The Collapsing Empire and Six Wakes Finished the two Hugo Nominees I haven't reviewed yet. I'd been meaning to read both of them earlier, but The Collapsing Empire I never got around to, and Six Wakes seems to have not made it to my country yet. Couldn't find it on the Australian Kindle store or in Australian shops. I …
Continue reading Reviews: The Collapsing Empire and Six Wakes
Beyond This Horizon By Robert A. Heinlein (Writing as Anson McDonald) Published 1942 Score: 6.5 I’m still thinking about how I feel about this one. I have read Heinlein years ago and enjoyed stories like Time Enough for Love, Job: A Comedy of Justice, and Stranger in a Strange Land but the last Heinlein …
The Darkness and the Light By Olaf Stapledon Published 1942 Score: 8 I’ll be reading the Retro Hugos this year. Or at least, all the ones I can find. Let’s start with The Darkness and the Light, an examination of two futures for humanity: one a utopia that has enough issues to remain interesting, …
Nova By Samuel R. Delany Published January 1968 (Doubleday) Score: 9.5/10 Wow, I knew this book would be a fun read, but I didn’t realise I would be coming across a hidden gem. If I had done some research I would have known what I was reading. Algis Budrys once said: “Samuel R. Delany, …
The Left Hand of Darkness By Ursula K. Le Guin Published 1969 Score: 9/10 Alright, now I understand why Ursula K Le Guin was such a giant in the field. The Left Hand of Darkness isn’t the first thing I’ve read by her, but this is the novel that made me go ‘ahh, I …
Continue reading The Left Hand of Darkness + The Wind’s Twelve Quarters Vol. 2
Phasma By Delilah S. Dawson Published August 2017 (Del Rey) Score: 7/10 I haven’t read a lot of tie-in novels, and I probably wouldn’t have picked up this one normally. I got Phasma because I was looking for an audiobook my partner and I could listen to in the car during the long Christmas holiday …
The Winter Tide By Ruthanna Emrys Published April 2017 (Tor.com) Score: 7.5/10 There have been a lot of Lovecraft-related stories recently. The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson and The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle were both finalists for this years Hugo Award for best Novella. 2016 also saw the release …
The Fox’s Tower and Other Tales By Yoon Ha Lee Published June 2015 Score: 9.5/10 I purchased this collection after I first read Ninefox Gambit and then forgot about it. The Fox’s Tower is a collection of Yoon Ha Lee’s fairytale-inspired flash fiction, which is not my usual thing, but I love Yoon Ha …
Provenance By Ann Leckie Published September 2017 (Orbit) Score: 9.5/10 I love the Imperial Radch trilogy. I love it so much, that when I heard that Ann Leckie was writing a new book set in the same universe I added it to my Goodreads shelf before I learnt anything else. Then back in June …
Cycle of Fire By Hal Clement Published 1957 Score: 7/10 I have in the past labelled some science fiction stories as ‘hard’, without fully explaining what that means. To quote Wikipedia; “Hard Science Fiction is a category of science fiction categorised by an emphasis on scientific accuracy.” Originally terms like ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ differentiated …
Jayde Holmes 