Reviews :: Book Genre :: Science Fiction :: Page 24

In case you can’t tell from the title, THE UNINCORPORATED WOMAN (Amazon) is the third in the Unincorporated series by the Kollin brothers Dani and Eytan. It follows THE UNINCORPORATED WAR which was a sequel to THE UNINCORPORATED MAN. I believe subsequent volumes will be titled The Unincorporated Gas Station and The Unincorporated (fill in here).
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You may remember that THE UNINCORPORATED MAN (EBR Review) followed the adventures of Justin Chord, a man who had frozen himself in a time capsule to be reawakened when the cures to his diseases were found and he could be revived to live again. Justin indeed was awakened to a world run by the system of incorporation, the selling of personal shares to individual lives. The vast majority of mankind was working, not able to make their own decisions, towards being a majority share holder in their own stock thus taking control of their decisions and their lives. Justin saw the system as tantamount to slavery and started to oppose it immediately. The end of THE UNINCORPORATED MAN saw Justin forced into space towards the outer planets starting a revolution that pitted the outer planets and asteroid belt versus Earth and its incorporated system.
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In THE FALLING MACHINE (EBR Review) you were left with a cliffhanger: during the battle with Lord Eschaton, Tom is dismantled and Sarah leaves home after a fight with her father.

The continuation, HEARTS OF SMOKE AND STEAM (Amazon) begins over a month later. Even though Tom was destroyed, Sarah was able to recover his heart in the chaos. Unfortunately it’s broken, and she needs to find someone to repair the heart, but doesn’t trust the majority of the people in New York who are able to do it. Her search leads her to Emilio Armando, an Italian immigrant and inventor—whose past, if Sarah knew it, would make her think twice about trusting him with Tom’s secret.
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Sadly I think I can write up this review for Ken MacLeod‘s THE RESTORATION GAME (Amazon) in one, short sentence. Ready for it?

Too little, too late.
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I’m not sure if I’ve ever read anything quite like GATEWAYS (Amazon). On the outside it looks like any regular old collection of short stories and novellas. Sometimes those collections have a central premise or theme, and this one certainly does. But it’s the premise and how it’s put together that really got to me. The premise is “Isn’t Frederick Pohl awesome? Let’s have a book to celebrate him.”
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Sarah Stanton is the only child of business magnate Alexander Stanton. She’s a woman ahead of her time—her time being New York’s 1880s, the Gilded Age of industry and technology, but otherwise behind on women’s suffrage.

However, Sarah doesn’t let her father or society’s strictures slow her down. Sure she has to wear a bustle and corset, and her father wants to marry her off by the end of the season, but that doesn’t stop her from trying to find Sir Dennis Darby’s killer.
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Confession time. I had never read A FIRE UPON THE DEEP (Amazon) until now. Please don’t think less of me. The thing is, and I’ve mentioned this before, I’m not a big SF reader. In general, I think most writers of SF are far more interested in showing how intelligent they are rather than telling a good story. It’s a personal opinion. Every now-and-then I find an SF novel that I really enjoy, but it just isn’t my thing. That’s why I let my reviewer, Shawn, handle most SF novels that are sent to me.

Anyway, back to my startling revelation. I’m sure tabloids are going crazy somewhere. I happened to mention to a publicist at Tor that I hadn’t read the Vernor Vinge classic, and he freaked out. A week later I had a copy in my PO Box from that same publicist. Likewise my good reviewer, Shawn, was a bit surprised at this glaring hole in my reading background. He had just sent me his review for Vinge’s THE CHILDREN OF THE SKY, and I thought, “Hmm. Maybe I should really read the original. See what all the fuss is about.” After all, A FIRE UPON THE DEEP is considered one of THE classics in SF.
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HOLY CRAP!

What a year for Science Fiction it’s been. I mean we’ve had LEVIATHAN WAKES by James S A Corey that was excellent. China Miéville’s EMBASSYTOWN was weird, wonderful and brilliant. Robert Charles Wilson finished up his Spin trilogy in fine form with VORTEX. And now along comes Vernor Vinge to show us all again how this is really done with CHILDREN OF THE SKY (Amazon).
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I’ve come to a point in my reading life where I start planning the books I’m going to read well in advance. A new Dresden Files novel in the Spring. New Erikson & Esslemont novels in the Fall/Winter. A new Joe Ledger novel around February/March. Since starting this whole review gig, I’ve added George Mann to my list. For whatever reason, he work always entertains me.
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It’s not often that I let go and enjoy a book just for the ride. I’m more of an intensive reader, who looks for what he wants, enjoys it when it’s there, and complains when it’s not. Simple. Cut and dry. But there’s that something other that comes along every once in a while and just grabs you. There’s something about it. It’s got class. It’s got style. It’s got “Moxy”, kid.

MOXYLAND (Amazon) is Lauren Beukes‘s first novel, and if you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere (like I feel sometimes) you might not know that she missed getting the Campbell for best new writer this last year by just a hair. MOXYLAND was a very interesting novel for me. Not only is it Science Fiction, but it’s told through four separate first-person viewpoints. This would normally be a tough row for anyone to handle, but Beukes pulls it off really well.
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