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I'm Your Venus
I'm Your Venus
Diane Vallere | 2018 | Mystery, Science Fiction/Fantasy
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Sylvia’s Back on the Space Case
Sylvia Stryker has landed a job on the new Moon 6. Again, she's in charge of the uniform department, but this time she's legitimately on the ship. Neptune is also on board this cruise, with the destination being Venus. Everyone is determined to make things go smoothly for the passengers. However, the ship has barely set out when Sylvia finds a dead body outside the uniform department's door. Then Neptune comes to her with a surprising plea for help. Can she figure out what is going on?

Yes, this book has a science fiction setting, but it is still mostly a mystery. In fact, the setting is developed just enough for us to feel at home, but the story doesn't stop to explain every little detail to us. Still, there are some fun nod to pop culture science fiction and some of the tech they do have in this book would be very cool. There are a trio of characters we spent a lot of time with, and they are the best developed. The rest of the cast is still strong enough for the parts they play in what happens. The plot is quite a ride, with plenty of keep us engaged and the pages flying. I read the book in just two days, in fact. I do feel like some of the character's actions over the course of the book weren't completely explained at the end, but that is my only complaint. I'm looking forward to getting to book three as soon as my schedule allows to see how some of the threads introduced here play out.
  
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Phil Leader (619 KP) rated Timeshaft in Books

Nov 26, 2019  
Timeshaft
Timeshaft
Stewart Bint | 2013 | Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
As technology advances mankind seems a button press away from wiping itself out. The shadowy organisation of WorldSave and their top operative, the enigmatic Ashday's Child, prevent catastrophe on a regular basis because they have access to the Timeshaft, which enables them to go to any point in time and stop events before they can cause disaster.

However, after a routine training mission hits problems, Ashday's Child must save not only himself and his companions but the fabric of time itself. With cause not necessarily occurring before effect, it may be that saving the future will heal the past.

Time travel has always been a fascination for science fiction writers as it opens up so many possibilities. Where most of these use time travel as a method of getting their characters to where they need to be, in Timeshaft it is the time travel itself that provides the story. Bint allows his imagination to construct future and past versions of earth but always the time travel aspect is to the fore, with the plot carefully constructed like a clock so that in the end all the parts fit together perfectly.

This matters because the time travel in Timeshaft is one where the time travel has always taken place; it is not like Back to the Future where Marty's antics in the past then change the future; here the future is the way it is precisely because someone has travelled back in time and changed something. It's a tricky thing to pull off yet Bint seemingly does this with ease.

If you are looking for a good science fiction story with drama and great ideas, you can't go far wrong
  
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Heather Cranmer (2721 KP) created a post

Jul 2, 2020  
Love, love, love this great excerpt from the science fiction novel GATES OF MARS by Kathleen McFall and Clark Hays. Come read it on my blog (https://alltheupsandowns.blogspot.com/2020/07/book-blog-tour-and-giveaway-gates-of.html) and enter the #GIVEAWAY to #win a first edition copy of A Very Unusual Romance or all four books in the Cowboy and the Vampire Collection by McFall and Hays. (Seriously, they are super talented writers, so whomever wins will be in for a treat!)

**BOOK SYNOPSIS**
IN THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE, HOW CAN A PERSON GO MISSING?

The year is 2187. Crucial Larsen, a veteran of the brutal Consolidation Wars, is working as a labor cop on Earth. The planet is a toxic dump and billions of people are miserable, but so what? It’s none of his business. He’s finally living a good life, or good enough. But then Essential, his beloved kid sister, disappears on Mars. When Halo—the all-powerful artificial-intelligence overseeing Earth and Mars on behalf of the ruling Five Families—can’t (or won’t) locate his sister, Crucial races up-universe to find her.

In the Choke, the frigid, airless expanse outside the luxury domes, Crucial uncovers a deadly secret from Essential’s past that threatens to shatter his apathetic existence … and both planets. Blending science fiction with the classic, hard-boiled detective story, Gates of Mars is a page-turning, futuristic thrill-ride featuring a gritty, irreverent anti-hero, Crucial Larsen. The first book of the Halo Trilogy, Gates of Mars is the eighth novel by award-winning authors, Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall.
     
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Sarah (7799 KP) rated Solaris in Books

Dec 4, 2017  
Solaris
Solaris
Stanislaw Lem | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry
7
7.3 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
An interesting and intelligent novel
The premise of this book is intriguing, and although astronauts/scientists who appear to have lost their minds on a distant planet isn’t an entirely unique story, this definitely has it’s own take. The planet Solaris is an enigma in itself, helped by there never being a full explanation behind it. The few characters in this are interesting, strong and conflicted, although I do wish we’d seen a bit more of Snaut and Sartorius.

This is a very intelligent take on a science fiction story, with some beautiful imagery, although at times some of the scientific type explanations can become a little laborious. I’m also torn between loving the ambiguity and lack of resolution, to being very frustrated as I wanted to know more than was explained.
  
Escape from New York (1981)
Escape from New York (1981)
1981 | Action, Sci-Fi
9
8.2 (20 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Snaaaaaake!
Escape from New York is a 1981 dystopian science fiction-action film.


In 1997, a major war between the U.S and Russia is continuing and the whole of Manhattan has been converted into a giant free roaming maximum security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and crashes into the island, the president is taken hostage by inmates. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal, is recruited to retrieve the president in exchange for his own freedom.

Dark toned action adventure spawning a cult franchise and heavily inspired the Metal Gear Solid franchise. (I mean its lead character is snake plissken)

co-written, co-scored and directed by John Carpenter.
 It stars Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasence, Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Adrienne Barbeau, and Harry Dean Stanton