Genre: Science Fiction

Set My Heart to Five by Simon Stephenson Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Road Trip Published by Hanover Square Press on September 1, 2020 Format: Hardcover Pages: 448 A delightfully entertaining, deceptively poignant debut novel about a humanlike bot named Jared, whose emotional awakening leads him on an unforgettable quest for connection, belonging and possibly even true love.  Jared works as a dentist in small-town Michigan. His life is totally normal, except for one thing. He is a bot engineered with human DNA to look and act like a real person.  One day at a screening of a classic movie, Jared feels a strange sensation around his eyes. Everyone knows that bots can’t feel emotions, but as the theater lights come on, Jared is almost certain he’s crying. Confused, he decides to watch more old movies to figure out what’s happening. The process leads to an emotional awakening that upends his existence. Jared, it turns out, can feel.  Overcome with a full range of emotions, and facing an imminent reset, Jared heads west, determined to forge real connections. He yearns to find his mother, the programmer who created him. He dreams of writing a screenplay …

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton Genres: Adult, Dystopian, Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction Published by Sourcebooks on March 28, 2024 Format: eBook Pages: 368 Solve the murder to save what’s left of the world.  Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.  On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists.  Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.  But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don’t even know it.  And the …

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown Series: Red Rising Saga #4 Genres: Adult, Adventure, Fiction, Science Fiction, Thriller Published by Del Ray on January 16, 2024 Format: Hardcover Pages: 602 They call him father, liberator, warlord, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the pale blue planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy. It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-second of his life.  A decade ago, Darrow was the hero of the revolution he believed would break the chains of the Society. But the Rising has shattered everything: Instead of peace and freedom, it has brought endless war. Now he must risk everything he has fought for on one last desperate mission. Darrow still believes he can save everyone, but can he save himself?  And throughout the worlds, other destinies entwine with Darrow’s to change his fate forever:  A young Red girl flees tragedy in her refugee camp and achieves for herself a new life she could never have imagined.  An ex-soldier broken by grief is forced to steal the most valuable thing in the galaxy—or pay with his life.  And Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile to the sovereign, wanders …

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley Genres: Adult, Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Time Travel Published by Avid Reader Press on May 7, 2024 Format: eBook Pages: 284 A time travel romance, a speculative spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingeniously constructed exploration of the nature of truth and power and the potential for love to change it Welcome to The Ministry of Time , the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.  In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.  She is tasked with working as a “bridge”: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as “1847” or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machine,” “Spotify,” and …

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir Genres: Adult, Adventure, Fiction, Science Fiction Published by Ballantine on May 4, 2021 Format: Hardcover Pages: 476 Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.  Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.  All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.  His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.  And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.  Or does he? Reading and now reviewing Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir felt like one of the greatest tests of my patience as a reader and my ability to separate the book’s objective …