Frank Herbert is a man whose works need no introduction, with his Dune series being one of the most celebrated and influential writings of all time.
In the fourth book of the series, God Emperor of Dune, we follow the story of the now-inhuman Leto Atreides, son of Paul, who once merged with a sandworm to preserve humanity, attaining a quasi-immortality. A rebellion stirs in his house to oppose his oppressive rule, but it might all play into his hands.
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A Marriage of Two Terrors
“The Ruin of Delicate Things” by Beverley Lee – A Void which can’t be Filled
The Wild Ride to Humanity’s End
“Quantum Time” by Douglas Phillips – An Extra-dimensional Journey
The Perfect Murder
“A Fatal Grace” by Louise Penny – An Open Death Nobody Saw
Guy Gavriel Kay Delivers a Remembrance
“A Brightness Long Ago” by Guy Gavriel Kay – The Meeting Between Free Will and Fate
The Truth of Different Perspectives
“The Splendid and the Vile” by Erik Larson – Stiff Upper Lip
The Encyclopedic Nature of Discovery
“The Years of Rice and Salt” by Kim Stanley Robinson – Life After a Dead Europe
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“Quantum Void” by Douglas Phillips – Leaping into the Uncharted Cosmos
Douglas Phillips began his unusual and highly-captivating exploration of quantum physics and space travel with the aptly-named Quantum Series, and in the second book, titled Quantum Void, he takes things one-step further.
With the recent discovery allowing to compress space, intergalactic travel has been opened up to infinite possibilities, and the humanity is preparing to send six envoys to an alien civilization light-years away.
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“The Last Flight” by Julie Clark – Strangers in Shackles
Julie Clark has managed to shoot her way to literary stardom with only her second published novel, titled The Last Flight.
In it, we are presented with the story of Claire, controlled and domineered by her powerful husband at every turn. She concocts a plan to escape, and through a strange twist of fate involving another woman named Eva, the world believes her dead, and she ends up having to live a new life under an assumed identity.
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“Still Life” by Louise Penny – No Accidents in Three Pines
Louise Penny, back in 2008, began something I’m sure even she had trouble anticipating, creating the first novel in the Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery series (now with sixteen entries and counting), titled Still Life.
For his first time out under the sun, the inspector is tasked with a deceitful case, appearing like an open-and-shut tragic accident. Gamache, however, can feel there’s something dark and rotten hiding in the remote woods of Three Pines.
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“Transcendent Kingdom” by Yaa Gyasi – The Fate-Scorched Family
Yaa Gyasi has stunned the world more than once since her recent arrival on the literary scene, and Transcendent Kingdom is her latest effort to draw on her unique life experiences to write a novel.
The story follows Gifty, a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience whose brother passed from a heroin overdose and whose suicidal mother basically lives in her bed. Struggling to find answers in both science and faith, Gifty sees there are no easy paths open to her.
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“Quantum Space” by Douglas Phillips – Lost in a Space Limbo
Despite having technically been in front of our eyes since our existence, the realm of particle physics still holds a vast and seemingly endless ocean of secrets from us.
In Quantum Space by Douglas Phillips, the most bizarre event in human space flight occurs as a space capsule with there people aboard simply disappears upon reentry. With the solution somehow laying in the field of particle physics, the race against the clock begins to return the astronauts home.
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“Diamond Doris” by Doris Payne – A Jewel Thief’s Destiny
Doris Payne is without a doubt one of the most unusual women one could hope to meet, boasting a six-decade long career as a notorious international jewel thief.
Now almost ninety years old and still getting regularly convicted for theft, she has decided to write her autobiography to share her unique life story with the rest of the world. In Diamond Doris she recalls as much as she can from her life, showing her true face to all.
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“Greenwood” by Michael Christie – Tracing the Tangled Roots of a Family
Michael Christie began his career as an author in promising fashion, being nominated for awards left and right. In his second published novel, Greenwood, he attempts to make full use of his talents to tell the complicated story of a family across multiple generations.
Taking us on a trip through time from 1908 to 2038, we meet the four pivotal members who through their actions, both purposeful and unwitting, dictated their family’s history.
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“Ash and Quill” by Rachel Caine – Salvation in the Machine
Rachel Caine has created an enthralling universe of alternate history in her Great Library Series, portraying a world where the library of Alexandria survived the fire.
In the third book, titled Ash and Quill, we follow Jess and his band as they take refuge in a rebellious Burner world, opposed to the library’s tyranny. However, Jess finds more enemies than friends among them, but holds one bargaining chip: the knowledge to build a machine capable of withstanding the Great Library.
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“The Day of the Jackal” by Frederick Forsyth – The Pinnacle of Professional Killing
Frederick Forsyth might have very well written one of the absolute best criminal espionage novels when he published The Day of the Jackal back in 1971.
Following a nameless English hitman known only as The Jackal, the story focuses on his methodical preparation to carry out what might be the most ambitious assassination of all time: killing Charles de Gaulle.
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