Escape Velocity

A curated Collection of Fantasy and Science Fiction Media

Search Results for: Neal Stephenson

Review: The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. – Neal Stephenson & Nicole Galland

When junior academic linguist Dr. Melisande Stokes is recruited by a shady government agency to translate a number of shockingly well-preserved ancient texts, she does not realise that it is the beginning of her involvement with the death and rebirth of magic, quantum mechanics-based time travel, and lots of dangerous adventures in the now and the past.

Review: Seveneves – Neal Stephenson

When the moon is struck by an asteroid, humanity must evacuate the surface of planet earth or go extinct in the firestorm of moon debris burning up in the atmosphere that will immolate the land and evaporate the oceans. Seveneves is the story of humanity trying their best to navigate the engineering of survival in orbit and the politics of the apocalypse.

Review: Termination Shock – Neal Stephenson

The Queen of the Netherlands is invited to a secret climate conference where an extravagant Texas oil millionaire reveals his plans to save the earth from climate change and rising sea levels.

Review: Master of the Revels – Nicole Galland

After their falling out with the powers that be at D.O.D.O., our protagonists set up an independent diachronic operation with the help of the mysterious Fugger banking family – and soon find themselves embroiled in a deadly conflict with the witch Gráinne to save the world’s technology from being retconned out of existence.

Review: Antarctica – Kim Stanley Robinson

When the last wilderness on Earth is threatened, what do we do? Antarctica follows some of the continent’s inhabitants in a future that feels like today: Val, an experienced mountaineer who guides tourist following in polar explorers’ footsteps; X, a general field assistant doing general field assistance; and Wade, aide to a US Senator looking into some mysterious disappearances near the South Pole. Their lives in the icy cold seem tough enough as is, until suddenly disaster strikes…

Review: Blue Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson

Part 3 in the Mars Trilogy – With the terraformation of Mars well underway and the Earth recovering from a series of apocalyptic floods that reshuffled the deck of power, tensions between the planets start to rise as overpopulated Terra views the the unsettled lands of Mars with jealous eyes. Once more, the members of the First 100 must play their part in the politics that ensue to save the Red Planet from a wave of Terran imigration that will swamp the ambitious Utopian project on Mars.

Review: Green Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson

As the terraforming of Mars progresses and the population continues to grow, the influence of the big metanational corporations that control the earth is starting to grow as well. An ‘underground’ movement of early settlers and their children forms in response, seeking to channel the powers that be towards the political and climatological future for Mars as they envision it.

Review: Red Mars – Kim Stanley Robinson

In the near future, mankind sets out to colonise Mars. But as tensions within even the first 100 colonists starts to rise and the first cracks begin to show, the question rises whether mankind will ever come to an agreement on what life on Mars means for the shared future of humanity.

As the colonisation progresses and man’s impact on the planet keeps growing, the disagreements between the first 100 turn into full blown gloves off interplanetary politics. Still, the personal relationships between those first settlers may prove pivotal in preventing worse.

Review: How High We Go in the Dark – Sequoia Nagamatsu

In this interconnected short story collection, generations progressively further into the future attempt to deal with the impact of a devastating global pandemic and the countless dead on our society, focussing specifically on Japanese-American and Japanese perspectives.