Science Fiction to Look for February 2021

Whether you’re still in lockdown, snowed in, or just taking some time for yourself, I’ve got good news. There’s more science fiction coming out this February than you can shake a light saber at, and no matter what your taste, there should be something for you.

Fans of intelligent secret histories will enjoy a look back at the space race in Sylvain Neuvel’s A History of What Comes Next, while Gavin G Smith combines the Cold War with biowarfare in Spec Ops Z. Dan Frey takes a look at the consequences of foreknowledge in The Future Is Yours, and P.N. Shafa looks forwards a few generations to caution us about the one percent’s plans for Mars in Descendants of Power.  Humans cut off from the tribe, whether an abandoned colony or prisoners of war struggle for survival in A Search for Starlight by James Maxwell and Amid the Crowd of Stars by Stephen Leigh respectively, and I actually look at a science fiction romance in Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell, which I think would fit into Bujold’s Vorkosigan universe nicely.

If you want trouble, look no further than Gun Runner by Larry Correia and John D. Brown , or Tyger Bright by T.C. McCarthy. both out from Baen this month. More action with a ragtag crew and overbearing governments can be found in Any Job Will Do John Wilker and Christina Short.

Good ideas gone awry feature both the UK’s attempt to keep secrets save in The Minders by John Marrs, and the mess personal fusion reactors and life extension nanotech make of the world in Glow by Tim Jordan.

As always, I think the best way to get the sense of an author is through their short works, and this month features The Best of Walter Jon Williams with a look at an great author with a wide range of stories to tell. Luna Press, an independent Scottish publisher has just started a series of novellas, with an initial batch of 6, the first two of which, John’s Eyes by Joanna Corrance, and  Just Add Water by John Dodd, are science fiction so I gave them a go. Turns out Scots don’t pull their punches.

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Collections and Novellas

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Sometimes You Really Can’t Judge a Book by Its Cover: Border Crosser by Tom Doyle

Border Crosser by Tom Doyle
Paperback, 383 pages | September 15 2020 | Ring of Fire Press

I’d reviewed a few things by Tom Doyle, starting with American Craftsmen (2014), a story about a unit of paranormal operatives for the US government that goes back to George Washington’s time. The other day he reached out to me to see if I wanted to take a look at Border Crosser, his latest book.  I’d really liked American Craftsman, so even though I’m as buried in books not yet published as ever, I said, sure…I’ll take a look.

The cover very nearly stopped me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m up for occasional glam gals in spacesuits with guns and explosions, but the level of cheese here made this a hard sell. Still, I’d promised, so when a copy arrived at my Kindle, I thought I’d give it a quick look, then get back to stuff I needed to read. You probably know how that goes.

Border Crosser has a lot of problems, but not being a good book isn’t one of them. Continue reading →

Science Fiction to Look for January 2021

A new year, a fresh start, and lots of great books to read. I’ve got high hopes for 2021.

This month we’ve got two books with parallel world themes, Tim Pratt’s fanciful Doors of Sleep, in which a man wakes up in a new world every time he falls asleep. He’s a little Dr. Who and a little Gulliver.  In the other, Threader Origins, a young man standing too close to his fathers’ quantum energy experiment gets shifted a world over and does not find it an improvement.

Several books involve AIs that wish they had bodies, or have gotten them on the sly, including the Seven Samurai–esque Persephone Station.  Dealbreaker, which follows the events in L. X. Beckett’s Gamechanger from last year though a generation on, and Michael Kaufman’s The Last Exit: A Jen Lu Mystery, a police procedural about a detective with a brain implant that’s too smart for its own good.

Octavia E. Butler: Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories is an excellent introduction to her work from Library of America that the Library says is the first title in their “canonization of discomfort.” I know a lot of you might not be looking to be discomforted, and both this book and Nnedi Okorafor’s novelette Remote Control are anything but comfort food, However, I recommend them to you as windows into cultures that science fiction has historically used aliens to represent, but that now demand our unblinking attention.

Although I try to stick to books I’ve actually gotten my hands on, there are two upcoming titles I’m especially looking forward to though haven’t seen yet. Star Trek: Picard: The Dark Veil (2) by James Swallow is set before the series opens and has Riker in command of the Titan, Seeing Riker in the big chair in Picard facing down Roumulans made me want more of that, so hopefully this will deliver. Adrian Tchaikovsky is on my shortlist of authors to keep a close eye on and his second Expert Systems book, Expert System’s Champion, looks interesting. Check out these and more in my Other Recommendations section.

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Science Fiction to Look For December 2020

The end is near! The end is near! When it comes to 2020, that’s a good thing, but as Yogi Beara pointed out, it’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed a lot of good books this year, and we’ve got a few more coming this month to close the year out. I can’t promise a better year in 2021, but I know there are some great reads on the horizon. Meanwhile, don your kerchief or cap, settle down for a long winter’s eve, and read some of December’s books.

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