Ben’s Virtual Sci-Fi Bookshelf

There must have been something in the air in the 1990s because authors all of sudden decided they need to structure their novels in piecemeal ways with bits of plot coming at you willy-nilly.  The English Patient and Last Orders both won the Booker Prize for their disorderliness, Use of Weapons not so much.  It still, however, racked up an award or two.  Personally I would have been happy to have given all of these books a miss. When you play ...

I enjoyed this novel very much, and I even bought a copy for one of my brothers.  He hasn’t said anything about it so maybe he didn’t like it, but then again he may not have read it.  I don’t think he likes sci-fi much… so why did I buy him an Iain M. Banks novel then?  Hmmm… Like Consider Phelbus which I seemed to be reviewing only minutes ago this novel has lots of detail.  In this case I think it gels better. W...

I’m writing these reviews sometimes years after having read these books.  My bookshelf now though is overflowing with science fiction books and it’s time to start taking them to the second-hand bookshop.  Rather than loose them entirely at least I’ll have a photo and a few thoughts to remember them by… and you may have guessed by now that I don’t remember much about this book, and even the back cover isn’t h...

The fourth in the Ender’s Game series.  Well… there’s a reason why a “trilogy” is a thing and a 4-book series is not.  Perhaps by book 4 an author just needs a rest or a change in scenery – maybe a trip to Risa?  There’s altogether too much bitching between the main characters in this novel.  Also somewhere in one of the last books instantaneous space travel was invented which I don’t approve of....

The third in The Ender’s Game series.  I thought this one was rather good.  There’s a bit of Chinese culture in there which gives things a different flavour.  Borrowing from other cultures is sometimes a bit frowned upon in literature and art, but you need to get a bit of diversity into the lands of the future somehow.  A number of sci-fi books have done well from this approach: Dune, The Man in the High Castle, Lord of Light to na...

The second in the Ender’s Game series.  It has a rather different feel from the first novel, which is very tight, simple, compelling and classic.  This one is a bit more of a fantasy sci-fi novel.  There are a few interesting alien species living on a planet and at risk from humanity.  Ender wants to protect them and form a Federation of Planets (no, that’s Star Trek isn’t it?).  I liked it enough at the time but it’s n...

Well it’s famous isn’t it?  So if you want a proper review you can get one of 1000s from the web, or go to Wikipedia. It is well written and I enjoyed reading it.  Orson Scott Card cites Asimov as a major influence and I can believe it as they both have an easy-to-read, more-ish quality to their writing.  This book though is much more like a Heinlein: boy goes out on space adventures, is better than regular people, beats the bugs. ...

This is my first sci-fi book review and consequently it isn’t likely to be very good.  How fitting then that it should be about a book that isn’t very well written.  There’s a lot of action in it which is OK but never great and there is a love affair that is very thin indeed. Just as well science fiction isn’t all about the writing!  Introduce a new idea, or maybe popularise or develop an old one and that’s a cont...