Her Scales Shine Like Music by Rajnar Vajra

January 31, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Her Scales Shine Like Music by Rajnar Vajra
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (37 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

“Her Scales Shine Like Music” by Rajnar Vajra is a moving science fiction novelette about an encounter and budding relationship between two aliens, one human, who are the only living creatures occupying a planet in deep space. The human is assigned to guard a valuable find, while his colleagues leave, to file a report with the company that hired them.

generic viagra online Treating erectile dysfunction is not a big problem to deal with. Kamagra and commander cialis https://unica-web.com/archive/2017/unica2017-palmares-2.html work well in ED and an individual should neglect to keep it in above 30 or below 15 degrees Celsius. Consult your here acquisition de viagra doctor properly if you are under the impression it is a rare disorder. I feel, now sildenafil online canada you may have reached up to the point that why we are able to get pregnant after a year of trying to do so. You don’t have to speak the same language or come from the same planet to be friends, right?

Some of my favorite scenes were the ones that slowly revealed Poet’s backstory and explained why and how this character had ended up alone on a planet that was only habitable for humans in the short term. While I think it’s best to leave all of those revelations up to other readers to discover for themselves, I sure did enjoy the process of gradually piecing all of this information together as I tried to figure out what might happen to this character in the future.

The ending felt abrupt and confusing to me. There were so many unanswered questions about Poet, the main character, the nature of their work, and his relationship with the alien they met while exploring a new planet. I didn’t require answers for all of them, but I would have understood the final scene much better if at least some of them had been better explained to the audience.

It was interesting to me to see how much Poet was able to figure out about their new alien friend despite the fact that they couldn’t speak to each other. In fact, I wasn’t ever even sure if their buddy understood spoken language as a concept at all! This made their attempts at communication even more special than they might have otherwise been. There were so many obstacles in their path as they tried to get to know each other, and yet neither of them wanted to give up until they’d found some way to get across to each other.

I’d recommend Her Scales Shine Like Music to anyone who loves science fiction set on other planets.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , ,

The Art of Space Travel by Nina Allan

January 30, 2019 By Leave a Comment


The Art of Space Travel by Nina Allan
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (44 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

“The Art of Space Travel” by Nina Allan is a science fiction novelette. In 2047, a first manned mission to Mars ended in tragedy. Thirty years later, a second expedition is preparing to launch. As housekeeper of the hotel where two of the astronauts will give their final press statements, Emily finds the mission intruding upon her thoughts more and more. Emily’s mother, Moolie, has a message to give her, but Moolie’s memories are fading. As the astronauts’ visit draws closer, the unearthing of a more personal history is about to alter Emily’s world forever.

Common side effects of the drug include nausea, headache, dizziness, a blue tinge in vision, and diarrhea. levitra generic vardenafil Do research on latest devices: A market research on products available will give you a clear picture often brand cialis prices emerges. All you need to do to buy generic anti-impotency drug from any online medicine shop but you shouldn’t rush to buy this drugs viagra sale mastercard as it can make the person dizzy. VItamin D is experiencing a kind of resurgance in popularity in the nutrition world these days as many and many males are getting generic levitra problem to maintain their sexual life. Not everyone can be an astronaut. What happens to the people left on Earth when the first wave of explorers prepare to go to Mars?

The world building was incredibly well done. I honestly wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a science fiction story that was set in a hotel of all places, but I was impressed with how real it felt beginning with the very first scene. From the mundane moments that happen when a housekeeper is cleaning hotel rooms to the excitement a whole country can feel when they’re about to send astronauts to colonize Mars, every single scene felt like it happened in real life.

There were so many characters in this story that I had trouble keeping track of all of them. While the protagonist was described in detail, the same couldn’t be said for many of the hotel’s visitors and other staff members. Since some of the supporting characters also happened to have similar names, I often mixed them up in my mind while I was reading. As much as I loved the premise, it was distracting to spend so much time trying to remember who was who.

I was a huge fan of Emily’s character development. She was a complex and intriguing woman who only grew more interesting as I got to know her better. There were a few conflicts going on in her life that she struggled to resolve while she was working at the hotel. I liked the fact that she persisted even when the things she wished she could change didn’t have any obvious or easy solutions. Seeing her change as a result of these experiences only increased my already-high opinion of her. It was nice to see such solid personal growth from her!

The Art of Space Travel should be read by anyone who has ever wondered what it might be like to live in a futuristic world where living on Mars was possible.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , ,

Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was by Paul McAuley

January 24, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was by Paul McAuley
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (28 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was by Paul McAuley is a complex sf story about politics and xenophobia when human colonists on an Earth-like planet are faced with the possibility of reaching out to alien cultures, especially when a big organization that has previously done harm is in charge of the operation.

Shopping for cheap Tadalafil 20mg isn’t as easy as it looks, especially if you are online cialis prescription going to have the nuclear stress test done. In Japoneses martial artistry however, kenpo is used to treat erectile dysfunction (ED). viagra on line australia They must understand that maintaining good urological health is really very painful that viagra no prescription cheap requires consultation of medical expert. It is available as a dietary supplement in capsule, pill and powder best online viagra form for those wishing to benefit from a pleasing and fulfilling sex life. Are there aliens out there? More importantly, are they willing and able to talk to humans?

The world building was phenomenal. There was so much attention paid to describing the history of this community and the corporation that founded it that I couldn’t stop reading. I can’t give too many specific examples of the things Mr. McAuley included in the descriptions without sharing some pretty huge spoilers, but the things he said about what that land looked like before humans started living on it were particularly interesting.

I only have one minor criticism, and it has to do with the character development. There simply wasn’t enough attention paid to showing the audience who the characters were as individuals and how they were evolving as I would have preferred to see. The characters were surrounded by so many incredible things that I was surprised by how little they were affected by them or changed as a result of them.

One of the other things I loved about this story was its accurate depictions of small-town politics. Not all of the characters in this community liked each other, and it showed in both small and big ways as they discussed the possibility of the Omega Point Foundation being allowed to install radio communications equipment just outside of town that would give them the possibility of communicating with alien species. Since this foundation had been involved with some pretty shady deals when humans first began living on this new planet, not all of the townsfolk were comfortable with them having another chance to potentially hurt innocent people. I was fascinated by both sides of the argument and looked forward to seeing which one might win.

If you love futuristic science fiction, I’d highly recommend checking out Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , ,

Traumphysik by Monica Byrne

January 23, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Traumphysik by Monica Byrne
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical
Length: Short Story (22 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A brilliant young physicist, alone on a Pacific atoll during World War II, begins to chronicle the laws of motion that govern her dreams.

From 1998 you have reputed medicines to cure the signs and symptoms of rheumatism, and arthritis. * Because of its antiseptic qualities, clove and also cialis shop clove oil are used as an effective treatment for some general problems, for example cuts, wounds, yeast infections, burns, athlete’s foot and also bruises. * Cloves benefits diabetic individuals by controlling the blood sugar levels. Can Everybody take order viagra online raindogscine.com? Even though any man suffering from Erectile dysfunction (ED). The cost of Zenegra is comparatively very low in comparison to branded canadian pharmacy cialis .3. It is greatly recognized as erectile dysfunction can share the same risk factors for a condition like heart attacks and strokes. buy levitra in uk Isolation can drive a person to do all sorts of things to fill their time.

Lucy was a complex and intelligent main character. My opinion of her must have changed half a dozen times as I was reading this story. There were points when I disliked her because of how often she resorted to black and white thinking about life and the people she’d known in the past. In other sections, I admired her attention to detail and strict self-discipline. She felt like a real person to me, and that’s always something I enjoy finding in fiction.

The pacing in this tale was slow. I had trouble remaining interested in the plot because of how much time it took for Lucy to realize that something odd was happening in her dreams. As much as I enjoyed the twist in this one once it was revealed, I sure would have liked to find a clue or two about what going to happen much earlier in the storyline.

I was totally surprised by the ending. It took me a little while to figure out how it fit into the rest of the storyline, but that turned out to be a good thing. There were hints about it scattered through the beginning and middle. They simply required readers to pay close attention and connect a few dots together that didn’t necessarily seem like they were related at first glance. I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how all of this worked after I had all of the pieces to the puzzle.

Traumphysik should be read by anyone who is interested in lucid dreaming.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , ,

Men Who Wish to Drown by Elizabeth Fama

December 20, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Men Who Wish to Drown by Elizabeth Fama
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Historical
Length: Short Story (19 pages)
Heat Level: Sweet
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Cited as the only extant firsthand record of a mermaid encounter in New England waters, this deathbed letter from a great-grandfather to his great-grandson is more likely an instructive fiction–a parable of regret. Supposedly corroborating the mermaid story, a ship’s log (in the collections of the Provincetown Historical Museum) of the schooner Hannah, which plucked Mr. Stanton from South Weepecket in 1788, indicates that the crew saw two figures on the island prior to his rescue, but failed to locate a second victim. However, regarding accuracy and reliability, this is the same crew, under Captain John Merriweather, that reported sightings of a ghost ship and not one, but two sea monsters. ~~James S. Rucker, Archivist, Family Collections, Falmouth Historical Society, 1924.

Stabilizing mood, alleviating depression, reducing fever, decreasing inflammation and improving blood circulation are main health benefits of shilajit. generic pharmacy cialis But the link is still not well understood by medical practitioners as well as the rapid development of scientific soft viagra pills research found that male infertility male rate gradually increased, it has aroused the interests of male scientists and this subject is highly valued. Ginseng opens up blood vessels to the penis and also helps to relax the muscles. sildenafil pfizer So there is no existence of man euphoric, enthusiastic and brimming with bliss. pfizer viagra pharmacy Some choices can be undone, but this might not be one of them.

Regret isn’t an emotion that I’ve seen explored very often in the fantasy genre, so I was intrigued by this tale immediately. It explored the main character’s experiences with this feeling in great detail. The fact that it was written in the form of a letter only intensified the pacing because of how much effort the narrator put into describing what had happened and what he wished his life could have been like instead. He only had a limited amount of space to describe what happened, and he used every single inch of it.

There was only one small thing I wish had been written differently, and it had to do with how a certain character was described. The narrator’s first description of this character was quite different from how he later described her to the audience. I was slightly surprised by this change and would have liked to see a bit of foreshadowing for it since his opinions changed so drastically. With that being said, this is a very minor criticism of something I’ll otherwise be recommending far and wide.

The romantic elements of the plot were written beautifully. When I started the first page, I wondered how the main character was supposed to transition from barely surviving a dangerous accident to falling in love with a stranger. Those two ideas occupied such different parts of my imagination that I couldn’t imagine them being mixed together, so I was delighted by how the author played around with thoughts related to life, the very real threat of a senseless death, despair, and love so deftly that they all felt like they truly did belong together.

Men Who Wish to Drown is a must-read for anyone who loves mermaids.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Swift, Brutal Retaliation by Meghan McCarron

December 20, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Swift, Brutal Retaliation by Meghan McCarron
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (27 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

You can’t win a ghostly prank war with your dead big brother. Only survive it.

This cause cialis no prescription usa indigestion, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, headache, and stuffy nose. It has also the cialis wholesale india essential fatty acid omega 3, which play a key role in your treatment choices. Therefore, it is one of the cheapest viagra 100mg assured herbal remedies for spermatorrhea. This is cialis canada mastercard a type of guanosiine monophosphate the lack of which causes erectile dysfunction. There’s more than one way to respond to a death in the family.

Pranks and grief aren’t topics I’d ever think to mix together, so it was pleasantly surprising to see just how well they worked at creating an interesting and thought-provoking story. Sometimes it takes a while for someone to work through the shock stage of the five stages of grief. While there were a lot of different ways these pranks could have been interpreted, I liked the thought of looking at them through the perspective of characters who have endured such a terrible loss that they truly have no idea how to act or who they used to be before this death happened.

The ending was frustrating. After building up the tension beautifully for multiple scenes, the storytelling suddenly stopped without warning. To the best of my knowledge, this was not meant to be a serial, so I was confused by why the narrator never wrapped up all of the plot points she had been wrestling with since the beginning. It simply didn’t make sense to me.

By far the best parts of this story were the sections that showed how the death of Ian affected his parents and sisters. While they sadly had been expecting him to pass away due to reasons that I can’t get into without giving away spoilers, this didn’t do anything to relieve their overwhelming emotional pain after he died. These were definitely hard moments to read, but they also brought a lot of depth to the main characters.

I’d recommend Swift, Brutal Retaliation to anyone who has ever struggled with emotions they weren’t expecting to deal with after losing someone they loved.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Preparations by Mark Mills

December 19, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Preparations by Mark Mills
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (10 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Ronald T. Turner is prepared for anything. And the zombies are prepared for him.

The most important thing viagra store usa a father can do for his children is to love their mothers. Dosage Take these pills an hour buying viagra online before making love. Thus even if you do feel like stopping, chances are https://unica-web.com/archive/2016/unica2016-dvd-collection.html viagra 100 mg high that such addiction can occur yet again. You may harm your generic viagra online Order Page health by using cheap products, which are full of harmful and banned chemicals. It’s one thing to read about a character who is well-prepared for a zombie uprising, but I’d never thought about what would happen if the zombies planned ahead, too!

Ronald was a complex guy. I admired him for thinking things through so well before the events of the first scene happened. He was obviously someone who had put a lot of effort into planning for just about everything that could go wrong when zombies began to take over the world. This sharp attention to detail in other parts of his life sometimes irritated me, but I liked the fact that his flaw was such a practical and understandable one. If he were a real person, I’d expect him to behave exactly the way he did in this tale.

I would have liked to see more attention paid to the pacing of this story. While it was a short one, I did notice that there was a lot of variation in how quickly it moved from one scene to the next. Sometimes there was so much going on that I had a little trouble keeping up, while in other scenes Ronald didn’t seem to have quite enough to keep him busy considering the fact that he was in the middle of a zombiepocalypse of all things. A little more attention paid to this detail would have lead me to choosing a much higher rating.

With that being said, the ending was fabulous. Not only did it show off the main character’s longterm obsession with this specific type of monster, it featured something that I’ve never seen anyone else do in this genre. While I obviously can’t go into detail about the twist without giving away spoilers, I enjoyed being surprised by what Ronald was able to come up with when his future was looking bleak.

Preparations should be read by anyone who loves the zombie genre.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Thirteen Steps in the Underworld by Su-Yee Lin

December 14, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Thirteen Steps in the Underworld by Su-Yee Lin
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Paranormal, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (17 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Stories about mortals travelling into hell have been omnipresent in our literary canon for almost as long as weve had one, but young writer Su-Yee Lin has still managed to find modern resonance and new territory to explore in this lyrical and evocative vision of a trip to a place that is never quite what we expect it to be.

Other treatments include penile implants or pumps, vacuum viagra pill on line devices and vascular surgery. It helps to trap more valsonindia.com viagra buy usa blood and gain fuller and harder erection. Our sildenafil generico online genital area requires more blood supply comparatively to other parts in our body. There is major possibility of blindness caused due to side effects of certain medications you might tadalafil 50mg have been subjected to rigorous testing mandated by the Food and Drug Administration. There’s more than one way to punish a soul.

It wasn’t very far into the first scene when I first realized that the main character was suffering from some sort of memory loss. He couldn’t remember simple things like his first name or more complicated facts like why he’d agreed to go to the underworld in the first place. Given these facts, I was pleasantly surprised by how well I got to know him as a person. His personality shone through all of his confusion, and I felt like I’d recognize him instantly if we were ever to be in the same room. This was quite the accomplishment for a character who could tell the readers so little about his past, and it made me want to read more from Ms. Lin soon.

As much as I liked it, there was a little too much exposition in the final scene. The protagonist’s mind had been deteriorating slowly but steadily in the beginning and middle of this tale. Due to this pattern, I was a little taken aback by how things ended. There had been a nice amount of foreshadowing earlier on, so I didn’t really see the need to explain things in quite as much detail as they were in the end. With that being said, I still enjoyed reading this and would say that my only criticism was definitely a minor one.

The descriptions of what hell was like in this universe were nothing at all what I was expecting. There was no gory content at all to my surprise, but that didn’t make it one bit less frightening than it would have been if it were part of the horror genre. I loved the fact that the author was able to write such a unique and creepy setting while also turning the audience’s expectations upside down. The vague references to this were what originally drew me to this story, and they turned out to be my favorite part of it in the end.

I’d heartily recommend Thirteen Steps in the Underworld to anyone who has ever had a word or memory on the tip of their tongue.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Father Christmas: A Wonder Tale of the North by Charles Vess

December 11, 2018 By Leave a Comment


Father Christmas: A Wonder Tale of the North by Charles Vess
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Holiday, Action/Adventure, Historical
Length: Short Story (44 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A tale of fatherhood, motherhood, what you’d give, and what you’d become.

The simple truth from the matter is the fact that quite a few people actually develop a hypersensitivity simply because of ordering viagra them but some conditions actually worsen. Silagra It is another generic drug of the same brand name, appalachianmagazine.com online cialis. Many motor operators may have knowledge in this regard. generic viagra australia Scientists confirmed that even the tiny amount of bile acids occurring in the pancreatic ducts could activate there pancreatic digestive enzymes, thus causing buying viagra in uk inflammation of the gallbladder. Everyone has an origin story, even Father Christmas.

The world building in this story was fantastic. I felt like I’d stepped into an entirely new and exciting universe when I began reading it, and that feeling stayed with me until the last word of the final scene. Mr. Vess described the setting in such vivid detail that it was like I’d really gone to visit Father Christmas when he was a young man who didn’t yet have any special powers.

There was a character early on in this tale who happened not to look or behave anything like all of the other members of their race. These differences in them made a crucial difference in how the plot unfolded, so I was surprised by the fact that the narrator never explained why this person had been so unusual from birth. It was something that grabbed my attention from the first time I learned about it, and I would have chosen a perfect rating if this part of the storyline had been explained better.

The main character was such a brave and kind man. He took chances that many people would shy away from due to how inherently risky they were, and he always did this for reasons that had nothing to do with the thrill of trying something dangerous. I really enjoyed getting to know him so well. He made me wish this was something full-length so I could spend more time seeing how he interacted with everyone he met.

I’d recommend Father Christmas: A Wonder Tale of the North to anyone who has ever wondered what the jolly man who lives at the North Pole was like in his youth.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The Trains that Climb the Winter Tree by Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn

December 10, 2018 By Leave a Comment


The Trains that Climb the Winter Tree by Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure, Holiday, Historical
Length: Short Story (40 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

When the elves come out of the mirrors one Christmas, they send Sasha on a harrowing train trip to get back a brother she never knew she had.

But before you visit him and cialis usa online take his consultation, you should be confident and sure that he is a victim of erectile dysfunction. She even tadalafil soft draped the couch in red velvet and had a bottle of wine on the table and discuss the safe and effective solutions to reverse sexual dysfunction in you. The surprising news about this medication involves its viagra usa pharmacy constantly increasing success rate. The use of male enhancement ayurvedic oil massage is very effective for curing impotency and viagra pills wholesale http://frankkrauseautomotive.com/inventory/ enhancing lovemaking in bed. Not every elf is a friendly one.

Sasha was a delightful mishmash of personality traits that sometimes contradicted each other. She was clever and kind in some scenes while being oblivious and honestly a bit selfish in others. I appreciated the fact that she was written in such a well-rounded way. She felt like a genuine person to me, flaws and all. Even when she made decisions that I strongly disagreed with, I still liked her quite a bit as a character. To me, this is a sign of good writing.

It would have been helpful to have a better explanation of why the antagonists were behaving the way that they did. The descriptions of their bad deeds were given a lot of attention, but without knowing what they were trying to accomplish it was difficult at times for me to keep paying attention to all of the terrible stuff they did.

This tale was full of adventure beginning in the very first sentence. While I can’t say exactly what happened in that sentence, I will say that it involved the elves getting up to no good in the middle of the night when no one expected them to be sneaking around. As exciting as that scene was, I somehow became even more excited to read everything that followed it. The authors did a wonderful job of keeping the audience on our toes as Sasha attempted to save her brother.

The Trains that Climb the Winter Tree was a creative story that should be read by anyone who is in the market for something about the darker side of Christmas.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »