Sploosh - Summer Science Fiction/Fantasy Reads

Summer movies are always filled with super heroes, aliens, wizards, and monsters. Why not sit down with a story full of fantasy and wonder? If you like Science Fiction or Fantasy novels, give these water filled books a try:


Blind Lake
By Robert Charles Wilson
Published by Tom Doherty Associates

At Blind Lake, a large federal research installation in northern Minnesota, scientists are using a technology they barely understand to watch everyday life in a city of lobster like aliens upon a distant planet. They can't contact the aliens in any way or understand their language. All they can do is watch. Then, without warning, a military cordon is imposed on the Blind Lake site. All communication with the outside world is cut off. Food and other vital supplies are delivered by remote control. No one knows why. The scientists, nevertheless, go on with their research. Among them are Nerissa Iverson and the man she recently divorced, Raymond Scutter. They continue to work together despite the difficult conditions and the bitterness between them. Ray believes their efforts are doomed; that culture is arbitrary, and the aliens will forever be an enigma. Nerissa believes there is a commonality of sentient thought, and that our failure to understand is our own ignorance, not a fact of nature. The behavior of the alien she has been tracking seems to be developing an elusive narrative logic--and she comes to feel that the alien is somehow, impossibly, aware of the project's observers. But her time is running out. Ray is turning hostile, stalking her. The military cordon is tightening. Understanding had better come soon......

Check this book out from BPL.


The Silver Ship and the Sea
By Brenda Cooper
Published by Tor
The colony planet Fremont is joyous, riotous, and very wild. Its grasses can cut your arms and legs to ribbons, the rinds of its precious fruit can skewer your thumbs, and some of the predators are bigger than humans. Meteors fall from the sky and volcanoes erupt. Fremont is verdant, rich, beautiful, and dangerous. Fremont's single town, Artistos, perches on a cliff below rugged mountains. Below Artistos lie the Grass Plains, which lead down to the sea. And in the middle of the Grass Plains, a single silver spaceship lies quiet and motionless. The seasons do not dull it, nor do the winds scratch it-and the fearful citizens of Aristos won't go near it. Chelo Lee, her brother Joseph, and four other young children have been abandoned on the colony planet.Unfortunate events have left them orphaned in a human colony that abhors genetic engineering-and these six young people are genetically enhanced. With no one to turn to, Chelo and the others must nowlearn how to use their distinct skills to make this unwelcome planet home, or find a way off it. They have few tools-an old crazy woman who wonders the edges of town,spouting out cryptic messages; their appreciation and affection for each other; a good dose of curiosity; and that abandoned silver space ship that sits locked and alone in the middle of the vast grass plain.

Check this book out from BPL.