Originally published: https://amazingstories.com/?p=225105
Robots lead the march this September by providing something fun and engaging. Set My Heart to Five, is Simon Stephenson’s debut novel about robots, feelings, and screenwriting. More robots facing human dilemmas can be found in An Unnatural Life, a novella by Erin K. Wagner about a robot convicted of murder on Europa. Both stories take on the same territory but attack it from very different directions.
Space opera fans have their work cut out for them choosing between two really excellent novels, Fearless by Allen Stroud and To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. Both start stories that will continue in their respective universes with the promise of more great stories in the deep black.
Hench, Natalie Zina Walschot’s debut novel, is an outstanding assault on superhero ideology by a sidelined henchperson who shows that the spreadsheet is mightier than random mutant superpowers. The Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson is a sci-fi/horror tale made for streaming, with zombified teens and plucky outcasts, but it’s no relation to the Amazon Prime series Tales from the Loop.
It’s the time of year when we look back at what last year gave us, and Jonathan Strahan has put together the first in a new series of anthologies with The Year’s Best Science Fiction Vol. 1: The Saga Anthology of Science Fiction filling the gap left by Gardner Dozois death in 2018. It’s not the only Best of SF anthology, but will probably be the definitive one going forward.
