Ponderings of science, philosophy, history, society, and many other topics
The Faith of Beasts is the second book of The Captive's War trilogy, authored by James S. A. Corey, the pen name of the writing duo: Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham, best known as the authors of The Expanse. This book continues the story of a far future human population conquered by an alien empire, … Continue reading The Faith of Beasts
Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time books are about exploring different types of minds. In the first book he looked at spider minds, specifically uplifted Portia spiders. In the second it was octopuses and an alien group mind. In the third it was mated birds and another type of mind. In Children of Strife, he continues … Continue reading Children of Strife
Claire North's Slow Gods is a grim look at what happens to far future human societies in the vicinity of a supernova. It's a novel with a strong literary feel, one that explores a number of very distinct cultures, including a hyper-capitalistic dystopia, a highly artistic society, and lots of others in between. Early in … Continue reading Slow Gods
Stewart Hotston acknowledges that his Project Hanuman is inspired by Iain Banks' Culture novels. The society he describes, known as the Archology, is very similar to the Culture in many respects. However, where Banks' books usually have the Culture as the dominant civilization technologically, and always have them coming out on top, Hotston's Archology finds … Continue reading Project Hanuman: information as the fundamental reality
Alastair Reynolds' new novel, Halcyon Years, starts off as a murder mystery that takes place on an interstellar generation ship, a sealed O'Neill cylinder type environment, with cities, rivers, lakes, and forests. The ship is ruled by two rich families, the Urrys and the DelRossos, who hate each other. And while there are separate municipal … Continue reading Halcyon Years
Excession is one of the novels I missed years ago when reading Iain Banks' Culture series. The main reason, I think, is that for a long time it wasn't published in ebook format, I suspect due to formatting complexity. It just came out in ebook a couple of weeks ago, so I've finally been able … Continue reading Excession
Last night I watched Guillermo del Toro's new version of Frankenstein. As I frequently point out on this blog, I'm not a big horror fan, but I've frequently been impressed with del Toro's work, and Frankenstein is a classic. And it strikes me as more of an existential exploration than one invoking horror just for … Continue reading Frankenstein and other TV notes
I've done a couple of posts on Robert Reed's Greatship series, about a giant spherical Uranus-sized megastructure moving through space at a third the speed of light. It's discovered in intergalactic space and claimed by humans, who then invite anyone who can pay in some manner (resources, technology, science, or even just interesting stories) to … Continue reading The Dragons of Marrow and Hammerwing
A few weeks ago, I talked about Robert Reed's story collection, The Greatship. It's about a spherical Uranus-sized megastructure moving through space at a third the speed of light. Humans manage to reach it first and claim it, and then decide to take it on a tour of the galaxy, offering passage to anyone who … Continue reading Marrow and The Well of Stars
For people looking to dip their toe in the sci-fi literary genre, John Scalzi is often a good place to start. A lot of sci-fi literature assumes certain knowledge from the reader (such as what "burning at two gees" means). Scalzi's fiction tends to only assume what you might pick up watching sci-fi TV shows … Continue reading The Shattering Peace, and aliens who have consciousness as an augmentation
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