Matthews, Susan R. Books

Revisions

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Delightful New Alternate History Shorts... 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Unlike most alternate history anthologies, ReVisions consists of all new and original stories, a great change from the constantly re-hashed collections. All of the stories in ReVisions deal with some sort of technological, social, or anthropological change. There's everything from Nikola Tesla inventing the laser to the Sumerians creating the printing press, to what might have happened if dogs had never been domesticated or if Da Vinci's inventions had actually been put into effect.

The stories themselves, while creative and original, do not seem to have been edited as well as they might have been, keeping me from giving ReVisions a full five stars. It's a new release, and so you probably won't find it in used bookstores. That being said, I have no regrets about spending the full price to buy from Amazon.

The topics featured for diversion are best-suited for scientific and engineering types, but there are a few to satisfy those preferring socially-based or even anthropological stories.

Editorial Review:

Fifteen original tales of "what if"

Some of today's top science fiction writers explore the futures that might have been, including original stories from Julie E. Czerneda and other great names in the genre.

An Exchange of Hostages

Susan R. Matthews

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

You'll feel dirty for enjoying this. 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book is really just a morality play with a sci-fi setting. The story really calls into question what is appropiate punishment, how far should the 'law' go in order to seek out a crime?

The main character is being instructed on how to be an adjucator (read: torturer), basically one who confronts and tortures prisoners in order to get them to confess their guilt. The twist invovles the fact is that he's a surgeon, and is also bound by his 'do no harm' vows.

However, as we progress we learn the character enjoys using his medical knowledge to harm and heal properly. So, I guess if you enjoy sadism, this book is for you.

Editorial Review:

Andrej Koscuisko had graduated with the highest honors from the Mayon Medical Center and could have started a lucrative private practice. But his father had other plans for him, sending him to Fleet Orientation Station Medical where he will learn to become a Ship's Surgeon, a highly skilled torturer armed with the powerful Writ of Inquistion. Unable to escape his brutal training, Koscuisko will have to reconcile his natural empathy for the sick with a dark secret he will learn about himself. First-time author Susan Matthews demonstrates a sure hand and proves she's not afraid to take on a disturbing subject.

Prisoner of Conscience

Susan R. Matthews

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

SF or SM? Either way it is great writing 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

What would you do if you had the power of life and death over people every day? What if you felt guilty because you loved having that power?

This is the dilemma that faces the protagonist in Susan Matthew's "Prisoner of Conscience". Set in a universe where independent planets face conquest and suppression by a theocratic government and punitive slavery is enforced by biomechanical devices, Ms. Matthews relies on interesting moral conflicts and well written characters rather than complex scientific gadgetry to tell her story.

Given the strong psychological suspense and not so subtle sexual undertones, this book seems more like a BDSM novel than straight science fiction. Either way, this book makes an engrossing read and I would recommend it quite strongly.

Editorial Review:

Andrei Koscuisko is an Inquisitor for the Bench federation of worlds. It is his duty to root out -- quickly, efficiently, quietly -- anyone who would threaten the ruling order.

Andrei has been posted to the penal facility at Port Rudistal. Here hundreds of prisoners -- traitors who dared dream of freedom and self-rule -- await interrogation. They know an Inquisitor's judgment is firm and unassailable. Yet there is a line that even he may not cross.

Although an Inquisitor is not supposed to feel outrage, weakness or pity, Andrei is, above all, a man of honor. And now he must risk his career -- and perhaps his life -- exposing the truth that lies behind the black walls of Domitt Prison.

A riveting novel of one man's courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Prisoner of Conscience again showcases one of the most promising voices in contemporary science fiction.

Colony Fleet

Susan R. Matthews

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Four hundred years have passed since the leaders of an ecologically threatened Earth launched a great fleet of asteroid ships toward the stars. Five pristine planets were designated to be colonized by descendants of the first crews. Each new world would be inhabited by a homogenous mix of creators and facilitators, workers and intelligentsia. All would prosper in harmonious equality. But things have changed over the centuries...

Hillbrane Harkover belongs to the Jneers, the privileged third of the tripartite class system that evolved during the voyage. Now, with the first world landing mere months away, she finds herself betrayed by one of her own, expelled from her caste, and exiled to the dangerous fringes of the fleet. Abandoned here, where lowly Mechs toil in unsafe, unhealthy conditions, Hillbrane no longer has a place in the cruel hierarchy she has always taken for granted. But a four-century-old dream is suddenly in dire jeopardy, doomed by custom, suspicion, and class hatred. And someone on the outside may be the only one who can save the first colony--and the fleet--from catastrophe.

Avalanche Soldier

Susan R. Matthews

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Salli is an avalanche soldier. As a member of the elite paramilitary force she is responsible for prtecting the religious shrines scattered throughout the mountainous silderness regions of the troubled state of Shadene. As a devout member of the Orhodox Dreaming she freely accepts the faith that life is a dream, and that true believers will one day be awakened by the coming Messiah. But there is another faith on Shadene that preaches heresy-and its existence has sparked horrific acts of terrorism and civil unrest.

And suddenly Salli's life has been ripped in two. Her brother-vanished under a cloud of suspicion-is believed to have embraced the false religion. As a soldier sworn to safeguard Orthodox interests, Sali must track him down and return him to the fold. But as a disciple of the one true Messiah, she must confront the crisis that now assaults her conscience and her creed. For there is a woman in the enemy enclave who inspires fervent devotion-a personage of great power who impossibly, yet undeniably, shows signs of being the prophesied One.

Warring States: A Jurisdiction Novel

Susan R. Matthews

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Yipee! Another Jurisdiction novel! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

The eagerly awaited next installment of The Life & Hard Times of Andrej Koscuisko is here! All major points having been covered in previous reviews, I'll just add my opinion that Susan has done it again. Our beloved favorite characters are all here (even Joslire through his family), including cameos from those we might have forgotten about. The emotions run just as high or higher than in previous books, despite the reformation of certain characters. Hints of what is yet to happen in this universe will keep you checking to see when the next novel is scheduled for release.

I will reiterate the warnings of previous posts, however. This is a volume of a series, so it's best to begin at the beginning with Exchange of Hostages. Otherwise, some of the shocking page-turners in this book just aren't as shocking.

Editorial Review:

The Ragnarok's legal status has been ambiguous since it shot its way out of Taisheki Station to escape a threat against the lives of its innocent crew. Ship's Inquisitor Andrej Koscuisko hopes to take advantage of this period of chaos and unrest to see his bond-involuntary Security slaves somehow freed and sent to Gonebeyond space. The personal conflict he is experiencing has surprised and distressed him, and yet he cannot afford to let his private agonies interfere with his purpose. But an incident that happened years ago in a dark cold street in Port Rudistal - the site of the Domitt Prison - has bound Koscuisko to a man who, all unknowingly, holds the key to a murder that's changed the course of history. More alone than he has ever been in his life, Andrej must face the deadliest threat he has ever encountered - the unknown enemy who murdered the First Secretary at Chilleau Judiciary, and set all of Jurisdiction Space into anarchy and horror.

Angel of Destruction

Susan R. Matthews

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great, but I missed Andrej 4 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

A while ago I wrote a review expressing the wish that Miss Matthews would write a book focusing more on the Bench Federation itself; and here it is. I wasn't disappointed, and the only reason I haven't given this engaging book 5 stars is because Koscuisko makes only the briefest appearance in it...
Garol Vogel (the powerful Bench Intelligence Specialist first encountered in 'Hour of Judgement') has arranged for the Langsariks, an outlaw race, to come into the Bench fold. However, outside forces are working against the Langsariks, attempting to frame them for unspeakable crimes against Jurisdiction. Vogel has to track down the guilty parties before the Bench turns its considerable might against the Langsarik settlement.
This is an intelligent, sometimes gripping read and, because this is the Bench we're talking about, you can't be sure until the very end whether or not there'll be a happy ending. Admittedly, there's less emotional depth than in the three previous books, but there's perhaps more story; it's likely to appeal to people who were put off by the violence of the Koscuisko books.

Editorial Review:

"[Matthews] brilliantly uses science fiction's freedom of creation." (The Denver Post)

"Matthews will stand out in a field dominated (in numbers if not in stature) by mediocre imitators." (Analog)

A stand-alone novel set in Susan R. Matthews's critically acclaimed "Judiciary" universe, Angel of Destruction focuses on Bench officer Garol Vogel and his attempts to make peace with the Langsarik people-the people his own Judiciary drove into a life of piracy...

Hour of Judgment

Susan R. Matthews

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Susan Matthews is the most underrated sci-fi writer around. 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 11 people found this review helpful.

One of Harold Bloom's criterion for great literature (he's talking about Dante, Shakespeare and Virgil) is "strangeness." He goes on to explain that the greatest literature in Western Civilization shares two seemingly conflicting characteristics--that the work is unique--he calls it "strange." It's like nothing else that's ever been written before. Yet on the other hand, the work is also familiar. Somehow the work resonantes with the reader--at once both familiar and yet strange. I think Susan Matthews falls into this cateogry very neatly. In terms of science fiction. I don't agree that this series has run its course. Her character, Andrej Kosciuscko-however-you-spell-his- name, is fascinating. He emboies the worst and best qualities of humanity. Sheri Tepper performs the same kind of feat in Grass. Though she has written many other novels, some good, some simple rehashes of her other novels, Grass has that familiar other world feel, but it is also one of the strangest worlds I've ever read. It's better than Ringworld, Gaiea, or any other world that sci-fi writers have come up with. If you haven't read this very talented writer's effort, do read them. Colony Fleet and Avalanche Soldiers are both [bad], especially Avalanche. Colony Fleet is readable but unremarkable, but Avalanche Soldier is really bad.

Susan Matthew's trilogy that feature the torturer, Andrej Koscuiscko(?????) is without a doubt the best series I've read since John Varley's Titan, Wizard and Demon. She's right up there with Joan Slonszewski, Sherri Tepper, Pamela Sargent and David Gerrold.

Editorial Review:

As Chief Medical Officer aboard the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, Andrej Koscuisko's duty is to care for his shipmates; as Inquisitor, he must extract confessions and administer punishment. When a brutal attack on a Nurail slave woman by a ship's officer sets in motion a chain of events that culminates in murder, Andrej's precarious equilibrium will be strained to the breaking point--and beyond.