book review
Books reviews of the best science fiction stories, texts, educational texts, and journals.
Susanne Collins, "Hunger Games"
What creates an editorial phenomenon is the novelty of the subject. The same goes for Eco’s murderous monks, Meyer’s “vegetarian” vampires, Dan Brown’s sangreal lineage, or James’s sadomasochistic bondage. Everything that comes after is in the wake, it is an imitation of the original.
By Patrizia Poli4 years ago in Futurism
Review of Rosemary Claire Smith's 'Next Frontier' Novelette
This seems to be my year -- by which I mean all of 2021 and 2022 -- for alternate history. The second season of For All Mankind in February 2021, Ronald D. Moore's masterful alternate history about the race to the Moon in the 1960s, and ensuing decades, was even better than the first. My 90-minute interview with Rufus Sewell in July 2021 about The Man in the High Castle series on Apple TV+ got me even deeper into that one-of-a-kind stunning story. And just this month, a favorite story that I've written was published -- "It's Real Life," my alternate history about The Beatles.
By Paul Levinson4 years ago in Futurism
Book Review: The Final Progam by Michael Moorcock.
The Final Program is a science fiction adventure novel written by UK author Michael Moorcock. The book is the first in a series called the Jerry Cornelius quartet, after its protagonist, who works as a secret agent for hire. The story was published in 1968 by Avon Books in paperback. Then in the following year, a hardback edition was published in the UK. The novel is 168 pages long and is the only Michael Moorcock story to be made into a motion picture.
By Edward German4 years ago in Futurism
The Seven Realms Series - Should You Read It? . Top Story - October 2021.
What's Seven Realms In a Nutshell (No Spoilers) The Seven Realms Series takes place in a conventional fantasy world filled with medieval technologies, swordplay, castles, and keep. Written by the author, Cinda William Chima.
By Jed Silverlake4 years ago in Futurism
Atlantis - the perfect place
I have been an avid reader since my childhood. Reading has been my favorite hobby. Reading illuminates me, prevents cognitive decline, and most importantly provides me the much-needed solace in the ever-increasing stress in my hectic life. But I must confess that used to have a preconceived notion that " old is not gold" when it came to books. This prejudice might have risen from the occupational hazard of being a researcher where we are vigorously advised to be acquainted with the most accurate up-to-date research literature. In the research field, the most recent documents are considered the most reliable because improved and more efficient instruments and methodologies are used for the experiments conducted, and the old documents are in turn looked down upon. For this reason, almost all the novels I've read belong to the 20th and 21st centuries. Six months ago, this misconception of mine got debunked. My family and my cousin's family planned to visit Yellowstone during the weekend and for this reason, I went to his house with my family. On reaching there I got sick, and I had to stay back while the others went to Yellowstone. Feeling bored I browsed through my cousin's bookshelf. It contained about 90 books and I found that I have read eighty-nine of them. Only one unread book was the new Atlantis by Francis Bacon. I was so skeptical to read the "prehistoric" book, but I took the chance. The book changed my thought process. Oh Lord, how wrong I was!
By abhidipta mallik4 years ago in Futurism
Welcome To Riverworld
Note this , by its very nature , will contain spoilers , Philip Jose Farmer has written some of my favourite books such as “The Wind Whales of Ishmael” and “The Other Log of Phileas Fogg” both nodding to fiction classics which you can guess. I will try and keep it as high level as possible naming characters , concepts in the hope that you may want to visit Riverworld.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 4 years ago in Futurism
Ray
The other day I got rid of most of my books. I saved the rest mostly because of the illustrations, and the fact that they had been autographed. or written by a friend. Why keep something that can be found on the internet. Are books a necessity? The book Farenheight 451 addresses this question. It was written by Ray Bradbury in the 1950's. The story takes place in a futuristic society where books are not allowed. The government has firemen who burn citizens' books. It is illegal to own books. The main character of the story is a fireman, Montuk. He has been a fireman for years, He has no trouble with his job. He is a pro. It was a pleasure to burn books. Books provide different opinion, he is protecting society's happiness. Or so it appears.
By Antoinette L Brey4 years ago in Futurism
The Best Fantasy Sci-Fi World You've Never Heard Of
In 1998, a prophetic photo of Jeff Bezos was taken. He is leaning against a warehouse shelf full of books, wearing preppy, geeky clothes with a wry smile sitting across his face, as if he knew all along he'd become the richest man in the world.
By Jamie Jackson4 years ago in Futurism
The Shineman’s Magical Diary
**This essay contains spoilers of Matt de la Peañ's The Living and The Hunted book series. It’s a wild thing to see that post-apocalyptic stories have become so popular that there’s now a thriving Young Adult sub-genre sitting next to bone-chilling classics like I Am Legend, The Road, or Cat’s Cradle. As if kids weren’t already over-anxious, authors are now running them through dystopian futurism. A world in which humans have been thrown again into a state of nature is something that, turns out, appeals to teens and tweens as well as to adults. Enter Matt de la Peña and his Y.A. take on the American apocalypse in The Living and The Hunted. This series brings wealth inequalities, political access, and racial privilege front and center to the modern disaster/survival story. “Shy” works a summer gig for an LA cruise line, and as things fall apart (due to a multi-pronged catastrophe featuring earthquakes, fires, tsunami tidal waves, and an emerging, high-mortality pandemic disease outbreak) he comes to rely on a select band of surviving co-workers. “Shoeshine” holds a mysterious, stoic, and at times mythical role in Shy’s band of travelers. Despite some glaring indications that Shoeshine is a real person in this story, it also becomes possible that Shoeshine exists not as an actual character, and only as a fragment of Shy’s consciousness. Shoeshine is a projection of Shy’s representing everything that Shy “cannot” do yet, or does not yet have the will to express.
By Philip Canterbury5 years ago in Futurism
Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
What is the book about? Game of Thrones is the first book in a 5 book series called A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin. First published in 1996, Game of Thrones is a fantasy-drama novel. The world, Westeros and the seven kingdoms are entirely Martin's imagination. Game of Thrones is a conquest between rival Houses. A feud for power, honour, justice and revenge.
By Varun Yadav5 years ago in Futurism
The Knight's Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer
The knight is one of only three Canterbury pilgrims (the others being the parson and the ploughman) whom Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400) treats without a hint of irony in his General Prologue. Indeed, these three characters are more like nostalgic idealizations of people whom Chaucer greatly admired, but they are figures of a bygone age, much to the writer’s regret.
By John Welford5 years ago in Futurism
