Tag Archives: science fiction

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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Neo Cab

Posted on February 23, 2024 by smellincoffee

This is going to be an unusual review, because Neo Cab isn’t a book. It’s a visual novel that people experience as a video game, a novel set in a dystopia that touches on so many topics — corporatocracy, the … Continue reading →

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The Downloaded

Posted on February 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

In the 26th century, two groups of humans are awakening. The first are a group of scientists who think they’re on a spaceship headed toward Proxima Centauri, there to begin Earth’s first colony. The second are criminals who were part … Continue reading →

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The Eighth Continent

Posted on February 12, 2024 by smellincoffee

Nick is a commercial diver who, as a side gig, volunteers with a rescue organization to save people during flood disasters. There are a lot of those these days: rising waters, frequent hurricanes, and people who continue to build houses … Continue reading →

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The Lunar Missile Crisis

Posted on February 4, 2024 by smellincoffee

The moon race began in earnest when Yuri Gagarin launched off the pad in April 1961. It ended really quickly when he collided with an alien spaceship and exploded, leading to a full nuclear launch by the Soviets which failed … Continue reading →

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Influx

Posted on October 31, 2023 by smellincoffee

Jon Grady is ecstatic. Tonight he has ushered in a new era in human civilization. He’s created antigravity. A thousand years from now, schoolchildren will recite his name alongside Newton and Einstein. Or….they would, if a strike team from 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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Neuromancer

Posted on October 26, 2023 by smellincoffee

Neuromancer is a rare book — bewildering, beautiful, horrifying, disorienting. It’s the story of Case, a ruined hacker who is approached by a woman with a job offer. In the recent past, he made the mistake of stealing from the … Continue reading →

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Reads to Reels: The Island of Lost Souls

Posted on October 25, 2023 by smellincoffee

Tonight a friend of mine and I watched The Island of Lost Souls, a 1932 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. The island references Wells in the credits, and largely follows its plot although a shift in … Continue reading →

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Astounding

Posted on October 20, 2023 by smellincoffee

I don’t remember why I picked up “Foundation” back in 2008, but it would be the beginning of an obsession with Asimov that saw me reading collection after collection of his stories from the 1930s – 1960s, finding greater and … Continue reading →

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