Sergeant John Rossett is “a good man just doing a bad job.” A war hero, he returned to his prewar job as a cop in London only to be pressed into service in a distasteful job. The Nazis rule Britain, and they’ve forced him to work as a “Jew-catcher” in the Office of...
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Humanity’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence has been underway ever since the advent of radio early in the 1900s. But only in recent decades has the work taken on a systematic, broad-spectrum search involving a global network of SETI scientists and volunteers. And all so far to no...
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Most post-Apocalyptic novels portray a world gone irretrievably mad. Books such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, On the Beach by Nevil Shute, and Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon, depict human life reduced to its lowest common denominator. But Alice Sabo’s A Changed World series presents...
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Here’s what we’ve gotten ourselves into . . . “When the rationing first started the stipends were handed out for free, but as food became scarcer the government required a matching contribution. The amount seems to go up almost every month. There aren’t enough jobs anymore for...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes Martha Milano’s husband, Brett, is missing. Actually, she’s Martha Cavatone, because that’s his name. But Hank Palace remembers her as the girl in high school he had a crush on when she babysat him and his little sister. And now a tearful Martha...
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Apocalyptic visions abound in science fiction. From asteroid collisions to nuclear holocaust to super-volcanoes, there’s no lack of lurid images for the extinction of all life on Earth. But our planet’s 4.5-billion-year history tells us that something less extreme is much more likely....
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Estimated reading time: 6 minutes Welga Ramirez is nearing her thirty-fifth birthday. She’s a veteran of the Marine Special Forces but a little long in the tooth for a shield—a bodyguard—though the pills increase her strength and the speed of her reflexes. And at thirty-five she’ll hit...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes Dystopian fiction seeks to illuminate the consequences of the bad choices we make today. Goodhouse follows in this tradition by extrapolating into the late 21st Century one of America’s most troublesome present-day realities. It satirizes our...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Ten years ago millions of Americans and Soviet citizens had died in a nuclear war. Washington DC, Miami, San Diego, and several other cities lie in rubble. The United States is now a second-rate power, dependent on aid from Great Britain. Chafing under martial...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes A solar flare so powerful that it threatens to extinguish all electronics on Earth inflicts little damage. But careful observers note two puzzling results. Fearing the worst, authorities on the island of Java had managed to turn off all electrical generating...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Novelists, filmmakers, and scholars alike have speculated about how the world might end. Nuclear war. A killer pandemic. Unbearable heat. A supervolcano. Or a dozen other imagined versions of the Apocalypse. In fiction, or in scenario planning, they sometimes help...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Early in 1964 two aging men lie dead of gunshots in the back. They’re sprawled on the pavement in an alley in a seedy uptown neighborhood. One is J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary Director of the FBI. The other is Assistant Director Clyde A. Tolson,...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Let’s say you want to write a superhero story without superheroes. What do you do? Simple. You endow ordinary people with superhuman intelligence and enhanced senses by implanting something in their brains. Chips, maybe. Or nanocytes. Then suddenly...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of the more prolific and successful science fiction authors of the twenty-first century. And the voters at the World Science Fiction Convention confirmed his status as one of the best when they granted his Children of Time Trilogy the...
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London. 1952. Twelve years earlier, the United Kingdom had surrendered to Nazi Germany following a brief and humiliating war in Norway. Now, Prime Minister Lord Beaverbrook leads a cabinet that includes the Fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley, in the critical post of Home Minister. Mosley’s...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes When we read a science fiction novel, we’re entitled to expect three things. A story that’s at least minimally plausible. Suspense about how the action will unfold. And a style of writing that clearly conveys what happens in language that communicates...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes Christopher Walters is a trauma surgeon in a place where life itself is traumatic. He carries the nominal rank of captain in the United States Army in southern Siberia. There, the Americans are attempting to hold firm on the Western Front in a war with the Novos,...
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When COVID first struck with lethal fury a few years ago, the pessimists among us conjured up visions of a landscape devoid of human life. Bodies in the streets and on the roads. Cities everywhere depopulated. Farmlands lying fallow for lack of attention. Government services failing to...
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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes When Angels Wept is one of the most remarkable works of alternate history I’ve ever come across. A professional historian wrote this award-winning “What-If History of the Cuban Missile Crisis,” and it shows. Author Eric Swedin builds his story...
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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes It’s 2075, and the human race is in the earliest stages of colonizing the solar system. A trillion-dollar high tech company named Maverick Enterprises has built Elderon, Earth’s first space colony in Low Earth Orbit. It’s designed to house five...
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Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Science Fiction Monday includes my latest SF book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.