John Scalzi knows how to tell a great story, and he proves it with The Kaiju Preservation Society, which is a thunderously enjoyable tale that gives us a fun and unique look at the horror/science fiction subgenre that is populated with stories of kaiju. Throwing nods to classic kaiju like Godzilla and newer ones like…
Category: The Book Shelf
An Assassin in Utopia (2023) – Susan Wels
I occasionally find a non-fiction historical book that catches my interest, I’ll devour Erik Larson and Stephen B. Ambrose works voraciously, but when I read the blurb for Susan Wels’ An Assassin in Utopia, I had to add it to the list. Following historical events of the mid to late 19th century, Wels’ work centers…
Star Trek: The Next Generation – Encounter at Farpoint (1987) – David Gerrold
It says David Gerrold, but the wily, and brilliant sci-fi author actually allowed D.C. Fontana’s original work to take the center stage here, putting his name on it to allow it to get out. Fontana had originally been tapped to write the novelization, she wrote it, and then Gerrold was tapped to write it. He…
Star Trek: Invasion! First Strike (1996) – Diane Carey
Diane Carey launched a cross-generational story that swept through all four of the then-existing series, The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. Each novel featured a standalone story that connected with the other tales, and the first featured Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise. Set a very short…
Transformation (1988) – Whitley Strieber
Communion when it came along stunned and shocked the world. It partially pulled the concept of ‘alien’ abductions into the mainstream, and Strieber did his able best to share his own experiences with these visitors. A couple years later in 1988, Strieber released a second volume, Transformation, that expanded on his continuing experiences, the reach…
Mexican Gothic (2020) – Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Mexican Gothic is a wonderfully lush, and haunting novel, embracing all the familiar tropes of the Gothic genre, romance, the old dark house, family secrets, and the hints of something preter- or supernatural all juxtaposed into Mexico of the 1950s. We’re introduced to Noemi, a vivacious, smart, stubborn, flirtatious young woman who is still looking…
Star Trek: The Rings of Tautee (1996) – Dean Wesley Smith, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The Rings of Tautee is a fast-paced Star Trek adventure that is set during the original five year mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise under the command of James T. Kirk. Responding to a subspace disruption, the Enterprise arrives in the Tautee system, followed quickly by the Farragut and four Klingon cruisers, to discover that the…
Phasers on Stun!: How the Making (and Remaking) of Star Trek Changed the World (2022) – Ryan Britt
I have one complaint about Ryan Britt’s examination of Star Trek, it’s too short! It goes by at warp speed, sharing anecdotes new and old, and taking us through Trek’s entire timeline up to 2022. The series, the movies, the fandom are broken into separate chapters and Britt delivers an easy-to-read, occasionally brilliantly funny examination…
Star Trek: The Return (1996) – William Shatner with Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Judith Reeves-Stevens
William Shatner with the Reeves-Stevens at his side, pens the second volume of his Shatner-verse Star Trek novels, and while a little too self-indulgent in some aspects, it’s not a terrible tale, and hints at some cool Borg ideas that don’t wholly conflict with what was later established by Star Trek: First Contact, and events…
Paradise 1 (2023) – David Wellington
Orbit Books takes the reader to a far-distant solar system and exposes them to fear in the new novel, the first in a series, by best-selling author David Wellington. An officer of the Firewatch, Petrova, and a doctor, Zhang, who may not be all there, are shipped off on an AI-controlled ship, accompanied by a…
The Mind Reels 