(You can also find an omnibus edition of all four at Nagata’s website, Mythic Island and at Book View Cafe – a better deal too!) Back in those days when I still made more impulse book purchases in physical bookstores, the neon framing around those Bruce Jensen covers was so effective that I picked them up almost involuntarily. I remembered Linda Nagata from her successful Nanotech Succession novels in the 1990s: Tech Heaven, The Bohr Maker, Deception Well and Vast. In those cases, it’s wonderful that I can take advantage of the generous platform Tor.com gives me to introduce people to what I consider hidden gems.Ĭase in point, Linda Nagata’s excellent, independently-published military SF novel The Red: First Light, which, if I can just skip to the point for people who don’t like to read longer reviews, you should go ahead and grab right now, especially if you’re into intelligent, cynical military SF. Sometimes I just get drawn in by something intriguing or odd in the publicity copy.īut every once in awhile there’s a book that, I feel, just deserves more attention, a book that’s not getting read enough for some reason. Occasionally it’s because I’m a fan of the author, series, or (sub-)genre.

Most often it’s simply because they look promising. There are many possible reasons why I’ll choose certain books for review. I’m so pleased that this novel actually ended up getting lots of attention!įinally, make sure to check back here later this week for a chance to win a hardcover copy of the novel or an Audible code for the audio version! The end result was the start of a new Tor.com column called Under The Radar, meant to highlight books that, in our opinion, didn’t get the attention they deserved.

Please keep in mind that this review doesn’t take into account any of the changes made by the editors at Saga Press, as I haven’t had the chance to read the new edition yet.Īnother minor but fun note: this review, originally written for and published at Tor.com, launched a long Twitter discussion between myself, Irene Gallo, Justin Landon and Jared Shurin. Since then, the novel was acquired and published by Saga Press.

Note: this review was written almost two years ago, about the original, indie-published version of The Red: First Light.

Deception Well by Linda Nagata