Archive for the ‘Scifi’ Category

THE EVOLUTIONARY VOID by Peter F. Hamilton

In the final volume of Peter F. Hamilton’s VOID trilogy, we once again find Edeard trying to make things right in Makkathran, his city on Querencia, a planet in the Void.

December 4, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  · Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Scifi

NEVER LET ME GO by Kazuo Ishiguro

NEVER LET ME GO is a magnificent achievement, one that I personally rate above all other Ishiguro novels, because it adds an unexpected and quietly devastating emotional dimension to his already-powerful armory. Although this book has something of the alternative-reality feel of THE UNCONSOLED, it is by no means as difficult to read. It probably beats even THE REMAINS OF THE DAY in the surface lucidity of its narration, and emotions that had been denied or repressed in that earlier novel are here allowed to flower, albeit briefly. Indeed, one strand of this most unusual Bildungsroman is a love story, simple, true, and almost traditional, though denied the traditional happy-ever-after ending.

September 13, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  · Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Alternate History, Literary, Scifi, United Kingdom, y Award Winning Author

HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE by Charles Yu

I am ill-informed to speak to science fiction writing. With the reading of this book, HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE, the sum of my science fiction reading experience is expanded to just five book. The genre has never really spoken to me. Upon reflection, this seems odds. I am drawn to ideas, wherever I find them, but in literature, in particular. And I like complexity, again, especially in literature. Science fiction, as I understand it, romps and roams the mountains and valleys of this territory. I think ultimately, it is the required release upon common reality and the faith requirement of other-worldly paradigms that trips me up. I’m not very adept at either. set up my thoughts on this book in this fashion because I worry of being remiss in regard to Mr. Yu’s efforts here. In particular, this concerns me because I like the book very much–I like it because it is chalk-full of clever ideas and notions and it is quite dense and layered.

September 8, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  · Posted in: Debut Novel, Scifi, Unique Narrative

SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY by Gary Shteyngart

It’s probably best to get this one interesting tidbit out of the way: 38 year-old Gary Shteyngart, the author of the clever new satire, SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY, recently made the New Yorker’s list of “20 Under 40” fiction writers—writers whom the New Yorker described as “capturing the inventiveness and the vitality of contemporary American fiction.” With SUPER SAD, Shteyngart has done just that.

August 2, 2010 · Judi Clark · 3 Comments
Tags: ,  · Posted in: 2010 Favorites, Humorous, New York City, Satire, Scifi, y Award Winning Author

COYOTE HORIZON by Allen M. Steele

COYOTE HORIZON continues the story of the human settlers on Coyote, a moon of the planet Bear in the 47 Ursae Majoris system. Hawk Thompson, nephew of former president, Carlos Montero, is on parole after spending time in jail for killing his abusive father. As the story opens, he has a boring, dead-end job as customs inspector at the spaceport.

May 27, 2010 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags:  · Posted in: Scifi, y Award Winning Author

THE WINDUP GIRL by Paolo Bacigalupi

Unlike much of the world, the Thai Kingdom had avoided inundation by the rising oceans. It had avoided pandemic decimation of crops and population. It had kept the global agri-corporations from accessing and either exploiting or destroying its vast and precious seed banks. It had taken drastic, isolationist steps to preserve itself while most of the rest of the world faltered into massive contraction and potential extinction.

The white shirts of the Environment Ministry enforced the official policy of the Child Queen’s regime, burning fields and villages if genetic blight or plague struck, conducting customs inspections of the expensive goods imported on dirigibles and confiscating and destroying even items supposedly protected by large bribes. And, “mulching” any windups they discovered.

May 14, 2010 · Judi Clark · 3 Comments
Tags: , , , , , ,  · Posted in: Hugo Award, Nebula Award Winner, Scifi, Speculative (Beyond Reality)