Those wonderful folks at Head of Zeus have reissued the Star Svensdotter trilogy in new digital editions featuring eye-popping new cover art. Excerpt– “You’ve got your martyr’s expression on, Star,” Archy said. “The hell you say.” Then, startled, I said, “How can you tell?” “Didn’t you know?” Archy sounded surprised, but it could have been my…
Those wonderful folks at Head of Zeus have reissued the Star Svensdotter trilogy in new digital editions featuring eye-popping new cover art. Check ’em out– Excerpt… “You’ve got your martyr’s expression on, Star,” Archy said. “The hell you say.” Then, startled, I said, “How can you tell?” “Didn’t you know?” Archy sounded surprised, but it…
So a girl speaks to birds and a boy speaks to computers and both are reviled and bullied in middle school. Years later they meet again and fall in love and the world falls apart. I think. The writing in this book is solid and is what kept me reading You did not want Patricia’s…
Read more Years later they meet again and fall in love and the world falls apart.
I do love a road trip story, and what better than an sf road trip story? Nothing, that’s what. Rosemary Harper is podding her way to Wayfarer, a tunnel ship that bores wormhole junctions, there to take up her duties as clerk. Almost as soon as she comes on board Captain Ashby Santoso bids on…
Third in Rachel Bach’s Paradox military sf/romance trilogy. Deviana Morris quits the mercenaries to sign on as security on a small trade ship called the Glorious Fool, only to discover that that is no trade ship. Her crew is made up of two Paradoxians, one suspiciously calm Terran cook, one aeon bird navigator, one…
— 1 — Worlds Enough Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live… —Niccolo Machiavelli “YOU WANT TO MOVE the river again?” Roberta McInerny’s square face settled into stubborn lines. If Outpost…
— 1 — Nonlinear Computers …a nonlinear computer weighing only 160 pounds, having a billion binary decision elements, that can be mass produced by unskilled labor. —Scott Crossfield’s description of an astronaut THE CAPTAIN SPAT OUT A HANK OF MY HAIR and swore. “Star, either you tie up that mess or I take a knife…
— 1 — Homecoming and Housekeeping There is no land uninhabitable or sea unnavigable. —Robert Thorne MY FULL NAME IS Esther Natasha Svensdotter but if you want to live you’ll call me Star. Star is what Esther means, it was the first word I ever said, and when I’m feeling romantic I like to say…
The Better Part of Valor by Tanya Huff
Even better than the first in the series (Valor's Choice). Torin Kerr and her three-species space-going marines lead a team of civilian scientists and a pain-in-the-ass reporter into an enormous alien vessel they call Big Yellow. Their only handicaps are a glory-hound commanding officer the brass want to shine so as to placate his species' representatives in the galactic Parliament, and, uh, oh yes, the enemy ship that unexpectedly shows up, loaded and ready for bear. Turns out they've got people on board Big Yellow, too. It's like a haunted house story, only, you know, on a big, sentient banana with transmogriphic powers, with nothing but the cheery presence of absolute zero and fighters exchanging missile fire on the other side of the hatch.
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Third in the saga of teleport David, his wife Milly, and now their daughter Cent. Steven Gould is the direct descendant of Robert A. Heinlein and Joe Haldeman--he writes so sensibly and practically of impossible things that he makes you believe, well, the impossible. He's really given serious, extended thought in these novels (Jumper, Reflex) to just what it would be like to be able to teleport, and to just how attractive that would make you to the powers that be. If you live in daily fear of being kidnapped by forces determined to exploit your ability, what do you do with your life? How do you stay out of their reach? Do you decide to try to do good in the world anyway, at the risk of losing your freedom and self-determination? How do you raise a child in this world to be aware and responsible? (FYI, Milly and David do a pretty good job.)
I read Impulse in one sitting. Watching Cent, a very atypical rebellious teenager, learning to cope with her world's privileges and its dangers and even to extend its boundaries is riveting stuff. Cent is a marvelous addition to this world and is now my favorite character in it. I hope we get to go there again.
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