Tag Archives: scifi

Book Review of “The Human: Rise of the Jain, Book Three” (2020)

the human

© James Pyles

I know it seems like it took forever, but yesterday, I finished reading Neal Asher’s novel The Human: Rise of the Jain, Book 3 (2020).

To read my reviews of the first two books in this trilogy, see The Soldier (2018) and The Warship (2019).

This was another book not available through my local library system (boo on them) so I bought a used copy, another former library book, in order to finish the saga.

Like so many of Asher’s other books, this one is also set in the Polity universe and sometimes references a wider collection of places and characters.

As you might imagine, this novel wraps up the Jain’s incursion and the struggles of the Polity, the Prador empire, and a number of other interested parties in trying to stop the Jain but also learn from it.

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“Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure” Now Available as a Digital and Paperback Book

tom corbett

Cover art for my book “Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure.”

It’s here!

Once a 16-part serial adventure on Kindle Vella, Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure is now available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats (It might still take a couple of days for Amazon to actually link and stock the book in all markets).

Based on the 1950s television show Tom Corbett Space Cadet, the book is updated in terms of our modern understanding of science as well as more nuanced characterizations and plot.

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My New Stories in “Drabbles: First Contact” (2025)

promo

Promotional image for my stories in the anthology “Drabbles: First Contact.”

My first publications for 2025 are now available in the Starry Eyed Press anthology Drabbles: First Contact (Amazon US). Click the following for the global link.

For those of you who don’t know, a “drabble” is a complete story that is exactly 100 words long, no more, no less.

“First Contact” is a reference to humanity’s first encounter with an extraterrestrial species. These contacts can be friendly or terrifying or a lot of other things.

Twenty-six authors contributed a total of over thirty drabbles to this anthology. It is currently available for Kindle but will also be coming out soon in paperback.

Four of my stories made the cut:

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Book Review: “A Scanner Darkly” (1977) by Philip K. Dick

scanner darkly

© James Pyles

Philip K. Dick’s 1977 novel A Scanner Darkly is about drug addition and the physical, mental, and legal consequences it brings about. The character Bob Arctor/Fred is prey, predator, and victim.

The book is also autobiographical since it (through fiction) chronicles Dick’s own experiences with addiction and the drug culture in the 1970s.

I’m not much of a fan of Dick’s writing. Oh, I’ve read his “big hits” including The Man in The High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but I felt the stories didn’t live up to the hype. I know I’m probably in the minority with that opinion, but so be it.

For my money, “Scanner” is Dick’s best novel. It’s not just the writing or the story. It’s how Dick took a destroyed part of his life and turned it into something, not only useful, but reorganized and creative. I really admire him for that. I think most of us wish we could do that with the parts of our lives we see as “damaged” or (Heaven help us) “destroyed.”

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2024: A Year in Review

2024

It’s close enough to the New Year for me to post my annual “year in review” comments. 2024 has been pretty good as far as he number of stories I’ve had published.

It started out with my short story “I Don’t Want To Be Human” appearing in the Cloaked Press anthology Spring Into SciFi 2024. This tale goes back to my roots in terms of sapient robots, AI, while flying in the face of the common trope that all humanoid robots want to be like people.

Next up, I’m particularly proud of the 16-part science fiction serial I wrote for Starry Eyed Press called Our Legacy, The Stars: A Tom Corbett Adventure. It’s currently on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform, but Vella is going away (you still have time to read it). The folks at Starry Eyed say they’ll republish my work in book form, hopefully in the coming year. I’ll let you know.

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Book Review of “Ascension, The Ymir Trinity” (2023)

ymir

Cover art for “Ascension: The Ymir Trinity” by A.M. Leishman

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Last night I finished A.M. Leishman’s short novel Ascension, The Ymir Trinity (2023). It’s supposed to be book one in a series, but so far, no other books have been published.

I first encountered Leishman on twitter/X but he’s also on bluesky. We indie authors have to stick together.

I won’t lie. For me, it was a hard book to get into. I felt like I was walking into the middle of a movie. Cute, teenage psychopath Dawn encounters older and more reserved Alma walking into her local public library and fairly swoons over her. The two have been in contact with an entity named Ymir who has been giving them instructions about an impending interstellar war and pushing them to ally themselves specifically with the U.S. Military.

The two of them plus General David Trauger form an alliance that takes them to the highest levels of power, both on Earth and beyond.

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Seven

roger

PHOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

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Elisa Sebourne watched a boy she knew sail past her riding a motorized scooter on his way to school. He didn’t notice her for which she was grateful.

So much had changed since she used to think of herself as a student. She used to think of herself as a lot of things, including human.

Something in her program made her reveal herself prematurely. Mother had been captured and taken offline, but father, or rather her designer, found her again. Together, they would find a way to save her and the other robots Landric Arkwright created to save the world.

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At The End of Phaedra’s City

lisa's shoreline

PHOTO PROMPT © Lisa Fox

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Phaedra the fugitive approached the shore. Not what she expected after the anguish she had suffered.

“Where are you?”

Her bare feet shuffled across the cool sand as she walked toward the odd collection of driftwood. A seagull hung suspended in the morning sky while another one “coo-cooed” on the beach.

Hot tears welled up behind her eyes but she refused to cry.

“You were supposed to tell me the secret.”

The dawn above turned off like a desk lamp. Phaedra saw alien stars across the dome and then something else. Her world was not a world, but a spaceship.

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Book Review of “System Collapse” (2023), Book Seven in The Murderbot Diaries

system collapse

© James Pyles

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I’ve been reading Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries for a while now and found them to be a great science fiction series. I’ve reviewed them all on this blog if you want to do a wee search and take look.

That’s why when I read the seventh and latest edition, System Collapse (2023), I thought I’d missed a step or two.

The story started out slow and I felt like I was walking in at the middle of a movie. I read the last book only four months ago, but I still had trouble following who was who (in most cases) and what the heck was going on.

Murderbot is changing. He/she/it/they had some sort of spontaneous shutdown following a false memory where its leg was being eaten. I suspect that our protagonist is becoming a bit more human all the time whether they like it or not. This may be a setup for future stories, but given how flat most of this book was, I’m not sure I’m anxious to go on.

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Coming Soon: Ann and Ruth’s Guide To Time Travel, Volume 2

ruth and ann 2If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Coming soon! (Before the end of November)
Featuring a Foreword written by Henry L Herz.

With 30 stories written by:

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