Quantum widgets and tarot-reading pilots: a ‘fantabulosa bona’ start to Ian McDonald’s Everness series. Can an author who made his name writing intelligent, near-future sci-fi for adults write a novel that will appeal to children? If the author is Ian McDonald, and the book is Planesrunner – the first in McDonald’s Everness series – the answer is a
As a child Abigail Sharp was encouraged to be independent and free-thinking by her governess mother. It was anything but a conventional childhood and, as a result, Abbie is anything but a conventional Victorian young lady. Unfortunately, since Lady Charlotte Westfield took in her newly orphaned grand-daughter, that is exactly what Abbie has to pretend
For a hundred lifetimes, a million souls have been born and reborn in Range. For them death is merely an interruption to the conversation, since identity is retained through each rebirth. Immortality is a given, as common as noses. Until Ciana died, and Ana was born. A million, minus one. The paradigm of an entire
Divergent, the first in the Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth, is one of the best YA novels I have read this year. And, due to a rash of really, really good YA novels being recommended to me, I’ve gone through quite a few. Beatrice Prior grew up in Abnegation, where adherents champion the virtue of
