Science Fantasy Romance 11 - Science Up Some Love

Science Up Some Love

SF011

Available at

Amazon.com * Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Kobo * Sony * Diesel

Barnes & Noble

DriveThruFiction

Collected in

A Future Darkly

Blurb

“Pygmalion @SatelliteTYT: I’m the last man on Tau Ceti. It’s not my fault.” A scientist tries to make something of the organism that devoured the rest of the colonists, his only companion the orbiting communications AI.

Memories

before reading

I wrote this story while I was on a “stay-cation”, sitting alone in a hotel room in the nearest big city because I was tired of my house. I remember it was written extremely slowly, each sentence thought over, and many breaks for 7-11 hamburgers—these turned out, later, to be a bad idea in food—slowly, but steadily, building up the romance and the science fiction alternately unto the finish. Let’s read!

Review

after reading

I love both the science fiction and the romance in this story, and the Twitter-style dialogue is good, too, even if it’s a pain to format afterwards. I think writing so slowly meant that I had lots of time to incorporate a thousand references to other works of this nature, making this a rather literary work, or something of a Where’s Waldo story on the second read-through. Can you find all of them? (I think there’s about six intentional ones, and another two accidental I just now spotted.)

Next Week

Players of the Nuclear Theremin 

Thanks for reading!

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Science Fantasy Romance 10 - Kritarchy

Kritarchy

SF010

Available at

Amazon.com * Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Kobo * Sony * Diesel

Barnes & Noble

DriveThruFiction

Collected in

A Future Darkly

Blurb

For much of an Earth without nations, the roaming Judge-Ships of the Kritarchy are the only law, and Judge Lightner is one of the best. But when a vicious marauding fleet sweeps through the Kritarchy, the Judge finds out just how much the law is worth as he is forced to make one of his own.

Memories

before reading

I remember this story as being really, really dark--hence the excellent cover art--the story of a tragic fall from a just society into tyranny in response to outside attacks. Yes, that’s political. Yes, I’m a political scientist. Yes, I was depressed. I also remember that this story got very mixed reviews for content, and that, as a consequence, I avoided reading it. Well, I’ve got to now...

Review

after reading

This story is not just dark, it’s brutal. From the opening to the ending, it does not let up. Violent, tragic, emotional, despairing...nobody wins. I’m reading it, and I’m thinking I was channeling “King Lear” into a very well-constructed (in political science terms) alternate history. But I can definitely see, now that I have an emotional distance from it, where the mixed reviews came from. This is the story you get when a political scientist is pessimistic. This story is not for everyone...is it for you?

Next Week

Science Up Some Love

Thanks for reading!

feel free to comment