Books

_...And Another Thing_, Eoin Colfer
_Transitions_, Iain M. Banks
_Feed_, M.T. Anderson
_Words_, Eric Flint
_Child of Fire_, Harry Connolly


In descending order of quality as ascertained by me. (No, not the ordering in the list above.)

_Transitions_ is a new Iain M. (for SF) Banks novel, without so much as a single smart-ass AI to make people's lives better. As a result, the multiverse is governed, or herded, or nudged, by a small council of humans who control the drug that permits transuniversal body-hopping. Then it gets really strange. The two sour notes, for me, were: that a viewpoint character is introduced in the first chapter, then not heard from again for 240 pages; and that the mechanics of body-hopping seem to be ill-defined. Otherwise, an engaging read all the way through.

Connolly's urban fantasy is peculiarly compatible with Charlie Stross's Laundry series; we see a narrow slice of the activities of the Twenty Castles Society, which exists to control the use of magic in, at least, North America. The Society sends a Partner -- apparently in the legal business sense -- out to investigate in the Olympic Peninsula. Our protagonist, though, is the almost untrained apprentice she despises, an ex-con with two stolen pieces of magic to his name. Most magic seems to involve deals with extradimensional horrors, and the small town corruption they uncover is no exception. Connolly is a good story-teller, too.

_Feed_ is a teenage-centered dystopia set near the end of the world, courtesy of taking-it-one-step-further brain implants. Spoiler, because I hate this sort of thing: nothing saves them, or the ecosystem.

Eric Flint gathers together his shorter (i.e. non-novel) fiction together and splats it in one place. He displays range, good ideas, and the ability to tell a good story. He also display an inability to stop milking the ideas before they go sour and watery.

Eoin Colfer wrote a purported sixth Hitchhiker novel, possibly working with some of Douglas Adams' notes. It's fanfic. It's not inspired fanfic. It's not as good as _Young Zaphod Plays It Safe_, even.

Books

_...And Another Thing_, Eoin Colfer
_Transitions_, Iain M. Banks
_Feed_, M.T. Anderson
_Words_, Eric Flint
_Child of Fire_, Harry Connolly


In descending order of quality as ascertained by me. (No, not the ordering in the list above.)

_Transitions_ is a new Iain M. (for SF) Banks novel, without so much as a single smart-ass AI to make people's lives better. As a result, the multiverse is governed, or herded, or nudged, by a small council of humans who control the drug that permits transuniversal body-hopping. Then it gets really strange. The two sour notes, for me, were: that a viewpoint character is introduced in the first chapter, then not heard from again for 240 pages; and that the mechanics of body-hopping seem to be ill-defined. Otherwise, an engaging read all the way through.

Connolly's urban fantasy is peculiarly compatible with Charlie Stross's Laundry series; we see a narrow slice of the activities of the Twenty Castles Society, which exists to control the use of magic in, at least, North America. The Society sends a Partner -- apparently in the legal business sense -- out to investigate in the Olympic Peninsula. Our protagonist, though, is the almost untrained apprentice she despises, an ex-con with two stolen pieces of magic to his name. Most magic seems to involve deals with extradimensional horrors, and the small town corruption they uncover is no exception. Connolly is a good story-teller, too.

_Feed_ is a teenage-centered dystopia set near the end of the world, courtesy of taking-it-one-step-further brain implants. Spoiler, because I hate this sort of thing: nothing saves them, or the ecosystem.

Eric Flint gathers together his shorter (i.e. non-novel) fiction together and splats it in one place. He displays range, good ideas, and the ability to tell a good story. He also display an inability to stop milking the ideas before they go sour and watery.

Eoin Colfer wrote a purported sixth Hitchhiker novel, possibly working with some of Douglas Adams' notes. It's fanfic. It's not inspired fanfic. It's not as good as _Young Zaphod Plays It Safe_, even.