Tag Archives: Science Fiction

November 12, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Lunar Surface Blues

Book cover for Lunar Surface Blues by Leigh Kimmel. Image on cover is a drawing of a whitefemale astronaut wearing her spacesuit as she stands on a barren, rocky planet. A large moon looms overnight in the dark sky.

Title: Lunar Surface Blues

Author: Leigh Kimmel

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: April 22, 2023

Genres: Science Fiction, Alternate History

Length: 16 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

The High Frontier is no place for foolishness, but nature can always make a better idiot. Four years ago, Molly’s parents brought her up here to the Moon when their work brought them to Shepardsport. In the time since that move, she’s earned her place here and a seat on this field trip. Only one problem — she’s been given the worst possible EVA partner. A pencil-necked dweeb with an attitude, Benji wants to be one of the guys. But his stunts keep putting them both in danger, and the adults keep blaming Molly. When Benji gets in over his head, can Molly save him before it costs both their lives? A short story of the Grissom timeline.

Content Warning: Oxygen deprivation.

Review:

Nobody remains a child forever.

The world building was well done and memorable. Teenagers on the Moon need to grow up faster than teens on Earth due to the limited resources and high levels of danger there in this universe, so Molly and her classmates were given responsibilities that made them feel more like adults than anything else. Their community needed them, and they were generally ready to rise to the call to action.

I was hoping for more conflict in the final scene, particularly as it applied to Molly’s relationship with the classmate she was paired with for this assignment. So much time was spent building up to that moment that the way it was resolved felt a little anticlimactic to me. If only there had been more time to explain why things unfolded this way and what might happen to her next.

Molly was an intriguing and sensible protagonist whose past gently hinted at the alternative history aspects of the storyline for reasons that other readers should discover for themselves. I like it when little moments like these ones are included and would have happily accepted even more of them as well. While Molly was technically still a teenager, this isn’t something I’d necessarily classify as a young adult tale due to the high stakes of her mission and how mature she was. Not every culture considers teens to still be children, and this was one of the ones that didn’t encourage much of a gap at all between childhood and full adulthood at all.

This is part of a series but can be a read as a standalone work.

Lunar Surface Blues has piqued my curiosity.

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November 5, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Deal’s Worth

Book cover for Deal’s Worth by Jeffrey Robin Palin Jr. The cover is a graphic-novel style drawing of a young black man whose hair is neatly braided back on his skull. He’s wearing a black shirt and looking to the side as if there’s something disturbing him over there.Title: Deal’s Worth

Author: Jeffrey Robert Palin, Jr

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: May 26, 2026

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

Length: About 73 pages.

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 2.5 Stars

Blurb:

Eric is given the opportunity to create and modify a simulation-world. Eric’s world includes unique features, intertwined systems mechanics, and it connects to other user-created worlds. After falling into a unique medical condition, the VRC, a virtual reality corporation, offers Eric a deal to enter and be a creator regarding the Simulation-multiverse. The Simulation-multiverse is a man-made nexus in which Eric, AGIs, and others are able to interact. Later, in Eric’s Universe, a character named Jeff searches for Eric. Eric’s completed world creation process had set the foundation for later adventures to occur, enabling Jeff and others to engage with Eric’s world and it’s elements and features. The Simulation serves as a recreational pastime activity and is “”also designed to prevent individuals from experiencing extended periods of isolation and missed life opportunities whereby it prevents such by addressing the concern of hospital patients who may awaken after prolonged hospitalized states, such as a patient regaining consciousness after 30 years unconscious, only to discover they have limited time remaining (perhaps 15 years) to accomplish their life goals”. Without such a simulation, these individuals might feel profoundly deprived of three decades’ worth of potential experiences, relationships, and achievements they could have enjoyed had they remained conscious during their hospitalization”.

 

Review:

There is no cure, but there is a treatment.

This bent so many of the rules related to how to tell a story that I was intrigued to see how the author managed to include character development in the exposition. It is something that readers have to dig for in order to uncover, but I interpreted this to be a side effect of Eric’s transformation into someone whose life was so heavily entwined with virtual reality. Kudos to Mr. Palin for pushing the envelope of the science fiction and fantasy genres.

A large portion of this book was written in the style of a synopsis of the plot. It was never entirely clear to me if this was done on purpose in order to show how emotionally and intellectually disconnected Eric was from his user-created world or if some other explanation was more plausible. As interested as I was in the blurb, this writing style made it difficult for me to emotionally connect with the protagonist or his journey. If only the author’s intentions had been communicated more clearly. I was so hoping to give this tale a much higher rating.

With that being said, I did appreciate the thorough set of rules that Eric created for the governance of his world. He genuinely thought of just about every possibility and how his simulation ought to deal with both pleasant and unpleasant surprises. Even topics as esoteric as the existance of souls were included. It was also interesting to see how the list of rules appeared to evolve over time through the usual human and machine process of trial and error.

Deal’s Worth had a creative premise.

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October 22, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Fallow

Book cover for “Fallow” by Sarah Anderson. Image on cover is a drawing of a brown, black, and white cow who standing to the left of the scene but turning their head to look at the viewer with a suspicious expression on her face. Title: Fallow

Author: Sarah Anderson

Publisher:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Publication Date: September 15, 2026

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 433 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Slyly funny and disarmingly tender, Fallow is the story of a young woman who signs up to be the world’s first in-house corporate surrogate, then finds herself caught up in a social experiment of another kind.

Natalie knows one truth: There is no such thing as a good job.

As the clock ticks away at the workplace harassment call center, she tries to ignore the increasing pain in her jaw. She has no dental insurance. She has no skills or ambitions. She has student loans. And, minute by minute, she hears the many ways workers are not just not getting by, but actually getting hustled.

Then, at the blood bank where she sells her plasma, a mysterious flyer leads her to The Company. Natalie turns out to be the perfect candidate for their pilot in-house surrogate. The Company pitches it as an opportunity to help women access greater gender equity, motherhood without maternity leave. Finally, she will be adequately—generously—compensated.

For years, her every need is stacks of healthy meals in the refrigerator of a luxury condo, fitness coaches and nutritionists, around-the-clock healthcare. Between deliveries, she takes time off—no obligations or expectations. For the first time in her life, she is good at her job; for the first time, she feels free.

But just as she’s about to fulfill the terms of her contract, a staffing decision upends everything and drags her deep into another social experiment. There she meets new questions about her future, her freedom, her purpose, and what she can expect from the world.

Woundingly funny and deeply moving, Sarah Anderson’s Fallow is a tender, hilarious, alarmingly real vision of a woman balancing on the knife-edge of capitalism as she comes to realize who she wants to be.

Content Warning: Commercial surrogacy. References to abortion. Birth. Forceps used in a difficult birth. Kidnapping.

Review:

Fertility is a gift.

I appreciated how much time the author spent exploring the many ways in which surrogacy can go wrong, particularly commercial surrogacy. This is a complex topic that can’t possibly be fully covered in a review, but there are many ethical and medical dilemmas that can come about when someone is paid to carry another person’s fertilized egg.  For example, Natalie dealt with multiple couples who wanted to control every facet of her life while she was pregnant, from which precise combinations of foods she ate every day for nine months  to which medical tests and procedures she was either forbidden from doing or forced to do. There were much darker moments of the influence they expected to have over her mind and body  as well, but I’ll leave those passages for other readers to discover for themselves.

There was a plot twist a little over halfway into this book involving the main character that I found difficult to believe due to how passive she was during what should have been a terrifying ordeal. It almost felt like a completely different story altogether because of how much the tone changed and how little the protagonist’s personality shone through those circumstances. It would have been helpful to have some foreshadowing about what was going on there, particularly as it was related to Natalie’s plans for the future once her seventh and final pregnancy was completed.

It was nice to have such realistic world building, especially given some of the later developments in the storyline that may have otherwise seemed a bit far fetched. This felt like something that could really happen in our world in a few years, albeit with a few slight shifts to the ways western society works. There is definitely something to be said for science fiction that nudges things enough to create interesting conflicts while still feeling true to current societal trends in so many different countries, so kudos to the author for that.

Fallow was thought provoking.

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September 17, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Catch-All Drawer

Book cover for Catch-All Drawer Author: Manuel Sánchez. Image on cover shows a drawing of a white drawer filled with toys that looks like giraffes, tigers, and lions; a toy shark; two people behind bars holding a cellphone together so they can take a selfie; two people kissing and embracing; a Roman soldier; and a mummy still in its sarcophagus. Title: Catch-All Drawer

Author: Manuel Sánchez

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 9, 2025

Genres: Science Fiction, Alternate History, Historical, Contemporary

Length: About 97 pages.

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

A delight for the senses that will surprise you on every page. A journey filled with irony, sensuality, and human passions. Catch-all Drawer is an anthology of eight fiction stories where the author transports us with vibrant language to a world full of sensations, fantasy, and extraordinary situations: A fascinating woman in ancient Egypt, Virgil’s curious pet in Imperial Rome, the animal jungle of modern multinational corporations, the sensual dream of a red lantern, a mischievous worm, the circus of politics, the madness of a selfie in Australian waters, or the misadventures of a couple in the solitude of erotic contact social networks immerse us in stories of wild and addictive beauty.

Content Warning: Brief references to  sex and infidelity.

Review:

A little bit of everything can add up to a full meal.

I loved the satirical take on modern workplace politics in general in “The Gazpacho.” Honestly, this was my favorite story of the collection because of how well it described both the joys and frustrations of working with the same group of people over a long period of time. While the specific setting here was in an office, I think the vast majority of the plot would have turned out more or less the same had it been in a restaurant, medical setting, warehouse, store, or just about any other place of work because of how keenly the author focused on the personalities of the characters as they interacted with one another and dealt with sometimes ridiculous rules.

Kudos to the author for experimenting with the science fiction genre so much in this book. While not every tale was to my taste, most of them were and I must tip my cap to him for being so willing to try new things and see what may or may not resonate with his readers. “A Selfie,” which followed a couple who decided to swim with the sharks on their honeymoon to Australia, was one such example of this. I struggled to understand why these characters were not only willing to take so many risks with their safety but also unwilling to learn from their past mistakes. It would have been helpful to have more character development here so that I could understand their perspectives better.

The email format of “The Worm” made me smile. It’s a writing style that pops up on occasion in what I read, and I’m always interested in seeing where new authors take it because of how much it reminds me of the old epistolary novels that share so much in common with this newer form of storytelling one message at a time. Another interesting thing about this piece was related to how trustworthy I found the protagonist. Other readers should decide for themselves what they think of him, of course, but I thought this was a good example of how to create a main character who is simultaneously fascinating and deeply unlikable (in my opinion, of course).

Catch-All Drawer was my introduction to Mr. Sánchez‘s work, and my curiosity has been piqued to see what else he might write in the future. 

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September 2, 2026 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: One Sci-Fi Item or Ability I Wish Really Existed

A laptop sitting on a wooden table. The text reads: “Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.”

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

In previous posts on this topic, I’ve talked about my desire for replicators and for top-notch Star Trek medical care to be real due to all of the wonderful things they’d do for us.

I’m sticking with the Star Trek theme yet again this time because that universe was filled with some excellent ideas.

A computer-generated sketch of what warp drive might look like as a spacecraft suddenly zipped away. Hundreds of white lines are jutting out from a centralized space in the middle of the image, illuminating outer space for a moment as the spacecraft leaves. I wish we lived in a world where Warp Drives really existed as well so we could travel faster than the speed of light and see more of the universe. Right now we are only capable of traveling to the moon which, while still a noteworthy place to explore, doesn’t have any life on it.

Imagine a time when we could travel to distant stars and see if the moons or planets orbiting them had anything interesting living there.

Are there plants growing in those distant places that might cure diseases like cancer?

Are there friendly aliens living there with whom we could trade scientific knowledge and resources?

Could humans live there if necessary? Could aliens live on Earth?

The possibilities are endless, and I wish we could have answers to all of our questions.

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August 27, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Science and Magic and Lions, OH MY!

Book cover for Magic, Science, & Lions, OH MY! by JD Bennett. Image on cover simply shows the title and author written in a gold cursive font against a light yellow background. Title: Science and Magic and  Lions, OH MY!

Author: JD Bennett

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 31, 2025

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Mystery, Horror

Length: About 45 pages.

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

***Intended for adult readers*****

Magic, Science, & Lions, OH MY! is a collection of short stories that include horrifying tales of a rapist eating monster, the staging of a war between fairy tale and folklore characters, and, of course, aliens.

Content Warning: Poisoning, politics, domestic violence, and murder.  I skipped over the story about the rapist eating monster and so will not be including it in my review. (Yes, I read the rest of them!)

Review:

Some fairy tales have sharp teeth.

”The (Attempted) Murder of a Pot Head” showed what happened after the protagonist was poisoned at a family reunion and had to try to figure out who might have been the culprit and what their motivation was. There was a plot twist involved in the investigation of this crime that I don’t want to reveal in my review for spoilers reasons, but it was as clever as it was attention grabbing and showed off Ms. Bennett’s writing abilities nicely.

Anyone who reads the title of “The Confession” can almost certainly make an educated guess about what it is about. What surprised me about this piece was the complete lack of any fantasy, science fiction, or other speculative fiction elements to it. While I thought it included some interesting ideas and had a satisfying ending, it felt out of place in this collection due to that.

By far my favorite story was “Lion in the Mirror” due to how it blended real-life events like the repeal of Roe vs. Wade in the United States to some heavy fantasy elements of a storyline featuring a likeable and intelligent main character. This is the sort of storytelling that grabs my attention and doesn’t let go, and I loved coming up with various theories about how the fantasy themes could be reinterpreted as metaphors for various experiences that many women encounter in their lives, particularly for those of us who are part of one or more other minority groups as well.

Magic, Science, & Lions, OH MY! kept me on my toes. 

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August 20, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of All the Little Hedgehogs

Book cover for All the Little Hedgehogs by Leigh Kimmel. Image on cover shows a blue double helix strand of DNA against a laboratory background. Title: All the Little Hedgehogs

Author: Leigh Kimmel

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: April 29, 2023

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Alternate History

Length: About 20 pages.

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

In Soviet Union, genetic engineering does you. Yona wondered why everyone kept steering him toward a military career, until one of his teachers noticed his aptitude for genetics. Now he’s the personal student of Academician Voronsky, working in a secret genetic engineering facility in a closed town. However, Yona keeps having to spend as much time babysitting the Academician’s adopted son Kolya as actually doing genetics. When this extra assignment becomes a frustration, Yona learns just how quickly privileges can be retracted. And then he starts learning just how deep the secrets of the Soviet human genetics program really goes. A story from the Grissom timeline (Gus on the Moon universe). Caution: Contains intense material that may be disturbing to some audiences. Reader caution advised

Content Warning: Pregnancy, birth, cloning, and brief references to infanticide.

Review:

DNA only tells part of the story.

Genetic engineering is one of those topics I often like to see covered in the Science Fiction genre because of how many different ways it can be approached. While I don’t want to go into too much detail about what exactly what happening  in this facility, I thought the narrator asked some interesting questions about how important genetics are to how someone turns out that might be of special interest to any readers out there who might be related to people who are incredibly different from them in crucial ways. That is to say, you can be a blood relative of someone and share very little in common with them.

I struggled with the violent content in this short story due to how unnecessary it felt for plot development. Horror is a genre I’ve been moving away from, so this made be of greater interest to readers who still like to read that sort of stuff.  Still, there was one particular scene I thought was egregious and could have easily been cut out without ruining the effect of the chilling world Yona knew in general.

The descriptions of the medical facilities were my favourite part of this short story. They were given so much attention that I could easily imagine what it would be like to visit or work there. One bright moment that stood out to me the most involved how the fetuses interacted with each other before birth. I could have read many more pages about them if such a thing were possible due to the funny things they did to each other.

All the Little Hedgehogs made me shudder. 

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August 13, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Seed

Book cover for Seed by P.B. Cannon. Image on cover is a drawing of a double helix strand of DNA, presumably of the seed that mentioned in the story. Title: Seed

Author: P.B. Cannon

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: November 2o, 2012

Genres: Science Fiction, Romance, Historical

Length: About 137 pages.

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

Abandoned on an alien planet, Second must learn to co-exist with a group of primitives in order to survive. A tale of the acceptance of differences and of unconditional love.

Content Warning: Polyamory, sex scenes, pregnancy, birth, and bullying for physical disabilities and differences.

Review:

Love comes in many different forms.

I enjoyed seeing how much trust the author put into assuming readers would figure out some things on our own. Not every aspect of these characters’ lives was spelled out plainly, and a few of them could only be uncovered by taking note of subtle clues that fit together in specific ways once one was well into Second’s adventures. There’s something to be said for believing that one’s audience is intelligent and patient enough to do such things, and it’s one of the reasons why I keep returning to Ms. Cannon’s work over and over again.

While physiological differences between Second and the people they met on the alien planet they visited were described in detail, I would have liked to see a little more attention paid to the world building as well, particularly as it related to culture and religion. Second had grown up with certain assumptions about how society worked that weren’t always well fleshed out but that did have a heavy impact on how they interacted with nomadic people they met on their travels. This could have easily been a five-star reading for me if more time had been spent on such things.

The romances were handled nicely and I thought they contributed a lot of character development to this novella. This is something I’m saying as a reader who only occasionally dips my toes into this genre and is not easily impressed, but the author put in all of the work that was required in order to make these subplots flow smoothly with the main storyline. They were ultimately well done.

This is a prequel to a series, but it also can be read as a standalone work.

Seed was heartwarming.

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August 6, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Ava

Book cover for Ava  by Victoria Dillon. Image on cover shows a light pink egg that is just beginning to crack open. Title: Ava

Author: Victoria Dillon

Publisher: New Harbinger Publications

Publication Date: March 3, 2026

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 238 pages

Source: I borrowed it from the library.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

For fans of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale comes Ava, a provocative blend of speculative fiction and social commentary that takes readers on a gripping, thought-provoking journey into the fight for women’s autonomy in a politically charged Southern landscape.

What if the only way to reclaim reproductive freedom was to rewrite the very nature of birth itself?

Ten years after Roe v. Wade is overturned, twenty-two-year-old biologist Larkin finds herself unexpectedly pregnant in a country where choice is no longer an option. Initially uncertain, she embraces motherhood—until a devastating diagnosis changes everything. Trapped by Tennessee’s strict abortion laws, she is forced to carry her baby to term, only to endure the heartbreak of losing her hours after birth.

Years later, Larkin joins a radical scientific movement that could change a groundbreaking technology that replaces gestation with incubation, allowing women true control over their reproduction. When she uses it to bring her second daughter, Ava, into the world, she believes she has finally reclaimed her autonomy. But as Ava grows and begins to question the very choice that created her, Larkin is challenged in ways she never imagined.

Ava is a powerful, emotionally charged exploration of motherhood, bodily autonomy, and the far-reaching consequences of restrictive legislation. In a future shaped by loss and innovation, mother and daughter must confront the ultimate what does it truly mean to have a choice?

Content Warning: Miscarriage, misogyny, forced pregnancy and birth, and a baby who died of a fatal birth defect a few hours after being born.

Review:

Reproductive freedom is more than a catch phrase.

The science fiction elements were intriguing and like nothing I’ve ever seen in this genre before. I especially enjoyed the sections that discussed how human reproduction could be altered in order to make it much safer for pregnant people to experience. While I don’t want to give away too many hints about how the incubation process worked in this tale, I was fascinated by the technological changes that made such a thing possible and thought it was a good platform to discuss everything from sexism to bodily autonomy.

I would have loved to see more character and plot development At times this read more like an outline of a book than the finished product, especially when it came to exploring the character’s internal lives and how the invention of a new way for humans to reproduce might change society forever. As important as the messages were in it, I was underwhelmed by the execution of the storyline and kept wishing the author would give us more details about how everything worked and what the characters thought of these biological and social developments.

There was a cliffhanger ending here that made me wish to know what happened next. It will be interesting to see if other readers have the same reaction, but I thought it was a good place to end given all of the dramatic changes to society that had just taken place. The consequences of these actions could be far reaching and spur on multiple sequels if the author wanted to write them.

Ava was thought provoking.

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July 30, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Outopos

Book cover for Outopos by Rudolph Kohn. Image on cover is a drawing of a closeup of the brain of a computer. Various chips in it are glowing in the darkness. Title: Outpos

Author: Rudolph Kohn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: April 26, 2023

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 9 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

The war between artificial intelligence and mankind is almost over. VeeTwo agreed to finish the war in exchange for a plot of land with abundant resources, but a strange intruder with a cryptic message interrupts her plans.

Content Warning: Brief references to war.

Review:

Every battle must eventually end.

There was a philosophical bent to this tale that I found intriguing. This is something I’m saying as a reader who is only an occasional visit to this corner of the literary realm, so it’s a rare compliment from me. Those of you who regularly read this sort of stuff may be even more into it than I was despite my stellar rating as there very well could be moments I missed that fans would pick up on more easily. VeeTwo, the protagonist, was a thoughtful and kind robot who I’m glad I got to know, especially once their life became much less predictable after they arrived home from the war. Few things are as satisfying as seeing a character you feel connected to experience something that tests their value system in all sorts of unexpected way.

War isn’t generally a topic I enjoy reading about, either but I liked the way Mr. Kohn veered around the bloody aspects of it to explore what happens when one side has won and there are no more battles to fight. This is generally something that’s saved for the final scene or maybe not even discussed at all, so it was amusing to see it become the main focal point of a short story for once. What a creative way to explore what it means to live a good life, and not to mention an author grabbing my attention with two topics that are a little outside of my comfort zone. Bravo!

The ending was what convinced me to give this a full five-star rating. It wasn’t quite a plot twist due to some subtle foreshadowing earlier on, but it did fit the themes of this piece beautifully and gave me everything I was hoping to find from the characters. I especially loved how it not only resolved the main conflict but also left space for a sequel if the author ever decides to write one. Regardless of whether or not that happens, I’ll be thinking about these characters and their society for a long time.

Outpost was a wild and immensely satisfying ride. 

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