Version Control (2016)

The Diamond Age

Neal Stephenson

1995 · 499 pages · 1 review

Others: Mixed

The story of an engineer who creates a device to raise a girl capable of thinking for herself reveals what happens when a young girl of the poor underclass obtains the device.

Aurora Rising

Jay Kristoff

2019 · 473 pages · 2 reviews

Others: Mixed

Sand

Hugh Howey

2014 · 368 pages · 1 review

Others: Positive

In post-apocalyptic Colorado, a state now covered in sand, one family struggles to survive and stay united after the father leaves. Wife and mother, Rose, has only a whore house and as her income dwindles, she finds she must work in the establishment she runs. Her children, Palmer, Victoria, Rob and Conner, all take on the dangerous job of being sand divers, hoping to help their mother with expenses.

Wool

Hugh Howey

2011 · 532 pages · 4 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

They live beneath the earth in a prison of their own making. There is a view of the outside world, a spoiled and rotten world, their forefathers left behind. But this view fades over time, ruined by the toxic airs that kill any who brave them. So they leave it to the criminals, those who break the rules, and who are sent to cleaning. Why do they do it, these people condemned to death? Sheriff Holston has always wondered. Now he is about to find out.

Memoirs of a Spacewoman

Naomi Mitchison

1962 · 160 pages · 2 reviews

Others: Positive

Naomi Mitchison, daughter of a distinguished scientist, sister of geneticist J B S Haldane, was always interested in the sciences, especially genetics. Her novels did not tend to demonstrate this, and she did not publish a Science Fiction novel until almost forty years into her fiction-writing career. This novel works effectively for readers who usually eschew the genre and prefer more traditional narratives. Explorers like Mary are an elite class who consider curiosity to be Terrans' supreme gift, and in the novel she more than once takes risks that may destroy her life. Her voice, as she records her adventures and experiments, is individual, attractive and memorable.

Living next door to the god of love

Justina Robson

2006 · 1 review

Others: Positive

Where do you run when a world is out to get you?AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye--here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today....Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself--incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka. But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can't save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide. "For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun." --New York Times Book ReviewFrom the Trade Paperback edition.