science fiction
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Review of Predator: Badlands
A New Type of Hunt, For Better and Worse This movie is a strange beast to critique. If you go in for a good time, looking for action and clever kills, you’ll get your money’s worth. But if you’re a fan of the Predator series, it might not scratch your…
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Review of Under the Skin by Michel Faber
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. Gender swap of the typical hitchhiker’s abduction fear response.Uncouth otherworldly behavior.Dehumanization, objectification, it’s all about perspective.What is human?What monsters lurk beneath our fleshy exteriors?Two is a crowd. Who would search for you if you got into the wrong car? Anyone?This narration may get under your…
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Review of Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
Vegetarianism for edge-lords. Sure, there are some pros and cons to consuming meat,—who among us has not read Ruth Ozeki’s Year of Meats?—but the taboo of cannibalism is more persuasive than the supremacy of meat in our gustatory culture. The author seems to forget that hundreds of millions of people…
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Review of Nick and the Glimmung by Philip K. Dick
Surprisingly absorbing children’s fiction from grandmaster of social s-f from the pulp era. Nick is a kid with a cat. Earth is a planet that banned cats. So the family has to move to Ploughman’s Planet, where aliens like wubs, werjes, father-things, and printers, among other species, all waging war…
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Review of I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
The ideal audiobook experience. I’ve attended many workshops and critique groups which were obsessed with the “Show, Don’t tell,” mantra, which some writers seem to regard as the be all, end all rule of writing.For me. I enjoy narration, even hundreds of pages of narration at a time. I don’t…
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Review of Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates
I often wish JCO would write more science fiction. This felt a bit like A Handmaid’s Tale. The initial sections describing the system of rewards and punishment, how society has morphed into this recognizable, twisted near-future I found less compelling than the love story at the heart of the novel.…
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Review of Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland by Carlton Mellick III
One of his longest works, something labored over for longer, it seems, and continued in an equally long sequel, I found myself at times missing the brief length of his accustomed method and not necessarily wanting it to go on as long as it did. It had its moments, but…
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Review of Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Shteyngart knows how to bring the beef. Politically incorrect ranting, raving, and livestreaming.Much chuckle-worthy correspondence featuring an upper middle-class Jewish American, a Korean American and her family, and an upper-upper-upper-upper class American CEO-type with sub-human morals. Highly polished, irreverent bashing of this, that, and the other. Prescient, but really just…
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Review of The Troika by Stepan Chapman
The first Philip K. Dick Award to go to a small press. Jeff Vandermeer published this when 120 other publishers declined it. Chapman was a very accomplished author with hundreds of short stories in high profile magazines way back in the days of what I consider the most entertaining science…
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Review of Authority (Southern Reach, #2) by Jeff VanderMeer
I am sad to say I did not get any entertainment out of this one. Sure, it put a few of the pieces into place, but the ever expanding mystery of Area X remains largely unexplained. But we did not go into it hoping for explanations, I would think. We…
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Review of City of Mann by L. Ross Coulter
The author poses an interesting thought experiment and uses it as a vehicle to make many utopian s-f speculations about humanity, the almighty, and modern society. One must ponder the concept of intelligent design, entering into the strange world of sentient cities he created. Though lacking in action and traditional…
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Review of Bio Melt by Carlton Mellick III
I can still remember all 50+ CM3 books I’ve read, which is more than I can say about Orhan Pamuk or other more critically acclaimed slingers of words. I prefer to remember the books I read, instead of letting them fade into a pleasant blur of impressive but barely perceptible…
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Review of City of the Chasch (Planet of Adventure, #1) by Jack Vance
A classic set-up for an adventure novel. The premise allowed Vance’s mastery of the pulp s-f elements he had used in his other stories and novels to shine forth unfiltered. Our main character crash lands on an alien planet and must survive. What more do you need to know? He…
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Review of Servants of the Wankh by Jack Vance
The adventures of our surly protagonist continue in this second book in the series. He has acquired new friends and enemies, but his goal remains the same. Of course he wants to return to Earth with the knowledge he has gained – but does he stand to profit more by…
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Review of A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
Sublime and magnificently ornate visions. A startling voyage through bizarre and fantastic imagery. Reminded me of the film Fantastic Planet, and of course Out of the Silent Planet. I also thought it bore some similarity to the expansive scope of Starmaker by Olaf Stapledon. A beguiling allegory about Man’s search…
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Review of Bubblegum by Adam Levin
Reminded me of when I read David Foster Wallace for the first time. Passing through phases of amusement to annoyance to disgust, then subtly sliding into intrigue, fascination and finally settling on the far side of appreciation, but only through much readerly turmoil, many near-death-by-boredom experiences. If you like Adam…
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Review of 8-Bit Apocalypse by Amanda Billings
I purchased this novel to feed two addictions I have willfully acquired: reading about video games and bizarro fiction. Though this was published alongside other more grotesque works by a primarily bizarro publisher, this was more an ode to video game history in fictional form than a bizarro novel in…
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Review of The Al-Alam Revolution by J.S. Xander
The Al-Alam Revolution is a well-written story of a pretty good length featuring a 15-year-old protagonist in a creatively fictionalized world. A lot of futuristic novels offer a nihilistic worldview, but thanks to Nili’s idealism, most of the book’s somber undertone is lightened.The pages were easy to turn in this…
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Review of Of Kings, Queens and Colonies by Johnny Worthen
Humans have relocated to a ten-planet system called Coronam. Each planet has its drawbacks and advantages. Various factions proceed to war over the resources and ownership. This is an epic with medieval warfare, space ships, and political subtexts. Told through 16 points of view, the tale could get a little…
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Review of End Man by Alex Austin
The first thing I appreciated about End Man was the Vaporware/ Outrun aesthetic of its cover, followed by its intriguing premise. Wherever corporate corruption is brought upon the chopping block I am game for a foray into speculation. Then you get oodles of commentary on mortality and how the virtual…
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Review of Anthem by Ayn Rand
Writing in the first person plural toward a central theme, Ayn Rand tests the reader’s patience. I recommend Doris Lessing instead. Her wonky, awkward descriptive power is more attuned than Rand’s. Rand has a tendency to produce a monotone. I was picturing THX 1138 the whole time. Naming characters with…
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Review of Through the Abyss: Supreme Creation Seriesby Sidney Son
The first thing you may notice about this book is that the cover is reminiscent of Andy Weir’s books. But I approve of covers that convey a book’s comp titles. The author provides a highly detailed style which coalesces into atmospheric descriptions without sacrificing a quick pace. There is a…
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Review of Frankissstein: A Love Storyby Jeanette Winterson
Just great, bold, immersive writing. The various perspectives sustain their storylines and characters through intense and quiet moments. Introspective, but with plenty of dense, quippy dialogue. Outrageous sex doll business planning discussions, Mary Shelley in bed with P. B. Shelley, pillow whispering poetry. Humans as monsters and monsters as humans.…
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Review of Trafik by Rikki Ducornet
Quirky even for Ducornet. Suffused with her characteristic charm, wit, sensuality and signature linguistic exuberance. A vivid dreamscape of “tonguefeels.” A melancholic deepening of post-atomic exotic, nebulous human-wannabes on the edge of the pendulous nostalgia-fueled singularity of an entire dissolving civilization. Memories, avatars, simulations, showerhead massages, spacey antics: both delicious…
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Review of The Green Child by Herbert Read
This bizarre novel was broken into three disparate parts, and by ‘broken,’ I mean ruined. For part one, he might merit 5/5 stars, for part 2, 2/5, and part 3, 4/5. The longest middle section is a droll account of the main character’s life story, his toppling of a dictator,…
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Review of To Hold Up the Sky by Liu Cixin
The short stories in this volume cover many topics, including concerns and ideas that also appear in The Three-Body Trilogy, but they are used in different settings. Super-string computers, hollow earth, the value of poetry, total perfect vision of time and space achieved by simulating the original Big Bang and…
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Review of Into the Violet Gardens by Isaac Nasri
In this very near-future s-f novel, cyborgs and cartels battle it out amid a powder keg political imbalance. The author provides prose rich with details of setting and character that easily communicates the suffering common to human experience, which constitutes the novel’s beating heart. Making use of tried-and-true thriller trappings,…
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Review of U-Day (Memory Full, #1) by Rapha Ram
A desperate CEO gives the reader a taste of the morbid underbelly of the near-future society featured in this book in the prologue. In this multi-faceted work, the lens through which we perceive the world is Livvy Blunt, a girl with a modern mind, trying to squeeze the meditative regimen…
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Review of Something New Under the Sun by Alexandra Kleeman
Wow. A stunning book. An immaculately, intricately, eccentrically written, idiosyncratic soft-s-f, near-future, light-dystopian, quirky pseudo-mystery novel describing the ennui, outrage, absurdity, and maturity of an old-before-her-time child star, with all the camp of kid detective sitcoms and an oceanic undercurrent of eco-unrest. Elegant simplicity. Word-by-word delight. Sentence-by-sentence wonder, awe, and…
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Review of The Nomad: Book One by Debra J. Tillar
I am a fan of space-journey science fiction. Also a fan of strong female protagonists and wry humor. This novel checks all the boxes. 1 time-travel narratives explore the mystery surrounding a large event, while fewer of them explore the mystery of characters’ pasts. In this novel, the hardships of slavery…
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Review of The Exiles (Rift Walkers Book 1) by Rae Lewis
In Exiles, the first in a series, the reader is introduced to an orphan protagonist who might remind us in some ways of Ender Wiggins, or any really capable kid in fiction or film. In her futuristic, but still relatable setting, the author incorporates rich world-building, but in the background, opening…
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Review of The Complete Multiple Warheads by Brandon Graham
It’s a shame that such magnificent artwork is undermined by amateurish writing. The layouts and designs are reminiscent of Moebius, while the dialogue and plot are barely readable pulp, pun-infested nonsense. Plenty of good ideas, creatures, gadgets, and character potential beneath the immaturity, but it’s well-lathered with cringe-worthy speech bubbles.…
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Review of House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
A dense mosaic of mesmerizing notions injected with a jumbo-sized hypo of s-f crack, rich with subtle corollaries of theory and conjecture. Huge, labyrinthine, wild. My first Reynolds. Now I have that combination of elation and despair, knowing that I’m in it for the long haul. I have to read…
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Review of The Devil in a Forest by Gene Wolfe
I enjoy a good fantastical forest novel as much as the next guy. Gene Wolfe’s dependably polished writing delivers thrills and chills in this relatively early work. Set alongside Fifth Head of Cerberus, and Peace, The Devil in a Forest reads almost like children’s literature. That is not to say…
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Review of Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon
Listened to this whole audiobook on an all-day bike ride. I loved sinking in to the uber-omniscient narration so much that I repeated the experience with his similar book, Starmaker, on a similarly exhausting fifty-mile ride. This novel is a survey of 1930s European society extrapolated and speculated upon until…
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Review of It Takes Death to Reach a Star by Stu Jones
I received an advanced review copy of the book without knowing anything about the authors beforehand. Immediately, I was not sure about the title. “It Takes Death to Reach a Star” brings to mind a corny line from a sci-fi movie, something a character says right as they press the…
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Review of Cryovacked (The Galactic Culinary Society, #3) by D.R. Schoel
In the tradition of Golden Age Science fiction, D. R. Schoel provides another episode from The Galactic Culinary Society. At times I think of Red Dwarf, Dr. Who and other light entertainments while reading this author’s stories, though they definitely have smarts. At bottom, this is another easily digestible smorgasbord…
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Review of The Maze of Transparencies by Karen An-hwei Lee
A work of genius and unfathomable eccentricity. In a post-societal literal data migration to physical clouds an obsessively cataloguing vehemently organic gardener pontificates on his dysthymia in a voice infused with shades of contemporary zeitgeists through which the reader perceives a softly dystopian alternate reality where rampant “affluenza” afflicts the…
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Review of Traveller – Inceptio by Rob Shackleford
In accidental time travel books you usually have to put up with a lot of antics, but this one is more about exploring two worlds throughout history – the ancient and the modern, contrasting their ways of life. The life of scientific research is bolstered by detailed scenes and precise…
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Review of Did You Read The News? by Jack Merwin
The first thing you will notice about Did you Read the News is that it has an approachable learning curve. The world building is delivered casually, by closely following the main character’s life. The beginning lulled me into a false sense of security since it was peaceful both in the…
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Review of Children of Time (Children of Time, #1) by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I’m extremely picky when it comes to science fiction. The longer a book is, the more I begin to dissect the sentences, which too often contain extraneous syntax. This one is sprinkled with a sloppy dialogue tag and unnecessary gesticulations clutter the dialogue every once in a while. A few…
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Review of Survival: A Sci-Fi/Horror, where reality begins to bite. by Chris Wright
Guided along by smoothly flowing prose, the reader will perceive a consistent building tension in this genre-bending novel. Parts of it almost read like diary entries, and provide intimate details as well as high-level backstory description.Full of subtle tension and propelled by the interactions of realistic characters in a sequence…
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Review of The Secrets of Umami (The Galactic Culinary Society #1) by D.R. Schoel
Following the protagonist, Jeanne, in her perilous descent into an off-world volcano to recover a delicious confection and gain the experience/ clout amid the Galactic Culinary Society, purveyors of synesthetic wonders, was a blast. Well-described locales and well-paced exploration. Cheeky, digestible, and sciency. I was quite impressed by the old-fashioned…
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Review of Song of the Golden Brew (The Galactic Culinary Society #2) by D.R. Schoel
In the second segment of the Galactic Culinary Society series, you will find more atmospheric description and additional otherworldly settings. You will notice a relaxed pacing, punctuated with action, but never threatening to overwhelm the reader’s sense of awe at the universe inhabited by the protagonist. It is a setup…
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Review of Fragments – A Sci-Fi/Horror: The sequel to Survival: The rules of reality have now changed by Chris Wright
In this second installment in the series, the pace ratchets up quickly. We join characters familiar from the first book (but I think this book can even be appreciated on its own, without some of the backstory). It is a good example of descriptions of cosmic proportions, and how paranormal…
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Review of The Race by Nina Allan
Familiar territory for Nina Allan. Another book dealing with a kidnapping, or missing woman. This one had a stronger feminist slant than The Rift, and I felt that the male characters were too two-dimensional, even by the standards of that agenda. The first segment of the book, dealing heavily with…
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Review of Fluffy’s Revolution by Ted Myers
Blade Runner X Homeward Bound. This was top-tier dystopian science fiction. The stakes are high in this wryly humorous anthropomorphic adventure. In its future world like Poul Anderson’s Brainwave, with a touch of Orwell’s Animal Farm mixed in, I was intrigued and won over by the charming and witty characters,…
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Review of Reality Testing (Sundown, #1) by Grant Price
Reality Testing is a colorful novel, generously long, pumped full of so much creativity that the experience of reading it can only be compared to an overdose of science-fiction brand narcotics. Blending a complex web of illusion and reality, with prose that is so tight, sleek, polished, and chromium-plated, it…
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Review of We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse, #1) by Dennis E. Taylor
It didn’t live up to the hype. For me at least. Many other people will enjoy this. Every time I was introduced to an interesting, high-brow scientific concept, I was cringing at the corny humor. The main issue is Bob, the narrator/ commentator, giving a peanut gallery run down of…
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new flash fiction
Check out our flash fiction in Havok on June 12th, 2019 and vote for it!
L. S. Popovich 