Pyramid Scheme is another humorous science fiction novel from the authors of Rats, Bats, and Vats and The Rats, The Bats, & The Ugly.

An alien probe, in the shape of a pyramid, lands in Chicago and starts growing rapidly. It captures some of the people in the vicinity and sends them into an alternate universe, where most of them die within hours. A handful survive and start to thrive. The new universe contains the Greek and Egyptian gods and characters from Greek mythology, including the ever-un­trust­wor­thy Odysseus.

The plot is too …continue.

This book concludes Robinson's trilogy about en­vi­ron­men­tal collapse, begun in Forty Signs of Rain and continued in Fifty Degrees Below.

Set in the near future, major climate change has already begun: freezing winters, melting icecaps, and rising sealevels. Senator Phil Chase has just been elected President and his aide, Charlie Quibler, must help the new ad­min­is­tra­tion tackle en­vi­ro­men­tal collapse head on. Frank Vanderwal, formerly of the National Science Foundation, follows his boss to the White House when she becomes the new pres­i­den­t's science advisor.

Robinson draws a fright­en­ing and …continue.

No good deed goes unpunished might be the motto of this sequel to Rats, Bats, and Vats.

In the previous book, a motley assortment of grunts destroyed a hive of the alien invaders. The military es­tab­lish­ment don't really appreciate being shown up as in­com­pe­tent buffoons, and do their best to persecute and prosecute the human leading the grunts, as well as the military in­tel­li­gence major who spotted what they were up to and sent in help.

Our heroes are forced into a con­fronta­tion with …continue.

A bunch of grunts, trapped behind enemy lines, wreak havoc on the hive of the Magh invaders. No ordinary grunts these, they include a dozen uplifted rats and bats, a vat-grown human sous-chef turned conscript, and the rescued daughter of a very rich Share­hold­er. The rats revel in Shake­speare­an names and ribaldry. The bats have stage-Oirish personas, socialist leanings, and expertise with explosives.

Due to forceshield technology, they're fighting a World War I-style trench war on the planet Harmony and Reason, The generals, like the rest of the …continue.

Kivrin is a student historian sent back in time to December 1320 to observe a medieval Christmas in an Ox­ford­shire village. Back in the Oxford of the mid-twen­ty­first century, her tutor Dunworthy grows extremely worried, as the tech who sent her back collapsed into a coma, mumbling something about slippage.

The book alternates between Kivrin and Dunworthy. Kivrin falls sick just after she lands. She wakes in an isolated, snowbound country manor, being nursed by Lady Eliwys and her mother-in-law Lady Imeyne.

Dunworthy becomes ever more worried when Oxford and its environs …continue.

Robin wakes up in a 27th-century clinic missing most of his memories, apparently arranged by his earlier self. After a few weeks of re­cu­per­a­tion, he agrees to take part in an experiment, the YFH polity, to recreate a microcosm of the 20th century, an era largely lost to historians.

Robin awakes in a female body called Reeve. (The post-Sin­gu­lar­i­ty society has advanced technology which can reassemble human bodies and replicate just about anything you can think of.) Forced to get along in the very conformist society that the ex­per­i­menters are building, Reeve ex­pe­ri­ences …continue.

The Algebraist is Iain M. Banks' most recent science-fiction novel. Most of his SF novels are set in the universe of the Culture. This one is assuredly not. Artificial In­tel­li­gences are hated and persecuted.

Fassin Taak is a human Slow Seer, a sort of an­thro­pol­o­gist who studies the Dwellers, an extremely long-lived race who live on gas-giant planets scattered across the galaxy. He is recruited by his government to in­ves­ti­gate rumors of a secret list of wormholes, which would yield new, high-speed routes across the galaxy. At the same …continue.

Fifty years hence, Janus, one of the moons of Saturn, suddenly leaves its orbit and starts heading for Spica, 260 light years away. Only the mining ship Rockhopper can intercept what is now apparent as a long-dormant alien artifact and learn something about it. Things go wrong and the ship crash lands on Janus, as it heads towards Spica at near-rel­a­tivis­tic speed. The crew splits into factions led by the captain, Bella Lind, and the chief engineer, Svetlana Barseghian, once the best of friends, now implacable enemies.

Reynolds tells an exciting tale of big …continue.

The fourth in­stall­ment in Traviss's series about the wess'har, which began with City of Pearl. The plot is too complex to summarize here, and would make little sense if you haven't read the preceding books.

This is in­tel­li­gent, character-driven SF, written for adults. A small cast of humans interact with four very different alien races, far from home. These aliens are not Americans with green skin; they live by different rules. The humans are flawed people who struggle with complex issues.

Traviss's themes include ecology, ethics, and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. She also throws in some action …continue.