Birmingham

April 26, 2026

The Cruel Stars (Review)

always start most of my reviews like this, but I picked this up at the used bookstore on my credit. Was nosing the scifi books and it looked interesting. So, let’s see what author John Birmingham penned us, shall we? In this novel, it seems that hundreds of years ago, a bunch of anti-re-life, anti-augmenting, anti-genesplicing, anti-alteration purist bigots tried to kill off all “mutants and cyborgs” (their words, not mine). They almost pulled it off but apparently a stunning victory by the liberal (they don’t call it that, but it sure feels that way) elements of the galaxy kicked […]
May 24, 2026

The Shattered Skies (Review)

his is the second in the series following The Cruel Stars, by John Birmingham (and make sure you follow this link for the details  – I have another book of that name in my library, one of the Ark Royal books). Yeah, so anyway, this is a middling book in a set so most of the action (while interesting and fun) just pretty much works through its plots. We have the aging Scottish Admiral (who is something of a Highlander, being 700 years old) and his sarcastic floating super computer. And the Captain of the Defiant, pretty much the last ship facing the […]