At the end of last year, I promised to finish my series of blogs on the Foundation books of Isaac Asimov, so here goes! Asimov wrote seven Foundation novels altogether, the first three appearing first as short stories in the 1940s and 50s. See https://bookheathen.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/history-of-the-future/ He followed those in the 1980s with two more - …
Category: Science fiction and fantasy
Mind Games
Chains of Blood and Steel by Karen Gray A Review Chains of Blood and Steel is the second book in Karen Gray's Saga of Thistle and Roses. Based loosely on the Anglo-Scottish feuding of the late Middle Ages, the stories are however set in a futuristic imaginary world of the 27th century. The world we …
A Wrinkle in Time
by Madeleine L'Engle 'It was a dark and stormy night ...' With the first sentence of her junior sci-fi novel A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle dares to challenge the publishing establishment. Even in 1960, when she wrote it, and 1962, when it was published, L'Engle must have known the extent to which the sentence …
The Martian
by Andy Weir I had avoided buying this book for so long. I saw the film and enjoyed it so much, and that made me wary. So many wonderful novels are turned into dreadful films. Great movies from mediocre novels are not so common - but it happens often enough! So, as I said, I …
Building a Foundation
Foundation's Edge & Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, published in novel form in 1951-53 was first conceived as a series of short stories in the 1940s. [See https://bookheathen.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/history-of-the-future/%5D Complete in themselves and as a unit, the three novels did not need a follow-up. Asimov turned his attention to other matters. Apart …
Childhood's End
by Arthur C Clarke A Review You may have noticed that I've been spending the past few weeks reading science "stuff", and that includes both fact and fiction. Today, I'd like to share with you a book by one of my favourite sci-fi authors. Arthur C Clarke, like Isaac Asimov (another favourite), was a scientist. …
For King and Country
by Karen Gray 'History' - it's not what you think! This novel came to my attention through a recommendation by Anne on WordPress. I don't usually read high fantasy these days but the book's description - swords and castles, mythological beasts and twenty-seventh century Scotland - was irresistible, so I bought it and promised to …
History of the Future
The Foundation Novels by Isaac Asimov 'There were nearly twenty-five million inhabited planets in the Galaxy then, and not one but owed allegiance to the Empire ... It was the last half-century in which that could be said.' Isaac Asimov is one of my all-time favourite writers. Not only can he spin a great yarn …
Maddaddam
by Margaret Atwood '.... [A]nyone who liked smelling daisies, and having daisies to smell, and eating mercury-free fish, and who objected to giving birth to three-eyed infants via the toxic sludge in their drinking water was a demon-possessed Satanic minion of darkness, hell-bent on sabotaging the American Way and God's Holy Oil, which were one …
The Snakes of Horus
A Short Story by Andrew Greenfield Lockhart [I originally wrote this for a session at my writers' group.] ‘We’re safe for now. They can’t get in.’ I risked a glance at Jude out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t, I daren’t allow my attention to be diverted from the window. She was statuesque, …
Magda Green Books 