Science Fiction Books > 15 GBP to 19 GBP Science Fiction Books

  Better Than The Movies

Advantages: An almost totally different look at a well know film(s)
Disadvantages: A little slow from what you might be expecting

The legacy of the Planet Of The Apes is well known, the original five films, a TV series, a cartoon and a re imagined film only last year (2001), but you may not be aware of how all this came about, well it was a novel by a French writer and is quite different than what you might expect. ~~Introduction~~ I’ve always had an interest in science fiction, maybe its the ideas - the fact that in science fiction you can create any world, anything you ...
...I remember watching the original Planet of the Apes films - at various times in my younger days, and there came a time when I knew the first film quite well and had seen some of the others and was very interested in how they all fitted together. One thing I love about stories, not just science fiction but all types, is continuity, the underlying storylines, besides the individual stories - the overall story- the running themes. So when I saw the ...

seagulls-lost-horizon 02.04.2002 · Read Full Review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Planet of the Apes - Pierre Boulle

Off Armageddon reef.

Advantages: great read
Disadvantages: nothing

Off Armageddon reef. = A superb sci-fi novel and a gripping read. Humanity has been made almost completely extinct by the ferocious alien race called the Gbaba. They hate humans with a fierce fervour. Hunting them down if one should be found anywhere in the universe. But some humans have escaped. During a battle a few brave souls sacrificed their live to cover up the small escaping ship which fled the massacre just in time. These ...
...unaware of their past. Before landing their robot P.I.C.A. (a kind of body guard) hypnotised them all to forget about gbaba and has instilled in them the hatred of technology. The reason for this is that if the gbaba pick up any traces of technology on a planet they swoop in and destroy everything. However the P.I.C.A. also has another objective, to restore humanities rightful place in the cosmos and it has a clever and cunning plan. It first must ...

MaldivesHoliday 11.02.2009 · Read Full Review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Off Armageddon Reef - David Weber

Chronological Seedlings...

Advantages: It's Wyndham...
Disadvantages: ... many of the t stories end just when they're getting interesting...

The Seeds of Time is a collection of 10 short stories by John Wyndham, author of such sci-fi classics as The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cookoos. In a short foreward he explains his reasons for writing the stories, as a ckind of cross-genre experiment, and his dismay that the science fiction genre in popular terms had become tied up almost exclusively to tales of intergalactic heroes. He also thanks various magazines who were willing to publish ...
...for the mass market. The stories themselves are varied and almost all interesting, with Wydnham's unique style and wry humour coming out in all of them to some degree. First off we have CHRONOCLASM, a kind of time-travel romance, followed by TIME TO REST is a tale of a lone earthman travelling across Mars in search of tranquillity following earth's sudden destruction. Then there is METEOR, an ironic tale of an advanced civilisation's journey to ...

CaptainDisaster 03.07.2006 · Read Full Review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of The Seeds of Time - John Wyndham

The second book, and still going strong

Advantages: Continues the excellent Mars trilogy
Disadvantages: Still a very heavy read, and still not the end!

Green Mars is the second book in the Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) and covers the second phase of the colonisation of the planet. The initial hopes and dreams of the first 100 colonists have been overtaken by the desires of later arrivals, and the governments and corporations of Earth. Now the planet is ripe for exploitation, and this second book covers the years of a planet trying to find a sense of its own purpose and trying to ...
...Still written from the view of the first colonists, the book covers the various groups struggling to shape the destiny of the new planet to their own ideals. This book is just as heavy to read as the previous one, including lots of scientific and political details. Quite hard going, but well worth it. ...

mfcsurvey 19.02.2004 · Read Full Review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson

Great concept but still a dull book.

Advantages: Great idea.
Disadvantages: It was such a dull book I could not even finish reading it.

The concept of this book is brilliant - a world where the Axis powers won the war, Africa is wiped out and North America is divided between Germany and Japan. However, as much as I wanted to like this book and this 'legendary' sci-fi writer, this book was just...dull. Another example of a classic people rave about that just isn't a good read. I tried to battle on with this book only leave it lying in my parent's car not bothering to retrieve it. ...
...writing style and, well, how the novel revolves around men in high places (yes I am aware of the title). I think that if you were reading a story that imagines such an alternate future you'd want a little more perspective from the common person. I respect Dick's status as a writer but this bored me to tears. ...

Renza 17.01.2009 · Read Full Review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful
Review of The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick