STG's

Seveneves - by Neal Stephenson - is a SF novel. I'm already a big fan of the author - specially because of Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, so once I saw the blurb that was distributed some weeks before the release I just had to get it. The main event that starts the story is that somehow, the moon is destroyed and break ups in several pieces. Which are constantly bumping into each other and breaking up. Soon enough they realize that Earth is going to get a nice set of rings, like Saturn. However, a lot of those pieces are going to start falling and the whole is planet is going to burn for thousands of years. Now their only chance is to Exit Earth into space... or go deep underground or in the ocean. The whole thing reminds me a lot of Exit Earth by Martin Caidin, where the solar system passed through a slightly denser cloud of dust, which just happens to make the sun burns hotter and gets you the same effect - i.e. scorched Earth. The ways they use to try to escape is simil...

The Turing Exception - by William Hertling - is the fourth book in the Singularity series, which starts with an AI being created , has an AI war , AIs and humans (mostly) coexisting and prospering , and now goes to a full dystopia. After a really bad incident, AIs are considered a major threat and many are shut down. The others are not happy with how this is going and are ready to go full Skynet... A lot of interesting tech and ideas here. The previous books started with reasonable, minor advances on today's tech but this went almost full singularity on us. Plenty of nanotech doing a whole lot of stuff, multiple existences through mind uploads, and much more. Overall, really good, with a very reasonable and exciting ending that is not the easy way out (minor spoiler: wait, the AIs design a lot of crazy stuff and build it almost instantly with nanotech, but have to request real rockets? WTF?) (on a funny note, searching the title in Amazon gets you C++ and Object-Oriented Nu...

An Unwelcome Quest - by Scott Meyer - is the third novel in the Magic 2.0 series. In the series, some people discover a file that proves that the world is a computer simulation, and end up traveling to the dark ages to use manipulations of the file as magic (sounds silly, I know - but in the novels it goes a lot better than in my summary). In this installment, another of the wizards that were banned without powers get his powers back, and creates a deadly quest for the wizards that banned him. Overall, pretty good, although a bit short and not as good as the first book. Still, if you liked the series it is well worth reading.

Imminence - Highland World in Crisis - by David Trump - is an SF novel with an interesting mix of high and low tech. The novel starts with a cute premise - using an asteroid with uploaded people to colonize new worlds. I can't recall seeing a hyper drive where you actually moved back in time, though. After an accident, a colony is created, which leads to a society that is low tech except for some elements that most people don't understand (such as transports between the separate worlds). I usually prefer more high tech, but this worked well, and overall I found it interesting, although it feels like the writing could be better.

The Last Firewall - by William Hertling - is the third book in the Singularity series - which covers AIs. I have really liked and reviewed the first two books in the series Avogrado Corp  and AI Apocalypse . It actually took me this long to read the third novel because I simply forgot I had it, and it got lost in the large number of unread Kindle book I have. When I was reminded by Amazon suggesting the fourth book, I read it under a day. The Last Firewall continues the series deeper in the future, after AIs became commonplace and have now replaced humans for most work. Because jobs are so rare and goods produced by AIs are so cheap, people in the US get an stipend. Everyone has an implant. AIs are strictly regulated in how much processing they can have and a social index has been created to judge them. But now humans are being killed through their implants, and a girl with a unique implant is discovering her powers... Really liked this one. The tech is way more fictional t...

Gray Justice - by Alan McDermott - is a very clever techno thriller. An ex-soldier loses his wife and child because of the actions of a thief - which is soon back on the street. And then decides to abduct him and a few criminals to make a show out of it where the country votes if they should live or die - while making the authorities let him do it because he placed a device that can kill thousands somewhere... Not only isn't everything what it seems, but also at the same time a terrorist group takes an interest in the situation. Very good, and I kind of liked some of the measures that are suggested to make the justice system more effective.

Hunters of the Dead is a Tower Defense (kind of) and strategic game where you fight several monsters while trying to kill Dracula. You start with a single building and defender, and you can at each day (turn) try to clear another building. There is a chance of a battle, and if you survive it you get the benefits of the screen below - such as a new defender, faster healing, new guns, etc. Except for the battles, you might have seen this as a flash game (using a zombie wasteland) before. Battle takes place with a grid where you put your defenders - which might remind you of Plants vs Zombies, except that you can actually move your defenders a few times. Every defender has experience that rises when it kills an enemy, and can receive guns you collect at guns stores. They also need to heal and to rest every few rounds, which can be very bad (i.e.: at starting levels it is very easy to have all your defenders resting). The game grid is random, and the game itself is very hard...