The Terraformers
{5/5} “The ancient order of environmental engineers and first responders traced their lineage all the way back to the Farm Revolutions that ended the Anthropocene on Earth, and started the calendar system people still used today. According to old Handbook lore, the Trickster Squad — Sky, Beaver, Muskrat, and Wasakeejack — founded the Environmental Rescue […]
Behold the Ape
{4.5/5} “Somehow Isaac got a script into the hands of H.G. Wells himself, who wrote back, ‘…Because you’re aiming to distress Nigel and Desmond Rowen, I’ll see you the rights for a pittance — my way of thumbing my nose at their grandfather, who routinely tormented my old teacher, Thomas Henry Huxley. However, you must […]
Acts of Violet
{4.5/5} “I’ve been immersed in the purgatory of my sister’s disappearance for the last decade. I think about her every… day. But since I prefer to avoid big emotional displays, I get criticized for not caring enough about her absence (mostly by people I don’t know, sometimes by the one I gave birth to). It’s […]
Chaos Terminal
{4.5/5} “She had been served a plate of green leafy vegetables and was glad to finally have a salad, only to realize the greens were a shield so that the real, caterpillar-like creatures, would feel safe and not try to run off the plate immediately. When Mallory had tried to eat the greens, the waitstaff […]
Bookshops & Bonedust
{4.5/5} “‘That instant when you know that someone sees the same thing you see.’ Viv was surprised when Maylee nodded, shifting to meet Fern’s gaze squarely. ‘When they see you. When you know that at least right then, you’re really not alone. Somebody else feels exactly what you do. Or you hope so, anyway.’” Bookshops […]
Translation State
{4.5/5} “The treaty makes no explicit exception for Presger Translators. But there is a very definite unofficial exception. Presger Translators are different. They’re not just humans who maybe have spent some time with aliens.” Translation State by Ann Leckie, published in 2023 When Enae’s grandmother dies she doesn’t expect to inherit anything, even though she […]
Mind Over Ship
{4.5/5} “And her Leena’s share in the action… topped four figures. And that meant that her Leena had in one afternoon earned Mary more than she used to earn in a whole year working at Applied People. It was astounding. It was unreal. Capitalism was a marvel, as long as you were a capitalist.” Mind […]
Robot, Empire & Foundation
This is an update to this list. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series is one of my favourites. I read the 7 books he wrote in the series many years ago. I’ve now reread them, plus the books that others wrote in the series. Asimov eventually connected his Foundation stories with the Galactic Empire series and the […]
I, Robot: To Preserve
{4.5/5} “If only the Frankenstein Complex did not exist… Her mind was filled with an array of concepts. The tasks robots could perform seemed infinite, and she wanted to become a part of that astounding, robot-filled future. More so than just another psychiatrist mucking around in the human brain.” I, Robot: To Preserve by Mickey […]
Star Trek: Burning Dreams
{4.5/5} “When, the Magistrate wondered, had they… ceased to think of the two human subjects as, well, subjects, as creatures, which was to say inferiors, and begun to think of them as co-equal? It was a puzzlement. Much of the Talosians’ certainty about what they were doing and why had been challenged by the arrival […]