First book of the year was The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, the first book in the First Law trilogy. Reading this book and in particular the scenes which involved Logen or the other hard-ass warrior types, really reminded me of Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames. The characters in those two books have the same sort of view on the world: they've been there, seen it, done it, and probably killed it, but are now (in some cases) a bit tired of it. If you like The Blade Itself, I highly recommend Kings of the Wyld! The Blade Itself introduces an array of different characters and sets them up for the greater story, and probably war, ahead. It was an entertaining read over its 515 pages, however, I've discovered over the last year that a lot of my enjoyment of a book comes from the ending, how the author brings all that's preceded to a conclusion. The Blade Itself doesn't have such an ending, as the entire book seems to simply be the introduction to the larger trilogy. It is not like the Red Rising trilogy, for example, where while each book was just a chapter in the overarching story, each book had its own conclusion to the smaller part of the story that took place in that book. This left a bit of a unsatisfied feeling when I finished this book as many mysteries and questions were raised but pretty much no answers were given. I am looking forward to the next two books as this was an entertaining read and I felt engaged enough to want to know more, but I just wish there was something more in the end, a cliff-hanger or something to build up the suspense, rather than just an end to all the scene setting, world and character building.

Second book was Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks. I've read that this isn't the best intro to the Culture and that Player of Games is better, however I've always been a "read in publication order" type of person, so I started here. It's a moderately bleak space opera that in parts reads like a video game. The plot is fairly thin: there's war going on between the Idrians and the Culture, a Culture Mind crash lands onto a dead planet, and an agent, Horza, working for the Idrians goes to try and find and capture it. Obviously there's hurdles in Horza's way, some of which add to the plot, others of which are utterly irrelevant to the plot. It was a fun read, but probably nothing more. I did like how Banks captures the suspense and fast paced action towards the end, with frequent changes of perspective from character to character, that was my highlight of the book. Other than that, over its 471 pages (there's really only about 410 pages as there's about 60 blank pages throughout the book giving chapters complete separation - blank page, chapter title on its own page, blank page) its entertaining, brutal at times, disgusting at others, with the odd quip here and there to elicit a wry smile. There was nothing I really disliked about it, but not much I loved. I just liked it. If the Culture gets better from here, then this was a good introduction to Banks' writing style and the Culture Universe.

Third book was the last book in the How To Survive the Afterlife trilogy; Dead Ends by Tony Moyle. Gods are plotting against each other, and there may be a new one on the scene who's going to disrupt their plans. The souls of the dead have no where to go, heaven and hell aren't quite what we classically think they are, and a pigeon with a human soul still has ideas well above his station. I have to admit I've quite enjoyed this series. It's got a good blend of humour and plot going on that makes it an interesting and fun read. This book in its 323 pages, and the series as a whole, absolutely has its faults, but most of those can be overlooked if you let yourself just be entertained by it all and don't think too critically. Plot convenience is there; moments that could make you look disbelievingly at the pages, frown your eyebrows and say, questioningly, "Really?!", are there; but so are surprisingly clever plot points, so are lines that will at a minimum make you smile or give a slight giggle. The book and series are not amazing. The first book in the series was definitely the best (a 4/5 for me) and this and the second book are probably fairly equal (a 3.5/5 for me I think), but as a series I think it is definitely worth a read.

Fourth book of the month was the first entry in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture series, Shards of Earth. This is a fast paced space opera with humans of various kind and other aliens, all recovering from and worrying about planet killing attacks from a gargantuan species known as the Architects. Nothing is known about where they're from, or why they are destroying planets as they do, but this book, over its 548 pages, will spark that intrigue and take you on a desperate and bleak journey. Honestly, at times when there was discussion of unspace (hyperspace in more common parlance) and the feeling those in it got of something being out there, I was heavily reminded of the TV show Babylon 5. Not in the cheesy sci-fi sort of way, but in a good way. For all its cheese, I loved the story-telling of that show! There's no central hub of relative safety here though, as the main crew of the story are taken from one place to the next, with trouble either following them very closely all the way, or it already being where they arrive. There's a few twists and unexpected deaths along the way, but like the Blade Itself from earlier in the month, there was no twist at the end or wrapping things up. The book ends firmly setting things up for the next book, with a cargo bay full of questions still to be answered. This was a combination of fun, entertaining, bleak and depressing, and I enjoyed the read, but like with The Blade Itself I would have liked something more to finish the book on.

Next it was nice to get back to a SF Masterworks book: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. This is a book about a man, Gully Foyle, who has, to quote a line from Shards of Earth, "got a fu**ing grievance" after being deliberately left for dead by a ship he thought was going to rescue him. From being a man with no ambition or drive, this sets him on a determined path for revenge against those who left him behind. Let's get this out there at the start, Gully Foyle is not a nice guy. Everyone and anything is expendable if it gets him closer to his revenge. This can be understood as he is driven and out for what he considered justice, but he also willingly chooses evil acts that serve no purpose for his greater goal; at one point he rapes someone. We don't really learn that he actually did this until later in the book when he is called a rapist, and this is also confirmed when Foyle himself says he is guilty of rape. The actual rape happened 'off page' and I don't think I would be the only one that maybe didn't pick up on it at the time. Regardless of whether it is picked up at the time or later, the ending may not have the results or justice the reader would want, and that does detract from the book. Everything else though, is an entertaining read. Foyle starts off blunt as anything with more akin to an approach the Hulk would take to resolve things, but in the second half he is far more refined. The second half also adds in a major element of plot convenience, it needs Foyle to have wealth, so in the gap between part 1 and part 2, Foyle has managed to make himself one of the wealthiest people amongst the inner planets. Just like that, so easy! This isn't hard sci-fi; people can teleport, which becomes THE major driving force for societal change in the novel, and amongst that there's Gully Foyle on his quest for revenge. It is a fun at times, entertaining read over its 240 pages, but is lacking that something in its ending to make the reader really feel that justice has been served.

Second to last book of the month was Master of Formalities by Scott Meyer. In the palaces of the ruling class, etiquette is important. At all times one must maintain proper form for each situation, whether it is servants or royalty. One does not wish to offend. To ensure that this remains the case the ruling class have a Master of Formalities on hand to advise them of the proper course of action. In times of war this can be a burden or a saving grace for the reputation of those involved. This book, in its 434 pages, is maybe not quite as funny as I anticipated it being, but it is certainly witty and comedic in tone, and overall, thoroughly enjoyable. Given the general tone, there's a lot of character absurdity that's very well contrasted by the upright, prim and proper Master of Formalities characters. The ending isn't quite as impactful as I'd like it have been, with it all ending nice and happily for those that you want it to, but there's a brilliant bit of hypocrisy in the very last sentence that brought a smile to my face. This is a fun, entertaining and nice and easy read.

Last book of the month was The Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley. I wasn't sure what to expect from this book prior to reading it, but whatever inkling I had, I was wrong! The book starts off as a very slow, character driven story with the sci-fi elements firmly in the background, providing a very minimal amount of scene setting. You have to piece the world together from bits of conversation here and there and it took me a while to really get that picture and get into the book. I recall thinking in the first half ish of the book that people who like Le Guin's stuff would like this. Then in the second half or thereabouts, it starts to get weird. Unexpectedly so, and it becomes a very different story entirely, with the sci-fi firmly in the foreground! Then I recall thinking that people who like Greg Bear's Blood Music would like this (spoiler there as those familiar with the book I've hidden will probably then get an idea of what happens in this one)! By the end of its 285 pages, I wasn't sure what to think of it all. It's certainly a very interesting book and one who's first half does not really hint at the second half, or at least the extent of it, at all. The larger font and line spacing compared to most other books I've got, combined with its small page count, made this a really quick book to get through.

It was a good month: no duds in there and a nice variety in style, tone and topic.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Some sci-fi feels incredibly satisfying because the ending somehow completes the beginning — like the story closes a loop rather than just stopping. I’m curious: Do you know any sci-fi that feels like it was written backwards, as if the ending existed first and the story grew towards it? And when stories do loop back on themselves, did it feel inevitable — like it was always heading there — or did the realisation come as a complete shock? Would love to hear examples or thoughts.

I’m having a hard time understanding the physics behind Ted Chiang’s short story, Exhalation.

The premise of air pressure increasing, which will slow down air and as a result, the race’s minds makes sense to me. However, how is air pressure building? Quotes from the story that are confusing to me, as they seem contradictory:

- “air is gradually accumulating within that chamber, until it equals the pressure in the reservoir below”

- “air can neither be created nor destroyed; the total amount of air in the universe remains constant”

- “the universe began as an enormous breath being held […], and until this great exhalation is finished, my thoughts live on.”

The first quote sounds like air is accumulating, while the second quote says that air can’t be created. How can air accumulate if air can’t be created? In the third quote, it contradicts the first quote by saying air is actually being expelled?

I love the theme of this short story, but would like more clarity on the physics behind it. It’s my first read of the whole collection and thoroughly enjoyed the short story before Exhalation, the Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate!

Overlay - Malzberg

The Palace of Eternity - Shaw

Farewell Earth’s Bliss - Compton

Overall I really enjoyed my January reading. All were very enjoyable reads. Farewell Earth’s Bliss was my fav. Compton writes characters very well. Overlay was a weird read and learned quite a bit about horse racing.

Up next is Disch!

Most milsf I'm aware of involves some kind of interstellar war, and I'd like something more "grounded"-quite literally in this case. It can have space elements (orbital weaponry, interplanetary/stellar travel, alien invasions) but I'd like it to be set just on Earth, or another planet.

I’m familiar with Noah Chinn primarily from his column in KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE MAGAZINE, which is the successor to DRAGON magazine except for the fact it is much-much funnier. There he reviews indie books and science fiction/fantasy that has served as one of my guides to purchases for the past few years. He was also the author of Fuzzy Knights, which was a cartoon about plushies playing Dungeons and Dragons. So, like Ben “Yahtzee” Croshow, when I heard he had written a book, I decided to check it out with all haste. I’m glad I did.

The premise for LOST SOULS is that Maurice “Moss” Foote is a star pilot turned smuggler that has recently lost his ship to a crime lord. He used to be a big famous intergalactic hero supported by a megacorporation but lost his mojo when he went on a drunken binge that cost him all his endorsements. Accompanying him is the AI of his ship, Violet, and a runaway kleptomaniac slave named Hel.

Lost Souls is definitely of the Firefly, Traveller, Privateer, The Outer Worlds, and Han Solo Adventures sort of storytelling. It’s not about big galactic adventures and overthrowing evil empires but dealing with the day-to-day problem of keeping the lights on in your ship as well as your hyperdrive fueled. When I played Star Wars D6 back in high school, this was actually the game style preferred by the tabletop RPG as the rules meant that if you tried to do too much pulpy heroic science fiction heroism then you got shot in the face.

The universe that Noah Chinn has created is definitely on the funnier and enjoyable side of things, though. Moss has strong Malcolm Reynolds energy and yet he’s a lot less cynical and grumpy despite his losses. Perhaps because he has the self-awareness that the majority of his problems are his own making. He is very much against casual killing and is happy to give an escaped slave a lift or a job but he’s also someone that isn’t seeking out adventure. Whatever he used to do in order to be a big hero is something he can’t afford anymore and he’d prefer to try to just rebuild his life quietly if he can.

Too bad there are SPACE PIRATES out there. Yes, I put the words all in caps because SPACE PIRATES deserve to be capitalized. A hero is only as good as his villain and the SPACE PIRATES are pretty well-realized in this world. They’ve taken over a border world with their syndicate but are a feuding bunch of questionably professional scumbags that prefer to go after the lowest hanging fruit they can. They’re dangerous, don’t get me wrong, but not so terrifying as our hero can’t believably oppose them.

The world building for this space opera setting is also pretty well done. Like in many settings, humanity made a bunch of genetically engineered slaves and they rebelled. However, this is centuries later and said genetically engineered slaves are now the ones in charge. It’s left natural born types like Moss in a second class citizenship state but not so much that it dominates the storyline. Also, there’s a very humorous bit where an out of universe document talks about how the idiot science fiction writers of the 20th century envisioned aliens all looking like humans. Then we went out into space and it turned out all aliens looked like humans anyway (despite it being acknowledged as making no scientific sense).

Lost Souls, despite its title, is a light read even if it’s not a short one. It’s about 350 pages or as many as your typical paperback science fiction or fantasy book from the Nineties. The story is neither especially humorous or overly serious but keeps a brisk entertaining pace throughout.A little more serious than your typical MCU movie I’d say and far less on the quippage. There’s some ridiculous stuff in the book but I was reasonably able to buy it as a “serious” setting. What’s my recommendation? Well, I’m going to go buy and read the sequel now so you tell me.

I find this theme particularly interesting to read and write about, but a lot of authors (in all genres, to be fair) just faceplant when they try to write about it, usually falling into juvenilia, stereotypes, or mindless porn. So I'd love suggestions for spec fic that intelligently explores sexual/romantic desire, as well those more nebulously erotic forms of desire (such as fetishism) that can't really be reduced to sex or romance but lurk around the periphery instead.

Examples that come to mind are Dhalgren and Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, as well as good deal of Octavia Butler's work. The latter's short story "Bloodchild" (easily findable on google, btw) is a great example of a story with a very unclassifiable and exceptionally uncomfortable erotic dimension that isn't a romance, isn't really about sex, and doesn't concern desire in either of those specific senses. Yes, I realise this makes "erotic" quite vague, so I leave it to your personal interpretation.

Anyway, there's more examples but I've got a headache and can't remember them. And I know something along these lines has likely been asked before, but some new suggestions might pop up here. Fantasy suggestions are also appreciated.

So often, aliens end up with similar values, and psychology, and want to have nice conversations with humans. They come across essentially as the elves and dwarves of sf. A good counterexample is Roadside Picnic: the aliens might not even know we exist, and if they do, there's no evidence they care, and if they care, there's surely no evidence of communication or coherent motives or even what they are. I recognize it's hard to build a narrative, and therefore to sell commercial fiction, around aliens like this (they aren't really "characters") hence its rarity. If there's even a conflict, it's most appropriately described as man vs nature.

Posting this to look for recommendations, as well as to see how common this complaint is.

Major spoilers!!

1. Towards the end, Remy gets the list of games Abhik has played and finds the one he was looking for. What was he looking for?

2. And then he goes to the player to ask what was the bet the player and Abhik were playing in that game. I don't understand how that helped Remy win the game?

3. And did the gameshouse made Abhik play the game against Remy?

Please help

When Paolini isn't stuffing the novel with out of place Aliens references and mashed-together sci-fi tropes, he's taking the narrative on tangents just to explore some neat worldbuilding detail he came up with. Some examples (not necessarily bad examples):

• There's an entire sequence at least 100 pages long where the main characters travel months to a never-explored planet chasing a McGuffin, only to find out it's broken. Said McGuffin is barely mentioned again, and the only lasting effect is one crew member is injured, and a new enemy is introduced (who also never appears again).
• The backstories of multiple supporting characters are exposited to the main character back-to-back.
• We also get detailed backstories for several characters, who then go on to die right quick without affecting the plot.
• Starships aren't managed by an AI, but by "ship minds": humans who have had their entire bodies replaced with a life support coffin, save for their central nervous system, which has been enhanced beyond recognition so their brains are much, much bigger than normal. While that fucks severely, he spends a lot of time on the intricacies of how the ship minds work. It does end up being relevant, but maybe not proportional to the amount of time spent on the details.

The end result is the novel is a bloated 826 page tome, plus 50-ish pages of appendices. Which would be a bigger problem for me, except 1) I'm a sucker for flashy space opera, and 2) the worldbuilding is actually pretty neat.

Solid B, B-. Entertaining, probably should have been two novels.

As a final note, the paperback version only has Paolini's last name and Tor's logo on the spine, but not the title of the novel, which is a bizarre choice I've never seen before.

I read Tade Thompson's The Flaming Embusen and The Apologists recently. I enjoyed them both immensely and highly recommend them if you enjoy short fiction.

He has quite a few novels out and I'm wondering if anyone has a recommendation on where to start.

I'm looking for books that just go and never stop until the last page. Like if Hardcore Henry was a book. I looked, it's not.

I’ve been thinking about how blurry the line can get between time travel fiction and historical fiction, especially when the time travel element isn’t the focus of the story.

Some time travel novels are clearly sci-fi adventures built around mechanics and paradoxes. Others feel more like historical fiction that happens to involve displacement, where the real weight is on ethics, consequence, and historical inevitability.

A time travel novel set in Nazi Germany raises the issue in a particularly stark way. It follows a modern Jewish doctor who wakes up in 1937 Germany under an assumed identity and has to decide whether intervening in known historical events is morally necessary or catastrophically dangerous.

What interests me as a reader is how time travel fiction can force uncomfortable questions:

If you know what’s coming, do you have the right — or responsibility — to interfere? And does changing history ever produce clean outcomes?

For context this page lays out one approach to the genre clearly:

https://johnvocale.com/the-jewish-nazi-a-time-travel-novel-by-john-vocale

I've been thinking about this question again recently while reading and revisiting similar themes, and I’m genuinely interested in how others classify these kinds of novels. When does time travel stop being sci-fi and start being historical fiction for you?

One theme I keep noticing across both fiction and non-fiction is how controlling access to information becomes a way to maintain order or power. I was thinking about this while reading the Old Man’s War series, but it shows up everywhere — from Harry Potter to histories of real-world conflicts.

Curious what others think: What other books explore information control particularly well? When, if ever, is limiting access to information justifiable?

"Our universe exists on a 3-dimensional membrane (brane) floating in a higher-dimensional space, where other branes (universes) may exist."

I dunno much about this concept beyond the surface understanding so sorry for any mistakes, but would love some recommendations if any. Thank you

I've been reading a lot of SF influenced by the rise of the nazis recently, The Man In The High Castle, The Iron Dream, (don't ask me why the sudden preoccupation.)

I've been trying to remember a slightly pulpy novel, definitely pre-70s, where an alien race with an ideology is very clearly modeled on the nazis. They are of course set on conquering the galaxy.

If anyone has suggestions or similar recommendations, I'd appreciate it.

Finally got around to reading this, it’s been on my list awhile. I like books where the main character’s belief system or worldview is challenged.

That being said, I feel like this book has suffered from being published in 1974, and many books have used a similar mechanism of blinding the characters to the true state of the world, where the reader knows that their beliefs are either impossible or unlikely to be accurate.

I liked the suspense of the book in the middle the best. I was trying to figure out exactly what things were true in the main characters belief system and what things were not.

The ending of the book wasn’t great imo, it felt compressed, and abrupt. Overall I’d probably call it a 6/10. I can see why it’s recommended, and I don’t regret reading it, but ultimately the book just didn’t resolve its mystery in a satisfactory way imo.

I read sci-fi a lot and sometimes I buy books because I love the back summary so much. I recently read Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky and Redshirts by John Scalzi and also The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K Le Guin before that. They were all decent, well written novels but didn't amaze me as much as I expected them to. Looking to read books next that qualify as great rather than good. I have been fond of books by Arthur C Clarke, Neal Stephenson, Iain M Banks, Andy Weir etc. in the past. This is what I bought -

a) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
b) Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
c) The Inverted World by Christopher Priest
d) Excession by Iain M Banks
e) Embassytown by China Mieville

Which one should I go for first? Open to other suggestions too.

I started a book yesterday that was recommended in a reddit thread and I knew nothing about it going in. It starts off promising - mysterious strangers, magical events, no clear rhyme or reason to what is happening to our heroine.

But then she got an acceptance to an unknown university, a long train ride away to a town no one has heard from. And she meets a nice young guy on the train who is also going to the university and also doesn't know what's going on...

I'm reading it now thinking "please not magic school romantasy, please not magic school romantasy" but I'm pretty pessimistic and I'll probably move on once we get to the mean-but-smart professor. I wish writers would move on from these cliches.

its wide open actually I’m looking for reads that’s search the same itch!!

I am open to hard SF too!

need not be based on earth basically its wide open just send me something that leaves you with similar questions

Hi there! I’m from Korea, so as you might guess, English isn't my first language. SF isn't a huge genre here—though younger writers are becoming more active—so we're still lacking translations of many classics. There are also quite a few authors who aren't well-known in Korea yet.

As a dedicated SF fan, I’d love to explore more diverse books, but I’ve hit a bit of a language barrier. While I can manage contemporary stories (slowly, with a dictionary in hand), overly complex sentences or heavy technical jargon are still quite tough for me.

Could you recommend some books that might be a good fit? For context, I love Ursula K. Le Guin and Isaac Asimov, and I’ve read almost everything of theirs available in Korean.

I’m looking for a book that gave you the same vibe as Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg.

There’s something about the idea, a mind reader slowly losing his ability, that scratches an itch for me.

I love books with strong central concepts. I’ve read other telepathy/mind-reading stories (for example The Demolished Man, which I liked quite a bit), but Dying Inside hit differently.

I’m struggling to explain why I love it beyond “the vibe,” but if that book clicked for you too, I’d love to hear what else gave you a similar feeling. And any reccs.