Bringing you stories, book and game reviews, writing tips, and updates from author S.G. Baker.
Introduction The narrative of The Tangled Lands, written by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell, follows the separate but intertwined stories of a handful of people living in or attempting to leave the Blue City, so named for the blue fires whose smoke detects those who have recently used magic. Choked with bramble and briar, … Continue reading Book Review: The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell
Introduction The Hatch by Michelle Saftich takes readers through a dystopian future in which humanity has begun colonizing other life-supporting planets, while the humans who remain on earth must survive the planet's harsh climate in tiny bunkers several levels below ground. EASA, a totalitarian government and spearhead of planetary exploration, utilizes all resources in the … Continue reading Book Review: The Hatch by Michelle Saftich
Introduction Throughout Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, Galaxy Stern fights to balance her background as a drug abuser and teen runaway, her lifelong gift (curse) of the ability to see ghosts, known as Grays, and her job working for a secret cultish organization entrenched within the high society of Yale University. Together with her distant … Continue reading Book Review: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
Introduction Following the events of the first four Murderbot Diaries novellas, Network Effect by Martha Wells delivers a long-form adventure for our favorite anxious SecUnit. When its human clients get kidnapped by a familiar research transport and unfamiliar humanoids, Murderbot must fight to keep all the humans alive while trying to figure out a way … Continue reading Book Review: Network Effect by Martha Wells
In Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett, three years have passed since the events of Foundryside, the first installment in the Founders series. Long enough for Sancia Grado and the allies she made in Foundryside to plan and begin to execute a magical-industrial revolution, one that will make scriving, the sacred and secret art of bending reality to one's will, accessible to all.
In Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, orphaned, broadsword-wielding Gideon Nav makes a bid for freedom from a life of servitude on the claustrophobic planet of the Ninth House, but the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, necromancer and bone manipulation prodigy, thwarts Gideon's attempt at escape, demanding the swordswoman's help in exchange for her freedom. The … Continue reading Book Review: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Moon must learn to go from lost and alone to part of a community of his own people that he does not understand at all. At the same time, enemies of the Raksura come bearing down on his newfound colony in his wake.
Part nature documentary, part retelling of the human condition, Children of Time tells of the clash between a race just beginning and another on the verge of vanishing forever.
Agniezka gets thrown into unfamiliar situation after unfamiliar situation, just as she thinks she knows what she's about. Each time, her lack of understanding gets her into trouble as she tries to fit into her surroundings and play by the rules. Only when she recognizes that the rules are garbage and that she must do things her way does she begin to stand a chance at getting what she needs.
The narrative examines topical questions of today wrapped up into one metaphor - those of labor replacement as artificial intelligence and digitization invade the workplace, as well as the decline of the coal industry (and others) as alternate energy options become available.
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