Smorgasbord Fantasia

Disclaimer: This reading was my attempt to go back and claw through my towering pile to backed up TO_READ novels. Something about the book struck me and before long, I was being swept along in this pulpy action packed, almost cinematic thrill ride of a science fiction novel. This book blew me away. I cannot believe this is the FIRST novel by Ted Kosmatka , the man who had won Nebula/Hugo for his shorter works, really creates a pitch-perfect science fiction thriller that is executed in the most stunning manner for his first book. I was hooked right from page one - I was taking a break from my "newer" novels to be reviewed and bought this book as I've 'heard' great things. You know, SF is no longer my thing. But the way Ted writes, he'd got HUGE TALONS hooked deep into me, right from the first chapter on. Olympic games that involves genetic monstrosities fighting each other ? Intriguing. In America, in 2044 where each country is out to prove its supre...

The Dire-Earth cycle series by Jason M Hough is touted to be the best thing to have happened to the almost dying genre of Science Fiction today. I would agree to a certain extent, but with a degree of caution.  Best thing? Questionable. A good thing? Most emphatically yes. It’s pumped the interest back in to Science Fiction stories but it is nowhere enough to trump the amount of foaming-at-the-mouth raving attention that Fantasy has generated ( thanks to HBO Original Series of Game of Thrones??) But we’re digressing here. Let’s get back to the series and the book in general. What is attractive about the book is the SF-nal premise of the whole book with alien contact and it’s very accessible nature. Instead of being hard-ass high-flying sci-fi (which trust me, turns off a lot of people wanting to wade into the SF territory), Jason keeps this book easy enough to be liked. Big guns, alien technology, futuristic earth with a touch of dystopian horror. Check. Jaso...

There is always something captivating about the concept of apocalypse, right? Is it that dread, that helplessness? Or as Joseph Adams claims, it appeals to our sense of adventure, that thrill of discovery, the desire for a new frontier? And yet here we are on the other side of the fence thinking that all this is all in a distant future. We all have had dreams of a desolate, deserted Earth littered with abandoned broken down hulks of concrete and asphalt that stretch from nowhere to nowhere or is it visions of a dying world suffocating on noxious fumes and people wasting away from radiation?  Whatever be your imaginations of a post-apocalyptic world – guaranteed they are going to be blown away by the visions of these twenty-two different works of genius from over the last two decades, smartly edited and collated in this one slim volume, aptly called the Wastelands by John Joseph Adams. Wastelands is a definitive collection about an all-too possible bleak future...

I know this is perhaps one of the forgotten gems of GRRM, but it still ranks pretty much up there in terms of the quality of pure unadulterated story telling.  A terrific SF thriller that once again cements the fact the GRRM is indeed one of the best story tellers of our times. Joining him this time are two other talents, Daniel Abraham and Gardner R. Dozois. I have read the first two parts of Daniel Abraham’s much acclaimed Long Prince Quartet series that has repeatedly taken the mantle of being the most under-appreciated Fantasy series out there. I haven’t heard of Dozois, but heck, with two names that most certainly promised a rollercoaster of a ride, I couldn’t resist. And a treat it was. An absolute masterpiece in terms of the twists and turns and a simple yet appealing plot that sticks to the original purpose of story-telling. To entertain. Without getting lost in the hyperbole of clumsy world building. There are so many lessons that GRRM could give the young guns who w...