A trio of narrators tackles a look at the future of humanity in which the technical details overshadow the drama. In the near future, the moon has been colonized jointly by the U.S. and China. An American accused of murder and caught up in a power struggle flees with the help of an illegally pregnant woman and a poet/celebrity. Maxwell Hamilton, Joy Osmanski, and Feodor Chin capably breathe life into the characters with heart and levity, even across genders and races. Character intonations and accents shift effortlessly between Chinese, English, and more, and the narration as a whole is perfectly balanced between lighthearted and sinister. In the end, the narration outshines a dry sci-fi story featuring a lot of economic and political speculation. J.M.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
It’s the end of another year and the perfect time to look back at the moments that defined 2018. For readers, of course, that means choosing the books that defined the preceding 12 months. It was a great year for science fiction and fantasy readers, certainly—from epics spanning centuries of invented lore, to chronicles of […]
It’s a science fiction tradition so reliable, you can all but set your watch by it: another year, another Kim Stanley Robinson novel that uses a theoretical future as a mirror to examine the nature of humanity today. Just as New York 2140 made it clear we ignore climate change at our peril, and Aurora […]
What’s new on your shelves this week?
For two decades, Jim Killen has served as the science fiction and fantasy book buyer for Barnes & Noble. Every month on Tor.com and the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, Jim shares his curated list of the month’s best science fiction & fantasy books. What sci-fi or fantasy books are on your “must-buy” list for October?