Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Ryan Skardal

A Man and His God: A curiosity

A Man and His God by Janet Morris

In A Man and His God, by Janet E. Morris, Tempus brings his Sacred Band of Stepsons to Sanctuary, a city in the midst of preparations for war. Tempus is a tough man to kill, one who has watched severed limbs return as his god, Vaschanka, heals him. Though their relationship is not always so smooth that he can afford to take Vashanka’s intervention for granted, Tempus is one soldier that Prince Kadakithis cannot afford to offend as they prepare to improve Sanctuary’s defenses.

Use of Weapons: A brooding tale of warfare, manipulation, guilt

Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

Iain M. Banks’s Use of Weapons is the third CULTURE novel. For those not in the know, the Culture is an intergalactic paradise run by its extremely sophisticated machines. Its people are augmented so that they are able to control and enhance every function their body serves. Life in the Culture is pretty great, and so stories are rarely set there.

Fortunately for Banks, things occasionally get a little hairy on the distant edges of the Culture when it is forced to interact with other societies.

March 6th, 2013. Ryan Skardal, Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper | Iain M. Banks | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore: Nerdy and bookish

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a romp of a first novel by Robin Sloan. It’s a perfect book for booklovers who lean toward the mysterious and fantastic, blurring genre lines throughout to afford readers a marvelous time.

The novel begins when Clay Jannon, the first-person narrator, is responding to an advertisement for a clerk in a 24-hour bookstore in San Francisco. Clay was educated as a graphic artist, but he’s finding jobs scarce since his work designing a logo and a website for a bagel bakery and acting as the “voice” of @NewBagel on Twitter — definitely a new economy sort of job.

Spin: Every science fiction novel condensed into one book

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

With Spin, Robert Charles Wilson has condensed every science fiction novel into one book.

It’s quite an accomplishment, really, though the novel begins innocently enough. We’re in the near future with our narrator, Tyler Dupree, who is injected with a strange cure somewhere in Sumatra. The drug produces side effects, and one of them compels Tyler to tell his life’s story.

Tyler grew up in the little house “across the lawn.” His mother, Carol, cleaned the house of the Lawton family while Tyler played games with their children,

The Player of Games: A space opera about board games

The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

The Player of Games (1988) is the second of Iain M. Banks’s Culture novels. Jernau Morat Gurgeh is a famous game player from the protective, machine-run Culture. Like everyone else that lives in the Culture, Gurgeh has never known fear, pain, or greed. He wants little beyond the thrill offered by the games and the respect he earns from winning them until he meets Mawhrin-Skel, a drone that blackmails Gurgeh into traveling to the distant Empire of Azad and representing the Culture in a tournament.

January 2nd, 2013. Ryan Skardal, Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Iain M. Banks | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |

Consider Phlebas: The first, but not the best, CULTURE novel

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

Consider Phlebas, the first of Iain M. Banks’s CULTURE novels, introduces readers to the Culture, a machine-led intergalactic civilization that offers its biological humanoids a carefree, utopian lifestyle. Though most centuries are free from worry, Consider Phlebas takes place in the middle of the Idiran-Culture War.

The Culture is an intergalactic utopia, but readers should not come to Consider Phlebas expecting dystopian narrative. The machines, led by their brilliant and sentient Minds,

December 28th, 2012. Ryan Skardal, Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Iain M. Banks | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |

Snuff: A City Watch novel without the City Watch

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

Snuff is Terry Pratchett’s latest DISCWORLD novel to feature the City Watch. Well, actually, the City Watch is largely absent. Lady Sybil, insists that she and Commander Sam Vimes take their son, Young Sam, to the countryside for a vacation.

The vacation begins smoothly. Vimes and his family retreat to the country, where Vimes encounters Sybil’s well-to-do peers. Vimes hobnobs, or tries to, but he finds the nobility a bit stuffy. Still, he is the Duke of Ankh and does not want to disappoint Sybil,

December 18th, 2012. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 2 | Terry Pratchett | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |

The Gunslinger: The world has moved on

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Stephen King’s The Gunslinger is a post-apocalyptic Western-fantasy hybrid about the gunslinger Roland Deschain and his pursuit of the man in black across a desert.

At first glance, the Western plays the largest role in The Gunslinger. Roland carries two heavy six shooters with sandalwood handles, and he can fire them both with deadly accuracy. He wears a duster, leads a pack mule when we first meet him, and is chasing his quarry across a seemingly endless desert.

December 3rd, 2012. Ryan Skardal and Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | Stephen King | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |

Cell: Cell phones turn users into zombies

Cell by Stephen King

In The Stand, Stephen King basically wrote the book on contemporary post-apocalyptic settings. However, one of the few things that 1000+ page novel missed was zombies. King corrects that omission in Cell, a novel in which cell phones turn users into zombies.

Unlike in The Stand, King wastes no time assembling his heroes. Clayton Riddell, who is, of course, from Maine, writes graphic novels. Clay barely has a moment to enjoy his first big break in publishing before the world is ending after the “pulse.” Amidst the ruin,

The System of the World: The end of an excellent series

The System of the World by Neal Stephenson

The System of the World combines the final three “novels” — Solomon’s Gold, Currency, and The System of the World — of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle. The novel’s title refers to the third volume of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica.

Most people remember Isaac Newton today because of the Principia Mathematica. In it,

September 6th, 2012. Ryan Skardal´s rating: 4 | Neal Stephenson | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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