November is here, which means the good ship SciFiMonth is blasting off with a crew full of SFnal-loving geeks to spend 30 days celebrating the joys and horrors of but what if? We’ll be reading, watching, listening, playing and above all chattering our way through all forms of science fiction all month long.
aliens
99.5% of humanity were wiped out in 3 short years after They arrived. 50 years later, a team of researchers sift through the ruins of a siege city to better understand the catastrophe. When Emerson finds a survivor’s journal, it feels like the jackpot. But can Eva’s account be taken at face value?
Christie S’aranth has survived assassins, dodged accusations of witchcraft and murder, and travelled from the Barrens to the Brown Tower. Now her time on Orthe is ending. Torn between her duty to the Dominion and her love of the Southland, she must decide where her loyalties lie…
Christie survived the Barrens and is reunited with her Orthean allies at the winter court in Peir-Dadeni. But while her enemies slide free of the claims against them, Christie once again finds herself accused of a terrible crime. Mistrustful, fearing for her life, she goes back on the run…
With Crown permission to tour the telestres, Christie settles in to Roehmonde to try and convince them of the benefits of off world contact. But Roehmonde has domestic problems that technology can’t solve, and it soon becomes clear that anything that promotes change poses a threat to stability…
You know I can’t resist a read-along. It was SciFiMonth that first lured me into one, and it’s a tradition I’m delighted to continue. This year, we’re reading Mary Gentle’s Golden Witchbreed, a classic of cut-throat politics and cultural tensions as a junior diplomat gets out of her depth on the dangerously compelling world of Orthe.
It’s that time! SciFiMonth, when we set off on our 30-day mission to explore strange new worlds and alternate dimensions; to seek out new books and unfamiliar media; to boldly geek out like… well, like we do every year, joyfully and without restraint. BRING IT.
One of the joys of SciFiMonth is a big buddy read. For our classic read-along, I’d like to introduce you to Golden Witchbreed, an epic of knife-edge (and knifepoint) diplomacy, beguiling world-building and cultural tension as humanity tries to persuade the post-apocalyptic world of Orthe to open its doors to the galaxy.
Better late than never, I’m tackling the final week of The Sparrow read-along. When the wheels come off on Rakhat, they take everyone out. At last we know exactly what happened – but how do we feel about it?
On Rakhat, Emilio dances God, transported by the beauty of the alien world and the challenge of learning to communicate with the Runa. On Earth, Vincenzo Giuliani is determined to save the priest who fell from grace.
Blessed with impressive funding and free from the concerns of global politics or corporate profit, a mission to another planet becomes far more feasible. But the Jesuits believe they have another advantage in their corner: Deus vult.
30 years ago, the Society of Jesus sent a ship to Alpha Centauri to make first contact with alien singers. Only one man survived, rescued and returned to Earth a physical and emotional wreck amidst rumours of murder and sin. But what really happened to Father Emilio Sandoz on Rakhat?
When SETI decode a mysterious signal to hear gorgeous singing, the world’s governments bicker over how to respond. The Jesuits don’t hesitate. They have the means and the will to build a spacecraft and send a team to make contact. After all, surely only children of God could make such beautiful music… right?
2104. The colony ship Covenant is headed for Origae-6 with 2000 colonists, 1100 embryos and 15 crew aboard. After a freak accident, the crew intercept a mysterious signal from a supposedly uninhabited – but temptingly habitable – planet. They turn aside from their course to investigate. What can possibly go wrong?
onemore.org 