A Worthy Trek Across The Universe: A Humanitarian voyage to a distant galaxy to save the troubled planet, Dremiks, is the primary mission for the crew of humanity’s first inter-stellar transport, the Hudson, captained by the morally upstanding and by-the-book Brett Hill.
Maggie O’Connell, maverick pilot and daughter of the Admiral is his second in command. Can she shake off her father’s influence and escape her difficult past?
With the captain’s duplicitous brother, Vice Chancellor Ryan Hill, leading the civilian crew due to settle on Dremiks, their journey is far from problem-free. The Captain and his crew become suspicious that the mission may not be all it seems.
I loved the detailed and relaxed pace of Dremiks by Cassandra Davis, making for an ideal read for a lazy evening in.
The interplay between the very believable and varied characters was compelling although I did get a little lost due to name switching from first name to surname, making it hard to tell who was speaking.
There were a couple of instances where there was information repetition but this didn’t seem to distract me from the main plot.
I thought this was a very enjoyable read with an excellent twist at the end well deserving of one of the top five positions of Best Indie Books of 2012. I look forward to a sequel and indeed more books from this promising sci-fi author.
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About the Author J.M.Tweedie writes Science Fiction and is currently three quarters of the way through her first novel (as yet untitled). When she’s not writing, she can usually be found working hard at her full time day job with the NHS UK, looking after her family or with her head in a good book. You can find out more about her and sample some of her writing at her website or alternatively follow on Twitter.
Plot Summary: Alice is in a coma, and the damaged Triton needs somewhere to hole up for a while to run repairs. Alice, in her wisdom, predetermined a course to Ossimi Station prior to her injury.
As they travel to the station Captain Jake gets some bad news. His nemesis Wheeler is back and working for the Order of Eden. Wheeler is blaming the Holocaust Virus on Captain Valance and is executing anyone who has anything to do with him including his old crew on the Sampson. On top of that Regent Galactic has had his accounts frozen, rendering him unable to pay his crew. Adversity never weakens this crew or this captain; it just makes them more dangerous.
As Captain Jake nears the destination he receives a message that begins with a scream and ends with a plea for help. Eden Fleet took out all the defenses of Ossimi Station, and it is now about to be raided. The plea for help didn’t come from the station but rather from the one of the slaves on the raider ships.
Nerine is a slave on the Palamo, an old carrier. Everyone aside from the captain wears a slave collar and the captain has an itchy trigger finger. There is no escape from her life of drudgery and no choice for her fellow slaves in raiding Ossimi Station, which carries a death sentence. Her only hope lies with one man and his ship, The Triton.
What makes this book special: This series just keeps getting better and better. It was so good to read other people’s POVs and see what ties them to the ship and the relationships they have with each other. I really felt for Ayan and Captain Valance as they struggle between who they were and who they are and what that means to each other. The action is as always excellent but it is seeing the loyalty and friendships both past and forming of the crew that gives this book so much heart and soul.
Have you read Fracture or any works by Randolph Lalonde? Please share your comments below, and don’t forget to click on the yellow stars at the top of this post to share your rating (1-5 stars) of Spinward Fringe 5 Fracture.
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About the Reviewer: Yvonne lives on the NSW/Victorian border in Australia so it is always boiling hot or freezing cold, in other words great reading weather. She reads across all genres with the exception of Westerns. During the day Yvonne works at a library and loves her job and can’t imagine doing anything else.
Dr. Norman Logan works in a secret underground base in the middle of the New Mexican desert. Alarms blare just as Dr. Logan is putting the finishing touches on a prototype helmet that will enable people to communicate through thought rather than spoken words. He discovers his base is being invaded by something that doesn’t come from Earth!
A spaceship is hovering over the base seemingly impervious to the might of the military weapons being thrown at it. Finally it lands and some sort of creatures exit and invade the base; every time a soldier tries to shoot at them he finds himself hovering in the air, unable to move. The creatures are tall and seem to communicate with telepathy, they don’t even have mouths. But they do have a destination and it is Logan’s laboratory. It is the helmet they are after which Logan has named Mindshot.
When Logan powers up Mindshot he is amazed that the aliens communicate in an American accent, but this pales in significance to the fact that they claim to be humans from 5,000 years in the future. The future humans need help from those present-day. They are dying out as a race with no means of procreating. They want people to travel into the future to stop the extinction of the human race.
It seems a worthy cause and people flock to save humanity but is this what the future humans are all about or do they have their own agenda? The battle for survival might not just be in the future; it could be in the present day as well.
From the first page I was addicted to this story and wanting to know where it would go and how it would be resolved. The characters were interesting and I was especially fond of General Teapard. However by the second half of the novel I started to lose a little interest, I was unable to decide just what the author was trying to say with this novel. Was it a judgment on humanity, social media or racism? This lack of adhesion interfered with my enjoyment of what was otherwise an excellent read.
Have you read Mindshot? Please share your comments below, and don’t forget to click on the yellow stars at the top of this post to share your rating (1-5 stars) of Mindshot.
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About the Reviewer: Yvonne lives on the NSW/Victorian border in Australia so it is always boiling hot or freezing cold, in other words great reading weather. She reads across all genres with the exception of Westerns. During the day Yvonne works at a library and loves her job and can’t imagine doing anything else.
The action begins in the late 21st Century, over 60 years after Earth has apparently repelled an alien invasion in a war employing nuclear weapons which have, unsurprisingly, turned the planet into a semi-radioactive desert. What is left of the human race decamps to a new home on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, leaving only a space station, which will evacuate the remaining humans once all the hydroelectric energy has been gleaned from Earth’s oceans. Tom Cruise plays Jack Harper, a tough, efficient pilot/engineer who lives in a hi-tech home which floats in the sky and has been tasked – along with his co-worker and adoring partner Victoria, played by Andrea Riseborough, to monitor the extraction of power from the oceans and to supervise and repair a fleet of automated drone craft which hunt down ‘scavengers’, pockets of which are still hiding out on the desolate planet surface.
His memory has been wiped in order to prevent hostile scavengers getting crucial information if he’s taken prisoner, however, he is constantly plagued by dreams and images of a romantic encounter with a mysterious woman in a pre-nuclear-war New York. When an unscheduled rocket unexpectedly crashes on the surface of the planet he finds the sole survivor, Julia (Olga Kurylenko) and is shocked to see that she is the woman of his dreams – literally.
The movie presents us with beautiful vistas of desert tracts amongst the planetary ruin and of leafy- green, forest oases cradled within mountain valleys. We see homes floating in the sky, gleaming, white, futuristic bubble-craft skimming through the clouds and nimble, deadly droid machines as well as vast, monolithic space stations. There are fast, dizzying action scenes and the set-pieces are well dressed and staged. Director and former architecture student Joseph Kosinski, the man behind ‘Tron: Legacy’ (2010) again proves his ability to design and visualise gorgeous, lush worlds; likewise, his use of electronic music adds texture (this time with M83 providing the score). Oblivion may impress with its vision and scale, but rather like its depiction of the post-apocalyptic Earth, it is almost devoid of humanity.
Jack Harper’s inner journey, as he begins to piece together long-forgotten memories, should be the heart of the story. Initially we may imagine that the movie might treat us to an examination of the role of memory in individual identity or the triumph of true love and the human spirit in adversity, but instead the story begins to meander aimlessly and soon becomes complicated and turgid. The characters are underdeveloped and never really become engaging. Morgan Freeman is wasted in a sketchy supporting role which simply requires him to act like ‘Morpheus’ out of the Matrix (complete with sunglasses) but recite only dull, expository dialogue. Riseborough, as Jack’s partner and ‘navigator’, spends her days touching glass panels on the ultra-modern console which overlooks the vast landscape below and dresses and behaves rather like a futuristic ‘Stepford wife’.
A queasy sense of familiarity begins to set in. The film takes itself very seriously but only seems to serve up large derivative dollops of ‘Total Recall’, ’The Matrix’ ‘Moon’ – and with the topmost parts of famous buildings visibly poking through the dirt – ‘Planet of the Apes’, not to mention a liberal dusting of Tom’s very own ‘Top Gun’. And then there is Tom himself. He’s been in so many movies we have grown accustomed to his face, as the old song goes: Tom’s ‘Action Hero’ face at the controls of his elaborate bubble-craft; Tom’s ‘determined, square-jawed’ face while dropping athletically down from high places on ropes; Tom’s macho’ I may be short but I look good riding on a motorcycle’ face; and Tom’s ‘intense romantic’ face (which I for one, always found the most scary. It seems to say ‘I love you so much I could jump up and down on a sofa in public and then never let you out of my sight…even if it means locking you in a house under armed guard and having you watched by surveillance cameras’ – funny how Katie never saw that one coming?)
Oblivion seems to go on for a long time, which is never a good sign. It moves slowly and rather self-consciously, so you have every chance of taking in how very expensive it looks. Joseph Kosinki has created a gorgeous-looking, but ultimately empty emotional experience and much like the film’s protagonist the seasoned sci-fi viewer will soon start feeling that old ‘déjà vu’.
Have you seen Oblivion? Please share your comments below, and don’t forget to click on the yellow stars at the top of this post to share your rating (1-5 stars) of Oblivion.
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About Reviewer, Ren Zelen REN ZELEN describes herself as “a writer, academic editor, reviewer, pop culture junkie, movie buff, rock music enthusiast, science nerd and Sandra Bullock lookalike”. Her fiction and past reviews can be found on her own website: Lethal Lexicon.
Her post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel ‘The HATHOR DIARIES’ is available from Amazon in both the UK and USA.
Her book/film/TV reviews can be found on various sites on the web. Information and contact on twitter.
Rediscovering the joy of reading Science Fiction was my motivation for starting this review blog. I was initially inspired by the stories in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, and shortly thereafter, I discovered some outstanding Science Fiction from authors Randolph Lalonde and Christian Cantrell.
I enjoyed all of Cantrell’s short novels, but my absolute favorite is Containment. Since Christian Cantrell is a source of inspiration for me, I’m very excited to announce that for this month’s contest, Christian Cantrell has generously agreed to donate an autographed copy of Containment.
If you want to learn more about Cantrell‘s mind-bending Science Fiction tale, then click here to check out our review (no spoilers).
How can you get entered to win? There are 3 exciting ways:
Add a comment to this blog post or to any page in this blog.
2nd way to enter: Sign up for our free TwistedSciFI.com enews.
3rd way to enter: Purchase a 100% cotton t-shirt from the TwistedSciFi.com eShop and you will also be entered to win. Each additional shirt you purchase increases your odds of winning the autographed book. Also, if you sign up for our free TwistedSciFI.com enews now, you’ll be e-mailed an instant 10% discount.
Deadline: Interact in any of the above 3 ways between now and midnight EST on Tuesday, January 30th for your chance to win the autographed copy of Containment.
The winner will be announced here on our blog and in our enews. Free shipping is included with the free autographed copy of Containment.
I’m not sure about you, but to begin with, just the concept of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark‘ in space is very attractive to me. If you combine that with skilled story-telling and imaginative world-building then you arrive at something very much like Dean Smith-Richard’s first novel, 3024AD.
This book is neither a novel nor an anthology. It’s a series of vignettes and short stories set in a common universe in the future. The main character, Digger, is a cross between a space pirate and an archeologist.
The stories are not necessarily told in chronological order, and I believe that the intentional disruption from story to story is an intentional literary device that’s designed to create intrigue. I found myself asking questions like “Hmm, I wonder if this character is going to turn up again?” “I wonder how that character fits into the overall story?”
I fear that some readers may not appreciate this style of storytelling, although it did appeal to me. The effort of jumping from storyline to storyline is rewarded towards the end of the book with some nice reveals.
I like the way that Smith-Richard introduces most of the shorts with a little background information about the setting for the story including descriptions of the environment that include elements of the political, economic and physical world. This helps to set the stage for each story/chapter so that as the reader, you can dive right into the action.
Just like the fate of many towns during a gold rush, Dean Smith-Richard creates environments in space that are in various phases of the boom or bust cycle. His stories explore corporate greed, worker exploitation and political corruption. The reality is that in 3024AD there are many justifiable reasons for wanting to operate as a pirate.
Dean doesn’t take the easy way out with artificial gravity on all spaceships; instead his characters use magnetic boots and describe what it’s like to live in a zero g environment. With spaceships travelling faster than the speed of light, I’m not sure that this work of fiction qualifies as hard science fiction, but kudos to the author for exposing readers to some of the physical challenges associated with long-term human life in a space.
There are a lot of things to like about 3024AD. Smith-Richard’s prose goes down smoothly like a fine whiskey. I found this especially impressive because this is his debut novel. With near effortless reading, a fascinating future universe and a protagonist that’s a cross between a pirate and a hero, this is an enjoyable book to read.
What kept me from rating 3024AD 5 stars? Although the disjointed flow of the story worked for me, I would prefer to read a more cohesive narrative if the author chooses to continue telling stories in this universe. Additionally, I’d like to see one more round of professional editing done on future published work to prevent pesky typos from appearing during the story.
I’d recommend this book to fans of pirate adventures, space opera and archeology thrillers like The Mummy and Indiana Jones. I’m looking forward to reading more of Dean Smith-Richard’s work, especially if he stays in the 3024AD universe.
Have you read 3024AD by Dean Smith-Richard? Please share your comments below, and don’t forget to click on the yellow stars at the top of this post to share your rating (1-5 stars) of 3024AD.
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This is a sheep of a film, dressed up in wolf’s clothing. It’s an old-fashioned scary movie, chock full of every cliché you’ve ever seen, but here the twist is that the all-American Barrett family, living in an idealized Spielberg suburb, is being spooked by Aliens pretending to be Poltergeists. I guess even Aliens have to get their kicks somehow, especially after such a long and presumably boring journey to Earth.
It basically takes the plot of Tobe Hooper’s ‘Poltergeist’and mashes it with a sinister version of Spielberg’s ‘Close Encounters’ by way of ‘Paranormal Activity’. Once you know that, you pretty much have the gist of the whole movie. However, to give it credit, it is entertaining enough fare – a good, workmanlike piece of film-making with some deftly administered shocks. David Boyd’s cinematography and clever visuals keep the monsters/Aliens obscured in fuzzy CCTV shots or shadowy corridors (yes, you’ve guessed it – the lights fail or protagonists ‘forget to turn them on’). The actors of the piece play it totally straight and this means that mercifully, some strong and grounded performances often rescue the movie from its uneven and unbelievable premise.
You’ll need to turn your intellect off, but if you’re looking for a relatively undemanding and diverting ‘end-of –the week’ movie visit, this is good fun, but don’t start thinking about it too deeply or you’ll soon find that, ‘borrowing’ as it does from so many sources, the movie’s diligently established plot points just don’t ‘gel’ into a sensible narrative or make much sense:Why don’t the alien implants control their victims at key moments when it actually matters? Why is their primary ‘research’ interest in children? Why do they cause massive suicidal bird-strikes – magnetism or something? And most bafflingly : why are they intent on undermining the Mom’s credibility as an estate agent (a malicious Alien plot)! It also chooses to leave us with a rather unsatisfying and abrupt ending.
The suspense may be balanced by some well executed shocks but certainly, the shock of the new isn’t going to be one of them – but nevertheless, sit back, open up the popcorn – ‘They’re heeere!’
Have you seen Dark Skies? Please share your comments below, and don’t forget to click on the yellow stars at the top of this post to share your rating (1-5 stars) of Dark Skies.
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About Reviewer, Ren Zelen REN ZELEN describes herself as “a writer, academic editor, reviewer, pop culture junkie, movie buff, rock music enthusiast, science nerd and Sandra Bullock lookalike”. Her fiction and past reviews can be found on her own website: Lethal Lexicon.
Her post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel ‘The HATHOR DIARIES’ is available from Amazon in both the UK and USA.
Her book/film/TV reviews can be found on various sites on the web. Information and contact on twitter.
- Infinite worlds await humanity. Where will we all end up?
At the start of a novel, you can usually find a page (or sometimes two) that list all the author’s previously published works. Inspect the start of The Long Earth however, and you’ll see that this list runs on to a hefty six pages. That’s right, between these two giants of Science Fiction a total of one hundred and twelve novels have been published over the last forty years. And so, bearing in mind this peerless back catalogue, it’s only fair to describe this union as something of a ‘sci-fi super-group,’ one that’s embarking on what looks set to be a very fruitful and long-running project.
For The Long Earth is certainly a story with scope. After all, there’s an infinite number of planets for the action to unfold upon after ‘Step Day,’ a seminal day in future human history when a set of instructions on how to assemble a dimensional ‘stepping’ device are posted anonymously on the internet. Fashioned from something as simple as a potato, the ‘stepper box’ allows the human body to side step to a parallel planet either east or west of our own Earth (the original datum point).
Made from everyday equipment and available at negligible cost, the entire human race quickly catches on. Many of those jobless, in debt, or those simply in search of a better life soon step away, east or west in what’s speculated to be an infinite chain of identical worlds. The governments and authorities left on ‘our’ earth can only scratch their heads as individuals and then entire communities step into a France of North America that’s no longer there. At least in its civilised sense.
Of course, there are peculiarities. A handful of folk can step naturally and remain free from the nauseating after-effects of inter-dimensional travel and it’s one of these, Joshua Valiente, whose recruited by a human/AI construct called Lobsang (of the opaque transEarth organisation) to embark on a journey to the centre of ‘The Long Earth,’ or at least as far as anyone has ever managed to step before. Setting sail on a technologically enhanced zeppelin the pair disappear past a million versions of their own home, marveling at how the fauna changes with each passing world, occasionally the very landscape itself. They make fleeting studies of what they encounter, marveling at the thick and verdant forests and the strange and beguiling creatures within. And after a while they start to notice more unusual lifeforms and rather peculiar looking humanoids. And that’s when things really start to get interesting.
Terry Pratchett has worldwide renowned for his series of fantastical and satirical Discworldnovels whilst Stephen Baxter has gained a reputation as a writer of great scientific imagination and craft. So upon starting out The Long Earth, it’s quite tempting to try and spot who is responsible for what. This, in all fairness, is a somewhat reductive method of assessment when regarding two authors of such immense skill and talent and that shouldn’t disrupt the narrative of what is ultimately a very enjoyable book.
However, for a story which relies so heavily on the interplay between the main protagonists, the attempts to generate humour between the main two falls flat at times. Lobsang and Joshua are full of quips and often resort to playful quarrel – a technique that’s no doubt intended to inject a bit of anarchy and humour into the proceedings – but it never truly convinces and ends up palely imitating the patter found in Pratchett’s earlier work. Despite best efforts, Joshua comes across as a bland hero archetype and Lobsang, a Tibetan motorcycle repair man trapped inside the body of a drinks dispenser, a typically ‘Pratchett’ one.
That said, the prose is full of vim and vigour. The attempt to work in a host of different perspectives on the phenomenon of ‘stepping’ works well, especially the African priest in a sleepy English village and the prospectors from modern day America, down on their luck. Coupled with such a sound scientific grasp, not to mention the fun and imagination that’s present throughout, The Long Earth results in being a highly enjoyable story that engrosses and diverts in equal measure and leaves you ready and willing to carry on to the next installment, if not, perhaps, on the very edge of your seat.
Have you read The Long Earth or any works by Terry Pratchett or Stephen Baxter? Please share your comments below, and don’t forget to click on the yellow stars at the top of this post to share your rating (1-5 stars) of The Long Earth.
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About Reviewer, Ol Wilson Originally from Nottingham, Ol has been living in London for two years. Writing comedy in his youth, he went on to study Drama and Art at A-Level and then an honours in Film & Television from Aberystwyth University. Moving back to work in Nottingham, he tried his hand at film scripts whilst working a variety of jobs and trades before he realised a passion for writing prose and fiction. Covering everything from horror to sci-fi, he started submitting short stories late in 2011 and has since managed to get two published in Short Story Me. Many more are in the pipeline, along with a novel and a re-draft plus outlines and loads of sketches for future works.
During the day you can find Ol enforcing environmental law on the dodgy land owners of West London or breaking into council houses deemed unfit for public health. Failing that, he’s either reading or writing, jogging in the park or messing about drinking beer. A keen football fan and follower of Nottingham Forest, he also enjoys a passion for film and music and is known as “The Hustler” in his ten-pin bowling team.
Ol currently shares a flat in North London whilst he awaits the finishing touches to be made to his underwater biome.
You can keep in touch with Ol at his blog, on Twitter, or you can click here to read Ol’s freethree-part Science Fiction short, The Sleeper.
