At a Glance: Authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, under the pen name James S.A. Corey, offer two shorter works set in the Expanse universe unveiled in their much-lauded collaboration debut, Leviathan Wakes.

Pros: Focused storytelling; not a word wasted; accessible to all readers regardless of experience with science fiction.
Cons: Need there be any?

My Experience: I was very impressed with their Expanse prequel, “Drive”, in the Edge of Infinity anthology when I read it last week and bought the first of these two stories right after finishing it. “Drive” demonstrated that these authors could tell an emotionally engaging story in a fully realized universe without wasting exposition on obvious world-building. These two additional works prove that they have the short form down cold. “The Butcher of Anderson Station” was compelling right from the start, telling a two-stage tale that had me completely immersed right through to the end. I followed it up this afternoon with a purchase and read through of “Gods of Risk” and it did not disappoint. This is well-crafted fourth generation space opera with a maturity that makes it impossible for me to keep to myself.

My Combined Rating: 9/10 stars

Continue reading Tales from the Expanse ~James S.A. Corey →

And so we meet again on our episodic journey into the universe of the Old Man’s War series which continues with the release of Walk the Plank, the second chapter of John Scalzi’s forthcoming novel The Human Division. Last week we got a little more than we bargained for with a longer opening which set the stage for new and returning readers. A routine diplomatic mission resulted in a disaster that led to the activation of the B-team and a character introduced in the novel Old Man’s War got to take center stage. This week we get…

Aw geez, if I tell you much of anything it will dissipate the tension of the story! If I say “pirates” and “hostile planet” does it say too much? 🙂

There has been much talk that John Scalzi was influenced by his television work on Stargate Universe and that could be seen in The B-Team with an opening that gripped the reader early on and did not let up until the climactic finish. Walk the Plank takes a dramatic turn in that it is presented in the form of a recorded conversation between a small group of medical staff and a severely wounded man who seems to have appeared on their colony from out of nowhere. The Tor dot com website quotes John Scalzi regarding the format of this week’s episode:

Walk the Plank is significantly shorter than The B-Team. It was fun to wake up Tuesday morning to see the episode waiting for me on my Kindle and it went by all too quickly. Some interesting elements were unveiled and while there were a few lines of dialogue that felt awkward (mostly in the form of cues for the reader that the conversation was taking place in one hospital room setting), the story told by the wounded man built tension nicely. As readers we are asked to accept each chapter, or episode, as a stand alone story and yet it is hard to level too much criticism at what was a weaker story by comparison to the last with the knowledge that details revealed here will come into play in important ways as the overall story unfolds thus affecting the reader’s assessment. I believe this is one of those deceptively simple stories in that there are things mentioned in subtle ways that will be woven into future installments in greater detail.

This is so much fun, I’m glad to be along for the ride.
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Previous episode review: The B-Team.

At a Glance: An anthology containing thirteen all original science fiction short stories by some of the genre’s brightest that focus on humankind’s future, not out in the farthest reaches of outer space but here within the framework of our own Solar System.

Pros: New, previously unreleased works; accessible hard sf; plausible sense of wonder

Cons: Two stories feel as if they are outside the theme

My Experience: Having grown up with the surety that we would be traveling the reaches of space in my lifetime, inspired by childhood exposure to Star Wars and Star Trek, this anthology breathes on that flicker of foolish hope with several exciting stories. Many of the authors in this collection bring the common experiences of life to an imagined future with an aura of plausibility that makes these stories accessible to those who do not regularly read science fiction while instilling a sense of wonder in all who look to the stars and long to see the marvels of our Solar System first hand.

My Rating: 8/10 stars

Continue reading Edge of Infinity ~Jonathan Strahan, ed →