Archives 2017
This is a list of all reviews published during 2017
I've been aware of The Passage for years but never had chance to pick it up - even though I have family connections to the Cronin surname (although doubtfully any connection to the author!). Recently the final novel in the series was released which prompted me to begin reading.
The...
Angela thinks she knows her boyfriend Vince pretty well, that is until he goes missing. She quickly learns he has a hidden employment, his boss the infamous London crime lord Frederick Meloy (known as Fat Frederick, but nerver, ever as Fat Freddy).
His secret job? tracking down arcane...
‘We all just want to be people, and none of us know what that really means.’ Jeff VandeMeer’s Rachel summarises the theme of his latest book best. The author’s first novel since his acclaimed Southern Reach Trilogy, Van de Meer’s Borne is a surreal piece of work that examines the idea...
I've always had a soft spot for Sherlock Holmes. The books are wonderful pieces of classic fiction (my favourite being the Hounds of the Baskervilles) and modern interpretations such as those penned by Moffat and Gattiss help to keep this Centenarian alive in the minds of millions.
...
A Book that brings you Home: Becky Chambers’ A Close and Common Orbit.
It took me a while to work up the emotional energy to read Becky Chambers’ A Close and Common Orbit. This is Chambers’ second novel. Her first novel, A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet,...
A well respected novelist, Australian writer Alan Baxter is also the author of many short stories, appeared in various venues, but never before assembled in a single volume.
Crow Shine is a massive collection of Baxter's dark tales which will pleasantly surprise the reader not yet...
Slow Bullets won the 2016 Locus award for best Novella and was shortlisted for the Hugo (along with making a number of must read lists). As you would expect from a novella it's a short read at 192 pages but it packs in more ideas than many more weighty novels manage.
Narrated in...
Readers and reviewers of dark fiction have certainly noticed, during the last years, that the number of Australian authors appearing in books published in the UK and in USA is constantly on the rise, and that the quality of their contributions is usually top notch. This Australian renaissance,...
David Gemmell died eleven years ago, he was one of the most popular fantasy authors in the UK, a regular Sunday Times bestseller. His legacy lives on not just in the annual David Gemmel Legend Award but more importantly in the influence his writing had on the fantasy genre.
I first...
Space Team is one of those rare gems, a genuinely funny science fiction story that manages to entertain from beginning to end.
The book follows the miss-adventures of small-time conman Cal Carver, abducted by aliens from incarceration due to a case of mistaken identity. His day goes...
Haunted Futures is a collection presenting the uncertain future in many guises. Originally funded as part of a kickstarter campaign and edited by Salome Jones it features short stories from authors including Warren Ellis, Jeff Noon, Tricia Sullivan and SL Huang (amongst others).
The...
It's funny how life seems to throw co-incidences at you. Until recently I'd never given the small island of Gibraltar any real thought. Then the company I work for expanded their services there which meant I needed to learn about this unusual British overseas territory.
A few...
Spiders (or arachnids if you are being posh) provoke strong reactions in some. One of my brothers, who still considers himself tough (even though he's now over 40) will move astonishingly fast in the opposite direction when encountering such a beast - usually with the result that his teenage...
This is the second in the series of books of short stories in the shadows of the apt world from Newcon Press written by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
You don't need to have read Tales of the Apt book 1, Spoils of War, to appreciate this one, but it would probably help if you were familiar...
The Seven is Peter Newman's stunning conclusion to the post-apocalyptic Vagrant Trilogy, following on from the events of The Vagrant and The Malice.
A number of years have passed since the Vagrant journeyed to the Shining City with a baby Vesper and Gamma's sword. Following in...
A few weeks ago we reviewed the spider-infested book The Hatching. This was preperation for the launch of the much anticipated sequel Skitter.
Skitter follows on directly from the dramatic events of the previous book and once more we are thrown into the middle of spidergeddon.
...
Turn Coat is the eleventh book in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and as ever, events have a habit of turning against Harry Dresden. This time his help is being sought from the most unlikely of people - Morgan, the warden who has persecuted Harry mercilessly in the past.
Morgan is on...
Karin Tidbeck has written a number of short-stories, her first english Language collection (firmly rooted in Weird Fiction), Jagannath, was nominated for the World Fantasy award and short-listed for the James Tiptree Junior award. It also received wide-spread critical acclaim. Amatka is her...
Simon Morden, Philip K. Dick award-winning author, satisfies fans of his debut novel Down Station with his long-anticipated sequel The White City. Resurrecting some of his most-loved characters, Morden’s latest offering marks a continuation of Dalip and Mary’s journey through...
After the tremendous Turn Coat, I was expecting big things from Changes and boy does this book live up to the promises.
It's impossible to write about Changes without giving away a few spoilers - however I'm not going to mention anything you can't read on the back of the...
Blackwing is a book that suprised me more than any other has so far this year. It's the debut of Ed McDonald and boy what a way to make an entrance.
The book follows Galharrow, leader of the mercenary squad known as Blackwing. Galharrow and his band take on jobs most would consider...
I've been a big fan of the Aliens series ever since I saw the first film back in the 1980's. I've read all the books, including the expanded universe (non-canonical) ones from Bantam, and more recently from Titan books. I've watched and read the Aliens vs Predator crossover...
The Ion Raiders is book two of Ian Whate’s Dark Angels series, however despite featuring some if the same characters as book one, Pelquin’s Comet, it is not a direct continuation of the same story so can be read without knowledge of the first. Not to give to many spoilers, but...
Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory hasn't even been released at the time of writing and it's already been picked up by Paramount TV. It's the authors first foray into literary speculative fiction and follows the Amazing Telemachus Family.
Back in the 1970's they acheived...
I've been trying to expand my range of reading for a while now, crime fiction especially. I hadn't realised that the talented Warren Ellis had written a crime novel.
For those who haven't heard of Ellis he's a renown British writer best known for his comic book writing....
London Falling is the first in Paul Cornell's Shadow Police series. For those who don't know, Paul Cornell is an award winning author who writes across a variety of media and one of only two people to have been Hugo nominated for prose, TV and comics. He's also written a number of...
One of the (many) things I like about Adam Robert's stories is that they are always full of big ideas and The Real-Town Murders is no exception. This time the author has written a future-noir crime story which revolves around the "locked room mystery".
A popular subgenre in...
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...
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...
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...
It's hard to believe that Dune is over 50 years old. Originally released in 1965 it won the inaugural 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...
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...
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...
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...
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'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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
It's great to see Philip K Dick stories continue to be explored and consumed in different forms of media. His writing still popular long after his death. For those who aren't aware, the UK TV station Channel 4 (Broadcast in the US via Amazon Video) has started a new 10 part anthology...
You hear about those couples having the ill-concieved notion of getting matching permanent tattoos shortly after they've met, despite the real probability their relationship may not last. Crossover goes one further with that premise.
Instead of tattoos it's a "simple" medical...
I have always been a fan of Roger Zelazny. When I was a teenager, The Chronicles of Amber were a library book quest to find the whole set, which never quite happened, so it wasn’t until later in adult life that I was able to purchase the bumper edition that contained them all.
...
Newcon Press’ second novella series is a beautiful collection of four books. The Wind by Jay Caselberg launches straight into the kind of folk horror/ weird fiction premise that seems to emerge from a particular sense of British society. There are shades of Mythago Wood and The Wickerman in...
My second review of the Newcon Press Novella series released in Autumn 2017. This is a set of four stories. The Wind by Jay Caselberg, Cottingley by Alison Littlewood, Body in the Woods by Sarah Lotz and Case of the Bedeviled Poet A Sherlock Holmes Enigma, by Simon Clark.
Cottingley...
Newcon Press’ second novella series continues with Body in the Woods by Sarah Lotz.
This book is perhaps the least fantastical of the set. The story is in first person, our narrator is Claire, a single mother who has recently moved into a remote house that backs on to a swathe of...
The best thing about Amanda Foody’s debut lies in the title itself. Her ‘Burning City’ is an immersive, sensory experience that rivets from the very first page. The smoke from her traveling circus wafts off the page, the dirt and ash from the trodden ground almost tangible on the tongue....
Newcon Press’ second novella series continues with Simon Clark’s story, set in the middle of the London Blitz. The title gives away the nature of what we are to expect – a Sherlock Holmes story, occurring in the twilight years of Baker Street’s favourite detective.
During the...
Strange Weather contains four stories that are subtly linked; each different in theme and style. They are tied together, as you might expect from the title, by some pretty unusual weather.
The book begins in 1988 with "Snapshot" which describes 13 year old Michael Figlione living in...
Paul McAuley is a vastly under-appreciated author. His books are inspiring, hypnotic and inventive. Austral is all of these and more, a book set in a plausible, climate-changed future where the planet has a new continent with a partial thawing of the Antarctic. There are still vast vistas of ice...
The Bastard Legion is the latest Military Science Fiction from Gavin Smith, very much in the style of his earlier book Veteran and its sequel War in Heaven, although not connected in terms of plot or characters.
Smith’s hard hitting protagonist is Miska Corbin, a thief and hacker...
This book, by Kiersten White, is a gender flipped historically based story of the early life of Vlad the Impaler or in this case, Lada Dracul.
White takes the bones of the historical accounts and layers it with a rich imaginings of characters and quirks, to give the reader some...
Paul Kidby was Pratchett's artist of choice and once described his lively, colourful illustrations as:
The closest anyone's got to how I see the characters
He's been drawing Discworld for over fifteen years, including the superbly illustrated Last Hero, not to...
In short, this is a story set in a fantasy version of European renaissance including trade, religion and politics. You can draw parallels between different countries and religions in the book to real world versions of the same.
But simply describing a book in this way is somewhat...
Zoe’s Tale is one of the Old Man War series of books by John Scalzi and covers the same time period and events as The Last Colony, (the previous book in the series) but from a different character’s perspective. Despite this, it can be read as a standalone novel.
Zoe is moving...
Blade Bound is the final instalment of Chloe Neill’s urban fantasy Chicagoland Vampire series. It can be read as a standalone novel, but I recommend you start earlier in the series to get full enjoyment, reading them in reverse order will result in significant plot spoilers.
The...
Book of the month
