Starter Villain by John Scalzi

I love John Scalzi's sci fi books, and "Starter Villain" is no exception. Expect Scalzi's on-brand humour, adventure, fast-moving twisty action, and characters you can't help but root for. In addition, you will find cats, dolphins, trillions of dollars, and an island of secrets. This book ticks all the boxes.

Blurb:

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place.

Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.

Redshirts by John Scalzi

So now that I've run of Andy Weir books and short fiction, it was time to find a new science fiction author to be obsessed with. Success! Now I want to read every single Scalzi book there is.

On the surface, "Redshirts" is a satire of the "cowboys in space" genre. Dig deeper and it's about a writer's responsibility to create good fiction. What it's actually about? Nor wasting your life. Super fun. Super deep. Original format.

Blurb

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory.

Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that:

(1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces

(2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations

(3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed.

Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.

The Egg by Andy Weir

 (Right, so you may have noticed I'm on an Andy Weir binge.)

"The egg" is the shortest science fiction story I've ever read. It's probably also one of the deepest.

Blurb

A short story about the universe and your place in it.

Randomize by Andy Weird

This is a short science fiction story. A good one. A real mathematician would tell you that's not really how randomisation works. Just as well I'm not a real mathematician. 

Blurb

In the near future, if Vegas games are ingeniously scam-proof, then the heists have to be too, in this imaginative and whip-smart story by the New York Times bestselling author of The Martian. An IT whiz at the Babylon Casino is enlisted to upgrade security for the game of keno and its random-number generator. The new quantum computer system is foolproof. But someone on the inside is no fool. For once the odds may not favor the house—unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past.

Artemis by Andy Weir

A fun adventure, not as deep as "Project Hail Mary", but a real pleasure to read. Love the diversity as well as the personality of the characters.

Blurb

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent.

Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she's stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself—and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.

Project Hail Mary

"Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir is a fantastic read. The author has done the impossible: written a book that's even better than his previous bestseller "The Martian".

This novel has everything: the heart, the pace, the science, the unexpected yet perfect ending.

Whether you're into SF, think you might like to try an SF book, or are vehemently against SF, you should read it.

Counting down to my new release....

"The Hanukkah Time Capsule" will be released today as part of the "12 Days of Christmas" ebook drive at Echelon Press Shorts. I'm blogging and tweeting about it while waiting for the Buy Link and book cover.

I'm so excited! I keep going back to the site and checking for updates, as though this were my first publication, LOL.

Watch this space for details! (update: the book is out!!!)

Escape Velocity - Science Fact and Fiction

2008 is a happy new year so far: my contributor’s copy of “Escape Velocity - The Magazine of Science Fact and Fiction”, Issue 1 Volume 1, arrived this morning. I’m blown away. When people say “magazine”, I picture something flimsy and probably stapled, so even all the positive reviews could not prepare me for what I received: something that looks just like a quality novel, except that its size is A4.

Inside you can find SF stories, SF articles, SF poetry, photos and movie reviews. To quote one of the editors, the magazine’s vision is “to celebrate variety in the 360 degree field we love as science fiction. We give space to those writers who stretch the imagination into the apparently impossible, as well as explore the known world, but with an unusual flavour.”

Trust me, they do. Just take a look at their website - or better yet, order a sample copy.