Tag Archives: near-future SF

Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come

Posted on August 12, 2025 by smellincoffee

Sienna Clay has a secret: she’s an Auditor.  Her job is to investigate her fellow Britons who are accused of thoughtcrime, or whose ancestors may have committed horrors like eating meat.  New Britanna’s  status as an island of tolerance set … Continue reading →

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SciFi Prompt #4 — and, the worst novel I’ve read this year

Posted on November 4, 2024 by smellincoffee

Today’s SciFi prompt is “Little Blue Dot”, or books about coming and going from “this fragile Earth, our island home”. Contact comes to mind immediately, and given that today is Carl Sagan’s birthday, I can’t imagine a better response.  Contact … Continue reading →

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Tiger Chair

Posted on June 11, 2024 by smellincoffee

War. War never changes. Oh, the execution of it changes — spears become rifles, scouts on fast horses are replaced by drones and mining photos for GPS data — but the horror of it remains, as does certain truths like … Continue reading →

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SHELLI

Posted on May 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

Jake August is a young agent of Homeland Security who has just been welcomed into a special subsection devoted to investigating crimes committed by replican- errr, synthetics. Synths have been integrated into society as intelligent, humanoid tools oriented toward a … Continue reading →

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Metatropolis

Posted on October 30, 2023 by smellincoffee

Metatropolis collects five short stories from a “shared future”, all in or about the future of the city. That vision is not one of growth, however, but of retraction and collapse. Expect nothing like the Sprawl here. I was drawn … Continue reading →

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Upgrade

Posted on November 28, 2022 by smellincoffee

Upgrade© 2022 Blake Crouch352 pages Growing up, Logan Ramsey idolized his brilliant mother, a cutting edge bioengineer. Then a tool of her device that worked perfectly in proving trials killed over two hundred thousand people by accidentally inducing a global … Continue reading →

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Optimal

Posted on May 23, 2022 by smellincoffee

Optimal© 2020 J.M. Berger355 pages Jack has known nothing but the System his entire life.  He rises when it tells him to, he dresses in the outfit its algorithms choose for him, he follows prompts to a selected diner and … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments