Impulse by Dave Bara

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

Impulse2Impulse is Dave Bara’s debut novel, published earlier this month by DAW. The cover copy starts off like this:

Following in the tradition of such top science fiction writers as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Gordon Dickson, Frank Herbert and Joe Haldeman, Impulse, the first novel of The Lightship Chronicles, launches readers on a star-spanning journey of discovery, diplomacy and danger.

Based on the names mentioned in that paragraph, you can probably make some pretty decent assumptions about this novel… and you’d be 100% right. Impulse is aimed squarely at readers hankering for the Good Old Days of Science Fiction, when Old White Dudes wrote stories set in galaxies torn asunder by rival space empires, featuring proper dashing heroes and splashy space battles. This is as traditional a military science fiction novel as you’ll find. If that’s your cup of tea, Impulse may be something worth checking out for you.

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Review: Evensong by John Love

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

EvensongIn early 2012, John Love made some serious waves with his debut novel Faith, a critically acclaimed space opera that was about as dark as anything I’d read in the genre. (You can read my review, one of the first I posted on this site, here.) Faith was a novel many reviewers expected to see on Best-of-2012 lists and final award ballots, but instead it disappeared without much noise at all. Whether that was due to the novel’s admittedly disturbing content, or its early January release date, or the fact that all of this happened in the early days of Night Shade Books’ well-documented collapse, no one knows.

So now it’s early 2015, and John Love’s second novel Evensong just came out in early January, almost three years to the date since Faith. I’m usually pretty aware of which books are coming out when, but this one somehow snuck by me completely. Which leads me to worry: is history about to repeat itself, and is this dark, disturbing SF novel about to disappear without a trace again?

Here’s hoping it won’t, because — while inarguably flawed — Evensong by John Love is a another dark, bizarre, gripping and ultimately satisfying novel.

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Excerpt: Evensong by John Love

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

EvensongI’m very pleased to present this excerpt of Evensong by John Love. Here’s the synopsis from publisher Night Shade Books:

A near-future thriller where those who protect humanity are not always completely human.

The future is a dangerous place. Keeping the world stable and peaceful when competing corporate interests and nation-states battle for power, wealth, and prestige has only gotten harder over the years. But that’s the United Nations’ job. So the UN has changed along with the rest of the world. When the UN’s “soft” diplomacy fails, it has harder options. Quiet, scalpel-like options: The Dead—biologically enhanced secret operatives created by the UN to solve the problems no one else can.

Anwar Abbas is one of The Dead. When the Controller-General of the UN asks him to perform a simple bodyguard mission, he’s insulted and resentful: mere bodyguard work is a waste of his unique abilities. But he takes the job, because to refuse it would be unthinkable.

Anwar is asked to protect Olivia del Sarto, the host of an important upcoming UN conference. Olivia is head of the world’s fastest-growing church, but in her rise to power she has made enemies: shadowy enemies with apparently limitless resources.

Anwar is one of the deadliest people on earth, but her enemies have something which kills people like him. And they’ve sent it for her. It’s out there, unstoppable and untraceable, getting closer as the conference approaches.

As he and Olivia ignite a torrid affair, Anwar must uncover the conspiracy that threatens to destroy her, the UN, and even The Dead.

Please enjoy this excerpt from Evensong by John Love. You can also find my review of the novel here.

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Signal To Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

SignaltoNoiseIn Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s debut novel Signal to Noise, the 1980s are almost over, and Meche is a teenager in Mexico City doing all those random stupid teenager things we all did back then: listening to music all night, riding around on the back of friends’ motorcycles, and casting magic spells in dilapidated factories.

Meche’s dad is trying to make a living as a musician, which in practice works out to spending too much time in bars and not enough time with his family. Meche, already an unpopular girl who gets bullied, escapes into the music her dad introduces her to, and into her friendships with Sebastian and Daniela.

Then, when a bully pushes her too far, she discovers that there’s magic in music…

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Gemini Cell by Myke Cole

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

GeminiCell“For the dead, war never ends.” That’s the somewhat ominous tagline on the cover of Myke Cole’s newest military fantasy novel Gemini Cell. Set in the early years of the Great Awakening, the novel shows how humanity first reacted to the sudden appearance of magical powers in random people—a process that would eventually lead to the militarization of magic as portrayed in Cole’s first three Shadow Ops novels: Control Point, Fortress Frontier, and Breach Zone.

Gemini Cell is in a sense a prequel to that trilogy. It doesn’t share any characters with the first three books, but it’s set in the same world during an earlier age, more or less setting the stage for what’s coming down in Control Point. A prequel in the L.E. Modesitt Jr. sense, maybe.

There’s two bits of good news here. First of all, if you’ve always been curious about the action-packed military fantasy Myke Cole excels at, this book is an excellent entry point to the series, as it basically requires zero knowledge of the other books. The second bit of good news: it’s also the best novel he’s written so far.

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Guest post by Elizabeth Bear: On Writing Steampunk

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)
Elizabeth Bear

Elizabeth Bear

For today’s guest post, I’m extremely proud to welcome Elizabeth Bear to Far Beyond Reality!

Elizabeth was the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2005. She has won two Hugo Awards for her short fiction, a Sturgeon Award, and the Locus Award for Best First Novel. She is the author of numerous short stories and novels, including the acclaimed Eternal Sky series. Her latest novel Karen Memory (review) was released earlier this week. Bear lives in Brookfield, Massachusetts.

Without further ado, on to the guest post!

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Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

KarenMemoryIt’s bad form to start a review with a quote, but in this case I’m going to do it anyway, simply because it’s the best way to give you an idea of how wonderful  Elizabeth Bear’s newest novel Karen Memory really is. Here are the novel’s first two paragraphs:

You ain’t gonna like what I have to tell you, but I’m gonna tell you anyway. See, my name is Karen Memery, like “memory” only spelt with an e, and I’m one of the girls what works in the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. “Hôtel” has a little hat over the o like that. It’s French, so Beatrice tells me.

Some call it the Cherry Hotel. But most just say it’s Madame Damnable’s Sewing Circle and have done. So I guess that makes me a seamstress, just like Beatrice and Miss Francina and Pollywog and Effie and all the other girls. I pay my sewing machine tax to the city, which is fifty dollar a week, and they don’t care if your sewing machine’s got a foot treadle, if you take my meaning.

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The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin is currently only $2.99 on Amazon!

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

KillingMoonFolks who visit my site regularly know I don’t do these kinds of posts very often, but in this case I’m making an exception: The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin was one of the best novels of 2012, and still remains one of the most original fantasies I’ve ever read. The Kindle version of the book is currently on sales for only $2.99. If you haven’t read this book yet, take advantage of this deal! Here’s a link to my review, and here’s a link to The Killing Moon at Amazon.

(Usual disclaimer: check the price before you buy because I have no idea how long this deal will last. Also, it’s quite possible this doesn’t extend beyond Amazon US.)

Edit: well, it looks like this deal is already over. Hope you got the chance to pick up this book. If not, it’s more than worth the regular cover price!

(And: I’m now thinking that I’ll post an occasional deal like this here anyway, based on the response I got to this one. No endless lists of all the discounted titles that day/week/whatever, but rather once in a while highlighting one exceptional title I’ve read and reviewed very positively.)

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Mind Meld: You Know We’re All About That Backlist

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

ForeignerI was once again invited to participate in one of SF Signal’s fabulous Mind Meld discussions, where several members of the SF/F community (authors, bloggers, critics, etc.) are invited to submit responses to the same question. This week’s question was:

Q: All About That Backlist: You’re reading through (or have read through) an author’s backlist? Brilliant! where would you suggest a reader new to that author’s work start?

As I spent many years happily digging through the huge backlists of two of my favorite authors, C.J. Cherryh and L.E. Modesitt Jr., that’s what I decided to write about. At some length. (To be fair, each author has written around 60 novels, so there was a lot to talk about!)

You can find my contribution (and those of Stephanie Saulter, Karen Burnham, Grace Troxel and many others) by clicking through to SF Signal’s Mind Meld here. Drop a comment and let me know what you think!

(And, on a somewhat related note: if what you read there gets you interested in checking out Cherryh’s Foreigner series, you can find my article about that novel here and Ann Leckie’s response here. Both articles were selected for inclusion in last year’s edition of the Speculative Fiction anthology series.)

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The Just City by Jo Walton

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Stefan (Far Beyond Reality)

JustCityIn Jo Walton’s newest novel The Just City, the goddess Pallas Athena uses her divine powers to create an approximation of Plato’s Republic. As in, she literally sets up a mini-version of the ideal state as described in The Republic, transferring over 10,000 children and a few hundred adults to a Mediterranean island in the past, giving them The Republic as a general operating manual (as well as some handy robots from the future) and basically directing them to set up the Just City, where every soul is free to strive for excellence. The end result is something like a planned community with divine guidance.

We’re seeing this utterly fascinating premise unfold from three very different perspectives.

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Posted in Fantasy, Reviews, Science Fiction | Tagged , | 4 Comments