More Posts By Peter
Review: Dogs of War – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rex is a dog-human hybrid, a bioengineered supersoldier known as a bioform, serving alongside a number of other human-animal hybrids in a private security company engaged in the supression of an uprising in Mexico. When he loses connection to his master on a mission, he and his team are faced with difficult questions on their role in the war and the world beyond. The world, meantime, is faced with exactly the same questions.
Review: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
Manny is a computer engineer in charge of programming Mike, the central supercomputer running the systems of Earth’s penal colony on the Moon. Unbeknownst to anyone but Manny, Mike has achieved self-awareness. Mike mainly wants to learn to understand human humour, but when the AI meets political activist Wyoming Knott through Manny, the three of them start speculating on an uprising that would free Luna from the yoke of the Warden and the Federated Nation’s Lunar Authority.
Review: Starship Troopers – Robert A. Heinlein
The Earth is at war with several alien races. On a whim, rich kid Johnny Rico joins the Mobile Infantry on his 18th birthday, to serve a term and earn citizenship. But as he goes through bootcamp to join humanity’s greatest military outfit, and he trains for orbital drops on alien planets, his resolve is sorely tested.
Curator Question: Do you prefer books or films?
Another question for our curators: would they rather read or listen to a book, or have the story told through a television screen?
Review: Floating Hotel – Grace Curtis
The Grand Abeona Hotel is both space ship and resort, an interstellar cruise ship floating from system to system, providing old fashioned luxury to the well-to-do of each planet at which it calls. Its crew are a chaotic bunch of outcasts and refugees, forged into a well oiled machine (well, mostly) by kindly hotel manager Carl – who knows that each and every one of them has a story of their own. But even an out-of-this-world place like the Grand Abeona cannot escape the political realities of the galaxy. Some of the guests carry secrets – and even worse, perhaps so do some of the staff…
Review: Bookshops & Bonedust – Travis Baldree
Prequel to Legends & Lattes – when orc barbarian Viv gets wounded in the search for a dangerous necromancer, she is sent to a local seaside town to rest and recover while the mercenary company continues the hunt without her. In the town, Viv befriends the local bookseller, who runs a dilapidated shop on the verge of bankruptcy. When Viv discovers the joy of reading, however, she makes it her mission to help the bookshop back on its feet.
Review: A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor – Hank Green
Andy Skampt, April May’s closest friend, struggles to find meaning in his life after April’s death and the disappearance of the Carls. When he receives a mysterious text message and finds a mysterious book of instructions, he is dragged into an equally mysterious game. When he finds out an old nemesis has grand plans, he and April’s other friends are forced into action once again.
Review: Legends & Lattes – Travis Baldree
Veteran adventurer and orc barbarian Viv decides to throw in the towel and live a peaceful life instead. She has an idea for a shop selling a dark exotic brew she once tasted on one of her adventures… called coffee. But how to convince people to buy a drink they don’t even know exists?
Review: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing – Hank Green
April May – an otherwise unremarkable girl – runs into an immovable statue on her walk home one night, standing unmoving on a sidewalk in New York. April shares a video of the statue online, dubbing it ‘Carl’. The video goes viral and April becomes a celebrity overnight as Carls appear in cities around the world. April is dragged into the world of internet fame and even politics as the Carls turn out to be much more than they initially appeared, and she suddenly has a voice in an emerging global crisis.
Review: Exit Strategy – Martha Wells
Part 4 in the Murderbot Diaries – The Murderbot reconnects to the feeds when it returns from its self-imposed intelligence gathering mission to find that one of its favourite humans has become caught up in inter-corporate politics, and the Murderbot may have accidentally played an important part in the corporate anger against her. When the Murderbot figures she may have been kidnapped, it reluctantly turns off space-Netflix once again to save the day.
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: Red Country – Joe Abercrombie
When Shy and her surrogate-father Lamb return home from a trip to the village to sell the crops, they find the farm burned, Shy’s brother and sister gone and their caretaker hanged. A determination and a flicker of wrath stir in the otherwise placid Lamb, and they set out to chase the perpetrators. Elsewhere in the Near Country, Temple, chief lawyer and secretary to the washed-up mercenary captain-general Niccomo Cosca, has seen enough of the company’s ‘heroics’.