Staff Recommendations
Daryl M.
Pages
-
A Closed and Common Orbit
by Chambers, Becky,
May 23, 2017
Call Number: SF
Published last year, A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers is a breath of fresh air in the genre of science fiction. Sci-fi has long been languishing in multiple dystopian visions exploring just how wrong our world, and many others, could possibly go. A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is an unabashed space opera, a bit short on plot, but well outfitted with a wonderful world populated by interesting and relatable characters. The novel was nominated for the Kitschies Award for Best Debut, the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, the Tiptree Award, The British... Read Full Review
-
Seven wonders
by Christopher, Adam, 1978-
May 8, 2017
Call Number: SF
What if you woke up one morning with a super power? Super strength? Super speed? X-ray vision? Invulnerability? The ability to fly? What if, over the course of several weeks, you developed all of these powers and more? Does having these powers change who you are? More importantly, does having super powers automatically make you a superhero? These are just some of the questions explored in Adam Christopher’s novel, Seven Wonders.Tony Prosdocimi is a regular guy. He works a dead-end job at Big Deal (think Wal-Mart) selling computers and computer equipment, and he lives in a small... Read Full Review
-
This Savage Song
by Schwab, Victoria,
April 24, 2017
Call Number: YA
What makes a monster a “MONSTER”? In This Savage Song, Victoria Schwab explores the varying shades of grey in a world where almost anyone could be a monster and how to protect yourself from one of them, and better yet how to avoid becoming one.The Phenomenon plunged the world into chaos and the survivors became prey for the Corsai, mindless shadows with teeth and nails that strike from the darkness, and the Malchai, physical creatures in many respects similar to vampires.Verity City is one of the largest remaining areas of civilization. It is a city divided: North-Verity, South-... Read Full Review
-
The Woman Next Door
by Omotoso, Yewande,
April 17, 2017
Call Number:
Imagine two women living in the upscale community of Katterijn in Cape Town, South Africa. Marion is the widowed mother of four and a former architect forced to leave her business when she started a family. Hortensia is originally from Barbados, and in the 1960s founded a very successful fabric design firm. Her husband is dying and they have no children. Hortensia is black and refers to Marion as “Marion the Vulture.” Marion is white and calls Hortensia “Hortensia the Horrible.” Both are now in their 80s and they have lived next door to each other for decades, nurturing a shared enmity that... Read Full Review
-
Infomocracy
by Older, Malka, 1977-
April 3, 2017
Call Number:
Imagine a world where the entire globe has agreed to a system of governance. World populations are broken down into groups of approximately 100,000 people, referred to as “centenals,” that are overseen by a specific type of government chosen by the residents. Some are democratic, some are not. If you live in a centenal, you agree to abide by the system of government in place. If you do not agree, you move to a centenal governed in the way you prefer. Or, you convince enough of your neighbors to change the type of government through an election held once a decade. The number of these “micro-... Read Full Review
-
Crooked kingdom : a sequel to six of crows.
by Bardugo, Leigh.
March 15, 2017
Call Number: YA
In Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo took readers through the planning and execution of a nearly impossible heist. By the end of the novel readers know how much of the plan succeeds, and the double-cross that leaves the crew of street thieves worse off than before. It is the double-cross and loose threads that form the basis of the con that is at the center of Crooked Kingdom, the sequel to Six of Crows. Kaz Brekker and his crew, Inej, Jesper, Matthias, Nina and Wylan, have managed the impossible. They made it into and out of the Ice Court, the most secure... Read Full Review
-
The collapsing empire.
by Scalzi, John, 1969-
March 6, 2017
Call Number: SF
Global warming. Climate change. For more than four decades scientists have investigated and warned that human technology and civilization would have dramatic effects on the ecology of our planet. While the science and results are indisputable, some still resist accepting the facts presented and argue for the status quo. In The Collapsing Empire, John Scalzi explores how a discovery about a different type of natural phenomenon could very well be the undoing of the human race once we move out into the stars, and how people respond when the scientists reveal the news.When the Flow was... Read Full Review
-
All our wrong todays : a novel
by Mastai, Elan,
February 21, 2017
Call Number:
Tom Barren lives in a science fiction dream of the future: flying cars, teleportation, moon colonies, and, as soon as his father completes his experiments, time travel. All of these things exist in 2016, not some far-flung 23rd or 24th century. On July 11, 1965, Lionel Goettreider activated an engine that provided the world with a clean, free energy source that made every sci-fi pulp writer’s visions of the future a reality. While this sounds like a utopian fantasy over sixty years in the making made real, for Tom it is every bit as unlivable as our world often is for us. Tom is aimless,... Read Full Review
-
Time siege
by Chu, Wesley,
January 10, 2017
Call Number: SF
In Time Salvager, Wesley Chu introduced readers to a brutal, dystopian world where Earth is primarily a toxic wasteland, and most of humanity has fled to live on the moons of the gas giants. Mega-corporations exert influence on everything and everyone, with the exception of ChronoCom, the non-profit entity that manages time travel and enforces the time laws. Time travel is used to plunder the past for resources to keep the present functioning. It is into this world that chronman James Griffin-Mars brings Elise Kim. Elise is a 21st century scientist, and now a temporal anomaly, who... Read Full Review
-
The winner's kiss.
by Rutkoski, Marie.
January 3, 2017
Call Number: YA
In The Winner’s Curse, the first book in The Winners Trilogy, author Marie Rutkoski introduces readers to Kestrel, daughter and only child of General Trajan of the Valorian army, and Arin, the Herrani slave Kestral impulsively purchased at auction. Theirs is a rocky relationship from the start, but one that challenges them to examine truths they each hold firmly. Between them, a dance begins, deliberate and accidental, controlled and controlling, with undercurrents of undeniable passion. Each alternates in leading the dance, sometimes in spite of their positions as slave and master,... Read Full Review
-
The city of mirrors : a novel
by Cronin, Justin,
December 19, 2016
Call Number: CD
In The Passage, book one of The Passage Trilogy, Justin Cronin showed us how the world would end. A group of scientists begin working with a rare virus from South America and dream of solving all illnesses and possibly death. Their work is taken over by the military, who secure the test-subjects, and all but one are death-row inmates. The exception is an abandoned six-year-old girl known as Amy NLN (NLN=no last name). They become known as the virals, who have almost all of the classic characteristics of a vampire. They drain their prey of blood and others they infect with a disease.... Read Full Review
-
Hex
by Olde Heuvelt, Thomas,
October 31, 2016
Call Number:
Horror, true horror, is difficult to find these days. The genre has been overshadowed by images meant to shock rather than scare. With Hex, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, an established and successful author in Holland, unleashes a classic ghost story, with enough modern twists to keep all readers from having a good night's sleep. In 1664, Katherine van Wyler was accused of being a witch and then killed. Her unfair treatment immediately culminated in her cursing her home town and its residents in the following ways: If you are born there, you can never leave. If you settle there,... Read Full Review