Sequel to The Sunrise Lands. The travellers continue to head eastwards across post-apoc­a­lyp­tic America. They encounter many obstacles and not a few enemies on their quest.

En­ter­tain­ing enough that I read it in one day. Scourge did not fall prey to Middle Book Syndrome.

Third in a series, but the first that I've read.

Prince Roger and his Marine bodyguard have been marooned on an alien planet for six months. With local allies, they fight their way halfway around the world to the spaceport. And then the trouble really starts.

Well-done military SF: plausible, hard-bitten char­ac­ter­s; good plotting; and exciting battle scenes.

The Chief of State of the New Republic, Leia Solo, is kidnapped and taken to the remote, barren planet of Nam Chorios, whence the lethal Death Seed plague has been released across the sector. Luke made his own way there, seeking his lost girlfriend, Callista. Han and Chewie, Threepio and Artoo are separately trying to rescue Leia.

Your first reaction on seeing a Star Wars novel might be to sneer, as mine was. But I knew Barbara Hambly to be a competent writer of fantasies, science …continue.

For his seventy-fifth birthday, John Perry visits his wife's grave and enlists in the Colonial Defense Forces. The CDF remake him and his peers into su­per­sol­diers with decades of experience in enhanced bodies. Their mission is to protect the human colonies and to take new worlds. It's an alien-eat-alien multiverse (sometimes literally) and the habitable planets are much contested.

Scalzi owes a debt to Robert A. Heinlein (ac­knowl­edged at the end of the book). The wise old man, the citizen soldier, enduring love, youth re­gained—­some of RAH's favorite topics. Too, it owes …continue.

A few decades hence, Britain has devolved into balkanized ministates. A Trotskyite, space-loving mercenary in­ad­ver­tent­ly awakens an AI and sparks the revolution. The plot is un­sum­ma­riz­able, but it's en­ter­tain­ing and complex, mixing action, political theory, cyberpunk, and romance.

Anathem takes place on Arbre, a world where those of an in­tel­lec­tu­al bent sequester themselves in monas­ter­ies apart from the Sæcular world. When an alien ship is noticed orbiting the planet, avout from concents all over Arbre are drawn together for a Convox to determine how to respond to the threat of the Geometers.

Stephen­son's Anathem is an ambitious project, pulling together physics, meta­physics, world-building, an­thro­pol­o­gy, and an adventure tale. It's an alien world as he keeps reminding us by the huge vocabulary he's invented. Said vocabulary alternates between ex­as­per­at­ing and …continue.

Set in an alternate 1985 where costumed heroes are real—and outlawed—Watchmen follows six ad­ven­tur­ers. Rorschach, half-mad, continues his vigilante activities. Nite Owl is retired and a worrywart. The former Ozy­man­di­as—the world's smartest man—is now one of the richest. The Comedian is murdered at the very beginning; after the Keene Act passed, he was allowed to continue operating as a government enforcer. Dr. Manhattan was trans­formed into a superbeing in a nuclear accident in 1959; he is America's strategic weapon in the arms race with the …continue.

Another novel in the Dune franchise. Paul of Dune is an interquel, largely taking place in the decade between the events of Dune and of Dune Messiah.

Paul Atreides has become the Emperor of the known galaxy. A vicious jihad has burst across the empire in his name. His prescience tells him that it's absolutely necessary so that mankind can break out of the course that leads to stagnation and de­struc­tion. But billions have died and many more are yet to die. He is feared and hated. A …continue.

This book takes place about ten years after A Meeting at Corvallis. The focus has switched to a younger set of characters, the first generation to grow up after the “Change”, the event that knocked the world back into the Dark Ages.

A traveler arrives in Oregon from the East, bearing a compelling prophecy that requires Rudi Mackenzie to travel to Nantucket, the apparent source of the Change. A group of nine (the number is tra­di­tion­al) head eastwards. But the fanatical Church Universal and Triumphant wants to stop …continue.

(As I mentioned last night, I read Ac­celeran­do (Wikipedia) in Stanza on my iPhone on the bus.)

Ac­celeran­do is a set of connected short stories following three gen­er­a­tions of the Macx family around the Sin­gu­lar­i­ty. The ideas fly thick and fast (and somewhat con­fus­ing­ly): minds uploaded into virtual machines, nan­otech­nol­o­gy, posthumans, lobsters brainscans uplifted into space, an in­de­pen­dent-minded AI in a cat's body, economics, …

Thought-provoking and en­ter­tain­ing.