Science Fiction

The saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

If I’m honest, I seldom follow that old adage when selecting things to read.  What can I say? I’m a Rebel Librarian. Odd thing about it is that I rarely find myself disappointed with my selections. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve found some stinkers that I didn't finish, but I’m batting well over .500 in my success.  

Perhaps the best example of this success was with the following series. 

I was in college and working at Hastings Entertainment in the book department at the time, and there were always fantastic books all around me.  Plenty of

Paul S. Kemp's Lords of the Sith tells the tale of a Darth Vader who is new to his alliance with the Dark Side of the Force. Vader's allegiances to his Sith master, Darth Sidious, are put to the test in myriad ways as the two villains encounter a skillful resistance movement on the planet Ryloth. Led by the cunning strategist Cham Syndulla (Star Wars: Rebels fans will likely recall Cham as Hera Syndulla's father), this band of resistance fighters may just stop at nothing to rid their beloved home of the Empire's influence. Rather than simply strike at the military forces occupying Ryloth, only

Hi. My name is Hebah. I’m a giant nerd. I don’t just read genre fiction shamelessly; I also attend conventions dedicated to them. And yeah, going to a ComicCon isn’t really a big deal anymore, but I go to sci fi cons, which is probably a couple steps further along the grand scale of nerddom. This year, I attended WorldCon, or the World Science Fiction Convention, a science fiction and fantasy convention established in 1939. It is home to the Hugo Awards, the longest-running science fiction award around. Attendees vote on both the Hugos and future locations, so it moves around from year to year

I give An Unkindness of Ghosts a clear 5 stars for characters, worldbuilding, and social commentary. I would go with 4 stars for plotting and pacing. Though it certainly doesn't lack for excitement and intrigue, it reads a bit episodically, with an underlying emphasis on each episode illustrating an experience more than carefully crafting a narrative. But what they illustrate is powerful and significant.

"This isn't about how I feel, officer, and this isn't a personal matter. It's a Matildan matter. Our social order depends on our ethical order, and our ethical order depends on acknowledging

I was expecting something zany and I got it. Space Opera is pretty over the top. It reminded me of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in its absurdity, which I mean in a good way.

What better way to avoid inter-galactic war and determine the sentience of newly discovered species than through a galaxy-wide singing contest?

Are humans sentient? That is what Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes (a once-upon-a-time, glam rock and glitter, despair and joy band) have to prove or all of humanity will be exterminated. No pressure.

While I enjoyed

Picking up right where Star Wars, the Force Awakens' story left off, The Last Jedi continues the adventures of Rey, Finn, and Poe following their triumph over the First Order forces on Starkiller Base. Though the Resistance scored a huge victory, we are still faced with many questions: How can the Resistance possibly hope to stand against such an obviously superior foe? Will the now-located Luke Skywalker come out of hiding to save the galaxy?

Oh, and just who is this last Jedi, anyway?

Spoilers ahead!

Although audiences are understandably split in their reaction to The Last Jedi as a film

Functioning as both a seminal look into pop culture's past as well as a fun, technological romp, Ready Player One is a fantastic tale centered around Wade Watts, a teenager and dedicated gamer in the year 2044. Having almost no family, few friends, and seemingly even fewer avenues open to him to escape his downtrodden existence, Wade has had a difficult life, to say the least. However, what Wade does have is access to the OASIS; a cyber-reality which will change his life forever.

An astonishing facet of Ready Player One is its prescience: Cline's great, sprawling work was published in 2011

Two men are taken to The Zone – a quarantined area rumored to have an abandoned building with a room inside it in which wishes are granted. But the road there isn’t clear, and even if it were, the path there can never be repeated. If the room is found, it grants only the wish behind the conscious wish, making the journey toward the room an increasingly frightening endeavor as the men inevitably wander hither and yon looking for the correct path and the correct wish. The two men are led by a third, a guide called a stalker who can never make a wish himself and is doomed to live as an outcast

Set shortly after the events detailed in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Kenobi tells a story of Obi-Wan Kenobi adjusting to his new life on the desert planet of Tatooine. Charged with not only concealing his Jedi past from those who might seek to cause him harm, Obi-Wan also faces the teeny-tiny task of somehow managing--from afar--to protect the life of the youth who just might be the savior of the galaxy! Although his presence on the desert world is rooted in secrecy and anonymity, those familiar with everyone's favorite scruffy-looking Jedi know that trouble doesn't take long

Wonderfully exciting action that maintains just the right amount of suspense and energy from start to finish. At heart, this is a heist story; it just happens to be set in a universe of wonder: under the adrenaline are fascinating world-building and intriguing characters--of all shapes and sizes, far beyond human. And lurking somewhere in the background are enthralling science fiction considerations that keep simmering into awareness. It's not just action, but intelligent action. With excellently adept, unobtrusive writing. This is a universe I hope to visit again soon.

Zen Starling is a

REPLICANTS ARE BIOENGINEERED HUMANS.  DESIGNED BY TYRELL CORPORATION FOR USE OFF-WORLD. THEIR ENHANCED STRENGTH MADE THEM IDEAL SLAVE LABOR

THEY ARE HUNTED DOWN AND 'RETIRED'

THOSE THAT HUNT THEM STILL GO BY THE NAME

BLADE RUNNER

So reads, in part, the opening text to the Blade Runner sequel 35 years in the making. Blade Runner 2049 follows a new generation of Blade Runner (Ryan Gosling), tasked with the same mission, "retiring" replicants. With a 2:44 running time and a meticulous pace, the film can feel slow to start. However, the plot is initiated from the very first scene, and

Once upon a time, not so long ago, a viral Tumblr post fell across the dashboard of an established author. This inspired a search for stories written around the theme: as far as alien species go, humans are strange and weird and wonderful. The result is this collection.

I only rate this three stars (really, three and a half) because the stories don't all resonate with me. There are some exciting adventures: "Sidekick," featuring a kidnaped child and their view of the human that's rescuing them and "The Sound of His Footsteps," which exemplifies why you really want a human if you crash on a

Well, that was cheerful and uplifting.

Er, no, that's not quite right. More like bleak, biting, and darkly satirical.

And far too real.

Though science fiction set in a near future, this is all about living at the lowest levels of the global economy, subject to extremes of imperialism, inequality, ethnocentrism, co-option, and poverty. It's an exploration of the dark sides of economic and cultural power. It's just that in this case it's the humans of Earth who have been colonized.

"You think you're so great," says Chloe. "You're no one, Adam. You're nothing."

I laugh politely. "No, Chlo

Ah, a story featuring the scary-looking, staff-sabered Sith apprentice, Darth Maul! If you are reading this review, you've most likely seen Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, so you'll no doubt recall Maul as the strong, silent type. Admittedly, I was more than a tad hesitant upon embarking on this book's voyage. Does Maul speak at all? What if entire conversations held with Maul only involve him snarling at people before attacking them with that crazy-cool light saber? My goodness, why am I actually reading this via audio book, of all things?

Well, let me tell you, I was more than

Justin Kurzel’s newest film, Assassin’s Creed, has been called one of the best video game based movies made so far. Unfortunately, that isn’t much of a compliment. In this film Callum, played by Michael Fassbender, is captured by the Abstergo Corporation and placed into a machine, the Animus, in order to access and relive memories locked in his genetic code. Using these memories The Corporation, run by The Templars and the Assassin’s sworn enemies, hope to find an ancient relic that will allow them to take control of all free will. As convoluted as that sounds it is pretty much the plot of the

Somewhere far away from earth, six crew members wake aboard a spaceship bound for a new colony. As clones, the crew members are accustomed to waking up in new bodies, usually with their memories intact. This time, though, decades of memories are missing. And worse, someone has murdered the old bodies of the crew members. Without any record of what happened and why, the crew must fight to solve a murder in which they are all prime suspects, even to themselves.

Six Wakes is a locked-room murder mystery that takes place on a generation starship. If that sounds awesome to you, then you will

This is a book of ideas. A slight character story overlaid on a world of big ideas. Amusingly sad; sadly amusing. Consider, for instance, its beginning:

Sexual Responsibility is boring.

It isn't Ms. Brody's fault. She's a good teacher. She switches channels at appropriate moments, tases students who need tasing--zizzz-ZAAPPP!--and she only once got stuck in the garbage can beside her teaching station. She was a teeny bit weepy that day, but no drunker than normal . . .

Zoe lives in a near future world where capitalism and corporatism have run amok. In school, we learn not only Sexual

If science fiction isn’t your favorite genre, but you’re willing to dip a toe in, All Our Wrong Todays is a highly entertaining read about self-discovery, family and love; with a time machine and alternate realities. 

The story begins with Tom Barren, present day, as he's writing a book describing his experience with time travel. His voice is witty, sarcastic and feels like a friend who's relaying their crazy dream. The future Tom comes from exists because in 1965 a man invented a machine that creates endless clean energy. That machine transformed the whole world into something like the

Have you ever questioned the reliability of your own memory? Do you wish you had a record of everything you encountered so you could refer to it later? What if having this capability meant that other people had access to information about you without your consent?

In Forest of Memory, Katya locates items of value and sells them to clients with information about the items’ origins. She looks at an object’s “wabi-sabi,” which is a Japanese term for beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.” The items she finds for clients are not in pristine condition; they have evidence of use

This is a hands-down fabulous book! It’s an adventure. In space. On Mars. What more do you need? But on top of that it’s witty and science-y with a hint of impending doom.

Mark Watney, astronaut-botanist, gets left behind by his crew and must find a way to survive on this uninhabitable planet, alone, until rescue is made possible. The Martian is written in journal form from Watney's perspective. He details all the ways he fixes and rigs the Hub (his home far away from home), finds ways to grow eatable food, and tries to communicate with NASA. But the writing isn't all science jargon, Watney

Secrets abound in Planetfall. Since establishing a colony on a distant planet, no one has seen the leader of the mission, Suh-Mi, who has gone to live in a strange network of tunnels called God’s City. The protagonist, Renata, believes in the supernatural, but has her doubts about the religion that has formed around the leader’s disappearance into God’s City. A stranger arrives at the colony, but no one knows how he got there. His arrival sets off a chain of events that unravels life in the colony and forces Renata to confront the doubts she has suppressed for too long.

This turned out to be

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear is the story of a professional student who gets pushed out into the real world (finally, at the age of 30) to find that not everything is as it seems and magic is real. He is hired by "the library," an age-old institution that traps magical artifacts and prevents them from falling into the wrong hands. This particular mission is to find a magical biblical spear, whose parts are scattered around the globe, and which is also hunted by a mysterious nefarious group, the Serpent Brotherhood. Flynn is aided by his guardian, a woman skilled in martial arts but who

Crosstalk is categorized as science fiction and yet, if it wasn’t for the telepathy, I could easily see the events in the book becoming reality in the near future.

Gossip, in this case workplace gossip, has always moved at the speed light. Between gossip and the omnipresence of social media, it’s nearly impossible to keep anything secret. Briddey Flannigan does her best, however, to keep her coworkers and her family from finding out that she and her boyfriend (and coworker) Trent are about to undergo an outpatient procedure designed to increase empathy between partners, the newest rage.

It’s

The pursuit of a set purpose by logical means is the way of tyranny; this is the vision of my creator. Of Ultron.

The pursuit of an unobtainable purpose by absurd means is the way of freedom; this is my vision of the future. Of our future.

Whoa. Wow.

On its face, Little Worse Than a Man appears to be a superhero comic. It's certainly a story about a superhero. But it's about a superhero trying not to be super, trying to live a normal life. More significantly, it's a story about an artificial intelligence trying to live a human life. Trying to be human. Trying to become human by living

In Zeroes we were introduced to a group of teens with unusual, mostly subtle superpowers who find themselves in an increasing amount of trouble with both drug dealers and the police, using the very powers that got them into trouble in the first place to get them out again. I liked the novel a lot, so when I found out about the sequel, I was very excited.

My excitement was not misplaced. Like Zeroes, Swarm gets into the action quickly, but unlike the first book, we don't need to get to know the main characters, so the plot moves even faster, the tension ratcheted up. It's also nice to see the

Cloud Atlas is a movie that, for me, gets better with every watching. Fortunately, I had been forewarned that it is confusing; otherwise I might have turned it off after the first few minutes. While I got the gist of the plot with the first viewing – several lives interweaving and affecting each other through time – with each subsequent viewing I was able to catch more detail and see layers I had missed before.

A number of themes are explored: human nature, freedom, relationships and how they affect us, past lives, fate, the future. Perhaps the most compelling, and confusing, aspect of the

This movie is crazysauce, that’s all I can say. Crazysauce poured over an amazing sci-fi spectacular with a generous dose of cheese and a side of over-the-top drama, and those with a healthy sense of the ridiculous will eat it up with glee. If you are not a fan of campy fun, it may not be your cuppa. But if you enjoy stylish space opera with a capital O, cult classics like Labyrinth and Dune, or fangirl over broody heroes, this movie will be your catnip. The Wachowski siblings have created a true extravaganza of beautifully designed worlds, costumes, aliens, human hybrid breeds, gadgets and

Have you ever felt that you didn’t belong anywhere? Ever wanted to be with people who understand as much as you understand yourself? If so, the affinities are for you. Of course, you may not be a match for any of the twenty-two groups at the heart of Robert Wilson’s The Affinities.

Adam Fisk decides to undergo the battery of tests that will determine if he will fit into any of the Affinities – groups of people who are compatible beyond the normal societal classifications. Members of the affinities come from all backgrounds, races, social class, economic class, ethnicity, gender, age, etc

"Genre mashups," where an author takes two different genres or sub-genres--for example, romance and steampunk or hardboiled detective and science-fiction--are not exactly new, but they have become a hot topic lately. With her debut novel All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders has done something different, taking a character in a modern fantasy story and a character in a near-future, dystopian SF story and having their lives intertwine in friendship and romance, without mashing up the different genres they belong in. It's like if Harry Potter and Katniss Everdeen lived in the same world

I've been sitting on this review for months, unable to express my feelings for this movie. I watched all of the originals, I remember when Max was a cop, I know who runs Bartertown, and I was incredibly leery of rebooting an old property like that. Except this isn't a reboot. It's just a story in the mythology of a man named Max in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. And it is, start to finish, incredible.

I'm into words. Language is my thing, not images, and yet this movie, with what probably amounts to six pages of dialogue, tells an incredible story with sparse words and lush images. It also