SFBook - 20+ Years of Reviews
Providing book reviews of speculative fiction since 1999. Read our story
Time travel is one of the most complex and difficult concepts to write in fiction. On the screen you can use visuals as shorthand to try and explain what on Earth is going on, but in fiction you are required to explain it all, or not. There is a choice. Do you go down the route of hard science...
Do you trust this reviewer? Am I all that I appear? I claim to work for one of the longest running review sites on the internet, but is any of it true? You cannot always trust a protagonist; we may have an ulterior motive that you are unaware of. Perhaps I am a fantasist who latches themselves...
It would appear that to be a fictional Private Investigator you must have something that you are addicted to be it booze, drugs, women, glue. The options seem endless, but Kimberly G. Giarratano’s Death of a Dancing Queen is the first time I have come across a PI addicted to life. Billie...
The crime genre comes in many flavours from the cosy murder mystery set in a picturesque English village to a crime noir of 50s Chicago. The setting can be near or far, the tone light or dark, but they all have one thing in common – crime and that crime is often a murder. Callum McSorley...
A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.
Fair warning, this isn't going to be a normal review, it's the first one I've written post-covid and is much more personal than usual.
Some years ago, my father started reading again. Previous to that he hadn't read much for the last few decades outside of Haynes manuals and instruction...
It sounds strange to say this project was for me, and my seven other books already published were not. Indeed, I write what I would like to read. But, Dark Dweller was special because I really wasn’t sure who else would be interested in the project.
First and foremost, Dark Dweller is inspired by the 1970s sci-fi and surrealistic art movement of the time. In particular, vinyl records with artwork such as Jeff Wayne's version of...
The problem with being zipped away by some alien entity and then shown how the Universe works is that no one will believe you on your return. Imagine your friend returning from their lunch break to say that they have just been told that the world is going to end in two days unless we all follow...
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cold War did not stop immediately. Perestroika was a messy business with elements of the former Soviet Union flaking away at separate times. The fracturing of a once great Superpower brought with it opportunities. Opportunities for the West to invest in new...
One of the wonderful things about reading is finding that next great author that you love. You read one of their books and instantly spend the next few days hunting down their back catalogue. Experience has taught me not to read too many of these in a row as you start to see parallels in the...
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...
If Science Fiction is to be believed the only bright thing about the future will be the burning rays of the sun beaming down to burn our skin. The futures grim, the futures dystopian. However, sci fi also tells us that humans will do what it takes to survive. Despite inescapable heat and roving...
I am a student of History and still find the tales that it can tell us fascinating. On the surface the stories are of Kings or Queens, of epic battles between nations, of horror on an industrial scale, but below the surface is the history of the likes of you and me. I am not a hero or villain,...
The tale is often told from the perspective of the victor, distorting the truth to make them look better. In an epic poem like Beowulf, it all points to one man being the hero, but what if there is more to the story. Shield Maiden by Sharon Emmerichs retells the final part of Beowulf’s...
We Brits have somewhat of a reputation on the international stage as stirring up trouble from behind the curtain. We were accused of it during the lead up to the World Wars and even today regimes will cite the UK as instigating unrest. Us, never! The likes of James Bond and David Gilman’s...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
Twins have always had a mystery around them. Two people brought up so closely together that they have their own language. In Michael Ferris Gibson and Imani Josey’s Babylon Twin series, the language that the twins use is called the Twinkling, a speech so intuitive that only they can...
Any house of a decent age is haunted. There are no spectres, but there are ghosts of memories, the people that lived and died there over the years. I grew up in a house that was once a Victorian police station and then a Greengrocers. As I moved out, my parents stayed. When they left, instead of...
When the apocalypse happens, science fiction has taught us that some of us will run below and others will be left on the surface. Pick a side. Down below could be a Fallout or Wool situation, better than being on the surface, dead or a mutant. Up above could be The Time Machine or Mary...
Witches have a bad reputation, green skinned, covered in warts and prone to stealing children so that they can use their bones for broth. People feared the idea of witches so much that they would place innocent people on trial. Don’t they realise that if witches were as powerful as they...
I find sometimes find myself wondering how a dystopian world became so bad. What happened in a society that they thought making children battle to the death was a good idea? Or how a world forced woman to bear children? Sometimes it is better not to know how a society got there, but...
Given a time machine where would you travel? Reading a lot of Historic Fiction as taught me that the Roman Empire would not be my choice. Life was hard and short for many people and that included many of the emperors. It could be a challenging time to survive in. Becoming a...
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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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