Singularity Sky
Stross, Charles
Singularity Sky is one of the nominees for this year's Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. While it was a good read, I don't think it is quite up to that caliber. Definitely worth your time if you are a science fiction fan. It explores a couple of different themes in interesting ways, although they don't quite all hang together. On one hand, it's a story of the collision between stagnant culture and a post-Singularity information culture. That sets up a bunch of neat ideas worth thinking about. On the other hand, there's also a sort of love-story between two agents behind enemy lines thing going on. These two major threads connect loosely, but not as well as you'd like. Overall, Stross is a very inventive mind and I'll be looking for his other work as it comes to market. In the meantime, I've started reading his blog, Charlie's Diary, which is equally stimulating

11:54:18 PM •  • comment  

Trading in Danger
Moon, Elizabeth
I'm a fan of Elizabeth Moon's writing for no logical reason I can discern. Trading in Danger is an interesting mix of military and mercantile science fiction. It moves along at a good clip, although the heroine tends to be obtusely stupid at various points to string out her troubles. It does have some good passages on stepping into new leadership positions. Not one of Moon's better efforts.

11:50:28 PM •  • comment