(This column originally appeared on Amazing Stories Magazine’s website on 8/6/2019 > Link)
In August across the US and much of Europe, the dog days of summer have arrived with a vengeance, sort of making you feel like you’ve landed on some hostile planet closer to its star than it ought to be. If you’re not wearing your environment suit, or safe in your exploration vehicle, you can still get under a shade tree with some cold ice-tea and a good book and chill out that way. Continue reading
The Last Astronaut by David Wellington
Review by Ernest Lilley
Orbit Paperback ISBN/ITEM#: 9780316419574
Date: 23 July 2019 List Price $15.99 Amazon US / Amazon UK
Links: Author’s Webosite / Show Official Info /
OP: SFRevu July 2019
On the one hand, this is really good hard sf with a Stephen Baxter / Arthur C. Clarke vibe. On the other, it’s a mashup of Rendevous with Rama and the Expanse with a fair amount of Alien thrown in.
When a large interstellar object comes at us from out of the ecliptic plane of the solar system, it’s exciting news, but when one decelerates and changes course for Earth, it’s problematic as well. Still exciting, but mostly terrifying. Continue reading
“Oichi Angelis, former Worm, along with her fellow insurgents on the generation starship Olympia, head deeper into the Charon System for the planet called Graveyard.
Ancient, sentient, alien starships wait for them–three colossi so powerful they remain aware even in self-imposed sleep. The race that made the Three are dead, but Oichi’s people were engineered with this ancient DNA.” – Publisher
Medusa in the Graveyard by Emily Devenport
(The Medusa Cycle #2)
Paperback, 304 pages
Expected publication: July 23rd 2019 by Tor Books
ISBN 1250169364 (ISBN13: 9781250169365)
The generation ship Olympia is nearing its destination, the Charon system, and Oichi Angelis, once a tunnel worker and rebel leader, is now the leader of the ship clan. But before they can settle at their destination she has to sort out the ship’s ownership from the Weapon Clan who originally built it, and she’s got to confront the powerful alien entities known as the Three, whose DNA is mixed with that of the Olympians.
July’s here, and whether you’re waiting for the fireworks, sunning at the shore, or sensibly staying in where it’s cool, July is a great month for reading, not only because there are a diverse range of good novels to choose from, but also because there are some excellent annual collections and other anthologies. Neil Clarke has two of note: The Eagle Has Landed: 50 Years of Lunar Science Fiction, which commemorates the Apollo 11 landing on July 20, 1969, and his The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 4. Neil is emerging as one of the field’s leading anthologists, along with Jonathon Stratham, whose Mission Critical anthology comes out this month with a really stellar collection of authors and a theme that answers the popular question: What could possibly go wrong? Well, running out of things to read this month shouldn’t be on that list. Here’s mine. Continue reading
Teagan Frost is having a hard time keeping it together. Sure, she’s got telekinetic powers — a skill that the government is all too happy to make use of, sending her on secret break-in missions that no ordinary human could carry out. But all she really wants to do is kick back, have a beer, and pretend she’s normal for once.
The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind
by Jackson Ford
ISBN 9780316519151
Posted 06/01/19 SFevu: http://www.sfrevu.com/php/Review-id.php?id=18447
Not only is this a kick-ass adventure with a spunky girl whose parents tweaked her genome to give her telekinetic, no…um…psychokinetic powers (like there’s a difference) but it’s got the only afterword I’ve ever enjoyed reading. Mostly because Ford roped his character into writing it for him (like we fell for that, Teagan.).
Teagan Frost can move sh*t with her mind. In order to stay out of government labs and/or dissection tables, she does super-secret work for them out of The China Shop, a ‘pretend’ moving company in LA. Except that some times they actually do moving jobs, because when you can take all the weight off a refrigerator, it makes it easier to carry, right? Just as long as you don’t let on.
One day after the usual mission impossible hijinks, the last person Teagan and the team scoped out turns up dead, and by dead we mean killed by someone who could clearly move sh*t with their mind. Except that as far as she knows, nobody else can do that and she’s pretty sure it wasn’t her. No, she’s totally sure. In fact, she doesn’t even have the strength to bend rebar around someone’s neck. Continue reading