Summer Reading List 2015 - brian

Summer doesn't mean much to me anymore, besides the changing of the seasons. I work a corporate job, so my hours don't change, and neither does my workload. No more time to read, but also no less time to read. And when it's actually nice out (and not as rainy as it's been in my part of the world), I might actually do less reading because I'm out running or riding my motorcycle. But the heat and summer travel does give me some opportunities to grind through some books, so here are a few what I'm looking forward to!

1. Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman

This one is cheating. I'm actually halfway through it. Review is incoming. But it initially interested me because I'm into sci-fi, space exploration, and alien worlds.





 
2. Blindsight by Peter Watts

Surely you've read my review of Echopraxia by now. I absolutely must go back and read Blindsight.







3. Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson

Er, uh, yeah. I've been reading the Malazan series for probably eight years now, and I'm still not done. I'm kind of a slow reader, and I took several breaks between books and during them to read something else. Not that I'm not enjoying them! They're rather good! But they're enormous. So maybe this summer, I might finish Reaper's Gale, and then I'll be one book closer to the end.




And hey, what would a summer reading list from brian be without summer video games?

1. The Talos Principle

Stay with me here: a first person puzzle game, in the vein of Portal, made by Croteam, the same people who made the Serious Sam games. I can't think of two things less alike than Portal and Serious Sam. However, it got a lot of positive reviews and I did love Serious Sam.

2. Apotheon

Stylish, Greek mythology themed metroidvania. I'm a huge fan of the metroidvania genre and I picked up Apotheon during GOG.com's summer sale. Though I've seen reviews that say it's got a few flaws, I'm very much looking forward to it.



 

3. Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri

This is a classic that I never got to play. I got into Looking Glass Studios around System Shock 2, which was a little beyond when Terra Nova was easy to find. I wasn't even really aware of it until much later. But good news! It's been re-released on GOG.com, so I grabbed it! Though I don't exactly have the highest hopes, I love mech suit type games, and it kind of sounds like it takes an Armor approach to mech warfare. There's a great retrospective at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.



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POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014