Peter Cawdron, 2024, 366 pages. These are frightening times. Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu seem set on a course that could easily lead to wider wars in Europe and the Middle East. We’re already witness to the terrifying impact of drones and artificial intelligence in vast areas surrounding the conflicts in the Ukraine and Gaza, …
Waiting for the Galactic Bus Author Parke Godwin Cover artist Chris Hopkins Series The Snake Oil Series Genre Science fiction Publisher Doubleday Publication date 1988 Media type Print (hardcover) Pages 244 pages Preceded by A Truce With Time Followed by The Snake Oil Wars Yes, I’m writing a review of a book that was first …
by Paul Dixon Print length 544 pages Publication date September 27, 2023 Carpathians is a very sure-footed novel with several intriguing character stories that blend into a beautifully-constructed first contact scenario. Humanity has reached the stars, and while life abounds, there is no sapient life. Disturbingly, what they have found are a dozen or so …
A Year in review: a review of 2023 2023 was another great year for television. Among other great shows we watched (and I reviewed) this year were Gen V (outrageous spin-off of The Boys), One Piece (excellent live-action version of a rather dumb anime), a new BBC remake of War of the Worlds, an engaging …
The Artifact Peter Cawdron 307 pp, copyright 2023 Peter Cawdron An archeologist from Britain (OK, Wales; I know there’s a world of difference between Bristol and Cardiff) has heard rumors of a strange object in a remote village in Libya, Harat Zuwayyah. This is in the deepest part of the Sahara. Doctor Susan Taylor, along …
The Grifter’s Daughter: Vol 1-6, AKA The Dani Silver seriesDuane Lindsay 1962 pages, Kindle EditionPublished September 2, 2022 From the Goodreads blurb page: “WITH SO MANY DISHONEST MARKS NEEDING TO BE SCAMMED, AN AVENGING ANGEL HAS NEVER BEEN SO DELICIOUSLY CROOKED!“It’s not the money. Dani Silver, the second-best living con artist (the first being her …
Peter Watts, Tor Books, copyright 1999 Altering humans in order to live in alien environments isn’t a new concept in science fiction. John Varley, with his symbiotic exosuits, has made a career of it. Peter Watts has surgically and technologically altered his characters to live in the most alien and inhuman environment on Earth: at …
The Intrepid: Dawn Of The Interstellar Age Arnie Benn 2023 Quicycle Press 484 pages Winner, Literary Titan Book Award (2023)Gold Medal, FAPA President’s Book Award (2023) I haven’t had a great deal of luck with Amazon’s Kindle freebies. There was the one with the water ice roads on the Moon, or the sappy lovestruck hero-worshipping …
Peter Cawdron Publisher : Independently published (October 9, 2023) 354 pp For sheer awe and wonder, it’s hard to top Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. I read it when it first came out, fifty years ago, I was utterly mesmerized. It’s the sort of world-building that Clarke excelled at, and the mystery …
Holly by Stephen King, 2023, Scribner, 449pp. Available in ebook and audiobook formats. Nearly any writer who has written fiction more than about ten pages in length has encountered what I call “character creep.” You start out with a “throwaway” character, a red-shirt whose only real purpose is to die in chapter three and alert …