Short review: A superbly entertaining science fiction novel with a fascinatingly complex and well thought out plot.

Okay, you need more than that to pay the price of admission, right? I don’t blame you!

The long review: The Flight of the Silvers, by Daniel Price (Amazon link) is the type of novel that all science fiction authors should aspire to write. According to the author notes, Mr. Price spent three years writing this marvelous story and it shows in the intimately drawn characters, with all of their flaws, insecurities, strengths, and especially their personalities.

Without trying to be political, it seems that as the mood of the country becomes more polarized and angry — and I’m not pointing any fingers — there’s been a large uptick in novels about a new civil war, or in this case, a second revolution. The Second Revolution, by Gary Hansen (Amazon link) is better written than many of them and presents a clear case where action is needed. Though there isn’t an actual revolutionary war involved, there is an uprising against a stunningly corrupt president.

When you die, you simply wake up in another world, possibly in another universe. It’s not reincarnation in the classic sense, since you usually arrive at the age you were at, at “death,” and your memories are intact. Earth is an original-born world, not one of the steps along the way. Eventually, when it’s time to really die — if you’ve “earned it” — you wind up on a strange, squalid world known as the City Unspoken. That’s the premise of The Waking Engine, by David Edison. This big book is a heady mixture of science-fiction, fantasy, and horror, with an ambitious plot: Something has gone wrong with the machine that actually allows the mix of creatures from various worlds to finally rest in peace. The City Unspoken is becoming overcrowded, out of control, and various forms of ennui, or insanity, are rising.

Some 45-years ago, the Boyscout troop I was in went on an overnight camping trip in late November. It rained and then snowed and we were huddled in our tents, and half of us got the stomach bug. Thinking back on it, that was a walk in the park compared to what The Troop, by Nick Cutter  faces as the five of them and their scoutmaster begin a weekend camping trip on a small, deserted island off the coast of Prince Edward Island.

The short review: Frightening, relentless, graphically gory.