Category Archives: Hard Science Fiction

Review: Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds

Alien, Hard Science Fiction, Regular Guy Book Reviews, Stand-alone

Pushing Ice

In Pushing Ice, one of Saturn’s moons suddenly departs from its orbit and shoots off into deep space. The only nearby ship chases the errant moon and watches as huge chunks of ice fall off its surface to reveal a gigantic machine underneath.

Not everyone on the ship wants to keep chasing this object. The object seems to have some ideas about that, too.

Pushing Ice is a great book, and I lost some sleep because I couldn’t put it down. Even though we follow the same characters throughout the book, so much happens that it has the feel of a big, sprawling, multi-generational epic.

The science is hard, the humans flawed, and the surprises keep coming.

Recommendation: Get it at the library unless you’re building a shelf of all of Alastair Reynolds’ books. Which may be a pretty good idea, actually. Hmm.

Review: Echopraxia by Peter Watts

Alien, Dystopian, First Contact, Hard Science Fiction, Regular Guy Book Reviews

echopraxiaI have a bad habit of getting excited by a book and skimming, eager to find out what happens next. Usually, this works out fine.

I did that with Echopraxia and missed so much that I had to read it again. This book is as dense as those borderline-illegal molten chocolate desserts that are as big as a teacup but somehow weigh ten pounds.

Don’t skip a word. The writing is that tight.

Echopraxia is a sequel to Blindsight, and again author Watts explores the craziness of space, aliens, vampires (he makes them work, even more believably than he did in Blindsight), and how malleable human brains are. His central idea that human consciousness is like a flea riding a dog, thinking it’s in charge of everything, when really the dog, i.e., the rest of our brain, makes all of the decisions. (This is something that a lot of studies are actually agreeing with.)

In addition to all that, it’s a smart, fantastic read, and his best book since Starfish, one of my absolute favorites.

Recommendation: Buy it. It’s excellent on the first, second, and further readings.

Review: Accelerando by Charles Stross

First Contact, Hard Science Fiction, Regular Guy Book Reviews, Stand-alone

accelerandoAccelerando moves like a bat out of hell and made me afraid that the future’s going to tear us all a new one.

It’s dense, and author Charles Stross presents enough throwaway ideas for at least a dozen other novels.

Accelerando follows the adventures of three generations as they experience the world just before the technological singularity, during it, and just after.

(The technological singularity is the point where an artificial intelligence begins to create a runaway chain reaction of improving itself, with each iteration becoming more intelligent. Eventually, it is vastly superior to any human intelligence. Is that something to worry about? Maybe. Stephen Hawking once said, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”)

The book is deeply technical in spots, which is fun, but still has good characters you root for (or despise).

Recommendation: Get it at the library. I really liked it, but its vision of a future that requires implants soon after (or before) birth just to keep up with the world freaked me out a bit. I don’t want to be reminded of my impending future shock every day.

Review: Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

Hard Science Fiction, Regular Guy Book Reviews, Space Opera

revelation-spaceRevelation Space is a sprawling, hard-SF tale with enough original ideas for three thick novels. Seriously, it’s overflowing with the stuff. And it’s written by a guy with a PhD in astronomy, so all the science feels solid.

It’s got aliens, artificial intelligence, megastructures, colonized planets, ancient mysteries, cyborgs, big-ass spaceships, intrigue, betrayal, and murder. Reads don’t get much more satisfying than this.

Recommendation: Buy it or get it at the library. Then read the other four Revelation Space books and buy the box set when it comes out (this is my current plan).

Review: Spin State by Chris Moriarty

Hard Science Fiction, Mystery, Regular Guy Book Reviews, Stand-alone

Spin State

Spin State


Spin State by Chris Moriarty is a hard sci-fi murder mystery set thousands of years in the future on an alien planet. If you can wade through the tons of jargon in the first chapter of so (I couldn’t on the first reading), it’s a fun ride.

A famous scientist is burnt to a crisp deep within a mine. Tough as hell, severely cybernetically augmented Li and her world-spanning, snarky artificial intelligence ex-lover must figure out why.

I liked the characters, the dark mines where a lot of the action takes places, and enjoyed the fast-paced plot twists, even if I did get lost a few times.

Bottom line recommendation: Buy it used or get it at the library.