Four hundred years in the future society is taken back to the dark ages after a nuclear blast destroys all technology. It is taboo to even talk about the “before” times, even though all that is left of it are a few ruins here or there that most people are too afraid to even visit.
On the Steel Breeze is the follow up to Blue Remembered Earth, although set many years in the future. Chiku Akinya is the daughter of Sunday Akinya, one of the main protagonists from the previous book, and the member of a family that is heralded as the originators of a great space exploration movement. She lives in a world in which everyone is wired into an artificial intelligence net that facilitates (and controls) their lives. As such, Earth and the neighboring space are called The Surveilled World. Chiku underwent a procedure to fracture her genes and consciousness into three, creating two identical sisters. They decided to go their separate ways, and Chiku Yellow was the only one who remained on earth. Read More »
Vampire Syndrome by Daven Anderson is the story of Jack Wendell, a young man with Down Syndrome who is bitten by a rabid vampire. With this bite, Jack is yanked out of his comfortable world and thrown into the battle between human vampires and the alien vampire species known as Pures. The human vampires scoff at the way popular fiction portrays them, since they are not the undead, they can eat anything they want, and they cannot fly or levitate. They do, however, have superhuman Read More »
Life has been going pretty well for telepath and consultant to the police, Adam Ward. He and Isabella Cherabino, his work partner he has long been in love with, have been dating for four months. Vacant, book four in the superb Mindspace series, opens with the couple attending a rock concert (a very different experience for Adam, given the cacophony of minds all around him), and they leave the venue satisfied and happy. The good feelings quickly evaporate when the two come upon a very aggressive t-shirt vendor and his friend a few streets down from the arena, and a brief scuffle ensues, during which Isabella identifies herself as a police officer, and shortly thereafter she and Adam leave. Read More »
Colonization of a Red Dwarf star planet could be the answer to mankind’s search for habitable planets in the universe. The atmosphere shows it is habitable, but will humanity be able to survive long-term on such a planet? Only time will tell. But to find out requires volunteers, most of whom are not so willing. Read More »
Ashley Myers knows that she is living a life that is not her own. As a CIA agent, she was sent to the town of Wayward Pines looking for other agents who had gone missing. That is the last she remembers about her previous life. Frozen for over one thousand years, she is revived and told she had been in a car accident. Her “husband” and “children” are people she has no memory of. Her past life is what she remembers, but there is no escape. Read More »
Man’s drive to be God-like has led to almost complete extinction of the human race. Whether it was scientific curiosity, greed or power-driven, the experiments with mixing human DNA, insect DNA and animal DNA led to a war that humanity lost. Sanctuary, a small enclave of human survivors, still exists in a foreboding desert wasteland waiting for the day that their creations, the Manti, come to destroy them. It is a precarious existence, but Sanctuary is devoted to retaining as much human knowledge as possible. Read More »
When Alice Davenport’s father dies, her perfect childhood comes to an abrupt end as she and her mother are forced to move. When her mother is around, which is not often, she does not pay much attention to Alice, so Alice learns to take care of herself. One day, Alice wakes up to find that her mother has not come home and that horrific storms have left London flooded. Read More »
Farah lives in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone has roles. With most plant life being considered poisonous as a result of chemical warfare, most people live in villages set up in the desert. At Farah’s age, everyone has a job that is supposed to help them choose their eventual role in the village. Farah is a nightwatcher, assigned to a tower as a look-out to keep her people safe from the undergrounders-pirates who destroy villages and take what they want, disregarding the rules set in place to keep peace between the villages. Read More »
A night spent in the bottle attempting to drown her sorrows leads gunrunner and Diviner Ophelia Leoni to an explosive one night-stand. Unfortunately, on arriving home she also learns that she is to be married to the prince of Hansarda. Marriage not being in her plans, Ophelia turns to her cards and is disappointed to see that Hansarda is indeed in her future. Ophelia is even more distraught when the prince’s emissary arrives and turns out to be the gorgeous man she had just spent the night with. Read More »
Awesome Jones appears to be an average man, living an average life just going through the daily routine. Lona Chang also appears to be living a very ordinary life. One day the office building Awesome works in is flooded and everyone is let go as the company moves its office away from the city. Read More »
**Though no spoilers of events that happen in this section of the serial novel will be given in this review, please be aware that references will be made to previous sections.**
The Kraken King and the Greatest Adventure, the exciting conclusion to the entertaining serial novel, begins with Zenobia at Ariq’s bedside, waiting for him to wake up during his recuperation from the two arrows he had been shot with while protecting her during their escape for the Empress’s guards. In her very-welcome conversation with her brother, Archimedes, Zenobi confirms her love for Ariq right before he awakens. Read More »
The superb The Kraken King and the Empress’s Eyes, part seven of the serial novel, begins with Zenobia’s longer-than-usual letter to her brother, describing the sights she witnessed upon her entry into the Living City and her feelings and fears in regards to Ariq. Unlike her letter, Zenobia finds herself displeased with her current story, and in a bit of a bad mood because of it. While discussing future plans with Mara, an airship arrives, bringing Lady Nagomachi, captain of the empress’s Imperial Guard, there to “replace” a few of the Empress’s Eyes (her spying machines). Read More »
**Though no spoilers of events that happen in this section of the serial novel will be given in this review, please be aware that references will be made to previous sections.**
In part six of the Kraken King serial novel, Zenobia and Ariq make their way to the Red City so Ariq may petition the Empress to resist attacking his country, and to prevent further escalation of war. In order to enter the city from outside, visitors must wear the required gas masks to ensure that if they have been infected with the zombie disease they will not spread it to those who live within the city. Read More »
**Though no spoilers of events that happen in this section of the serial novel will be given in this review, please be aware that references will be made to previous sections.**
With Zenobia and Ariq separated in the plan to get Ariq to give up the location of the devastating Skybreaker machine, both do their best to escape their respective situations. Ariq determines he must get back to Zenobia, whom he refers to as his wife, but she worries that since she was moved from an airship to an iron ship (a boat), Ariq will have no idea where to look for her. Read More »
One year after the event of Alien Research, American-Centurion is still healing, trying to recover all of the data lost when Chernobog hacked them, and figure out what is wrong with the Imagers. What is worse and so completely typical, Jeff Martini has been tapped for the Vice Presidential nomination. While the very idea terrifies Kitty, she realizes what everyone around her already knows-the other ticket winning would be indefinitely scarier. Read More »
**Though no spoilers of events that happen in this section of the serial novel will be given in this review, please be aware that references will be made to previous sections.**
Part four of the serial novel begins with Zenobia and Ariq having come to more of an understanding of one another on their way to deliver Helene, Zenobia’s friend, to her husband, an ambassador. Zenobia marvels at the wonders of the Red City and its surroundings as the airship makes its approach. Read More »
**Though no spoilers of events that happen in this section of the serial novel will be given in this review, please be aware that references will be made to previous sections.**
After their arrival in the town of the smuggler’s den that will serve as their base while Ariq and his men search the surrounding area for clues about the marauders, Ariq pays a visit to the Twins, a very unusual pair of siblings whose description will be best appreciated when read personally rather than mentioned here. Read More »
**Though no spoilers of events that happen in this section of the serial novel will be given in this review, please be aware that references will be made to previous sections.**
Still smarting over the comments Mara told her she overheard between Ariq and his brother, Taka, in part two of the Kraken King, Zenobia continues to give Ariq a bit of a cold shoulder. Unfortunately, since the pregnant Helene really wishes to get to her husband in the Red City as quickly as possible, Zenobia decides to approach Ariq to see what other arrangements can be made to get the two women to the other side of Australia sooner rather than later. Read More »
Tris and Tobias are struggling to deal with the fact that everything they thought was the truth was not. Life outside the city is not what they have been led to believe their entire lives, and the city itself is the biggest lie of all. Divergents are the genetically pure, not the pariahs that the factions have labeled them, and the factions are actually the damaged. Read More »
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