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The Twenty Dates by Ko Porteous #Review #EmptyNesters

It is good to return to The Empty Nesters series by Ko Porteous. The Twenty Dates was published by All Ways Publishing Ltd on October 8th. You can read my review of Book 1, The Freshman Parents   here The kids have left, assuming love endures. But can yours? Book #2 in The Empty Nesters Series   Claire’s marriage is in (total!) crisis. Her husband, Mark, is distracted, presumptuous, and utterly clueless - smart scales for their 19th wedding anniversary? Really? Perhaps she'd be better off alone. At least there'd be less laundry.   When Claire suggests separating, Mark panics. He asks for one last chance: twenty dates, one for each year of their marriage, to prove they're better off together than apart. What follows is a series of adventures Claire never saw coming - some mortifying, some exhilarating, and some that make her question everything she thought she knew. About Mark. About marriage. And about the woman she's quietly become while she wasn't payin...
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The City Among the Stars by Francis Carsac translated by Judith Sullivan & Margaret Schiff #Review


Welcome to the first English translation of the celebrated Golden Age Science Fiction Classic, The City among the Stars by Francis Carsac.




A soldier of the Empire of Earth floats through space, his spaceship destroyed by sabotage. He is saved by a ‘city-in-space’ whose people despise those born and raised on a planet. Out of spite, he refuses to deliver the one piece of knowledge that can protect the people who saved but now spurn him - leading to catastrophic consequences.

 "This stunning classic stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Arthur C. Clark, Asimov, and Heinlein. No devotee of great sf should miss The City of the Stars." – New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors W. New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neal Gear.

My Thoughts

The chance to read the first English translation of a French Sci Fi classic from 1962 was tempting.  Written in a world where space travel was just beginning and just after President Kennedy had committed  the USA to land a man on the moon, it feels like a traditional take on the genre, with lots of detailed descriptions of the technology and descriptions of space which come mainly from the writer's imagination. One of the most interesting aspects for me, is the characterisation, especially of the female characters who all seem pretty subservient to the needs of the plot. This would not be unusual for its time.

    Life on board the Spaceship with the People of the Stars is described in great detail with a new hierarchy which looks down on those who they label 'planetary' as opposed to their kin who they feel have evolved beyond them. At the heart of the book is an adventure story, surrounded by aliens, space, far flung planets and a reimagined Earth. Running through all this you may glimpse a little romance.

In short: Escape to outer space


About the Author


Francis Carsac, a pseudonym for the world-renowned French scientist, geologist, and archaeologist Francois Bordes, wrote and published six novels during the golden age of science fiction. 


Never before published in English, these novels resonate with timely issues ranging from climate control to racism and greed and tell the stories of characters whose challenges and triumphs clearly relate to many of the problems we encounter today. He has been translated and published into Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian, Estonian amongst others.

Book link: Amazon UK

Thanks to Flame Tree Press and Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.


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