Archives 2022
All reviews published during 2022
The Fallen Star by Claudia Gray is released on the first anniversary of the creation of The High Republic Universe, a bold move by the Star Wars novels to create their own sandbox in which to play, free from the Skywalkers. There are comics, YA books and more....
Artificial Condition is the second book in The Murderbot Diaries, and the follow up to All Systems Red. It won the 2019 Hugo and Locus awards for best novella, and like the others in the series, has received a great deal of praise. It is highly recommended (but not imperative) you read All...
There is an internet meme of Will Ferrel playing a dishevelled looking Anchorman and stating, “well that escalated quickly.” I have read many crime thrillers in my time, and they often pick up pace and rattle along, but none have...
There are two types of Christmases: merry or blue. Whether you are more Slade or Elvis will depend on the experiences you have had in the past on December 25th. Have your winters been full of family fun and presents? Do you get a sense of wellbeing and good tidings to...
When a beloved intellectual property enters the public domain, it can be a fearful time for fans, what on Earth are all these authors going to do with your beloved characters? In the case of Sherlock Holmes, it has been a magnificent time. Each year the shelves bulge...
If you had the chance to start over again from an early age and know what you do now, would you take it? A chance to live your life again; buy those shares in Apple, know some of the exam questions and football results? The answer for me is no. 80 years more life is not...
There are places on the planet that are scary enough on their own. You would never find me plunging the depth of the deepest oceans or spending the night in an abandoned greenhouse somewhere in a wild forest. There are dangers aplenty without any monsters, ghoulies or manifestations. Add to this...
That one time you saved the world with stick with you for a lifetime. You may bask in the glory one day and wake up with cold sweats the next, either way, the event will be forged in your memories forever. What about two times? Three or four? Do you think that James Bond...
I do not like to think about death much as it makes it seem a little too real for my liking. I am still sticking to the hope that they invent that infinity pill before it is my time. If you are going to explore death, you may as well make it as beautiful as you can, and poetry can have a beauty....
Constance Verity is anything but normal, blessed as a child to live an adventurous life, this may sound exciting, but the reality is much different. Now in her 30s, she is fed up with having to save the world all the time and just wants some normal downtime. By Constance Verity Saves the World,...
There is nothing quite like space for great action sci fi. The spaceships, the weapons, the futuristic or alien technology. Massive explosions and body parts flying about the place is great, but it is nothing without characters that you care about. Somone losing a hand means nothing if it is...
Grief can feel like a weight that you carry with you. The luckiest people will feel the weight get lighter as time moves on, always there, but more bearable over time. In The House of Sorrowing Stars by Beth Cartwright there is a home that captures all the real stories of sorrow in its vast...
If I lived in a Star Trek universe I would always travel by shuttlecraft and refuse to use the transporter. I am just uneasy with the idea of being split into atoms and reformed elsewhere. I am, for all intents and purposes, the same person, with the same memories, but am I? Is it not true that...
Sometimes it is hard to see that something is not quite right as it has always been that way. Why in children’s cartoons does there always seem to be a misbalance between the male and female characters? Will boys not watch girls on screen? Will men not read about women in books? Fantasy...
Never judge a person till you've walked a mile in their shoes, the late Terry Pratchett might add "because then you're a mile away, and have their shoes". It's something we do all the time, form snap judgements about people and situations, often based on first impressions. Perhaps it's a genetic...
I think the pessimistic among us see a future of raised water levels and the UK losing plenty of its coastal land and anything close to our rivers. However, even the most resigned will not have imagined the world that Martin Mulligan and Jack D. McLean have created in The Drowning Earth. Not...
By this, her third outing, Constance Verity has saved the world countless times and the Universe itself just as many. Fighting off otherworldly threats is an everyday occurrence. It is the more mundane things in life that worry Constance like assuring her best friend’s wedding is not...
There is something magical about the idea of a circus, the lights, the action, the antics, and the acts. The reality in my youth was a little different with a threadbare tent being erected in a local muddy play field. Khan Wong has thankfully decided to capture the majesty that the idea evokes...
Are villains made or are they born? I believe more in nurture over nature, that someone is not born inherently evil but is made so by their experiences. Alyce is not a bad person, but her heritage as half-Vila makes her a pariah in the Kingdom of Briar. The people hate her, but her elixirs are...
The nineteenth century was the golden age of the Gothic fiction in Germany. The present volume makes available in English for the first time a group of stories originally appeared in German and, with one exception, unknown so far to the English-speaking world.
The exception is represented...
The concept of humankind travelling to other planets to colonise has been a staple of science fiction for decades and as the world in which we inhabit becomes increasingly tricky for humans to live on, the novels are set to keep on rolling. Some are action pieces, some concentrate on the...
If you are of a certain age, you will know that the 80s was by far the best decade for pop culture, the films, music, comics, books, all unbeatable. All the films and TV shows basking in that 80s nostalgia prove it so. But wait, what is that? A load of 90s-based films and TV shows are starting...
What are you going to do if Godzilla arrives. You must have a plan in mind. At least one for home and one for the office. I used to have a great plan that would see me have an almost 100% chance of surviving, but then I went and started a family. Now I have no chance as their little legs are...
The days of High Elves and spiffing adventures being the only choice in fantasy are long over. This is a vast genre that still has books of High Fantasy, but it also has Low Fantasy. This gritty version of the genre is more prevalent than ever with some of the best being made into TVs shows and...
Having a family is a beautiful thing, but they can also be a pain. They do not listen and when they do, they get it wrong. Days are made up of petty squabbles that have lived below the surface for decades, but the foundation is all built on love. Writing a flawed, realistic family is not easy,...
When we colonise space, I hope that we send out the brightest and the best. These people will represent the absolute best that humanity has to offer, but what happens if the journey is a long one? The bright young things are not going to live to see the destination in 150 years, but their...
Nature, red in claw and tooth. It is a world of the strong surviving the weak dying. Therefore, fiction that tells a story from the animal perspective can be full on. Watership Down and The Animals of Farthing Wood have managed to traumatise many a youth and even the jolly Redwall books I used...
Comedy combined with Science Fiction is rare because it is so hard to do. When it clicks though it is worthwhile as you get some absolute classics such as Red Dwarf or Hitchhiker's. Those are mighty large shoes to try and fill, but Chris Panatier is giving it a go in Stringers, a book that...
If you go down to the woods today, you are in for a big surprise. Something far worse will be waiting for you than a few bears holding sandwiches. These are the ancient woods that our ancestors grew up near, pockets of civilisation surrounded by darkness and danger. When myths and folklore were...
There are seminal books aplenty in genre fiction. These books are giants and other fiction stands on their shoulders to reach greater heights. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of the biggest influences on the horror genre bringing with it a folklore and character that still resonates today....
I have read many genre books and I see trends in what is currently popular or going through a period of high quality. The dark gothic fairy tale is having a moment in the sun as I have recently read some excellent stories that hark back to a feel of past fables but are their own modern take. T...
I love sleep and have a deeper appreciation of it since having a family. I find myself able to drop off in a second as I snatch any five minutes I can before being woken up again at 5 am. The number of naps that I have would not be advisable in the world of Zaxony Delatree as I may end up waking...
I am a massive genre fan, but I have not always had a good relationship with horror anthologies for the simple reason that they have scared me in the past. The shorter form of horror story can give a jolt to the reader’s senses and then disappear, only to live on in freaky flashbacks. From...
Space is for the few. You may have been trained as a professional astronaut and pushed the boundaries of science. Maybe you are a geek done good and decided to spend your billions on the vanity project of commercial space travel. Maybe, just maybe, you are a celeb or competition winner who...
Are you a night person or a day person? Do you like to wake up at 5am and then go to the gym before a full day at work and an early night? Perhaps you like to wake up in time for Bargain Hunt and work from home into the late hours? Either way, you are you. The night owl and the early bird, same...
I have a love hate relationship with time travel stories. I love the mind-bending physics and puzzles that they create but hate the fact that most of them just could not work. How can people from the past learn what they need to from those in the future if they have not lived their own futures...
I adore science fiction, but it also frustrates me. I consider myself reasonably well read and clever enough to cope with most books, but occasionally a science fiction book comes along that I just cannot get my head around. Momenticon by Andrew Caldecott is a Bizzaro take on a dystopian future...
As an adult it is easy to forget how exhilarating hide and seek was when you were a child. That crackling of electricity in your chest as you huddle in a hiding place waiting to get caught. The heightened senses as you hear the footsteps of the seeker drawing closer. The sense of relief as they...
Everyone knows the story of Sleeping Beauty, or do they? Malice by Heather Walter retold the story leading up to Aurora falling asleep, but with far more detail on Aurora and her relationship with Alyce, the person responsible for her curse. Misrule opens 100 years later and tells the...
I am not a gambler. All I do is look at how rich the casino and betting companies are to see that the odds are stacked in their favour. If you play the odds, eventually you will lose. However, there are games that require skill. Poker is one. It has elements of luck, but a skilled player is far...
Ray Cluley’s second collection (the first one being the critically acclaimed Probably Monsters) assembling seventeen dark short stories previously appeared in various genre magazines confirms the versatile character of this talented author in terms of plots, atmospheres and geographic...
Reading about a dystopia is not as farfetched as it was once as we are living through a couple of ongoing ones as I write, but there is always space for a little more terror to add to the reality. What about a situation that is eerily possible? The sun belches out radiation daily and according...
It is amazing what can inspire a writer. A little thought worm can drill itself into their head and the only peace to be found is to write the thing out. Ron Capshaw’s inspiration for The Stage Mother’s Club seems to be the author’s fascination with all the failed stage Mums...
Urban Fantasy has become a staple of the Fantasy genre in recent years, and you are as likely to find a book about a necromancer librarian or zombie private detective walking around a modern city as you are elves and dwarves in a version of the past. I thought I had seen it all; teddy bear...
The genre of Urban Fantasy is pathed with perils, which means that it should be perfect for Alex Jennings’ The Ballad of Perilous Graves. How do you make your modern fantasy stand out from the others without making it impenetrable for the reader? A unique location or voice works well. An...
Like many Science Fiction fans, I am also a fan of Doctor Who, but not of a particular incarnation of the Doctor on television. I am a Doctor Who book fan. The show is great, but it in the novels where I have always found the most interesting stories free from budget constraints and...
The Target imprint of Doctor Who novels is like nectar to any fan as they offer a punchy adaptation of almost every episode of the series up to the mid-90s, but there were a few missing. Fear not, as BBC Books are not only releasing adaptations of newer episodes but are also looking to fill in...
I love fantasy novels, especially when an author takes the genre in a different direction. Together We Burn by Isabel Ibanez is a fantasy book unlike the others. The difference is that this fantasy world is based on Latin culture and the dragons are hunted and caught. Once captured this...
Destiny is a tricky thing as it is something that you should not be aware of. I want to be surprised if it turns out that I save the world, or perhaps destroy it. Some characters have their destiny thrust upon them from a young age and are told what it will be. Anton is a Blade Priest for...
Doctor Who is the same, but also different, in each iteration and that is what makes the characters so interesting. The Twelfth Doctor is one of the latest incarnations and one that reflected on the Doctor’s past as much as the present. The humour was still there, but also more of the...
It starts off sensibly with tweaking a DNA strand here or there to prevent a hereditary illness. Who could argue against that? However, it is not long before people realise that they can use the same tools to make sure that a child has their father’s eye colour and Mother’s hair. Why...
H. G. Wells is a name to conjure with. Classic stories about time machines, invisible men, alien invasions and more. He was one of the earliest genre writers in a time when the idea of genres did not exist. He just wrote what he felt like. A modern author who has taken on this mantle is Silvia...
There are many genres out there and you can find yourself as a reader sticking to the same ones. I always noticed the large collection of Westerns and books on historic America in my public library growing up. Most of them in large print, which suggested that the audience was older than my...
A group of adults tormented by their past when a carnival worker changed their lives forever. Sound familiar? No not It, but Ronald Malfi’s Black Mouth, the author’s own take on how the memories of youth haunt the present. This is dark horror with glimpses of the supernatural, but...
Humanity is a parasite sucking the recourses from the Earth until there are no more. Like a remora attached to the undercarriage of a shark, humans will one day need find a new host. The alternative is to change our ways, but that does not seem likely. Titan Hoppers by Rob J Hayes follows a...
No matter how many books are in a series and how long the journey, fantasy stories do end. But we all know that they never do. There is always an itch to discover what happened next, or what happened before, a rich lore and world to explore further. In Stephen Aryan’s The Coward we already...
The supernatural has always worked well with noir as they are both genres of the night. It is only an undead hop and skip between a detective finding a corpse in the alley and that corpse waking up. Conan Doyle walked the line between the supernatural and the super-real, Holmes always discovered...
James Bond has evolved through the decades from the original Ian Fleming books to a world-famous series of films and even classic computer games, but at their heart the best Bonds all hark back to Fleming’s style. Double or Nothing by Kim Sherwood is a surprise then as it is a Bond book...
I love science fiction, but it can sometimes be hard to relate to the characters if they are flying spaceships in far off galaxies. Sometimes it is nice to read something a little closer to home, bizarre things happening to normal people. David Quantick’s Ricky’s Hand is a twisted...
Fantasy does not have to be massive epics set over several books that see dynasties rise and fall. Some of the best modern fantasy books concentrate on the characters that may have hidden in the background of Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings. The humble conman for instance and their crew. I...
The sense of adventure and bravery that someone needed to explore space in the 60s and 70s is beyond me. All that separates you from the vacuum of space is a few sheets of glass and metal. The technology onboard is simpler than the type of things you would get in a child’s electronic...
Time travel is fascinating, it is also some of the most fictional science fiction you will ever get. What has happened must have happened, lest you rip apart your universe in a paradox. The scientists in A. G. Riddle’s Lost in Time seem to have found a workaround as they send the worst...
Sherlock Holmes is such an iconic figure that it is easy to believe that he was real. A great detective walking the streets of Late Victorian London solving crimes that conventional police could not hope to solve. But he was not real, neither was Watson and they are both out of copyright which...
Placing a restriction on yourself should not be a freeing experience, but the opposite can be true, especially in the arts. Making films under strict rules can lead to innovation as film makers struggle to achieve their vision under restraints. Creating an anthology about one subject matter...
I am at an age where I genuinely believe that Science Fiction is the best genre there is and I have read enough books of all types to have developed this opinion. I love it because it can be so many different things. Space opera to speculative fiction. A Sci Fi book can also be a riddle...
Science fiction is a brilliant tool for pondering what happens after the inevitable fall of humans. There is only so long that the Earth can sustain us, but that does not mean that other civilisations may not develop after. Beyond the Burn Line by Paul McAuley is a Sci Fi mystery told from the...
Having grown up in a village, life there had its pros and its cons. There is a real sense of community, and everyone knows each other. Great, but also not so great. Any small incident can become gossip, no matter how benign, so I can only imagine what would happen should a fire break...
We have all come to loath the Flu virus and its even worse cousin, but how are we as humans to prevent the spread of life? It will find a way. For mammals it is making babies, for a virus it is infiltrating a host and multiplying, then moving onto the next host. The virus does not care that...
Horror is a wonderful genre full of fear, but it does not often scare me. I am not afraid of monsters that go bump in the night because I am a rational human being who knows they don’t exist. However, some horror does get to me; anything that threatens children or based on real life...
Science Fiction writers love a dystopia, there are so many ways that it could all go wrong. Overpopulation is one. It not a pleasant thing to think about, but we already use too many of the world’s finite resources and as the population grows, this is going to get even worse. In The...
I read and listen to books in all formats, but still prefer the feel of paper in my hand. Audiobooks are great for the commute, but they are just not pacy enough for me, I read quickly, and a narrator often seems to go in slow motion even at 1.5 speed. 2000AD and Penguin Audio must know my brain...
Typography has a larger role in your life than you may think. It is important to get the right font in the right place. No one wants to have Beware of the Cliff written in Comic Sans. Advertisers spend millions on typefaces to make a brand instantly recognisable. All these things are noble...
The latest collection by John Langan assembles eleven stories (but considering their lengths I’d rather call them novelettes or, in some instances, novellas), ten of which previously appeared in various anthologies.
The overall impression I’ve got from the book confirms my...
With the new Black Panther film arriving soon in cinemas, Marvel fans are extremely excited to see what is next for the people of Wakanda. The first film was excellent, but even with all its colour and strength it could only scratch the surface of the comic book. There is a rich history to...
The Trolley Problem is an interesting mental exercise that asks you would you let one person die to save many? To do so you would have to divert the trolley from the path of the five and be culpable for it hitting the one. In theory it makes sense, the many not the few, but could you really pull...
Endings are not easy, especially in epic fantasy series. Hundreds or thousands of pages all building up to this. Famously one TV adaptation finale did not go down very well with the fans, so if authors did not know it before, they know it now. David Hair’s Tethered Cathedral trilogy comes...
The public love a superhero crossover tale, the billion-dollar hauls of various Avenger movies will tell you this, but they do not always work and at this point they can feel like going over old ground. Original Sin was a comic book arc conceived by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato...
What is Comfy Fantasy? It is a new name for the type of fantasy that does not have you on edge all the time. As a genre fantasy can often feel epic, but also stressful. The heroes on the run from a darkness they cannot fathom, or a fellowship were hardly anyone can be trusted. Sometimes you just...
Think too long on the multiverse and your mind will explode. Every tiny action you take splits off into another multiverse, then extrapolate that with everything making tiny actions. There will be an infinite number of universes that only differ from the way you tied your shoelace that morning....
There are many roads to enlightenment. You can spend decades mastering the art of meditation, becoming one with the universe. You can seek to achieve the divine through the depraved, in acts so vial that you push through what is acceptable into the other. Any of the routes take commitment and...
I am a student of history. In that I love to learn about history, but I did a degree in the subject. What I find the most fascinating is how history evolves – an event happened and that will never change, but how we precisive it does. The fashions and knowledge of the present day impacts...
Humans fear the dark and we fear the cold. There is good reason for this. In our modern world we can wrap up warm in a synthetic coat and take along a torch that can be seen from space, but that was not always true. The dark used to mean the unknown. Animals or something else preying on you. The...
Social Media has changed the world we live in today by accelerating the polarisation of opinion. No longer is a debate a two-way conversation between people discussing their own point of view, but a slanging match in which neither side can see the others’ point of view. Until the last...
Classic stories leaving copyright has been a boon to modern authors who are suddenly able to play with much loved characters as they wish. The mash up is not unusual when two contemporary characters suddenly meet, but often these books are set at the same time as the original text. What would...
The mind is a powerful tool. It can make a person do spectacular things but can also be their undoing. A trauma earlier in life can impact your day to day living. Perhaps talking to someone would help, be it a friend or a professional? Neviah is a counsellor who has a unique way of unpicking...
Imagine the sacrifice required to sign up for a long-term mission into the depth of space. You are to be cryogenically frozen for 80 years and will awake to a new world. It could be that this is what you wanted all along. A chance at a new life free from the Old Earth, but they have only gone...
Bringing back classic character is a wise decision as you already have a built-in fan base and the potential to make new fans. Who does not want to read more Sherlock Holmes? But it is fraught with dangers. Suddenly you have Winnie the Pooh and The Grinch starring in horror films. In some cases,...
The future is full of an almost infinite sea of possibilities and that’s what makes science fiction such a great genre. Whilst I may imagine a dystopian future of bleak radioactive zombies, you may think of a utopia. The best books should be a mix of the two, a dark future with a glimmer...
The humble Private Investigator is a put-upon character, often lonely, whenever they find love, that love seems to end up dead. No wonder so many of them have a problem with drink, gambling, or drugs – perhaps a mix of all three. Few PIs can hold a candle to Happy Doll, he is not even a PI...
I have read more than my fair share of fantasy novels and I love them. As a rule, they fall into a couple of camps on how they are narrated – from a single point of view, or through the eyes of several people, normally 3-7. Leaping from one character and back again works in the genre as it...
As a species we are doing a good enough job of messing up our own chances of survival, but what if I told you that we could also mess up another distant planet too? In Stephan George’s The Distant Stars Are My Only Friends, Arax is a traveller who does not go into space, but instead...
The Doctor can travel anywhere in the Universe and at any time. He can witness the last days of existence or visit a planet of peace. Or he could visit Tara, a planet that seems like our own feudal era Britain, but with added androids. And some odd feeling 70s chauvinism. Target Books have...
It should not matter what format you ingest a novel – on paper, on the screen or even via audio, but it does. I do not always get on with audio as I am such a fast reader, even on speed up the narrator cannot keep up with my awful lack of attention. However, the right book works as an...
This time last year, I finally got around to reading the 1973 annual world's best science fiction, which had some interesting stories, but were all written by male, American authors. Hardly world fiction at all, and even then not the best of the previous 12 months. Nebula award stories...
Book of the month
