Scalzi’s books are always such good palette cleansers. Head On was fast and fun (and a little bit infuriating). This is the second book in the Lock In series, which started with 2014’s Lock In. You don’t need to have read the first book if this one tickles your fancy, but you should, because it’s great. The premise here is that in the near future, a disease called Haden’s Syndrome (after the first lady of the US, it’s most famous victim) makes it so that […]
Everything you could ever want to know about welding
Andy Weir hit the headlines with his first novel The Martian, a tale of early exploratory missions to Mars going just a bit wrong, leading to a movie featuring Matt Damon and some potatoes (you may have found it hard to spot the difference). It was always going to be interesting to see how he followed that up, and the answer was to stick to a near-future SF novel with a decent grounding in plausible “what if” science. Artemis is set on humankind’s first lunar […]
How flattering, I said, meaning the opposite
Hey you. You. I’m talking to you. A human living in the world in 2017 who takes things like The Handmaid’s Tale incredibly personally. A human living in the world in 2017 who is horrified by what has been happening for centuries in a very real, cold-blooded, and methodical way to the Native American community. A human living in the world in 2017 who cannot believe that people don’t believe in science and climate change. A human living in the world in 2017 who still finds […]
Connie Willis is OBSESSED with communication.
I really, really ended up enjoying this, but it was touch and go there for a bit. Connie Willis’s writing always has this distinct, relentless tone to it, and it gets under your skin until you see where it’s going. I’ve had that same experience with all the books I’ve read by her, although the tone takes a different specific tenor every time. In Doomsday Book it was the tedium of death. In To Say Nothing of the Dog it was the farcical nature of […]