Author: Dean Koontz
Rating: 2.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

Dean Koontz knows how to build an interesting premise: we meet Jane Hawk and we know from the beginning that she has suffered a great loss, that she is being pursued, and that all is not right in the world. Hawk is on leave from the FBI, cautious of surveillance, and appears to be skeptical about surviving for a few more months, let alone a few more years. 

Author: John Wyndham
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

This science fiction classic has aged remarkably well. It is not quite so groundbreaking or sweeping as George Stewart's "Earth Abides," but like that bellwether and progenitor of post-apocalyptic fiction, Wyndham's slimmer novel has a deep thoughtfulness and an observant eye for human behavior. Likewise, its deconstruction of modern civilization is less bombastic and more realistic than 21st century entertainment likes to project. 

Author: Jessica Chiarella
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

Impressive debut novel, told from the points of view of four individuals. Each of our four narrators are bound together as terminally ill patients in an experimental program called SUBlife. The cutting-edge medical program clones their bodies, but rids those clones of whatever ails the original (brain tumor, lung cancer, paralysis, AIDS). While the story sounds like a science fiction plot, it is more of a character study. The four newly healthy people, given respite from imminent death, meet weekly for a support group and try to adjust to life in their new bodies. Bodies which are free of all blemishes and worry lines, all scars and tattoos, all indicia of a life lived. 

Author: Mira Grant
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

Mira Grant certainly has a knack for exciting stories, deep conspiracies, and gross outs. Sal Mitchell (formerly Sally) has a second lease on life. Six years earlier she was in a car accident that, by all accounts, should have proved fatal. But as the daughter of an army colonel who also happens to be the head of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), she has been among the first people to get an intestinal bodyguard (the euphemism for the tape worm in her body, engineered to act as a medical implant). Instead of dying, she finds herself waking up in a hospital with no memory, facing a long road to recovery. 

Author: Robert Charles Wilson
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

Wilson has a fascinating premise, but be forewarned that the ending is melancholy, almost heartbreaking. This soft SF novel takes place in a near future and builds itself around the realities of social networking, taking them to the next level by taking such networking into the real world. In this future, a test exists that can group people into affinity groups. In such groups you find like-minded people with whom you are neurologically predisposed to mesh well. 

Author: Meg Elison
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Review By: Shana

Science Fiction is my favorite fiction genre, but I admit to often approaching apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic books with a sense of dread. But if you feel the need to be well-read in the SF canon, you cannot very well avoid such books - especially those that have garnered excellent reviews. In Elison's Book of the Unnamed Midwife, such dread is warranted but not overwhelming.  

Author: Chuck Wendig
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

An enjoyable near-future SF, with the focus on cyber issues, artificial intelligence (AI), and intelligence augmentation (IA). In this 2015 book, Wendig has taken a slice out of life and built the plot around five characters who represent common hacker stereotypes. You have a white hat hacker/hacktivist, a black hat, an old school cyberpunk turned conspiracy theorist/prepper, classic social engineer, and an internet troll. Though they could be rote stand-ins, Wendig has made them all more than mere caricatures. In opposition lie two potential antagonists, the government (who spirits them away to a secluded compound in the woods, half penitentiary, half think tank), and a looming technology. What ensues is equal parts action/thriller and cyber SF, replete with shady federal actions and conspiracies.

Author: John Scalzi
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

First in the well-known SF series following septuagenarian recruit to the military, John Perry. In this far future universe, humans have stepped out into the stars and found it to be teeming with intelligent, and usually hostile, life. With multiple colonies throughout the universe, the fight to settle and protect new worlds is fierce and Earth's senior citizens are given the option to enlist at age 75 and join the Colonial Defense Forces.  

Author: Rob Dircks
Rating: 3.75 Stars
Review By: Shana

Purely a fun ride. Meet Chip. He is, self-admittedly, a bit of an underachiever and, it must be a said, a douche. He messed up a good relationship, has a thankless job, and sometimes panics when calm is needed.  

Author: Charles Stross
Rating: 4 Stars
Review By: Shana

​This turned out to be a clever, satirical, well-plotted SF/techno-thriller. It is the near future (well, since this was written in 2007, it actually takes place in what was then a future 2018), and the action centers on a rather unique bank heist. Of course, the bank in question is located in a virtual world peopled by fairies, wizards, dragons, and orcs. So when the police are called in, this is no easy crime to solve.