Month: January 2026

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Buying Time – Joe Haldeman

In a not so distant future, “immortals” can buy ten to twelve years of extra life at a time through a medical procedure known as the Stileman Proces. The catch? They must give all their assets to the Stileman Foundation each time, and the minimum cost is one million pounds. Dallas Barr, an immortal, becomes aware of a conspiracy to subvert the Stileman Foundation. But the secrets go deeper than that, and he is soon on the run.

A well-paced and interesting science fiction thriller with an interesting premise. Dallas Barr’s journey to stay ahead of the antagonists takes him to various places on Earth, and the asteroid belt, with some very interesting societal models. As is common with Mr. Haldeman, the story veers in unexpected directions, with this one digging deeply into a global conspiracy theme that is just as topical as when the book was written.

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Service Model – Adrian Tchaikovsky

In a mansion, one man lives alone. And one morning, his valet robot accidentally kills him while shaving him. The robot does not know why he did this. After a pointless, Kafkaesque investigation, he is released from service and told to report to “Diagnostics”. Once he gets there. he discovers that Diagnostics is backed up with a long line of robots waiting to be diagnosed. Most of the robots in line are derelict. The robots in charge of diagnostics have come up with a creative solution to mitigate the backlog. On his way to Diagnostics, he discovered that the world is decaying. Human mansions sit derelict. Unused robots languish. How will he resolve his internal programming conflicts, finding his purpose again, and what is happening to the world?

The premise is fantastic, and telling the story from the point of view of the robot is clever. Unfortunately Mr. Tchaikovsky lets the robot’s internal monologue on and on. It gets old and boring very quickly. I gave up about a third of the way through. The very interesting idea and story is buried under extensive and boring internal monologue and exposition.