SF Goes East: 2010's Best Science Fiction Stories

The Year's Best Science Fiction 2010
Twenty Seventh Annual Collection
Ed. Gardner Dozois
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 27th edition (July 6, 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-0312608989
Available at Amazon

From the book jacket:

"For more than a quarter century, Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction has defined the field.  It is the most important anthology, not only annually, but overall."    -Charles N. Brown, Publisher of LOCUS magazine.


Stories are often the beginnings of sci-fi books.  Authors say that the characters, once created, dictate the direction a book will follow, so they can continue to live their lives after the first story ends.  But the first key to unlock the book is, for many authors, the story.

Intelligent Intelligence Thriller

The Breath of Allah
Steven W. Ritcheson
Copyright 2001
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 1466246774
Available at Amazon


"Thomas Jefferson only had it partly right -- eternal vigilance was not only the price of liberty, it was the price of survival  ...  even a paranoid has enemies.  I would regret later that I had not paid more attention to this warning."  Charles Rayson, TAG

If you are inspired by finding a nice calming historical read for an evening just to get away from those mundane daily activities, this book is not for you. On the other hand, if you prefer something a bit more adventurous, with pulse-pounding action that will keep you turning pages to see what happens next, something that will keep you from getting your chores done until you finish the book, you'll like it a lot.

In this era of high-tech espionage, the folks in "The Breath of Allah" are constantly trying to keep one step ahead of a complex and ever-changing landscape of bad guys trying to kill them, while developing new ways of using technology to keep ahead.  Some of the tools they use are just a hair's breadth away from today's technology, and others will take awhile to be more than fiction, but all are plausible in this new world of black hat and white hat hackers:  a spy-vs-spy-vs-techie-vs-techie chess game.  The TAG is a team of experts with clandestine operations skills, techie know-how, inventive engineering capabilities, and battle-tested survival skills.  Their task is to know more first, to prevent the unthinkable before it happens.

Seeing the Unseeable

Have you ever heard sounds that you were sure didn’t exist? Maybe you smelled something you knew wasn’t in the area. Perhaps you experienced both, maybe even both together. I have and it is scary, so scary that you might think you are losing your mind. Never fear for me. I finally discovered I was having “awake dreaming” from lack of good, sound sleep. But the hero of our next book has not found himself so lucky.

Top 5 Ways to Kill your Love of Reading

Here on Sensual Sunday we like to post things that concern the senses, most often touch as in I touch him, he touches me, and my heart just pops. Today, though, we will be delving into the world of love - the love of reading. The author of Farsighted has graciously stopped by to talk about reading. Her new book, Farsighted also deals with sight - the lack of it and with second sight. Look for my review of her