The Invisible Republic (Vol. 1), by Gabriel Hardman (author), Corinna Sara Bechko (author)

Image Comics, August 2015

The revolutionary regime that ruled a colonized moon for forty years has fallen, and there's general political and economic collapse and chaos. An offworld reporter is tracking down a story, when he stumbles on the journal of Maia Reveron, long-forgotten cousin of the deposed dictator. And what she has to say casts a very dark light on the man. The story proceeds to flip back and forth between Maia Reveron's story, and reporter Croger Babb's story.

The art is dark, dark enough that at times it's a bit hard to make out. I didn't find any of the characters at all easy to like. In the end, I didn't care what happened to any of them.

Not recommended.

The Divine, by Boaz Lavie (writer), Asaf Hanuka (artist), Tomer Hanuka (artist)

First Second, ISBN 9781596436749, July 2015

Mark's an ex-soldier, living his quiet life as an explosives consultant. He's got a wife, and a baby on the way, though, and a promotion he was counting on has been downsized out of existence.

He takes a short-term assignment "consulting" on explosives for the CIA in a little Southeast Asian country called Qualnom.

It's just two weeks. And although there's a war there, he's assured it's "a joke," too minor to matter.

But of course, he's going there to blow something up.

The acquaintance who connected him with the job shows him a tattoo he has on his arm, of a dragon, that he says he really saw the last time he was in Qualnom.

They're nearly done, and waiting on their pickup, when Mark sees a small boy, hurt, and way too close to the thing they're going to blow up, from the helicopter, when they're in the air.

The Sandman: Overture (The Sandman #0), by Neil Gaiman (writer), J.H. Williams III (artist), Dave Steward (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)

Vertigo, ISBN 9781401248963, November 2015

Sandman is the graphic novel series that made Neil Gaiman famous. Twenty-five years after Sandman first appeared, Gaiman returns to it with Sandman's origin story.

The art is beautiful. The story starts off confusing for me, but comes together beautifully. The characters are developed in a fine and convincing way.

I hesitate to say more about this. It seems to me to be important to discover the story as Gaiman and his co-creators unfold it for us. So this is a very short review.

Highly recommended. Read it!

Asymmetrical Warfare, by S.R. Algernon

Nature, March 2015

This is, in its own way, an amusing little gem of a story.

Earth is being invaded by aliens, and the narrative voice is the commanding officer of the invading aliens. It turns out the invasion is a mistake; they thought they were invading a world of stellate--starfish-like--beings like themselves, who when conquered will be wonderful additions to their expanding empire. This error arose from the Earth spaceships having star-like emblems on them, suggesting the invaders may have strong preconceptions about where intelligence can be found.

The entire cascade of consequences plays out on one three-column page in Nature.

Our narrator is so earnest and well-intentioned, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Read it!

I received this story as part of the 2016 Hugo Awards voters' packet.

The Builders, by Daniel Polansky

Tor.com, ISBN 9780765384003, November 2015

I don't dislike talking animal stories. I'm quite fond of many of them. This one isn't being added to that list. I've enjoyed "band of rogues" stories, too. Again, not this one.

A mouse going by the title of "The Captain" is gathering his old gang together after five years. As he collects his comrades in crime, including a rat, a stoat, an owl an opossum, a badger, a mole...oh, who cares. There's no reason to care about any of thee character. They do have a goal, though, and that is overthrowing the toad who is current Lord of the Gardens and the skunk who is his Chancellor (and the real ruler, as well as their real enemy), and seize power themselves, the name of the toad's older brother.

We read endlessly of how unprincipled and lacking in loyalty even to each other the captain's gang is. The skunk and his supporters aren't any better, but we spend less time with them, so there's that advantage.

Seven Kill Tiger, by Charles Shao

This story published in There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House, December 2015

This review contains spoilers. Don't click on "Read more" if you don't want to read the spoilers.

A Chinese factory head in Zambia is looking at serious, even life-threatening, political problems because the innately criminal nature of the language. sub-Saharan Africans is bringing down both productivity and the safety of Chinese workers and their families to an unacceptable levels. And no, Shao doesn't even try to dress up what he's saying in more camouflaging language.

Spoilers below this.

You have been warned.

Seriously.

Obits, by Stephen King

This story was published in the collection, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Scribner, ISBN 9781501111679, November 2015

Michael Anderson is a struggling, young, wannabe journalist, still living with his parents in Brooklyn, when he finds a webzine called Neon Circus. Calling it a scandal sheet would be unduly generous. Mike has just seen news of the death of a minor and scandal-ridden celebrity, and is moved to write a cruel and funny obituary, and send it to Neon Circus.

They buy it, and then they offer him a job, as the obit writer for the zine.

He enjoys his work, but he doesn't necessarily enjoy his co-workers. He especially doesn't enjoy his boss, editor of Neon Circus Jeroma Whitfield. When Mike reaches a breaking point of annoyance with her, he vents his annoyance in writing a nasty fictional obituary for her.

And Jeroma dies, in more or less the described manner.

What happens from there becomes the story. Saying more would be saying too much. It's very well done, with great character development and attention detail. I've seen some complaints that it just peters out without a real ending, but I don't agree. I think the ending is nicely handled, and I really enjoyed this.

Recommended.

I received this story as part of the 2016 Hugo Awards voters' packet.

Flashpoint: Titan, by Cheah Kai Wai

This story published in There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House, December 2015

The second of three stories nominated from There Will Be War X.

A new, cutting-edge Japanese military ship, JS Takao, carrying a new, secret weapon they plan to test on the edges of the solar system, is just arriving near Titan when the American base there hails them. They're being approached by ships that are behaving very much like approaching pirates--or perhaps someone's military, attempting an undercover attack, after which that country's military could "restore order." Can the Japanese help?

They can, and do. None of the attackers are taken alive, but the bodies recovered are all Chinese, fit, and of military age. When Chinese military ships approach very shortly after, there's not any realistic opportunity to consult Washington and Tokyo; the Americans and Japanese just have to make their own best decisions, make sure they document everything they do and why, and ensure that the Chinese reveal their hostile intentions first.

And You Will Know Her by the Trail of Dead, by Brooke Bolander

April 2015

Rhye is an AI, and like all AIs, a second-class citizen. It's not at all clear to me how these things work in this world, but she reports wandering the streets until age twelve, when she was snatched up to become a soldier. She was a soldier until she turned 25, and she was very, very good at killing. After her service, she earns a minimal living fighting in deathmatches.

Have I mentioned lately that I Don't Do Grimdark? No, probably haven't had occasion to because, in fact, I don't do grimdark. But this is Hugo season so, like Our Hero, I soldier on.

What Price Humanity, by David VanDyke

This story published in There Will Be War Volume X, Castalia House, December 2015

Flight Lt. Vango Markis is a fighter pilot defending Earth and the solar system in a losing war against the invading Meme. (Yes, the invading Meme. One of his comrades in arms is a black man who goes by the nickname of "Token.") On his way back from a temporarily successful battle, Vango is in coldsleep.

When he wakes up, he finds he's in a very limited VR environment. He has to answer a series of increasingly annoying questions from a strangely formal doctor, and it soon becomes clear, or at least he concludes, that he was badly injured during that coldsleep journey home, and his body is being regenerated. When he's finally released into a wider VR environment, he finds he has twenty-three companions.

While all of them have served with some of the others, he's the only one who has served with all of them. He's also the senior in rank.

Slow Bullets, by Alastair Reynolds

Tachyon Publications, ISBN 9781616961930, June 2015

Scur has been a soldier in hard-fought, far-future war between the Central Stars and the Peripheral Stars. It has finally come to an end with the negotiation of a ceasefire, but not everyone is ready to stand down immediately. Scur, a soldier for the Peripheral Stars, meets up with Orvin, a soldier for the Central Stars--and a sadistic war criminal. He captures Scur, and shoots a "slow bullet" into her leg, set to move slowly and painfully to her heart, and kill her. They're interrupted by the arrival of peacekeeping forces, and Orvin flees. With no other options, Scur picks up an available knife, and begins to cut the bullet out of her leg before it can progress too far.

The next thing she knows, she's waking up in a hibernation pod on a starship, her leg is completely healed, and something is very, very wrong.

Perfect State, by Brandon Sanderson

Dragonsteel Entertainment, March 2015

Perfect State starts with nearly every indication of being a fantasy. However, we quickly find that this doesn't quite match up. Kai is an emperor with seemingly magical powers, and loyal retainers, but, as we soon discover, he's also a brain in a jar. He's Liveborn; all those loyal retainers and everyone else in his worldwide empire are Machineborn.

In some sense, they are not really real.

As a Liveborn, Kai has some responsibilities outside his virtual world, and one of them is procreation. The Wode Scroll summons him from the Fantasy State that is his world, to a Common State where he can meet another Liveborn for the purpose of procreation. He is given a list, with compatibility scores; he chooses the woman at the bottom of the list--lowest compatibility.

He has a plan.

The Aeronaut's Windlass (The CinderSpires #1), by Jim Butcher

Penguin Publishing Group, ISBN 9780698138001, September 2015

Humanity now lives in in a series of miles-high towers, called Spires, The Spires are ruled by aristocratic families, and travel between Spires, whether for trade or war, is by airship.

Predator is described as a merchant ship, but she's heavily armed, and her commander, Captain Grimm, is a former Fleet officer--the Fleet of Spire Albion, to which he is deeply loyal. He also prefers to be addressed simply as Grimm, and has a temper, which might be a factor in why he's no longer a Fleet officer. The airships are powered by crystals, and a crystal big enough to be the main power source of an airship takes decades or even centuries to grow, and is consequently close to priceless.

Very early on, Grimm and Predator are caught in an ambush, from which they escape but with damage to the main power crystal. Of course, Grimm wants one of those incredibly expensive power crystals, but he's also dealing someone who wants to buy his ship for scrap, to get the power crystal.

Penric's Demon (World of the Five Gods #1.5), by Lois McMaster Bujold

Kindle Edition, July 2015

Young Lord Pnric is on his way to his betrothal in Greenwell when, five miles out of town, he encounters a party of travelers. Learned Ruchia, a divine of the fifth god, the Bastard, en route to a house of that order, has suddenly fallen ill. In fact, she has had a heart attack, and is dying. One of her party has ridden off to get help from the town. Penric feels a need to help, even if the only help he can give her is to hold her hand as she dies.

She says she's accepting his help.

And suddenly everything changes.

Ruchia was a sorceress, and the demon she has carried for many years now needs a new home. It, or she, leaps to Penric.

His life is forever changed.

Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor (author), Robin Miles (narrator)

Macmillan Audio, September 2015

Binti is a teenager of the Himba people, a rather insular minority greatly outnumbered by the majority Khoush. Insular though they are, the Himba have become specialists in mathematics, "harmonizing," and the making of astrolabes, apparently this era's smartphones. And Binti, young as she is, is already a Master Harmonizer, the most promising candidate to take over the family business from her father when he retires.

Except that Binti has won a scholarship to Oomza University, a very distinguished school--and on another planet. Her family is shocked at the very idea that Binti would actually accept it and go--but their dreams are not her dreams, and she does. And on her way there, the ship she's on is attacked and boarded by the Meduze, an alien species that has a very real and serious grievance against Oomza University.

Uprooted, by Naomii Novik (author), Julia Emelin (narrator)

Random House Audio, May 2015

Agnieszka is the daughter of a woodcutter, living in a quiet village in a peaceful valley--bounded by a menacing Wood where dark forces lurk. The Dragon, a cold and remote wizard, is their valley's defense against the Wood, but there is a price: every ten years, he chooses one seventeen-year-old girl to serve him for the next ten years. The girls emerge from the tower at the end of their service seemingly unharmed, but changed. They don't stay in the valley; they take the dowry the Dragon gives them and move elsewhere. Admittedly to prosperous, successful lives, but leaving the valley seems unimaginable.

Agnieszka and her best friend, Kasia, are "Dragon-born," i.e., seventeen years old in the year the Dragon will next claim a new servant. Everyone knows that that new servant will be Kasia. Kasia is everything the Dragon looks for--beautiful, clever, kind, and brave. Agnieszka dreads losing her friend forever.

Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson (author), Mary Robinette Kowal (narrator), Will Damron (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, May 2015

On a lovely early summer evening, some fast-moving object slams into the moon and shatters it into seven major pieces, and an unknowable number of smaller ones. At first, there's surprise, fascination, and the longterm anticipation of Earth eventually having rings. But when the big pieces start crashing into each other and breaking up, it becomes clear the future is much grimmer.

This is going to be a meteor storm to make life on Earth extinct. There are only a few years available to construct a solution that will preserve enough human life to to terraform and recolonize Earth--in a few thousand years, when the "hard rain" of the meteor storm and its aftermath are over.

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1), by N.K. Jemisin (author), Robin Miles (narrator)

Hachette Audio, August 2015

Our story begins with the fall of civilization.

Our story begins with a woman who has just found her murdered son's body.

This is a world with a long history of civilizations that fall, when the arrival of a "fifth season," a years-long winter triggered by earthquakes and volcanoes, lasts long enough that larger political systems can't outlast it.

This is also a world with a body of traditional knowledge, the Stone Lore, that is passed down even through the fall of civilizations and the rise of new ones, because it's about how to survive these unpredictable "fifth seasons.." And it's about the orogenes, the people who have the power to move or still the earth, to cause or prevent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.