science fiction

Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin

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N.K. Jemisin’s Emergency Skin is a short story with a large message.
It’s a story about how much better off we might be if the world weren’t so full of greedy, self-entitled, self-important individuals. It’s a story with strong anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-imperialist sentiment showcased in a distant future tale. We have a 1,000 lightyear distant colony founded on the sort of fantasy meritocracy that might evolve from too many read-throughs of Atlas Shrugged, built on slave labor that is never acknowledged as slave labor, while the ruling class conveniently avoids any acknowledgment of the fact that they’re the real parasites. The “haves” fled an Earth approaching total ecological collapse, taking everyone and everything they valued in the process…assuming that the planet would fail without them there.
Little did they know the world could survive without them, perhaps better than it would have if they’d remained.
It’s difficult to avoid spoilers in the review of a short story, and I’ve danced around quite a few. Just read it or listen to it for yourself. It’s thought-provoking and engaging…and the audiobook is narrated by Jason Isaacs, who does a fantastic job (as I imagine you would expect).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X7HG6GW/

Bloboids vs. Faeries by Jeff Beesler

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I had the pleasure of reading this book as a beta reader, so my experience with it may be slightly different from anyone who picks up the final version of the story, though not in any major way.

Bloboids vs. Faeries is a great book for anyone who enjoys fantasy (naturally), science fiction, and even horror (yes, I said horror). When reading this book, I was struck by the realization that it was essentially a zombie apocalypse tale, set in a fantasy world where a faerie community is devastated by the arrival of the insidious, spreading Bloboid threat…it’s just that we’re dealing with Bloboids in place of zombies and faeries in place of the usual human victims. There’s tension, there’s excitement, and there’s high-stakes action.

I’m sure there are people out there who wouldn’t be at all interested in reading a book that’s ostensibly about faeries. Don’t let the title dissuade you from checking this one out. It’s not what you might expect.I won’t spoil any of this for you, but the character I sincerely hoped to see come through the ordeal unscathed definitely did not.

Pets During Wartime by Weston Ochse

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Pets During Wartime by Weston Ochse provides a tantalizing glimpse of a distant future where everything is simultaneously familiar and startling bizarre. While it tells a self-contained tale, it feels like an introduction to a larger story just waiting to be told. I sort of hope that’s the case, because I would love to experience more of this future America (and colonized solar system), where biological and technological evolution has created a plethora of both wonders and horrors, a version of our future of which Ochse paints a vague portrait.

As a lifelong dog lover, it’s strange to imagine a society where pets are not only outlawed, but considered deadly because of their water consumption. But this is precisely the version of Arizona we witness within this short tale. It’s a common sense, calculated bit of propaganda based on water rationing…but it’s no less depressing for the necessity of it all.

Pets During Wartime

Mount Fitz Roy by Scott Sigler

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An amazing book, written by Scott Sigler, and expertly narrated by Ray Porter. I’m actually sort of glad the book was initially made available only through audiobook format (and is still only available as an audiobook, as near as I can tell). The quality of the narration only helps to enhance what is a thrilling, claustrophobic adventure.
Scott Sigler’s Earthcore was an amazing combination of adventure, science fiction, and horror…the sort of thing that Sigler excels at providing his readers with. Mount Fitz Roy is an expectation-shattering follow-up to that novel, with nods to most of Mr. Sigler’s existing catalog of material tossed into the mix.
This book has a little bit of everything. We have a race to locate and unearth a massive treasure buried beneath an Argentinian mountain, we have multiple parties seeking revenge against an alien species that’s remained hidden for millennia deep within the Earth, and (of course) we have aliens and lots of violence. We also have a fair bit of drama and loss embedded into the narrative in a way that makes the high stakes of everything hit home with quite the impact.
Fans of Earthcore might be a little surprised with the direction this story ends up going, but I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed.

https://www.amazon.com/Mount-Fitz-Roy/dp/B08MQQSMW8/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mount+fitzroy&qid=1612025392&sr=8-1