A good read in casual science fiction
580392
"Where there is life, there is hope."

True!

Perhaps the only thing true about this highly imaginative, fantastical narrative. An engaging adventure, replete with marvelous descriptions of exotic places, and people, Jules Verne holds a reader's attention and entertains the wandering, wondering mind. Deeper into the work, one encounters incredible scenes and adventures...

Yet exactly that is where I felt the work loosen its hold on me. The incredible lends disbelief, which the work, regrettably, does not suspend.

The center of the Earth? The CENTER? The adventurers barely penetrate...granted that is just a fanciful title, and this is a journey into the interior of the Earth. But a compass needle pointing upwards? The Earth would've to be smaller than the Moon for that to make sense. Light in the interior sometimes casting clear shadows, and sometimes not...

And what's with the phlegmatic eider-down hunter? He seemed as flat a character as can be, while others are developed well, albeit not altogether rounded. The interesting bits of language foreign to most readers were catchy.

Boredom with over-dramatization and with an overactive imagination sped up my reading as well. Perhaps, as a writer myself, I am overly critical!

A good read, one that the very young, or casual science-fiction aficionados, may enjoy.
2421014
I read this book and book 2 and liked them both well enough. The violence was a bit over the top for me, but thankfully its not overly descriptive.  There was some religious link to the spaceships, at least it seemed that way. I was relieved upon reading more that these links were just certain characters' takes on the odd changes happening to them.  I'm not a fan of religion or pseudo-religious aliens, etc.

  The issue of nanites was interesting and a possible world without natural death was also interesting. (I think im getting into book 2 here.)  Alien tech altered 'Super-humans' is one theme.  The story centers around 2 damaged space ships found as partially functional wrecks.  Its about the technology let loose far too quickly and the dire consequences.  Good technology vs. evil technology is the main theme.  The protagonists have to try to put the genie back in the bottle, but they have help in the form of technology and highly trained killers whom they trust.  Theres a lot going on here, maybe too much, but it certainly keeps the pages turning.

Hard sci-fi fans are going to grimace at some things. Cartoonists use a phrase 'Hammer Space' to jokingly refer to where the hammer came from, which then is promptly used to hit the other character over the head with.  I see some of that here, where things are just a bit too useful, and quickly created.  Oh well.  That's a thing with a lot of sci-fi.
  I'll go ahead and buy book 3 when it comes out.
-Randy
3966263
This was a fairly quick, yet enjoyable, read that touches on several already-done science fiction themes: people from Earth discover an uninhabited spaceship floating in space, a team goes to discover it, theres some conflict, and a hero comes to save the day and mankind is poised to reap the benefits of this futuristic technology but there is a looming alien invasion / threat.  Overall, a pretty good first book.

The ending, however, is rather abrupt and does not stop at any logical conclusion  will there be a sequel, is this it?  Also, the overly realistic sex scenes are more for a romance book than fitting into any well-established science fiction agenda.

I picked this up during a Kindle Daily Deal using my one monthly free borrow vs. its normal price of $3.99; Im really surprised Amazon would pick this one up as a Kindle Daily Deal knowing they would perturb a lot of readers with the sudden ending when there is not a sequel available to purchase.  Did I get more than $3.99 worth of entertainment value?  I think so, but if I had known there was a cold stop in the novel I would have avoided it unless I knew there was some type of sequel or logical conclusion to this episode.
1891674
Humanity is space-faring, but only within our own solar system. Everything, human or machine, sent to beyond vanishes without a trace. Corporations are the effective ruling powers, morality is a shifting spectrum of gray.
  Jain has been investigating this mystery and is on to something but before she can divulge her discovery she is murdered.
 Rada and Simm, operatives for a rival corporation are determined to find why and by whom, with the help of some space pirates, a sort of think tank called Lords of the True Realm and Jain's son who faked his own death.
 Outlaw is basically a murder mystery set in space, and our protagonists traverse the solar system in pursuit of whodunit and what Jain discovered. The quotidian details of life aboard spacecraft, on stations or off-earth bodies is well drawn and enjoyable. The writing is good, the imagining of a post-sexist reality where gender is irrelevant is impressively accomplished, but the characters are stock and the ending is a bit abrupt.
 I find the idea of humanity becoming space-faring exciting and inspiring, so Outlaw checked enough boxes for me that I enjoyed it and will probably check out the next book in the series.
  (I may have received a copy free in exchange for my honest review, but have too many books on my Kindle to keep track.)
3254295
Mutiny in Space will bring enjoyment to sci-fi fans, especially those that prefer realism. The plot is simple, yet satisfying, and the beginning is strong. However, it drags a bit in the third chapter, and there are a few typos, though not enough to make it unreadable. That being said, I recommend this book.
1615873
I was pleasantly surprised.  I am not a huge science fiction fan, but this story was sci-fi I could relate to, nothing too far - fetched.  The story was medium length, but had a solid plot and contained enough action to move the story along quickly.  There was no filler, every character and scene fit in and contributed to the main plot.  The plot took place in the present and the writer skillfully inserted a lot of back story so that the characters and their history were fully explained and had credibility within the main story.  The ending was believable and satisfying.  It was a well written book.
974491
This is a pretty good medium budget sci-fi. There are a couple of totally cardboard characters but there's a believable fairly tight plot with decent action. It's entertaining.
2297212
Although not one of Heinlein's best, Double Star was a light, fun read. The protagonist is a bit weak, and the conclusion fairly predictable, but it's always interesting to see how Heinlein weaves an interesting tale from a few simple ideas.
4071126
I somehow managed to read the second book in the trilogy first and I enjoyed that book a lot. I didn't enjoy this quite as much but it's still a decent read. The subject matter is something which interests me and that's the concept of a technological singularity. If you're not familiar with the concept then it's an idea that technology reaches a point that is beyond our ability to understand and control it. A common cause for such an event is an emergent artificial intelligence which is the core premise of this book.

This book takes the scenario of an emergent intelligence and runs with it. It's a plausible scenario and one that fascinated me. Another aspect I enjoyed was that it took a positive aspect from this emergence rather than the usual apocalyptic one. The technology is well handled in the story and doesn't allow itself to be bogged down in too much detail.

While the technology is well handled I didn't feel as much for the characters. For the most part they lack any depth and seemingly exist purely to progress the plot. If this aspect had been more developed then I'd rate this as an outstanding read rather than just a decent one. It is still worth checking out if the topic interests you.
1218556
I am not a fan of military SF, but I enjoyed "The Dark Wing." The space battles have a good balance between "bullet by bullet" action and glossing over the details in a paragraph.
The characters are well imagined; the humans are, for the most part, honorable and duty-bound, but there are shades of color in their personalities, and many of the on-ship details and persional add depth to the characterization.
The zor are believable and intriguing; I especially liked what was revealed of their religion and mysticism. Their psychology is human enough that the reader can understand it, but does have an alien touch that makes their mindset inhuman.
The plot flows along smoothly, despite neccessary shifts of location, and the plot and subplots reveal themselves nicely.
I am looking forward to further volumes of the series.
1001791
One of the more imaginative space operas I've read in a while.  An interesting, although perhaps too large, cast of characters including arboreal librarians and one of the best names I've come across in some time for a group of villains:  void hornets.  I liked the science, especially the smattering of new concepts (not the least of which was the inspiration for the title). There were some plot issues I couldn't quite reconcile, but the story seemed to be relatively well edited.  It leads to a sequel that I will probably eventually read - just not quite ready to tackle it at this time.
1761921
The sub-genre of the space opera has suffered greatly in recent years.  "Ancillary Justice" was one of the better space operas I've read recently.

This is a story primarily about gender, identity and class. In particular, for the greatest majority of the story, I was amused by how the author had infused gender into the trope. The androgynous 'corpse-soldier' (Ancillary) was a clever foil. In general this was a very 'soft' science fiction novel in the style of the late 70's through mid-80's (Jack Vance or Andre Norton).

The story is not without faults.  Like most stories 'spanning millennia', I had a tough time dealing with the author's lack of imagination.  A lot can happen in 1000 years in a technological society.  The story would have been better served tightening their time scale to just a few generations.  However, in general the tech was unimaginative.  In addition, the author set-up her audience for at least a trilogy, maybe more.  (I dislike when an author turns their readers into a pension.)

This was a pleasant, undemanding read reminiscent of the old skool of space opera with a modern spin.
1870159
Every piece of this book is enjoyable and reasonably well put together, but I didn't really love any of it. The twists were pretty easy to see coming, but not badly executed. The space opera tropes were all in the right place and used reasonably effectively. Some of the characters were pretty fun, or at least interesting to dislike. A decent little popcorn read, which is an odd conclusion to come to when a book is about space fascists and the nature of being human.
379830
Space Opera was one of the first types of science fiction plots.  The expansion of SF during the 1960s new wave created better and more widely developed characters and political backgrounds.  Space Opera was enhanced, though the general outlines of life in outer space and it's perils and successes remained.

This volume includes many newer authors whose background in other types of science fiction is better known - Bruce Sterling (one of the creators of cyberpunk), Cory Doctorow (a founder of the web site Boing Boing), Bill Willingham (known for his graphic novels), etc. - and at least one who has been writing far longer - Mike Resnick.

The stories encompass Asimov's 3 laws (The Tale of the Wicked), as well as Galaxy wide empires (Punctuality) and unknown science (Inevitable).  All with twists and turns of plot and character.

I have found all the Jonathan Strahan anthologies worth reading, certainly this one packs lots of stories and inventions into a small package, much as I expect Gardner Dozois's anthologies to do.
3246934
My career is a bit science oriented, so I enjoy science fiction of all types.  The cyberpunk genre seems a bit silly to me, reaching it's epoch with the movie "Hackers", but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  If you read it as pure science fiction rather than cyberpunk, then it's a lot easier to swallow, especially in this day and age when computers are ubiquitous.
3326878
This is just good, fun, uncomplicated space opera.  Mr. Webb doesn't spent too much time on back story - it fills itself in as the story progresses.  He left some uncovered issues for future intrigue and the main charactors are generally likeable, albeit a bit shallow.  The action was fast paced and, before I knew it, the story was over.  Don't read this book to geek-out on futuristic technologies and politics, refreshingly, it's not there. This was a fun, fast read and I'll be getting the following book 'Warrior" to see what happens next.
3042543
This book is well-written but its premise and context tested me. Sci-fi and particularly romantic sci-fi,  is not a genre of literature to which I am attracted. That not-withstanding, there are things about the book which kept me engaged.

The plot is fairly simple and the action moves forward fairly swiftly. There was an element of mystery and a bit of detective element that helped keep me engaged.  It was a fast read, but I was not eager for more and will probably not venture into the series.

The writer's style is journalistic and clipped enough to have kept me reading. There was just enough detail to get a sense of the surroundings and context of the story. That worked for me because it made the story a "visual" one - sort of like a TV drama.

The cover of the book targets females as does the name of the author. However the writing was clever and well done enough so that the perspective of the main character - a male- was believable.