Solar Flare: Science Fiction News

This is actually book two of a series (of indefinate length). Its a damn big book (1000+ pages) and it has a feeble map near the beginning with daft names like Westland, The Midlands and The Boundary.

All of which raises a number of questions:

1) Why did I buy book two when I haven’t read book one?

I do stupid things like that. I did it with The…

Book three (no I still haven’t read book one) with at least one more to come. This one weighs in at a mere 700 odd pages. Guess he was in a rush. Having defeated the Keeper of the Dead, our heros now has to deal with the world of the living. Not to mention a few of the Keeper’s servants who are a little miffed.

This book…

David Gemmell has been writing popular fantasy books for years now and anyone who has read any of his previous works will have a rough idea what to expect from this one. In this first book of the “Rigante” series we follow the childhood of Connavar, a member of one of the Rigante clans. As he grows to adulthood he shows considerable natural talents and certain mystical beings take an…

Right its the first part of a fantasy series. So lets get out the checklist:

Our Hero is a Prince……………………….CHECK
Our Heroine is a Princesss………………….CHECK
The villain is a powerful sorceror…………..CHECK
A “great evil” is about to sweep the land…….CHECK
Only our hero can prevent it………………..CHECK
The cover art depicts a scene from the book wrongly and in a terribly cliched manner…………………….CHECK

But you know what they say about judging…

I approached this book with considerable trepidation. I’m a big fan of Asimov’s original Foundation Trilogy but was not overly impressed by his later additions to the series like Foundation’s Edge where he attempted to tie the Foundation stories in with his robot stories.

So, knowing that this book took place prior to the setting up of the Foundations, that it featured robots and that it was written not by Asimov…

Foundation and Chaos is book two of the Second Foundation Trilogy is rather different to book one. For a start Bear sticks more faithfully to the Foundation universe as described by Asimov. How important that is will vary depending on the reader. More importantly, the plot of this book feels more cohesive, resulting in a more entertaining read.

The Second Foundation Trilogy covers the life of Hari Seldon, his invention…

It seems particularly appropriate this week during the 30th Anniversary of the moon landing that I’m reviewing this particular book. Voyage is an alternative history exploring what might have happened if, following the moon landings, instead of developing the Space Shuttle, NASA had concentrated its resources to landing a man on Mars.

The book starts when Neil Armstrong stands on the moon and finishes in the 80s when…