Central Station

Lavie Tidhar, 2016

(June 2017)

  

Central Station is a mid-future cyberpunkesque novel comprised of a dozen or so chapters, many of which were originally published as stand-alone short stories. They’ve obviously been reworked fairly carefully (or, more generously, were originally written with a very clear eye on the big picture), and for all that there is something of a central plot running through the book, its focus is very much on these interlinked vignettes exploring migration and belonging, faith and memory.

The Player of Games

Iain M. Banks, 1988

(February 2014)

  

The second Culture book is popularly regarded as the most straightforward. It’s certainly, disregarding the short stories, the most tightly focused plot-wise (Use of Weapons obviously does very smart things, but in terms of an individual journey from A to B this one goes for it in the most direct manner).* Jernau Morat Gurgeh accepts a mission and fulfills it, and interesting stuff happens along the way.

Consider Phlebas

Iain M. Banks, 1987

(January 2014)

  

And so the Culture re-read begins. It’s got to have been at least a decade since I read the earlier ones and in going through this I was pleasantly surprised at how much of it I’d forgotten. Obviously certain key facts about the ending remain, which made it a slightly difference experience from the first time, but the actual details were happily and surprisingly fresh.

The Long War

Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, 2013

(December 2013)

  

Careful gentlemen, your craft is showing.

The Long Earth

Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, 2012

(June 2012)

I’m obviously a huge fan of Terry Pratchett. While I’ve only read Stephen Baxter’s Destiny’s Children series, that at least displayed a pleasingly ambitious sense of scale. So I was really looking forward to this.