SFBook - 20+ Years of Reviews
Providing book reviews of speculative fiction since 1999. Read our story
Puzzle me this. Whilst other kids were outside climbing trees or knocking a football around, you would often find me indoors or under a tree reading a book or doing puzzles. That has led to two lifelong consequences; a love of puzzles and a problem with weight. Puzzler was always my favourite,...
There is something to be said for designing a creative sandpit, a place that you can return to and play within. Rather than writing new characters in a new place every book, you can return to the known. A shorthand exists. However, this is a double-edged sword, you can end up recreating the same...
I come from a large family and there is a special way that you can wind one another up. Years of experience and knowledge comes in handy when you are trying to annoy someone, you may not have seen each other for ages, but one shared experience can bring it all back in an instant. In a healthy...
The thought of travelling to space and living on the International Space Station has no interest to me. Stuck in a metal box, isolated, miles away from civilisation with only the same people as company sound like a one-way ticket to madness. You do not need to go into space to create such a...
Cynical realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation.
Failed science writer Alex Dolan is just floating along, struggling to find work when multi-billionaire Stanislaw Clayton provides a surprising, well-paid offer out of the blue. He wants Alex to write a book about the world's first privately funded high-energy physics facility - the...
A horror book can be a complex and multilayered epic, but the genre often best as an intimate story told in a closed environment. Countless classic horror films have been set in an abandoned cabin or house, something strange living in the attic that only comes down to seek its victims. In Mason...
Like every genre, there are several aspects to Horror that you can focus on. My preference is the supernatural, something big and scary, preferably not overexplained. There is another subgenre, one that is arguably far scarier. I call it the horror of the mundane. Those killers that live among...
There are many reasons that an investigator in fiction gets involved in a case. Perhaps they are a Detective, and it is their job, or they are a Private Investigator getting paid. You may stumble across a body and suddenly find yourself drawn into a mystery. All these paths lead to a different...
Graphic Novels have an advantage over prose in terms of kinetic visuals. You can show in a panel the action taking place and all the colours, in a book you need to describe this. This advantage can be too tempting for some and the book becomes all action and not enough depth. The best comics are...
Throughout history many have searched for ways to live longer, from healthy eating and exercise to eliminating illness and seeking an elixir of life. I think it’s fair to say it’s a common goal to extend our lifespan.
What would you say if I told you there was a substance...
When I imagine the aliens coming, I always imagine that they would pick somewhere amazing to land their ship. Probably America as all the movies have trained my brain to think that way. The place I do not jump straight to is Manchester, or at least the hills around the city. I know those hills...
How do you like your horror novels? Are you someone who likes a spooky story, perhaps a little romance? Or do you like it horrific? A book that is uncomfortable, throwing images into your brain that you did not want to consider but cannot stop thinking about. Baby eating rats, killer clowns in...
I have not lived in the village I grew up in over twenty years, but I still talk about going home when I am visiting. Where I live now has been my home for longer, but there is something about those formative years that make a place always feel like home. I return to see family, but for some...
I have read a few novels recently that have protagonists that seemingly have little control over their destiny, instead stepping into the stream of the narrative and being carried along. On occasion this is a flood and the character flails around with no impact on the wider story, but there is...
The easy confidence with which I know another man?s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also
What is your plan for when the apocalypse comes? One of the best things about reading speculative fiction is that you get loads of clever ideas on exactly what to do should a meteor plummet to Earth or the undead rise from their graves. The truth is that your plan is to curl up and inevitably...
I adore the fantasy genre and as someone who reads it a lot, I have seen the ebbs and flows in the genre over the years. There have always been outliers, but there is a certain style of fantasy that dominated for each of the decades. Until recently, I have read a lot of Low Fantasy, a genre low...
Your average heist movie ends in one of two ways; a cliffhanger or the job complete. You rarely get to see what happens to the criminals as they make it off with their ill-gotten gains, or when they are thrown into the slammer. Unless you are Oceans 11, then you just get a couple more heists a...
What makes a bunch of short stories gathered together a collection? It could be the works of the same author, or it could be some sort of theme that means they are all derived from the same place. A collection's origins can significantly impact the type of stories you are about to read. Is it an...
What makes a good Conan novel? It seems like a simple calculation, a brawny barbarian, a massive sword, wine, woman, and violence. Mix the lot into a pot and you have a Conan adventure to be proud of, except it is not that easy. Conan lives in a vibrant and complex world that can be stodgy to...
When the apocalypse inevitably comes do you want to know about it? Would you like the chance to peer out of the window and see the world burning, perhaps you can make a run for the high ground? Another option is to live in pure ignorance underground, competing with your fellow residents for the...
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SFBook.com is one of the oldest book review sites on the internet, founded back in 1999 in an age before phones became smart and when the leading figure of the free world was respected and even occasionally admired. A non profit site primarily aimed at the Science fiction, fantasy and horror genres (although we do have a growing list of general fiction). We strive to feature only the very best in Science fiction, fantasy, horror and speculative novels. We like to think we write personal, unique and constructive reviews.
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