Posts tagged with sci-fi
Weekly Book Giveaway: Shades of Grey, by Jasper FForde
This week's Book Giveaway is Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey, which is not to be confused with any other shades-of-grey-related books. Instead, it's one of Fforde's trademark blends of fantasy, sci-fi, cultural commentary, and 100-proof weirdness, and I am quite looking forward to reading it. A full review will follow shortly...
The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi
For a book blessed with interesting characters, a compelling conflict, and an absolutely spectacular hook, Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife isn't actually fun to read. I don't mind violence, but there's a fine line between suffering that serves the plot and straight-up disaster porn, and too much of The Water Knife feels like the latter...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Water Knife, by Paolo Bacigalupi
This week's Book Giveaway is Paolo Bacigalupi's The Water Knife. My family owns, like, three copies of Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert (one signed! Because we're nerds!), so I have both high hopes and high expectations for Bacigalupi's book. A full review will follow shortly...
Fairest, by Marissa Meyer
Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles are a sci-fi blend of classic fairytales, Sailor Moon, and modern fantasy/adventure. Meyer has a gift for mashing all of her various inspirations into a seamless whole, but her constant borrowing makes it difficult to judge her books on their own merits...
Fantasy v. Sexy Halloween Costume
The blog Muddy Colors recently featured a fascinating column by Lauren Panepinto, the Creative Director for Orbit Books. In her post, Panepinto discusses the difficulty (and importance!) of achieving attractive, dynamic cover art for fantasy novels...
"The dean of American science fiction writers"...?
According to THR, Bryan Singer plans to direct an adaptation of Robert Heinlein's classic 1966 sci-fi novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I'm not a big Heinlein fan—I find his portrayal of sex to be straight-up creepifying...
Karen Memory, by Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear's novel Karen Memory has all the hallmarks of a great YA novel: the plot is unabashedly romantic and imaginative, and the author is clearly determined to deliver plenty of value for your entertainment dollar. In fact, I suspect the only reason this wasn't packaged as a teen book is because the sixteen-year-old heroine is A) gay and B) a prostitute...
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation is simultaneously clever and pretentious, engaging and irritating as hell. I am by no means certain I actually liked it, but I'm definitely going to read the sequels...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer
This week's Book Giveaway is Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, the first book in his Southern Reach Trilogy. I'm not sure that I buy other reviewers' comparisons between this book and the works of H.P. Lovecraft, but I will give Annihilation this: that cover is awesome...
Now That You're Here, by Amy K. Nichols
Now That You're Here, the debut novel from Amy K. Nichols, has an absolutely gorgeous cover and an intriguing premise. Sadly, the story never quite lives up to the promise of either cover or premise, but it's only the first installment of a two-book series, and I think things might improve...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Now That You're Here, by Amy K. Nichols
This week's Book Giveaway is a copy of Amy K. Nichols's debut novel Now That You're Here, despite the fact that it involves parallel universes and will almost certainly lead to a lot of grousing from Nathan about iffy science. (To which I say: at least it's not time travel.) The book won't be released until next week, so...
The Lotus Caves on TV
Apparently, TV producer Bryan Fuller (of Hannibal and Pushing Daisies fame) tried developing a Syfy TV adaptation of our beloved John Christopher's 1969 young adult sci-fi novel The Lotus Caves. Syfy declined to pick up the pilot as a series, but...
Gameboard of the Gods, by Richelle Mead
To do her justice, Richelle Mead is not lazy. Her Vampire Academy series is successful enough that many authors would have settled for simply producing more of the same, but she has chosen instead to return to her adult paranormal-fiction roots, creating the sci-fi/fantasy series Age of X...
Starters, by Lissa Price
In the six years since The Hunger Games hit it big, it feels like I've read a million different versions of the “hellish future” story, featuring everything from zombies to World War III to natural disasters. I usually divide these books into two camps: the profoundly stupid violence-for-violence's-sake stories, and the novels that would have been published even if...
Geek gear
Out of Print has introduced several new designs as part of their new Sci-Fi Collection, including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Handmaid's Tale, Ender's Game, and Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Personally, I don't think that last one qualifies...
It all sounds better than wrestling.
THR has posted a round-up of the various projects currently being developed for Syfy, which is doing its best to win back the crowd that should have been their bread and butter: actual sci-fi nerds. Don't get me wrong, everybody likes a good episode of Ghost Adventures...
We're overdue, really.
io9 recently compiled a list of 10 Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories that Editors are Tired of Seeing. My thoughts...
The Kill Order, by James Dashner
In 1988, John Christopher wrote When The Tripods Came, a prequel to the Tripods series, his famous 1960s science fiction trilogy. Creepy and deeply weird, When The Tripods Came simultaneously established the post-apocalyptic world featured in the main series and worked as a standalone novel. James Dashner's novel The Kill Order attempts to...
The Paladin Prophecy and The Paladin Prophecy: Alliance, by Mark Frost
The first two books in Mark Frost's Paladin Prophecy series go for the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to storytelling, mashing together fantasy (angels and demons!), science fiction (evil geneticists!), and action/suspense (martial arts smackdowns!) into a frenetic but entertaining literary roller-coaster ride...
Sci-fi fans get some exercise in
There's going to be an "organized Logan's Run chase" this weekend in San Francisco, with some participants designated as Runners and some as Sandmen. According to the official Facebook page, this event will be...
Smell-o-vision 2.0?
The Guardian recently posted an article about a group of MIT scientists who have created a device that uses temperature controls, lighting, and a "heartbeat and shiver simulator" worked into a fancy... vest... thing(?) to allow readers to share the experiences of a story's protagonist as they read...
More monkeys
I always wonder about authors like Pierre Boulle, who wrote both The Bridge Over The River Kwai and the novel that inspired Planet of the Apes. That's a wide-ranging literary legacy, you know? I'm sure more people have read The Bridge Over The River Kwai than La Planète des singes, but certainly more people have watched The Planet of the Apes than read the two books put together. Anyway, Boulle's monkey book is the gift that keeps on giving...
Tomorrow, by C.K. Kelly Martin
I always feel weird making this criticism, but C.K. Kelly Martin's Tomorrow is Too Much Book. It crams enough action and drama for an entire series into a scant 250 pages, leaving readers more shell-shocked than anything else...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Tomorrow, by C.K. Kelly Martin
This week's Book Giveaway pick is Tomorrow, the sequel to C.K. Kelly Martin's Yesterday, which we reviewed here. Sadly, her publisher still has not granted us the insanely lurid 80s-inspired cover art of our dreams, but (spoiler!) Tomorrow is pretty good anyway. Our review will go up later today...
Weekly Book Giveaway: Across A Star-Swept Sea, by Diana Peterfreund
This week's Book Giveaway pick is Diana Peterfreund's Across A Star-Swept Sea, a "companion novel" (in this case, that means "not a sequel, but set in the same world") to 2012's For Darkness Shows the Stars. Both books have enjoyably weird literary ambitions: For Darkness Shows the Stars is a post-apocalyptic YA retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion, while Across A Star-Swept Sea is an equally bizarre re-working of the Baroness Orczy's...
The Eye of Minds, by James Dashner
I have never understood James Dashner's success. He has some fun ideas, and his best-selling Maze Runner series definitely came out at the perfect, immediately-post-Hunger Games time, but his characters are incredibly boring. But he has zillions of fans who obviously feel otherwise, so I did my best to approach his new book The Eye of Minds without preconceptions...
Vintage cyborgs
Speaking of serialized stories, science fiction fans can now read the first chapter of British author E.V. Odle's 1923 little-known novel The Clockwork Man, which is apparently the earliest story to feature a cyborg...
Like the geekiest bake sale ever
According to Tech News Daily, a physicist and author is attempting to use his science fiction writing to raise money to build laser weapons capable of knocking out guided missiles with electronics-disabling electromagnetic pulses. Adam Weigold, author of the upcoming novel Dragon Empire, is hoping his book...
We appreciate it, Ms. McGuire.
A September 28th blog post by sci-fi/fantasy author Seanan McGuire about the prevalence of rape scenes in fiction has inspired a fair amount of internet buzz, and deservedly so. Apparently, Ms. McGuire, author of the October Daye series, recently had a staggering encounter with one of her readers, who wanted to know when—not if—one of McGuire's female protagonists was going to be raped...
Terrible, squared
The teaser trailer is out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's sci-fi love-triangle The Host, and it looks about like you'd expect: simultaneously awful and like it takes itself really, really seriously.