Books: Doctors, Lieutenants, Empires & More

Doctor Who: Harvest Of Time by Alastair Reynolds

Hey, look, a Doctor Who novel by a big name SF writer! Featuring the third Doctor, this novel is pretty good, though not spectacular. The plot is hard to describe without spoilers, but let's say that there's an alien invasion of 1960s Britain, the Master is involved, and there's a lot of complicated dickering about in the far future, with character development for both the Doctor and (most especially) the Master. Recommended.

Delilah Dirk And The Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff

A steampunk-ish graphic novel about an international adventurer and the poor Turkish officer she carries along in her wake. She builds flying boats; he makes a mean cup of tea. I like their dynamic, especially since it's platonic! Recommended.

Zendegi by Greg Egan

Set in and around a near-future Iranian revolution, our hero is an American journalist who tries to recreate himself in digital form, for reasons every father would understand. The virtual reality stuff is a bit snort-worthy, but Egan is always thought-provoking. Mildly recommended.

Crystal Nights, also by Greg Egan

Egan's collections are reliably mind-bending, and this is no exception. Several of the stories are about the ethics of A.I.; whether, for example, using evolutionary techniques to create a powerful A.I. is ethical when so many of them have to die. Plus, nanobots dedicated to the church of Steve, Perelandra recast as a debate between Turing and Lewis, how the American government would deal with refugees from parallel realities, and the power of femtofusion. Highly recommended.

Fortunately, The Milk by Gaiman & Young

A light children's novel about a father who goes out for milk and gets sucked into assorted time-travel shenanigans. Fun, intelligently constructed, and only a skoosh racist (the volcano-worshipping tribe). Recommended.

Galactic Empires, edited by Gardner Dozois

A Science Fiction Book Club-exclusive anthology, featuring Hamilton, Reynolds, Baxter, and more. While it doesn't quite live up to the space-opera title, the stories are solid, including a Paula Myo story from Hamilton, alternate-universe Mongols from Reynolds, another Reed story of the planet-sized spaceship from Marrow, and more. Recommended.

The Fantastic Universe Omnibus, edited by Hans Steffan Santesson

This is a 1960 anthology of stories from a B-list SF & F magazine, featuring a few A-list authors. Several are just shaggy dog stories, like Asimov's "First Law" and A.B. Chandler's "Fall Of Knight". Others deal very frankly with the issues of the era, like Gault's "Title Fight" and Harris' "Mex". And then there's Bloch's "A Way Of Life", which is about fandom rebuilding civilization in the wake of catastrophe, which is direly, eye-rolling-ly, indulgent. Mildly recommended, if you can find it.