"I first saw you when you rode out of the forest, past the cluster of tall, bulge-eyed offering stakes that mark the edges of the forest, your horse at a walk." How to even begin review a book like this? An unnamed narrator address a 'you' in second person, splitting the tale into a past … Continue reading The Raven Tower – Ann Leckie
"Come sit here by me, Copernicus." Following in his late father's footsteps, Copernicus Brown is a bounty hunter and captain of the Jitterbug. Ever since something unknown took apart the outer planets - Jupiter, Saturn et al - and used the material to build giant, habitable 'platforms', there's been work to support the official security … Continue reading Jitterbug – Gareth L Powell
"Things are getting better: It's been ten months, and I only wake up screaming about once a week now." And so we continue the adventures of one Bob Howard, computational demonologist for the secret government department nicknamed The Laundry (because it was originally housed above a laundry, of course) which deals with the ... weirder … Continue reading The Apocalypse Codex – Charles Stross
"Sometimes, it is NOT a teacher that you need." One Way Witch follows directly on not from the previous novella in the series, She Who Knows, but rather from the earlier novel, Who Fears Death, while at the same time continuing with Najeeba's story from the novella. Confused yet?! I read the first novella in … Continue reading One Way Witch – Nnedi Okorafor
"The guys from the 'A' and 'B' crews have been sitting on their collective ass for five weeks, out in the middle of nowhere." When we were introduced to Bob Howard, Computational Demonologist for the secret government department set up to deal with otherworldly horrors, aka the Laundry, in The Atrocity Archives, many people used a description … Continue reading The Jennifer Morgue – Charles Stross
"Green sky at night; hacker's delight." Imagine the IT department of the X-Files, but in a very bureaucratic, very British civil service department. Here you will find Bob, who was not given much of a choice about working for the 'Laundry' (as it has been dubbed) after his geeky mind delved a little too deep … Continue reading The Atrocity Archives – Charles Stross
"Staybehind's body was moving before he woke up, driven by fear and algorithms." After the civil war, the newly seceded California declared that sentient robots had full citizen rights - well, at least the not-inconvenient ones...! They are pretty much indentured slaves, sellable to new 'owners' while they pay off their contracts. So when the … Continue reading Automatic Noodle – Annalee Newitz
"The neon signs glowed sullenly, sending sickly tendrils of light slithering down the rain-soaked streets like so many diseased serpents." Synthetics: vat-grown to perform all of the menial and unpleasant jobs that humans don't want, they look human - but are treated as objects. Killing a synth isn't murder, it's property destruction. But for Detective … Continue reading SINthetic – JT Nicholas
"Were it not for the rut, and Master Guillaume's bladder, we would never have met the knight." When a travelling band of players happens across an injured knight, his final wish is for them to take the box he is carrying to the ruling Imperator in his stead. But they must not open it... yeah, … Continue reading The Dagger in Vichy – Alastair Reynolds
"The bell tolls, but the rain mutes it to almost nothing." The Tyrant Philosophers series, starting with City of Last Chances, tells loosely-connected tales of the Palleseen Sway - an empire in the making, intent on bring 'Perfection', order, and their version of common sense to whichever lands they can force it upon. Days of Shattered … Continue reading Lives of Bitter Rain – Adrian Tchaikovsky
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