Engineering Infinity

Laika’s Ghost by Karl Schroeder ★★★★½ 

When an American finds evidence of a Russian pyramid on Mars he is hunted down by Google and other geopolitical entities.  Declining American witness protection he flees to Russia.  This proves to be a great decision because a small group of online patriots have been creating a new hope for Russia, and possibly the world.

The Invasion of Venus by Stephen Baxter ★★★★☆ 
Like an exciting version of Rendezvous with Rama, Baxter crushes human importance in the universe.  

Bit Rot by Charles Stross ★★★½☆
Generation ship cyborgs are hit with cosmic radiation and turn into zombies!

Mercies by Gregory Benford ★★★½☆
A time traveler goes back to kill serial killers, but that technically makes him one too.  

The Ki-anna by Gwyneth Jones ★★★½☆
A scattered story of a man on an alien world in search of his sister’s murderer.  What begins prosaic and boring has a twisted culty end.  If the dark cultural violence had been alluded to beforehand I would have enjoyed it more and rated it higher.

The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees by John Barnes ★★★½☆
May-December romances, cyborgs, and climate change.  I liked the idea of the earth being a part of an endless seeding of the universe.

Creatures with Wings by Kathleen Ann Goonan ★★★☆☆ 
Before an asteroid destroys the earth a group of Buddhist monks is spirited away to another planet.  The rest of the book reads like a SciFi version on The Secret or, more likely, SciFi Buddhism.  It was ok.

Watching the Music Dance by Kristine Katheryn Rusch ★★★☆☆ 
That was a sad story about the extremes of parenting.  One parents pushed too hard and the other must sacrifice the rest of their lives to remedy the situation.  That’s either poignant or dismal.

The Server and the Dragon by Hannu Rajaniemi ★★★☆☆ 
The life, and betrayal, of a space creature.  This was odd.

Judgement Eve by John C. Wright ★★★☆☆ 
An apocalyptic Christian mythos story with genetic engineering and cyborgs.  It reminded me that I have wanted to read Sharon Shinn for ages.  Perhaps if the narrator had not sounded like a jowly, ponderous, lecturn pounding preacher I would have enjoyed it more.

Mantis by Robert Reed  ★★½☆☆
This was a thought exercise about the real verses the might be real - interesting but not fun.

Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone by 

Damien Broderick and Barbara Lamar ★★☆☆☆ 

After a fashion, this was the namesake story, but I did not enjoy it.   This was a physics fantasy that did not feel the need to make sense.

Malak by Peter Watts ★★☆☆☆ 
Oh what a tedious first story.  This is striker drone with updated collateral damage software talking to itself.  Damage by David D. Levine  is better version of this type of story.

A Soldier of the City by David Moles. DNF

After a string of duds I decided to pass when the story did not grab me.

I finished 13/14 stories that average 3.15 stars.