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[Silas Vitalia]

New William Gibson:

The Peripheral

http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/books/the_peripheral_excerpt.asp

Fantastic so far, but then again I'm usually a good fan of Gibson's work.  This is his return to speculative/future fiction as opposed to his last several 'recent past' fiction stories.   It's got all the standard cyberpunk trimmings and it's been a fun read so far (about halfway through).

Anne Leckie

Ancillary Justice  / Ancillary Sword

This swept both Hugo and Nebula awards for 2014 best novel

Great work from a 'new' author.

Brief synopsis: a powerful AI that runs an entire capital ship and hundreds of 'ancillary' bodies simultaneously (think Sansha drones)  through a series of events has her ship destroyed, and every single extra body except one.   Thus a revenge tale unfolds with what remains of the once powerful AI reduced to a single body on a quest for vengeance against those that wronged her.

http://www.annleckie.com/novel/ancillary-justice/

[Lyn Farel]

Ah nice. Will keep them in mind, especially interested in the second one.

---------------------------

I read Spin State recently, from Chris Moriarty. It was awesome, although a bit messy. It's hard science at times, but the better for me. What I loved mostly was the take on the universe. It's an universe based in a futuristic dystopia that reminded me a bit of Eve on many gritty points, divided between realistic nuances of grey in a very ruthless political world of conflicts (an all powerful ruthless UN, the Earth ring for the rich, the devastated Earth for the poor, the mysterious Syndicates, implants and augmentations, virtual realities, AIs, etc). The main character is interesting as she is full of contrast, neither really good or really bad, but with a very heavy past. The take on AIs is EXTREMELY interesting. They feel very believable. The only grief I have is that it's a bit messy yeah, sometimes difficult to follow, but it works brilliantly overall.

I'm reading the first spinoff now (Spin Control), but I have to admit while the geopolitical landscape is still good and we learn a lot of new things on the main factions, it's rather... tedious. I feel like nothing is happening, and enjoyable. Too much spy-ish gibberish, i'm a bit confused by everything shown here. Too bad. I hope the 3rd book will bring back the awesome of the first one... Or that the end of the second one will suddenly turn OMAGAD revelations.

[orange]

The Buntline Special and the following 3 books.

Steampunk/magic world where the US government was stopped by native shamans from expanding past the Mississippi, but settlers still pushed west.  A young Tom Edison lives in Tombstone (Arizona) trying to find a technological answer to the magic, while Doc Holiday and the Earps try to protect him from various parties interested in killing the brilliant young Edison.

It was an easy read and fun.

For harder sci-fi: The Windup Girl

Future world where genetic modification has run rampant, fossil fuels are depleted, and the global economy collapsed and is being rebuilt.

[Quintrala]

Accelerando by Charles Stross.

He must have smoked something good. Technology marches forward and it affects three generations of the Macx family in different ways. From a father that relies on his things and gadgets to make the best of cyberspace, to a daughter that at some point between Earth and Pluto decides to cast away the physical and move into the digital world, to a grandson born inside; each of them watching how things move faster and faster towards... Singularity.

Well written although a bit weird. Stross muses about what it would mean to be transhuman, including the economic, cultural, legal and sentimental story angles. Cool read. I bet he would make an awesome roleplayer.

Q

[Mizhara]

Alastair Reynolds writes the magnificent Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap book series. The Prefect is in the same universe but an independent story from before the first trilogy.

I really can't recommend it enough. It's dark and hard sci-fi, balanced with a properly "space epic" setting and story. The first book in particular you can tell isn't written by the best of authors, as he's not very good at writing conversation or balancing exposition with progress, but the setting and sci-fi elements really makes up for it.

I absolutely love his take on space travel, human factions, the fermi paradox and alien intelligence. These are books I will relish in the genre for a long time to come.

[kalaratiri]

Literally everything by Reynolds is worth reading. Century Rain and Terminal World in particular are fantastic.

[Alain Colcer]

thank you for the references to books, been a while since i found any sci-fi author worth reading...

will start with the "accelerando" one, heck of storyline there.

[Makoto Priano]

Let's see. Recent sci-fi reads.

Scalzi's Locked In-- his take on a slightly more serious, near-future/cyberpunk book. It's his best to date, but still has a fair bit of that Scalzi sass. If any of you are looking for fun reads, his stuff is certainly up there in being clever and fun to read, though admittedly not world-shaking in any regard.

Another that have been around slightly longer; Leviathan Wakes and the rest of that series by James SA Corey. The first is absolutely the best, being a fairly hard sci-fi take on life on the fringe of the solar system, as the humanity has filled it to the best we can with sublight technology. The following books are still fun, but the first is certainly the best.

Likewise, Existence by David Brin. Brin, as always, has a tendency to skip later points in the plot for the sake of getting to a grandiose and slightly odd end. Still, the world he creates is brilliant, from its employment of augmented reality and smartmobs to discussion of humanity's prospects in the long term.

Filing away Accelerando and Reynolds' work for later. :x

[Silas Vitalia]

I'll rescind my warm thoughts on "The Peripheral" as it just went downhill for me the further on I went.  I really hate books that wrap up all the loose ends in a few pages and have no room for things to happen after the finale.   

Like you are 10 pages from the end and thinking, well, shit's not resolved, and if it's resolved in the next few pages ima be pissed there's no room for proper resolutions here..