I've finished Tchaikovsky's Children of Strife.  I thought it was very good, and a worthy addition to that universe.

I'm finding it hard to describe without dropping spoilers, but it does a good job of giving us some of the earlier history of the Earth that led to Kern's nanovirus uplift programme and the ark ships that followed.  It gives us the Portiid spiders and their Human partners, a version of Kern herself, an instance of the entity from Nod, and a simulation survivor from Imir, as shown in the previous books.  New characters include a group of the original Kern's competitors who escape from Earth on their own, their subsequent interaction with an ark ship and what they end up doing on and to another terraformed planet, as well as an example of another species uplifted alongside the Portiids on Kern's World.

Recommended to those who enjoyed the earlier books in the series.  It might also work as an entry point for those who haven't read the predecessor volumes.

I'm stepping away from SF/F for the next little while.  I am currently reading a literary(?) political thriller first novel and will be following that with some new tartan noir before heading back to the SF ghetto via a century old example of Russian SF.  That should be interesting.
 

starexplorer wrote:

Aja Jin wrote:

starexplorer wrote:

fascinating that it’s hidden in a collection devoted to PA

Flandry is a PA character

Indeed. PA has always been in the pantheon of SF for me
 

Poul Anderson (and Flandry) has been a favorite for almost 60 years. I remember hearing about this book pre-publication but I've never seen a copy, now I want to find one so I can at least read CJ's story.

Now back into my usual genre, reading The Last Contract of Isako, by Fonda Lee. It's hitting all the right notes for me at 20% in, very good.   After BHH, it's like a comfort read LOL. 

It was recommended by Elizabeth Bear on bluesky: "A ronin movie murder mystery political thriller with worldbuilding reminiscent of C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen."

Last edited by Aja Jin (6/08/2026 9:57 am)

starexplorer wrote:

Aja Jin wrote:

Now back into my usual genre, reading The Last Contract of Isako, by Fonda Lee. It's hitting all the right notes for me at 20% in, very good.   After BHH, it's like a comfort read LOL. 

It was recommended by Elizabeth Bear on bluesky: "A ronin movie murder mystery political thriller with worldbuilding reminiscent of C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen."

intriguing and the highest praise!

I heard about Buffalo Hunter Hunter winning the Nebula, so that makes it an automatic addition to the TBR Pile for future reading at some stage.  I don't have an aversion to historical horror being part of the overall SF/F genre as there are plenty of precedents (GRRM's own Fevre Dream, Somtow Sucharitkal's Moon Dance and suchlike) though, like our resident mahe, it's not a sub-genre I'm usually drawn to.

And I have to check out the Fonda Lee book on the basis of that recommendation alone. Anything referencing Cyteen will get my attention, so I'll be curious 

Recent reading for me has included Da Empoli's Wizard of the Kremlin and Chris Brookmyre's Quite Ugly One Evening. Both recommended but neither are SF. Interesting to see some commonality in genuine analysis of current international politics as filtered through differing fictional lenses unconnected to mass media agendas, btw.

Currently reading a book which supposedly inspired Orwell's 1984 - We, by Yevgeny Zamyatev - while also rereading Truhen/Harkaway's The Price You Pay ahead of its forthcoming tv adaptation.  Not sure what I'll tackle after that.