Andy Zach's Blog: The Unlikely life of Andy Zach - Posts Tagged "science-fiction"

Mission of Honor by David Weber

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Honor Harrington continues her derring-do against Manticorean enemies, small and great. But this novel contains several new wrinkles. You learn much more about the villains from Mesa and their nefarious schemes. There is also a major plot pivot in this story, from Haven to the Solarian League.

As usual, new technology is on display, rendering old technology obsolete. But all the new tech isn't Manticorean--but their worst enemy now has an edge on them. But which of their many enemies is it?



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Mission of Honor

Shadow of Freedom by David Weber

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


David Weber expands on his Honor Harrington universe. In this novel, Michelle Henke, an admiral in the Manticorean Navy, is off on a detachment to the Talbot sector. The sector recently became accessible to the Manticorean empire through the discovery of a new wormhole, the very valuable interstellar shortcut shaving weeks off distant interstellar trips.

The Talbot sector is on the fringe of the vast Solarian empire and home to corrupt Solarian officials using entire star systems as their personal fiefdoms for wealth. Further, the slavetrading Mesan system, a long-time Manticorean foe is also active here.

Michelle Henke, a superb tactician, and the cousin of the Queen of Manticore, Elizabeth III, encounters corruption, Mesan involvement, and a surprise Solarian super dreadnought fleet sent to punish the uppity Manticore Empire.

In an earlier book, a Solarian captain destroyed three Manticorean ships and all their personnel while they were at a neutral space station. Michelle destroys the cruisers with destroyers. This led to the super dreadnought onslaught.

You'll have to read and find out how Michelle fairs against overwhelming odds and what happens next.



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In Fire Forged by David Weber

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Generally, I don't like shorter fiction (short stories, novellas) as much as longer, but this anthology may be the best I've read since 'The Best of Science Fiction' series in the 70s. The stories are longer than short stories, novellas or longer and of universally good quality.

All the stories are associated with the 'Honorverse', the story world created by David Weber for his beloved spaceship captain, Honor Harrington. The authors are Jane Lindskold, writing 'Ruthless'; Timothy Zahn writing 'An Act of War', and David Weber writing 'Let's Dance'. Ms. Lindskold and Mr. Zahn have co-authored books with David Weber previously.

Finishing up the collection is an interesting and technical examination of military technology by Andy Presby.

Any fan of David Weber will enjoy reading all the stories in this book. They're all very creative and add interesting wrinkles and details about events referred to in the Honorverse, but not explored in depth.



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7 Great Science and SciFi Stories--why am I writing about this? I love science. I love learning new and surprising things. Maybe you do too. The first story is next.

7 Great Science and SciFi Stories - the first

Plate tectonics, geologic history, and astronomy--oh my!

Who would think the earth's rocks record the Solar System's planetary movements? I sure didn't. Yet that is what the rocks are showing. Can you write a science fiction story based upon this? Reply in the comments or here and I'll send you an ebook of your choice.

7 Great Science and SciFi Stories - the second

Then we have the famed Mars Rover Opportunity giving us this glorious picture.

The photograph is so spectacular, I took it from the NASA site and put it here:

Click here to go to NASA's article

What can top that? Maybe the next story.

7 Great Science and SciFi Stories - the third

In case you don't click on the link, here's an index of what's there:

Mysterious radio signals Nuclear Pasta Haumea Has Rings A Moon with a Moon Dark-Matter-Less Galaxy? The Most Bizarre Star Highly Electric Hyperion A Guiding Neutrino The Living Fossil Galaxy Double Quasar Image Infrared Stream from Space Rogue Planet with Auroras

If you love this kind of news or if you hate, be sure to send me a comment. If you hate it, tell me what you want me to blog about instead.

Next we have this.

7 Great Stories - the fourth

Do you think quantum computer will change soon? When do you think we'll be able to buy one? Best prediction (most accurate) gets a free book from me. Email me.

7 Great Stories - the fifth

A hypersonic jet could get you anywhere in the world in thirty minutes. How would the world and society change?

7 Great Stories - the sixth

Do robotic dogs creep you out? Or do they make you think of the Jetsons?

The future?



7 Great Stories - the last

I have a soft place in my heart for exoskeletons, because the cover of my next book features my character, Jeremy Gentle, wearing one:

Did you know you can get the book Secret Supers right now?

Get Your Favorite Science and Fantasy Books from my reviews. I've been busy reading and I try to review every book I read. Here are the very best books I've read this month.

If you want free audiobooks, you can get them here, through my newsletter by clicking here. If you want a free ebook (and laughter!), just contact me here and I'll send you one, Zombie Turkeys, my first novel.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Books - You Begin Here

David Weber once again creates a page-turning series. This one focuses on an invasion of the Earth by an alien species sent from a galactic empire.

The Earth is devastated. Half the population is killed from kinetic bombardments. Will the Earth surrender?

With vastly superior technology, the alien species is confident of conquest. Too bad humanity doesn't know how to surrender.

The plot proceeds somewhat predictably but ends with a surprise twist. Some reviewers hated the twist. I liked it. Maybe I'm twisted?

If you like David Weber's Honor Harrington series or John Ringo's Posleen series, you'll probably like this one

Andy Zach's review on Goodreads and Amazon

Here Comes Your Fantasy Book Review

This was my second reading of 'Song for the Basilisk', the last one was over 20 years ago.

It's even better the second time. I read it more slowly and understood the political machinations and the mysteries the author presented the reader. Patricia McKillip definitely has the 'mystery' + 'fantasy' combination to herself.

The premise is simple. There are four factions contending for rulership of the kingdom. The Basilisk slaughters one that has ruled for hundreds of years. One child escapes to a school for the bards.

The bards are musicians, storytellers, and magicians. But they only come to power by going to the hinterlands, where the magic is.

Meanwhile, the Basilisk rules in peace for 37 years. He has several daughters, one of which grows up learning all his magic.

Ms. McKillip brings all the elements together in a dramatic and surprising novel. It's one of her best and that says a lot.

Review by Andy Zach on Goodreads and Amazon

Your Last Chance to Get My Free AudioBooks

New review for Zombie Turkeys on Audible!

Overall 5 out of 5 stars

Performance 5 out of 5 stars

Story 4 out of 5 stars

Dumb...silly...juvenile...couldn't put it down. Comfort food for that juvenile part of you that never quite outgrew your comic books. Just forget that it's preposterous (after all, you were already warned by the title; what did you expect?), and go with the flow...

Andy 03-20-21 on Audible

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Top 7 Science stories have to start with this one!

I would love it if Andromeda were that bright in the sky. Sadly, all we see is the fuzzy center. This picture demonstrates the power of time-lapse photography.

Then we have this breath-taking picture:

Your Top 7 Science Stories - The Second is Next

I read a deluge of science stories every week. This one filtered through the noise. I get a newsletter from GE, which is where I found it.

This meme may make you chuckle. It worked for me. If it does, let me know and I'll give you a free ebook. Or you can get one by subscribing to my newsletter here.

Then Your Third is There Below

I first learned about living fossils in middle school with the coelacanth. Look! There's one! Don't delay! Click on the picture below.

Coelacanth. Click to get one delivered to your door.



Continuing on, Your Fun Fourth

Who wouldn't have fun with quantum computing?

If that's not fun, try my collection of short stories.

You can get free short story from the book on me, right here: 'In A Pickle'. Click here. Or, you can get the whole audiobook for free by clicking here.

Jive With Five of Top 7 Science Stories

This story is a little disappointing: you can't expect spaceships to cruise about independent of orbits. It takes too much energy.

That's no problem for SciFi authors, like the one behind my typewriter. In my book below, I have a spaceship that directly converts matter to energy. Very handy, that is.

Your Sixth of Top 7 Science Stories

I can hear people saying, "That's not science! That's some idiot driving a wheel to 827 MPH."

It is too science. The question was, "Can we spin a wheel faster than the speed of sound? What will happen?" There was an experiment to try it and they spun faster than the speed of sound. What's more scientific than that?

Some free advice: don't do this at home. Or anywhere else.

Your Last Science Story

The last science story covers anti-drone warfare--using silly string. I'm serious. Check it out in the link above.

Science Versus Science Fiction -- Can science fiction authors even stay ahead of our rocketing science advances?

You ask, "Like what? What's so hard about imagining a futuristic setting?"

How about this development?

In addition to announcing the world's fastest computer for AI training, Tesla also presented a new self-driving application--autonomous, humanoid robots.

"But this is all just visionary stuff from Elon. It's not here yet," you respond.

Yup, not yet, but near. Just like SpaceX was a couple of years ago:

This is straight from 1950s science fiction. A rocket goes up in a plume of fire and lands on a rocket. And this video happened five years ago. This demonstrates Tesla and Elon Musk's ability to bring his vision to reality.

Science Vs Science Fiction - Science Fiction Weighs In

How well is science fiction keeping ahead? Let's start with a review I just wrote:

I thought the anthology, 'Citizens' would be good, since it was military science fiction written by veterans. I also like John Ringo's writing in general, and he has a story in here. But it exceeded my expectations.

Not only are there crackling good stories in this book, but it's also a survey of great science fiction writers over the past seven decades. Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, are here as well as Murray Leinster, Gene Wolfe, and Keith Laumer. Then there are some newer writers as well, veterans of the Iraq war with their unique takes on military scifi.

If you like military scifi, don't miss this one.

Goodreads review by Andy Zach

How does this book stack up against current science? The science fiction is pretty well ahead.

Keith Laumer has a self-aware, highly motivated war robot.

Gene Wolfe and John Ringo explore extreme genetic modification for warfare.

David Freer has a light-hearted story about a postman who deflects an alien invasion.

Now, the more uncomfortable question: how am I, Andy Zach doing with my fiction versus the advances in science?

Zombie Detective's Science Fiction Versus Science

My next novel is Zombie Detective. Is it keeping ahead of science's leaps?

Disclaimer: I set this novel in 2016 and I limited myself to science as I knew it then, plus a little more. What little more did I add?

Mostly, genetic engineering. That's basically the cause of my zombieism, where rogue E Coli bacteria copy any tissue and replace it within minutes. I go into detail about how in my book, Zombie Turkeys.

Zombie Detective Excerpt for You

Getting back to Zombie Detective, I'm publishing it in September 2021. It begins like this:

“Sam, you’re fired.” Lisa’s green eyes met his brown ones. 

“What? Lisa, you and I have worked together at the Midley Beacon.  for ten years! And we’ve known each other for fifteen!   And we’ve been married almost two months!”  

“Sorry, Sam. Romance has to take a back seat to finances. Ever since the bottom dropped out of the zombie turkey news market since the first of the year, the Midley Beacon.  hasn’t made enough to pay your salary.”

“But that’s our salary. We share and share alike.”

“We can still live on my salary. And you can apply for unemployment, now that you’re fired.” 

“But what’ll I do all day? I can only play Fortnite for so long.”

“What did you do before I hired you, ten years ago? What did you do while I was in college?” Lisa's brows furrowed.

“Uh, mow lawns. Handyman repair. Stuff like that. But I’m a grown man now. I want more.”

“Hmm, you are a decent reporter.”

“Thanks, Lisa. That’s high praise coming from you.”

“Well, it’s the truth. You’ve grown from a crappy reporter, like ninety-nine percent of all reporters, to well above average. I did lay off everyone else on the staff before you, you know.”

“Aw, you’re making me feel warm and mushy.”

“That’s part of good management, —emotional manipulation.”

“Uh, you mean you don’t mean it?” Sam looked crestfallen.

“Nah, I mean it. Emotional manipulation is much more effective if you’re sincere.

From Zombie Detective

If you've read my books, why don't you tell me how I'm doing keeping ahead of science? Contact me here or at andyzach@andyzach.net

Oops! Free Short Stories for You from my short story collection, Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse.

Let's start with a bang.

Free Short Stories - In A Pickle

So what do readers say? Here's a review coming up for you.

Editorial Reviews

"You'd think after three oddball novels, Zombie Turkeys (How an Unknown Blogger Fought Unkillable Turkeys), My Undead Mother-In-Law (The Family Zombie with Anger Management Issues), and Paranormal Privateers, that Andy Zach would have exhausted all the comic possibilities in his world of killer zombie turkeys and superhero zombie humans.

You'd be wrong. How about flying zombie pickles? Zombie zucchini? Zombie caterpillars? (How can you tell a zombie caterpillar from a normal one? Andy Zach can tell you.)

How about being injected with zombie blood which can cure any ill, regrow any lost limb, and be quickly cured with a widely available antidote? Who needs insurance with that sort of help? How about organizing a zombie worker union at Amazon when zombies can outperform robots? And suggest the story is based on two real people, Anthony and Ravan Jones who contribute the foreword to the book? Or zombie residents of a nursing home taking over the place?

--Dr. Wesley Britton at BookPleasures.com on Sept. 15, 2020:

Review continued

But all this silliness is just part of what Andy Zach has collected in Oops. He has included other short stories by other authors like "The Story of Sound" by Olivia Smith and his own "A Phoenix Tale" before diving into his zombie world. Then he offers a batch of stories based on his other book series featuring disabled middle-schoolers who become superheroes, the Secret Supers. Oh yea, there are the aliens who first appeared in Paranormal Privateers who are defeated by zombies working for the U.S. Government. The aliens can provide you legal assistance in the form of a sexy avatar who looks exactly like Marilyn Monroe.

If you're getting the impression that one Mr. Andy Zach has a wide and wild imagination, you are on the right track. One obvious audience for his quirky tales is the YA readership, especially for all the contemporary references like video gaming and computer lingo. But even grumpy old sixty-somethings like me can have a lot of fun with Andy's characters, scenarios, and plots. I'm still laughing at the image of migrating flying zombie pickles. Hard to get more original, unique, or surprising than Zach's "Life After Life" series. Have some fun with Andy Zach in 2020!"

--Dr. Wesley Britton at BookPleasures.com on Sept. 15, 2020:

Free Short Stories - The Butterfly Effect

Do you want to write a review? Send it to me at andyzach@andyzach.net or click here. I'll send you a free Zombie Turkeys ebook!

Your Next Oops! Review

5.0 out of 5 stars 

What do zuccini, phoenix genetics, and superpowered kids have in commom?

Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2020

As I expected, story time at Andy's house must include a recorder to grasp the many directions and characters he delevolopes in each book. This set of several stories are exciting in a novel manner of disbelief overlaid with a tinge of possibility.

How many people have tasted a hummingbird zombie zuccini, a superpowered set of disabled kids with a intelligent hamster as co-partner, a phoenix genetic research specialist, all these under one cover? Well, step right up and open page one!

Each story includes an ideas from his zombie turkey series and as always a hint of something new to come!This was a free book and I am not connected to anyone involved. I laughed and soaked up the words wanting more.

Kindle Customer

Free Short Stories - A Dying Business

5.0 out of 5 stars 

ZOMBIES ARE out there you will laugh your nutt off at how Funny they can be

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2020

This book was a true page Turner from start to finish, 1 of those books you wish had more to read ,I must say look forward to a possible follow on !!

Glenn Marshall, Jr. U.S. NAVY Retired

Another Free Short Stories Review for You

3.0 out of 5 stars 

Take some crazy and add a whole lot of zombies...

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2020

Oops! Tales of the Zombie Turkey Apocalypse by Andy Zach is a collection of short stories and as the clue is in the title, the theme is zombies. And boy do they come in a variety of different shapes and sizes.

The book starts with three stories that are a starter and not in the zombie genre. Firstly, you are introduced to a world where nothing is heard. Then we move on to finding an elusive phoenix and trying to use its DNA for breeding. Lastly, we have a story about a time-travelling wheelchair.

Then we jump straight into zombies. From zombie pickles, to zombie service dog corgis, to zombie models and even zombies in a nursing home. There is a timeline thread running through the stories where characters that create something or meet someone bring them into a later story. And all of this in a world where becoming a zombie is as easy as ordering blood online!

Jacqui Corn-Uys

Review Continues Below

After each story, the author explains where he got his ideas from, and since in his bio he claims both his parents were zombies, he must be an expert on all things undead. The author has a very quick mind and some of the quips and plays on words were very clever.

In some of the stories, however, I would have preferred a definite ending—one where the story doesn’t just finish and you think there is more coming. It was almost as though they were ideas taken from diary extracts with sporadic glimpses into a world of zombies.

After the zombie stories came tales from some of his other books about teenage superheroes. I think the one I enjoyed the most was of the hamster that one of the kids had experimented on and had developed some superpowers. He taught himself to read and was eventually able to communicate with others by typing on a computer. The author very cleverly integrated himself into that story by being the author in the story and the one that the hamster contacted. And of course, we had to have a story about aliens to end it off.

Jacqui Corn-Uys

Your Final Story of Free Short Stories

This short story still comes from Oops!, like all the preceding ones.

We've Got It - Click to read!

And you get a review to go with it.

5.0 out of 5 stars 

Great intro to the author's works

Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2020

This is a great book to start with if you haven’t tried any Andy Zach book before. It contains stories from both his Life After Life zombie comedy series and his superhero story Super Secrets. It also shows you Zach’s sense of humor (plus there’s one little horror story that isn’t overly gruesome). This book is great for both kids and adults and works just fine on it’s own.

I loved the silly story of the flying zombie cucumbers. Ha! Very fanciful. And they have migratory routes, like butterflies! Very silly and had me chuckling. I also loved the story with the hamster (who does play a role in Secret Supers). Perhaps rodents will truly save the world some day.

The stories also help fill in some of the blanks of the zombie comedy series, including one about Diane (the beloved zombie mother-in-law). But what I really liked was the stuff about genetic engineering and the aliens. Book 3 of the Life After Life Chronicles had a lot of stuff tossed into the story and some of these short stories really help fill those parts out.

All around, it’s a fun collection of tales. 5/5 stars.

DabOfDarkness

Audiobook Narration

The Narration: Michael Stafford was a good pick for narrating this anthology. While the Life After Life series and the Secret Supers use different narrators, Stafford was a good inbetween voice. He had unique voices for all the characters and his female voices sounded feminine. I also liked his kid voices for the Secret Supers kids. The pacing was good and there were no tech issues with the recording. 5/5 stars.

I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Andy Zach. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.

DabOfDarkness

Do you like audiobooks? I have six of them and I give them away to you here. Click now.