Category Archives: Hard Science Fiction

Review: Halting State by Charles Stross

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: thirty orcs and a dragon rob a bank…

No? That’s the premise of Charles Stross’s hard-science Halting State, where virtual characters rob a virtual bank for millions of not-virtual dollars, and no one has any idea how to solve the crime. It’s fast-paced, seriously smart, and filled with more Scottish that you usually get in science fiction.

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9 Best Ben Bova Books

Ben Bova wrote over 120 science fiction and fact books and won the Hugo six (!) times. Unfortunately, he recently passed away at the age of 88 due to Covid-19-related pneumonia and a stroke. This list is a tribute to his vast body of work, which focused on hard science.

However, his writing style may come across as dated to modern readers, as does an occasional reliance on clichés and stock characters.

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Review: Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward

Dragon’s Egg is a fun, clever look at life evolving on the surface of a neutron star, where one hour of human time is the equivalent of hundreds of years on the alien star.

While the extreme physics of the story may be accurate, Dragon’s Egg contains some of the most stilted dialogue I’ve come across in a long time, especially in the beginning. I found myself thinking that author Robert L. Forward must have talked to a human woman at some point in his life, but if so, that knowledge did not find its way to his book.

However, this is not a story you read for its character development. Dragon’s Egg is all about examining an alien race evolving on a sphere with a gravity of 67 billion Gs, and living at a million times the speed of humans. The story is most believable when it’s dealing with aliens, and it’s still a fun ride.

Recommendation: Get it at the library. Power through the first chapter and you’ll be fine.