Terrific set of shorts all connected by the theme of virtual reality and how reality and virtual reality blur. Some virtual realities are carefully constructed and trimmed and monitored. Others are prison traps where a second can feel like 284 torturous years. Others are worlds within worlds within worlds to the point you begin to wonder what’s real and what’s virtual. Clever, engaging, and lots of fun to read.
Lost and Found
Not every science fiction involves an intergalactic space battle where all of humanity is saved from extinction. Lost and Found takes place in a much smaller scale universe. It involves two high school outcasts, who buddy up with some real snarky dialogue. One is too short for a high school student and no one ever lets her forget it. The other has a micropower ( you heard that correctly), which is the exact opposite of a superpower. A micro power is a talent or power that others don’t have, but it’s not always obvious how useful it can be. In some cases, indeed, it can be downright annoying and get you accused of being a thief. But, you can’t help it if you have a talent for reuniting lost items with their owners. It’s an enjoyable quick-reading story told from a teenager’s snarky precocious point of view.
The Augmented Man
| The Augmented Man follows a long tradition of supermen trained by the military or black ops to accomplish tasks. But, the Augmented Man takes it a few steps further where the men are somewhere between Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator than and Matt Damon in Jason Bourne. They are Augmented in their senses and damn near indestructible. But, to get them there where they can fulfill their missions – sometimes morally difficult missions – they had to start with psychologically dented beings who had survived childhoods of abuse and that is the word- survived. Do you bring back a rogue Augmented to the fold or find some way to destroy him? This book is half psych ops study and half black ops action. As such, it occupies new terrain, often distant terrain difficult to traverse. |
Voices of the Fall
Like the stories about a world after all-Out nuclear war that were popular in the fifties and Sixties, tales of the zombie 🧟♂️ apocalypse are extraordinarily popular these days. Many are crap. But, don’t let that dissuade you from diving into this anthology of high-quality well-written stories capturing people dealing with stark situations of survival and desperation. How would we deal with life if our world were turned upside down? Who would volunteer to be the last mission control specialist trying to land the space shuttle? Who would volunteer to leave their safe little island off the coast of main to find a new generator? Would we band together in little communities or rip each other’s throats out, fighting over scarce supplies? Would a democracy survive or would a king be named? Every single story here is a great read and quite unexpectedly too.
Every Sky a Grave
“Every Sky A Grace” is the first book in an amazing brand-new science fiction series. The main character, through whose eyes we see the story unfold, is Elyth, an Advocate of the Voice, a sworn member of First House. Elyth has powers beyond comprehension and can follow threadlines to a planet’s core and kill a planet. The First House deals with mystical powers known as “ Deep Language” which allows the users to talk to planets, to nature, to the cosmos. They are a women’s order, like the Bene Gesserits of Dune and are scornfully referred to “gray witches.” They are a secret order and the First House (like a Chapterhouse) shares power precariously balanced with the Hezra, which is the technology arm of civilization, the nobles, and the space fleet.
There’s a lot of background and worldbuilding and not all of it us explained. In this novel, the spaceships and rockets take a backseat to the mysticism and magic that the Advocates of the First House, particularly Elyth, can wield.
The storyline in fact begins with Elyth on a mission to destroy a world that has been corrupted. And, it’s never fully clear how she does this but she calls forth with her “Deep Language” the roots and the fault lines. It’s quite a shocking thing to do.
The formality with which the First House is Run is remarkable and feels almost like a religious order. But, most of the story does not take place on the Vaunt or in the capitals of Herza. Rather, the political battles are played out through proxies in the hinterlands. And when Elyth is sent on a secret mission to Qel, a mission never fully explained to her, she is essentially on her own trekking through wilderness and with no natural allies.
This is a well-written story that combines interplanetary adventure with mysticism and ideas about chaos and entropy. Focusing on a single point of view rather than multiple points of view as many authors now do enhanced the readability of this book and gave us someone to root for. All in all, this book was a pleasant surprise and you leave it wondering where the story goes from here.
The Memory Detective
Memory Detective is a terrific read. It is a well-written, thoroughly plotted, story that explores a number of really interesting ideas about inheriting memories. Frank Herbert explored this in the Dune series with the Bene Gesserit reverend mothers inheriting all the memories of their maternal ancestors and the power and the horror of having all those other personas in your mind.
Nichols takes a slightly different approach. In his concept, memories are found in brain proteins and can be siphoned out via medical procedures within 48 hours after death and given to a recipient, often inherited by family members. While the story doesn’t really focus on the family member situation, it poses questions about use and misuse of memories. Cole, dubbed the Memory Detective, takes on memories of crime victims with the intention of finding their killers. To get those memories, he often has to struggle to find things that trigger the memories. As great as his purpose is, Cole has so many memories from so many people that he often gets lost in them and loses some if his own memories.
Of course, there’s another side to the coin which is what happens when someone comes up with the brilliant idea of purchasing memories, that is, rich folk with bland boring corporate boardroom lives can lose themselves in other lives, living it up as rock stars, race car drivers, surfers, as people dared to live out every adventurous or sexual fantasy imaginable. Are they purchasing better lives by buying these memories? What life is worthwhile or meaningful? Can you basically purchase someone else’s life and live vicariously through their memories like the ultimate virtual reality game? And, well, memories can only be harvested from the dead. Who would sell their memories in such a situation? At what price? At what cost?
Nichols does a great job of exploring all these ideas in the context of an action packed thriller.
Star Marque Rising
Star Marque Rising is one of those unexpected surprises. It is an action-Packed interstellar adventure that sizzles with action and excitement from page one right through to the end. In a world of Superhumans and Genetically Modified Humans, there are interstellar spoils to be had and treasures as big as planets if you have the ambition to attain them.
DeMarco is a brutal thug on the run on a giant space station inhabited by over a million people. But, he’s been genetically modified and he is tough and relentless enough to take on any gladiator and confident enough to become the universe’s best starfighter, well almost. And, you gotta say almost because there’s one whose better than him at almost everything and she’s got cyborg enhanced muscles and confidence greater than anything. Signed as as her number two, DeMarco is ready to take on the universe.
What makes this novel stand out from dozens of other space battle stories is how actionpacked it is, how relentless the pace is, and how much fun these characters turn out to be.
Nexhuman
Nexhuman is Italian Cyberpunk Science Fiction. Part Clockwork Orange. Part Blade Runner. Part Soylent Green. It is set in a future which is an environmental catastrophe, waste of all kinds has overwhelmed the cities. Junk is sifted through, scavenged, recycled. Beneath the junk and threatening to swallow all the junk is kibble, a word coined by Philip K. Dick. Those who are the bottom rungs of society filch through the filth of the kibble for anything that can be salvaged. Sometimes losing an arm, a leg, an eye, a life in the process. Gangs of teenage youth gather together to find prizes and beat violence on anyone caught in their wake. Peter Payne’s pathetic pathway through life with his mother and his bullying brother is at the center of the story.
Peter Payne, who already has an artificial arm and an artificial leg. Others are not so fortunate or are more fortunate as the case may be. They are nexhumans, nexies, of next-humans. The human consciousness has been uploaded into an artificial person, an android, a being of ultimate physical perfection. Much of the story is Peter’s obsessions with a nexhuman of unimaginable beauty who smiles at him from her travel agency and his daydreams and fantasies of her and their life together. And, when she is torn apart and her parts rendered asunder, his dream of putting her back together -like humpty dumpty- or Frankenstein – and building the perfect woman for him. Is it a love story or a twisted perverted obsession where he is more like the guy who lives with a sex doll for years and thinks its wonderful?
This is an incredibly interesting, clever, and unusual story that posits a future that may not be all rainbows and stars, but more garbage, sewage, kipple, and loss of limbs. With people living like squatters in basements and sub-basements and picking through the trash. A future though with many technological advances.
It also poses questions about what consciousness is and whether the soul could survive being placed in another body, in an artificial body. What is the person and what is a cyborg?
Well-written, fascinating, but perhaps more of a cult favorite, than a mass appeal book. Leaves the reader very interested to find out what else Verso and his Italian Science Fiction have to offer.
Biohacked and Begging
An intriguing collection of shorts, some even flash fiction short, exploring a future of nano-bots, implants,and more. It’s a future that is dystopian in feel, oft-putting, uncomfortable, treacherous, one where perhaps we are all unsure what all this advanced technology has bought us. Are we better off enhanced, implanted, nano-botted? Or are we just as insecure, nervous, and unsure. Some real gems here among others that didn’t fascinate entirely.
How to Stop Time
For centuries, men sought the Fountain of Youth. Ponce de Leon thought it was in Florida – somewhere between Lake Okeechobee and gator alley. Immortality is something anyone in Fiction would risk life and limb for – even to the point of drinking blood. But what if it ain’t all its made up to be. What if immortality – and admittedly here it’s only extra long life that’s the issue – hundreds of years in fact. What if it leaves you melancholy, bitter, suicidal… what if someone who never ages is considered strange, different, bearing a mark. What if it could get you or your loved ones burned at the stake? One solution is to keep moving, never staying anywhere for more than eight years and then moving on, leaving no connections behind.
In a life spanning half a millennium, Tom meets Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, and others, but can never forget the one woman who he left behind or the daughter he never knew for long. This story is sad, melancholy, broken, and it queries about what matters, what has meaning, what is worthy. Is long life a horrible curse that leaves one broken-hearted? Or is it something good, special, etc.?
Those Crazy Books 