More Posts By Peter
Review: The Years of Rice and Salt – Kim Stanley Robinson
When the Black Death hits Europe, it isn’t just devastating, it flat out depopulates the continent. The world moves on. Without Europe, who will ‘discover’ the Americas and develop modern science? Who will repopulate empty Europe? Will humanity make the same mistakes it did under European hegemony? Nobody knows, but Kim Stanley Robinson is speculating and he is taking us with him.
Review: Rose/House – Arkady Martine
Rose/House is an AI, a smart home governed by an artificial intelligence. When its designer died, he left specific instructions that only one particular person be allowed to visit Rose/House, up to 7 days a year. But when the local police precinct receives a mandatory duty of care call from Rose/House informing them of a dead body on the premises, that one person allowed to visit is half the world away. This raises two questions: who is the murderer, and who is the victim?
Review: The Tusks of Extinction – Ray Nayler
In the near future, the de-extinction of the woolly mammoth has been successful. Groups of the great beasts now roam the tundra. Not only must they learn to survive in the wild without the generational experience of the ancient herds, but they are also threatened by the hunters and tusk poachers that led to the extinction of their cousins, the elephants. The Tusks of Extinction follows a hunter, a poacher and a mammoth and their interconnected story on the tundra.
Review: Yellowface – R.F. Kuang
June Hayworth is a struggling author. Her Asian-American friend Athena Liu, on the other hand, is a critically acclaimed and commercially successful industry darling. One day, Athena dies in a freak incident while hanging out with June at Athena’s apartment. June takes a manuscript on Chinese labourers in the First World War from Athena’s apartment and publishes it under a pseudonym suggesting Asian descent. Over time, the lies she built up around the manuscript start to completely control June’s life.
Review: Kindred – Octavia E. Butler
Dana is whisked from 1976 Los Angeles to 1815 Maryland, where she saves a little boy from drowning before returning to her own time. But before she has much time to process what happened, it happens again. As a black woman, Dana must learn to survive on a plantation alongside the other enslaved black persons there, while she develops a special relationship with the boy she saves over and over.
Review: Alien Clay – Adrian Tchaikovsky
Prof. Arton Daghdev, expert in alien biology, is exiled to a labour camp on the distant world of Kiln for his crimes against the scientific orthodoxy of the Mandate. His exile is as much a punishment as it is an opportunity: to actually study the complex and utterly alien ecosystem of Kiln up close is a dream come true. But the science is hampered by the confines set by the Mandate on the truths that may be discovered – and the life expectancy of a labourer in the camp on Kiln is terrifyingly low…
Review: Half a War – Joe Abercrombie
Skara, princess of Throvenland, narrowly escapes the clutches of Bright Yilling, sent to kill her family and take Throvenland for the High King. See flees to Gettland to beg King Uthil and his ally Grom-gil-Gorm to honour their word and set Throvenland free – but even if they do, what place can Skara and Throvenland take in the alliance, and can they withstand the might of the High King’s armies? Meanwhile, Raith, Grom-gil-Gorm’s cupbearer, is assigned to guard Skara – but that role swiftly turns out to be a cover for something else.
Review: Half the World – Joe Abercrombie
Thorn Bathu wants to be warrior, but when she accidentally kills a boy in the training square, the odds of her achieving that goal look very long. Brand wants to be a warrior too, but when he speaks up on behalf of Thorn, his road, too, is diverted. Meanwhile, Father Yarvi, minister of king Uthil of Gettland, needs to find allies in the seeming inevitable wars Gettland will find itself in the near future. And when a kingdom is surrounded by enemies, it needs to look for allies further afield…
Review: Half a King – Joe Abercrombie
Yarvi was training to become a minister, but when his father, the king of Gettland, and his older brother are killed by warriors of neighbouring Vansterland on a sea voyage, he is called to the throne instead. But how can a weak man with only one healthy hand lead the nation of Gettland – and how can a man that is only half a man avenge the death of his father against the Vanstermen?
Review: The Other Wind – Ursula Le Guin
Alder is a village sorcerer whose dreams are haunted by his dead wife Lily, reaching across to him across the Wall of Stones that separates the land of the living from the land of the death. Alder travels to the mages of Roke for counsel, but they send him on to speak to Ged, once arch-mage, who now lives a quiet farmer’s life on Gont; for Ged knows more of the land of the dead than anybody alive in Earthsea.
Review: Tales from Earthsea – Ursula Le Guin
In this collection of novellas and short stories, Ursula Le Guin discovers places and eras of Earthsea that neither she nor the reader visited before, fleshing out and filling in the history of Earthsea and its wizards: from the origins of the school of magic on Roke Island to the first time a woman enters the front door of the exclusively male institution in a long time.
Review: Tehanu – Ursula Le Guin
After Ged left her in the care of Ogion, the once-priestess Tenar drifted away from power and greatness and has instead started a life as a normal woman with a goat herder on Gont, dedicating herself to the care for her children, of her blood and adopted. It is only when Ogion calls her back because he wants to tell her one last thing that she gets involved in the great affairs of Earthsea once again.