Genre Science Fiction Books

This is the second book in John Ringo’s Posleen War series. I am really enjoying this series – its a big, disaster story (although I am expecting mankind will beat the bad guys before the end!) Its not perfect, or at least not perfect for me. I had trouble with the large cast of characters; [...]

This is the original Stainless Steel Rat book and while it is a very enjoyable read, its really showing its age. The chauvinism of the main character is embarrassing at times, but nonetheless its a fun read. At just 185 pages, it doesn’t take long to skim through, so there isn’t much invested in it.

This is the final book in the series and I found it a little disappointing. The book itself was fine, and I enjoyed the writing, but as a series finale, I felt it didn’t tie up the threads well enough. Our major storyline is well resolved, with Frank managing to settle things with his girl [...]

I picked up this book on a whim; the cover made it look like one of those schlocky books whose writing isn’t good enough to hold my attention. But then I read the blurb on the back. Ohhhhhh…. I loves me a good galactic-war-defend-the-earth story. This is the first novel in the Posleen War series. [...]

1632 is a well known novel by historian and novelist Eric Flint. It is unusual in that I have listed it in more than one series; but the series seems to have taken on a life of its own and is being ‘written’ by more than one author, similar to Niven’s Man-Kzin War series. The [...]

This is the second book in Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Science in the Capital” and it carries on the story set in the first book well. Scene: Washington DC, and the effects of climate change are being seen – global warming is causing Arctic meltoffs which are doing strange things to the Gulf Stream, bringing on [...]

I picked this up because I thought I had never read it. Now I’m not sure. Certainly, it wasn’t entirely clear. I suspect that there is another Niven book with a similar scene in it – probably not hard. I enjoyed this , but I did feel that the ending set up too much for [...]

This is the sequel to Cyteen, the Hugo winning novel from 1988. I enjoy Cherryh’s writing style, but, having happily read through the Foreigner series, I can see a lot of similarities between the approaches behind the two series. Both series have ‘households’, with ‘security staff’ – and maybe that is an obvious an acceptable [...]