The SCIFI Reader

Advice From the Civil Temporal Defense League by Sandra McDonald My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was mostly just silly. A list of DOs and DONTs and a few things to watch out for when encountering temporal bandits. I listened to this on the Lightning Speed podcast, the narration by Judy Young was pretty good. View all my reviews

The Prologue to the Postnuclear Dystopia by Dmitry Glukhovsky My rating: 4 of 5 stars "We didn’t deserve to be saved: many of us regard our survival not as a reward, but as a curse." Well, that was a 5 minute read and I'm not quite sure why I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 3 stars. It certainly has set the mood to start the series, but it has no plot, it's basically a state of the union address explaining how things are at the start of the series. But I would have thought that all the details provided here would be found in the first book. Perhaps not. Perhaps the war that caused the nuclear disaster is never mentioned later on? Perhaps the number of survivors, being whittled down from 500,000 to 50,000 individuals is new information? Since I'm starting here, I'm not sure exactly what value this serves as a prologue and I get more of a "teaser" or "taster" vibe from it. And also, since I'm startin...

Welcome to the Medical Clinic at the Interplanetary Relay Station│Hours Since the Last Patient Death 0 by Caroline Yoachim My rating: 4 of 5 stars I died, a horrible painful death. I've been fond of the Choose Your Own Adventure format since childhood and this was a good, quick bit of fun. I didn't read all of the options this time, because I'm a grown up now and I'm capable of living with the consequences of my choices, Haha! I think it's interesting that it was an award winner. That's cool.  This is the second CYOA story that I've read this year, the other was a mini-sequel or side-quest for 'To Sleep in a Sea of Stars' by Christopher Paolini and this one was much better than that one.  View all my reviews

Second Self by Una McCormack My rating: 4 of 5 stars Well, after much anticipation and a very good start I ended up a little disappointed with this story in the end. I didn't want to not like this as much as I didn't, but I did. On the plus side this story does give Raffi some good background and we catch up with a character we haven't seen for a while. It also sets up Raffi, Rios and Elnor for the next stories too. On the minus side the guest character gets a poor story and Picard's character gets a beating. "Have you considered that as you make your decision about what to do next, you would do better thinking less about setting your past straight and more about the shape you would like your future to take." Picard still has a few great lines and there is also a redeeming statement by Raffi near the end where she says something like "Even for all your blind spots, you're still full of wisdom." This story kind ...

Forever Free by Joe Haldeman My rating: 4 of 5 stars Well, I think this was the best of the bunch. The narrator is changed for this final novel and he is much more dynamic than the previous narrator which probably played a large part in my level of enjoyment. William and Marygay go away on a sort of time travel trip when an incident occurs where the law of physics fuck up in a specific fashion and then they return to Middle Finger via escape pods to find that a similar problem had occurred there at the same time. The description of Earth in this future gets even more outlandish than before. In my view it suffers a common scifi trope, where in order to be more futuristic it becomes more absurdly "immoral" by the standards of the reader (or at least of readers contemporary with the original publication.) The 20% risk of death associated with SA (Suspended Animation) makes for a pretty brutal method of travel. And finally, a note to future-Fra...

The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew by Catherynne M. Valente My rating: 3 of 5 stars 20 minute read. I didn't find anything to enjoy in this mix of the mundane and the familiar even with a few alien curiosities thrown in for good measure. Three generous stars. View all my reviews

A Separate War by Joe Haldeman My rating: 4 of 5 stars I liked this one almost as much as the first novel. It probably isn't actually the case but it did feel to me like there was more action and more of scifi interest in this half hour read than there was in the whole second novel of the series. I never really felt much for the William and Marygay love story, but I liked how it evolved in this. I liked the shift to her perspective and now I'm hoping that the next novel features her as the main point of view. "So I did love a woman, but as an actual lesbian I was not a great success." And I like how strange the far-fetched, sexuality-flipped society feels. (It has been a feature of all of the books) "every time I needed him to do something, he was down in the gym working out on the machines. Or off getting his rectum reamed by some adoring guy" This story, like the last two ('Forever Bound' and 'Forever Peace...

Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews

In the Year 2889 by Jules Verne My rating: 3 of 5 stars The very last paragraph tells you exactly what we have here: "Such, for this year of grace 2889, is the history of one day in the life of the editor of the Earth Chronicle." But it doesn't tell you just how rich with ideas this story is. There are some interesting territorial changes: "Though, by a just turn-about of things here below, Great Britain has become a colony of the United States, the English are not yet reconciled to the situation." There are some fun new tech bits, like this futuristic calcamulator: "Thanks to the Piano Electro-Reckoner, the most complex calculations can be made in a few seconds." Some things are indeed automagical: "Why, Doctor, as you well know, everything is done by machinery here. It is not for me to go to the bath; the bath will come to me." And some things apparently never change, hurry up ladies: "She is late! W...

Lexicon by Max Barry My rating: 3 of 5 stars "So, in the moment he was occupied with the horror of his softening leather, she broke the glass against the edge of the table and sliced it across his throat." Unfortunately this book didn't really speak to me on any level. Insert cliche; "I really wanted to like this one," because I was a bit excited to find an Aussie scifi writer BUT this book just barely skimmed the edge of science fiction. I was expecting a deep dive into linguistics and subliminal messaging, the power of suggestion and verbal manipulation but this is instead a magical fantasy with "thriller" elements. There are magic words, that can be used by magicians (called "poets") to control different people-types. The story is mostly about one poet-in-training who learns, discovers or creates some of these words. I don't know, the rest is all a bit murky for me. Two stories are told which will of...

When It Changed by Joanna Russ My rating: 3 of 5 stars What we have here is a very short, short story about an all female colony world. At some point a plague had removed the y-chromosome from their population. Then one day some blokes from Earth arrive and due to problems at home they want to spread their seed a little. The story is however not the one you're expecting. 'When It Changed' is a little thought experiment, but to me it is more of a character study. How would this situation feel to a person living it out? I regularly skip authors' notes, but this little story had quite an interesting afterword which I liked almost as much as the story itself. Anyway I enjoyed it, but it's sooper-dooper short and while very interesting, it's not very compelling, which is something I definitely need for a micro story to have a big impression on me. I liked that the author cared very much about not giving us the expected, typical str...

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson My rating: 4 of 5 stars "The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason. It was waxing, only one day short of full. The time was 05:03:12 UTC." Ok, to me that is a dramatic opening paragraph. After the moon mysteriously and spontaneously 'splodes apart, all manner of problems are escalating on Earth and they've given themselves two years to prepare as many ships as they can to serve as arks for humanity after which time they expect conditions on Earth to become untenable for most life. Shattered fragments of the moon now pose a major and imminent impact risk. Change (or lack) of tide and moon phases are also causing shit for countless species that rely on those to signal their biological functions. "It means any process where the more it happens, the more it happens." - a definition of exponential growth. It's dense with information but written accessibly, I think. The author a...

The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang My rating: 5 of 5 stars I didn't just like this one, I loved it too. "On the morning of my departure, Najya and I argued. I spoke harshly to her, using words that it shames me to recall, and I beg Your Majesty’s forgiveness if I do not repeat them here." A little bit of alchemy (an odd narrative choice I thought) is used to turn stones into time jumping gateways. The alchemist is at first demonstrating a short-jump stone to the merchant, but he goes on to tell three cautionary (micro)tales for time traveling enthusiasts. "My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise." I liked all of these quick thought experiments. The second (micro)story was my favourite, about greed and value and honour. The third was quite unexpected and at least a little quirky. "Grief owes no deb...