The Ceres Configuration
Huw Langridge provides us with The Ceres Configuration. A good old fashioned (yet high-tech) tale of approaching apocalypse, this story served to remind me just what unpretentious science fiction can do when written by someone who clearly relishes every word. - Adrian Fry - Whispers of Wickedness
The Darken Loop
And from Janus, we move to the London of 2052 with "The Darken Loop" by Huw Langridge. The story starts with a very mundane setting of a young woman arriving with a train on the London Waterloo station and going to a job interview (and I actually smiled at it - the second part of last week, I was catching a train at the very same station every morning) and decides to make a detour and get herself a coffee. And with this introduction, we head up for the real story - a conscious AI, time travel (in a way) and parallel worlds. Add to this love and betrayal and it starts to shape up. Beautifully crafted, all the way to the end which repeats the beginning... or does it? - Annieworld, Random Thoughts
Huw Langridge's "The Darken Loop" begins in 2052 with a woman deciding to buy a cup of coffee. The story then focuses on a man called Geek who receives a message directly into his brain. It seems to be coming from a parallel universe and wants Geek to do an important job. This was a nicely told story of alternate realities. - Sam Tomaino, SFRevu
'The Darken Loop' by Huw Langridge is an exciting story of multi-dimensions and an entity from the future. The story begins innocuously enough with the girl called Louise going for an interview some 40 years in our future but not having enough money to buy a cup of coffee. Schrödinger's cat scenario...whether or not she has a cup of coffee affects the long-term future of not just one universe but a multitude of them. It also determines if she lives or dies.
Bring into this The Axiom Few, a small band of freelance techno graduates. The brains of the operation, a guy called Geek, is in communication with this entity from the future, an entity anthropic in nature, which pulls the past towards it and looks after humanity in the multitude of realities. Anyway, Geek has invented goggles which can look round corners in a dimensional sort of way. Their task is to get a Costa coffee voucher to Louise through a rip in time to save her and the future which lies ahead but this is complicated by the fact that she was the girl-friend of two members of the group and looking into the past isn't always a good idea.
An excellent story, one which has plenty of scope for development into other forms of media. This was a short story but the characterisation is good and it's possible to see a novel or even a radio or TV series featuring The Axiom Few. - Rod MacDonald, SF Crowsnest
In Huw Langridge's "The Darken Loop" a group of freelance scientists is urged by an AI to make use of an unexpected means of a sort of time travel to save the girlfriend of one of them. As with many time travel stories, paradoxes are a bit of a problem, not too badly navigated here. Interesting work, on the whole. - Rich Horton, The SF Site
Spireclaw
I was hooked by Spireclaw and I read it in one sitting, as I tend to do when something really grabs me. It has just the right blend of mystery, the occult and drama to keep one turning the pages. A writer usually has to avoid coincidences like the plague, but it is something essential to the plot in Spireclaw and it is spellbinding the way that the coincidences build up to form a tangled web of intrigue that has the reader wondering whats going to happen next. The narrative is pacey and at times I was reminded of the novels of Dan Brown when the hero is on a quest for the answers, going from one nugget of information to the next leading to a conclusion that is shocking, but in a sense is based on something so deep and hidden in the human psyche. A love story that transcends time, Spireclaw left me wanting more. Cracking stuff. - Rupert C, Zambia
I just finished reading Spireclaw. It really held my suspense and I thought it was a terrific book! ... I found out about online books a couple months ago and I've been reading lots of books. Spireclaw is the best one I've read so far! - Linda M, Dallas TX
8 out of 10 - Bookmark Online Reads
The Daedalus Transfer
Huw Langridge is obviously a technology freak and has grounded this e-novel, The Daedalus Transfer in fact. The technological aspects and the human factors concerned with space travel are dealt with with surprising realism. Huw has done his homework. Entertaining and highly complex, the novel moves from the real to the surreal and it is a fascinating look at how space travel might be in the not too distant future. The characters are believable and the claustrophobic confines of the ship give rise to interesting interplay, especially as scientists with rational minds struggle to rationalize the seemingly impossible turns of events. This is a great novel for lovers of sci-fi and the themes dealt with in the novel will have the reader not only wondering about the future of mankinds exploration of the cosmos, but also questioning the realities of time and space itself. - Rupert C, Zambia
Wind Farm
"A good read", "Chromatic and Strong" - Gary Fry, Fusing Horizons
