The Human Division
{4.5/5} “If things continue as they are, based on historical CDF fatality rates, in three years we’ll no longer have sufficient forces to defend our colonies from predation and genocidal agression by other races… From there, our best estimate is that the Colonial Union as a political entity collapses within five to eight years. Without […]
Zoe’s Tale
{4.5/5} “Actually, Enzo had a perfectly good reason to be utterly terrified of Hickory and Dickory, who were already vaguely suspicious of him and would happily cycle him out an airlock if he did anything stupid with me. But there was no reason to let him know that yet. Good rule of thumb: When your […]
The Last Colony
{4.5/5} “Humans — the few who knew the story anyway, — naturally regarded Boutin as a traitor, a man whose plan to topple the Colonial Union would have caused the slaughter of billions of humans. The Obin equally and naturally regarded him as one of their great racial heroes, a Prometheus figure who gave them […]
The Ghost Brigades
{4.5/5} “On the fourth day the members of the 8th asked for tried to tell each other jokes they found on the Phoenix data net, and mostly failed to make them work; by the time their BrainPals unpacked the context of the joke, it was no longer funny. Only Sarah Pauling seemed to be laughing […]
Star Trek: Devil’s Bargain
{4.5/5} “A Vesbian must not be away from the local ecology for more than a few weeks. If one of us is, he or she will develop a rapid autoimmune collapse that will bring on death within days… We need the biosphere of this world. We are genetically engineered to need it, and this process […]
Star Trek: In the Name of Honor
{4.5/5} “‘The legend of Kahless,’ Koloth continued, ‘is the foundation upon which the Empire stands. Without his guidance, we are doomed to a fate of self-destruction. For a time, that was forgotten by many Klingons. Other, selfish concerns blinded us to Kahless’ teachings, but that is beginning to change.’” Star Trek: In the Name of […]
Old Twentieth
{4.5/5} “I was pretty certain I wouldn’t be coming back. Part of that might be my connection with, obsession with, Old Twentieth, when everybody’s life was a rainbow of accomplishments and failures, grounded in the peace of darkness at either end. Another part was simply practical. The trip was a quixotic leap into the unknown…” […]
Among Others
{4.5/5} “It’s like if you snapped your fingers and produced a rose but it was because someone on an aeroplane had dropped a rose at just the right time for it to land in your hand. There was a real person and a real aeroplane and a real rose, but that doesn’t mean the reason […]
Authors you can’t go wrong with, part 6
This list continues from part 5. It contains 60 authors, and I’m going to call it done for now. Ray Bradbury Bradbury’s masterpiece is a linked sequence of stories set on Mars, where humans are colonizing despite the Martian inhabitants. Masterpiece The Martian Chronicles Great book Fahrenheit 451 Good book Dandelion Wine David Brin Both […]
Authors you can’t go wrong with, part 5
This list continues from part 4. Jeanne Cavelos In addition to writing some brilliant Babylon 5 novels, Cavelos is also the founder of the Odyssey writing workshop. Masterpieces Babylon 5 The Passing of the Techno-Mages — Casting Shadows The Passing of the Techno-Mages –Summoning Light The Passing of the Techno-Mages –Invoking Darkness Good book Babylon […]