Tag archives for Science fiction - Page 8
Book Review – Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon
Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon My rating: 4 of 5 stars I read this very quickly. It was a great continuation of the series and managed to have a few twists in it as well as some usual predictable pieces too, which is good because it made it satisfying as a story. I like that there is a wide range of aspects to the series. More than just a series of space battles and shipboard routine. There are legal elements, corporate governance, organised crime and government. On top of all of that there is a good layer of human interaction and emotion from some flawed characters that you can empathise with. So this is a very good space opera that is fun and enjoyable to read. Not up there with Banks, but still well worth a go. View all my…
Book Review – Memory by Linda Nagata
Memory by Linda Nagata My rating: 4 of 5 stars I very much enjoyed this and there is a real sense of both the characters and the setting developing over the course of the story. The back cover blurb describes it thus: "A quest, a puzzle, and multiple lives: On an artificial world with a forgotten past, floods of "silver" rise in the night like fog, rewriting the landscape and consuming those caught in its cold mists. Seventeen-year-old Jubilee knows that no one ever returns from the silver--but then a forbidding stranger appears, asking after her beloved brother, lost long ago to a silver flood. Could he still be alive? And why does the silver rise ever higher, threatening to drown the world? Jubilee pursues the truth on a quest to unlock the memory of a past reaching back farther…
Book Review: Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon
Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon My rating: 4 of 5 stars I came to this from a first chapter included at the end of the kindle edition of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. This is a different sort of space opera from Ancillary Justice, but the opening chapter was so gripping that I immediately ordered a copy so that I could read the rest of it. The universe it is set in is sort of recognisable as a fast forward on our current one. The initial setting is in a naval academy that would be recognisable to anyone with military experience (and the author served in the USMC, no doubt she drew on that). That's just the starting point for the story though, and most of the action takes place on board an interstellar freighter. The story is told…
Five Reasons for Establishing a Colony
In looking through my notes from previous story and game design ideas I came across some notes about the reasons why a colony might be set up. This was primarily for a set of scenarios for science fiction games. A group of us have been playing games set in Jim Wallman's Universe around the Full Moon each month since 1996. That said, they are based on actual historical reasons why people left the UK to live elsewhere. Not always to establish a colony on an uncertain and dangerous frontier. 1. Religious/Ascetic Freedom This covers people leaving to avoid discrimination as well as those that might want to live in a place where the temptations and 'polluitng influences' of modern life are not present. Examples of this include Amish and similar sects that avoid advanced technology (although quite why they'd get in a spaceship…
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Vote for Ancillary Justice in the Goodreads Best Reads of 2013
Amongst others I posted on twitter and Google+ for people to write in Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie in the Science Fiction category of the Goodreads Best of 2013 awards. That worked because enough people thought the same way I did about it. Here's what Ann Leckie said Anyway you need to go instantly and vote for Ancillary Justice the new round over at Goodreads. Just to remind you why this is the right thing to do. Here's my review of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Related articles Ann Leckie - Ancillary Justice The Big Idea: Ann Leckie Book Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie RT Reviewers Choice Award Nomination + Goodreads Semifinals Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie