I’m a huge fan of Dan Simmons’s work — when he hits. With The Hollow Man, he misses. Though his talent as a stylist is once again on full display here, the story is confused and overly-complex, leaving the objective of The Hollow Man obscure and ambiguous. One look at the plot devices at work — neuroscience, serial killers, homelessness, telepathy, depression, the mafia, quantum physics — ought to tell you the story is bogged down with excess baggage.
January 25th, 2013. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 2.5 | Dan Simmons | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Readers of Dan Simmons have been spoiled by his numerous great works: THE HYPERION CANTOS, Song of Kali, and The Terror, for example, which sold well around the world and in many languages. Hardcase, unfortunately, finds Simmons returning to earth from the heights of this success. Hardcase is run-of-the-mill action — well told, but still average.
Before buying the book, I noted that many reviewers enjoyed Simmons’s delving into detective noir to tell the story of hardened private eye Joe Kurtz,
January 18th, 2013. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 2.5 | Dan Simmons | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Terror is based on the British vessels HMS Erebrus and HMS Terror and their voyage to discover a northwest passage in the 19th century. Using their unknown fate as a literary springboard, Dan Simmons freely fills the gap in history as his imagination allows, and in the process has created a work of historical fiction that transcends genre. Classified horror due to one of its plot devices, the novel is in fact much deeper in scope.
January 14th, 2013. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 4.5 | Dan Simmons | Horror, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
At heart a psychological drama which explores one man’s attempts at dealing with the negative aspects of existentialism (what Sarte called “nausea”), Gateway nonetheless utilizes the tools of science fiction for effect. Less than 300 pages, the tropes of each are blended perfectly in succinct fashion so as to satisfy the readers of both genres.
After finding an abandoned alien base deep in an asteroid, humanity has learned the basics of piloting the remaining spaceships. Emphasis on the word “basics,” not all the important details of light speed have been mastered,
December 12th, 2012. Jesse Hudson and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Frederik Pohl | Audio, Hugo Award, Nebula Award | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Resurrection Man by Sean Stewart
Not knowing who Sean Stewart was prior to reading Resurrection Man, it was more than a pleasant surprise to find such a well written book with poignant themes. Hiding on the margins of literature, Stewart’s novel tells the story of a Hungarian family living in the US and their attempts to come to terms with skeletons in the closet after WII, both personal and familial. But it is not the 1950’s America you know from history; magic in the form of charms and strange,
October 6th, 2012. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 4 | Sean Stewart | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The unique talent that is Greg Egan has written another novel that barely strains the limits of modern technology in a near-future socio-political world that is more than believable. Cameras are biologically inserted into humans, rendering reporters as close to the definition of the word “witness” as philologists will permit; pharmaceuticals exist which allow a person to be one button away from a desired mood; and fundamentalists and activists emerge from all corners as science replaces religion in the global mindset. Distress contains enough ideas for three novels;
August 24th, 2012. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 3.5 | Greg Egan | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | no comments |
A Dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest
Written in 1977, Christopher Priest’s A Dream of Wessex stands at the midpoint of media questioning reality. Falling on the tail end of Philip Dick and his oeuvre’s continual exploration of metaphysical meaning, A Dream of Wessex is also an (unheralded) fore-runner to science fiction featuring uncertain realities that followed in the 1990’s. Many ideas that are exploited in films such as The Matrix or Inception can find their conception in Priest’s tale of a scientific experiment into alternate realities.
August 16th, 2012. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 3.5 | Christopher Priest | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror by H.P. Lovecraft
Fans of Stephen King take note: This work and other tales of H.P. Lovecraft were among King’s main inspirations. Lovecraft bases most of his stories out of his Providence, just as King uses small town Maine so often as a setting. Likewise, each utilizes quirks of rural life and old wives’ tales to spin tales of the macabre that never quite fully explain themselves. Ghosts, miasmas, fiery pentagrams, voodoo magic, mysterious deaths, and the other typical plot devices used by horror are never intended to fully connect with reality.
August 6th, 2012. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 2.5 | H.P. Lovecraft | Horror, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
Over the top villain. Check. Strange and funny alien races. Check. Quest for singular object that leads through space. Check. Multitudes of battlecruisers, space wings, and dreadnaughts converging at a single point. Check. Boxes ticked, Iain M. Banks makes no bones about it: The Algebraist is unabashed space opera, for better and worse.
The Algebraist, the 20th novel and 8th sci-fi offering in Bank’s oeuvre, tells the story of Fassin Taak, a scholar who spends his time in the atmosphere of a gas giant interacting with the native species called Dwellers.
July 27th, 2012. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 3 | Iain M. Banks | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Look to Windward by Iain Banks
This is the first book I have read by Iain Banks — and it won’t be the last. His post-human vision of the very distant future, with its closer-to-perfect, but all-too-human AI, is not only plausible but a thought-provoker. And if you read science fiction, don’t you want something thought provoking? The alien cultures, the societal implications, and the use of technology were exactly that. Bucking the trend of throwing everything into a thousand-page tome, literary science fiction gets better in the hands of only a handful of other writers.
June 11th, 2012. Jesse Hudson´s rating: 4 | Iain M. Banks | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Wonderful review, Sandy.
The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
this sounds like a fun one