The prison was twenty miles from the nearest small city, on an otherwise empty expanse of prairie where the wind blew almost all the time. The main building was a looming stone horror perpetrated on the landscape at the beginning of the twentieth century. Growing from either side were concrete cellblocks built one by one over the previous forty-five years, mostly with federal money that began flowing during the Nixon years and just never stopped.

At some distance from the main body of the prison was a smaller building. The prisoners called this adjunct Needle Manor (99).

Stephen King closed 2015 with a diverse collection of short fiction that displays his sense of horror, humor, hokiness, and humanity.

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An amateur astronomer in Utah was the first person on Earth to realize that something unusual was happening. Moments earlier, he had noticed a blur flourishing in the vicinity of the Reiner Gamma formation, near the moon’s equator. He assumed it was a dust cloud thrown up by a meteor strike. He pulled out his phone and blogged the event, moving his stiff thumbs (for he was high on a mountain and the air was as cold as it was clear) as fast as he could to secure the claim to himself. Other astronomers would soon be pointing their telescopes at the same dust cloud—might be doing it already! But—supposing he could move his thumbs fast enough—he would be the first to point it out. The fame would be his; if the meteorite left behind a visible crater, perhaps it would even bear his name.

His name was forgotten. By the time he had gotten his phone out of his pocket, his crater no longer existed. Nor did the moon. (1)

It’s been a long time coming, but the most monumental SF novel of 2015 receives its review. Is Neal Stephenson’s apocalyptic epic worth negotiating its 800+ pages?

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This experimental YA novel, published in October, gives us space opera, corporate wrongdoing, deranged AI, virus-afflicted psychokillers, teen love, and weird typographic effects. It has received substantial praise. Does it live up to expectations? Would an older reader enjoy it?

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The world has run short of fresh water, and the great Dune Sea spreads across the west:

From space it seems a canyon. Unhealed yet scar-tissue white, a wound yawning latitudinal between the sluice grafts of Los Angeles and the flaking, friable, half-buried hull of Las Vegas (114)

Into this world head a dysfunctional family, two drifters who have overstayed California, and a foundling baby. They hope to make it to the other side, but the great Dune Sea, Amargosa, has other plans and peoples.

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She envisioned the work of evolution as a kind of blind, inarticulate poetry (121).

I’m a fan of Robert Charles Wilson’s work, but I took some time catching up to the award-winning author’s 2013 novel. Burning Paradise unfolds in an alternate present on a comparatively peaceful earth, infected by an interstellar parasite.

Not to be confused with the 1994 film of the same title.

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Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest novel works as a story about interesting people in a difficult situation and a metaphor for a great many real-world concerns.

It also raises the possibility that the stars are not our destination.

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For the record… I didn’t die on Sol 6. Certainly the rest of the crew thought I did, and I can’t blame them. Maybe there’ll be a day of national mourning for me, and my Wikipedia page will say, “Mark Watney is the only human being to have died on Mars.”

And it’ll be right, probably. ‘Cause I’ll surely die here. Just not on Sol 6 when everyone thinks I did. (1)

Andy Weir first posted his debut novel online in 2011. More recently, it was picked up for general publication and became a bestseller, receiving praise from the likes of Larry Niven, Wil Wheaton, and Chris Hadfield. Next month, the movie, directed by Ridley Scott, will receive its mainstream premiere.

Does this hard SF thriller live up to the hype?

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A med student finds intricate etchings on a cadaver’s bones.

A poker-player’s game expands when he gets handed the Dowager of Bees—one of the occult hidden cards.

Societies form on a space elevator.

Floating icebergs appear in the sky, prompting exploration.

The twenty-eight pieces of China Miéville’s collection cover a broad range. Not all writings will please all readers, but he certainly displays originality and range.

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