Ken Newquist's Blog at Lafayette College
Jack McDevitt’s The Engines of God is a novel of interstellar archeology. Earth has been devastated by global warming, and our exploration of the galaxy has only turned up a handful of “garden worlds” — planets comparable to Earth — that we can settle. We’ve also found ancient alien relics scattered around the galaxy, as … Read more
The January Dancer, by Easton, Pa. native Michael Flynn tells the story of an alien artifact chased across the galaxy by an assortment of heroes and villains, it’s a slow, rambling sort of space opera that was strongest in its opening chapters, but managed to keep me engaged from chapter to chapter. The most curious … Read more
The Quiet War is science fiction novel after the Earth has gone through the Overturn — a catastrophic climate event brought about by global warming. A new world order, based around conservative green values, emerges and attempts to restore the planet. Meanwhile, humanity has spread to the Moon, Mars and the outer planets. These outer colonies … Read more
The Evolutionary Void is the third in Peter F. Hamilton’s Void series. The series takes place few hundred years after the events of Pandora’s Star/Judas Unchained. In it, the Greater Commonwealth — an expansive human civilization that’s spread through much of the galaxy — and its Artificial Intelligence allies find themselves attempting to deal with a faction of humanity hellbent on evolving the species into “post-physical existence” … whether the rest of us want it or not.
Jack Campbell’s The Lost Fleet: Victorious is a worthwhile, if somewhat disappointing end to the series. Having demolished most of the Syndic fleet, Black Jack Geary returns to his enemy’s home system for one final battle. Unfortunately, there’s not much to the fight — having gutted the Syndics in his earlier encounters, there’s only a … Read more
Century Rain is a space opera/noir/alternative history mash-up that echos Reynolds earlier work in its combination of post-Singularity speculation and end of the world/galaxy/university machinations. The book opens a few hundred years in the future. Earth has been rendered lifeless by a nanotechnology plague. Humanity survives in two factions: the Threshers, who are regular humans … Read more
When it comes to web design I find a lot of people like to start with the sexy part — the graphic design — and then either ignore the site’s underlying structure, create it as they go along or (more rarely) back into it after they realize the design’s turned into a mess because they … Read more
Book 2 of the Twilight vampire/romance series, in which the vampire Edward his leave of our protagonist Bella, leaving her distraught in Oregon. And yes, this is a huge change from reading The Cole Protocol. I’m reading the novel as part of a book exchange with my wife – I’m reading New Moon, she’s reading … Read more
I keep meaning to read the Halo universe books, particularly the original trilogy of books recounting the events of the first video game. It’s a compelling universe that’s only just barely been touched by the video games, and I’d love to delve deeper. When Amazon.com and Macmillan went to war over ebooks, and all of the … Read more