A*

NOTE - the most recent books I have read are listed near the top of each section below.

The novel is written with very elegant prose, in a rather dense style. There are multiple plot lines which can be a bit challenging. In the end, the effort is quite worthwhile. After reading this book and The Wreck of the River of Stars, I now hold Michael Flynn in the highest regard.

This is another great "space opera" from Alastair Reynolds. It kept me enthralled.

This is another VERY BIG novel with tons of VERY BIG ideas. Suffice it to say that this is very well done, and everything is tied up at the end very neatly.

It was a very interesting read, and I found the resolution at the end quite satisfying. After the disaster of trying to read the Baroque Cycle (which I hated), I loved Anathem.

This story is simply packed with information - I haven't even gotten to the various conflicts with the aliens. This is one of the best hard SF stories I have read in years. It has a lengthy bibliography with notes and references!

In the end, the various threads of this story converge to a satisfying conclusion. With this novel, I have become an ardent admirer of Alastair Reynolds.

A+

The most impressive part of this collection of three novels is the second one, Red Prophet. It retells some events from the point of view of an Indian who also has magical powers. Many times I was quite literally blown away by what the retelling revealed.

This is a complex story with lots of interconnecting threads. The character development and writing are both quite well done.

The prose in this book is beautiful, and the ideas are simply amazing. I think it is Ian McDonald's best work.

This tells the story of a European priest / doctor who tries to solve a mystery related to the Borderers. The prose is extremely well written. It gives a clear picture of the very different lives of the Borderers, and the Europeans. 

NOTE - the most recent books I have read are listed near the top of each section below.

It started off slowly, and dragged at times. There were quite a few interesting plot twists in the second half - I was very happy to read this.

If you played video games back in the 80s and 90s, then you will definitely enjoy reading this. There are lots of references to events, culture and video games of those eras. I found this to be a very interesting story, and it comes to a very satisfying conclusion.

There are two really frightening / unsettling (good) stories in here: Missile Gap (novella) and A Colder War. This was quite entertaining reading, and a nice introduction to one of my favorite authors.

I read the final Xenolinguists short story in one of my science fiction monthly magazines. Somehow I had completely missed reading anything by this author. I am glad I got the rest of the stories - light reading, lots of interesting characters and pretty entertaining.

This advanced technology has quite an impact on a remote village that is quite backward. The story focuses mostly on the individual members of the village, and their plight. It is very well written.

This is more of a sci-fi adventure novel, with swashbucking action and romance. I enjoyed it a lot.

The Rollback is paid for by a benefactor, who hopes Sarah lives long enough to decode another message. Unfortunately, the process works for her husband but fails for Sarah. There is not much else in the way of science fiction here, but this is a touching story of how the couple deal with the aftermath.

This is another example of why I love Ian McDonald's work. This was a fun read, even if it had a few TOO many characters for me.

This is one of the more "WAY out there" books I have read in the last ten years. It is very well written and I enjoyed the trip immensely.

This is a collection of stories which fill in some of the gaps between the prior books. These are quite enjoyable, but I think Reynolds' novels are more satisfying.

This book proceeds at a breakneck pace, and is very carefully plotted. I read it over two days, and it was very hard to put down. This is another great work by Alastair Reynolds, and I look forward to reading more!

The other part occurs in the past, and constitutes about 3/4 of the novel. It describes how the aliens become part of the culture of Eifelheim. This part is very finely written, and has an impressive feel of veracity about it.

I liked the writing style here. The author keeps taking things one step further, and shows good creativity. This was well written, and I really enjoyed reading it.

There are plenty of BIG ideas scattered throughout. One is that the police use a virtual reality based system called CopSpace to keep track of everything. Everything they see, hear and do is recorded through video feeds transmitted via their headsets.

It is hard to describe the sheer scope of what happens. You start with a couple, and they have a child named Amber. Amber leaves the solar system in a tiny spaceship, and her descendants eventually return. In between are several encounters with alien races. I can't quite describe the effect of this book, so I'll steal a quote from an Amazon review:
"Cory Doctorow said it best when he said something like 'makes hallucinogens obsolete'. This book is brain meltingly lovely."

Even though this sounds a lot like other McDevitt novels, I found it quite entertaining.

A

A

The key idea is that "real death" has been conquered - people can have their memories and persona implanted into new bodies. This book is full of other great ideas, which makes it really fascinating.
WARNING - this novel has numerous scenes of  EXTREME VIOLENCE. Not for the faint of heart! 

A

A

There are four major sections to the novel, and each is nicely crafted. The character development is really well done.

Towards the end, I began to wonder where this was all going to end. Not to worry, the author ties things up VERY neatly.

It is hard to categorize most of these stories. Based on this collection, I look forward to reading more of his work.

The character development is excellent. Some plot pieces seem a bit forced, but this was REALLY  fun to read.

The character development is excellent. I thought the portrayal of the alien races were very convincing.

Turquoise Days is about the Pattern Jugglers, who inhabit the ocean on the planet Turquoise. Simply learning about them is quite interesting. Then a ship from another world arrives, and things get complicated.

This is a slightly less complex story than Perdido Street Station. The character development and writing are both quite well done.

The ending did not completely satisfy me. I felt there were certain major issues left unresolved. 

You may feel lost if you haven't read the prior novel. This novel also continues the story line of Chasm City, so you should also read that before starting on this one. Once again, there are lots of fascinating ideas and characters, which are developed extremely well.

A

NOTE - the most recent books I have read are listed near the top of each section below.

I found this really easy read. Maybe a bit too easy - many of the chapters are only two pages long. In the end, I really enjoyed it.

I felt a bit disappointed in the resolution of this book. In addition, it did not have the breadth of vision of McAuley's other works.

My level of interest in this book was very high in the middle - but it definitely went down towards the end. I just got bored with the endless internal dialogs of the various characters.

This novel tries to cover a bit too much ground. At times, there are fast paced action sequences, mixed in with some slow stretches of time. All in all, it was an interesting read. I enjoyed the entire concept of the "pod composite".

The focus of the novel is diplomacy between Earth and aliens, and trying to prevent the aliens from enslaving the human race. As usual, the real danger is not the aliens - it is the humans who sympathize with the aliens! Scalzi has quite a few interesting ideas here, but this is mostly just for fun.

There are some really interesting ideas here, but it develops rather slowly. I was actually disappointed when I got to the end - it felt a bit anti-climactic.

I found this an interesting read, but time seemed to drag by slowly. I really did want to know how everything tied together, and I was satisfied with the wrap-up at the end.

But this is an interesting story, with just a few major characters. I really enjoyed the detailed discussion / analysis of the society of the Hominids.

The writing for about the first 50 pages of this book lacks the deft touch that Scalzi has - it seems as if someone else wrote it! Overall, this book was well written, but a bit less impressive than the first book.

Yes, it is a bit too familiar. It is fairly well done, and an entertaining read.

A-

This book is chock full of really BIG ideas. I did not find it as compelling as his other work. The story slowed down a lot in the middle, but it did improve towards the end.

I felt the story could have been better. It seems overly constrained since the entire story takes place within two weeks.

A-

This is a less complex story than Perdido Street Station. The character development and writing are both quite well done. I found the conclusion to be a bit illogical, but it was still a fascinating story.

NOTE - the most recent books I have read are listed near the top of each section below.

But this is a fairly interesting story, which was made into a movie in 2014. The plot and character development kept me reading, but it started to fade about 3/4 of the way through. Then it was clear that things were being set up for the next book in the series - which I will NOT read.

I bought this on a whim, but I should not have. It barely held my interest.

The other story is about the survivors of an expedition from Earth to the planet Stygia. I found this story to be far more interesting than the first one!

Somehow the people on the ship survive the trip, and return to their home planet. In spite of traveling many light years, they find that the people they once knew are still alive. Apparently their ship has the ability to travel faster than light, but this is only an assumption - it is not explained.

I don't feel that this third part was up to the standards of the earlier two novels. About half of the novel is interesting, but things tend to drag in the middle of the book. I also did not like the way some of the plot points were resolved.

WARNING -  EXTREME VIOLENCE.
Not for the faint of heart! 

This one is so subtle that it seems uninteresting. It is supposedly a Culture novel, but told from the point of view of the less developed race. Various events happen, but are never explained beyond some "implied magic".