Book Review: Ninth Step Station
Ninth Step Station is an excellent collaborative effort which entertains and asks hard questions about crime, investigation, surveillance, and the future of technology in a well imagined near future setting. The locale is Tokyo in the 2030s. After an attack by China on Japan, much of Japan is under Chinese occupation, and half of Tokyo is held by them as well, with a border zone between occupied Japan and free Japan managed by ASEAN, led by the United States. Tensions are high in this divided Tokyo of the future. The peace seems fragile and ready to erupt at any moment, forces scheme to survive and thrive, and the day to day life of people on both sides of the divide is under constant stress.
Book Review: A Study in Honor by Claire O’Dell
An Americanized retelling of the classic Sherlock Holmes story, set in a future with advanced tech, disastrous civil war, and a diverse main cast, A Study in Honor creates a unique drama that twists the original overdone story into something new. With the leading characters transformed by sex and skin color, O’Dell puts a spin on your typical Sherlock and Watson partnership, and pulls you into a world of intrigue. Dr. Janet Watson is fresh off the front lines of war, with a clumsy mechanical prosthesis that is too big for the delicate surgeon work she does best. With few prospects, and only one friend in D.C., Watson must make the best of a difficult situation. She gets a job, starts therapy, finds a flat and an accompanying flatmate—Sara Holmes, who is secretive, attractive, and, most of all, maddening. Just when everything has seemingly settled, one of Watson’s patients dies suddenly, and then her friend, another doctor on the front lines, dies as well. This sends Watson and Holmes on the path of a secret investigation, a military mission gone horribly wrong, and several more mysterious deaths. But what awaits them on the other end of their investigation could get them both killed if they’re not careful.
Book Review: The Red Men by Matthew de Abaitua
About a third of the way through The Red Men, Matthew de Abaitua’s ravishing new-old (I’ll explain in a moment) cyberpunk nightmare, is very likely the creepiest scene I’ve ever encountered in literature. Not just in genre fiction. In literature. I’m not going to spoil it for you. You’ll know it when you hit it. And your brain will leap out of your skull and try to escape the building, flopping and squelching across the floor until it’s stuck hurling itself ineffectually against a door or gate or other obstacle. Help me. You’ll want to chase after it so you can read the rest of the book. Probably.
