So, you saw ‘I Robot’ the movie, and now you want to read the book. The book is always better than the movie, right? This is no exception, to that rule, but you’ll have a surprise none the less. They aren’t the same story.

I Robot is a collection of short stories. None of them have anything to do with Will Smith, murdered company executives, or a cop everyone thinks is crazy. Instead, we follow a reporter interviewing a robot psychologist. Each short story is anecdote told by her. Sometimes she relates things that happened to her. Sometimes she relates stories that happened to her collogues. In each case, the three laws of robotics are applied. 1. A robot may not harm, or by inaction allow to be harmed a human being. 2. A robot must follow the orders of a human being except where it would violate the first law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence, except where it would violate the first and second law. As the reader, we must figure out what happened and why. How can the a robot obey the three laws, and yet still kill a human being?

A wonderful read. It’s easy to see why this is a science fiction classic.

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When the chief spymaster of your empire come to you and asks a favor, it’s best just to say yes. Daniel Leery did just that, but now he’s escorting the spymaster’s son out to the edges of known space. His mission, find an ancient treasure buried for thousands of years. There’s just a couple of complications. A brutal civil war on the planet being one of them. All in a day’s work for Daniel.

Daniel has to deal with misgivings on his own crew this time. They can’t understand why he didn’t invite them along. It’s hard to explain to them that he feels like it’s a wild goose chase. He’ll need them though. The local warlords view the recently arrived star ship as an asset. To them, the first to capture Daniel’s ship will have a significant advantage in their planetary power play.  Little do they know that the treasure is more than a myth. There’s something to it, and the stakes are much bigger than they could have imagined.

David Drake brings Daniel Leery and Adele Mundy back for another exciting adventure in The Sea without a Shore. Our unlikely allies have their work cut out for them. When everyone is out to get you and the stakes rise ever higher, Daniel and Adele are just the team to set things right.

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Erik Cain joined the marines to get off of death row. Now he’s traveling the galaxy, meeting new people, and killing them. He has combat skills and a mission to bring rebellious colony worlds back into the fold. Now he’s starting to wonder if he’s on the right side. Earth gave him skills and powered armor, but is he serving his homeland, or it’s decadent political masters.

A great start to a long running series, Marines starts off the Crimson Worlds series with a bang. If you love military space opera, this will keep you entertained and asking for more!

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Tabby has always known what she wanted. She wanted Liam too, but he’d have to get off his butt and ask her out for that to happen. When Liam swooped in and pull what was left of her body, out of her trashed fighter, she figured actions spoke louder than words. But when he cooked up a scheme to get Mars Protectorate to spring for a new body, that was the final straw. Liam belongs to Tabby, and everyone else better watch out.

Now she has a new body, faster and stronger than her old one. There are just a few loose ends to tie up. An old friend in need. But something isn’t right. Backward family members trying to keep her friend down and someone trying to kill them. It’s up to Tabby to save the day. And the villain isn’t who she thinks it is.

McFarlane brings a new perspective to his ongoing Privateer Tales series. A short and sweet whodunit filled with action and adventure. Fans of the series have been waiting a long time for these two characters to get together, and Jamie doesn’t disappoint.

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Aneka Jansen just woke up. This is pretty impressive considering she’s been dead for a thousand years. On top of that, her body is just a memory. An extinct alien race copied her into an android shell. Now she’ll have to adjust to life in the far future. Along the way, she’ll have to find out who she is now. Is she still human? What did the aliens want with her? She isn’t the only one. The humans of this new age must decide is she’s adrift in time, or a new threat from a long vanquished foe.

Niall Teasedale weaves an epic space opera with erotic overtones. When it come to sex charged stories, I’m a fan of well developed plots. Niall delivers. Aneka finds that her military extraction skills come n handy, even in this distant future. An excellent read for any scifi fan.

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Louis Wu is back, healed and ready to go. He’s been a puppet of too many people for far too long.  Now he’s out to explore the Ringworld. Get to know it’s people. When he finds his friends in trouble, he’ll have no choice but to get involved.  It may be much more than he bargained for.

The last time he was awake, the Ringworld was falling into the sun. This time the Ringworld is under attack. Creature that resemble vampires are showing up in greater numbers than ever before. What once was a nuisance, is now a plague upon the land. It will take a new coalition of different Ringworld species to end the threat. They’ll need to uncover the cause of the uprising. The answer will shock ball world visitors to the core.

Larry Niven brings our favorite two hundred year old hero back. This time he has some new and old faces from various races to help him out. Super smart alien intelligences vie to control the destiny of the Ringworld and all of its trillions of inhabitants. A good sequel to the series, but this time Louis isn’t the only point of view.

#spaceopera  #larryniven #bookreview #scifi #sciencefiction

https://www.amazon.com/Ringworld-Throne-Larry-Niven/dp/0345412966

Penny is a normal girl, doing a normal job, a clerk at a law firm. She’s never been what one would call beautiful. More like a plain Jane with an inferiority complex. That is until the meteor. She was struck by one, but she didn’t die. Instead, she was transformed.

Now she’s a superhero by day and law clerk by night. The ultimate secret identity, since her heroine self looks nothing like plain old Penny. Just in time, because the city needs her help. There’s a new drug on the street. Highly addictive since it makes people feel like they have super powers. For some it has fatal consequences. It’s up to Penny to find the ones behind it, before the bodies really start piling up.

Niall Teasdale breaks new ground in his first superhero novel, Ugly. A classic set of heroes and villains with the lines getting blurred from time to time.  I especially liked the part where Penny find mentors in old heroes that have been injured in the line of duty. If you like DC or Marvel stories this novel will reel you in. And because it’s Niall Teasdale, it’s liberally sprinkled with sex.

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Honor Harrington is having a bad life. She’s upset the wrong people and they’ve decided to make an example of her. They’ve put her on a relic of a ship, picketing a planet no one cares about, near a hostile neighboring star empire. Everything is about to come to a head. A lesser captain would ground up in the gears of war. That captain would not be Honor Harrington.

Weber’s naval battles are reminiscent of Nelson and Hornblower. If you’re a fan of military scifi, and you haven’t picked up this series, get out from under your rock and go get it. Weber writes in a highly descriptive style. He sets up the politics and background and then let’s the ordinance fly. Fair warning, once you start reading, you won’t want to stop.

#scifi #bookreview #spaceopera #thleatherman #navalcombat #sciencefiction

Louis Wu has been kidnapped. Not that his life was all that great to begin with. After his last trip to the Ringworld the human authorities want him badly. They’ve told no one about the advanced new drive technology he brought back, or about the woman he came back with. She disappeared. Another puppeteer is taking him and his kzin companion back to the unusual world beyond known space.

When they get there, they find the Ringworld in danger. It’s begun to wobble. In about a year it will wobble into the sun. It’s a race against time to find the answers to save the world, and get out from under their puppeteer kidnapper.

Larry Niven takes us back to the Ringworld in Ringworld Engineers. A few physics errors from the first book get solved here. Louis Wu meets more of the Ringworld inhabitants and learns a hard lesson. You can’t save everyone. Sometimes the best you can do, at the end of the day, is save as many as you can. A great sequel, every bit as engaging as the first.

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James is in trouble. He can’t afford to go to college. When you live on Earth in 2099, that’s a big problem. To avoid abject poverty, he chooses the lesser to evils and joins a mercenary unit. He’ll become the best soldier he can be, even if it kills him. Unfortunately for him, it does. He’ll get the chance to do better next time. When his unit get sent to a planet nicknamed Steel World, the stakes will be more than his life. They’ll have to prove that Earth has the best soldiers in the galaxy. If not, it’s curtains for the entire human race.

Larson puts together a wonderful universe where it’s do or die, and dying is very inconvenient.  Sure you can be regrown, but in the game of planetary politics every mission could spell doom for humanity. Soldiers learn to rely on their fellow man, but what they have their own agenda? Larson’s characters have depth. Everyone has their own goals. Sometimes those goals go against James. Sometimes those goals could spell disaster for the human race. It’s action and danger around every corner. An excellent read.

#Scifi #bookreview #spaceopera #thleatherman #militaryscifi