Tag Archives: scifi

Book Review: “Pines” (2012) by Blake Crouch

pines

© James Pyles

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I found out about the SciFi/Mystery novel Pines by Blake Crouch when I was looking up something totally unrelated. I had watched (again) the pilot episode to the 1966 Irwin Allen TV show The Time Tunnel and was wondering why the government would want to invent time travel.

Time travel, contrary to popular fiction, isn’t easily weaponized. If you want to change the past and say prevent anyone else besides the U.S. acquiring nuclear weapons, it would be incredibly complicated. Unforeseen variables could cause all kinds of unanticipated results, assuming you could change your own timeline at all.

It gets complex and it’s not the focus of this review. In one article I read, Blake Crouch said that changing time would most likely not be possible. If you tried to, as in the Back to the Future movies, prevent Marty’s Mom and Dad from meeting in 1955 so they couldn’t get married and ‘make” Marty, time would find another way for them to get together and sustain history.

I became curious about Crouch and looked up his books, finding the Wayward Pines novel series. My local library had a copy of “Pines,” so I checked it out.

Continue reading →

Coming June 26th: “Summer of Speculation”

summer

Cover art for the anthology “Summer of Speculation, 2023”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

It’s finally happening. The Cloaked Press anthology Summer of Speculation 2023 is available June 26, 2023. This year’s theme is Sidekicks.

My contribution to this work is the short story “The Apprentice.”

I didn’t want to do some superhero sidekick story so I went with a “diamond-in-the-rough” apprentice to a Master, but one with particular skills. It’s set in the same futuristic cyberpunk world as my short story “Dollface” which you can find in the anthology Surge.

Pin is a girl who has grown up in the slums of the Under, the ancient remnants of cities built centuries ago which are now dwarfed in the shadow of the sky-spanning megapolis. Recruited by the mysterious “Mr. Chandler,” Pin must leave behind everyone she has ever loved for an uncertain future training as a Paladin. But is Chandler the Practitioner her savior or the catalyst of a life leading to danger and ultimately death?

Here’s a short sample:

Continue reading →

Book Review of “Ancillary Justice” (2013) by Ann Leckie

justice

Cover of Ann Leckie’s novel “Ancillary Justice”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I first heard about An Leckie’s flagship novel Ancillary Justice by reading an article at Tor called Power, Responsibility, and Revenge: Ancillary Justice Ten Years On by Adrienne Martini. The book is now ten years old, but I’ve never been known as being on the bleeding edge of whatever’s new and fresh in science fiction.

This part of the article got my attention:

In that early scene, Leckie efficiently sets up one of the key features of this world: the Radchaai language doesn’t gender people. Breq defaults to she/her pronouns for everyone unless she is speaking the language of the colonized. We only know Seivarden is a “he” because a bartender on Nilt refers to him that way. Frequently, Leckie shows Breq struggling with finding the right pronouns for the languages that require them.

Oh, good grief. If there are two words associated with this novel that are bound to set my teeth on edge, it’s “justice” and “gender,” both of which have taken on rather magnified meanings in the 2020s, at least in social media.

Martini gushes glowing praise upon Leckie’s book. In fact, her debut novel has the distinction of having won a Hugo Award, Nebula Award, BSFA Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, and Locus Award for Best First Novel. That’s some novel.

Continue reading →

The Galaxy Coloring Book

coloring

PHOTO PROMPT © Jennifer Pendergast

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I stoked the fireplace while contemplating the unusual coloring book I bought at the Flea Market last Sunday. I was referred to the vendor rather mysteriously. She suggested that I would find this particular book especially interesting.

I thought I’d reserved my “coloring between the lines” behavior for playing with my grandchildren, but this wasn’t a child’s plaything.

I had retired from my career in astronomy years back, but my childhood fascination with the universe never left me. If I colored the lines according to instructions, Earth’s gateway to a people and their far distant star would finally become known.

Continue reading →

Science Fiction Featuring Commentary vs. Commentary Disguised as Science Fiction

ancillary

Cover art for the novel “Ancillary Justice”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Oh good grief.

I signed up to receive email notifications from Tor.com because they occasionally offer free downloads of books that I (or someone) think I should read. I opened up one such email this morning and discovered this article: Power, Responsibility, and Revenge: Ancillary Justice Ten Years On.

Whenever the word “Justice” is used in a title or text of a work, and given Tor’s obvious political bent, I start to make assumptions. In this case I wasn’t wrong. Here’s a couple of quotes from the article by Adrienne Martini:

With her first book, (Ann) Leckie recombined the DNA of a space opera into a surprising work that captured all of the gee-whiz of empires in space while at the same time interrogating what such empires were good for.

And…

In that early scene, Leckie efficiently sets up one of the key features of this world: the Radchaai language doesn’t gender people. Breq defaults to she/her pronouns for everyone unless she is speaking the language of the colonized. We only know Seivarden is a “he” because a bartender on Nilt refers to him that way. Frequently, Leckie shows Breq struggling with finding the right pronouns for the languages that require them.

And…

Continue reading →

My Book “The Aliens” Has Been Accepted Into the Starry Eyed Press Series “Galactic Treks”

featured author

Promotional image for the “Galactic Treks” series from Starry Eyed Press

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I’ve had a number of my works published by Starry Eyed Press before, but this one is different. A little while ago, they announced an open submission of a series called “Galactic Treks” The title is on purpose.

The general theme is “space opera,” but the word count can be anything from 5,000 up through novel length.

Wow. To be able to plot a story without worrying about exceeding a word count.

But that’s not all. Here are the specifics:

It should come as no surprise to hear that Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek franchise is one of the most endearing and enduring pieces of quality space opera in the world.

There was even a time, many years ago, when anybody was allowed to write a Star Trek novel and submit it to Simon and Shuster for review!

Sadly, those days are long gone and Paramount would prefer to work only with authors and writing staffs of their choosing in developing Star Trek novels, comics, episodes and films.

So where does that leave the rest of us aspiring Trek writers? We’re glad you asked.

The Galactic Treks line is your time to shine. We’re seeking novels, shorts and series that center on space exploration, optimism, a protagonist or a crew as members of something bigger (a fleet perhaps), and an emphasis on thinking one’s way to final resolve over simply blowing everything up.

So write a “Star Trek-type” story without literally writing Star Trek.

Continue reading →

Book Review of “Redux II: The Search for Floyd”

redux2

© James Pyles

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Last night (as I write this) I finished Gregg Cunningham’s SciFi time travel novel Redux II: The Search for Floyd published by Starry Eyed Press. It’s the sequel to the original novel Redux: The Lost Patrol which I reviewed on my blog last year.

The original novel is set in the future, primarily on the Moon. Redux and his battle robot Floyd are using a time travel device called a “War Pig” in an attempt to “fix” history. Redux wants to bring back all the people lost in war, to win every battle they lost, and to establish a future history with his lost love.

The original novel is a little hard to follow because, like many time travel books, it tends to bounce around all over the place. In the end, an old, burned out Redux is left stranded when his younger self steals the War Pig and his version of Floyd.

It’s not all bad. His lost love Dixie is alive, but she’s young and he’s an old man she doesn’t recognize.

Redux II picks up there with our hero (or anti-hero) one among a series of refugees destined for relocation on Mars. But then things get weird.

Continue reading →

Another Day, Another Zeta Beam

boat

PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

The boat ride was boring. Just tourists from who knows where sipping overly sweet alcoholic drinks and mindlessly chattering. The only one halfway sober besides me was the guy running the engine and steering, and presumably the other guy in the little kayak thing leading the way.

The real reason I was here had nothing to do with my date or anyone else except me. In less than two minutes, the boat would be passing within two meters of the Zeta Beam impact point. I’ll be able to visit my lover on the planet Rann again for a little while.

Continue reading →

My Short Story “The Apprentice” Accepted into the 2023 Anthology “Summer of Speculation”

summer

Promotional art for the “Summer of Speculation” anthology series.

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I just found out that my cyberpunk short story “The Apprentice” has been accepted into the 2023 edition of the Cloaked Press anthology Summer of Speculation. The theme for this year’s anthology is “Sidekicks”. I already had my cyberpunk universe built for another story and decided to create the teacher Chandler and his reluctant apprentice Pin.

In a world run a conglomerate of criminal syndicates, corporations, and the government, protection and justice are only for the wealthy and the connected. Out of that system rose a group of vigilantes dedicated to protecting the most helpless inhabitants of the vast megalopolis.

I have the publisher’s permission to make this announcement, but there’s no cover art, pre-sales link, or anything else ready yet. But to whet your appetite, I’m offering a snippet of my overall story:

Continue reading →

Season One Wrap Up Review of Quantum Leap

QL

Promotional image for the television show “Quantum Leap.”

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

I won’t lie. What kept me coming back to Quantum Leap each week for the first season was “the mystery.” Who is Janice (or Janis) Calavicci? Why did Ben leap? Eventually that mystery included Who is Leaper X? Why did Ian of the future leap back? What danger is Ben supposed to save Addison from?

But let’s go back to the beginning. I’ll take a selective tour of my previous reviews. It wouldn’t be a very good season review if I didn’t start with my review of the pilot.

Oh, I should say it’s impossible to watch and review this series without delving deeply into the social meaning of the stories involved. Science fiction and time travel are only transport mechanisms for discussing social justice, representation, and inclusivity issues from the perspective of the 2020s.

As the show opens, we are introduced to co-workers and friends including Ben, Addison, the engaged couple, as well as Magic, Jenn, and Ian. Addison is revealed to be the potential first leaper, but the project is years away from human trials.

We see a mysterious woman at the project going over information at a computer terminal and saying, “That can’t be right.” To this day, I’m not sure I know what Janice was talking about, especially if Ben’s leap were already planned and programmed into Ziggy.

Continue reading →