Ken Newquist's Blog at Lafayette College
Kylara Vatta’s dreams of a brilliant military career were ruined by one well-intentioned wrong decision; instead she goes to work for her family’s shipping company. Her first mission: captain a ship destined for the scrapyard. Of course, it’s not that easy as Vatta decides to try and turn a profit of her own using the … 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
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
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
One thing I make a point of doing every summer is to put together a reading list. I may not get through all the books on the list, but I do try, and if nothing else, it gives me a non-work, non-family, non-computer related goal to strive for. Last summer, I decided to promote my … Read more