The Shattering Peace
{4.5/5} “‘The Conclave citizens have some latent bigotries to work out.’ ‘They don’t like humans?’ ‘No one likes humans,’ Ran said. ‘This is well-known.’” The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi, published in 2025 Humans and aliens are at peace. But part of the deal between Earth, the Colonial Union, and the Conclave was that there […]
Star Trek: Discovery — Die Standing
{4.5/5} “The people of this continuum were different from the residents of hers; many, she still thought, were much inferior. But a current of hope ran through this universe, encouraging lightweights to seek responsibility — and giving those with dark pasts a shot at something other than incarceration.” Star Trek: Discovery — Die Standing by […]
The Left Hand of Darkness
{5/5} “He brings from his people offers of communication, trade, treaty, and alliance, nothing else. He came alone, without arms or defense, with nothing but a communicating device, and his ship, which he allowed us to examine completely. He is not to be feared, I think. Yet he brings the end of Kingdom and Commensalities […]
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Long Night
{4.5/5} “If anyone else identified it, they would have a riot on their hands. So Dax decided to create one of her own. ‘Drinks on the house!’ she shouted. ‘Rom will take orders.’ A huge cheer went up and extended to the farthest reaches of the bar.” Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — The Long […]
Uprooted
{5/5} “A haze of smoke was drifting across my eyes, the sudden crackle of fire. I turned towards the trunk, and Sarkan was there, too, caught in the tree with silver bark trying to devour him, saying, ‘Now, Agnieszka,’” while fire-heart glowed red between his fingers. Instinctively, I half-reached my hand towards him, remembering dread […]
Star Trek: Voyager — The Nanotech War
{4.5/5} “It dawned on Tom that whenever the Chiar underwent an emotional shift, their scent changed as well… Nylo… had also felt something when Zedrel had announced that Tom was going to be Zedrel’s attendant. Was it anger? Jealousy? Relief? Tom didn’t know. But ability to smell his captors’ emotions had to be an advantage. […]
Shroud
{5/5} “I suspected that ‘appropriate attitudes’ included extreme expendability. The dregs of the Garveneer’s slumbering human cargo, not woken yet because nobody had any use for them. People desperate enough to earn some basic wage-worth that they’d volunteer for something as mad as going down to Shroud. A monstrous project which, I can only stress, […]
Not Till We Are Lost
{4.5/5} “We’d deciphered the texts from the administrative station, which were essentially identical to internet RFCs. A quick test netted us local star maps. Now we would be able to converse via SCUT when we needed to. I did another test, asking the station if there were any biological entities on-site we could talk to. […]
Infinite Archive
{4.5/5} “‘Who would kill me? I’m a wonderful person!’ She looked at him flatly. ‘Really. You don’t think any author, editor, spouse, guy you cut off in traffic, person you were mean to… in college, none of them would have motive? Do you know what motive means? I’m starting to think you don’t even read […]
Star Trek: Enterprise — Daedalus’s Children
{4.5/5} “The captain shook his head, watching the big ship draw closer. Docking wasn’t the way he would have described what was happening. It was more like they were being swallowed whole. Eaten for breakfast.” Star Trek: Enterprise — Daedalus’s Children by Dave Stern, published in 2004 Captain Archer has been imprisoned along with the […]