Book #104 of 2026: The Rock Rats by Ben Bova (The Asteroid Wars #2) Author Ben Bova’s Grand Tour stories of outer space exploration continue to be hit-or-miss for me, and this title unfortunately isn’t one of the better ones. There’s the core of a neat idea here, involving the small community that’s grown up …
Tag Archives: science-fiction
Book Review: Doctor Who: White Darkness by David A. McIntee
Book #103 of 2026: Doctor Who: White Darkness by David A. McIntee (Virgin New Adventures #15) Largely a back-to-basics reset for the series, bringing the Seventh Doctor and his companions Ace and Bernice to Haiti in 1915, amid the unrest that ultimately led to an American invasion and occupation of the island country. While not …
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Book Review: Jupiter by Ben Bova
Book #93 of 2026: Jupiter by Ben Bova I’m not convinced that this story about an established research station orbiting Jupiter really is the next chronologically in Ben Bova’s Grand Tour sequence after The Precipice, in which humanity was first starting to mine the asteroid belt for resources, but that’s what the late author’s website …
Book Review: Doctor Who: Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box by Kalynn Bayron
Book #92 of 2026: Doctor Who: Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box by Kalynn Bayron (Icons #3) Pretty good as a Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby story, neatly slipping into the dynamic they shared together over their one season on TV. I can’t help feeling like the title figure falls through the cracks a bit, though, …
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TV Review: Classic Doctor Who, season 26
TV #28 of 2026: Classic Doctor Who, season 26 By certain metrics, what we now call the “Classic” iteration of Doctor Who had already gone on too long when it was eventually cancelled in 1989. Twenty-six seasons is far more than most TV shows get to have, and the program had passed through some dire …
Book Review: The Precipice by Ben Bova
Book #82 of 2026: The Precipice by Ben Bova (The Asteroid Wars #1) This 2001 novel marks the start of a new sub-series within author Ben Bova’s Grand Tour saga, but it also represents the culmination of several previous titles that provide valuable context for returning readers. It’s chronologically the last of his stories to …
Book Review: Doctor Who: Lucifer Rising by Andy Lane and Jim Mortimer
Book #81 of 2026: Doctor Who: Lucifer Rising by Andy Lane and Jim Mortimer (Virgin New Adventures #14) The longest entry in its series so far is also one of the best, delivering a militaristic space opera that in many ways presages later adventures in the franchise such as The Impossible Planet / The Satan …
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Book Review: Radiant Star by Ann Leckie
Book #75 of 2026: Radiant Star by Ann Leckie This latest entry is probably the weakest of the six novels in author Ann Leckie’s extended Imperial Radch saga so far, but it’s still an enjoyable enough time that I’m comfortable giving it three-and-a-half stars (radiant or otherwise), rounded up. It takes place during / after …
Book Review: Return to Mars by Ben Bova
Book #71 of 2026: Return to Mars by Ben Bova A largely pointless rehash of a sequel. I really enjoyed Ben Bova’s novel Mars in his loose Grand Tour saga of early space exploration, but there’s little that this second visit to the red planet accomplishes that wasn’t done better in the first. You also …
Book Review: Doctor Who: Charles Darwin and the Silurian Survival by L. D. Lapinski
Book #70 of 2026: Doctor Who: Charles Darwin and the Silurian Survival by L. D. Lapinski (Icons #2) This is one of the better Doctor Who historical celebrity stories, and definitely an improvement over the Thirteen / Frida Kahlo adventure that launched this recent novella series. Here instead it’s the Tenth Doctor meeting a young …
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