Editorial reviews

Calhoun's biggest ideas, though, concern perception. His prose-rich passages of hallucinogenic abandon aren't psychedelic — they're razor-sharp.

Daniel Suarez has successfully introduced technology and themes that will engage all readers. Influx has enough suspense and intrigue to keep the pages turning right up to the climactic finale.

So far Black Moon is one of the best books I've read in 2014.

Annihilation displays a familiar fascination with the reshaped body, the idea of infection as a way to a new understanding of the world.

While this is a philosophical novel that asks many, many more questions than it answers, it is so riveting, destabilizing and utterly strange that the new wonders it introduces compel you more than any simple answer could.

Fortune’s Pawn was an absolute roller coaster of thrills.

Fun, with phasers on lethal.

“Annihilation” is successfully creepy, an old-style gothic horror novel set in a not-too-distant future. The best bits turn your mind inside out.

Rachel Bach simply outdoes herself with this one and whatever anticipation, I had was simply blown away by the awesomeness of this story.

Annihilation features murder, suicide and a full-cavity search by an alien monster, yet it arrives at a dream of reconciliation, hauntingly familiar, between an estranged husband and wife.

Fun tech-fiction wrapped in black helicopter conspiracy.

As debut novels go, you won't find many finer than THE MARTIAN by Andy Weir.... From its opening descent into chaos to the final nail-biting pages, the book is a complete triumph.

It’s a concentrated, slick narrative, an affecting, profoundly lonely story that’ll have you looking over your shoulder for days.

That’s as may be, but if sanity is knowing what’s at the bottom (or top) of Annihilation’s terrible tower (or tunnel), I think I’d rather be mad.

The Martian is an intelligent and witty science-based story that reminds its audience of human abilities and perseverance.

Unlike some of the futuristic novels to which it will be compared, Forstchen’s work is as convincingly told as it is diverting.

It’s hard not to be swept up in his vision and root for everyone one of these characters to survive the hardships Weir puts them through.

While Pillar to the Sky pursues a technological dream (which I very much hope becomes a reality), ultimately the book is about the challenges facing humanity.

Annihilation is a book meant for gulping — for going in head-first and not coming up for air until you hit the back cover.

Readers who thrive on tension and excitement will feel themselves amply rewarded; those who tend to question underlying assumptions, not so much.