Category Archives: Science Fiction

The Relentless Moon

Posted on 6 November 2021 by Barbara Howe

In my last post, I wrote about The Calculating Stars, the first book in the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal. That book had its good points, but I had some reservations about it. I liked The Relentless Moon, … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternate History, Mysteries, Science Fiction | Leave a comment

The Calculating Stars

Posted on 23 October 2021 by Barbara Howe

3 March 1952. A large meteorite hits Washington, D.C., wipes out most of the East Coast of the United States, and deals massive economic and emotional shocks to the entire world. The amount of ejecta in the atmosphere also triggers … Continue reading →

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The Collapsing Empire

Posted on 20 August 2021 by Barbara Howe

Without faster-than-light transportation, is interstellar travel possible? In The Collapsing Empire, the first book in the Interdependency series, author John Scalzi imagines a strange phenomenon called “The Flow”, unknown to our current physics. Using normal rocket propulsion to reach a … Continue reading →

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Time and Again

Posted on 16 April 2021 by Barbara Howe

One January night in 1970, illustrator Simon (Si) Morley walks out of a New York City apartment and into the night of 21 January 1882. Si is a participant in a secret government project attempting time travel, but he hasn’t … Continue reading →

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Exhalation: Stories

Posted on 3 April 2021 by Barbara Howe

Exhalation: Stories is a collection of award-winning stories (at least five Hugos and several Nebulas between them) by American speculative fiction writer Ted Chiang. These moderately-paced stories are entertaining, but they are also examinations of ideas, touching on such serious … Continue reading →

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A Memory Called Empire

Posted on 24 July 2020 by Barbara Howe

Lsel Station is a mining colony tucked into a Lagrange point near a metal-rich planet—a tiny, independent entity on the edge of the interstellar Teixcalaanli Empire. When a warship arrives at Lsel Station requesting—er, demanding—a new ambassador, without giving any … Continue reading →

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Provenance

Posted on 11 July 2020 by Barbara Howe

Ingray Aughskold is an insecure, needy kid. Well, not a kid, exactly. She’s in her twenties, with a good job on her home planet Hwae, but her politically powerful mother has encouraged competition between her foster children: Danach, the son … Continue reading →

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The Murderbot Diaries

Posted on 28 February 2020 by Barbara Howe

If I were to make a movie of All Systems Red by Martha Wells, I would open with this voiceover: I murdered 57 humans. And then I went rogue. Murderbot, as the part-organic android security unit (SecUnit) privately calls itself, … Continue reading →

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Cloud Atlas

Posted on 8 December 2019 by Barbara Howe

The most notable feature of David Mitchell’s award-winning—and challenging—novel Cloud Atlas is the book’s structure. Made up of six loosely-connected novellas, each in a radically different style and time period, this novel nests the six stories like Russian dolls. The … Continue reading →

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Imperial Radch: Ancillary Justice

Posted on 2 November 2019 by Barbara Howe

The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie, consisting of the books Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy, is one of the most astounding and engrossing works I’ve had the pleasure of reading in a long time. Given the number … Continue reading →

Posted in Science Fiction, Space Opera | 1 Comment