#67. WHERE LATE THE SWEET BIRDS SANG By Kate Wilhelm

Published : 1974
Pages : 251
Overall Mark : 6/10

The Sumner family can read the signs: the droughts and floods, the blighted crops, the shortages, the rampant diseases and plagues, and, above all, the increasing sterility all point to one thing. Their isolated farm in the Appalachian Mountains gives them the ideal place to survive the coming breakdown, and their wealth and know-how gives them the means. Men and women must clone themselves for humanity to survive. But what then?

KATE WILHELM (1928-)
Kate Wilhelm has won many awrds for her writing, including the Hugo and the Jupiter for Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang and several Nebulas for her short fiction. She has also been influential beyond her writing through the Milford Science Fiction Writer's Conference, founded by her husband, Damon Knight, and the Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop.

VERDICT
The vision of a world over run with clones feels both real and worrying. Introducing a naturally born element reverses the usual view you'd expect in sci-fi of a clone living in a world of naturally born humans, and this makes the tale twice as effective as it could have been. My main gripe is the idea of deciding that the clones were in the wrong, and that naturaly born humans were in the right, as if it wasn't for the clones then humanity would have died out.

#66. LIFE DURING WARTIME By Lucius Shepard

Published : 1987
Pages : 418
Overall Mark : 7/10

While on R & R, a few miles from the rotting vegetation of the jungles of Guatamala and the endless, drug-fuelled dirty war there, David Mingolla meets the beautiful and enigmatic Debora and stumbles into a deadly psychic conflict where the mind is the ultimate weapon and there's no escape from thoughts that kill. But Debora may be fighting for the enemy, and Mingolla finds himself trained to pursue the woman he loves into the heart of darkness...

LUCIUS SHEPARD (1947-)
Born in the USA in 1947, Lucius Shepard lived in various parts of the world from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. In 1985 he won the John W. Campbell Award and in 1986 he won the Nebula for his story R&R which forms the first part of Life During Wartime. He has also won World Fantasy Awards for the short story collections, The Jaguar Hunter and The Ends Of The Earth.

VERDICT
This interesting look at a future where wars are fought on a psychic level is an interesting look into how trust can be undermined quite easily when people have an ability that can both pry and manipulate. The ambiguous conclusion is very well done, giving the reader free rein to decide what elements for the protagonist were reall and which were hallucinatory, a function that makes the book much more puzzling that it coudl have been given a more final conclusion.

#65. RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA By Arthur C Clarke

Published : 1973
Pages : 252
Overall Mark : 8/10

The enigmatic object christened Rama was detected while still outside the orbit of Jupiter, and a first radar contact at such a distance was unprecedented, indicating that Rama was of exceptional size. As it raced through the Solar System, it became apparent that Rama was a cylinder so geometrically perfect that it might have been turned on a gigantic lathe. Mankind was about to receive its first visitor from the stars.

ARTHUR C. CLARKE (1917-2008)
Born in Somerset in 1917, but a long-time resident of Sri Lanka, Sir Arthur Clarke is the world's most famous living SF writer. He wrote the scientific paper which established the principle of communications satellites and he collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey. Rendezvous With Rama is the only novel to have won all the major SF awards.

VERDICT
Similar in tone to '2001 : A Space Odyseey', this first in a series of books focussing on the mysterious space craft known only as Rama. The difference between this and Space Oddysey is that Rama actually has aliens in it, which does make it less mysterious in a way but also makes it more rewarding to read.

#64. TAU ZERO By Poul Anderson

Published : 1970
Pages : 190
Overall Mark : 7/10

During her epic voyage to a planet thirty light-years away, the deceleration system of the Leonora Christine is irreparably damaged. Unable to slow down, she attains light speed, tau zero itself, and the disparity between time for those on board and external time becomes impossibly great. Eons and galaxies hurtle by in the blink of an eye as the crew speeds helpless and alone into the unknown...

POUL ANDERSON (1926-2001)
Born in Pennsylvania of Scandinavian parents, Poul Anderson lived for a short time in Denmark. He started publishing science fiction in 1947 and became one of the great figures in the genre, serving as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America, winning many Hugo and Nebula awards, and also winning the Gandalf (Grand Master) Award.

VERDICT
An intriguing idea filled with nice character studies - the crew of a colony ship are trapped travelling at tau zero with no means of stopping - is interspersed with scientific jargon to explain away any issues we might have with the plot. A sometimes difficult read that for some may prove also to be a rewarding one.

#63. A MAZE OF DEATH By Philip K Dick

Published : 1970
Pages : 190
Overall Mark : 8/10

When fourteen people arrive to colonize the otherwise uninabited planet of Delmark-O, they quickly discover that their bizarre new world is more dangerous - and much, much stranger - than they could ever have imagined. The colonists have nothing in common and no idea why they've been sent there. All they know is that there's no way to leave and, one by one, they are being killed...

PHILIP K. DICK (1928-1982)
'One of the two or three most important figures in 20th century US SF' (The Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction). Born one of twins - his sister died in infancy - he lived most of his life in California, and wrote more than fifty books in a career of prodigious productivity and achievement. The films Blade Runner, Total Recall and A Scanner Darkly are based on his stories.

VERDICT
This is such an unusual tale, but definitely for me one of Dick's most effective. The use of hallucinations combined with the characters religious beliefs works well and the ideas that are created her of an all-controlling God like creation is both worrying and curiously plausible.

#62. MISSION OF GRAVITY By Hal Clement

Published : 1954
Pages : 203
Overall Mark : 7/10

Mesklin is a vast, inhospitable planet, so cold that its oceans are liquid methan, its snows frozen methane, a world where gravity can be a crushing 700 times greater than Earth's. But Mesklin holds secrets of inestimable value and only the tiny Mesklinites can help mankind discover them. And so begins an heroic and appalling journey into the terrible unknown...

HAL CLEMENT (1922-2003)
Hal Clement went to Harvard, Boston University and Simmons College, taking degrees in astronomy, chemistry and education. He gained his reputation as a writer in Astounding Science Fiction and Mission Of Gravity first appeared there in 1953. Towards the end of his life he was made a Science Fiction Grand Master.

VERDICT
This old-school sci-fi novel deals in great depth with the concept of a high gravity world and how its environment could effect the inhabitants. Although short, this novel contains some great insights into how the world of Mesklin works, and how its people react to their surroundings and the interfering presence of humankind. The imagination Clement invokes in order to produce this work is both startling in its depth and almost unapproachable in its thoroughness.

#61. THE CHILD GARDEN By Geoff Ryman

Published : 1989
Pages : 388
Overall Mark : 6/10

London's semi-tropical climate means that it is now surrounded by paddy-fields. Londoners, like plants, feed off the sun. The young, raised in Child Gardens, are educated by viruses: information, culture, law and politics are biological functions. The Consensus oversees the country, 'treating' non-conformism. But Milena is different: she is resistant to the viruses - and she is capable of changing the world.

GEOFF RYMAN (1951-)
Born in Canada in 1951, Geoff Ryman has lived in London since 1973. The Child Garden won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, His other books include the Fantasy Masterwork Was, 252, The Unconquered Country, Lust and Air.

VERDICT
This look at a future where disease has been vanquished in exchange for shorter lifespans, the young are educated via an intelligent virus. The usual fantasy trope of an individual who is immune to this social control is handled reasonably well by Ryman, and the idea of one girl being able to change how the world is run through her relationship with the hive mind that rules is an interesting notion that perhaps could have been explored to a fuller extent.