Category Archives: Science fiction

Review: Marc-Uwe Kling – QualityLand (2020)

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Jeroen Admiraal

Science fiction Published in German in 2017 Translated to English in 2020 by Jamie Lee Searle QualityLand is run by the almighty algorithms, ensuring total satisfaction and efficiently for its quality citizens. Whatever the country’s name once was, now it … Continue reading →

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Review: Isaac Asimov – The Caves of Steel (1954)

Posted on January 12, 2021 by Jeroen Admiraal

Detective Elija Baley doesn’t like robots very much. They act weird, they take people’s jobs. I bet they smell too. Earth has strict rules about robots, but the Outer Worlds don’t have such scruples. When an Outer World ambassador gets … Continue reading →

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E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith – The Lensman Series Review

Posted on December 30, 2020 by Jeroen Admiraal

A review of: Galactic Patrol (1950) Grey Lensman (1951) Second Stage Lensmen (1953) (Children of the Lens (1954) I planned to read this one, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I scanned through it) By Klono’s chromium claws!  I have … Continue reading →

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John Crowley – Engine Summer (1979) Review

Posted on December 15, 2020 by Jeroen Admiraal

9.5/10 I hardly know how to start with this review. It’s such a complex little novel, like a multifaceted crystal, and when you peer into it and turn it in your fingers, the internal structure only gets harder to make out. … Continue reading →

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Isaac Asimov – I, Robot (1950) Review

Posted on November 24, 2020 by Jeroen Admiraal

8.5/10 Isaac Asimov may not have invented the word ‘robot’ (that honour goes to the Capek brothers) but his book series pushed the robot into our collective consciousness as no other piece of popular entertainment has done. Most notably, I, … Continue reading →

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M. John Harrison – You Should Come With Me Now (2017) Review

Posted on November 14, 2020 by Jeroen Admiraal

Stories of Ghosts This new collection features some two dozen short stories and an equal amount of one-page flash-fiction, which could also be called prose poetry. Many of these appeared on Harrison’s blog over the past decade, but he arranged … Continue reading →

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Isaac Asimov – Foundation’s Edge (1982) Review

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Jeroen Admiraal

7.5/10 In the 1940s, Isaac Asimov wrote his famous Foundation trilogy and promptly forgot all about it. In the next few decades while he was writing non-fiction, fans pestered him endlessly to write a sequel, but uncle Isaac never listened. … Continue reading →

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Ted Chiang – Exhalation (2019) Review

Posted on October 14, 2020 by Jeroen Admiraal

9/10 I started this collection with very high expectations. Years ago, when Ted Chiang’s first collection came out, Stories of Your Life and Others (2002), I was greatly impressed. I still consider it one of the best SF short story … Continue reading →

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Brian Aldiss – Hothouse (1961) Review

Posted on June 17, 2019 by Jeroen Admiraal

The novel that couldn’t stop embarrassing itself. A billion years in the future, the Earth and Moon have stopped rotating. The dayside of the planet is covered by thick jungle. Mile-long spiders move along webs between Earth and the Moon. … Continue reading →

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Theodore Sturgeon – More Than Human (1953) Review

Posted on May 31, 2019 by Jeroen Admiraal

9/10 Starting More Than Human is like a weight settling on you. Both for the flowing, dense, poetic writing that settles on you like a blanket, and for the grisly subject material that leaves a pit in your stomach. Cursed … Continue reading →

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