Category: reviews

Since I became the science fiction book reviewer for InterGalactic Medicine Show, publishers have been kind enough to send me books to review. So far, I haven’t been able to review the books I’ve been sent, mostly because they are either (a) not science fiction; or (b) they are science fiction, but are Book n in a series, where n > 1. I can’t possibly go back and read books 1 through n-1 prior to reading book n. And so while I have accumulated a nice little stack, I have stuck to books that seem interesting to me–which at this stage are stand-alone novels, anthologies or story collections.

That said, I promised in an earlier post to list the books I receive once each month. I neglected to do this for August, so here are the books that I received in August:

• Fate of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner (TOR)
• The Unincorporated Future by Dani Kollin & Eytan Kollin (TOR)
• Chasing Spirits: The Building of Ghost Adventure Crew by Nick Groff (with Jeff Belanger) (NAL)

That’t it for August. I’ve already received at least one book for this month, but I’ll list it in the next post.

And a fews hints that will help increase the likelihood that I will review a book:

• It should be clearly science fiction (not fantasy, not horror).
• It should be a stand-alone novel, or an anthology, or short story collection.

One final note: I already have the books I will be reviewing for my November column (and I’m very excited about both of them). That means the next “open” month at the moment is January 2013.

Stephen King’s most recent book, 11/22/63, is a time-travel adventure about a man from 2011 who uses a time “bubble” to attempt to prevent the Kennedy assassination. Writing a book  like this is a bold move on the part of Mr. King. In the science fiction realm, time-travel stories are rampant and can easily become cliched and overdone. Furthermore, the Kennedy assassination is a kind of Grand Central Station for time travelers in fiction. It has been done in stories, books and television. So combining the two yet again was something of a risk. But after reading 11/22/63 it was a risk that I am grateful that Stephen King decided to take. The book is an outstanding example of what can be achieved when two over-used story lines are looked at with fresh eyes and a fresh approach. I loved the book from start to finish and most of the time had difficulty putting it down.

The story is told from the point of view of Jake Epping. Jake is a teacher in Maine. His friend, Al Templeton, who runs the local burger joint, lets him in on a little secret. In the back of the burger joint is a portal into 1958. It is a little hard for Jake to accept until he tries the portal for himself. Al has been back to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination, but is sick with cancer and passes the torch to Jake. Before Jake can try to prevent the Kennedy assassination, he first needs to prove to himself that the past can be changed and affect the future. This little side quest takes Jake on an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride through familiar territory: Derry, Maine, in 1958. After his hard fought success, he returns to 2011 and decides to take on the mission to prevent the Kennedy assassination. This means living in the past for 5 years. And meeting someone special and falling in love. I won’t give away the ending but it is equally as thrilling as the rest of the book.

Read more

I finished reading A Storm of Swords at 12:05am this morning and thought that the intervening sleep would help me write a cogent and sensible review of the book, but as of this morning, I’m still left feeling rather breathless by everything that happened, especially towards the end. The book is so long, with so many character and events that it seems to be impossible to do a traditional review of it (at least to me) and so instead, I’ll leave you with some general impressions from the book. There may be some spoilers herein so proceed with caution.

• First, I loved it. It took me a long time to read it, not because the book was 1200 pages but because I had many other things going on at the same time. Nevertheless, the book engrossed me, hooked me and made it very hard to let go. The last four or five nights I went to bed early and then spent the next 3-4 hours reading simply because I couldn’t put the book down and had to find out what happened next.
• There were around a dozen view point characters in the book. Two in particular impressed me this time around. The first was Jaime Lannister. It was fascinating to get into the head of a character who we’ve seen only through other people’s eyes for the first two books. It was interesting to learn his motivations, and to learn that despite what we might have heard of him, he might not be such a bad guy after all. He had an impressive transformation in this book, making his escape with Brinne all the way back to King’s Landing. He lost something along the way, but he gained much more in my view. Without that long road back home, he might not have been able to stand up to his sister and father in defense of his brother the way he did.
  Read more