My new year’s reading is coming along (very) slowly, but I’m still chipping away at my review backlog. Today’s reviews are space operas read in 2022: Warlady by Jo Graham and Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings.
timeywimey
Nearly half my 2022 reading and two thirds of my review backlog were SF titles – time for some lightning reviews to capture my impressions before they fade away, starting with 3 SFnal thrillers: Plan For Chaos by John Wyndham, The Nox by Joe White & Catriona Ward and Pollen From A Future Harvest by Derek Künsken.
In a city where night never falls, a serial killer is stalking the well-lit streets and the daughter of an influential industrialist has gone missing. John Nyquist must navigate the complex timelines of Dayzone to find one and elude the other.
You know the saying: no two people in the contacted world are more than six social connections apart. Inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite And Best, I apply this notion to books and challenge friends and authors to find interesting ways to hop from one book to another based on a shared author, theme, award win and so on. Today, I’m delighted to welcome Ren Hutchings, author of timeslip space opera Under Fortunate Stars, to take the Six Degrees challenge.
60-some years after the mysterious Hyvönen Anomaly was first spotted, it looms on Earth’s doorstep. Some worship it; others fear it; only a select few have any idea what it’s capable of. Tomas Hyvönen’s crew have just 4 years left to figure out how to deal with the enigma before it envelops the planet – unless it consumes them first…
Patrick Edwards is a Bristol-based author of speculative fiction. I leapt at the opportunity to ask him a few questions (spoiler-free) to celebrate the release of his new novel Echo Cycle – and what a charming bloke he is!
20 years ago, three boys went on an ill-fated school trip to Rome. One lost an eye. One lost his only friend. One lost himself. Now all three are back in the newly-rebuilt capital of the European Confederacy, and their schoolboy feud will be nothing next to the ancient vengeance taking shape.
When war takes everything Dietz has left, she joins up. Her dreams of killing Martians and gaining citizenship sustain her for a while. But some experiences can make even the most loyal soldier wonder what they’re really fighting for…
Fancy a dance through one of my favourite genres? It’s past time I chimed in with the rest of my suggestions for Annemieke’s fantasy and sci-fi reading challenge to help you find some great SF reads…
I signed up to Annemieke’s fantasy and sci-fi reading challenge, because I couldn’t resist a spot of book bingo to help me pick my next read. If you’ve been tempted to dig deeper into genre reads but didn’t know where to start, this might be the challenge for you!
Minh wants to rebuild the Earth. Kiki wants to be useful. The banks want easy, guaranteed profits. But with a bank funding an environmental research trip back in time to Bronze Age Mesopotamia, maybe everybody can get what they want…
Nick Houghton is running out of time. His father’s disgrace and a straitened economy look set to ruin his academic career. When a shadowy corporation make him an offer too good to refuse, he doesn’t. What classicist could say no to the chance to go to Pompeii?
Oh bloody hell. Just caught up on Hell Bent, and I think I need to watch the last 2 years of Doctor Who all over again now. All is forgiven. Well, almost all. Yeah, okay, I’m totally cherry picking. There’s a bunch of episodes we probably can’t all agree didn’t happen, but I’m going to edit them out of my timeline anyway, ok?
Ann Vandermeer – The Ultimate Time Traveller’s Almanac: also the ultimate doorstop. No door too big.
I’ve been reading The Time Traveler’s Almanac since February, and I’ve finally reached the end of the enormous time travel compendium. There’s a reason this is printed as 4 separate volumes – I don’t like to think how heavy the physical edition would have been. 65 stories and 5 essays by different authors old and new explore the concept of time travel, gathered around 4 themes. Following some excellent advice not to read from start to finish, I zipped from point to point like the various protagonists, reading a story from each theme and then putting the book down for a while so that it didn’t get stale.
The ill-fated Ishiguro mission set space exploration back decades. Years later, the Hyvonen twins (students of Guy Singer, the only ‘real’ scientist aboard Ishiguro) achieve the funding and the mandate to retrace the failed mission’s footsteps in order to discover the nature of the Anomaly that Singer wanted to study – and which appears to be moving closer to Earth.
onemore.org 