Becky Chambers, Record of a Spaceborn Few

This is the third in a series (but not necessarily a sequence) of novels about humans who fled a dying Earth and lived for centuries in their spaceships, looking for a new home. The first novel, The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet, takes place on a spaceship, and the second, A Closed and … Continue reading Becky Chambers, Record of a Spaceborn Few →

Not another post-apocalyptic western: Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow

I buy Gollancz’s SF Masterworks editions because I trust their editors to provide me with the best sf from the past century. I don’t expect their reprints to be classics all the time, but I do expect a decent read. Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow was a disappointment, but had a whumph in its tail. … Continue reading Not another post-apocalyptic western: Leigh Brackett’s The Long Tomorrow →

Patriarchal post-apocalyptic retro: David Brin’s The Postman

David Brin’s The Postman (1985) starts really well. I was very impressed with the central conceit, of a man struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic survivalist society who starts a myth of a Restored United States to get the people to cohere around the myth and make it real. But it all fell apart through … Continue reading Patriarchal post-apocalyptic retro: David Brin’s The Postman →

Vern Sneider and The Tea-House of the August Moon

Today’s letter is S, and today’s author in the Really Like This Book podcast series catch-up is totally obscure. I present to you The Teahouse of the August Moon, by the American novelist Vern Sneider. This is a gentle comedy about the American occupation of Japan after the Second World War, where the Japanese get the … Continue reading Vern Sneider and The Tea-House of the August Moon →

Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang

Three months ago I had never heard of Kate Wilhelm. Science Fiction and other Suspect Ruminations ran a week of Wilhelm guest reviews recently, which alerted me to her existence. I found Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang in Aberdeen's fine second-hand bookshop Books and Beans, a week after that, and carried it home in triumph. Where Late won … Continue reading Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang →

Gender and body difference in Vonda N McIntyre’s The Exile Waiting

This was Vonda McIntyre’s first novel, published in 1975, about twenty years after the first thalidomide disaster in Germany, the UK and North America, in which around 10,000 children died or were born with malformations. The novel is about disability, and difference, and how society accepts and rejects different differences. It’s also an astoundingly undated speculation on a … Continue reading Gender and body difference in Vonda N McIntyre’s The Exile Waiting →

Snake healing in Vonda N McIntyre’s Dreamsnake

This week is Vonda McIntyre week. Today's post on her 1979 novel Dreamsnake is from my podcast miniseries on feminist science fiction; tomorrow's post on Vulpes Libris is on her new novel, The Moon and the Sun. With Dreamsnake I’m not talking about dragons, but proper hard-edged science in futuristic fiction, even if it’s made-up science, where … Continue reading Snake healing in Vonda N McIntyre’s Dreamsnake →