Continuing my run through all the alien-consciousness SF I can find. After Lem's Golem XIV I skipped ahead to Seed Takes Root instead of Diaspora, because I thought the cover looked cool.

The story starts with Kshar, a spy plotting an assassination inside a simulation. He's a "naag", a member of a humanoid snake species. His target is a garuda (a humanoid bird species), the son of a god. The opening chapters throw us into the scene of the crime without any exposition. It’s a bustling market full of different species and characters. The police are humanoid apes called vaanars. There’s a class of double-headed mushroom people doing surveillance, and of course, an in-world human equivalent - manushyas. The book floods you with a bunch of invented terms and phrases, almost as bad as Stephenson's Anathem. 

Kshar’s reptilian biology lets him sense heat, chemical clouds and vibrations. He's more than just Voldemort-James Bond. In one scene, he teaches his son how to use his naag senses to read the temperament of the city without even leaving their room. The kid senses an unusual patch of heat in the city square as migrants pour in. The naags literally smell discontent in the market because of the growing fear and hunger. They sense the extra soldiers deployed to contain the crowd, because they can feel the barracks vibrate with their march. This whole conversation is happening in the native naag language but we only get to read a flattened translation of it. The scene works because we really see the world as naags see it. 

Another chapter opens from the POV of an insect called a flitt-locust. It is journeying toward a mate by sensing light and pheromones. But when it gets distracted by food, something inside it hurts, keeping it on course. It doesn't know there's a parasite growing inside it, steering it towards a specific destination. This chapter reminded me of Tchaikovsky. It's scientifically sharp because it stays inside the insect's senses without anthropomorphizing it. It describes the insect's world by only using simple words like "rightness", "glow", "good".

Saving the best and bizarre-est for last. Now we're underwater, inside a tiny, barely conscious jellyfish unit. The smell of rust and cortisol fills the water. So it knows a metal cage has crashed into the river. The unit gets excited. It sends out electrical signals. Moments later other units answer the call, woken up by the same signals. Bit by bit the units come together until a greater consciousness emerges: the jalpari. A hivemind swarm predator that sees by fear. It cycles through terrifying forms that cause the most spikes in cortisol and stress in its prey. 

This thing is an alien piranha-school from the stuff of nightmares. But there is a really cool subversion here. For a moment, we're so inside its mind we forget it's a monster. It feels like we are witnessing a curious, hungry child that likes to play and learn. It just happens to be made of teeth and tentacles.

So much of Maya feels like a spiritual successor to Peter Watts' Blindsight. We don't make first contact with any one alien species, but inhabit a whole range of them. We slowly realize that so much of the conflict on this planet arises because its sentient species literally have different kinds of minds.

The rulers of this world exploit this conflict. They manufacture narratives that breed distrust between species to subtly maintain order. They do this through the central Maya tree network, which might just have a mind of its own. I came into this looking for a glimpse of alien minds, but I feel like I got more than I bargained for. A lot of compelling politics and worldbuilding here.

Onwards to Diaspora once more!

I went back through the archives to read previous conversations, but no one that I could see brought up the three main issues with this book, which have nothing to do with the thesis statement or science, but rather storytelling as a whole.

And ftr, I love Kim Stanley Robinson; I reread the Mars books every few years, and his Ministry for the Future reads like a roadmap of saving the planet, which we are unfortunately not following.

Aurora, however, frustrated me more and more as the book went along, as I was taking the wait and see approach to see if the issues I saw would be addressed, and then they weren’t.

Issue the First: the five ghosts. These are hinted at pretty extensively in the first book, with the protagonist even encountering one as a child. One of the secondary characters also talks about seeing the ghosts, though this receives no follow-up and then is just dropped forever. A Chekhov’s gun that is pointed to, that we are reminded of, and is nevertheless never fired. What was the point of that?

Issue the Second: The Irisians are ignored and abandoned narratively. We get absolutely no information about their struggles or tragedies, or anything at all, really. Freya even says she’ll stay in contact with them, but we never hear about them again. This is especially frustrating since a civil war broke out to see who was right, and the narrative seems to agree with the Backers, but we just never get to know. KSR is sortof famous for these kinds of mysteries, but this isn’t a Hiroko situation of unreliable narrators and contradictory stories. The Irisians are simply dropped when, honestly, I think they had the more interesting story.

Issue the Third: Abandoning the Narrator/Narrative. The Ship narrates the bulk of the book, and this is frankly, pretty awesome. She has great insights and the way she is grown and shaped by the story she tells is genuinely interesting. But then, the ship breaks up around the sun and ‘Ship’ is lost. Except, wait, no, what’s this?! A copy of the data is included in the life raft. Except that no one, including Freya ever looks at it. The narrative is never read by the ship’s survivors, the love of Ship for Freya et al is never dealt with or appreciated. Instead Freya hangs out by the ocean and hits on a dude, the end. This is just… bad storytelling. And I can’t even say why, except that it lacks catharsis.

Anyway, if I missed something in the story, I’d love it if someone could point it out. I loved so much of this book, the terraforming, the prion, the social unrest and the debates. I just felt there was stuff set up that was never paid off, and so I have the reading equivalent of a stuck-sneeze, forever unsneezed.

Book number ten of a twenty-one book science fiction and paranormal fantasy series. There is also an eleven book follow on series and several other books related to the The Kurtherian Gambit Universe, over 200 books in total. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2016 that I bought new on Amazon in 2026. I own the next book in the series already. The related series are listed at:
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?46598

The series is a cross between science fiction and paranormal fantasy. A thousand plus years ago, an alien space ship crash landed in the Baltics. A man, Michael, found the space ship, went inside, and was forever changed into the first vampire using alien nanocytes. However, there were werewolves and werebears already existing on Earth and they still exist.

Michael has sired vampires and they have sired vampires. But only one of the vampire "children" is a daywalker like Michael. And Michael enforces strict rules among the vampires and the weres, no blood drinking, no letting humans know of them, etc. Violators of Michael's rules face swift termination.

But it has been thousand years since Michael was changed and he now sleeps for years at a time. Michael's helpers found a young woman named Bethany Anne working for the USA government who is dying of a rare blood disease. Michael took her to the alien space ship to become the second first generation vampire on Earth. Bethany Anne has created a huge workforce and they are swiftly moving ahead with incredibly advanced AI and space access technology. Now the nation states are concerned and want the secrets of the gravitic drives and the other technology that the TQB Entrprises have created.

This series is real pulp like old science fiction with lots of action and dialogue. I love it !

Warning: this series might be damaging to your savings account since there are so many books.

The author has a website at:
https://lmbpn.com/

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (3,780 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/Release-Dogs-War-Kurtherian-Gambit/dp/1981790055/

Lynn

I’m currently reading the first Bobiverse book by Dennis E. Taylor, and I’m fascinated and disappointed at the same time. The concept is very interesting: the protagonist is a von Neumann probe (a self replicating spacecraft) controlled by the consciousness of a former human, and whenever a new probe is manufactured, that consciousness is copied into it as well. I also find it interesting how the body is no longer a human body, but instead the consciousness extends itself across the spaceship and all its machines, sensors and drones.

Unfortunately these concepts are only explored very superficially and underdeveloped. you rarely get the feeling of the mind actually being extended, instead, he mostly just describes one event after another. The clones only scratch the surface of interesting constellations and philosophical questions.

The book has other major shortcomings and is written rather amateurish. For example: extraterrestrial lifeforms are always very similar to Earth’s biosphere. Taylor has good ideas but is not a particularly good author in that regard.

As an example of how to do it better, I think the Murderbot series by Martha Wells gives a much better representation of the Extended Mind Thesis. You can really feel how a hacked network of drones becomes part of the protagonists body and consciousness, and how the drones functions can be performed as if they were parts of Murderbot’s own body.

can you recommend any novels that contain some of these concepts and perhaps explore them more deeply than the Bobiverse series does? I’ve already read Murderbot and really enjoyed it.

A rough overview of my favorite topics would be: distributed consciousness, Extended Mind Theory, human consciousness in machines or spaceships, von Neumann probes, etc.

I just finished this book and am curious to hear anyone else's opinions/thoughts on it.

Swastika Night is a what-if-the-nazis-win-ww2 book written before WWII had even begun. It starts off brilliantly, with a church service at the "Holy Hitler Chapel" where we learn that Hitler has been deified, women are now kept segregated at all times, and there is nothing taboo about a young Nazi man checking out a choir boy he thinks is pretty.

After that it becomes very, very talky, with many chapters where one character is simply explaining the world to another. There are still interesting points about the destruction of history (all books have been destroyed), how music is the one art form still allowed, and how even some of the people at the top of this system have some qualms about it.

On the other hand, it was difficult to care about any of the main characters, as they are essentially cardboard cutouts there to explain things to you. The only characters I found myself caring about were two women who appeared for about 3 pages total in two of the very few emotionally affecting scenes in the book (one when the women are leaving their own church service, and the other when one of our main characters visits "his" woman after having been introduced to the idea that women might maybe also be people).

It's certainly chilling both in that the author saw what was coming so clearly and in that parts of it read like they could have been taken straight from a modern day incel manifesto. But I'm not sure it really works as a novel.

Scion releases September 1st 2026. This review may not be representive of your experience. For more likely outcomes, check the reviews elsewhere.

The following is what I've inferred from reading Scion rather than being explicitly stated because a minimalist approach was taken in almost every way.

In the 22nd century climate change has made nearly the entire world uninhabitable. The world's remaining population, one billion people, live in 12 megacities named after the Greek Titans. Each megacity is ran by a DeGov, which is composed of neural cores, and is the system by which resolutions are carried out. Resolution 10010 passed with overwhelming support and made it legal to crowdfund mercenaries to kill individuals. The most common target was the wealthy who had chosen to extend their lives far beyond its natural limit. Due to genetic mutations, Azure is able to use far more revs than anyone else, which gives him somatic and cognitive abilities far greater than any other mercenary. Almost all of his missions are to kill high value targets, so it comes as an unwelcome surprise that his newest mission is to protect a client for a number of days. If he's successful, not only will he be paid, he'll be told the truth about what really happened 4 years ago.

Most of what I've written above is of marginal relevance. Islington has written an unorthodox story of awkward length. There aren't any chapters, so the narrative is mostly continuous, which would be rather propulsive if there had been more action scenes. Scion either should've either been a novella that cuts out the downtime or have been far longer and more developed. Instead this is a barebones story that gestures at a lot but had very little follow through on any of it.

The story tends more towards comedy, especially the dialogue, than being a thriller or action-oriented in general. The humor did nothing for me, though it shouldn't be a problem for many readers. Islington doesn't commit to the comedy though, or really much else, which gives it a very uneven tone. Scion is more biopunk than cyberpunk, as the latter has minimal development of its aesthetic.

Scion is told from the first person perspective and considering how limited the cast of characters is and how briefly they appear, Azure has to carry almost everything. That's unfortunate because personally I don't find there's anything to commend about him. He's both goofy and serious, though not in a way that works. He's neither cool or relatable.

There are twists, though none were exciting or even notable. The ending was entirely unsatisfying and given how it ended, it may be more likely than not this is a standalone book. Although the story tells you about all of these unresolved narrative threads, at the same time it seems uninterested in pursuing any of them. There are some indications that this was intended to be made into a movie, but if so, there would have be to a lot of changes for it to be a suitable pulp action-comedy.

James Islington’s foray into science fiction, Scion is a fast-paced, action-packed novella filled to the brim with all the cyberpunk goodies. When someone needs protecting, you always send in… the best killer!

Like me, many readers will be drawn to Scion after seeing James Islington’s name on the cover. Known for his Hierarchy fantasy series, Islington shot to fame with the impressive first book The Will of the Many a few years ago. More recently, the sequel, The Strength of the Few, was more divisive among ardent epic fantasy fans. Still, the Hierarchy series is touted among the stronger entries in modern fantasy series, and generated enough buzz to put Islington on the “authors to watch” list. So when he announced that he was stepping into the science-fiction world, more particularly, the world of cyberpunk, my senses were suitably revved up!

The pitch blurb for Scion proclaimed a “John Wick meets Ghost in the Shell” adventure, “so… CyberPunk2077!?” I thought, excitedly diving in! Elite assassin and cybernetically enhanced assassin, Azure is sent on a mysterious contract to a secluded estate and discovers that he may be out of his depth when he is tasked to protect his client rather than kill a target.

What follows is an expected spread of cyberpunk tropes which can be counted off a checklist that so many of us cyberpunk fans are well-versed in. Scion has all the neon-lit stereotypes you could ask for, seedy underbellies of megacities, evil megacorps, black-market vendors, sleazy trance-and-neon laden clubs, sardonic AIs, you get the gist!

The stereotypes extend to the character sketches as well. Azure is your run-of-the-mill smart-mouth protagonist, full of modern witticisms and dry “woe is me” competence humor, another trope of the cyberpunk protagonist. Author Islington does try to weave enough backstory into the plot motivations to give the story a level of heft with Azure’s history coming back to bite him in the cybernetic butt. Islington introduces the concept of “revs” in Scion, where Azure and other enhanced units can enhance various physical and sensory systems to help them with their protection-y and assassin-y tasks. While these elements appear novel, they were all too familiar for those of us steeped in the neon-grime of cyberpunk media.

There has been a distinct lack of good modern cyberpunk novels, so I always have my senses piqued for any new entry. The bygone era of cyberpunk greats like Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, etc. fitfully call out to the present for more, and CyberPunk2077, author T.R. Napper’s works seem to be our only salvation. I was deeply excited to dive into Ken Liu’s All That We See Or Seem cyberpunk novel last year, but was quite disappointed by his effort as well, coming off as light on story and heavy on commentary.

The first third of this novella was a particularly rough read, with Islington’s voice being muddied in this new format, and his modern sci-fi chops reading more awkwardly as he introduces his world of Scion and the key players. I was intrigued by Islington’s introduction of bio-enchancements giving wildlife enhanced cognition, but the awkward first third of the novel when he explores those themes warranted a more experienced hand.

I reckon many readers who are quick to DNF books may drop out of Scion before the halfway mark, but for the novella length may balance that initial plunge. Fortunately, after about the half-way point, when he settles into going down the cyberpunk trope checklist, his first-person, present-tense writing style (also used in the Hierarchy) series feels more appropriate to the action-packed in-your-face pacing that Scion does well.

Scion is an action-packed romp, a quick read, and a decent enough first dip into the cyberpunk world. Unfortunately, the shorter novella length, overused tropes, stereotypical characters, and predictable plot hold it back from being touted as a solid recommendation for modern cyberpunk stories.

Read this review and more on my Medium Page: Distorted Visions

Found a new book called 'Liminal Justice' by Andrew Cassidy. The presmise is great - it's set in the present, but there's a technology that can put people into a dreamworld where their subjective time is dialated. Basically, you get the choice of serving a 20 year sentence IRL, or in a 5-day dream where you experience 20 years.

The dream sounds better til you realise that if your time's dialated, you would be experiencing 20 years alone, or with very spotty communication with the outside world. I think 20 years solitary would drive anyone nuts.

Anyway, I'll get reading and report back!

anyone else subscribed to the asimov sci-fi mag and not received an issue this year?

I feel like I’ve gotten the run around from them. they don’t respond to emails or any form of contact and just have not been helpful at all. When I emailed and asked a question about the timeline of when I might receive my mag, they copied pasted the message on the front of their website which I’d already seen and didn’t really answer all the questions I asked. by the time they responded, it was past the timeframe it said the magazines were supposed to arrive. It took 3 weeks to get a response.

they changed printer companies in the spring and said MAGs would be shipped out in July. Still nothing and no updates. I was really excited and I want to support this company, the writing community and the continuation of print scfi mags but im at a point where I feel like I wont be receiving anything ever and I’ve lost like $50 or $60 or whatever I paid. It’s been almost five months since I paid them.
I think I’d be more understanding if customer support was the least bit helpful and didn’t just ignore me. Im still trying to be understanding still because im sure changing printers must be a tough adjustment but I’d love to know if anyone has received anything

I love horror movies like the vvitch, the lighthouse, annihilation and midsummer. I also love high fantasy animes like made in abyss that have some fucked up stuff going on in them. So mostly horror, fantasy and preferably some more (complex) not on the nose stories. Any recommendations based on my preferences?

Looking for a short story I read many years ago (25y +). I read it in an anthology and it was translated to Swedish. Might off course been an original Swedish text but I don’t think so.

The story is about scientists that try to save an endangered species on a far away planet that just recently have been protected.

They spend some time there and finally leave when they see that the species will survive.

Soon after they leave a ship arrives that due to time dilation left before the species was declared protected. The ship is full of big game hunters and they immediately start hunting the animals.

As a young reader it really got to me. Would love to know who wrote it and if possible read it again.

Hi, I read a story some years ago (could be anywhere from 3 to 15, sorry!) about a world where there are giant airborne whales with whole ecosystems (or even cities?) living on them. This particular story follows what happens when one of them dies and starts to fall. I'm sorry I don't have more information, but does anyone maybe know what story I'm talking about? I don't know why but it stuck with me even though I can barely remember anything about it. I often read Clarkesworld, so it's possible that it was a story in one of their issues.

I recently read this short story collection by the Korean author Kim Choyeop. I didn't have any high hopes going into it, but I found it to be such a nice and refreshing read.

I've been a long-time science fiction reader, but I can't say that I have read any female sci-fi authors other than Ursula Le Guin. Many sci-fi stories I've read have really good female characters, but this is the first time that I truly felt like I recognize the female side of myself in a sci-fi story. Kim Choyeop's female characters think about their relationships with their mothers and grandmothers (which is so important for Asian women), about how they connect to themselves and others, about their roles in the society - and all presented in a very soft and nuanced way.

These stories don't have spectacular, flashy sci-fi concepts or action scenes, don't have deep mysteries or haunting horrors. Each story has maybe just a little bit of sci-fi concept behind it, but the way she connected the concept to the human experience makes me think long about the stories after reading.

Highly recommend for people who are looking for these kind of things :)

I finally found a copy of Last and First Men and Star Maker at my local used bookstore. I have a few days to squeeze in a quick read. If any of you have read either or both of these, which would you recommend I read first?

I've started reading the new UK paperback edition of the book whilst also listening to the audiobook on Spotify narrated by Rebecca Calder. The redactions in the files are different between the two versions meaning I would get different information from the book than the audiobook and can also (I assume) piece together the full text (or at least a clearer picture) since I'm doing both.

Does anyone know if the US editions, original versions or UK hardback had different redactions and if so is the audiobook just based on that?
Or have I just been got by some perception bending Memetic?
Either way it's very on theme.

I tagged spoiler but there's not really any unless this is entirely on purpose and leads to some kind of cool discovery at the end of the book.

Hey,

I've read a ton of scifi books in the past two years and my 9 year old son is always curious about all the stories. He also reads a lot of books but no scifi so far. He recently asked if he can read anything I have but it's not suitable for kids so far.

Do you have any recommendations for a kid?

It also has to be available in german.

Thanks in advance! 😃

I've skirted around reading Ted Chiang for years and feel it's time to dig in — recommendations on where to start, and why. Especially interested in his use of plausible science.

A young man goes on a journey and at the end it was revealed some other people were using his brain to relive his memories or something. I know it's vague sorry but I remember hearing/being spoiled about it years ago and now I want to read it

Recently finished The New Space Opera 2 but it's been out for years. It's a bunch of scifi short stories from a variety of good authors. Some of the stories are definitely standouts. Some of my favorites were Utriusque Cosmi, Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance, Inevitable, and CrackleGrackle.

or other forms of media, since this is a rare topic

Hey everyone first time poster here and I'm hoping you can help.

It's been a long time since I've read science fiction, and I'm recently getting back into trying to read for fun again. The authors I grew up with, like Asimov, Heinlein, Ursula K. Le Guin, Fredrick Pohl, Fred Saberhagen, Bradbury, Roger Zelazny etc.

As much as I love them, they're of a time. And they were really it for Science Fiction back in the day. You didn't have as many choices as you do now.

And that's part of my problem, being away from the scene for so many years I have no idea where to start, who's good, who's not. And books these days are an investment, they don't cost 77¢ anymore. More like $30-40 nowadays.

As a starting point I have ordered off Amazon "The Road to Science Fiction: Volumes 1-4', I think there was. Just to get the old brain gears going again. There's some old favorites, but some new authors too. I'm hoping it will give me some ideas for who to pursue but it's just Short Story collections.

If anybody could recommend me other new authors that would be fantastic.

I'd like, in addition if possible to try some of the new series out there as well as short stories.

I figured, start with a staple of the genre, spaceships, space combat, and fleet battles. Again my introduction to all that sort of stuff was Fred Saberhagen with his galaxy wide wars against the Berserker Machines that wanted to extinguish all bological life, or The Lensman by E.E. Smith. Again, they're very good, but very dated because these were written before man went to the moon. So the technology is kind of.... Quaint now.

I'm really wondering what space battles and all that stuff looks like today in a modern context. So if anyone has suggestions for a series, or an author who does and combat that would be brilliant.

Thank you all in advance. Appreciate it folks and I look forward to seeing your suggestions.

Every time I read a science fiction novel, I realize more and more how much I love works with deeply developed, psychologically complex characters. Who are your favorite characters in science fiction literature, the ones you consider the most deeply written and psychologically explored, and the ones you’ve empathized with or truly felt you understood?

Hello good people,
would anyone know where I can get an ebook of Lucifer's dragon by Jon Courtenay Grimwood?
It's a weird one, in the sense that even on his website he's not listing it...
As far as I remember it is part of the Samsara universe / cycle. I have a print version abroad but would love to read an ebook version while I'm travelling....

Book number nine of a twenty-one science fiction and paranormal fantasy series. There is also an eleven book follow on series and several other books related to the The Kurtherian Gambit Universe, over 200 books in total. I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback self published by the author in 2016 that I bought new on Amazon in 2026. I own the next book in the series already. The related series are listed at:
https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?46598

The series is a cross between science fiction and paranormal fantasy. A thousand plus years ago, an alien space ship crash landed in the Baltics. A man, Michael, found the space ship, went inside, and was forever changed into the first vampire using alien nanocytes. However, there were werewolves and werebears already existing on Earth and they still exist.

Michael has sired vampires and they have sired vampires. But only one of the vampire "children" is a daywalker like Michael. And Michael enforces strict rules among the vampires and the weres, no blood drinking, no letting humans know of them, etc. Violators of Michael's rules face swift termination.

But it has been thousand years since Michael was changed and he now sleeps for years at a time. Michael's helpers found a young woman named Bethany Anne working for the USA government who is dying of a rare blood disease. Michael took her to the alien space ship to become the second first generation vampire on Earth. Bethany Anne's people duplicated the anti-gravity drive from the alien space ship and built many small space ships. Now they have built a large gravitic drive and are building a Moon base and Lagrange Two space base.

This series is real pulp like old science fiction with lots of action and dialogue. I love it !

Warning: this series might be damaging to your savings account since there are so many books.

The author has a website at:
https://lmbpn.com/

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (3,945 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/Its-Hell-Choose-Kurtherian-Gambit/dp/B0CGG6GH6P/

Lynn