Science Fiction Books > I Science Fiction Books

Inversions (Culture gone medieval)

Advantages: Another fresh view of Culture
Disadvantages: Not the book for somone starting Culture series

Iain M Banks Inversions is another page-turner in the great Culture series. A general description of Culture is that an Utopian, post-scarcity (limitless resources) alien society, lead/controlled by powerful Als. The view of Culture is that less-advanced societies would benefit from their influence, thus the series describes the interaction between Culture and other civilizations. Inversions continues on that similar theme but in a complete different ...
...and packed full of complex, fallible characters. The two plotline follows Special Circumstances agents in their widely different missions. Unfortunately I can't make an unbiased opinion on whether this a good book to start on Iain M Banks' Culture series. I would recommend to start the series with The Player of Games or Consider Phlebas. Both would provide a good background to Culture in general and Special Circumstances in particular. ...

blueonred 01.07.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Inversions - Iain M. Banks

Iron Sunrise

Advantages: great read
Disadvantages: nothing

Iron sunrise This book follows on from 'Singularity Sky' which introduce some but not all of the characters in THIS book. Five years ago someone or some planet attacked the planets in the star system known as Moscow causing billions to die. In retaliation Moscow sent its ships to destroy New Dresden who where the prime suspects. The ships must be stopped or not only lives in that galaxy but the fabric of space could be damaged. Now we ...
...some extent controls the movements of all human. It has warned humanity everywhere that it will act if provoked and it is close to that point right now. The Escheton has its secret agents everywhere watching everything. The attack ships are coming but the codes to stop them are known to only a few select people and those people are slowly being assassinated by invisible assassins. The clock is ticking and the Escheton are poised but do they have ...

MaldivesHoliday 10.02.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Iron Sunrise - Charles Stross

the future's here, just unevenly distributed

Advantages: good plot, intelligently written
Disadvantages: perhaps a bit more character development work would have been better

Idoru is the second book of what has been dubbed Gibson's cyberpunk "Bridge" trilogy comprising of Virtual Light, Idoru and All Tomorrow's Parties. Picking up about a year or so after the events in Virtual Light, the novel starts by following Colin Laney - a specialist who can intuitively find patterns of meaning within masses of inter-relating data. He is offered work through his acquaintance Rydell (one of the main characters from Virtual Light) ...
...Rez, a massive pop star from the band Lo/Rez, who has announced that he intends to marry Rei Toei, a Japanese computer-generated holographic female Idol Singer (or "Idoru"). The novel takes the familiar (but effective) form of following not only Laney, but also the adventures of another character - Chia McKenzie, a young fan of Lo/Rez who has flown from the US to Japan to investigate the rumours of Rez's intended marriage on behalf of the local ...

lazcorp 16.10.2004 · Read full review
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Review of Idoru - William Gibson

This is not Alice's World

Advantages: An entertaining Military science fiction story.
Disadvantages: Definately not for everybody

...local population. An investigation turned into a full scale alien invasion with the Army, Police and local citizens loosing badly to some weird aliens. So briefly starts the latest book from John Ringo. He burst like a bomb himself on the unprepared world in 2000, and has not looked back since. He writes a good enthralling military hi-Tec adventure type of story. The action in this one starts right at page one and has not let up since. The story ...
...seen and ideas similar have cropped up with other writers as to the style of the aliens. The idea of biological weapons is in itself not knew. We tend to think of germs but that may not be the only type of biology available. What about modified animals and peoples. This idea itself has been also used by other writers. (H Harrison 'Eden' books) The quantum theory of a multiverse is not new either but is now appearing in more works. If you really ...

Coloneljohn 13.11.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Into the Looking Glass - John Ringo

Scientific, futuristic, frighteningly prophetic

Advantages: Scientific, futuristic, frighteningly prophetic
Disadvantages: none

Asimov’s pallet crafts a world of fantasy. The scientific undertones providing a girder like realism upon which the skin of fiction is affixed. The composer, crafting his vision of art in lettering, leads us ever further into the glorious world of science fiction. As implied I would recommend any work of Isaac Asimov to the reader. But be careful the human eyelid will only stretch so far. I Robot I Robot is a series of short stories which evolve ...
...robot is suitable only as a child’s toy, but as the complexity of these artificial beings increase so does the intricacy of the story lines. The three laws of robotics* govern the robots behavioral pattern and Asimov plays beautifully within the confines of these three unbreakable rules to give us a book of outstanding grace that builds into a prophetic, yet chilling vision of the future. This book is a must for all science fiction fans * The ...

Biogenesis 08.05.2003 · Read full review
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Review of I, Robot - Isaac Asimov