Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.
Getting To Know You by David Marusek
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Not since William Gibson and Bruce Sterling galvanized science fiction in the 1980s has the emergence of a new writer been heralded with such acclaim as that attending David Marusek, whose brilliant first novel, Counting Heads, appeared to rave reviews in 2005.
Now, in this collection of ten stories, Marusek’s fierce imagination and dazzling extrapolative gifts are on full display. Five of the stories, including the Sturgeon Award-winning "The Wedding Album"– a shattering look at the intended human consequences of advanced technology– are set in the same future a Counting Heads. But all ten showcase Marusek’s talent for literate, provocative science fiction of the very highest order.
The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan
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Named by the New York Times as "one of science fiction’s bright young lights" and winner of the Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke Awards, Richard Morgan has vaulted to the pinnacle of the science fiction world in just a few short years. Now in The Steel Remains, the first in a trilogy, he turns his talents to epic fantasy, crafting a darkly violent adventure sure to thrill old fans and captivate new readers.
After the Downfall by Harry Turtledove
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1945: Russian troops have entered Berlin, and are engaged in a violent orgy of robbery, rape, and revenge…
Wehrmacht officer Hasso Pemsel, a career soldier on the losing end of the greatest war in history, flees from a sniper’s bullet, finding himself hurled into a mysterious, fantastic world of wizards, dragons, and unicorns. There he allies himself with the blond-haired, blue-eyed Lenelli, and Velona, their goddess in human form, offering them his knowledge of warfare and weaponry in their genocidal struggle against a race of diminutive, swarthy barbarians known as Grenye.
But soon, the savagery of the Lenelli begins to eat at Hasso Pemsel’s soul, causing him to question everything he has long believed about race and Reich, right and wrong, Ubermenschen and Untermenschen. Hasso Pemsel will learn the difference between following orders… and following his conscience.
The Surrogates by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele
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The year is 2054, and life is reduced to a data feed. The fusing of virtual reality and cybernetics has ushered in the era of the personal surrogate, android substitutes that let users interact with the world without ever leaving their homes. It’s a perfect world, and it’s up to Detectives Harvey Greer and Pete Ford of the Metro Police Department to keep it that way. But to do so they’ll need to stop a techno-terrorist bent on returning society to a time when people lived their lives instead of merely experiencing them.
The Surrogates is a story about progress and whether there exists a tipping point at which technological advancement will stop enhancing and start hindering our lives. It is also a commentary on identity, the Western obsession with physical appearance, and the growing trend to use science as a means of providing consumers with beauty on demand.
More in Part Two.