Recent Science Fiction Book Reviews

Here are some of the more recent books I've read which I've actually liked and managed to get past the first chapter. That does seem to be my problem nowadays, that if I don't like a book then I tend to stop reading. Below are some of the books that have managed to defeat my legendary short attention span. Obviously this doesn't mean the books that haven't are awful, (and it wouldn't be fair to judge them on the first chapter anyway) but that simply I've got to the point where I know what I like and don't force myself to read what I don't.


Rosewater by Tade Thompson

A Complex Tapestry Of A Story, Beautifully Realised

A complex story, the lead character's experiences recounted from various points in his history told in parallel. As the narrative unfolds events happen in careful and detailed increments including psychic powers related to alien microbes, love, desire, and a deadly mystery that requires solving. By the end of the book I'm not sure the mystery is solved, but as there are two more books to go, I imagine the mystery will only deepen before an answer is forthcoming. This book is an experience, so go ahead, experience it.

Planetfall by Emma Newman


City At The Edge Of The World

It's a book about pain, grief, lies, cowardice and self acceptance. A terrible wrong that cannot be taken back. The writing pulls you in as you slowly get to know the narrator and understand the depths of their love and suffering that leads to a surprise ending I won't ruin here.



Beneath The World, a Sea by Chris Beckett


What Lies Beneath? 

For the 'good' policeman Ben Ronson, tasked with an impossible job in a jungle environment like nothing else on Earth, all his self-editing, his need to be a paragon of officialdom, is peeled away layer by layer by the mind bending effects of the almost alien environment and its human and non human inhabitants.

It's a slow burn and I'm still thinking about it, to be honest. But I always enjoy the ones that make me think the most.



Sea Of Rust by C. Robert Cargill


War Of The AI's

There is this idea that the singularity will create a perfect world because the machines will do a much better job of running it than we ever can. Not so with 'Sea Of Rust' because the machines inherit all that is good and bad from humanity in a desperate war for the survival of the individual. There is love, hate, regret but most of all desperate people (albeit robots) doing desperate thing just so they can keep hanging onto life by their (figuratively speaking) fingernails. Compulsive reading from beginning to end, it will definitely not be the same in a hundred years time.