The year ends, but a future waits…

Here we are now right at the cold, wet and dull end to 2015. While right now things may be grim and dreary outside, there have been a number of entertaining and suprising events, books, films and more over the months.

What have been some of the film/book/game highlights for you?

There have been the huge event films including Avengers:Age of Ultron, Mad Max, Jurrassic World, smaller challenging films including Ex Machina, Chappie. Many of us might probably agree that the cinematic turkey came very early this year with Terminator:Genisys. After several long years and a final parting with original director, Marvel’s Ant-Man made it onto the big screen and was thankfully and surprisingly overall a great fun movie. One of the most anticipated huge sci-fi cinema events was the return of Ridley Scott to the genre with his adaptation of The Martian which pleased a great many.

With new books in genre we had a return to his known loved science fiction style from cyberpunk legend William Gibson with The Peripheral. Serious hard SF author Stephen Baxter continued on with his Proxima/Ultima series, Adam Christopher gave us SF Noir Made to Kill, Neal Asher has his Dark Intelligence-book 1 in paperback in September, as well as recent returns from Jeff VanDerMeer, Gary Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Ramez Naam, John Scalzi, John Meaney, Richard Morgan, among many other in the SF genre.

The horror genre was the master Stephen King offer us more besides the now regular detective noir thrillers and mystery tales he has put out over recent years. Sarah Lotz Three, David Wong’s Futuristic Violence and Fancy suits. Can we still class Dean Koontz as horror? If so, he has, as usual been putting out his well crafted thrill-rides tales. Thankfully there has been real new horror work from the UK legend Shaun Hutson, Ramsey Campbell. The other cult horror author from these parts Graham Masterton has moved away from horror for a while but is now putting out very successful thriller novels on fine form. There is good, more varied horror fiction outthere but a reader possibly really needs to dig around and hunt it down sadly.

With fantasy books, one of the top reliable authors Robin Hobb has continued to put out a new series, we had work from Trudi Canavan, Jim Butcher continued on with his well established and loved urban fantasy tales, Brandon Sanderson, Raymond E. Feist, Joe Abercrombie still establishing his strong fantasy style, Terry Goodkind.

The videogames highlights of 2015 included Halo 5, Fallout 4 in recent weeks, new Tomb Raider, Assasin’s Creed, Witcher3, Destiny built upon the initial established world, the almost perfect Batman game series ended with Arkham Knight.

What made your year, and what are you waiting for from 2016?

 

FUTURE FICTION FROM 2012…SO FAR…

I’ve been today nostalgically looking back over the last-almost-twelve months that have been 2012 and considering the kind of science fiction we have had offered to us and what has produced such efforts and the quality of it all.

We certainly have had a few of the big hitting living legends of the genre reappear again thankfully, producing what seems to have been some very respectable quality work once more as hoped for.

Most notably, we have had Iain M Banks return to his famous Culture world again, in his Hydrogen Sonata novel. Then another big epic SF author, Peter F Hamilton has given us The Great North Road, which incidentally reminds me of places up north of England where I come from-thought that, I believe has little connect to the narrative. Then the other huge selling fine author Alastair Reynolds cam back with Blue Remembered Earth, which seems to be the start of another new direction.

After those huge and masterful writers, all very well known and respected continually, there have been books from some lesser known but still very much interesting and relevant authors in the sci-fi genre.

Some other very talented writers who many readers should make to effort to read include Richard Philips, Dan Worth, John Paul Cleary, David Brin, Neal Asher, John Meaney, Gary Gibson, Hannu Rajaniemi, Edmond Barrett, Richard Morgan.

Finally there have been a few other established and always distinctively individual and unique SF authors return who I very much admire for various reasons whom include-Dan Simmons who is always pushing himself and the limits, as does Charles Stross, Lauren Beukes, Neal Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson, and the mighty pairing of Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter with their joint effort. It may not immediately have seemed so, but it has eventually I believe been a rich and rewarding year for the genre known as science fiction. And that year is not yet over…

SCI-FI FICTION SO FAR 2012…

Alright then, here we are now at around the middle of the year surprisingly now. Six months in and what have so far been some of the most interesting, significant novels and books to have been released? Some very big names in the realms of SF and fantasy and then horrror fiction have returned and a good few first time authors have also broke through. Here are some of the ones that I have found to be very interesting and need to read:

China Mieville-Railsea

As ever probably essential reading, but this time actually fairly different in ways, and possibly less dark as before

The Long Earth-Stephen Baxter/Terry Pratchett

Many have eagerly been waiting for this new collaboration between two of the most respected of science fiction and fantasy writing of our times

Cyber Circus-Kim Larkin-Smith

A younger very different bold female writer it seems very much worth discovering soon

A very entertaining author, great detail and bizarre tales

Existence-David Brin

It seems that this new novel is a very challenging and extremely detailed big hard SF book but apparently very much worth reading

2312-Kim Stanley Robinson

Is this one really as good as it might like to be? I am not sure, but it could be

Blue Remembered Earth-Alastair Reynolds

Yet another from the regularly mightily impressive guy

Dark Eden-Chris Beckett

Sounded slightly unusual and possibly an interesting and important tale

Distrust That Particular Flavour-William Gibson

Alright, it is not fiction, but it is just Gibson so likely very worth reading anyway

The Sisterhood of Dune-Kevin J. Anderson

Even while it is no longer produced by Frank Herbert, the series is always worth looking at with new installments

Blackbird-Chuck Wendig

A very humourous guy, and with this new novel of paranoid thrilling dark adventure

Final Days-Gary Gibson

The Method-Juli Zeh

I remember reading very good things about this one, some kind of psychological SF drama tale

Empire State-Adam Christopher

From quite a few months back at the begining of the year, a bold and entertaining book, worth looking for

Anno Dracula-Kim Newman

This a newer one, a well crafted hybrid tale from the very respected and talented critic and writer from the UK

Amped-Daniel H. Wilson

From the author of the soon to be blockbuster movie Robopocalypse, comes this new similar dystopian thriller tale

There have been a good many more, all across the platforms of ebooks, kindle reading, paperbacks, hardback and more. Good signs even now for the transforming and tense world of publishing out there