SF & Fantasy on Kindle - Cheap Deals (April 2014)

I just spotted a couple of real SF & Fantasy bargains on the UK Kindle store, so thought I'd hunt down as many bargains as I can find that're available at the moment. Some of these will be Amazon's monthly deals, so presumably will only be around for another couple of days. Other deals are because the publisher (or author) decide to promote one or more of their books. You'll often found a book gets really reduced just before the next book by the author comes out. Anyway, here goes.

'Anathem' by Neal Stephenson - £0.99. 1000 pages of Neal Stephenson has got to be a good deal!

'Among Others' by Jo Walton - £0.99. This was the winner of the 2012 Hugo Award & the 2011 Nebula Award. It's about a teenage girl who's a big science fiction fan, who gets caught up in ancient magic... Also available for 99p by Joe Walton is 'Farthing' - Book One of the Small Change Trilogy.

'The Dreaming Void' by Peter F Hamilton - £1.19. First book in his Void Trilogy, and at over 800 pages a real bargain. It helps if you've read the Commonwealth books first (Pandora's Star & Judas Unchained), but it is not essential by any means.

'Blue Remembered Earth' by Alastair Reynolds - £1.99. First book in his Poseidon's Children series, but works well as a standalone too.

'Old Man's War' by John Scalzi - £1.19. Debut novel for John Scalzi. Good, if simple military SF. Several of Scalzi's other books are cheap too.

If you know of any other good deals, let me know in the comments.

Castle TV Series - really cool crime drama

I'm not usually big on long running TV crime series, but was stuck for something to watch the other day (waiting for our weekly fix of Game of Thrones and Nashville), and so decided to try out Castle. Interesting but slightly cheesy scenario - in the first episode there's a string of copycat killings, with the modus operandi the same as those in crime novels by bestselling author Richard Castle. The detective on the case, Kate Beckett, brings Castle in to help her. They solve the crime, and the higher up powers that be in the police force decide that Castle is useful (and good for PR), so they team up on a regular basis - much to Castle's delight and Detective Beckett's dismay.

On the face of it, the storyline each episode is nothing earth shattering. What makes this series so good is the characters, Castle & Beckett and the interplay between them. Castle in particular is a great character, a witty, charming lovable rogue. Detective Beckett makes an excellent foil to his charm and there's something of a love hate relationship. A will they, won't they thread runs through the series too.

If that wasn't enough, there's a couple of other interesting things about Castle. Castle plays a bestselling crime novelist, and periodically has poker nights with actual real life bestselling crime writers including Michael Connelly and James Patterson. These scenes only last a minute or two but are slightly more than cameos, with the writers  discussing Castle's latest case.

In episode 1, Castle has just killed off his main character and during season 1 creates a new character for a series of novels. The main character is a female detective - Nikki Heat - and is based on Castle's crime writing partner Kate Beckett. This work in progress is mentioned regularly throughout series 1, but - and here's the kicker - if you go on Amazon there is a series of novels by 'Richard Castle' starring Nikki Heat. Now Castle is a fictional character so obviously he couldn't have written the books, but no one knows who is writing them. The only clue we have is that it is someone who has appeared on the show, and Michael Connelly has confirmed it isn't him. So there's a bit of added mystery to enjoy!

There are 10 episodes in season one, I'm on the last of them now, but so far there are 6 seasons and counting, all the rest of them with 20+ episodes. So lots more to enjoy!

Game of Thrones Season 4 - Thoughts so far

I have been neglecting my blog of late, despite having lots to blog about so am going to try to rectify that over the next couple of weeks. Some board gaming posts coming up, but first I wanted to share my thoughts on Game of Thrones Series 4. Major spoilers coming up for the first three episodes of season 4 (episode 3 aired in US on Sunday 20th April, UK Monday 21st April).

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT  

"Switch to red alert."

"Are you sure sir, it does mean changing the bulb?"

Sorry, little off-topic quote there, not from Game of Thrones. You probably have to be in your 30s to get that old science fiction reference though!

Anyway, back to Game of Thrones.

Firstly, the first two episodes were a bit so so I thought. After the drama of the last season, I felt it started quite slow but maybe that was just me. Plus I'm watching episode by episode now rather than having a full season's boxset to consume in one go, so only getting bitesize chunks at a time which makes it a bit different. The ending of episode two really shook things up a lot with Joffrey dying and a whole whodunnit thing going on. Though if you've read the books you'll know of course. Unless they change things.

Episode Three had a lot going on, with bits of rather a lot of storylines. The most interesting of which (if you don't count Danaerys marching on yet another city, always a fun watch particularly as she's far and away the hottest female character in the series) is events in King's Landing, with a new King soon to be crowned, Tyrion standing trial for poisoning Joffrey (which he blatantly didn't do) and a rather unsettling encounter between Cersei and Jaime Lannister which looked a lot like rape. This is causing a lot of debate, not because it appeared to be rape, but because in the books it isn't rape and the context is very different. Plus it seems completely at odds with Jaime's redemption character arc. 

Anyway, on the subject of a new King, I can't quite remember what happened to Gendry, Robert Baratheon's bastard son, but I'm sure he's still around somewhere. Could he be putting in an appearance at some point? Of course I'm not sure who would support him, maybe Margaery Tyrell could marry him and they could kick out the Lannisters? Wishful thinking, I couldn't see it happening, but you can dream...

My biggest problem, after the Red Wedding, is I just don't know who to root for, certainly who to root for that can actually do anything about the Lannisters... Other than Danaerys that is, but she's across the Ocean and not looking like she'll be coming to Westeros anytime soon. 

Oh well, that's it for this week. As compelling viewing as ever, roll on the next episode.

Dust by Hugh Howey - Book Review

This is the third book in the Silo trilogy, following 'Wool' and then 'Shift'. In many ways though, it is more of a direct sequel to Wool, as Shift is -mostly anyway - a prequel. However don't try reading Wool and then Dust, there are several chapters of Shift that move the story along.

*spoilers for the first two books*

Dust starts off after Juliette has returned to her Silo, the only person ever to come back alive after being sent out to Clean. She comes back with stories of other Silos, and has a crazy plan to dig to the (almost empty) neighbouring silo. She has been elected Mayor, but not many people trust in her. Meanwhile, in Silo One Donald continues impersonating Thurman while trying to help Juliette, and also trying to keep his newly awakened sister a secret.

To me, this is the weakest of the three books in the trilogy. Book One was extremely novel, an introduction to a fascinating world. Book Two explored how the world of the silos came about and is really gripping stuff. Book Three though was a bit flat, there were no big surprises or new problems to overcome. That said, the ending is good, and fitting of the overall series as a hole. I'd give it 7/10.

Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds - book review

Alastair Reynolds is fast becoming one of my favourite authors, having really enjoyed his Revelation Space series and some of his short stories. He's written quite a few standalone novels too, but for some reason decided to go for book one in his new series this time (quite possibly because I bought it on a 99p deal last summer and it's been sat in my Kindle library ever since).

While Revelation Space was set in the undetermined future (1000 years from now maybe?), and spans the galaxy with lots of weird factions of humanity and really strange tech, Blue Remembered Earth is set only about 150 years in the future. We've expanded out from Earth, but only to the Moon, Mars and a few other moons and asteroids. While there have been various scientific advances as you'd expect, there's no faster than light travel (or even near light travel) or anything else too exotic, and humans for the most part are similar to how they are today. The main advances seem to have been in some kind of bio-neural interfaces which, among other things, allow you to 'ching' across vast distances, effectively sending either a virtual representation of yourself, or your mind can be transferred temporarily into a robot (a golem) or even another human being - with their permission of course. There's also the 'Mechanism', basically an AI type surveillance and police system that literally stops you from committing a crime...

The story centers around two siblings, Geoffrey and Sunday who are members of the Akinya clan, and grandchildren of Eunice Akinya, matriarch of the family and founder of a solar system wide dynasty and business empire. As the book opens, Eunice has just died and a strange note in her will sends Geoffrey and Sunday on a kind of treasure hunt from Earth, to the Moon, to Mars...

I liked this book. Like all of Alastair Reynolds books I've read so far it has a slow start, and things don't really start happening until later on, but it is book one in the series. The whole treasure hunt thing starts to get a bit tedious eventually, but the world building is the real star, and this allows you to really build up a picture of the way things are in the 22nd century. About three quarters of the way through things really get going, and before the end you can't wait for book two, 'On a Steel Breeze'. The book does work as a standalone novel too though.

Particular credit should be given for Reynolds making Africa the dominant economic power. This is very plausible 100-200 years in the future. It may end up being the last major area of the world to become developed, but it could well be building to its height at just the right time to take advantage of space. It would be nice to think so anyway, as it hasn't had much look so far in its recent history.

Overall a great book, 9/10.

Podcasts: The Infinite Monkey Cage

I just love it when I discover something new whether it is a new author, a new website, new game or something else to really ignite my interest. Now I've really enjoyed listening to podcasts for a few years now, on and off. I find it much easier to listen to them than I do to audiobook - probably because when I'm listening I'm doing something else at the same time, like driving, painting the spare room, doing the dishes... Like a typical man I'm rather rubbish at multi-tasking and if I'm concentrating on that other thing, I'll lose the narrative thread of an audiobook, whereas a podcast is lighter and easier to follow.

I've been aware of The Infinite Monkey Cage podcast for a while now, being a fan of Brian Cox's TV series. Up until now I've never listened to it before but earlier this week was looking for something a bit more real and useful than science fiction or board gaming podcasts so thought I'd give it a go. It is an approx 30 minute podcast taking an irreverent look at science, co-hosted by physicist and presenter Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince. There's usually a couple of guests and a studio audience and each episode is on a particular topic. It's very informative and funny at the same time.

So far I've listened to episodes on Space Tourism and Popular Science as well as a special episode where they answer listeners questions. The great thing is there's about 50 episodes in total going back about 5 years now, all available to download from the BBC, and I've heard there's a new series starting in the next couple of months. I'm thinking I'll have got through a lot of the back catalogue before then...

For more details on the show and to download episodes, go here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc

2013 Books Read - Part 2

Probably my all time favourite author is Raymond E. Feist. He is an epic fantasy author whose first book 'Magician' was published in 1982 and sold millions of copies since. Since then he has written over twenty books which follow on from Magician. I've been reading him since about 1993 when I was 13, always reading his new book as soon as it came out. Until a couple of years ago when I paused for a bit. The books were getting shorter and shorter, hardly complete books just small parts of a longer story. Finally though, he's finished and so I read his final trilogy in 2013. They were A Kingdom Besieged, A Crown Imperilled and finally Magician's End. The first two were good, the last one was amazing, an action packed and yet touching finale to a very long running series.

In June I went on holiday for a week to a rural cottage in Shropshire, and wanted to take something suitable. In the end I plumped for 'Waystation' by Clifford D Simak. Simak was golden age science fiction writer, who was famous for writing 'pastoral sf', a combination of galaxy spanning science ficiton, and the quiet pastoralism of backwoods America. Really great book.

One of the things that makes a good year - reading wise anyway - is discovering a new favourite author. In fact I probably discovered several (I covered Hugh Howey in part one), but foremost among them is probably Alastair Reynolds, writer of hard SF, space opera style books. I'd tried his 'Revelation Space' novel in audiobook format, but gave up as I wasn't getting to listen often enough. Normally that's it, I don't go back, but when the book came up cheap on Kindle, I bought it and tried again. It took a while to get going but eventually I loved it. After that, later in the year came books two and three in the Revelation Space series, Redemption Ark & Absolution Gap. Since then, I've read two more books of his, with more to be read soon.

Talking of books I had previously started, many many years ago I tried reading 'Assassin's Apprentice' by Robin Hobb. I didn't get very far, and put it down (I was quite picky then). Well last year I picked it up again and really enjoyed it this time.

2013 was a year of reading mostly fiction, and the majority of that being science fiction. But I used to read a lot of non-fiction, and while I tend to not finish a lot more non-fiction these days. I did really enjoy (and finish) a couple. They were 'The Victorian Internet' by Tom Standage, a historical look at the telegraph in the 19th century, and how in many respects it was remarkably similar to the early days of the internet. It's a short but fascinating and enjoyable book. The other was 'Bang: The Complete History of the Universe by Brian May. It's a - very - short book about the universe and astronomy. A quick, easy but very interesting read.

I read several exceptionally good standalone novels this year to, by first time authors in some cases. 'Ready Player One' by Ernest Cline was frankly amazing. A geek's dream, it's a book about computer games, sci-fi films, books, anything retro 1980s.

Next was 'The Night Circus' by Erin Morgenstern. A recommendation from my lovely wife, it was a beautifully written book, the kind that is all too rare.

After that was 'Redshirts' by John Scalzi. It won the Hugo Award which was controvertial but I think it really deserved it. It is a very funny book, a kind of spoof on Star Trek but actually with plot. I also read 'Old Man's War' by the same author, his first book. A light but fun military SF novel, I enjoyed this and as a rule I don't enjoy military SF.

Not long to go now - gosh I did read a lot of books last year...

Everyone's been talking about 'The Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins for the last few years. I finally tried the first book. It was good, but it wasn't great. Definitely had a young adult feel to it, there wasn't much depth there. Interesting world building though.

'Proxima' by Stephen Baxter was a really welcome return to hard(ish)-SF. He's written a lot of quasi-historical stuff in recent years, but good space-based SF is what he's best at. I particularly like stories about colonizing and settling a new world which is what a lot of this is about.

Finally, I requested - on Google Plus - suggestions for an Indie published book I could read, as I wanted to give Indie authors a chance. I had a number of suggestions but went for 'Ships of my Fathers' by Dan Thompson, book one of the Father Chessman series. I really enjoyed it. It lacked the complexity of some other books, but had interesting, well rounded characters and an intriguing plot.