before. He made me feel strongly for the characters, I really admired how in just a few pages we got to understand, relate to and empathize with Andy and April, especially informing the reader of their personalities through some quick dialog which to me felt authentic. The plot unraveling was handled quite well, it was watching a train wreck in slow motion while the main character made more and more self-destructive choices, but I could not look away. But also the mysteries and the puzzles kept me going and wanting to se...

I won an ARC of this book from TOR.com, and I couldn’t be happier I did! Thank you TOR Books! Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott, due out from TOR Books July 2020 I’ll admit, this book caught me off guard. It started by introducing a cast of aristocrats and palace intrigue, and slowly built up a wide set of characters cutting a swath across many economic classes in a galactic empire. It was slowly building the world, and I loved the world-building and the mysteries that began to take shape, so it kept me reading... until something literally blows up! Then the rocket boosters hard burn and the story accelerates with g-forces so intense it hurt to put the book down! I couldn’t stop myself, I was so quickly invested in these bickering characters and this crazy story! I was fully caught up in the riptide as the tension continued to ratchet up, betrayal and political machinations unfolded and reformed over again! The pace doesn’t relent to the end, and the intrigues deepen a...