O primeiro de todos, Impulse de Dave Bara veio parar à minha caixa de correio depois de participar num passatempo no blog Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist. Este será o primeiro de uma série de ficção científica:
A remote solar system. A fragile galactic alliance. An interstellar war is on the brink of eruption…
When the Lightship Impulse is attacked without provocation, Lt. Peter Cochrane, son of the Grand Admiral, is sent to investigate.
His first deep space mission, this isn’t what Peter has spent three years in training for. Surrounded by strangers and following secret orders, is he willing to do what it takes to keep the alliance together? Even mutiny?
Por sua vez, The Rapture of the Nerds de Cory Doctorow e Charles Stross, é um curioso volume de três histórias que terá tido uma recepção mista pelo público. Como seria de esperar de uma obra de Cory Doctorow apresenta-nos uma espécie de teoria da conspiração:
Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the 21st century. Earth has a population of roughly a billion, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Young Huw, technophobic, misanthropic, has been selected for Tech Jury Service, a task he does his best to perform despite an itchy technovirus, the apathy of the proletariat, and some truly awful moments on bathroom floors.
Contando com mais de uma dezena de SPIN-OFFS e 22 volumes na série principal, a série Fables apresenta algumas interessantes revinvencções dos típicos contos de fadas, mostrando que o “Viveram felizes para sempre” é um mito quase impraticável na vida real – ou pelo menos não de forma tão aborrecida e linear quanto nos fazes acreditar os contos.
Já o segundo volume, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage foi adquirido depois de uma recomendação de João Barreiros na net. E com razão – o interior parece inventivo, inteligente e interessante:
In The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage Sydney Padua transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious set of adventures. Meet two of Victorian London’s greatest geniuses…Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron: mathematician, gambler, and proto-programmer, whose writings contained the first ever appearance of general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. And Charles Babbage, eccentric inventor of the Difference Engine, an enormous clockwork calculating machine that would have been the first computer, if he had ever finished it. But what if things had been different? The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a delightful alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and use it to create runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wider realms of mathematics and, of course, fight crime – for the sake of both London and science. Extremely funny and utterly unusual, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage comes complete with historical curiosities, extensive footnotes and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer. And ray guns. Sydney Padua is an animator and visual effects artist, usually employed in making giant monsters appear to be attacking people for the movies. She started drawing comics by accident with the webcomic 2D Goggles or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage and is still trying to figure out how to stop. Originally from the Canadian prairie, she now lives in London with her husband and far too many books.
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