Tag Archives: Science Fiction

Review

Command Decisions

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command_decisionsAs a reader, I have to listen to the narrated stories of Terry Mixon’s The Empire of Bones Saga. Listening to them is wonderful. Waiting for them to come out is painful and slow. The audio book’s narrator, Veronica Giguere, bring extra life to the story and its characters that make the waiting for the next in the series bearable.

From his biography, I know Terry Mixon is a Texas writer and former NASA subcontractor at the Johnson Space Center and his life experience brings extra life to the third book in the series Command Decision. In this story, the protagonist has found help from an ancient ship, but they still have to survive those from their past. The author knows how to keep the story flowing and the pace is perfect for those who are trying to survive so far from their home.

Mixon has published the fifth book in the series, and I will have to wait for them to come out on Audible. When the next book becomes available, I will happily use one of my Audible credits to purchases it when on the first day.

About the Reviewer

ceanderdson
Charles Eugene ‘Chuck’ Anderson lives in Colorado. He’s been lucky enough to be published in many publications for the past twenty years. When Chuck isn’t writing, he likes muscle cars, running, and baking. Find out more about him at www.charleseugeneanderson.com

Review

Hadrian’s Flight

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[Transparency disclaimer: I’ve known Dan personally for years. We’ve collaborated on many projects. This isn’t one of those projects.]

hadrians_flightI’ve long admired Dan Sawyer’s ability to craft a tale. His Resurrection Junket left me breathless. His Clarke Lantham series updates the old school noir detective trope and brings it into the twenty-first century. Hadrian’s Flight is his first attempt at YA and he hits it out of the park.

The tale is set in his Kabrakan Ascendancy universe and provides some interesting insights into the beginning of the first interplanetary war. Young Hadrian Jin gets caught up in a web of spies and must navigate his own course through the confusing – and often contradictory – paths defined by those around him. His biggest challenge is trying to figure out who’s telling him the truth – almost nobody – and whom he can trust – again, almost nobody. In spite of that, he finds his way and pays the price for his actions.

It’s a very tightly drawn story filled with intrigue, betrayal, challenge and ingenuity.

I really liked this book. Grab a sample and see what you think.

About the reviewer:

NathanLowell_150x150Nathan Lowell has been writing science fiction and fantasy most of his life. He started publishing in 2007 and has no intention of stopping any time soon.

Learn more about Nathan Lowell and his works at http://nathanlowell.com

Review

Teleportal

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teleportalI thought long and hard about writing this review. I generally try to offer reviews of books that I loved. This isn’t one of them.

Teleportal tells the story of a small group of physicists who invent/discover/develop a teleporter. I can’t really tell you more about the plot without too many spoilers. Needless to say, it’s not exactly a walk in the park for the inventors.

One of the pitfalls of writing these kinds of stories is that you get into the “smart people making stupid decisions” really quickly. If you don’t it’s very hard to have an actual story. This is one of those books. It’s the kind of book I like to delete but I couldn’t put this one aside.

I think it’s because Gordon Savage managed to pull me into the characters’ world and made me believe it. I’ve known brilliant people like Dr. Melissa Kim. Brilliant in their own fields but stumps in any other. Her sidekick characters don’t get as much page time but it’s fine. They still had personalities of their own. When the Feds get involved, things go a lot sideways. The international responses seemed pretty realistic. I’m not sure about the North Korean sleeper cell, but I’m not really doing a lot in near-future SF/adventure myself so sure. Why not?

Like I said in the beginning, this isn’t a book I love, but it’s a book I can’t stop thinking about. That’s reason enough to let others know about it.

Grab a sample and see what you think.

About the reviewer:

NathanLowell_150x150Nathan Lowell has been writing science fiction and fantasy most of his life. He started publishing in 2007 and has no intention of stopping any time soon.

Learn more about Nathan Lowell and his works at http://nathanlowell.com

Review

Fortune’s Rising

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fortunes_risingI was totally caught up in this book. The cast of characters was broad and captivating. Did I like each one? Absolutely not. But I don’t like everyone I meet, either.

I rather detest Anna, and while she was obviously a protagonist as the book started out, with Dobie as her foil, I am beginning to wonder if in future volumes, she will shift to be an antagonist, which would be a nice turn not often seen in literature. Tatiana was a little too crazed for me, Magali too self-hating. But this is what makes an interesting cast of characters, and this is what breathes life into a novel. Too often, all the protagonists are the quintessential goodies and the antagonists the quintessential baddies. Milar and Dobie were perhaps the most likable characters, but the breadth of the cast is what makes this book special.

One point I would like to make is that a reader does not have to “like” a character to like reading about him or her. I have read elsewhere some people complaining about a book because they did not “like” the protagonist. I did not “like” Gollum in LOTR, yet I certainly liked reading about him.

One literary device that I simply loved was the first chapter told from Dobie’s (Ferris’) point of view. This was clever, but not clever for clever’s sake. There was a purpose to this chapter and the few that followed, and it served to help show the change in Dobie once he became Dobie.

One very moving piece of pathos right out of the Greek tragedies was when one protagonist killed a child. The guilt associated with that, despite the intentions, has to tear that character apart. This is the type of internal conflict that creates full-bodied characters rather than trite cardboard cutouts.

There was a subtle sense of humor that helped give a little variance to the more serious nature of the storyline. I laughed out loud when one character complained that two hours into a romance novel, there was no sex.

The pace of the novel was fast, and it flowed well. I am not sure I bought every aspect of the universe as created by the author, but she was able to pull me in so that I didn’t care if not everything seemed logical to me. This is the author’s universe, after all, and I was merely a visitor to it.

I plan on remaining a visitor, though. I will be reading the next volume, and that is probably the bottom line in any book. Does the reader want more? If he or she does, then the book is a success.

About the reviewer:

larryscatJonathan Brazee is a retired Marine infantry colonel who after years of writing non-fiction, wrote his first novel while serving in Iraq. He independently published it, hoping to sell a few copies to friends and family, and was pleasantly surprised when the book gained traction among the general reading public. Twenty-three novels later, he is now winding down his post-military career overseas to become a full-time writer. A majority of his books have a military bent in science fiction, paranormal, historical fiction, and general fiction, but he has also written non-military scifi and paranormal. He writes three to four hours each day with the help (or despite) the attention of two rescue cats who insist on sitting on his lap or keyboard.
Jonathan is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the US Naval Academy Alumni Association, the Disabled Veterans of America, and is an officer in the VFW’s Department of the Pacific.

Learn more about Jonathan and his work at http://www.jonathanbrazee.com

Review

Vokhtah

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VokhtahIn Vokhtah, the author gives us a rich and satisfying tapestry of a world: alien, strange, and gratifying. This is not a particularly easy read, one in which you skim while half-watching tv or munching on a sandwich. The book deserves the reader’s full attention so that all the nuances and details are caught and absorbed.

On the surface, this book tells the tale of two races, possibly a lot closer related than most of them would like to admit. The Vokh are the supposed rulers of the planet; strong, fierce, and driven, fighting with one another to gain status and holdings. The iVokh serve them, from running their holdings to managing their health to running the economy to serving as basic drudges. Yet the Guild of Healers serve as a sort of governor on the Vokh, surreptitiously killing any Vokh they label as abominations.

When one Blue, (one of the three factions of the Guild of Healers) disagrees with the specifics of a decision to kill a particular Vokh, he embarks on a dangerous journey in an attempt to maneuver the situation to uphold the decree, yet in a manner that the Vokh do not become aware of the guild’s machinations.

One problem I have with too many books dealing with other forms of intelligent life is that they tend to be overly anthropomorphized. They are merely humans in otherworld bodies. The Vokh and iVokh most certainly do not fall into this trap. They are decidedly “not-human,” yet the author is able to paint such a detailed picture that we are able to understand them, their motives, their ways of thinking. Within the framework of the author’s universe, there is logic and reasonability. It all makes sense.

The detail into which the author delves is simply a joy to behold. The author’s imagination is quite obviously prodigious, but then the ability to transfer that imagination into the written word is impressive. Equally impressive are the descriptive passages of action and even simple settings. I was able to see the author’s vision quite clearly in my mind.

All told, I really enjoyed this book. I enthusiastically recommend it.

About the reviewer:

larryscatJonathan Brazee is a retired Marine infantry colonel who after years of writing non-fiction, wrote his first novel while serving in Iraq. He independently published it, hoping to sell a few copies to friends and family, and was pleasantly surprised when the book gained traction among the general reading public. Twenty-three novels later, he is now winding down his post-military career overseas to become a full-time writer. A majority of his books have a military bent in science fiction, paranormal, historical fiction, and general fiction, but he has also written non-military scifi and paranormal. He writes three to four hours each day with the help (or despite) the attention of two rescue cats who insist on sitting on his lap or keyboard.
Jonathan is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the US Naval Academy Alumni Association, the Disabled Veterans of America, and is an officer in the VFW’s Department of the Pacific.

Learn more about Jonathan and his work at http://www.jonathanbrazee.comVokhtah

Review

Eviction Notice

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Eviction_NoticeEviction Notice is a thoroughly enjoyable book with non-stop action and more than its fair share of laughs. The author takes on what I consider some of the most difficult writing: humor. But where other more established writers have stumbled, Mr. Wyrick succeeds with flying colors. While I do see a bit of Joseph Heller with a side of Terry Pratchert in his work, he still has his own unique and satisfying voice.

The story starts with the Ogden, Iowa, senior class prank, a school tradition where each graduating class tries to outdo the previous one. When the pranksters decide to create a crop circle in a corn field, they never realize that they have put into motion a misplaced delivery of a Glen Fairy, a being in tune with nature and with the ability to heal the abuses heaped up on it by the various beings in the universe. The Glen Fairy was sold to the pig-like Zorgon as part of the deal to end a war, and Aloon Zigilbraxis was given the task of abducting and delivering her. Unfortunately for Aloon, the Iowa crop circle was a mirror for the actual crop circle he was using as a beacon to have the Glen Fairy brought to him, and the delivery pod brought the fairy to Ogden. Without the Fairy, he is told by Galactic Councilwoman Fry that in the subsection of his contract (which he never read), the penalty for non-delivery is death. Luckily for him, there is a clause that allows a grace period to recover the Glen Fairy. Unluckily for the people of earth, he has to put down collateral for this grace period, and out of options, he claims the earth itself and puts that up as the collateral. The fact that there are some 6 billion people and untold other lifeforms already inhabiting the earth doesn’t seem to give anyone pause. All life on earth will just be “evicted” to the vacuum of space.

To ensure the legality of all of this, Councilwoman Fry sends two investigators, Clayton, a sympathetic human-looking man, and Tyler, an eight-foot tall, four-armed, heavily-fanged Wolzon Strangle Beast who is partial to well-tailored suits. They approach Alice Able, a woman who is about to commit suicide, because she is from Iowa, where the presidential campaigns begin, and as she was first on a list of registered voters, they assumed she had to be the leader of the world. Without “paperwork” that shows that humans own the world, there isn’t much the investigators can do. Time is running out, and with Aloon and a squadron of Zorgon running rampant over Iowa trying to find the Glen Fairy, and with Councilwoman Fry just itching to begin the eviction, there doesn’t seem like there is much that Alice, Deputy Johnny Crebs, a handful of students, and Aria, the Glen Fairy in question, can do to save the the people of earth.

If none of that makes much sense, it doesn’t matter. This is one of those stories that grabs a reader and yanks him or her into the story, never letting go. The wordsmithing is outstanding, the storyline enthralling, and the characterization compelling. Even when the action is at its most outlandish, instead of taking issue as too being far-fetched, I had to nod with an “Oh, that is so true!”

One thing I really liked about the humor in the book was that it was blatant and funny but not pie-in-the-face. There were no “ta-da” moments where the author stepped back as if he had just presented a one-liner at a comedy club. The humor flowed seamlessly along with the storyline.

It wasn’t just the humor, though, that made this a good book. While I continually laughed out loud as I read it, the storyline was not merely a platform to support the humor. The storyline held its own.

I love this book, and I think the author is a talent. I will look forward to anything else he writes in the future.

About the reviewer:

larryscatJonathan Brazee is a retired Marine infantry colonel who after years of writing non-fiction, wrote his first novel while serving in Iraq. He independently published it, hoping to sell a few copies to friends and family, and was pleasantly surprised when the book gained traction among the general reading public. Twenty-three novels later, he is now winding down his post-military career overseas to become a full-time writer. A majority of his books have a military bent in science fiction, paranormal, historical fiction, and general fiction, but he has also written non-military scifi and paranormal. He writes three to four hours each day with the help (or despite) the attention of two rescue cats who insist on sitting on his lap or keyboard.
Jonathan is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the US Naval Academy Alumni Association, the Disabled Veterans of America, and is an officer in the VFW’s Department of the Pacific.

Learn more about Jonathan and his work at http://www.jonathanbrazee.com

Review

Greenhouse Redemption Of The Planet Kraal

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Greenhouse-RedemptionWith the tens of thousands of scifi titles out there, it gets harder and harder to introduce something new. While this book takes the stranger in a strange land theme to heart (not the Heinlein book, but the general reference), how the author pulls this off was fascinating and clever. We are in a time where we can e-mail photos, and docs, we can even manufacture some things on a printer, so why not the ability to send DNA information across the vast reaches of space to where a clone can then be made? Brilliant!

This book worked very well in laying out the story, then following through with all aspects of it. I enjoyed reading the author’s take on what would happen to a society when an alien is introduced to that society. And what a society. This new society is essentially herds of alien cows, another new twist to the genre. The author’s extrapolation of this society made logical sense to me. It author’s choice of cows, even using the word “bovine,” is ironic in that this is also a novel on global warming, and on our world, earth cows are a major contributor to greenhouse gases. This had to have been a deliberate choice by the author.

At its heart, this is a novel about environmental catastrophe, but the book does not have to be read only by environmentalists. Even ardent naysayers to global warming can just enjoy the story for what it’s worth. This is not a “preachy” novel.

The style of the novel is such that it is not a particularly easy read. I fear some people will download the sample, then bog down a bit while reading the first few pages. This would be a shame. I would recommend that potential readers stick with it. The book is well worth it, and before long, the style and flow become familiar, and the reading flows with less effort.

This is one of the best scifi novels I have read in quite some time, and I enthusiastically recommend it.

About the reviewer:

larryscatJonathan Brazee is a retired Marine infantry colonel who after years of writing non-fiction, wrote his first novel while serving in Iraq. He independently published it, hoping to sell a few copies to friends and family, and was pleasantly surprised when the book gained traction among the general reading public. Twenty-three novels later, he is now winding down his post-military career overseas to become a full-time writer. A majority of his books have a military bent in science fiction, paranormal, historical fiction, and general fiction, but he has also written non-military scifi and paranormal. He writes three to four hours each day with the help (or despite) the attention of two rescue cats who insist on sitting on his lap or keyboard.
Jonathan is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the US Naval Academy Alumni Association, the Disabled Veterans of America, and is an officer in the VFW’s Department of the Pacific.

Learn more about Jonathan and his work at http://www.jonathanbrazee.com

Review

Virtual Identity

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Virtual_IdentityRemember the end of “eXistenZ”? In the 1999 movie starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law, they—and we—left that final scene unsure if it was yet another stage in the virtual reality presentation. Jude Law’s character, “virtual reality virgin” Ted Pikul, was pulled and shoved from one insanity to the next by his ignorance of whether he was in a real world or in the virtual reality game.
The entire story of Sandra Tomek and Rodrigo Ochoa in “Virtual Identity” has that same “still in the game” flavor.
You know the queasy thrill when the dead Brian O’Blivion showed up for a TV interview in 1983’s “Videodrome”? The appearance of the virtually-real, yet physically-deceased professor marked the point in the movie when what you knew was real started to spin out of your grasp. In “Virtual Identity,” that point occurs somewhere around the middle of Chapter Two. The James Woods character in “Videodrome,” Max Renn, at least has Harlan, with his condescending “Patronne,” to tell him why he has lost the boundary between reality and television.
Sandra Tomek has no such clue; she has slipped from a real existence to the shifting sands of virtual reality with scarcely a murmur of explanation. In fact, the core story-line of the novel seems to be her search for any stable, truly-real place to stand. Is Rod Ochoa an antagonist? a reluctant co-conspirator? a boyfriend caught in the same sting as Sandra herself? Is Sandra herself the villain, a terrorist-traitor selling secrets, or the innocent pawn of a cloned virtual self? Perhaps she is something entirely unsuspected, defined by shadowy “others” who have trapped her in this VR simulation.
Each new turn in the tale brings Sandra closer to madness, insanity of the kind that Max Renn or Ted Pikul would well understand: “It made her think about who she was, or thought she was, or believed she ought to be, or others expected her to be. Could she or anyone else identify the real Sandra? Did such a person even exist?”
The ongoing confusion about what is real and what is part of the VR simulation, for the reader no less than for Sandra, draws you along. You want to resolve the mystery. You want to find the edible core of this artichoke you are peeling leaf by pointed leaf, but each new layer reveals only another spiny conundrum. At one point, Sandra expresses her frustration with the impossibility of recognizing “real” reality while still wrapped in the haze of virtual-reality madness. “What’s wrong?” she asks Rod, then, “How would we even know?”
This is Volume 9 in the Our Cyber World series, and it includes characters we’ve met before. The focus is so inward, though, that you scarcely need to be familiar with them to be enmeshed in Sandra’s internal quest for identity. In the end, she may find a place to be herself.

How real that terminal identity may be, however, is left as an exercise for the reader.

About The Reviewer:
DrPat_imageGraduated from Colorado School of Mines with a degree in Geological Engineering (mining geology/economics). Married to a CSM mining engineer for 45+ years now. Has 10 brothers and sisters, could fill a small concert hall with nieces, nephews, and their children.

Lived and/or worked in: UK; Republic of South Africa; 47 of 50 US states; three provinces of Canada; Germany, Holland, and Switzerland. Have been underground in mines on three continents.

Published two editions of his journal of inspirational quotes, “The Social Calendar.” Currently co-writing the non-fictional “Meant To Be Here,” the memoirs of a most interesting man.

Writes flash fiction weekly as one of the Congress of Rough Writers at Carrot Ranch.

Learn more about Pat at “DrPat Reads”

Review

Peace Lord Of The Red Planet

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PeaceLordSteven H. Wilson always comes at a story from an angle that surprises, even to those of us who have learned to love his work. In this case, what presents as a pastiche of and homage to ERB’s “John Carter of Mars” books (yes, the ones that the recent movie was loosely based on) turns out to be something else entirely if you so much as breathe lightly on the surface.

Initially, and unexpectedly, I found Peace Lord off-putting–the attention to character detail was so exact that I found it jarring and uncomfortable, and I remember thinking several times, particularly through the opening chapters, that I would have liked it better when I was a believer than I did now, as I’d have found the evangelical aspects of it much more moving rather than merely interesting and occasionally annoying. Wilson, you see, nails the devotional Quaker mindset exactly. Unless you’ve been there, or have read a lot of early Quaker literature, it’s difficult to convey just how well he pulls it off. He does it so well that I began to worry if it wasn’t a Quaker book for Quaker (or at least self-consciously Christian) audiences.

However, sometime around chapter seven a wheel clicked in my head, as so often happens to me with Steve Wilson’s more philosophically inclined stories, and it dawned on me that I hadn’t quite cottoned on to what was he was up to.

Rather than being a Christian (TM) book as one comes to expect from folks like Peretti, LeHaye, or all but Lewis’s best (i.e. where the narrative is a thin veil for grinding a doctrinal axe), Wilson has written a spiritual epic.

The central concern, as with Lewis’s “Till We Have Faces” or Heinlein’s “Job,” is the spiritual and moral maturity of the main character (Shep). In facing challenges to his faith and worldview, Shep is forced to sort between his underlying moral principles and the rules that he’s accepted as their legitimate expression–and, kudos to Wilson for choosing a Quaker of that era, as the main character’s journey is very believable for a man of integrity raised on the writings of George Fox.

I really don’t have a lot of patience any more for evangelism–enough years in seminary and many more of intense personal study have made me a curmudgeonly cuss when anyone talks to me about the surface aspects of their religion (yes, I know the gospel, and the five pillars, and the eightfold path–been there, done that), but what I do have an abiding fascination for is integrity in the midst of ambiguity and contradiction. The thing about Wilson’s works that can still bring me down in tears is the sublime manner in which he navigates this territory, in one way or another, through his novels and some of his longer serials.

My only real gripe with the book is, at the end, a minor one: Shep’s internal lexicon is peppered with words (and, more frequently, idioms) that simply didn’t exist or weren’t used the way he does until the late 20th century. A lot of authors make this mistake–it only sticks out here because the verisimilitude otherwise present in the book is so very well done that these minor gaffes tossed me out of the story.

But if you’re not the kind of person that reads the OED for fun (I am, but I’m also comfortable with the fact that I’m OCD for the OED and weird enough to admit it in public), I highly doubt you’ll notice.

Peace Lord that kept me mentally chewing on its themes and puzzles for a good week afterward. This is, by my lights, exactly what science fiction is for, and kudos to Wilson for diving in with both feet in a way that is guaranteed to court offense and discomfort for everyone in the audience. That was my experience with Taken Liberty (his previous novel), and it was my experience with Peace Lord. I sincerely hope he’s working on another one.

About The Reviewer:

dan_headshot_squareWHILE STAR WARS and STAR TREK seeded J. Daniel Sawyer’s passion for the unknown, his childhood in academia gave him a deep love of history and an obsession with how the future emerges from the past.

This obsession led him through adventures in the film industry, the music industry, venture capital firms in the startup culture of Silicon Valley, and a career creating novels and audiobooks exploring the worlds that assemble themselves in his head.

His travels with bohemians, burners, historians, theologians, and inventors led him eventually to a rural exile where he uses the quiet to write, walk on the beach, and manage a production company that brings innovative stories to the ears of audiences across the world.

Learn more about Dan and his work at http://jdsawyer.net

Review

The Maker’s Mask

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makersmaskWhile it is easy to draw parallels between this novel and various classics of both science-fiction and Regency romance, to do so would be to give as incomplete a picture as a review of a restaurant containing a list of side dishes that other restaurants have also served. As with a fine meal, this book deserves to be judged on what Wells has done with the ingredients.

Far enough in the past that it has been lost from history, colony ships landed on Requite. Over the centuries the ships have become Spires, feudal city-states ruled by warring families. When Tzenni Boccamera’s sister is captured by a rival Spire she sets out on a secret mission to rescue her. But will her ability to not only maintain but improve the fragmented technology that remains be enough to survive in a society built on polite assassinations?

The background detail of the world are well realised. From the first moment, Tzenni uses a genetically-keyed lock to enter a castle, the feeling of ultra-technology lost to physical and social degradation is pervasive. It is not merely plausible that a civilisation with genetic manipulation and computer assisted manufacturing might have an underclass, it would seem implausible if there were not oppressed peasantry.

The book contains several plot arcs in addition to Tzenni’s search for her sister. Some intertwine closely with the search, drawing Tzenni away from her goals, whereas others appear not to touch it at all. This gives a feeling both that nothing happens in a vacuum and that even supporting characters are the subjects of their own narratives. These interlocking plots all draw the reader forward, maintaining a sense of tension without creating a feeling of being hurried or left behind.

It is this momentum that also produces the only jarring note in the work. This novel was originally the first half of a longer work and so – while Wells has done an excellent job of picking a point to split the halves and resolving the majority of the active plot arcs – the reader might find the end comes a little earlier than expected. However, this issue can easily be solved by obtaining the second volume, so is relatively minor for those afflicted with neither a lack of patience nor a barrier to purchase.

Each chapter opens with a short quote from an in-world classic. As well as adding much to both the reader’s understanding of the world and their immersion in it, these often serve to provide a counterpoint to the ongoing narrative, allowing Wells to add a note of comedy where it would be unrealistic for characters to be light-hearted or reveal how hollow social convention is without compromising a character’s determination to fit in.

Corpses make bad paramours, but better than average confidants
-Ir-Marid Boccamera (303-380 S.F.) The Assassin’s Pillow-Book

The sense of ongoing stories beyond the events explicitly covered by the novel is skilfully built upon by characterisation that avoids objectification. As with the novel as a whole, it would be easy to describe Tzenni with a few labels, but her actions are driven by her being Tzenni, not her being a woman or a noble. Where a character appears to be more simplistic, Wells subverts the portrayal later, revealing it is the character using a stereotype for their own purposes. However, this revelation is only for the reader; the characters display the very realistic dichotomy of adopting masks for their own benefit while assuming other people are part of broad groups.

This blindness is exploited particularly well in the burgeoning romance plots. While the reader knows the characters’ intentions, they are constrained by a lifetime of social propaganda and a fear of being exploited. Combined with a world strong enough to make social pressure enough to keep people apart, this makes it genuinely uncertain whether or not the couples will end up together.

The same deft hand is used on the characterisation of things that are not familiar to the reader. Unlike some books containing polyamory or other-sexed characters, the sexual politics are not at the forefront of description; while both influence individual interactions and goals, the characters do not focus on what is – to them – a mundane part of their society.

I enjoyed this novel immensely. I recommend it to both readers seeking decayed remnants of ultra-technology and those who enjoy social manoeuvring.

About The Reviewer

Dave_Higgins

Dave Higgins writes speculative fiction, often with a dark edge. Despite forays into the mundane worlds of law and IT, he was unable to escape the liminal zone between mystery and horror. A creature of contradictions, he also co-writes comic sci-fi with Simon Cantan.

Born in the least mystically significant part of Wiltshire, England, and raised by a librarian, he started reading shortly after birth and hasn’t stopped since. He lives with his wife, two cats, a plush altar to Lord Cthulhu, and many shelves of books.

It’s rumoured he writes out of fear he will otherwise run out of books to read.

Learn more about Dave and his work at http://davidjhiggins.wordpress.com/