Killing is my Business by Adam Christopher

Killing is my Business (not to be confused with Megadeth's debut album) is the second novel in Adam Christopher's LA Trilogy, following on from Made to Kill.

Featuring the robot Assassin Raymond Electromatic, disguised as LA's only artificial private investigator. it's a unique blend of hardboiled detective Noir and science fiction that has a distincive 1950's / 19060's aesthetic. Imagine raymond chandler writing an "Amazing Science" story. 

Our ...

The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch

The Furthest Station is a new novella that continues the adventures of PC Grant and the Folly in the Rivers of London series, investigating crimes that are a bit more out of the ordinary.

PC Grant joins British Transport Police officer Jaget Kumar to investigate ghost sightings on the Metropolitan line. While ghost sightings themselves are not out of the ordinary for the Folly, these ghosts seem to be agressive in the pursuit of something unknown. Investigating such events prove dif...

After the Flare by Deji Bryce Olukotun

After the Flare is the second book in the series which describes the a near future Nigerian Space program. Since a massive solar flare wiped out much of the worlds electronics, Nigeria find themselves in control of one of the last working spaceships and functional spaceport.

Kwesi Bracket, formerly of NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab, is welcomed onto the Nigerian space program, due in part to his experience in building Astronaut training systems. His work of building a training po...

Alien Covenant - Origins by Alan Dean Foster

Alien Covenant - Origins is a prequel to the latest Alien story, describing the journey of getting the colony ship launched on it's ill-fated journey, bridging the gap between Prometheus and Alien Covenant.

Written by Alan Dean Foster - the author who has been writing about Aliens since the very beginning - it's the only Alien novel I know of that doesn't directly feature the black shiny creatures. That doesn't make the story any less engaging though and it does me...

Clade by James Bradley

Apocalyptic fiction has been growing in popularity for years, with most stories following some big cataclysmic event such as a zombie uprising, sweeping plague, nuclear war or the rise of artificial intelligence.

Recently though novels have started to appear that seem much closer to reality, some of them so feasible they seem less science fiction and more plausible possibility.

Clade is one such novel.

Mass animal deaths, spiraling, uncontrollable weather, a...

Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

I'd like to start this review by saying that Richard Kadrey doesn't get the visibility he deserves, not by a long shot. I only discovered him myself by seeing other authors discussing how wonderful his work is.

They aren't wrong.

Sandman Slim - real name James Stark - has just spent the lat eleven years in Hell only to arrive in modern day Los Angeles. He's one of the only people on the planet who has been to Hell and back without actually dying and has pi...

A Song for No Man's Land by Andy Remic

I've been reading Remic's stories for a number of years now. His Clockwork Vampire Series is heroic fantasy at it's very best. 

What I didn't realise though was how much he has grown as an author since, that is until I discovered A Song for No Mans Land on Amazon.

I've always been a fan of world war media, partly as a result of studying it at school. A Song for No Mans Land is set in the first World War and follows Robert Jones who signed up with a v...

The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories: Volume 2 by James D Jenkins & Ryan Cagle

Valancourt Books is an American, independent small imprint especially devoted, among other things, to unearth and reprint forgotten and rare gems of gothic fiction from the past, as well as samples of classy, long gone out of print horror fiction.

Thus, after the successful Valancourt Book of Horror Stories, a second volume is now available, collecting fourteen tales spanning almost two hundred years, penned both by masters of the genre and by mainstream authors who tried their hand...

The Slant by Robert Gibson

It's funny how you can read books as far afield as China and Australia and not realise there are talented authors on your own doorstep. I  discovered the author Robert Gibson in Morecambe bay, only a few miles from my home. Robert has been writing science fiction stories for a number of years, The Slant was his first novel and is the beginning of The Kroth series.

The Slant tells the story of young Duncan Wemyss who finds himself transported to a strange world after witnessing ...

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

As a science fiction fan it has to be said that we are becoming increasingly lucky. Film and TV companies seem to have finally grasped that the genre is a gold mine for stories, and that when done right, these stories can attract a big audience.

American Gods is one of the more recent stories to become a colourful, imaginative and clever TV series. It's not before time either, the book being released some 16 years ago.

The Folio Society have created a superb version ...

Dune by Frank Herbert

It's hard to believe that Dune is over 50 years old. Originally released in 1965 it won the inaugral Nebula award for best novel and tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award.

It's sold well in excess of 12 million copies around the world and is one of the world's best-selling science fiction novels. Some critics have gone so far as to call it the best science fiction book ever written. Robert Heinlein said of it:

Powerful, convincing, a...

The War of the Worlds by HG Wells

The War of the Worlds was originally written in 1897 and it's never been out of print. It's one of the earliest stories to depict conflict with an alien race and has been influential in film, radio, TV, music and even science. The Guardian has gone as far as to say:

A true classic that has pointed the way not just for science-fiction writers, but for how we as a civilisation might think of ourselves

To celebrate this wonderful story, The Folio Society have cre...

Sea of Rust by C Robert Cargill

While many stories depict the fight between man and machine, Sea of Rust shows a future where the machines have already won.

Humankind has been wiped off the face of the Earth by the very robots that were built to serve them. Now the planet is controlled by vast intelligences (known as One World Intelligencies or OWI) that have assimilated the minds of millions of robots across the globe.

Not all robots want to be assimilated and lose their individuality. The scavenger ...

The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Stories by HP Lovecraft

To many, HP Lovecraft is seen as the father of modern horror and The Call of Cthulhu is undoubtedly his most famous work. Like many artists Lovecraft wasn't appreciated during his lifetime and his work only achieved success and literary recognition after his death. Collectively these weird tales (and others) have had a lasting influence on 20th century horror literature while also influencing popular culture and film to this day. 

Thankfully The Folio Society have created a b...