Category Archives: Science Fiction

2023 Recap

Posted on 1 January 2024 by Barbara Howe

I started 2023 with a list of eight books I was excited about reading. Unfortunately, an intriguing concept doesn’t always turn into a compelling story, and I ultimately abandoned several of them, and none of them made it onto the … Continue reading →

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2022 Recap

Posted on 16 December 2022 by Barbara Howe

I started off this year with a post about the half-dozen books on the top of my TBR pile, and was only happy with one of them (When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain). What about the others? I loved … Continue reading →

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Winter’s Orbit

Posted on 9 July 2022 by Barbara Howe

Irresponsible Prince Kiem isn’t ready to be married. But his cousin, Prince Taam, died in a crash, tearing a hole in the carefully arranged structure of alliance marriages binding the seven-planet Iskat Empire together. Someone has to salvage the situation … Continue reading →

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Elder Race

Posted on 28 May 2022 by Barbara Howe

Lynesse Fourth Daughter, the last and therefore least important of the queen’s daughters, is her family’s wild child. The one who gives the tutors ulcers and tries her mother’s patience. She is also the only one who takes seriously the … Continue reading →

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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 →

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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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