The Thing Itself / Adam Roberts 11 Feb 2016 2:21 AM (9 years ago)
Can a washed-up physicist, his not-terribly-sane former colleague, and a rogue artificial intelligence crack through the barriers of time and space, solve the Fermi Paradox, and discover the true nature of the universe? (****)
All the Birds in the Sky / Charlie Jane Anders 4 Jan 2016 9:00 AM (9 years ago)
She does magic, he does science, and they just might be perfect for each other if they don’t unwittingly destroy the world first. io9 editor Anders’ urban fantasy debut is brimming over with warmth, wit and humanity. (****)
Last Song Before Night / Ilana C. Myer 4 Jan 2016 9:00 AM (9 years ago)
In a land where only men are allowed to pursue music and poetry, a young female singer may be the only hope to restore magic to musicians and prevent evil sorcery from spreading a horrific plague. (**1/2)
This Census-Taker / China Mieville 23 Nov 2015 9:00 AM (9 years ago)
A young boy living in a mountainside town fears that his father may be a brutal killer in this novella by the Hugo-winning New Weird superstar. (***1/2)
Walk on Earth a Stranger / Rae Carson 6 Oct 2015 10:00 AM (9 years ago)
In 1849, a young girl with the magical ability to detect gold heads west to California to escape the clutches of her parents' killer in this sweeping if uneven Wagons West epic that employs its fantasy elements sparingly. (***1/2)
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps / Kai Ashante Wilson 12 Sep 2015 10:00 AM (9 years ago)
A launch title for Tor.com Publishing's novella line, this highly anticipated sword-and-sorcery mini-epic by Nebula/WFA nominee Wilson is a dismayingly murky, pretentious mess about a demigod protecting a merchant caravan. Not so much subversive as substandard. (**)
The Slow Regard of Silent Things / Patrick Rothfuss 8 Sep 2015 10:00 AM (9 years ago)
Young Auri, living in an abandoned underground city, spends 150 pages doing nothing in particular. Patrick Rothfuss gives epic fantasy the Manic Pixie Dream Girl story it wasn’t asking for in this aimless, meandering novella even he admits should have been a trunk story. (*1/2)
Half a King / Joe Abercrombie 8 Sep 2015 10:00 AM (9 years ago)
Yarvi never wanted to be king — but when he finds kingship thrust upon him and treachery all around, he will do anything to regain his throne. Abercrombie's first ostensibly-YA novel has a lot of entertainment value, but still feels like Abercrombie Lite compared to his earlier work. (***1/2)
The Traitor Baru Cormorant / Seth Dickinson 13 Aug 2015 10:00 AM (9 years ago)
Shattering debut novel in which a vengeful young woman plans to rise to a position of trust and authority in the empire that conquered her homeland, all part of a plan to bring it down from within. But how far is she willing to go to see it through, and at what cost? (*****)
The Book of Phoenix / Nnedi Okorafor 27 Jul 2015 10:00 AM (9 years ago)
A genetically engineered superwoman breaks free from the lab that created her and launches a violent rebellion against her former masters in this passionate and angry prequel to Okorafor's WFA-winning Who Fears Death. (****)
Seveneves / Neal Stephenson 9 Jun 2015 10:00 AM (9 years ago)
The sudden and unexplained destruction of the moon leaves the remnants of humanity in scattered orbital habitats, with the future of the species in the hands of seven women. It's only two-thirds of a great novel, but those two-thirds are great indeed. (****)
The Vorrh / B. Catling 11 May 2015 10:00 AM (9 years ago)
A sinister, uncharted forest deep within colonial Africa draws adventurers into its haunted depths in this immersive, dreamlike epic that entangles history and New Weird fiction. A must for the Miéville set. (****1/2)
The Three-Body Problem / Cixin Liu 19 Apr 2015 7:22 AM (10 years ago)
A virtual-reality game and a mysterious message from deep space herald an alien invasion in this Hugo-winning, Nebula-nominated hard SF mind-bender from Chinese bestseller Liu Cixin, gracefully translated by award-winning author Ken Liu. (***1/2)
The Mirror Empire / Kameron Hurley 17 Jul 2014 7:22 AM (10 years ago)
Hurley's fourth novel is a career-defining work set on a world surrounded by a magically-infused dark star and facing the threat of invasion from an alternate-universe counterpart of itself. Bold, audacious, gender-bending epic that forces a rethinking of many tropes we have been trained to accept from the genre. (****)
Lock In / John Scalzi 7 Jul 2014 6:43 AM (10 years ago)
A plague has left millions suffering from "locked in" syndrome, their conscious minds trapped in paralyzed bodies. But as technology has arisen to give them freedom and mobility once more, a new social and economic order has come about, and with it, new tensions — and new crimes. (***1/2)
The Martian / Andy Weir 17 Mar 2014 12:43 PM (11 years ago)
A freak accident leaves a lone astronaut stranded on Mars in this suspenseful and meticulously researched hard SF debut in which not a single note rings untrue. (****)
A Darkling Sea / James L. Cambias 20 Feb 2014 3:04 PM (11 years ago)
On an icy oceanic moon where human scientists are studying an intelligent aquatic civilization, a tragic mistake causes tensions to escalate between the humans and the alien Sholen, whose laws against noninterference are very strict. Could even war be in the offing? Confident old-school hard SF with expected first-novel hiccups. (***)