If you have previously enjoyed books written by John Scalzi, I am certain you will quite like The Collapsing Empire. It is Scalzi writing at his best. The members of the World Science Fiction Society agree with me and it is nominated for Best Novel (Scalzi has previously won for Red Shirts). If you have never read anything by him, here are the reasons I look forward to his books. Scalzi has a great sense of humor and this shines in his writing. I tend to […]
Two are one, life and death, lying like lovers in kemmer
I’m disappointed that it’s taken me nearly half a century to discover Ursula K. Le Guin. Perhaps “discover” isn’t the right word; I knew of her existence, but until she passed away earlier this year I hadn’t been motivated to read anything by her. I scored in my purchase of Penguin’s “great masterpieces of science fiction and fantasy” edition in that it contains not only a series introduction by Neil Gaiman, in which he describes Le Guin as having “a poet’s touch and an anthropologist’s […]
Murderbot needs a blankie!
I was so charmed by this little novella. People (including our very own emmalita) have been giving it great reviews, but I don’t normally get very emotionally involved in shorter pieces of fiction. I was emotionally involved with this one after about fifteen pages. All Systems Red is the first novella of four (the rest set to be released by the end of the year) in the Murderbot Diaries series. Our narrator is Murderbot. He calls himself that ironically. In reality, he is a SecUnit, an […]
New Vorkosigan Novella
I don’t think Lois McMaster Bujold has released a full-length novel since 2016’s Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, which I sort of read as a capstone to the Vorkosigan series. Since then, she seems to have been spending her time experimenting with self-publishing novellas. While I’ve found those to be mostly very good, they’ve all been set in the World of the Five Gods. So I’m really pleasantly surprised to see that she’s decided to duck back into the Vorkosigan universe after all! The […]