The SCI-FI Reader III

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We not only have to introduce characters and immediate situations, we also have to let readers know how the rules of our universe differ from the normal rules, and show them the strangeness of the place in which the events occur. In the early days of science fiction, when the genre was still being invented, key information was given in huge lumps, often by having one character explain things to another. This was often badly handled, as when one character explained things to another who already knew it:.

Smith, the rebolitic manciplator causes the electrons of any given group ofatoms to reverse their charge and become anti-electrons. Whitley, and of course that will cause an immediate explosion unless the rebolitic manciplation is conducted inside an extremely powerful Boodley field. I hardly need to tell you that this is no longer regarded as a viable solution to the problem of exposition.

Doro discovered the woman by accident when he went to see what was left of one of his seed villages. What do we learn from this sentence?

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His purpose at the time was to see what was left of—what? But in due time we will find out what a seed village is. So we hold that question in abeyance.

As a story about the immigrant experience, The Golem and the Djinni is a parable for our times, when populations are again churning between nations. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie is a book about which I am profoundly divided. It is a homage to the many great space opera novels that inspired it, and comes complete with the clunking prose style that scars so many of those books.

But it is also a smart reworking of the genre tropes those books made commonplace.

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Leckie doesn't hold back from exploring the very alien consciousness of the novel's central character, Breq — once the mind of an entire starship, now reduced to a somewhat more human body. If you enjoy the logic puzzles that this kind of speculative fiction raises, and Leckie layers one upon the next with considerable skill, then Ancillary Justice is a must-read. Jeff VanderMeer has been one of the best known indie stars of weird fiction for over a decade.

He has made stylistic experimentation part of the handbook of contemporary fantastic fiction in novels such as Veniss Underground and Shriek: Two years ago, VanderMeer hinted to followers on social media at a new project he had been writing at near-fever pitch that seemed to have bubbled up from the farthest reaches of his imagination. February sees the publication of the project as Annihilation, the first of the Southern Reach trilogy , from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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To say there's a palpable excitement among VanderMeer's fans would be underestimating the buzz around Annihilation. And if early previews are any indication, there's a lot to be excited about. Topics Science fiction books Damien Walter's weird things. Fiction Arthur C Clarke award Awards and prizes news. Read an excerpt from "The Martian" by Andy Weir.

In "Dune," Frank Herbert imagines a vast, intricate future universe ruled by an emperor who sets the Atreides and Harkonnen families warring over the desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. Spread across star systems, "Dune" teems with wild characters: Early on, the Baron says, "Observe the plans within plans within plans," summing up the adversaries' wary analyses of each faction's complex motivations.

The Best Sci-Fi Books to Read in - A Science Fiction Reading List

This cerebral second-guessing balances with epic action throughout the book, centering on the perhaps best-known feature of the Duniverse: The best-selling novel raised science fiction literature to greater sophistication by including themes of technology, science, politics, religion and ecology, although the burgeoning Dune franchise remains less popular than Star Wars which borrowed heavily from "Dune".

Part space epic, part "Canterbury Tales," "Hyperion" tells the story of seven pilgrims who travel across the universe to meet their fate, and the unspeakably evil Shrike, who guards the Time Tombs on the planet Hyperion. On the way, each pilgrim tells his or her own tale, and each world is so exquisitely created that it's hard to believe it all came from the mind of one author. The tale of the scholar whose daughter ages backward after her visit to the Tombs, and his quest to save her as she returns to childhood, is my favorite — it's heartbreaking and terrifying at the same time.

It's an intense read that explores why we make the choices we do, and how we deal with the consequences of those choices in the black vacuum of space. In "Gateway," those with the money to leave the dying Earth can hitch a ride on a starship that will either make them wealthy beyond their wildest dreams or lead them to a grim and possibly violent death.

Or, like our hero, you could wind up in the grip of a massive black hole and have to make difficult decisions that lead you to the couch of an electronic shrink. Artist Stephan Martiniere, who created this vision of future space travel, will judge the first-ever FarMaker Interstellar Speed Sketch contest at the Starship Congress conference on interstellar travel. Buy The Calculating Stars on Amazon.

Future worlds: the sci-fi you will be reading in 2014

Buy Red Moon on Amazon. Buy Before Mars on Amazon. Buy Artemis on Amazon. Buy Leviathan Wakes on Amazon. Buy Aurora on Amazon. Buy The Martian Chronicles on Amazon. Buy Ender's Game on Amazon.

Buy The Martian on Amazon. Buy Dune on Amazon. Buy Hyperion on Amazon. Buy Gateway on Amazon.