#96. ROGUE MOON By Algis Budrys

Published : 1960
Pages : 175
Overall Mark : 7/10

All his life Al Barker has toyed with death. So when the US lunar programme nedds a volunteer to penetrate a murderous labyrinth, alien to all human comprehension, Barker is the man to do it. But what is required of Barker is that he withstand the trauma of dying, not just once, but time and time again.

A disquieting and original psychological study, Rogue Moon is the story of monstrous scientific ambition matched by human obsession.

ALGIS BUDRYS(1931-2008)
Born in East Prussia (now Russia), Algis Budrys emigrated to the USA as a child. With the publication of his first SF story in 1952, he rapidly gained a reputation as a leader of the 1950s generation of SF writers, together with Robert Sheckley and Philip K. Dick. Rogue Moon (1960) prefigured in many ways the 'New Wave' of the late 1960s.

VERDICT
This is quite a morbid book, in which people are duplicated and continually brought back to life in a vain attempt to traverse an impossible maze of death. This simple concept is expertly handled by Budrys who manages to keep the story interesting yet incredibly well paced, with the continual deaths of those involved showing the reader just what kind of people they really are.

#95. FLOATING WORLDS By Cecelia Holland

Published : 1976
Pages : 628
Overall Mark : 7/10

The Styths, a powerful and aggressive mutant race from Uranus and Saturn, have been launching pirate raids on ships from Mars. Earth’s Committee for the Revolution has been asked to negotiate a truce between the Middle Planets and the Styth Empire. The task falls to the resourceful and unpredictable Paula Mendoza.

Her initial meetings with the Styth warlord don’t go well until she adopts an unconventional approach…

CECELIA HOLLAND (1943-) Cecelia Holland was born on New Year’s Eve, 1943. She is a well-known and acclaimed writer of historical fiction. Floating Worlds is her only SF novel.

VERDICT
This is a strange novel with a lot of ideas coming out of left field. The idea of Paula being almost forced into an arranged marriage in order to help peace talks with an alien race may not sound like anything new, but Holland's treatment of the characters is imaginative and makes for a pleasing, though not necessarily pleasant, read.

#94. THE AFFIRMATION By Christopher Priest

Published : 1981
Pages : 247
Overall Mark : 8/10

Peter Sinclair is tormented by bereavement and failure. In an attempt to conjure some meaning from his life, he embarks on an autobiography, but he finds himself writing the story of another man in another, imagined, world, whose insidious attraction draws him even further in...

CHRISTOPHER PRIEST (1943-)
Christopher Priest's widely acclaimed novels include Fugue For A Darkening Island, The Space Machine, A Dream Of Wessex, The Glamour, The Extremes and The Separation. The Prestige was the winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the World Fantasy Award, and was memorably filmed by Christopher Nolan.

VERDICT
This is an interesting, thought-provoking novel that leaves us with a note of ambiguity from the outset as we try to puzzle over which of the characters in the novel is real and which is make-believe. This gives us a permanent sense of intrigue which allows the reader, even in the more subdued moments of the piece, to look for clues as to the answer to the riddle that this novel contains.

#93. RUR & WAR WITH THE NEWTS By Karel Capek

Published : 1920 & 1936
Pages : 349
Overall Mark : 6/10

R.U.R., or Rossum's Universal Robots, is regarded as the most important play in the history of SF. It introduced the word 'robot' and gave the genre one of its most enduring tropes.

Written against the background of the rise of Nazism, War With The Newts concerns the discovery of a sea-dwelling race, which is enslaved and exploited by mankind. In time they rebel, laying siege to the strongholds of their former masters in a global war for supremacy.

KAREL CAPEK (1890-1938)
Karel Capek was one of the most important Czech writers of the twentieth century and a major voice in early European science fiction. His work traversed many genres, and his most famous play, R.U.R., introduced the word 'robot' into popular usage. He died on Christmas Day 1938.

VERDICT
It may just be that the concept of these stories have been lost in translation, but I found these not only difficult to read, but at times padded out with a lot of unneccessary detail. The play's abrupt ending makes me think that Capek was actually becoming bored of the story (not surprisingly), and though War With The Newts was a better thought through concept with some nice focus on the background of the hatred that would lead to the war, it was still at times a little hard to follow.

#92. OF MEN AND MONSTERS By William Tenn

Published : 1968
Pages : 235
Overall Mark : 8/10

Giant, technologically duperior aliens have conquered Earth. Humans live like mice, within the massive walls of the aliens' huge home, and scurry about under their feet, stealing from them. A complex social order has evolved, with women preserving knowledge and working as healers, and men serving as warriors and thieves.

For the aliens, people are just a nuisance, nothing more than vermin. Which, ironically, my just be humankind's strength and point the way forward...

WILLIAM TENN (1920-2010)
William Tenn was the pseudonym of Philip Klass. Although he was born in London, he spent most of his life in America, teaching writing and SF at Pennsylvania State College from 1966. He began writing after serving in the Second World War and published his first story, 'Alexander The Bait' in Astounding Science Fiction in 1946. Stories like 'Down Among The Dead Men', 'The Liberation Of Earth' and 'The Custodian' quickly established him as a fine, funny anf thoughtful satirist. In 1999 William Tenn was selected the Science Fiction Writers of America's Author Emeritus.

VERDICT
Clearly inspired by Mary Norton's The Borrowers, this story of narrow views and short sightedness is great fun to read. The idea of an entire sub-species of mankind living in the homes of giant aliens and evolving seperately from each other is a nice concept which is delivered perfectly by Tenn in this short yet idea-filled novel.

#91. HELLSTROM'S HIVE By Frank Herbert

Published : 1973
Pages : 332
Overall Mark : 9/10

America is a police state, and it is about to be threatened by the most hellish enemy in the world: insects.

When the Agency discovered that Dr. Hellstrom's Project 40 was a cover for a secret laboratory, a special team of agents immediately dispatched to discover its true purpose.

What they found was a nightmare more horrific and hideous than even their paranois government minds could devise.

FRANK HERBERT (1920-1986)
Frank Herbert was born in Tacoma, Washington and worked as a reporter and later editor of a number of West Coast newspapers before becoming a full-time writer. His first SF story was published in 1952 but he achieved fame more than ten years later with the publication in Analog of 'Dune World' and 'The Prophet Of Dune' - amalgamated in the bestselling novel Dune in 1965, and winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

VERDICT
Herbert's portrayal of a secret experiment into human DNA manipulation is inspired. The characteristics of those affected by the hive-like changes in behaviour are sublime, and his slow progression into the government's realisation of what is happening is paced perfectly, as well as being a nice reversal of the usual roles where it is the government trying to hide the truth from the public.

#90. CITY By Clifford D Simak

Published : 1952
Pages : 242
Overall Mark : 8/10

On a far future Earth, mankind's achievements are immense: artificially intelligent robots, genetically uplifted animals, interplanetary travel, genetic modification of the human form itself.

But nothing comes without a cost. Humanity is tired, its vigour all but gone. As the human race dwindles and declines, which of its great creations will inherit the Earth? And which will claim the star...?

CLIFFORD D. SIMAK (1904-1988)
Clifford Donald Simak was a regular contributor to John W. Campbell's Astounding Stories, and won the Nebula and multiple Hugo Awards. In 1977 he was the third writer to be named a Grand Master by SFWA.

VERDICT
This is a nice look at how natural selection and evolution can play a part in not only the progression od one species but also the collapse of another. As each story progresses to the next we are introduced to periods in time where humanity is slowly being replaced by dogs, and eventually humanity becomes something of a myth to the dominant species, with only their robot servants to serve as a reminder of past times.

#89. HYPERION By Dan Simmons

Published : 1989
Pages : 473
Overall Mark : 8/10

The universe of the Human Hegemony is under threat. Invasion by the warlike Ousters looms, and the mysterious schemes of the secessionist AI TechnoCore bring chaos ever closer.

One the eve of disaster, seven pilgrims set out on a quest for the legendary Time Tombs on Hyperion, home to the Shrike, part god and part killing machine with powers that transcend the limits of time and space. The pilgrims have resolved to discover nothing less than the secrets of the universe itself.

DAN SIMMONS (1948-)
Born in Illinois, Dan Simmons won the World Fantasy Award for his first novel, Song Of Kali. In 1990 Hyperion, the first book in the famous Hyperion Cantos series, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

VERDICT
Simmons manages to make his version of The Pilgrim's Progress a fascinating journey of unusual tales that are as similar to each other as they are different. He comes up with some very imaginative ideas of how the pilgrims have been lead to Hyperion and what they think they are expected to do there, as well as their various experiences with the Shrike. The tales are perfect to read as stand alone stories, but together they create an interesting background for what is to come in The Fall Of Hyperion.

#88. SIRIUS By Olaf Stapledon

Published : 1944
Pages : 194
Overall Mark : 8/10

Sirius is Thomas Trelone's great experiment - a dog with the intelligence of a human being. Sirius is a remarkable creature. His inquiring mind ranges across the spectrum of human knowledge and experience. But Sirius isn't human and he is tortured by conflicts that cannot be resolved. Probably the finest novel with a nonhuman protagonist ever written, Sirius is a moving and powerful study of alien intelligence and sensibility.

OLAF STAPLEDON (1886-1950)
Educated at Balliol College, Oxford and Liverpool University, Olaf Stapledon worked for a shipping office in Liverpool and Port Said before lecturing for Liverpool University. He served in the Friends' Ambulance Unit in France from 1915 to 1919 and then lectured again for Liverpool University. His books include the classics Last And First Men and Star Maker.

VERDICT
This story of a super-intelligent dog is intriguing in its approach to the dichotomy faced by the dog, as he is less than human but more than beast. This question, and how both Sirius and those around him answer it, makes for a great read that is possibly one of the most unusual morality tales of our time.

#87. GREYBEARD By Brian Aldiss

Published : 1965
Pages : 239
Overall Mark : 8/10

Since the 'Accident', when nuclear weapons were exploded in orbit, mankind has been sterile and no children have been born. Civilization has crumbled. In scattered enclaves, the old live as best they can while nature overwhelms the cities and roads. Algy Timberlane - Greybeard - and his wife, Martha, embark on a boat trip down the Thames to the sea, journeying through the strange new landscape, encountering extraordinary communities and people, in search of hope...

BRIAN ALDISS (1925-)
After serving in the Royal Signals in Burma and Sumatra in the Second World War, Brian Aldiss worked in an Oxford bookshop and was for many years the literary editor of the Oxford Mail. He is the most distinguished SF writer in Britain and his many honours include the award of the OBE for services to literature in 2005.

VERDICT
Fans of post-apocalyptic literature couldn't go wrong with checking this out. Aldiss presents a world that is dying; a world where there are no new born children and the current generation are faced with the fact that they will be the last. It is a touching tale about humanity's coping mechanisms and of how love survives even in the face of certain doom.

#86. THE PRESTIGE By Christopher Priest

Published : 1995
Pages : 360
Overall Mark : 8/10

Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier first clash in 1878 in a darkened salon at a fraudulent seance conducted by Angier. From then on the two young illusionists engage in an increasingly bitter and deadly feud on the stages of Victorian music halls. And each is driven to extremes by the mystery of an amazing illusion they each perform. For both, there is much more at risk than the mere workings of a trick, and the legacy of their hatred and obsessively guarded secrets will reverberate down the years.

CHRISTOPHER PRIEST (1943-)
Christopher Priest's widely acclaimed novels include Fugue For A Darkening Island, A Dream Of Wessex, The Glamour, The Extremes and The Separation. The Prestige was the winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the World Fantasy Award, and was memorably filmed by Christopher Nolan.

VERDICT
This tale of on-going one-upmanship is wonderfully thought through and manages to bring some otherwise unusual notions to a Victorian setting. The idea of two magicians, so jealous of each other that they do whatever they can to find out the tricks behind each others performances makes for some intriguing and thought-provoking reading.

#85. THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE By William Gibson & Bruce Sterling

Published : 1990
Pages : 383
Overall Mark : 8/10

In London in 1855, the great steam-driven Babbage Engines power the Industrial Revolution because the age of the computer is already here, and the Indusrial Radicals and the scientists run things. But there's still treachery and intrigue at the heart of government and Sybil Gerard, fallen woman, Edward Mallory, palaeontologist, and Lady Ada Byron, compulsive gambler and mathematical genius, are unwittingly caught up in a conspiracy that could change the world...

WILLIAM GIBSON (1948-)
Born in America, William Gibson moved to Canada in 1968 after being rejected by his draft-board. He is the multiple-award winning author of Neuromancer, Count Zero, The Mona Lisa Overdrive, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow's Parties and Spook Country.
BRUCE STERLING (1954-)
Born in Texas, Bruce Sterling is the author of, among others, Involution Ocean, Schismatrix, Islands In The Net, Crystal Express, Zeitgeist, and The Caryatids.

VERDICT
I was surprised that I actually enjoyed this book, seeing as I never really liked William Gibson's Neuromancer. My guess is that Bruce Sterling had more of the input into this combined effort, which does an interesting job of creating an alternate reality in which technology is steam driven. This is a well written piece and well worth adding to any respectable sci-fi collection.