#126. DOUBLE STAR By Robert A Heinlein

Published : 1956
Pages : 208
Overall Mark : 9/10

One minute, down-and-out actor Lorenzo Smythe was in a bar, drinking away his troubles, then a space pilot bought him a drink and the next thing he knew, he was shanghaied to Mars. Suddenly Smythe found himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating a kidnapped politician. With peace with the Martians at stake, failure to pull off the act could result in interplanetary ware – but success could see him trapped in his new role forever!

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN (1907-1988)
Robert A. Heinlein was educated at the University of Missouri and the US Naval Academy, Annapolis. He served as a naval officer for five years but retired in 1934 due to ill health. His first published SF was ‘Lifeline’ for Astounding Science Fiction in 1939. Among his many novels are The Door into Summer, Double Star, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

VERDICT
This is one of those rare science fiction novels that could quite easily work as a standard political espionage novel. The story advances quickly and has very little sci-fi elements other than the setting and the presence of Martians and other alien beings. Those familiar with the work of Heinlein will surely attest this is amongst his best works, and for those not familiar with him this is a great starting point.

#125. NO ENEMY BUT TIME By Michael Bishop

Published : 1982
Pages : 365
Overall Mark : 8/10

Joshua Kampa is torn between two worlds – the early Pleistocene Africa of his dreams and the twentieth-century reality of his waking life. These worlds are transposed when a government experiment sends him over a million years back in time. Here, John builds a new life as part of a tribe of protohumans. But before long he reaches a temporal crossroads where he must decide whether the past or the future will be his present.

MICHAEL BISHOP (1945-)
Michael Bishop’s A Funeral For The Eyes Of Fire, brought comparisons with Ursula Le Guin and James Tiptree, Jr and was followed by a number of critically acclaimed works including Transfigurations, Ancient Of Days and No Enemy But Time, for which he won the Nebula Award for Best Novel. Michael Bishop lives in Georgia, where he is writer-in-residence at LaGrange College.

VERDICT
Although the setup of this book starts off a little confusing, it soon reels us in to a world of the past where our time travelling hero is living and making a life for himself. The strange characters are at first hard to get to grips with but, through the eyes of the protagonist, we soon learn to like them and worry for their safety and hope that their lives will turn out okay. The relationship Kampa builds with these prehistoric people is touching and real and makes for an intriguing read that all SF fans will enjoy.

#124. TIME IS THE FIRE : THE BEST OF CONNIE WILLIS By Connie Willis

Published : 2013
Pages : 473
Overall Mark : 9/10

Connie Willis is the recipient of an impressive eleven Hugos and seven Nebulas, among her many other awards. She has won five of those awards for her novels, but the rest have been awarded for her extraordinary short fiction. This collection brings together ten of those award-winning stories in one volume that showcases the depth and breadth of talent of a true grandmaster of the field.

CONNIE WILLIS (1945-)
Connie Willis was born in Denver, Colorado, and earned a BA in English and elementary education from the University of North Colorado. She began writing SF with ‘The Secret of Santa Titicaca’, appearing in Worlds of Fantasy in 1971. A highly decorated author who has won eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards for her work, she was recently named an SFWA Grand Master. Willis currently lives in Greeley, Colorado with her family.

VERDICT
This collection of short stories by Connie Willis is a rare treat that allows us readers to witness her wide and varied skills at writing both dramatic and comedic pieces. Every story here is rich in character and a joy to read, especially Fire Watch which started off her wonderful time travel stories, including Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of The Dog. Fans of Willis will enjoy delving further into her writings, while those new to her will be able to get some bite size treats without the necessity of reading a full novel.

#123. THE DEEP By John Crowley

Published : 1975
Pages : 171
Overall Mark : 6/10

For many generations the Just have been at war with the Protectors. In their strange world, supported by a huge pillar poised in the vast and mysterious Deep, ritual bloodshed and sorcery have obsessed the inhabitants since the beginning of time. From the skies, the half-human, half-machine Visitor enters the world, his purpose unknown. Is he a peacemaker, an observer or a warrior the likes of which this planet has never seen before? Only time can tell – but time is something that his makers have not allowed for...

JOHN CROWLEY (1942-)
John Crowley was born in Maine in 1942 and grew up in Vermont, Kentucky and Indiana before moving to New York and taking up work in documentary films – an occupation he still pursues alongside his writing. The Deep, his first SF novel, was published in 1975 and was followed by Beasts, Engine Summer and Great Work of Time. With the publication of Little, Big in 1981 he won the World Fantasy Award and was shortlisted for the Hugo, Nebula and BSFA Awards.

VERDICT
I couldn’t really get into this short novel, which felt much longer than its 171 pages. The characters are difficult to differentiate from each other, and the only section that felt to be any good to me was the third chapter of the third section that finally reveals what we’ve been trudging through the whole book to discover. Fans of strange alien sci-fi might enjoy this if they can decipher what is going on, but I just didn’t think it was worth the effort.

#122. THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON By H G Wells

Published : 1901
Pages : 208
Overall Mark : 7/10

Published over 100 years ago, this is one of Wells's greatest novels, and the only one of his scientific romances to embrace space travel.

Thanks to the discovery of an anti-gravity metal, Cavorite, two Victorian Englishmen travel to the Moon, where they encounter the extraordinary underground world of the Selenites, insect-like aliens living in a rigidly organised hive society.

H. G. WELLS (1866-1946)
The son of a shopkeeper, Wells began to publish fiction in the 1890s. The Time Machine, published in 1895, heralded an extraordinary period of 6 years in which he published almost all the 'scientific romances' which made his fame. An early member of the Fabian Society (from which developed the Labour Party), he was for the last four decades of his life a world-famous writer and thinker.

VERDICT
It's hard to believe that this is written almost seventy years before man actually landed on the moon. Granted, a lot of the science that Wells describes is well off, but the fun and energy he employs in his stories makes this an entertaining tale that is very enjoyable, even if you only take it as a view of what people at the turn of the century thought the moon might be like.

#121. THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS By James Morrow

Published : 1986
Pages : 301
Overall Mark : 7/10

When tombstone engraver George Paxman is offered a bargain, he doesn’t hesitate. His beloved daughter gets an otherwise unaffordable survival suit to protect her from radioactive fall-out and all George has to do is sign a document admitting that, as a passive citizen who did nothing to stop it, he has a degree of guilt for any nuclear war that breaks out. George signs on the dotted line.

And then the unthinkable happens...

JAMES MORROW (1947-)
Born in Philadelphia, James Morrow spent much of his teenage life in Hillside Cemetery, where he entertained his passion for 8mm moviemaking by creating numerous short horror and fantasy films with his friends. Having received degrees from both the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, he then turned his creative urges to writing. Commonly in his works, Morrow satirises organised religion and elements of humanism and atheism. He is perhaps best known for the Godhead Trilogy, the first of which, Towing Jehovah, won the World Fantasy Award in 1995. He currently lives in Pennsylvania with his family.

VERDICT
Clever ideas aren’t always good, and satire can often go over a readers head. Here we have a great example of clever satire that shows how in the future governments will plan ahead for scapegoats when nuclear accidents occur, but it does at times become something of a chore to get through. The characters here get a little confusing in places, but I’d say the final segment is the strongest, with the protagonist going on trial for the destruction of the human race simply because he wanted to buy his daughter a protective suit.

#120. THE GODS THEMSELVES By Isaac Asimov

Published : 1972
Pages : 269
Overall Mark : 6/10

In the year 2100, the invention of the Electron Pump – an apparently inexhaustible supply of free energy – has enabled humanity to break free of the Earth and establish a foothold in the wider solar system. But the Electron Pump works by exchanging materials with a parallel universe, and such unbalancing of the cosmos has consequences. Now the race is on to prevent a vast nuclear explosion in the heart of the Sun – and the vaporisation of the Earth exactly eight minutes later...

ISAAC ASIMOV (1920-92)
Isaac Asimov was one of the most famous, honoured and widely read science fiction authors of all time. Born in Russia but raised in the USA, his career as an SF writer began in 1939 with ‘Marooned Off Vesta’, in Amazing Stories. His output was prolific by any standards – an a career spanning five decades, he wrote more than four hundred books, won six Hugos, two Nebulas and the SFWA Grand Master Award, among many others, and provided pleasure and insight to millions of readers. He died in 1992 at the age of 72.

VERDICT
Although this is an interesting idea – taking three different views on the use of a single product and how it could affect those that use it – it’s a little laboured in its execution. Asimov may be a man of many ideas, but this one gets a bit boring in places. If you take the idea at face value, however, this is a very clever one that creates three groups, all of whom believe that their invention will destroy one or more universes, all of which have the solution to the problem but are unwilling to use it. Worth a read, but it is a little long winded.