Archives 2009
This is a list of all the reviews that SFBook have published in 2009.
In the sensational sequel to Poison Study and Magic Study, Yelena's apprenticeship is over - now her real test has begun. When word that Yelena is a Soulfinder - able to capture and release souls - spreads like wildfire, people grow uneasy. Already Yelena's unusual abilities and past have set...
There is a particular pleasure in returning to an Arthur C. Clarke novel that nobody talks about much, and Imperial Earth is one of those. It does not have the reputation of 2001 or Rendezvous with Rama, it rarely...
This Omnibus Edition Includes the First 4 books in the "Hitchhikers guide Trilogy" 5 book set. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is also the title of the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. The novel is an...
A surfeit of mandrake is a short story Anthology which includes elements of fantasy, science fiction, history poems and original artwork. Edited by Chaz Wood and written by a diverse group of Dundonian's. Surfeit - "An excessive amount of something" Mandrake - a plant belonging to the...
Who is Charlie Keeper, a young adult fantasy novel written and self published by Marcus Alexander with original Artwork by Lobak Oren. This novel has created such a stir that Graffiti artists, including the Corrupt Government Crew have previously tagged Charlie Keeper inspired characters around...
Lamentation is the debut novel of Ken Scholes, published by Tor in February 2009, and the first volume of what is announced as a five-book sequence called The Psalms of Isaak. Scholes has been a name in the American...
Empress is the first volume of the Godspeaker trilogy, by Australian author Karen Miller, and a book that does something unusual enough to be worth describing carefully. Most fantasy novels with a slave-girl...
Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, is a novel by Mary Shelley, first published anonymously in London in January 1818. It is a book that almost everyone in the English-speaking world has an opinion on, and a...
Dragonfly Falling is the second book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt sequence, published in 2009 and following directly on from Empire in Black and Gold. The premise of the whole series, just to get this out...
Furnace: Lockdown is a young adult science fiction novel and is the first volume in the Furnace series, written by Alexander Gordon Smith. The Furnace Penitentiary is an underground prison, buried a mile beneath the earth's surface, where juveniles are sentenced for life, with no hope and no...
Beautiful Dead: Jonas is the first volume in a new series by Eden Maguire. A young adult novel, Jonas follows the events surrounding the pupils of Ellerton High. Phoenix is the fourth teenager to died within the space of a year, the victim of a knife attack. The three previous deaths, Jonas in...
Drood is an 800-page historical novel by Dan Simmons, published in 2009, and on the face of it that page count should be a warning. It mostly isn't. The premise comes wrapped in a conceit: the book purports to be a...
Furnace: Solitary is a young adult science fiction novel, the second volume in the Furnace series by Alexander Gordon Smith. Furnace Prison is located a mile beneath the surface of the planet, a place where juveniles are sentenced to life imprisonment with no hope of release, a place where...
Villain.net: Power Surge is the 3rd volume in the Villain.net series, one half of the merged series (with Hero.com) from the author Andy Briggs. Jake Hunter is now on the council of evil and is finally in a position to extract revenge on those most deserving. He also has a mission, to restore...
The Darwinian Extension: Initiation, is the first volume in a trilogy of novels from author Hylton H Smith. The Darwinian Extension begins in 2033, with a planned mission to populate Mars. The mission is not one of simple habitation however, but one of true colonisation including terraforming,...
Bringing forth the end of days is a science fiction novel of post apocalypse survival, and is the debut novel of Simon Law. The year is 2013 and World War 3 has scorched the earth, on top of a biological attack that has destroyed all plant life, leaving a world without life giving oxygen....
Black Light is an original science fiction novel, written by Christian Tremain. Josh Brenin is going through some pretty tough times. Since he lost his wife in a car crash, Josh has been unable to adequately deal with life. He loses his high paid exceutive job and begins to suffer from...
Passengers to Sentience is a science fiction novel and is the debut of the author Peter Salisbury. The Human race has reached the corners of the galaxy, colonising many worlds and enjoying advanced technology such as blindingly fast Data Transmission, organic metal alloys and the succesful...
Nekropolis is the first volume in a new series of fantasy horror, written by Tim Waggoner and is based on his novella Necropolis. Matt Richter is a former cop now a private eye with a big difference, he is a zombie (could happen to anyone really). A zombie private detective does have it's...
Galileo’s Dream is a brand new novel from Kim Stanley Robinson and follows Galileo on an amazing journey from the dawn of the modern age to a future on the brink of a scientific breakthrough. While on the brink of the modern world, Late Renaissance Italy is still surrounded by Alchemy and the...
Just Another Judgement Day is the ninth volume of Simon R. Green's Nightside sequence, published in hardback by Ace in January 2009, and a useful demonstration of why long-running urban fantasy series end up the way...
Dreadnought is the fourth Volume in the H.I.V.E (Higher Institute of Villainous Education) Young Adult series, written by Mark Walden. Hive is a school where villains rule, students are trained to be the best at the worst in the hope they will become the next great super-villian. One of the...
Kells Legend is the first volume in the Clockwork Vampires Chronicles and has been written by Andy Remic. Without warning came the vast albino army, the army of iron, invading Falanor from the north. To have any hope of survival a small band set off to warn the King. The band leaves quickly and...
Sabriel is a young adult fantasy novel written by Garth Nix and is the first volume in the Old Kingdom series. The Old Kingdom is a land where magic is common and spirits roam freely (a fact denied by the government). Outside of the Old Kingdom lies Ancelstierre, which has a technology level...
Lord Fouls Bane is the first volume in the The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, written by Stephen Donaldson. Thomas Covenant was a very successful author before being diagnosed with leprosy, the wasting disease that causes fear, revulsion and even hatred in other people....
Lirael is a young adult fantasy novel written by Garth Nix and is the second volume in the Old Kingdom Series. The novel is split into three different parts with the first set 14 years after the events of Sabriel and the other two parts set 19 years after. Sabriel and Touchstone are married...
Furnace: Death Sentence is the third volume in the Furnace series, a young adult science fiction series of books, written by Alexander Gordon Smith. The Furnace is a juvenile prison located one mile beneath the surface of the earth, where kids are sentenced to life imprisonment and where dying...
And another thing is the sixth novel in the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy series (created by the late great Douglas Adams) and has been written by the very successful author Eoin Colfer. The Hitchhikers Guide series stands as one of the greatest science fiction series of novels ever to grace...
Angel of Death is a contemporary fantasy / horror novel by author J Robert King. The Angel of Death for Chicago overseas a an area that stretches from lake county Indiana to Milwaukee, a vast sprawl of a metropolis. His task is to ensure that each person's death matches their lives as closely as...
Ringturn is a science fiction novel by British Author John C Mawson. A number of people are abducted from earth during the time of the black death by alien forces and repopulated on a planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, eleven light years from Earth. Slowly those frightened humans build a new...
The Rough Guide to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is the ultimate guide to the ultimate guide, written by Marcus O'Dair and published by the Rough Guides. Don't Panic. The Rough Guide to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy explores the ever-expanding universe created by Douglas Adams- the...
Nemesis ex nihilo is an apocalyptic science fiction novel and is the first in a two part series (dilogy), written by William Pascoe. Barry Edwards is a fairly average guy who is working on his PhD in astrophysics at the University of Longminster, England. In 1995, while still working on his PhD...
Blood of the Mantis is the third volume in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt sequence, published in August 2009 and following directly on from Dragonfly Falling. At three hundred and twenty pages, it is also half...
Beautiful Dead: Arizona is the second volume in the Beautiful Dead series of novels by Eden Maguire. Following on from the events in "Jonas", Darina has seen no sign of the Beautiful Dead for weeks and is missing Phoenix all over again. With so much still to resolve, surely they will...
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun is a previously unknown work written by the late JRR Tolkien over 80 years ago. Edited by his son Christopher, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun tells the story of the Norse legend...
Sixty One Nails is an urban fantasy novel of a secret war raging beneath the streets of London, written by Mike Shevdon. Under the nations capital there is a whole other world where magic is real, the world of the Feyre. A dark magic will be unleashed by the Untained… Unless a new hero can be...
The Zombie survival guide tells you everything you need to know in order to protect yourself from the restless dead. Written by Max Brooks, the guide follows a no nonsense and logical path that draws you in and makes you believe that a future zombie threat might just be possible. With a...
Tie-in fiction carries a peculiar burden. It must satisfy the faithful who already know the world inside out, while remaining legible to the newcomer who has never touched the source material; and it must do both...
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth return again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, when the World and Time themselves hang in the balance, a wind rises in the...
There is a kind of science fiction that uses a single fantastical premise not to build a world but to dismantle a man, and Dying Inside is perhaps the finest example the genre has produced. Robert Silverberg published...
Evolution is a monumental tale of the very evolution of mankind, from the age of the dinosaurs to way into the distant future. Created by the multiple award winning author Stephen Baxter. Evolution begins it's story in the Cretaceous period over 65 million years ago (the age of the Dinosaurs),...
Damnation Alley is a post-apocalytic tale of survival by the Hugo and Nebula award winner Roger Zelazny. Set in the decades after a devastating nuclear war, the former USA is a very different place. With mass destruction, dangerous mutants, large areas of deadly radiation and a worldwide wind...
For centuries traveling gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. So many tales about each of the Hunters, and so many Hunters to tell of . . . Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages....
I will put my cards on the table at once: Wolf in Shadow is one of the finest novels I have had the pleasure of reading, and I would argue it contains some of David Gemmell's very best writing. Gemmell is rightly...
Space Marine is a rare novel that is set in the Warhammer 40k universe, written by Ian Watson. Space Marine is essentially a piece of history in the Warhammer 40k universe, but one that Games Workshop doesn't actually agree with, and was never re-printed. The novel itself no longer "fit's in"...
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