STG's

The Sundering: Dread Empire's Fall, by Walter Jon Williams, is the second book in the Praxis series. The story continues where it stopped. Thanks to the main heroes (Martinez and Sula) things are not so hopeless for the loyalists, and everything changed in the war. One of the things that changed is that now they go to full on guerrilla warfare, which is an interesting change of pace from the ship only battles. Overall, very much fun for military space opera fans.

The Praxis , by Walter Jon Williams, is the start of a SF series about an interstellar empire. I've read Impersonations  earlier this year and I sort of regretted it reading before this one. It gives away a very big plot point which I might have suspected, but would have been much more fun to find out. I ended up reading it on Google Play Books, because the author's newsletter warned about a nice discount. While it isn't bad, it feels markedly inferior to Amazon's Kindle app. I had used it before on some EPub books, but most shorter technical volumes. The plot is interesting. An older race, the Shaa, has forced several races, including humans, into their federation, mostly by bombarding them. Mildly crazy side note: As a Brazilian, I am conceptually offended that aliens keep bombing Buenos Aires. After all, São Paulo is much bigger. It is not the country's capital though. The Shaa forbid a lot of things, including AIs, nanotech, immortality, etc, which is ...

Walkaway is a Cory Doctorow SF novel about a future where automation is rampant, the rich are richer than ever and most people can't make a living. These walk away from default society, and go to make adhoc groups where regular society has given up, such as abandoned areas. I found that the way it was a dystopia and an utopia (the walkaway) at the same time. Some of the tech is really near future (such as most everything being easily printable if you have the templates) and other is made up. What I have some difficulty believing is how, generally, everything goes well with a society with no accountability. I really doubt that would work in practice. It also feels a bit like propaganda against capitalism. I was reminded of the reputation economy by Charles Stross - I can believe more on that working out as there are actual direct incentives from helping, and it feels harder to game the system. Overall, very interesting and recommended if you like the author.

Far Cry 4 is basically Far Cry 3 with some new stuff. I can't say I blame them - Far Cry 3 was pretty good and there was little incentive to mess with the formula. Most differences are small, such as new mission types, and minor things like the main protagonist having his own house where you can buy upgrades. Some new things, like the ability to retake outposts, are quite nice. Overall, I really like it. I'm not sure if it is better or worse than Far Cry 3, but it is still worth playing, specially at a discount.

I just finished the third book in Neal Asher's Transformation series - Infinity Engine. The book takes place in the Polity and mostly concerns the creation, breakdown and ascension of Penny Royal (while showing a whole lot of characters from the other books). I do now wonder if Asher already had some of this in mind as Penny Royal first appeared in his books... The series was simply spectacular, and ended very, very well. It would be very confusing to start from this book, of course, but I strongly recommend it, the Polity series, and the Transformation series.

Dawn of the Singularity, by David Simpson, is a pretty good SF book about humans interfacing with computers, and AIs. I enjoyed the tech descriptions and the story line. Overall, recommended if you like the topics.

The Iron Tactician, by Alastair Reynolds, is another SF novella with Merlin, which I have previously seen in Merlin's Gun. Merlin encounters a frozen swallowship, goes to investigate and finds a lone survivor. From her, he learns that he might get something he needs at another system, and gets in the middle of a war. The supposed big surprise is the Iron Tactician and its nature. Of course, if I had not seen this elsewhere (I particularly remember a few Anne Mccaffrey novels, but I won't specify which to avoid spoilers), it might be surprising. As it was, I saw the twist coming a lot early. Still worth checking out.