Sci-Fi

The Luminous Dead is a horror story about two women having to both confront and help each other under terrible circumstances. The novel excels at building tension and maintaining a suffocating atmosphere, immersing us in the protagonist’s paranoia, while establishing a very troubled relationship between the two main characters. The story follows Gyre Price, a young caver who is one …

Some stories are much more interested in developing their core themes and ideas than a complex plot full of twists and turns. Such is The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, a science fiction novel that leverages the quirkiness of its unique cast of characters to shed light on many of our society’s problems. The protagonist is Rosemary, a …

Blackfish City is a book of two halves that don’t merge very well: it wants to discuss the problems of an ultraliberal society and the rise of a rebellion in a cruel city, all within a story where a family finally reunites after many years of being kept apart. That sounds great, but the novel fails to merge these two …

“The protesters outside are getting louder. Their chants are still faint, but somehow clearer than before. Or maybe that’s just Ophelia’s guilty conscience.” Ophelia’s guilty conscience will be the true ghost haunting her in the mysteriously abandoned planetary station she’s assigned to work in, and where she eventually gets stranded after some strange happenings. Ophelia is a therapist in need …

Part noir, part space opera, Leviathan Wakes is a very good science fiction novel: written by James S. A. Corey, the first volume of The Expanse series manages to successfully balance character development with exciting set-pieces, offering the best of both genres. The book opens with a young pilot named Juliette Mao finding herself trapped after her spacecraft, the Scopuli, …

Bioshock: Rapture is a flawed complement to its great source material: Bioshock’s greatest strength was its fantastical setting – the grandiose underwater city of Rapture – and how it managed to tie the philosophy behind it to its horror elements. The novel may try to follow suit, focusing on the city’s initial years before its terrible downfall, but fails to …

Written by Cixin Liu, The Three-Body Problem is a hard science fiction novel that shines when it’s subverting the genre and developing its main themes. It can both fascinate us with its creative world and disappoint us with its underdeveloped characters and anticlimactic ending. The protagonist is the Chinese scientist Wang Miao, whose research in nanotechnology is put in check …

The Wrong Stars is a fast-paced space opera structured around the dangerous allure of mysteries. Our main characters are perfectly aware that some things are better left alone, untouched, but they simply can’t help it. Human beings are drawn to the unknown like moths to light, so they must uncover the many secrets the universe holds, even if that means facing …

The Water Knife, a sci-fi thriller written by Paolo Bacigalupi, presents a dystopian world that is disturbing in its verisimilitude. The novel, however, is ultimately dragged down by shallow main characters, having to resort to shock value to hold our attention. The story is built around three main points of view: there’s the journalist Lucy, who needs to find out …

Shift is a pointless prequel to the great dystopic world of Wool, choosing to put its focus on all the wrong places: instead of building on the fascinating discussions of its predecessor and crafting an engaging story, it decides to spend a lot of time explaining pointless things about its worldbuilding and grinding the pace to a halt with fan …