This is a four-in-one of a series of James Blish novels. They’re all in the same universe, but only get truly related to each other later. The first book, They Shall Have Stars, takes place in an early twenty-first century[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Posts Tagged science fiction
The second book of Vatta’s War finally gets to the ‘war’. Things take a very violent turn at the start, and everything follows on for that. We get a little bit of the opposing viewpoint near the beginning, but nothing[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Gerrold writes an interesting story that feels a bit between a Star Trek story and a regular SF offering of it’s age. I think part of that is that it’s a ‘big dumb object’ story, with humans encountering a large[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I’m glad I came to the later part of Duane’s Rihannsu series late, as there was a six-year publication gap between the middle part (the previous pair of books) and this one, with it picking up just as things get[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Part two of Duane’s novel of the Rihannsu Empire picks up where the previous left off naturally enough. The rest of Star Fleet’s task force is finally on hand for tense negotiations as events continue to spiral out of control[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Published thirteen years after The Romulan Way, it takes place a couple of months after that novel. There’s a lot effectively unsettled after that, and this book picks up on all the threads, and even brings in K’s’t’lk from her[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Duane’s second Romulan (excuse me: Rihannsu) novel is also, or maybe more of, a follow up to Spock’s World. Like that book, which dived into the history of the most prominent member of the Federation after Earth, every other chapter[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The professional fan fiction of Star Trek novels are useful for finding new authors, and the biggest find I’ve ever had from them is Diane Duane, who had written many very good books outside that universe. This is where I[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
A Fire Upon the Deep is an important novel that SF fans really should read. I think, like Niven’s Ringworld, it’s a flawed book with really good ideas. Like Ringworld, it also has a much better sequel. The original book[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
David Weber is a good author with a few glaring weaknesses. Sadly, all of that is readily apparent in this novel. The basic setup is that humanity gets to the stars, runs into an alien race apparently intent on wiping[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…