Solution Architect. Aeronautical Engineer. Fascinated by Astronomy & Space. Addicted to SciFi.
Great to get a book gift I really enjoyed from my fabulous eldest daughter. There are some interesting and innovative biological ideas in Alien Clay from Adrian Tchaikovsky (writer of Children of Time, Children of Ruin and Shards of Earth that I’ve previously read). A combination of sci-fi with a touch of horror. Will continue to read his stuff.
After reading Redhead by the Side of the Road from Ann Tyler back at the beginning of lockdown, I recently read what she considers to be her best novel – Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. The story focusses on a family in Baltimore, Maryland who struggle through a marital breakup, jealousy love and loss. I think many readers would find some aspect that resonates with their own life. Like one of my other favourite authors – John Steinbeck, I found this story has stayed with me for a while. A great modern American novel.
Fated from Benedict Jacka was a good recommendation to me by a colleague when I mentioned that I’d been reading Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series and Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London. Fated is a magical fiction thriller story set in modern London. I will read more from Alex Verus series in future.
I first read Consider Phlebas from Iain M. Banks over 28 years ago when I was on an overland journey to the Munich beer festival in a camper van with some friends. This was my introduction to the world of The Culture and Banks’ visionary description of a highly liberal, extremely technically capable, but morally ambiguous galactic civilisation largely run by sentient machines.
I’m still on a Kindle buzz after reading Spook Street, Real Tigers and Slow Horses from Mick Herron’s Slough House series. Really enjoying these. Will take a break from these now and divert to sci-fi for a while.
Immediately after reading Real Tigers I used the power of Kindle to go straight onto the next book in the Slough House series from Mick Herron. A good page turner and I liked the characters.
I enjoyed Mick Herron’s book Slow Horses so have started to read more of the series on Kindle. Very enjoyable, good characters and it’s fun following the locations on Google street view.
I recently re-read this novel from Neal Stephenson on Kindle. I’d originally read this in the summer of 2016 as a holiday read alongside another Stephenson title called Anathem.
This is the 10th book in David Weber’s “Safehold” series. I’ve been reading these for many years. Although notionally a science fiction series, a lot of the focus is on the historic scientific progression that was required to advance humanity’s weapons technology used on land, sea, and in the air. In that regard, the series starts from a technical base of approximately the late dark ages or early Middle Ages and brings us to a technology level close to the end of the 19th century. Weber shows an incredible amount of historical and scientific knowledge – many of the scenarios and examples in the series could have been lifted from the American Civil War, WW1 and others. There is also a huge religious aspect to the series with schisms and intrigues similar to what happened in Europe in the middle-ages. I’m still enjoying the series and hopefully David Weber will wrap it up soon.
A page turner from Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stavridis about a hypothetical near-peer conflict set in the year 2034 between the United States and China. When I spoke about the book with a work colleague, we both felt “2034” was in the same vein as the cold war / hot war thriller “Red Storm Rising” by Tom Clancy from the 1980’s and that is not a bad thing. Enjoyable and a bit scary.