Black Sheep (Flight of the Javelin Book 1) by Rachel Aukes

Format: Kindle
Rating:  5 Stars
Reviewer: Laurel

Be careful going out on a colony ship – you never know what you may find in the next quadrant over.

Having read the Fringe series, I couldn’t wait to pick this one up, especially as it stars Throttle. And my eagerness to read it was well rewarded. This book is a lot of fun, with plenty of danger and action. It was really good to get to know Throttle better and see her in action, leading her crew and caring for her colonists.

Oi, but Ms Aukes is a tricksy one! I cannot wait for the next book to come out.

Palimpsest by Charles Stross

Format: Hardcover
Rating:  5 Stars
Reviewer: Laurel

Palimpsest. Noun. a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text. (link)

Stasis. Noun. a state or condition in which there is no action or progress. (link)

Agent Pierce is a member of Stasis, an organisation of time travellers who have tasked themselves with the preservation of humanity and the recording of humanity’s history. His initiation into Stasis was to murder his grandfather – effectively writing himself out of the history books. When he survives an ambush, he is contacted by a doctoral researcher he eventually marries. But things fall apart when he travels through time to the Final Library and finds no record of the time line in which he marries the researcher.

I really really enjoyed this story. It certainly was a great way to end off my travels through The Time Traveller’s Almanac. In Palimpsest Stross creates an explosive cocktail of some of the themes I love best from scifi: deep time, time travel and the time travel paradox. While this novella is somewhat complex, at the same time it’s relatively simple. I could definitely see scope for it being expanded considerably, but I also like that Stross leaves some of the story to my imagination to fill in.

Definitely a huge thumbs up to this story from this scifi fan.

The Coelura by Anne McCaffrey

Format: Hardcover
Rating:  5 Stars
Reviewer: Laurel

This is the tale of the Lady Caissa, body-heir to Baythan (who has too many titles to repeat here), and her coming of age on the planet of Demeathorn. It depicts a very stylised, stilted society bound by rigid rules – especially when it comes to procreation. Body-heir contracts can be extensive and have clauses that can reverberate down the years.

When Baythan demands that Caissa consider a body-heir contract with a certain man, Caissa is determined to find out why. Her search – and frustrations – lead her to unwittingly discover Demeathorn’s greatest secret, something that’s never been mentioned in her presence, and love.

This is one of my favourite McCaffrey stories, and gets reread with regularity. Definitely one of my comfort reads, or a palate cleanser when I feel the need for one. Though the society depicted is stylised and artificial, Caissa is a break from that mold, and the coelura are creatures second to none. Definitely one of the most intriguing, imaginative conceptions I’ve come across in all my years of reading science fiction.

The Camille by Colby R Rice

Format: Kindle
Rating:  4 Stars
Reviewer: Laurel

This is the final novella in the futuristic visionary collection “2054” from a diverse quartet of authors.

In 2054, tech genius and AI mogul Andrea Daanik Ramoni has decided to step down as CEO of DeFTek because her husband has divorced her for one of her own creations, a sex-bot. But when the sex-bot asks for her assistance, then proceeds to do away with both Ramoni and Andrea in a murder-suicide, everything is over. But is it? Unknown to Andrea, some, known as The Camille, have taken her work and improved on it. But there’s a storm coming, and who will fight it?

I just loved Colby’s vision in this story. From the AI and robot advancements to sentient nanobots with a will to live (that really made me chuckle), there’s a whole lot of science fiction in here. And a very real story with danger lurking around many corners. A real roller-coaster ride, and clearly a lot more where it came from. Excellent stuff.

Melting Shlemiel by Jason Werbeloff

Format: Kindle
Rating:  5 Stars
Reviewer: Laurel

This is the third novella in the futuristic visionary collection “2054” from a diverse quartet of authors.

In the year 2054, Shlomo “Shlemiel” Menachem, resident of Jerusalem and member of a conservative Jewish sect, lives inside a shell, a personalised safety Bubble and something all humans in Jerusalem have (from what I could tell), that he was put into following his bar mitzvah. Being a clumsy individual, this transformation came as something of a blessing to his parents, but it still causes problems to Shlemiel. Communication is via some type of morse code that is either thrummed through thrummers located in the knee region, or by tapping on the other person’s carapace. Food – energy – is obtained by firing weapons of various types at the carapace – which presumably then converts the kinetic energy into energy the body can utilise. The only place the shell recedes is in the synagogue, when the devout step into a pool of water.

One night at Shabbos, a stranger enters an overflow pool at the mikvah – Shlemiel is the only other person in that pool – and Shlemiel is drawn to the “otherness” of this person. Some days later, Shlemiel comes across the stranger again, and follows them to a red door. What lies behind the red door?

Oh, there is so much to this story. From finding a solution to the “bubble-wrap” generation’s issues to taking current life in Jerusalem and fast-forwarding some decades, Werbeloff has created a really inventive future. His portrayal of the vulnerability created when one does something one perceives to be wrong was spot-on, and I appreciated his sensitivity to diversity and the need to bring together rather than divide. Shlemiel is a very endearing character, and this story was a delight – both from the human perspective as well as the technological advances envisioned.