Science Fiction Book Reviews

The Hangman’s Replacement, the first book in a promised series by Zimbabwe author Taona Dumisani Chiveneko, begins with devoted family man Abel Muranda making the arduous journey from his village in rural Zimbabwe to the capital city of Harare to apply for the job of hangman. The position has been vacant for almost a decade, and the nation is moving rapidly toward abolition of the death penalty. But for reasons as mysterious to Muranda as to the reader, a powerful group of leaders is eager to fill the position and clear death row. Muranda, however, is concerned with neither […]

Because he died before his time, the teen protagonist of this wildly imaginative fantasy/sci-fi novel ends up in the special part of the afterlife reserved for lost things. He is meant to wait there until his proper time to die. Wit, as he is called in the afterlife, finds himself sharing this peculiar sort of purgatory with all manner of lost things—not just children. Buttons, socks, religion (“people are losing their religion all the time, right?”) and more turn up there as well. Wit, however, is unwilling to accept that he is dead and immediately sets about trying to find […]

Sammi by W. D. County follows the world’s first fully intelligent android, created under the watchful eye of the United States government, and classified top secret as a hidden weapon against the foes of democracy and capitalism. He is perfect in every way: stronger, faster and more capable than any human, and with all the advantages of the most sophisticated computer system in the modern world in a lifelike chassis. The only flaw with his design? He was created too intelligent, and too aware, and his emotions are beginning to prove a serious problem in his work. The world’s first […]

Solar System Blues by Andrew J. Patrick is an exhilarating read. As Burton and his teenage assistant hurtle through space in search of a habitable planet, the reader is taken along for the ride. The opening pages do not offer many answers or reasons as to why Burton is in space. In fact, the beginning is so ambiguous that some readers may wonder why they should continue with the story. But that’s the point to the beginning. The author is using this vagueness to draw you into the story and to make you ask: what and why.  And to get […]

In this massive sci-fi adventure, Daniel Cruz takes readers to a thoroughly imagined world, far from Earth and three million years in the future, in an epoch known as Una’ria. Humans as we know them no longer exist. They have evolved into a new species known as Rytelios, a much more subtle creature with a sixth sense and an unusual relationship with small, winged creatures called Famixa. Each Rytelios is pair-bonded with a Faxima. This relationship is deep and intriguing, and becomes even more complex and fascinating as the novel progresses and we get to know the characters better.

The […]