The Hive (The Second Formic War #2) by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston

The Hive (The Second Formic War #2) by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston
ISBN: 0765375648
Publisher: Tor Books (June 11, 2019)
Publication Date: June 11, 2019

The Hive is the next to last book in the runup to Ender’s Game. If you haven’t read the earlier books, what you need to know is that Ender’s Game was set in the Third Formic War, when we took the fight to the aliens, and Card has gone back to fill in the backstory of the First and Second wars to lead up to the classic Ender’s Game trilogy.In the first war, aliens invaded China and Mazer Rackham, who you probably remember as the hero of the Second Formic War meets up with a pack of Chinese orphans drafted into the resistance by a Colonel Li. Bingham, or “Bing.” is a sort of stand-in for Ender, insightful and just charismatic enough to lead his band of orphans into combat, and he’s developed a close relationship with Mazer.

I found the writing slow at first, but after a few chapters found myself hooked by Bing’s story, as well as the other main characters in separate storylines. Continue reading →

Science Fiction Books to Look For This Month – June 2019

Originally posted on Amazing Stories – June 3rd, 2019

June’s here and it’s time to start in on your summer reading. I’ve got a collection of titles coming out over the month that should keep you in reading the material at least until July’s rocket red glare appears on the horizon. They range from exciting space dramas like Velocity Weapon, Megan E. O’Keefe’s debut novel, to a wild road trip across a fractured USA with another debut, Reed King’s FKA USA. For those who want to return to familiar settings, Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston have teamed up again for the next to last Ender’s Game prequel, The Hive, as the International Fleet prepares to confront the buggers mothership and make Mazer Rackham a hero. You can also travel back to just after The Last Jedi and watch the Alphabet Squadron chase down Imperials that won’t accept they lost the war, but I’m not sure that turns out the way they hoped in the long run. In Stealing Worlds, Karl Schroeder has come up with a tale cyberpunk authors could only dream of where augmented reality makes all the world a game, at least until somebody gets hurt. We don’t see a lot of paranormal powers in science fiction, at least short of superhero tales, but we get a very nice take on it in The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t with Her Mind by Jackson Ford.  So, here are my picks. Continue reading →

FKA USA: A Novel by Reed King

Some stories you hope will never come true. Some stories you wish would never end. FKA USA is both.

FKA USA
by Reed King

FKA USA is a wild postapocalyptic road trip across a fractured USA that channels a mashup of The Wizard of Oz and Candide with commentary from Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide on the side. In some ways, this is a future familiar to us from the cyberpunk of the 80s, but with the futures foretold in those stories getting closer every day, Reed King has taken a fresh look at now and then and come up with an unforgettable tale. I only wish we could send it back in time to blow their minds.

Truckee Wallace is a nobody working in a factory in a corporate city-state, pressing a button all day long and in debt to the company store. Thing is, he’s okay with that. He’s 16, got a job, two and a half friends, one being an android (they only count for 48.5%), and maybe he’ll even get to kiss a girl someday. He doesn’t count on being a hero, and that messes everything up for him when he finds himself running towards the man on the catwalk who looks very much like he’s going to toss a goat into a vat of chemicals that will result in a very big bang.

Well, at least he tried. Continue reading →

 Velocity Weapon (The Protectorate Book 1) Megan E. O’Keefe Orbit little, brown June 11, 2019 Yes

Speed kills. Especially when it’s designed as a weapon.

Velocity Weapon (The Protectorate Book 1) by Megan E. O’Keefe – Orbit / little, brown June 11, 2019

What if you woke up two hundred and thirty years from now aboard a starship belonging to your enemy and missing oh say, half your leg, everyone you ever knew, and oh yes…your planet. Ask Sandra Greeve, formerly gunship captain in a war between her world Ada Prime and one closer to they system sun Icaria. Sure, you’d despair, but where there’s life there’s hope, and besides, she’s got a plucky AI to help her out. Things could be worse.

And they will be. Continue reading →