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“DOOM: The Dark Ages” Review

 

In the first Avengers movie, Nick Fury asks a member of the Security Council, “You ever been in a war, councilman? In a fire fight? Did you feel an overabundance of control?” It’s a line that kept repeating in my head as I played — or maybe survived is a better word — DOOM: The Dark Ages (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC), a ridiculously frantic but also ridiculously fun horror- and fantasy-infused science fiction first-person shooter.

And while yes, you can say the same about 2016’s DOOM and 2020’s DOOM Eternal (and the best Call Of Duty games, the Gears Of War series, the Halo games…), there are things about DOOM: The Dark Ages that make it especially unhinged and, well, out of control.

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Exclusive Interview: “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Toward The Night” Author James Swallow

 

Fans of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds are eagerly awaiting the release of the third season, as well as the announced but not yet filmed fourth.

But for the ones who just can’t wait, they can actually take a trip in time — way, way back to season 2 — with James Swallow’s new novel Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Toward The Night (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook).

In the following email interview, Swallow discusses what inspired and influenced this sci-fi space opera story.

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Exclusive Interview: “Down In The Sea Of Angels” Author Khan Wong

 

While it may sound like it mixes elements of science fiction and fantasy, author Khan Wong says his multi-timeline novel Down In The Sea Of Angels (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) is more of a “speculative / literary cross-over.”

Which may explain why, in the following email interview about it, he cites such disparate influences as David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and the X-Men comics of Jonathan Hickman.

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Exclusive Interview: “Dark Diamond” Author Neal Asher

 

For nearly 25 years British science fiction author Neal Asher has written stories set in a fictional universe he calls Polity.

But while his newest installment Dark Diamond (paperback, Kindle) is the 21st installment of this series, in the following email interview — in which he also discusses what inspired and influenced this new novel — he explains why this story may serve as a good entry point for this sci-fi saga.

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Exclusive Interview: “Twilight Imperium: Voice Of One” Author Tristan Palmgren

 

Having previously written four novels about characters from Marvel Comics, author Tristan Palmgren is now turning their attention to one from a different fictional universe: the science fiction space opera board game Twilight Imperium.

In the following email interview, Palmgren talks about what inspired and influenced the sci-fi space opera spy novel Twilight Imperium: Voice Of One (paperback, Kindle).

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Exclusive Interview: “When We Were Real” Author Daryl Gregory

 

There are people who are convinced that we’re all living in a computer simulation. And others who just wish it was true because they’d like to leave now, please.

But in Daryl Gregory humorous cyberpunk science fiction novel When We Were Real (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), people know they live in a computer simulation…and not a good one, either. Which is why two friends are taking a bus trip to see the glitches.

Well, that’s not the only reason.

In the following email interview, Gregory discusses what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story, including how he decided on the specifics of the sim.

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Exclusive Interview: “Cold Eternity” Author S.A. Barnes

 

Sometimes we just need to get away, to be by ourselves, collect our thoughts, figure out what to do next.

But Halley may have taken it too far when she took a job as a caretaker on a spaceship full of cryogenically frozen people. And not just because the people-sicles are terrible conversationalists.

In the following email interview about her scary sci-fi novel Cold Eternity (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), author S.A. Barnes talks (non-spoilery) about what happens to Halley…and why.

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Exclusive Interview: “Sometimes In The Fall” Author John Van Stry

 

In his 2022 hard science fiction novel Summer’s End, author John Van Stry introduced us to Dave Walker, who ends up on a space cargo ship in an attempt to better himself.

Now Dave is back in Sometimes In The Fall (paperback, Kindle), in which — as Van Stry explains in the following email interview — now has “a more ‘settled’ or perhaps at least ‘legitimate’ life.” Though clearly that won’t last since, well, otherwise there’d be no point to this second book.

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Exclusive Interview: “Terrestrial History” Author Joe Mungo Reed

 

Sometimes people joke that the only way they can escape their family would be to move to Mars.

Clearly author Joe Mungo Reed doesn’t think this way because, in his speculative fiction / science fiction novel Terrestrial History (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), he tells a multi-generational story in which a family is pivotal in the colonization of the red planet.

In the following email interview, Reed talks about what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story.