Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg
Tower of Glass (1972) is another of Robert Silverberg’s ambitious novels from his most prolific period in the late 1960s/early 1970s. In that time he was churning out several books each year that were intelligent, thematically challenging, beautifully written stories that explored identity, sexuality, telepathy, alien contact, religion and consciousness. At his best, he produced some masterpieces like Downward to the Earth and Dying Inside,
October 1st, 2015. Stuart Starosta, Kat Hooper and Sandy Ferber | Robert Silverberg | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 11 comments |
It’s incredible, the number of thematic similarities between Ayn Rand’s Anthem (1938) and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924), as well as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). While there’s no direct evidence that Ayn Rand plagiarized those earlier works, she owes an undeniable debt to their dystopian future societies where the individual has been completely sublimated to the needs of the state. Moreover, I believe that We and Brave New World are superior works,
September 25th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3 | Ayn Rand | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 27 comments |
Up the Line by Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg was clearly a big fan of sex back in the late 1960s, and I’m sure he wasn’t the only one. But in Up the Line, he absolutely revels in it. He doesn’t miss a chance for his (all male) characters to fornicate with women at every possible opportunity both in the future and the past, in dozens of exotic time periods in Byzantium, Constantinople, Rome, etc. The act may be as old as time, but that doesn’t stop Time Courier Judd Elliot from trying to bed his great-great-great grandmother Pulcharia with a lusty enthusiasm and complete disregard for all social taboos that have existed for millennia.
September 23rd, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 1 | Robert Silverberg | Audio, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 16 comments |
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke actually collaborated with Stanley Kubrick to produce the novel version of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in order to provide the basis for brilliant Stanley Kubrick film of the same name. So although the book can be considered the original work, the filmmaker also had a role in its creation, and Clarke also rewrote parts of the book to fit the screenplay as that took shape.
Readers and viewers will forever enjoy debating whether a film or novel version is better,
September 15th, 2015. Stuart Starosta, Kat Hooper and Jason Golomb´s rating: 5 | Arthur C. Clarke | Audio, Film / TV | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), part of THE HAINISH CYCLE, won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best SF Novel, and is well known as one of the first books in the genre to intelligently explore the nature of gender and identity. Ursula K. LeGuin is a highly respected writer known for her anthropological and humanistic approach to SF, and her presence has attracted many mainstream readers and forced literary critics to take the genre more seriously.
September 11th, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 5 | Ursula K. Le-Guin | Audio, Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner was arguably the most brilliant, though-provoking, and intelligent SF film ever made, with a uniquely dark vision of a deteriorated future Earth society and a morally ambiguous tale of a bounty hunter Rick Deckard hunting down and ‘retiring’ a series of very intelligent Nexus-6 type replicants (androids) that want very much to live. The movie changed the way moviegoers looked at SF films, and brought great credibility to its director and the genre for a much wider audience,
September 9th, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Philip K. Dick | Film / TV, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch was the 10th and final PKD book I read last year after 40 years without reading any. I always felt as a teenager that I would get more from his books as an adult, and I think I was right. This one is a real mind-bending experience, deliciously strange and tantalizing with its ideas.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) is one of the earliest PKD novels that deals overtly with drug use,
September 1st, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 4 | Philip K. Dick | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
This is a strange and sinister book, even for Philip K. Dick. It’s a carefully-crafted alternate history about a world in which the Axis powers won WWII and now dominate the globe (other notable books in this vein include Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore and Pavane by Keith Roberts), but being PKD that is just the beginning. It prominently features the I Ching (Book of Changes),
August 19th, 2015. Stuart Starosta and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4 | Philip K. Dick | Hugo Award, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | 6 comments |
Ernest Cline has been one of the hottest writers to hit the SF scene since his 2011 debut Ready Player One, a loving tribute to 1980s pop culture within a dystopian future world, became a runaway bestseller. The movie rights were quickly snapped up and the legendary Steven Spielberg has been tapped to do the film adaptation. It’s hard to get off to a more explosive start, and Ernie has finally produced a long-awaited second book, Armada,
August 18th, 2015. Stuart Starosta | Ernest Cline | Author Interviews, Giveaway! | 12 comments |
The Dark Forest is Cixin Liu’s follow-up to The Three-Body Problem (first published in English in 2014 and selected as a Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist), and is the second book in his THREE BODY apocalyptic SF trilogy (which was already published in China back in 2010). It took a while for the series to gain enough popularity in China to catch the attention of US publishers, but since the first book was released last year,
August 17th, 2015. Stuart Starosta´s rating: 3.5 | Cixin Liu | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.