Exploring one universe at a time.
Interested in #Nature, #Photography, #NaturePhotography, #Science, #ScienceFiction, #Physics, #Engineering.
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A professional caregiver's commute takes an unsettling detour when car trouble forces her to pull …
A breakdown on a highway leads to a strange situation.
3 stars
A caregiver's car breaks down on the median in the middle of a highway. Strangely, other vehicles ignore her attempts to get help, and her attempts to contact emergency services and others fail. Then, she starts to get calls from strangers. Finally, she encounters another tragic scene on the highway and, perhaps, realizes her situation in this strange, unsettling story.
The survivor of an apocalypse event in an alternate universe tries to rebuild and avoid …
On whether to return to a world that is turning into a disaster.
3 stars
The survivor of a previous disaster helps another. But the disaster happened not from this world but from the in-between, and the other has now come to ask her to help by returning to the in-between, for it is being destroyed. The survivor has had enough of the in-between, but may prove a way to help.
Searching for her daughter, a woman confronts the man she believes stole the child...and the …
A story about a child that is not what it seems.
3 stars
The story initially starts off as a woman looking for her child, which she believes was kidnapped by a man. It then becomes a confusing confrontation between the woman and man over the child. But it is only with the appearance of agents in biohazard suits that the true nature of the kidnapped child becomes evident to the reader, if not to the people involved.
An exciting story set in a world of magical books.
5 stars
A wonderful debut novel involving magical books that turn into a time travel story as the implications of using one particular book are spelled out, but involves a truly evil personality that destroys people in gruesome ways that even I found uncomfortable.
At the start of the story, Cassie, who works in a bookshop, finds one of her customers has died and left her a special book: the Book of Doors. While showing it to her roommate, Izzy, she discovers its power: imagine a place, and it will be behind the door she opens. They use it to have adventures in far off places, but Izzy is uncomfortable and thinks they should stop using it.
They then encounter the librarian, Fox, who urges them to run when they meet an enemy who is after Fox: Fox keeps other magical books in a library and wants to protect the books from …
A wonderful debut novel involving magical books that turn into a time travel story as the implications of using one particular book are spelled out, but involves a truly evil personality that destroys people in gruesome ways that even I found uncomfortable.
At the start of the story, Cassie, who works in a bookshop, finds one of her customers has died and left her a special book: the Book of Doors. While showing it to her roommate, Izzy, she discovers its power: imagine a place, and it will be behind the door she opens. They use it to have adventures in far off places, but Izzy is uncomfortable and thinks they should stop using it.
They then encounter the librarian, Fox, who urges them to run when they meet an enemy who is after Fox: Fox keeps other magical books in a library and wants to protect the books from people who will use the books for evil purposes. As the story progresses, other people appear who are also after the book, including the above-mentioned evil personality who has killed Fox's friends in the past to get their books and will stop at nothing to get the other books from Fox, and Cassie's Book of Doors.
The story is full of exciting adventures and characters. But one of the more interesting aspects of the story is the time travel. As the story progresses, events that happen early in the story reappear again later, but now seen from the point of view of characters who have travelled into the past. It all hangs together (without involving time travel paradoxes) and adds depth to the story by making the reader re-evaluate events as new viewpoints on past events are provided.
The story also has its emotional highs, and includes (to me) a rather shocking scene that proves to be a pivotal one in this world of magical books. As in many tales involving time travel, the ending of the story also provides the beginning.
After such an impressive debut novel, one hopes for more exciting stories by the author.
A woman visiting Las Vegas for a fun weekend encounters her ne'er-do-well ex-husband, who begs …
On giving a runaway ex-husband a lesson he won't forget.
4 stars
An interesting story of a woman who has raised her daughter and grandchildren, despite her first husband running away and the death of her daughter. Going on a holiday to Las Vegas, she encounters her ex-husband, who asks her for help. She reluctantly does so, only to be saddled with him again. The solution to the problem of getting rid of him again would involve a visit to a witch and a lesson for the ex-husband on being there when his daughter needed him.
With her friends vanishing and her home planet of Ayeshij crushed under the weight of …
On reclaiming your homeworld with subterfuge; and violence.
3 stars
On a world whose inhabitants are ruled by off-world people, one local is determined to reclaim her world from the conquerors. But the plan would require communicating with native birds, possible betrayal, and a shocking ending involving gore and a lot of teeth.
In a future where human souls take the form of animal companions, Hairuo struggles to …
On the care and feeding of cats and souls
3 stars
The story of a world where human souls can be given form as a companion, usually as a dog, to be fed and nurtured. In this story, the protagonist's companion is a cat. But her efforts to nurture and feed it with stories she creates don't seem to be going well, and neither is her job as a designer. Then, she meets a fellow worker who attracts her and has an interest in her. But it is only after meeting his big, mean cat does she realize what they feed on to nurture themselves at her expense.
The fascinating, untold story of how the Chinese language overcame unparalleled challenges and revolutionized the …
I've read Thomas S. Mullaney's previous book, "The Chinese Typewriter: A History" and found it a fascinating deep dive into the history of East Asian keyboards. So I'm looking forward to reading this.
When you bring back a long-extinct species, there’s more to success than the DNA.
Moscow …
Mammoths have been revived: now they have to survive.
4 stars
A fascinating story of a scientist and passionate elephant conservationist whose consciousness was scanned and later put into the mind of the matriarch of a group of revived mammoths, in the hope that she can teach the group how to be mammoths again in the steppes of Siberia. As the story begins, she discovers the deaths of several male mammoths from hunters. Thus, begins her own vendetta against the hunters to protect her group.
As the story develops, we learn the backstory of the scientist and the state of the world, where elephants have been hunted to near extinction for their ivory and other body parts. While mammoths are protected by the huge wilderness they wander in, they are no longer safe from hunters, unless the scientist, and the mammoth body she inhabits, can push the group into doing something they have never done before: becoming the hunter.
A story …
A fascinating story of a scientist and passionate elephant conservationist whose consciousness was scanned and later put into the mind of the matriarch of a group of revived mammoths, in the hope that she can teach the group how to be mammoths again in the steppes of Siberia. As the story begins, she discovers the deaths of several male mammoths from hunters. Thus, begins her own vendetta against the hunters to protect her group.
As the story develops, we learn the backstory of the scientist and the state of the world, where elephants have been hunted to near extinction for their ivory and other body parts. While mammoths are protected by the huge wilderness they wander in, they are no longer safe from hunters, unless the scientist, and the mammoth body she inhabits, can push the group into doing something they have never done before: becoming the hunter.
A story full of thrills, suspense, and a look at what a passionate person can do if given the chance the inhabit the body of her passion. But now, her choice is to decide what to do with body she has been granted.
