Hard Science Fiction – The Warbler Books

Pet Human – Nannybot A3–4

August 1, 2016 1 Comment

Pet Human, by Nannybot A3-4, has to be one of the oddest pieces I’ve read in a while. It’s an instruction manual for the caring and control of pet humans. See, it turns out that sometime later this century, we create the first functional AIs, which leads to the subsequent development of TIs, Technological Intelligences (read: not artificial), which propels technology forward at an incredible pace. Cut forward a few thousand years, and we’re in something of an odd situation. Pet Human is written for an audience across space and time, and is thus comprehensible to the likes of you and me. It’s a strangely enthralling read, for an instruction manual. Between the lines of its matter-of-fact descriptions of a post-humanist universe, wherein humanity has been improved upon, but reduced to pets, lay a magnificently built world. But there’s something more to it. While the manual has me convinced of the

Featured Author: Matthew Gladwin

May 13, 2016 No Comments

Two featured authors in one day?! What is this madness? Well, this one is a competitor in the Inkshares / Geek & Sundry contest, which ends in three days. So, here’s Matthew Gladwin’s Amalgamated Memoirs of a Future Imperfect, which I hope piques your interest as much as it does mine. About Amalgamated Memoirs of a Future Imperfect: When our first encounter with extraterrestrial life finally occurs, and nothing goes according to plan, how can we possibly know what the repercussions will be? Reporter Lillian Chuang has a front row seat, but even she has no idea what to expect next. But as the reader will soon discover she is not alone, as NCO Paul Steiner, branch manager Rojer Hendrix, hunter band-leader Yuri, retired general Administrator Yan and Empress Joyce Regina Delecoix continue to deal with the effects of first contact thousands of years after they come to pass. Laced with critiques

Featured Author: Evan Graham

May 10, 2016 No Comments

Hello, friend of the written word. Today, The Warbler features Evan Graham, whose book, Tantalus Depths, is an entrant in the Inkshares / Geek & Sundry contest, which is set to wrap up at the end of this week. This book sounds like a video game I want to play. Go ahead and check it out, as well as some of the other entrants Evan listed below. About Tantalus Depths: Mary Ketch and the crew of The Diamelen signed on to a simple survey mission to the distant planet Tantalus 13. The trip was little more than a formality; a government-mandated check-in to ensure that the artificially intelligent, self-constructing SCARAB base was functioning correctly as it lay the foundation to a new mining colony. What they found was much less mundane. Mysteries abound on Tantalus. The mining base SCARAB is building looks like a luxury hotel. A solid sheet of pure platinum

Featured Author: Richard Slay

May 3, 2016 No Comments

Today’s author, Richard Slay, has one of the most exciting book summaries I’ve read in a long while. If The Upture delivers on these promises, this will undoubtedly be one of my top books of the year—whenever it’s released. About The Upture: With its cities flooding and its military in retreat, the ordinary people of near-future America look content to stay at home, working menial jobs made tolerable by masking them in virtual-reality fantasies. One of those is Walt Hrka, Army drone operator turned plumber. But his former commander, the terminally ill Colonel Lasker, has hatched a plan to put America back on top, by staging the Second Coming of Christ on the Internet where everyone believes anything. When millions of trustworthy Christians are electrocuted at their VR terminals and then resurrected online, Hrka joins a bizarre alliance with everyone from Chinese tech merchants to the Swiss Guard, in a desperate struggle

Featured Author: E.S. Evan

May 2, 2016 No Comments

Phew. After a hectic few weeks preparing for a move, then moving, and filling a house to the brim with boxes of books, I’m ready to get back to featuring books. Today’s featured author, E.S. Evan, takes us into paleontological digs and murder. I want to read Pirates of Montana! Follow along with E.S. and the book on Twitter and Facebook. About Pirates of Montana: The Pirates of Montana is the coming of age story of Molly Tanner, a 15-year-old woman who travels to Montana, USA to learn about the intricacies of finding, excavating, and preparing dinosaur specimens for academia to study and to captivate the masses. This trip is an amazing opportunity for Molly: she will work closely with one of the world’s most famous paleontologists, learn the ins–and-outs of dinosaur hunting from his team of specialists and graduate students, all the while making connections and friendships that will last a lifetime. For a

Featured Author: Erin Butler

April 27, 2016 No Comments

With the end of the Geek and Sundry Hard Science contest on Inkshares a few weeks away, there’s still time to feature more entrants! Today we feature Erin Butler’s Farm Boy. About Farm Boy: Farm Boy is the story of… hm. This is a bit awkward, really. The many final days of a clone, or clones. Finding the right pronouns is a bit tricky: normally I’d describe it as having multiple protagonists, but it is the same person who has been cloned and is force-grown inside an institution built for that purpose. As events outside the institution occur, how many would directly affect the life of the people being fought over, and to what end? I was raised on a farm myself, and as such I considered not just where my food came from but also what the life of the animals was like. To me, there was The Bargain: we

Featured Author: Ronald Valle

April 21, 2016 No Comments

Let’s get back to some great books you should be checking out in the Inkshares / Geek & Sundry contest. Today, Ron Valle‘s We Clocked the T-Rex. It looks to be like the end-game speculation of Jurassic Park; fascinating, creepy, and not your standard hard sci-fi. About We Clocked the T-Rex: It’s the near-future and the dark forces of secret science and big money are preparing to engineer the world’s First De-Extinction Event. With her life’s work, countless species, and modern civilization on the line, Vee Whelan aims to stop them – but what’s so evil about a scientific miracle? We Clocked the T-Rex is a paranoid speculative adventure that takes the scientific gene editing and cloning techniques at our disposal today and asks, can’t we use these to make right all that we’ve made wrong about the natural world? Q: What part of your novel’s world excites you most? A: For this novel

Featured Author: Landon Trine

April 18, 2016 No Comments

Happy Monday, dear readers! The featured author series continues, this time with Landon Trine, author of First on Mars, another entrant in the Geek and Sundry hard sci-fi contest. This book sounds awesome; I highly recommend checking it out. Landon can be found on the web on Twitter (@landontrine) and Facebook. About First on Mars: A diverse group of seven NASA astronauts are chosen for the first crewed expedition to the red planet: Kurt, Norbite, Kara, Rin, Aditya, Anesh, and Akshara. For some unknown reason, Aditya tries to sabotage the ship and then kills himself, leaving a trail of frightening implications with no time to investigate. China has launched its own mission to Mars in an attempt to claim territory and other countries are not far behind. Events back on Earth and on Mars complicate and raise the stakes of their mission. The team needs to work together to survive the unforgiving

Featured Author: John Carter

April 12, 2016 2 Comments

Today’s featured author is John Carter, who can be found on Facebook and at TheWorldsofJohnCarter.com. His book, The Army of the Man, makes use of one of the most intriguing parasites around today, Toxoplasma gondii. I can’t wait to read this book. About The Army of the Man: 1968. The arms race spirals out of control as the world’s super powers push the limits of science to obtain superiority. Science fiction becomes fact with the breakthrough of the Sekhmet Serum. The dawn of the super soldier is on the horizon thanks to a common parasite: Toxoplasma gondii. 2018 Eric Lawson, a fervent protester and opponent of the United States government, is broke. With graduation at hand, he faces an uncertain future. When approached by a representative of “The Man,” he’s offered a chance to fulfill his lifelong dream of changing the world. After being injected with the Sekhmet Serum, Eric embarks on an epic

Featured Author: Peter Ravlich

April 11, 2016 No Comments

With the Inkshares/Geek & Sundry contest into its second week, it’s time to continue the featured author series! This time, Peter Ravlich’s Phase Three, which touches on some classic science fiction themes while addressing some very real elements of our lives today as consumers. Peter Ravlich can be found on twitter (@PeterRavlich) and on inklings.co.nz. About Phase Three: The world has an addiction. Augmenting reality – augmenting ourselves – averted a looming energy crisis, but it has become something more than that. “Overnight equality,” promises the slogan, and what’s a decade or two between advertisers? We redefined what it means to be human, then bought our own bullshit retail. But the physical world still exists, however much we stare into the infinite. People yet remain, living outside the reality bubbles we create. And so do the consequences of our inattention. Three individuals, each a casualty of flawed implementation, face intimate, inconsequential decisions

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