A large part of fantasy novels is not really the destination, but the journey. The camaraderie that builds among a troop of characters as they travel to their destination, but what happens once they have arrived? In T Kingfisher’s Clockwork Boys four mismatched social pariahs set out to survive the journey to Anuket City and investigate and destroy the origins of the Clockwork Boys. In The Wonder Engine we find out what they can do now they have arrived.

Slate finds herself back in the city she fled some years earlier, but this time she has a fallen knight, a cutthroat, a woman-shy academic, and a badger-like creature as company. They have to lay low, whilst also discovering what is happening within the Clockwork District that is churning out machines. Easier said than done when you are wanted by the biggest crime lord in the city.

The first outing for Slate and co was a joyous book, as joyous as low fantasy can get. Yes, the heroes are not particularly nice people, and they are slaves to a flesh eating tattoo that forces them to stay on mission lest it eat their arm, but they had each other. By the end of the book the bickering had not ended, but there was a trust and a respect among these few. They never thought they would survive, but they did.

Wonder is that slightly awkward second album as they find themselves in Anuket City ready to discovery and destroy what is making the Clockwork Boys. Whilst book one started in one place. A large portion of the story is told on the road as the crew are involved in misadventure after misadventure, this gave the book momentum. Book two does not quite have this momentum.

Instead of moving along a road, large parts of the novel are launched from an Inn, we learn a lot about the city, and more about our heroes. Perhaps too much. There was a sort of love triangle between Slate, the Knight Caliban, and the assassin Brenner, by book’s end this was mostly Slate and Caliban mooning over one another. This happens a lot in Wonder, insipidly so at times, dominating sections of the book, that could have been action orientated.

When the action does hot up, the book is as fun as the first. The final act is particularly entertaining. Here the threads that have been placed through the two novels come together in a satisfactory manner. Some of the joy of the first book is lost in the noodling of the two leads. There is still a solid work of low fantasy hidden away here, the world of the badger like Gnoles is particularly interesting, there was just too much time spent on the development of a love affair, and not enough focus on the mission. For fantasy fans who enjoy the juxtaposition of violent low fantasy, with plenty of will they/won’t they romance, there is a fun book here.

When is a vampire not a vampire? When it is a Gul. These strange creatures are part of everyday life in this version of Brazil, the secret for the humans who want to survive is to stay at home after curfew, lest they be eaten by Guls or taken for enemies of the state by the Fascists who run the country. In this dangerous and magical alternative world Hache Pueyo has set Cabaret in Flames, a dark fantasy novel set in an unreal place.

Ariadne is a doctor of sorts, but she specialises not in humans, but the strange vampire like creatures called Guls. Guls may be dangerous, but if they have fed recently, they do not have the impulse to kill and would not be wise to kill one of the few people that can fix their ills. When Quaint arrives at the door looking for Ariadne’s master, she admits that he left some time ago. With the help of this enigmatic Gul, Ariadne leaves the relative safety of her home and ventures out to a Brazil torn by civil war and prayed on by Guls.

Cabaret is somewhat of a fever dream of a novel, an exotic and layered take on Vampiric lore. I have not read anything quite like it before and this is to Pueyo’s credit. Its Pueyo’s South American influences that makes the book so different. This alternative Brazil is fascinating, but also strange. It takes a beat or two for the reader to get into the rhythm of the story, but once you do, you enter a strange land.

The world is a fascinating one and not spoon fed to the reader. There is an Art Deco feel to the story, of roaring 20s leading up to the 40s. The Guls are not your normal Vampires, they have the same tendencies, but in this land, they play a different role. You have the likes of Quaint, who cannot quite be trusted, but lives by noble rules. You have other who are far more vicious. Others still are sadistic, like the one that punished Ariadne in her youth by eating her arms and legs, she only walks now because her master was an expert in animatronics.

The entire book feels like it is gaslit, with horrible creatures waiting in the shadows. It feels like it could be a romance, a bodice ripper, but there is a far darker tone than that. We learn about what happened to Ariadne and this is only one of the darker moments. Ariadne and Quaint must work with and against some of the most unsavoury characters to find their old friend.

I enjoyed the different feel of Cabaret, although it was not the easiest to follow at times. There is an unworldly, dreamlike quality to it as we learn along with Ariadne about the wider world. It is a short novel, much is left unsaid, but that just adds to the mystery. Although not strictly a vampire novel, it is these fans that will enjoy the book the most, especially those that like their tale dripping in noir.  

Many of us do not really know what is going on in Space, and not everyone really cares. It is all so far away and beyond our control. However, even the layman would think twice if the planets in our Solar System started to disintegrate one after the other and strange new discs appear in Space that block out the Sun’s light.  Gareth L Powell’s Jitterbug is set 100 years or so after this happened and humans are going to have to start caring.

Captain Copernicus Brown inherited his father’s spaceship, Jitterbug, after pirates killed him. The life of a courier was not for Copernicus; it would not sate his burning desire for justice. With the vast liveable Swirl now hanging in reachable space, many of the less savoury members of society have fled there and the authorities do not have the resources to track them down. Copernicus is now a Bounty Hunter for hire, but one with ethics. Ethics that get him embroiled in a vast conspiracy when he stops to help a ship in distress.

Space novels can be so complicated with intense opera like storylines and science that even the most ardent of Sci Fi fans can sometimes get lost in. But they can also be great fun. Powell creates entertaining science fiction that is a joy to read, and Jitterbug is another excellent example of this. A ragtag crew going up against the odds, what could be better?

Jitterbug is a fun novel, but the stakes are high. Solar System ending high. The crew of the Jitterbug would not be the first choice to save humanity, but after a series of unfortunate events, a few of their own doing, this is where they are found. Powell is excellent at creating characters and relationships but also slipping in some fantastic world building. We learn about the politics of the time and the mysterious Swirl through the characters. It never feels like exposition.

The back and forth of the crew is what really makes the book. The captain, maverick pilot, grumpy engineer. But we also meet other people; a mysterious woman who seems too good to be true, and the head of the systemwide government. All of the characters have their quirks and flaws, and this is what makes them so fun. We also get to know the Jitterbug itself and some of the other powerful AI spaceships. Jitterbug is more than just a crew member; they are the ship.

The story itself is thrilling, building up from a caper novel into something far vaster. A real science fiction story for fans of the genre who like mind blowing concepts thrown in there. The book is farfetched, but it is written to feel real; messy people, struggling along in a broken future. I had great fun reading this book, pacy, thrilling, but also packed with proper science fiction and fluid world building.

If you are like me, you will have an escape plan from the building you work in, just in case there is a zombie attack. My plan is to get to the roof and use one of the ladders up there to simply steer the zombies over the low edge. This might work, but not in the Antarctic, were there are few buildings over two stories, and the landings are soft with snow, enough for zombies to just get back up again. In Symbiote only a few people were able to survive the first attack of a rapidly evolving microbe, they are now hiding in what remains of their base. Surely, something similar cannot happen miles away at McMurdo Station, with a population of up to 1500 people. Sentient by Michael Nayak proves that it can.

The microbes are drawn to the cold, at the lowest temperatures, they are at their most powerful. To begin with their simple need was to reproduce, claim more victims. This was achieved by making their victims mad with frenzy and attack others, passing on the genes. However, the microbes evolved after meeting an agent, giving the undead the ability to plan and communicate. However, they died, or are they hibernating, waiting for a better opportunity? An opportunity in over 1000 potential victims on their way to take over McMurdo Station for the summer.

There is often a pattern to a sequel, take elements of the first and make it bigger and louder. There are not that many sequels that beat the originals, but Sentient has as much chance as any other. Taking the sentient microbes and giving them a bigger pool of victims has a lot of promise, but to get to this promise, you have to get through a lot of buildup. Symbiote was a slow burn thriller, a novel that turned up the tension as characters could not trust each other. Whilst that book was The Thing, this one is more Aliens, but starts with the same steady pace.

The book takes place at McMurdo, but before things really kick off the survivors from the first book, and many of the baddies, need to get other there. We are also introduced to many new characters, who will be potential victims, or even future survivors. The first act of the book is build up, it is not until around halfway that the action really hots up and the microbes attack again. Here the book is on a larger scale, bigger armies of the undead tearing through buildings and dragging victims down to the icy depths to evolve once more into something even more powerful.

There are some fun set pieces. The book is told from various perspectives, so a chapter almost feels like a vignette as a character hopes desperately to survive. I like the mix of morals, very few characters were truly good, most had at least one other angle, not in just being a microbe, but by being untrustworthy. I even had a soft spot for the CIA agents, characters who had more than a small part in breaking the disease out. The microbes themselves are a great character. They have representatives who you recognise, who may speak on their behalf, but this is more of a total mass that thinks as one. It evolves, it plans, it kills.

Nayak has a great way of structuring the story, elements of it are as if written from a future posthumous text from a character that is in the book. There are also snippets of redacted CIA files and scientific notes. It gives the science a more realistic feel. Therefore, when the book becomes too outlandish, it does not sit well with the format. The use of animals as a weapon feels a little daft and pops the tension the book had spent so long to build. This section of the book does not ruin it, but it does mean that the novel falls into that desperate sequel trap of trying to be too much more than the first. Sentient is still a fun book, but one that is not as good as the first.

 

 

 

 

 

     

Naming your book The Last Phi Hunter comes with some idea that this will be the last of their kind, but Salinee Goldenberg proves this is not the case with a sequel, Way of the Walker. But is this Walker an actual Phi Hunter? If your job is to find and kill the undead (Phi), befriending them and helping them to move on is not hunting, is it? Ree is in many ways her Father’s daughter, but in this follow up she follows her own path.

Set years after Ex’s adventure, the Phi Hunters have found a place in the Kingdom of Suyoram. Not embraced but certainly tolerated. Arinya and Ex’s daughter, Ree, is a naturally talented Phi Hunter, but something about killing creature she can understand does not sit right, especially when it is not the world of the Everpresent that is the risk, but the world of man. Ree must discover her own role, will she side with man or phi?

It was a bold move from Goldenberg to moves the story of Walker a decade or two later from the previous book. It allowed the world to evolve and move on but also left some behind. In this case, this was Ex, a character I very much enjoyed from the first book. Here he is a side character, a worried father who has little to do. Instead, this book focuses on Ree, and a parallel story of Tanung, a Prince of an Empire fixated on controlling all the land.

Rather than focus too much on the daughter/father relationship, the book moves on from the family homestead quickly and becomes more of an epic war novel. Ree and Tanung are pitted against one another but may also have some of the same common enemies. There are pitched battles, but this is more about guerilla tactics, Tanung’s traditional use of soldiers to strike fast and retreat, and Ree’s use of the Phi.

The book is at its strongest when exploring the relationship that Ree has with the Phi. She was born otherworldly and has a foot in both the world as we know it and the undead. Rather than fight, she talks. We learn more about the Phi, who may be monsters and killers, but can be reasoned with. Many just want help to move on.

Another key relationship in the book is between Ree and Tanung, this runs hot and cold, and is your classic will they, won’t they, enemies to lovers arch. One that we have seen before but is enjoyable. I like the character of Tanung, he is thoughtful but can also be ruthless and a tactician.

The Kingdom of Suyoram is a complex one, the novel is fantasy but set in a different feeling world. I found at times myself a little lost as to what was happening, as we visit new locations set across two plains of existence. However, it is worth it to enjoy what feels like a rich tapestry of a novel. A book that deals with creatures, but also oppression and warfare. A true epic feeling fantasy novel, that at times can get lost it in its own majesty.

A lot can happen during a siege, enough so that you do not have to have a book full of battles, you could have just one about the siege itself. This is the setting of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest in the The Tyrant Philosophers series, Pretenders to the Throne of God. We will meet new friends and old, as one side of the wall fights the other, with some people happening to go from side to side.

Eres Ffenegh is a city known for many things. It sits on the back of a giant dead crab god, and it has some of the best demon brothels in the land. What it is known for right now is that it is under siege from the Palleseen army who wish to bring it into the light of Perfection. Well, the people of Eres are not perfect, far from it. If they are not consorting with demons, they have run from the Pell army. They will have to fight to the death if they want their way of life to survive. Or is there another way?

I do enjoy a siege novel; they set a very different tone from your typical epic fantasy novel as the setting and characters are all contained within a few square miles. The Tyrant series is a special one, one of the best series of fantasy novels that has come out in recent years. Tchaikovsky works with your typical fantasy tropes, but there is a deep intelligence here and wonderful writing.

The style remains all Tchaikovsky. Like in previous novels in the series, it is an ensemble of characters, many of which have evolved since the last books, but will prove recognisable. The narrative moves through the characters, from one to the other. I imagine the author like a god themselves who zooms in on one character in a chapter, to then zoom out, and back in again to another location nearby. The story organically moves forwards as if in real time. You can imagine the other characters in the book are getting on with their lives as you currently spend time with a fallen priest, or a necromancer, or a Madame at a demon brothel.

The tone of Pretenders is dark, but also humorous. The Pells are a joyless bunch, but you can see that apart from the true believers, nature finds a way and Pells’ gamble, cavort and kill as much as the next person. There is a story here of bureaucracy and government overreach, a sort of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil told in a low fantasy world. There is that sense of macabre humour that even if life goes to poop, you have to laugh at it.

I loved the use of various magics within Pretenders. Unlike with lots of low fantasy, the book does not shy away from it. Magic is real, so are gods. The problem is that the Pells have found a way to drain these things and use them in their weapons. Once more taking things that are unique and wonderful, and making them bland and conformative.

I hugely enjoyed getting to meet so many characters, new and old, but the book was a little confusing in places, especially in the set pieces when the format moves from one character per chapter to jumping around quickly. It is the type of book that benefits from reading at a steady pace and taking it in. Not only does this allow you to better comprehend the story, but also to bask in the fantastic world building and characters that Tchaikovsky has created. I see the Tyrant Philosophers series being remembered as one of the all-time greats, they are that good.

One of the benefits of being a vampire is not the insatiable lust for human blood, but the eternal life. It can make meeting other vampires a tad strange as that 25-year-old looking person may actually be 100 years old, or a 1000. They try to act all modern, but they always have that whiff of the Renaissance about them, but when a kick arse Vampire is born, she will no longer be the victim and starts to take the fight to those that would exploit the innocent.

Newly pregnant and with dreams of escaping to America, Maria works nights in a factory, a dangerous job, but one that pays that little bit more, but that danger is not worth what happened one night as the boss left the building, locking the doors. Maria and her fellow workers are locked in with three men, or beings that seem to be men. All the workers die, except for Maria who is spared, but cursed to live as a Vampire. Maria swears to protect those who cannot defend themselves, but in doing so begins to reveal a millennium spanning conspiracy that involves not just humans and vampires.

There are hundreds of vampire novels, and I have read plenty of them, there is something about these monsters that appeal. In the case of Maria the Wanted by V Castro, she appeals more than most as a character who is a killer, but also someone you can sympathise with. She never asked to have this unlife but given the opportunity she refrains from killing as much she can unless they deserve it. Instead, she keeps her head down, until she starts to really see the injustice around her and realises that she now has the power to do something about it.

This is Act One, a dark, snappy tale about a vigilante with power. It is a noble book, one that has a brooding noir feel to it. Set in Mexico City it has a different feel and then Act Two begins to approach.

Act Two starts in the first act, Maria survives because she wants to know why she was turned, and who that vampire was. This in turn leads to an international conspiracy that takes the story and leads it away from the hard edges of Mexico to Las Vegas and then England. The number of characters expand, never becoming quite the ensemble, but moves away from just Maria’s story. This was a shame. The softened edges and world of vampires made me think of, dare I saw, Twilight, and they are not books that I would want to revisit.

Do you want a focused, individual story, or an epic world spanning tale? In Maria you get a bit of both. I personally preferred the opening more personal act, it felt different and fresher. However, as the works of Anne Rice et al. will attest there is a great interest in family sagas involving vampires. There is enough in the character of Maria herself to make the book enjoyable, but it did feel like two separate styles in one.   

A science fiction story that describes the gradual development of artificial intelligence and demonstrates the inadequacies of human beings as they try to train it and interact with it, The Peachy Paradox begins with a lightness and humour, but as it continues, the humour is satirical, sporadic and dark as writer, Cornelius Moon, wrestles with a future crisis, projected from events occurring today.

‘Peachy’ is introduced to us as a NeuraBotics product, delivered in a well-packaged box. She is carefully unwrapped by her new owners, Jim and Lily. Moon’s writing then zooms out from the moment, covering the gradual integration of Peachy into their family, and the break-up of their marriage as Peachy comes between the two adults. 

The chapter covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. This is a constant theme of the book as Moon’s restless pursuit of a larger narrative is built on small vignette chapters with minimal description. There are strengths and weaknesses to working like this. Pace and theme are constant, but characters arrive and disappear quickly, giving the reader little time to identify with them or connect with their specific aspect of the story before we move on to something else. Time jumps (forwards and backwards) are indicated in the chapter headings. These can be missed.

The majority of Moon’s plot is dialogue driven. Characters express themselves confidently in each scene, and demonstrate expertise in their professional areas, or make use of extended slang and jargon. At times, the reader has to adjust to this, and some of the technical concepts aren’t immediately clear, but that is to be expected in a scene where experts ‘talk shop’.  

The story escalates quickly. Robots that are indistinguishable from humans integrate into society – a science fiction manifestation of Actor Network Theory in action. Our ‘Peachy’ is a model, designed to be subservient, but who quickly finds a way to rewrite her own programming. Throughout this, Moon’s perspective, zooms in and out, dropping into conversations, then barrelling up to observe the action from five thousand feet. This also contributes to the pace and swirl of the work. The result is a patchwork of prose that may be an acquired taste for the reader with little in terms of character perspective to hand on to, beyond a page or so in an individual scene.

The Peachy Paradox is a work that explores a specific science fiction context from an interesting angle. Humanity’s gradual, ignorant release of control of its own society is a real-world issue, happening right now, as computers are given greater and great autonomy. The idea that we will make a humanoid robot that will slip the leash and disappear into our society is a take conveyed in this work with pace, humour and restlessness of spirit as the consequences of each stage are given a moment before we move onto the next. In some ways, this could have been a whole series of works, building towards a civilisation that renders itself powerlessness, but then it would not have had the same swirling effect of being complicit, but also out of control throughout.

The Peachy Paradox might have its lighter moments, but it makes a serious comment on what we may face in the future if we intentionally or unintentionally cede control of our society to machines.    

As a born cynic, I am always on the lookout for the angle in life and in fiction, but sometimes something is what it seems on the surface; wholesome. Not all books need to challenge the reader and leave them exhausted. Novels can be an escape, an entertainment, full of love and magic. Books and Bewitchment by Isla Jewell is the book to scratch that itch.

Rhea Wolfe lives in a small town, works in a dead-end job, and has an on-off boyfriend that does not understand when things are over. One person’s tragedy is another’s opportunity when news comes through that Rhea’s Grandmother, Margaret, has died leaving various run-down properties in the picturesque town of Arcadia Falls. Properties and another legacy, one of magics than run deep through the family tree, and the other families in the town.

I have a soft spot for Romantic Comedies, and Books is the closest I have read to a novel version of one. I have also read plenty in recent years of what may be considered Romantasy, but often with plenty of antasy over the romance. In this case, although there is magical realism, it leans more into the romance as Rhea soon meets the young suitor, Hunter, the grandson of her Grandma’s arch enemy.

After meeting Hunter I immediately went into mistrust mode, could this handsome and sensitive man, who works wonders with wood, be too good to be true? The answer is, take off your usual suspicion hat and enjoy the ride. The stakes are high, but not deadly. This is a book about a young woman finding her place in life and like for many of us, that happens to be a bookstore.

Books is joyous, full of light moments and minor peril. Rhea is thrown into a fish out of water scenario as she suddenly discovers her own latent powers. In keeping with the softer feel of the novel, the powers in this book are not creating hurricanes or throwing fireballs, but small talents such as baking, or in Rhea’s case the ability to use books to gain advise. The story revolves around the town losing its magic over time and Rhea discovering it again, whilst also discovery Hunter’s talents.

As a romance novel, it does have some adult scenes, but they are on the mild side, more titillation than full imagery. It is a story of the heart, although there is a little of the story of the parts as well. I found that the romance drifted into what I consider twee and a touch cliché, but as a genre I find light-hearted romances can lean into this. It is nice to feel comfort in a book where not everything has to go wrong, and some things may just end happily ever after.      

Dealing with major changes in your life is not easy. You can find help in your community, but when you are a Witch who is hunted down, this is not so simple. Any other Witch that you come across is also being hunted or is too young to know what to do and needs a mentor. All Merhrab wants is to be left alone to deal with the rising power of the Fae in her woods, but that is just not going to happen.

The things in the woods may not be monsters but may be a person. A person hiding from society, from religious people who would see them dead. Is this person a Witch? If they are, who should care? They help the locals when needed and only ask to be left to themselves where possible. In A G Slatter’s A Forest Darkly, Merhrab is one such person, but when she is left with a charge to look after she has to deal with a young woman finding her magic, and her own problems too.

Forest is a book about evolution, a coming of age story, but not just about a young Witch coming into her power, but a middle-aged Witch also changing, and coming into her own form of power. This is an ethereal feeling novel, the type of magical realism story that has a slight dream quality to it, like a modern Fairy Tale. The protagonist is Merhrab, a refreshingly focussed and grumpy character. She reminds me of a Granny Weatherwax style of Witch, if Pratchett dealt more with children stealing minor Gods (which he did do a little bit of).

This book is a character piece, and one loaded with meaning. I have to admit to not catching all of it myself, but even I was able to notice some of the themes. It is the pressure of time, community and self-reflection that is prominent in the book. At times it feels like an inner dialogue of Merhrab just trying to get on with her life.

Story wise, it floats a little. Like with so many stories steeped in magic, it is hard to pin down what is real and what is not. That is part of the quality of the book, but means it has a loose feeling to something you would call a story. It is more like visiting with Merhrab and seeing a few months in her life.

There is plenty of character development throughout the book and Merhrab and her charge are not the same people they start off as. There is some interesting world building that speaks of a larger world than just the village and dark woods that surround it. The conclusion hints at a possible follow up that will open up the world and reveal more about the conflict between the old magics and new religions. It was not a book that I was able to get a firm grip of, but I can see that a lover of magical noir and ethereal story telling will enjoy it, and it will speak deeply to other readers than myself.

Fantasy has a rich history of heroes who fight against the odds to ensure that good triumphs over evil, but what about the cowards? What about the people who would rather live in peace and quiet faraway from the front and have no truck with prophecies, even if they are the centre of them? In Greer Stothers’ Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, this Knight has no interest in honour or death.

A Dragon’s Heart has been burned and the results are in. For the Mad Sorcerer to be defeated the prophecy needs to be met. All the events running up to the final act have been completed and all that is left to do is brutally kill Sir Cameron. Sir Cameron is into a lot of things, and people, but dying is not one of them. If his fellow Knights and Elfish friends are not going to help, there is only one man you can, and that man is mad, bad and a sorcerer.

I do not think I have read any book quite like Sir Cameron, I have read Romantasy, and I have read comedic Fantasy, but not something that is as darkly comedic as this, with added science fiction and some sauce as well. It reads like a wonderful soup of all of Stother’s ideas poured in at once. This makes it a fun read, but also a madcap one.

The romance element is enjoyable. It takes a twist because the lovers are quirky (if we are being polite). One is a coward who uses seduction and manipulation to get their way, the other is a man determined to kill God. The two do not seem to like each other, but that just makes Cameron more excited. There is a real odd couple feel between Cameron and the Sorcerer, leaning into the odd.

The comedy is also entertaining. This is mainly based on the fact that Cameron is a vain idiot who does not know it. He blunders through this adventure saving his skin but also manging to make friends somehow. At points he is a man, woman, and even a vulture. As the adventure continues, we do see some growth to the character as he starts to realise that maybe it is him and not the world that is wrong.

The world building is one of the most intriguing elements. The book starts as a pastiche of classic High Fantasy, how would the world of a David Edding’s work if the hero were a sex mad coward? However, even early on you start to notice this world is deeper. It is a variation of our own future in which magic has replaced technology.

As the book progresses, this alternative reality is built upon. It is frankly bizarre, but great fun. I love to be surprised in fiction, and Sir Cameron certainly does that in the directions it takes. Does it make much sense if you think deeply about it? Not really, but some of the best funny genre fiction feels like a fever dream journey. I enjoyed this novel immensely because of its eclectic style, not despite it. It has the feel that some debut novels have in that Stothers had so many ideas they wanted to get on the page, but there is joy in that.

We all come of age at some point in our lives. If we are lucky enough this will be as part of a loving household and we come out of it not too messed up, but not everyone is lucky. In the real world it can be tough enough, but take this dysfunction and place it is space, things can get real bad. Hazel’s life is good, she lives in a nice village and has been chosen to be this year’s flower girl, but the massive air leak that only she seems to care about could become a real headache. Then nausea, and then death.

Hazel, on the cusp of adulthood, has always wanted more from life than her simple village, but the people of the generational ship all live by a strict code. Everyone must prove useful. Those who are not are recycled to provide for future generations, this includes everyone over 65, and Hazel’s brother after he has an accident. Hazel refuses to conform and instead sets out with her brother to hide but also investigate the strange shimmers in the sky and why everyone on the ship is becoming increasingly lightheaded.

Generational ships are a classic science fiction concept and one that I enjoy immensely. They are the type of science that you can really get your teeth into as an author. A Hole in the Sky by Peter F Hamilton has that science. A huge rotating ship that went through a civil war centuries earlier, breaking the technology and sending the people back to a feudal society. Hazel is one of only a few people who question why society must recycle and wants for more.

Hazel is your classic coming of age character, one that you have read similar a hundred times before if you are an avid reader of fantasy or science fiction. Having a younger protagonist does make the book feel for a younger audience, her wants and passions skew to that age. Many of her allies are also in their late teens and early 20s. It did have hints of The Hunger Games to it.

It is the science that pushes the book older. There is some hard science in the book, but it is not told in a hard way. This is a very accessible book, made to be readable, not for the science nerds to delve deep into. With that, you get good characterisation and a fast pace. A lot happens to Hazel in a short space of time. Her development also develops the plot and world building. We learn more about the generational ship as she does.

As an older reader, I enjoyed the characters, but it was the other elements that piqued my interest more. Concepts such as AI and possible alien technology begin to thread themselves into the story. There is a mystery at the centre of this trilogy about what exactly happened when they landed on their first planned planet and later internal war.

There is a lot to unpack here and gives the book a deeper narrative than just a coming of age tale. However, the coming of age of Hazel at the centre of the book also works well to make this an accessible tale, this is a generational ship novel that is accessible to anyone and would make a good entry point for someone new to the genre or wanting a fast read, but with some science on the side to get their teeth into.

Back in the nineties, Fantasy had a comedic moment. Led by Sir Terry Pratchett, other authors were signed up to produce lighter fantasy with a sense of humour. Whilst none became as popular as Discworld, I still miss those days. T Kingfisher agreed and Nine Goblins is the author’s homage to that era, but this being 2026, even the light has a little more dark to it.

Being a goblin is a good enough life, as long as they are left alone, they are happy to live pretty much anywhere. However, when there is nowhere left to live, they have no choice but to fight back against the ever-expanding human and elf realms. The problem is that goblins do not really make great fighters; they struggle to take orders, or to even understand. Nine members of the Whinin’ Niners have become lost behind enemy lines, can they get home?

Kingfisher admits that Nine Goblins is a homage to both Pratchett and also All Creatures Great and Small and that DNA is apparent on the page. The use of observational comedy reminds you of some of the great Witches novels, and the animal husbandry of the Elvish character harks back to James Herriot, but this is also a Kingfisher book. Taken from the author’s archives, Nine Goblins is a reissue, but one that shows the author’s clear skill. It is strong fantasy as you would expect, but also more comedic than normal.

Like Pratchett, there is shade to the light. The unique flavour that Kingfisher brings is by adding more Low Fantasy to proceedings. There are many wry observations to enjoy in the book, but it is also grisly, certainly in the second act. It is a Low Fantasy comedy, so a book for readers who like dark humour.

The stars of the book are the goblins themselves, from the put upon Sergeant, the intelligent one, to the not so intelligent ones. One goblin even refuses to speak unless you talk to their stuffed bear. Thankfully, that bear has a good strategic mind to it and is worth listening to.

At under 150 pages, this is certainly a novella, not a novel. We do not get to know the deep backgrounds of the characters or the world, but you do get a good sense of who the characters are. Indeed, Kingfisher does a very impressive job of creating so much in so few pages. It leans on tropes and stereotypes of fantasy, but that is fine as it speeds the development of the characters.

I very much enjoyed Nine Goblins, and it was a perfect funny, quick read to start the year. It is not as deep or as clever as Discworld, but it is faster and nastier. There is an edge to the book that reminds you of sharpened goblin’s teeth. I would recommend this to any Fantasy fan craving a more comedic adventure to enjoy.

One of the wonderful things about genre fiction is that an author does not have to explain what is going on if they do not want to. Science Fiction often goes into great detail trying to explain the science, but sometimes it just happens to be set on a remote alien planet – deal with it. In Alex Woodroe’s The Night Ship a strange darkness is spooling out across the globe. What is it? Why are radio stations safe? Will we ever get an answer?

Rosi lives in Communist run Romania and although her parents think they have her life planned out, Rosi has other ideas. They think she will marry Gigi, but she is only travelling in Gigi’s truck so that she can move enough contraband to make money to leave the country. All these worries become moot when Rosi, Gigi and a hitchhiker they have picked up become surrounded by a dark, inky blackness. The only voices they hear are those on the radio. Some voices are asking for help, other are warning of dangers, some simply scream.

Night Ship is a stripped down and creepy horror story that delivers an otherworldly story, set on Earth. The initial setting of Cold War Romania sets the tone. A police state in which you cannot trust anyone, not even your potential fiancée. If you are constantly on the look out for informers, are you going to believe a random radio message that carries a warning? Is it a test to see if you trust the state, or a trap?

The reader and Rosi are always kept guessing on who they can trust, and as the book progresses, what you can trust. The setting changes to a macabre, dark world in which their lorry acts as a floating ship. Survival becomes a priority, but there are also the things that move in the ink. You have some classic horror elements of creature that go bump in the night that work alongside the psychological horror of not trusting those around you.

The book moves to bring the old and new worlds together in the second part as Rosi and her crew start to discover the fate of other survivors. The paranoia of living in a police state does not evaporate overnight and it is hard to trust potential allies. Elements of The Thing are mixed in that show that just because you are paranoid, does not mean they are not listening.

There is limited explanation as to what is behind the darkness and depending on what type of reader you are, it will be a refreshing freedom to go with the flow, or an annoying absence. I have to admit to being confused in parts of this book, it felt too fantastical at times, I was not sure that anyone would have even an inch of survival, never mind getting through to the other end. Night Ship felt like a mood piece, a novel that evokes a feeling, it did not deal in solid narratives or explanations. I found this unsettling, something that Woodroe aimed for, but this also made it slightly unsatisfactory as a story. If you enjoy books that feel like an enigma, then it would work.

They say never judge a book by its cover and this is a good lesson to take heed of with Peter McLean’s Paved With Good Intentions, as the UK cover stars Eline dressed in regal splendour. You see, Eline is also someone you should not judge from by her looks. She may be presenting as a member of the minor royalty but have hidden daggers under her sleeves. She may be acting as a common widow drinking too much in the pub. Which is real and which is the act?

Eline has already had a hard life and by the time she is in her mid-30s her children have flown the nest and all she has left for company is a husband who beats her. One day he goes too far and dies at the end of Eline’s knife. It is the noose for her, until she meets one of the Queen’s Men, a shadowy group of secret police, who hires her to infiltrate a house of ill repute and kill the madame. Is Eline a killer now? Is she still a mother, a lady of the night, a courtesan? She will have to be all of these things because one thing she certainly is, is a survivor.

I enjoy some Low Fantasy and Grimdark Fantasy, but even for me Paved is grim. Unlike many fantasy novels, this follows one protagonist on their journey, and what a journey Eline is sent on. From beaten husband killer, to brothel, to assassin, all the time getting a taste for spy craft and darker arts of espionage. This is Low Fantasy at its lowest, but also very well written.

Paved is a book you will have to gird your loins for before commencing, as it is told in graphic detail. The killings and torture are described for all to read, the sex acts are more implied, but still present. Eline is put through the wringer, and you question whether McLean has the authority to do this to a character. It feels very much like a woman’s story, but is it being told too much like it was written by a man? I cannot attest fully to this, but I can see it being a book that would require trigger warnings before commencing.

Dark subject matter aside, it is a well written and ‘enjoyable’ book. Eline is a character that you want to see good things happen to, although a lot of terrible things happen too. She develops in interesting and exciting ways. She is part of a wider world that McLean has written in before, but she fits in seamlessly and we are given a glimpse in what it is like to be both poor and rich in this fantasy city.

Like many Low Fantasy novels, magic is present, but it is limited. Only a few hold any power and they often work for the government or police. Eline skills lie elsewhere; her quick thinking, her ability to assess and manipulate a situation. She deftly uses the skills learned bringing up a family on no money, to a brothel, or to high society.

The front cover of Paved currently leans into what I would have thought was Romantasy. This is not that genre, if anything it is the antithesis, Eline’s story may put you off relationships forever. This is a hard hitting, bloody and sexual slice of Low Fantasy. It deals with heavy subject matters, but remains a quick and entertaining piece of Fantasy, if you are happy to read the themes within.   

There are different people in life. There are those that love the idea of travelling to a remote Indonesian island with three friends and surfing huge waves, and those that think this is a barmy idea and would rather go on a nice city break or read a book by the pool. What you do not always get is a trepidatious mentality in an adventurous body. Where is my passport, does that girl like me, should I avoid surfing in shark invested waters? Cole is a walking contradiction, but will the harrowing events of Carried Away by T J Derry allow him to focus on who he really is?

Cole is in his mid-30s and has a restless soul, is the 9-5 life really what he wants? He lives for his lads’ holidays where he and a group of old friends travel to exotic locations to surf the most bodacious waves. This latest may be the greatest trip yet, a luxury island, huge surf and a woman Cole falls for instantly, but is this paradise found or paradise lost? When out on one surf trip the water becomes unnaturally still, before them they see a giant wave – a tsunami. Will Cole and his friends survive?

Carried opens up on the start of the tsunami scene…. and then quickly flashes back for 200 pages for the build up to the events. This feels strange, but once you read a hundred or so pages of character development, you understand why Derry did this. The tsunami carrot needs to be dangled in front of the reader lest they think this is a relationship drama.

A good disaster movie develops its characters first before picking them off and Derry is attempting this, but it does feel like a romance novel at times. Cole is such a contradiction; a six foot plus surfer who is also shy and nervous. I can understand this in a teen, but in a 35-year-old man, I would think that he should have matured more. Carried feels like the oldest coming of age story I have read, but people do develop at different paces.

The enigma that is Cole is compounded in the second half of the book, which is the stronger disaster section. He is forced to step up and all of a sudden, he is mature, intelligent and resourceful. Have events forced him to step up? I am not sure. I think that he was like this all the time and his softer, emotional side was written slightly too young. The novel comes with QR codes that you can scan to read some of Cole’s journal online – these reads at times more like a teenager than a full-grown man.

Having such a paradoxical character at the centre of Carried actually worked as it made me engage with what was happening, why is Cole like this, what on Earth is he doing now? Some will find him coy and romantic, others an irritant. I liked him most when the seaweed hit the fan and he needed to focus to save himself and his friends.

Carried is a tale of two parts: beach story and tsunami story. Derry is aware of some of the influences and contradictions in the book, having chapter titles that reference Alex Garland’s The Beach, or Cole’s complex nature. Having flawed characters are fun in a book, if written that way by accident or on purpose. As a reader I enjoy trying to figure out what makes them tick, even if it makes no sense. Cole may be a 35-year-old man child, but he steps up in part two for a very enjoyable action thriller in which survival is not a given.

One of the best things about Science Fiction is that it also works as Science Fact. Much of the science and fantasy in the books are based on real research; taken to the nth level, but with a basis in truth. Exiles by Mason Coile layers this with some fundamentals in philosophy. Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, but when the option is between robots gone bad, or aliens, which is the more obvious?

The first three human colonists are about the land on Mars. Their mission is to make the planet habitable for those that will arrive later, they themselves will never return to Earth. They are not the first things on Mars as three sentient robots have been sent ahead to build the base and start the terraforming process. Even from the sky, things are not looking good with the base partially destroyed. What happened? One robot says it was a rouge unit. One robot says it is an alien. One robot is missing. Which, if any, are telling the truth?

Science Fiction is a wonderous genre as it allows the reader to believe anything. This is a concept that Coile plays with in Exiles as it is a book that relies on the reader having an agile mind. At a base level it is a thriller, a novella that follows a slow disaster, but it is also more. It is a book about Gold, one of the astronauts, and why she decided to join the mission, and why the other two colonists, Kang and Blake, where also chosen.

The humans are only part of the story. We see the adventure through Gold’s eyes, and she talks to her fellow humans, but the robots also play a key role. They have been on Mars for awhile already. Pushing against their programming. They have started to develop personalities, even assigned themselves genders.

The book has its roots in 2001, but also The Thing. It has that level of claustrophobic horror and a mistrust of technology, but it also has that added layer. Occam’s Razor. There is a simpler thread that runs through the book that some readers will recognise, and one that I enjoyed a lot. A real crime fiction story set in space.

At just over 200 pages this is a punchy and short thriller, not one that hangs around. Character development is sacrificed for pace, so people who like deeper characters will have to go elsewhere, although we do learn a decent amount about the main protagonist Gold. If you are a reader on the lookout got a fun and fast sci fi thriller, that poses some interesting questions, then Exiles will work for you.

My partner and I have differing opinions on ghosts. I like to read about them but am incredibly cynical that they exist. My partner is more of a believer. I just refuse to believe that ghoulies can exist without more evidence, we live in a surveillance society at this point. However, even I would start to change my viewpoint if I hung out with Lou, a young woman who lives in small town America, but can see the dead.

Lou works late nights in a small supermarket and waits until it starts to get light before heading home using a well-researched route. She does all this to prevent seeing too many ghosts. Most are harmless, but they are constantly badgering her. There incessant nature has taken on a different tone in recent days as Lou is being warmed about a weakening in the Veil between the living and the dead. What is she meant to do about it? A lot it would seem.

Balancing everyday live with the ability the supernatural is never an easy mix. It effects the characters in a story and also the narrative. If Lou is so badgered by the dead, how can she have a social life? The secret is that she does not, until she meets a handsome cop called Scott. At the same time as something is happening in her love life, the supernatural is also kicking off, balancing the two is going to be impossible.

Sarah Broadway’s Queen of the Dead is written as a relatable modern Urban Fantasy. You feel for Lou, but what can she do? A lot happens in this book that is beyond the norm, the only people will understand are other ‘freaks’ like her. Thankfully, Broadway begins to pad out the characters with more folk that can see Lou for what she is or has the potential to become.

At times, the book has a manic energy as Lou is ripped from one place to another. The stakes are huge, but Lou still wants to live something of a normal life. It had a touch of The Dresden Files about it, in that with fantasy as extreme as this, the urbane can be hard to focus on. This outing feels like an introduction to Lou and her world and is full on. By book’s end, the characters have found their rhythm with one another, and you can see a future for them. Future outings promise to be more settled like Lou’s home life, opening the opportunity for more thrills elsewhere, secure that she has a base to come back to.

Fans of Urban Fantasy will enjoy this pacy supernatural thriller. It mixes The Frighteners with a strong relationship arc. It touches on Romantasy, without delving too deep, just humans getting to know one another. I read the book in a couple of sittings, and it proved a perfect read for someone wanting some light and quick fantasy to enjoy.

In fiction you can blur the real world with the fictional to give your story a sense of authenticity. This is something that Jake Arnott has done in the past taking a splash of truth, a soupcon of reality, and then blending in some fictional high-octane action. In the case of Blood Rival, there was a story that reminded me of a real gangland murder some years ago, but this was only one basis for the story, the other was far more antient.

Lee Royle has always considered himself a lucky crook. As a younger man he helped mastermind a massive heist that he got away with doing minimal time, whilst others took the fall. With his ill-gotten gains he built a criminal empire by trusting his gut and being ruthless. However, luck runs out at some point and for Lee it was at the end of a knife in a seemingly random road rage incident. His widow and her new husband take it upon themselves to get to the truth and stabilise the firm they have taken over.

There is a lot going on with Blood and that is what you would hope and expect for from a novel by Arnott. There is a real sense of British grime to it, old fashioned gangsters carving up the criminal underworld among themselves. There are also others who enable the underworld; corrupt officers, PIs happy to work for anyone, shady dealers in information. What you do not have much of is a moral centre, the one legitimate police officer is not given much to do.

Instead, this is a book that centres more on the Widow Jo, and her new husband Eddie. The book is non-linear and Arnott has an interesting way of bringing up the past. Characters will have a conversation in the present and this will trigger a chapter from the past. The reader gets to witness what really happened, whilst many of the characters remain oblivious.

Other criminal types are given chapters to highlight their antics with a dodgy copper being the most interesting. However, in a book with such a high body count, there is no guarantee that any of the characters will make it. In fact, many of them do not. Indeed, are too many characters dispatched?

Blood is a fiction book, but at the start it had a sense of reality to it. It dabbled with the themes similar to the Brink’s-Mat robbery, where substantial amounts of bullion were stolen and not recovered. Many criminals involved ended up dead in a violent manner. Was this the inspiration that Arnott took? Only in part, the rest is a retelling of an ancient Greek tragedy.

When you consider this alternative origin for the story, more makes sense. Some of the characters and their actions are old fashioned and not logical. They have a heightened feel to them from a 2000-year-old tale. I think modern lags and antient sagas do not meld perfectly as the actions of a 20^th century criminal are different from BC.

Blood is an entertaining and interesting take on the crime genre. I think it would suit a connoisseur of the genre who enjoys authors playing with the format. As a straight story it feels a little too eccentric, but as an exploration of old and new, it holds the interest.

Conan has fought against Gods his whole life. The little ones that try to interfere with the ways of man, and the Old Ones that nestle in other dimensions waiting for their chance to absorb the Earth. The only God that Conan has had little trouble with is Crom, his own God, and that is because Crom has better things to do that deal with humans. In Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God by Tim Waggoner, Conan is up against one of his most despicable foes once more in Set, the serpent God, and all of Set’s followers.

Conan has been many things in his life; pirate, bandit, king. At one point he was a thief and this is where we find him now, a young man learning his trade at the side of the talented burglar Valja. Working together they pull off an audacious heist and catch the eye of two sorcerers who need their expertise. What results is a standing battle with powerful Set sorcerer Uzzeran that leave them all changed. It will not be until 15 years later that Conan will be able to seek revenge.

There is something comforting in the simple violence that is Conan, which makes him a great anti-hero and the perfect protagonist for Serpent. There is a lot going on around the main character in this book to do with secret lairs, mages, magics and Old Gods, but at the centre is a man who will just attack all problems with a broadsword. As the book is set over two time periods, you do see Conan evolve from the headstrong young man, into a slightly less headstrong man in his thirties. He learns that tactics can sometimes lead to a better battle plan.

Serpent has all the ingredients I enjoy from a modern Conan tale; some great antagonists, some interesting allies, and Conan himself. Although the story is told from perspectives other than just Conan, he is the star and the book perks up when he is around. Like so many of these newer tales, we get to meet new characters, only for them to not last more than a book or two. This is exposition that could have been spent killing. It is not too prevalent in this novel, and the action remains constant.

I enjoy the meta-war that is happening in the background of this novel between Set and the other Gods. We are just their playthings, and they constantly put obstacles in Conan’s path, leading to fun action. Waggoner balances the feel of traditional Conan with a style that feels modern and moves quickly. This is a book that a fan will pick up and breeze through happily.

Having a working knowledge of the world and character of Conan is best to get the most from Serpent as you get a leg up on the various Gods and their relationships. You will also be used to being dropped into an adventure and figuring out where in the timeline you are. This is a book for fans of Conan and is great service to those that like action and Conan at his most Cimmerian. He acts as a violent oasis of calm, among the chaos of Gods that surrounds him.

One of the aspects of Star Wars that I love is that it is an IP that keeps evolving, as do I. As a child I saw The New Hope as a simple action adventure between good and evil. The Emperor was omnipotent. As the series progressed, we see that the Empire was far too vast for one man to control, no matter how powerful. Therefore, various minions and scoundrels are using the shadows to do their work. Master of Evil by Adam Christopher highlights that even those closest to The Emperor are always plotting; there can only ever be two; master and apprentice. 

The newly formed Galactic Empire is starting to assert its authority across the Universe. At the helm is the maniacal Emperor, a leader who controls vast armies and starship armadas. At his side is a new and mysterious apprentice known as Lord Vader. Vader is new to the Dark Side and only beginning to understand its power. When The Emperor sends Vader out to find a Sith artifact, will Vader return? To make sure of his apprentice’s loyalty, The Emperor sends spies along with Vader on the mission. 

It must be tricky being a Sith, never being able to trust anyone. The one person who is meant to be by your side is inevitably going to try and usurp you. Master is a book that glimpses into the early days of this between Vader and The Emperor. Even in his first training missions, Vader is trying to work an angle.  

The tale is not told from the perspective of the Sith, but mostly from those around them; a terminally ill guard, a recommissioned clone fighter, even a group that side with the lighter side of the force. We are given glimpses into the mindset of the Sith via these characters, but they themselves have their own tales to tell and own agendas. Some segments are told from Vader’s POV, and here we see what feels like a lighter side to the character. 

Like with any character, the more you know about them, the less they seem to shine. In the case of The Emperor, Master certainly proves that he is fallible; Vader is not the only person close to him who has their own agenda. Then there is Vader himself. Master is an interesting insight into the internal turmoil of the character, but it also makes him seem slightly less menacing. Vader is willing to help some of those around him, for what appears to be reasons of friendship or loyalty. These are not qualities I think of when he is choking an incompetent officer to death. 

It is true that if you want to see any depth to a character or world, it cannot just be black and white. The interesting part is always the grey. However, the more light that you add to the blackness that is the Sith lightens the mix. We know that Vader is a complex character, we get that from the films, especially the prequels, but do we want it? Master is at its best when the Sith are being bad ass. It only dilutes the evil concentrate that is Vader slightly, but the more we know about the man behind the mask, the less threatening it feels when you watch him arrive on the scene in The Empire Strikes Back. Master is a nuanced Star Wars book for fans who know the series inside and out, just be prepared to know even more and lose some more of that mystery that came with watching the original trilogy for the first time.  

How do you push a story forward? One method used in movies is known as a MacGuffin, a meaningless plot device that someone must find that will drive all their intentions. It does not happen as often in literature, but in the case of The Blackfire Blade by James Logan it has one of the most Macgugginy MacGuffins I have ever seen in the form of a key that will open a family vault. Lukan Gardova and his allies will run all around the city of Korslakov looking for that key after Lukan loses it whilst drunk. A bit of a silly premise, but thankfully one that leads to a wonderful adventures. 

After the events of The Silverblood Promise, Lukan, Flea, and Astra find themselves in a cold city on the other side of the world. With his father’s key in hand, all Lukan must do is open the family vault to see what legacy has been left to him and find any clues about his father’s murder. However, this is Lukan and nothing flows easily when the key is robbed by a mysterious thief. Lukan will do anything to get that key back, and he is going to have to do a lot as old allies and enemies set him tasks to get closer to his goal. 

There is no denying that Blade is a fun piece of fantasy fiction. It has an old school sense of high adventure, with fun characters. It has its dark moments tonally, but it feels inspired by the classic Dungeon & Dragons tales of the 80s. This is reflected in the quipping characters and the easy banter they have. It is also reflected in the narrative, which does feel basic. The key, always just out of reach. The first two acts read like a series of fetch quests you would expect from a 90s point and click adventure; to get the key you need the helm, to get the helm you must first brew the potion, to brew the potion you must first visit the unicorn etc. etc. 

The good news is that all these mini adventures are good fun. We get to meet new characters and explore the city of Korslakov, but we also get to meet some returning characters who are given far more to do in this outing. 

The book is at its most satisfying as it draws to its conclusion. Korslakov is a society of haves and have-nots. Paradoxically Lukan has nothing, but his family ties give him access to high society; hence him being used as an errand for the rich and their dangerous tasks. One of the goals of high society is to open the mysterious door that leads into a mountain. No one has opened it yet, but via various backhanded methods and failed sabotages, someone is going to attempt it once more. This scene is an excellent one, one of the most enjoyable I have read in fantasy for a long time. 

Blade is a very entertaining fantasy novel that is witty and a breeze to read. It has violence but does not stray too far into Low Fantasy; it is more High. It is a book of excellent moments; a mission into part of the city filled with ghouls, discovery the origins of golems, a finale that stands up to any recent fantasy ending I have read recently. The only issue is some of the naivety in the structure; the key feels like a nonsense item that does nothing but drive the story in an unconvincing manner. I can forgive this, as the various adventures it leads to act like tasty short stories that any fantasy fan will enjoy.   

The pulp crime genre is one of my favourite because it pushes the envelope of what is acceptable in crime. It can be a little too gory, a little too silly, a little too much, but that is what makes it so fun to read. There is a delicate balance between writing a thrilling action crime story that is full of moments that will make your mouth drop open, and something that is too out there. Ken Bruen and Jason Starr have produced a series of books starring Max and Angela, and the first three are gathered here. These authors push things about as far as they can go in the genre, and then perhaps a little more. 

Max Fisher is a successful businessman and a horrible human being. One of his favourite tasks is firing members of his staff, another is sleeping with his secretary Angela Petrakos, a fiery combination of Ireland and Greece. Max so wants to be with Angela that he will go as far as to hire a hitman to kill his wife. Said hitman, unbeknownst to Max, is the IRA adjacent boyfriend of Angela. The resulting mayhem will span several books, and end more than a few lives. 

Supermax is a collection of the first three stories in the ‘Max and Angela’ series devised by Bruen and Starr as a way for the two authors to work together in the pulp genre. The stories can be read separately but do act as a continuing story of the character’s lives. Bust is the tale that introduces us to the characters and is set in New York, Slide sees Angela start in Ireland and Max descend further in madness as he becomes a crack dealer, The Max sees Super M.A.X move to a nearby prison and Angela in Greece. However, no matter where they are in the world, both characters are drawn to trouble and each other. 

Having read plenty of pulp crime, Supermax is some of the most fun I have read in the genre. Yes, there is violence and plenty of grim moments, but it is so outrageous in places that you cannot help but enjoy it. Each story follows a similar format. Max and Angela have their own separate stories in which they meet a series of unsavoury characters. The two main protagonists act as constants, like cockroaches; they seem to survive whilst those around them die. 

The characters in all the books are mostly repugnant; we are introduced to them and all their foibles. There is an issue with each book trying to outdo the latter, especially in psychopaths. It was hard to imagine that someone could be more insane than the killers in book one, but the serial killer in book two does their best. 

Bruen and Starr are having a lot of fun with these books, perhaps a little too much fun. Especially in books two and three, some of the jokes get meta, blending the real world with the fictional one of Max and Angela. In these moments, the book takes you out of the story. The Get Off by Christa Faust has a similar anarchic and dangerous feel to Supermax, but whilst Faust’s story always keeps one foot in reality, Supermax goes a little too far and loses the reader. This makes it a fun read, but not something that I would consider must read pulp. I would read this series as comedic relief if you like your comedy dark and bloody.   

I enjoy a dose of Low Fantasy; a bit of grimdark and violence feels like a good counterpart to High Fantasy with its heroism and magic. A fantasy tale that is told from the muck and the trenches just feels more real, even if it is fantastic, a fantasy for our modern troubled world. But there is Low Fantasy and there is Low Fantasy. Cry, Voidbringer by Elaine Ho is wonderful fantasy tale, but also a harrowing one. 

Godchildren are rare, only a few exist, and those that do often have powers that are not particularly impressive. Viridian’s powers have yet to manifest themselves, but this does not stop kingdoms fighting to control her. Her latest captors are the Faceless, who work for the Queen of Ashvi. Viridian will be trained for war by the fearsome Faceless called Hammer. Hammer has no place for sentiment in her life anymore, but there is something about Viridian that makes her hope again, but when Viridian’s powers emerge, these hopes may just be crushed. 

I am used to the grim setting and bleak outcomes of Low Fantasy, but Voidbringer must be one of the darkest yet. This is because one of the major themes of the book is hope. A hope to survive, the hope of escape, the hope of a better life. Ho deftly plays with the reader’s emotion using the hope of the characters. However, this is a book that keeps hitting the characters hard. 

Unlike some epic fantasy, Voidbringer focuses on a few characters; mostly Viridian, Hammer, and Naias, a close consul of the Queen. Through these limited viewpoints we witness the world building of a small kingdom on the brink of extinction. The new Queen promised to reign with compassion, but it soon becomes clear that she has more in common with her tyrannical father than her advisors would have wished. 

The main fantasy element of this book is the ‘Gods’ and the power that they bestow on random children. These powers differ depending on which God is involved and they are rare. Indeed, for a fantasy book there are few characters that can do fantastical things; a healer, a weather mage, and Viridian. This is a great way of focusing the attention and pressure of nation states on a few people. 

It is the relationship between Hammer and Viridian that is the heart of the story. The tortured child and the stoic warrior. There mutual friend is another Faceless, an enigmatic man who promises them a better a life. This hope brings the three characters together but also crushes them. The relationship blows up and takes the final act of the story into a more High Fantasy setting. 

The final major player is Naias, a far less sympathetic figure who is given a decent portion of the book to tell her story. She is a born survivor and will do what is needed to succeed, even if that means forming new allegiances. Despite being unlikable at times, her tale is an interesting one as it feels so different to see the viewpoint of a reluctant traitor. 

Names are a powerful tool in Voidbringer so Ho uses them in the book as a way of showing the evolution of the characters, and how they interact with one another. I must admit at times that I was a little confused by who was talking, especially by act 3. The first two parts of the story are contained, but the final part opens up to be far more epic and loses some of the personal feel. 

The characters within Voidbringer really get a hammering, and not just Hammer. This is a story that will not leave the reader happy at the end, but you will feel a sense of warmth within the pages as the characters get to know one another. This is a fantasy novel for a reader of the genre who likes strong character development and a story that will take you through the emotional wringer. 

What modern fantasy has shown is that you do not need to set your fantasy world in alternative medieval Europe. Our planet is full of varied and rich cultures that can be married with fantasy concepts to make alternative takes on the genre. The Door on the Sea by Caskey Russell is the latest unique fantasy novel and one that shows that the feel of Tolkien still works when based on indigenous stories from North America. 

Elan is the grandson of a famed warrior, but he is on a different path to becoming a teacher and a storyteller. That is until a crow turns up in his house and Elan strikes a bargain. The crow knows the location of a powerful weapon, a weapon that could change the tide of war between Elan’s people and the powerful enemy that is attacking their island homes. Elan is tasked with a quest to find the weapon with the aid of a fellowship of warriors from the various clans, and one annoying crow. 

Door is a book that throws you into Russell’s world. It is rich and feels different from most fantasy novels. The setting is a series of islands controlled by allied clans. There are also talking animals that can act as allies or enemies. This sense of magic and tradition are all well established and creates a rich tapestry to build a story. 

Here things are a little more usual for fantasy readers. For all the talking crows and complex clan relationships, Door is one of the closest books I have read in years that reminds me of Fellowship of the Ring. This will be because Tolkien would have been inspired by traditional tales, and this book takes from the same source. The journey there and back again with a diverse crew feels a lot like a fellowship, just with more angry, swearing crows. 

As a book, the style takes on some of the oral storytelling of the culture, as if Elan is narrating the tale around a fire. This can take a little getting used to, but you do become engrossed in the story. Once the action begins, the story becomes a traditional third-person narrative. 

The relationship between Elan and his crew is key to the story and the enjoyment of the book. He is a bookeater and not a warrior; he needs to build their trust and respect. All the varied characters bring a take on their culture, and the crew must evolve together if they are to survive. Learning more about the culture is also told well in the various stops that the canoe makes; former allied villages become foes as they fear a greater threat. 

With its mix of traditional storytelling and classic fantasy tropes, Door feels like both a refreshing look at the genre and a hark back. It will appeal to fans of the genre who like to explore different ways it can be tackled. With swearing and violence, this is more of a low fantasy novel but combined with the high fantasy of talking animals and magical creatures from beyond the sea.  

Invent any innovative technology and it won’t be long until someone finds a way to use it to make money via base entertainment. We are talking wine, woman, and song. The same can be said of future worlds; the Emperor may have thought he had an iron grip on all his subjects, but just below the surface were more wretched hives of scum and villainy than you could shake a Lightsaber at. In Stephen K. Stanford’s Stars Like Us, the people of the universe are so hungry for a place to let loose that they have placed it in a parallel universe, but even this is not enough to save them from the Movement for Morality (M4M).  

Col has settled into his new life as the Head of Security of Jubilee, a vast space station housed in parallel space catering for all your base needs. He lives happily with partner and two young children, and his ex/current wife next door. Life is a little complicated, but not as complicated as when the station is invaded and destroyed by the M4M. Col finds himself on the run, separated from his family. Can he return to Jubilee, or what is left of it, and find out if his family survived? It is going to be tricky as they leaped decades of light years away with no jump technology left. 

Jubilee was the first outing in Stanford’s entertaining action-adventure sci fi series. It was a fast paced, and at times anarchic, novel as Col and his allies fled from crisis to crisis. It felt that by the end of that book, and the start of this, that times would have settled down for Col. He has a very steady life at this point, even if he is the Chief Security Officer of a debauched settlement. There is enough happening on Jubilee for a series of novels to be set, but this was not in Stanford’s plans.... as it explodes. 

Therefore, Stars has a lot more in common with the first outing. Col ends up in a smaller ship with his current/ex Sara, his friend the killer robot Batura, and a random hanger on called Chook that they picked up during the escape. Stanford lights the touch paper almost immediately, and we are off; the pace is breathless. Until it is not. 

The book is almost told in three acts. There is a sedate portion in the centre that is bookended in frantic and entertaining action. This central section is the opportunity to learn more about Col and his past. He returns to hide on his home planet and whilst there decides to investigate a decades old missing person's case. This section shows Col’s skills as an investigator and reaffirms why he would have been hired as head of security. 

The fast pace of the book works as this is a lighter science fiction tale. It is humorous and violent, a modern take on pulp. It has sensibilities in common with Hitchhikers, both in terms of how it denounces bureaucracy, but also in the way that the characters are often swept up by events beyond their control. The drop in pace at the centre of the book is jarring, but also an interesting way to develop the characters. I would have been happy to have run full pelt throughout the book, but even with a dip, this book will be some of the most fun science fiction you will read this year. 

If you could invite anyone to a winter retreat, who would it be? Family, friends, someone famous. What you should never do is invite a detective, anytime you do, someone always seems to end up dead. In the case of Jekyll & Hyde: Winter Retreat by Tim Major, you get two private detectives for the price of one, and indeed their partner. Three detectives at one remote location in December, how many deaths will that end in? 

Muriel Carew has established herself as a silent partner in the Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives Agency, being a lot of the brains of the outfit. Dr Jekyll may be clever, but he is not always observant. He also happens to turn into Mr Hyde every three days or so, a man of few words and many fists. When they gain a new client, it will require subtle investigation at a remote manor. Muriel is ready for the role, but can she rely on Jekyll & Hyde, especially when a body is found? 

The initial Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives Agency, was a wonderful use of the IP by Major that touched on the original story and then built on it in a realistic manner. Winter Retreat is Major’s opportunity to make the characters his own and take them to places that Robert Louis Stevenson would never have imagined. This is still a homage to the original, but there are more modern ideas explored about the nature of man, and of gender. 

Before the book delves into the core of Jekyll & Hyde, and also Muriel, there is a stonking big murder mystery to solve in the centre. The book has the rightly old-fashioned feel of a locked room mystery. It has some Sherlock about it, but also plenty of the later written Christie novels. That sense of impossible crimes and reams of suspects to get through. Fans of complex murder mysteries will be in clover; there are clues dotted around the place to work out what is happening. As a pure crime story, it hits well. 

However, this is only part of the story. This is an urban fantasy novel as well; one of the characters turns from a mild-mannered doctor into a brute. There is an extra layer of complexity as Muriel is investigating, while also dealing with the fallout of Jekyll’s apparent addiction to his serum. There is a lot of character development to get through. Muriel has her own time to shine later in the novel as Major tackles interesting concepts of the nature of self and gender. 

Winter Retreat is an intelligent book, but that makes it complex. I admit to being a little lost in places, but when it came to the reveals and conclusion, it was clear what was happening. The characters of Jekyll, Hyde, and Muriel are different by book’s end, so much so that I think purist fans of the original will now think it has deviated too far. However, for a modern audience, Major is exploring interesting new areas that will prove even more exciting in future outings.  

Noir comes in many flavours, not just 1940s black and white detective. There have been classic noir novels that have reflected the decades they were written. The 90s noir I enjoyed had a bright Hollywood gleam to it; that was only shone to hide the grime set shallow below the surface. The Loose End by Dave Dwonch and Travis Hymel, is a graphical return to that 90s, early 00s era of killing Zoes and getting away with very bad things. 

Steven Hollis is not a successful enough screenwriter to turn away the chance of a lads' bachelor party where a leading producer will be one of the guests. It is a perfect opportunity for Steven to make some connections and make a killing. You see, Steven is in a lot of debt to some very bad men. If he wants to see the wedding, he is going to have to kill the producer and make sure there are no loose ends. 

Dwonch has written Loose in the style of pacy 90s/00s colourful thrillers. It has the feel of Swingers with as much cocaine, but more death. One of the key elements of this type of film was that the majority of the cast are jerks. That is absolutely true of Loose, the entire slate of characters is unlikable, even Steven. Steve’s redeeming feature is that he is not entirely morally bankrupt, although his many failings have led him to being hired to kill to pay off debts. 

The rest of the bachelor party is made up of vain actors and producers. The types of Hollywood elites you can assume visiting and partaking of private island entertainments and not batting an eyelid. At least Steven has many second thoughts. Dwonch layers twists and farce into the story, so nothing is straight forward. A book about Steven just trying to kill a producer would have been fun, but this is a lads’ holiday gone wrong when the crew upset the local Mexican drug cartel. 

There is plenty of action on offer and not much in terms of competence. It is fun watching actors used to their aides trying to work out how to survive a gun fight. As a story, I enjoyed the pacing and dark humour. There is also a nice conclusion to the story which throws in an extra twist and brings the story full circle. 

Hymel’s illustrations capture the colourful noir feel that was 90s noir, all white suits and gun fire. Some of the characters were a little difficult to distinguish between at times, but that is when the action is at its highest. The book is full colour and feels like a coherent story, not just installments. If you are someone who likes noir but has a certain fondness for some of the films from the 90s, then Loose is not only a nostalgic reminder of the era, but a fun read in of itself.  

We only have so many books in us, and an author may just not have the time to experiment with different formats or genres, unless they are very prolific. They do not come much more prolific than Adrian Tchaikovsky, a writer who dabbles in various types of genre fiction, always bringing high quality. This is an author who created the The Tyrant Philosophers series, itself an experimental collection of fantasy novels set in the same world, but that can be read independently. Enter into this series, Lives of Bitter Rain, a novella that spans decades of Angilly’s life, from the tragic events of her childhood, through to her influencing the politics of entire continents. 

As a youth Angilly had no issue with the Pallean way of life. With both her parents brutally murdered in a magical terrorist attack, Angilly found herself in a state-run orphanage on course to become an adequate cog in the Pal war machine. This suited Angilly just fine, but not her aunt. Lives is a series of pivotal movements in Angilly’s life that take her from adequate to exceptional. 

As a lover of epic fantasy, I am perfectly fine with a 600-page opus that covers various characters and storylines, but I am also partial to something faster and focused. Lives is able to balance the epic and succinct in one 123-page novella, by not only focusing on one character, but by just focusing on the key moments. Therefore, years of lesser activity are passed over between chapters. 

Therefore, this is a book focused on the rapid development of Angilly. We do not get the training montages, or teenage angst, instead we get mere glimpses of both and more concentration on actions and adventures that pushed her character forwards. To the reader it feels that Angilly’s rise is rapid, but in reality, each promotion comes years apart. 

Witnessing Angilly grow is fun as she is an interesting character. She is a cynical character who does not seem to fit in with the Pal philosophy, but then you get the impression that few, but the true believers, do. She is perfect in her role as one of the Pals sent out to unconquered lands to soften them up with a few coins dropped here, a whispered word there. 

A wonderful byproduct of following Angilly sporadically through time is that you also get a whistlestop tour of the Tyrant Philosophers' world. Angilly has been stationed in several different countries over the years, with their own ways of doing things. You get a great sense of the melting pot that is this world, but also the balance and uniformity that the Pals wish to bring to it all. 

The world and character of Angilly are brought to life in quality fashion by Tchaikovsky’s writing. This is not an author who talks down to their reader. There is elegant prose to understand and complex politics to uncover, but it is all very readable. The time jump format is perfect for giving the story a pacy feel; it feels like being rushed through an exotic food market, getting a whiff of new spices or a taste of new delights before you are moved on. For a deeper dive pick you another in the series, House of Open Wounds, is as good a start as any – a fantastic read.     

I read so much genre fiction and have seen so many horror movies that I don’t scare easy. My brain automatically remembers all the behind-the-scenes make-up specials and director commentaries; I know it is not real. However, back in 2005 the last film that scared me was about a group of female cavers who went underground to discover not adventure, but horrors. It may have been the fact that I lived in a one-bedroom flat and watched the film in the middle of the night, with no lights on, and with headphones, or it could have been the story itself. Let’s find out with Christian Francis’ official novelisation of The Descent. 

There is nought more horrifying than real life as the opening pages of The Descent attest. Sarah and her friends are on an exhilarating white-water rafting; all are happy and safe. It is not the undercurrents or rocks that are the danger, but the drive home. One year later Sarah is still struggling with the trauma of that day of losing a partner and child. To take her mind off her troubles, a group of her friends take Sarah caving. What they find there cannot quite match the horror of that day one year earlier, but it comes close.     

The Descent was, and is, one of my favourite films. A wonderfully contained genre film that packs more punches than a Heavyweight title match. There is a balance of trauma, character, and good old-fashioned horror. We get to know this group of intimate friends, only for things to fall apart with some of the most disturbing creatures put on B-movie celluloid. Capturing all director/screenwriter Neil Marshall’s timing and visuals in prose form is a big ask, but Francis does a good job. 

The benefit of prose over the silver screen is that you get a deeper insight into the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Francis already had a lot to work with as Marshall’s script had so much character development; it is just a case of getting it on the page correctly. Francis recreates the various relationships well, with the central triangle of Sarah, Juno, and Beth, firing off one another. 

Sarah must be given special consideration. A complex and broken character, her trauma is a core part of the horror, but it also gives her a steel that many of us would never be able to find. There is a primal rage to her that is key to the final acts of the book. 

I love the pacing of this horror title, a slow build up and a horrific last third. Francis does a great job of recreating some of the iconic images from the film, the key deaths, the screeching horrors. The book transported me back to the film, which I loved, but it does raise the question, did the film do the heavy lifting? Are my memories shaping the way that I read the book? I think that they must, but what I can say is that a fan of the film will also be a fan of the book. 

What of a fresh reader? Does this adaptation of The Descent hold up to scrutiny by itself? I would say that it does. It is not the longest book but reads as a punchy novella with some stand out moments. It works best as a piece of fan service, but if you are a horror fan looking for a quick and nasty read, it has good characterisation and some old school nasty horror to it.   

I have been lucky to work in some normal places in my life, but even I have been placed in spooky situations. Working late, I would walk home through the woods known as The Wilderness. Could there be a ghoul or a monster waiting for me behind a tree? I am too cynical to think so, but I could imagine a nutter with a knife. If I worked at the institution found in Bora Chung’s The Midnight Timetable, I would believe more. This is a laboratory that houses haunted items. 

The staff that work the late shift at the Lab often find themselves crossing paths with one another in the canteen at midnight. They have enough time between their nightly rounds to have a quick drink or snack and tell a story. Most of these stories are about staff members, current and past, of how they came to work here, or how they came to leave. Often, they mention the extra floor that appears and disappears as if by choice. They all have a tale to tell. 

The Midnight Timetable is a portmanteau novel, the central laboratory acting as a touchstone for other stories to occur, the Illustrated Man of the piece. The lab itself is spooky enough and something that Chung returns to many times. Objects are kept behind doors; the staff must check that none of them have escaped. Tales are told about how some of the objectives came to be in the lab, or what happens when you take them out. 

You would be hard pressed to call The Midnight Timetable a horror book; it is more a spooky book, although there are elements of violence. This book was originally written in Korean and translated by Anton Hur. The book loses and gains something in the translation. As a UK reader, it feels foreign, the customs and the culture and different, the offhand style and cold writing add to this. I feel like it has been enhanced by being removed once more by being translated. 

The tales roll seamlessly into one another, to the extent it takes a while to realise this is a series of connected short stories and not one tale. At under 200 pages it is not a long book; it was not towards the end that I was able to sync with the style and felt that the stories started to really click as bizarre and eerie.  

A handkerchief from a fable becomes a central piece of a story about a lazy son. The sheep who were experimented on in one story appear again later as items that require the warm glow of the sun as the staff of the laboratory seek to make the objects fade and eventually disappear. 

The Midnight Timetable feels like a very different read and is perfect for the spooky season leading up to Halloween. Does it make sense all the time? No, but a lot of this is on purpose, and you start to understand more as the book progresses. The book is a mood piece, a fascinating read that readers who enjoy something eerily different will enjoy. 

I would not call myself a skeptic, but a super skeptic, I just cannot begin to believe that ghosts exist, but that does not stop me from enjoying a good ghost story, or even a good old-fashioned ghost story. The Haunting of William Thorn by Ben Alderson has very modern characters and relationships, but deep down is a classic feeling spooky tale about being trapped in a remote mansion with some ghosts. 

William Thorn has been bequeathed what could be a dream home in a Will, but he would much rather have his partner Archie alive and not Hanbury Manor. The Manor has seen better days, abandoned for a decade, the locals think it cursed and ripe for knocking down, but Will is nothing but stubborn and swears to make a go of it. Help could come in the form of the obnoxious local Edward, who is drawn to the Manor. Something happened within these walls. Can Will and Edward discover what it is, lest they become the next person to disappear from Hanbury Manor? 

Do you like a good ghost story? And are you partial to a little romance? Then Haunting may have been written for you, a combination of classic feeling ghost story, with a will they/won’t they romance. There are some variations on the theme. The characters are gay men, and this does impact directly into story. The relationship between Will and Edward is fraught, but modern. It is in the past that being homosexual proved dangerous, even deadly. 

The split timeline is not 50/50, most of the tale is told in the present, but in one flashback and through a few diary entries we learn about the plight of a former occupant of the Manor. Robert Thomas hung himself in the attic in 1939, seemingly on the receipt of a letter informing him that a young man he had known had been killed during the war. As the story progresses, we learn more about events leading up to the hanging and leading up to the haunting. 

The book is set over a series of nights and a series of hauntings. William has a connection to the house. He hears noises, is drawn to certain areas, walks in his sleep. The events are terrifying, but William refuses to leave. Most rational people would exit stage left as soon as they could, but to make the book work Alderson had to make William an incredibly stubborn person. William’s frosty attitude can be explained in part by not only being haunted by the ghosts of Hanbury Manor, but by his own grief. 

Throw into William’s turbulent mind, the enigmatic Edward, a young man with his own agenda. The two are thrown together and their relationship ebbs and flows. This part of the story is a full-on romance novel, of opposites sparking off one another and creating small fires all over the place. I found it all very melodramatic in places, but romance fans will enjoy the central crackling relationship. 

Haunting is one of the most traditional ghost and romance stories that I have read in a long time, just with modern characters. It scratches that itch for any reader that wants to read a thumping story about noises coming from the attics and mysteries that require solving. It is relationship led, with the characters of William and Edward playing a two-hander through most of the book. You are going to want to enjoy some romance and drama to get the most from this book. I see it as a novel to snuggle up with and read as Halloween encroaches.   

Vampire lore is well documented, the rules and regulations differ from book to book, but in most cases if you are a vampire, you cannot do much during the day. In modern life not being able to escape during the daylight hours after leaving a few emptied bodies would be a problem. Cameras would catch you near the scene, police could track you with a phone, but in grungy USA 1975, these inventions are not a problem, and a vampire can go on a proper killing spree.  

Coming home from war was problematic enough for Duane Minor and he found resolve at the bottom of a bottle, but with the help of his wife and in laws, he got it back on track. With responsibilities including running the family bar and being a guardian to his niece-in-law, Duane is fighting back. Until a man called John Varley enters the scene. Varley is a drug dealer, extortionist, a killer, and a whole lot more. When Duane gets on the wrong side of Varley, tragedy hits and all Duane can think of is revenge and saving the one member of his family who survived. 

1970s Portland is not the America that is portrayed in the media in the past few decades. Big city USA in the 70s could be the underbelly’s underbelly, the perfect place for a killer to remain hidden for years, even decades. Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson reads like a noir new-wave vampire novel as written in the 70s. The decade is a character, providing a grim backdrop to Duane’s post-Vietnam experiences. It limits what the hero can do, there are no mobile phones, just the long roads and a sense of revenge. 

Coffin has the minimalist and realistic (as realistic as a vampire novel can have) of a Let the Right One In or Near Dark. There are scenes of great violence, so it is a horror, but it is more than this. This is a book about what you would do for love. Love can take us to wonderful places, but it can also bring you low. Duane’s story is one about how low he can get. At what point does he become worse than the monster? 

The three main characters in the book are Duane, Varley, and Duane’s niece, Julia. The three have a very twisted relationship. Duane and Julia decide to pursue Varley across America. How Duane justifies his actions marks his descent into darkness. It is these actions that are truly horrific, in a way you can forgive the undead with their addictive lust for blood. 

Part of the story is told in flashbacks as we learn about Varley’s origins. This is a great way of increasing the terror as this is not a nice man. Despite everything, Varley is capable of love, in his own twisted way. Varley’s story highlights some of the excellent vampire lore in the book. Rosson has done an excellent job of combining vampire tropes with a gritty and realistic 70s feel. 

Coffin is not an upbeat book. It is one of the darkest and most challenging vampire books you are going to read, but it is done so well. The sense of time and place is awesome and evokes the best cinema of the time. The characters are deeply flawed and just get worse. Duane can be equally pitied and hated for what he does, but what would you do for love?

I enjoy genre books of all kinds. I love a good kidnapping story as a well-oiled plan starts to unravel. I also like a horror story about the Old Gods, of human sacrifices and bloody gore. What you don’t normally get is a story that is both. The kidnapping crew in Kit Burgoyne’s The Captive have taken the wrong person; not only is their victim heavily pregnant, but strange and deadly events seem to follow her. 

The Woolsaw family are a reclusive bunch. Most of the public are unaware that they control many of the Government contracts and in doing so control a lot of the power. When their only daughter Adeline is kidnapped, it shines unwanted attention on the family, but who would not want to use the media to get their daughter back? What are the family trying to hide? 

I have read some bizzarro books in my time, the recent Chuck Tingle’s Lucky Day springs to mind, but whilst Tingle is happy to go full gonzo, Burgoyne has chosen a different route. Captive is a tale of two stories; a kidnapping thriller and a horror. These two elements could easily work together, but for me they felt separate and detached. One could easily work without the other. 

As a straight crime thriller, it is excellent. We meet a tight knit group of kidnappers, mainly following the reluctant Luke, as they kidnap Adeline, who is heavily pregnant. What ensues is exciting enough, will they get away? How will the relationship between the trio of kidnappers develop with their victim? A victim who does not want to go back home. 

This part of the story works well; it is the horror that does not gel. It starts off as odd instances, but we are soon told the truth about the Woolsaw family. Suddenly, it becomes full body horror and human sacrifice. The issue is that you could pull back from the supernatural and tell a cleaner story. A rich family using threats, influence, and even murder to find their daughter again, is action enough.  

I am a horror fan, but in this case the horror did not bring anything more to the story. There are some gruesome and entertaining set pieces; a garden party gone wrong stands out. It is just that the kidnap element and the horror element feel separate. Burgoyne may write by creating characters and allowing them to tell him the story, leading the narrative. This would explain some of the disjointed and meandering nature of the story. A little more time spent on structure and integrating the horror would have helped. 

Despite me noting an oddity in the stucture, this is not to say that Captive is not an entertaining book. It is a page turner; the kidnapping element sees to that. The characterisation is interesting, with three kidnappers who all have different agendas. There is some interesting exploration of hidden powers and the superrich, and the horror is grisly at times. It is a little Frankenstein’s Monster of a book, but the Frankenstein's Monster who could. One for horror fans looking to read a curio.  

If pop culture has only taught me one thing it is that siding with the creatures from other realms is not a great idea. They tend to renege on contracts once they have what they want, usually via sucking your brain out through your nose. Also, the partnerships are not normally people you would want to hang out with. The Nazis always seem to have a good relationship with the vessels of the Old Gods. However, sometimes you need to fight fire with fire, or in the case of Shannon Eric Denton and David Hartman’s Kraken, unnatural beast versus unnatural beast. 

Captain Kraken was already used to dealing with the supernatural in his adventures, but nothing prepared him for three years trapped in a nightmare dimension. So long in a living hell would change most people and this is true of Kraken. Though he may now hide his face and have unworldly powers, he remains the moral crusader – that could not be taken from him. When a village has all its children stolen, Kraken and his plucky allies may be the only people who can save them. 

A 1930 aesthetic, Nazis and Old Gods, all wrapped up in action and violence does bring to mind Hell Boy, and there are many parallels to the two projects. You could see Kraken being told as a parallel story. This is not lost on Denton and Hartman, as Mike Mignola (creator of Hell Boy) worked on a cover for their direct market edition of the comic. However, it does have its own distinct qualities. There is a touch more Allan Quatermain, a gentleman adventurer, getting into scraps, but doing the right thing. 

Having a strong moral centre with Kraken is key to offset some of the horrors in the book. This is a story of other dimensions full of demons and creatures you cannot even look at, lest they drive you insane. The strength that Kraken required to withstand what he saw and what happened to him is extreme. Meanwhile, the Nazis are all chumming up to the ‘others’ and planning to enslave the world. 

This is an action comic at heart and there is a lot of running and shooting. As this also includes shade of Cthulhu, it also has plenty of tentacles and rendering of flesh. Hartman has a clean and bold style that projects the action well. Some of the faces are a little minimalist, but the style is kept throughout. There is a nice use of colour throughout the book that helps the reader to understand where the action is taking place. 

If you call shooting Nazis and tearing the limbs off pirates as fun, then Kraken is a fun book. It deals with dark themes, but really it is an action adventure. It has some deep concepts, but I think this is a graphic novel for readers who enjoy quick action and fun characters. It feels serialised, so you can expect more adventures with Captain Kraken, and you just know they are going to go to some bizarre and interesting places. 

Being successful and superrich would be great to allow you to do what you want, but it also comes with limitations. My mother never wanted to be too rich as she thought one of us would get kidnapped. She needn’t have worried had she made a deal with a demon, if anyone had tried to take one of us, they would have a monster on their case. However, even with some sort of entity on their side, the Berisha family do not seem to be enjoying life in Fiend.  

The Berisha family are one of the most powerful dynasties in America, specialising in imports, they always make the right deals and avoid risk. If they do get in a pickle, luck is on their side; disgruntled ex-employees disappear, evidence evaporates. As the business grows, a succession plan is starting to unfold. Zef is getting older, as the first-born son Dardan would seem the most obvious heir, but the ambitious Maris may have something to say about that. Maris wants more power and knowledge about the family, but why is Dardan stopping her from getting too deep? 

Fiend is a nice mix of Succession and The Devil’s Advocate, taking the trauma of family business and throwing some of the underworld into it. However, I mention Advocate as, like that film, the devil’s work is not always that obvious. This is a book about a family that has a curse, but what is that curse? It is kept quite vague throughout a lot of the book, and it is up to the reader to discover if there is truth in the rumours. 

A distance is kept between the reader and the entity by focusing on the character of Maris. She may be the most ambitious in the family, but she is not destined to take over the mantle of head. Therefore, she is kept out of the darkest secrets. The reader must assess and assume from some of the clues we are given. The revealing of the truth is told via a non-linear method. The bulk of the book is set in the present as the family go through a series of crises, but there are flashbacks that reveal what happened when the children were younger. 

The book is played like a straight family saga, but with darker undertones. The succession plan is the backbone of the book as the siblings jostle for position. Maris wants what Dardan seems reluctant to take. There is also the younger sister, Nora, in the background who is playing an entirely different game. 

Is Fiend a scary book? I did not find it so. Some of the actions that the entity undertakes are horrific, but I found the book more of a mood piece or spooky. It is too violent for horror fans that like supernatural tales and is too tame for lovers of extreme. However, there should be an audience for those that like their thrillers with a little extra. There are strong characters and family dynamics. I would say that these dominate the book over anything red, dead, and scaly.  

I love a good magic system in a fantasy novel, one that sets the rules in an interesting way and is still able to amaze. It is one of the reasons that I am not a huge fan of Fae magic with all its side clauses and tricks. You never know what you are really going to get or what you can trust, therefore undermining the story. Who would have thought that a clever way to deal with Fae magic would be to add another layer of complexity in the form of a science fiction world? Ciel Pierlot would in Terms of Service. 

Luzia’s job is to be one of the first responders should something occur in the vast city of Bastion. Based over hundreds of floors, humans do not climb too high, or descend too low, lest they come face to face with the creatures that live there. Most people are happy to live in the middle, but when Luzia’s nephew is kidnapped, she follows, making a promise to those in the deep that will change her life forever. 

Terms is an interesting science fiction novel as it places many of the classic tropes of a fairy story in a dark post-apocalyptic cyberpunk world. The humans and most of the Fae folk are ignorant of the world that is around them, it is only Luzia’s persistence and constant questioning that starts to reveal what is really happening. It is here that science fiction rises, there is a lot more going on and the book expands in scope as it continues. 

Before moving into full blown science fiction, there is more magic to enjoy. It is a true mash up of fantasy and technology. Classic concepts such as magic, contracts and time slipping are all present. Take these on face value and you are in a world of the Fae. However, be more like Luzia and investigate; science explanations come more to the fore. Luzia is our guide from a fantasy novel set in the future, into a science fiction novel. 

I liked the mixture of the two genres, but it can be a little confusing. There are diverse groups to meet and for the story to work a lot must happen. I was just able to stay on board as a veteran science fiction reader, but some starter readers may struggle to comprehend some of the aspects. 

Even if you cannot truly understand the whole, there is the character of Luzia to enjoy. She is a plain speaking and truthful character. This works perfectly in a confusing world full of tricksters. Her core logic makes the Fae magic easier to swallow, she is always asking what this magic is, how does it work. Alongside Luzia we also meet Carrion, an antihero that you cannot help but like. 

Terms is a complex title that brings together the magic of the Fae and strong science fiction concepts. It should not work, but it does. The science fiction elements work to lessen some of the issues that I usually have with Fairy magic as it forces logic into something that is illogical. There are some wonderful action set pieces and twists in the book as it progresses. I commend Pierlot for taking on a tricky fantasy/sci fi scenario and pulling it off. 

There are certain historic events that I return to in fiction as no matter how many times I have read about them, authors have found new ways of exploring the past. I must have read about Caesar’s rise and fall twenty times or more, but there is room for more retellings. Caesar’s Spy written by Jean-Pierre Pecau and illustrated by Max Von Fafner is not only fresh because it is a graphic novel, but in that it explores Caesar vicariously via his spy chief, Coax. 

Before Caesar became Dictator, he was sent to Western Europe to quell the Germanic Tribes. For eight long years he fought against the worst enemies the Roman Republic had to face, whilst also plotting his return. To aid him, he had vast armies, but also Coax, a Gaul he decided to spare execution and instead employ as a spy. For the next decade or so, Coax and Caesar’s lives became intertwined as they work together for common goals, and sometimes apposing ones. 

You can pick up Spy assuming that it is going to be a visual feast and not much else, but you would be wrong. Visually, Fafner’s work is stunning, and you can see the Conan influence in every rippling bicep and buxom bottom, but the book is much more than just this. Pecau has written a pure historic fiction story and asked Fafner to visualise it. 

Like so many parts of Roman history, the age of Caesar was complex. I know quite a bit about the era and really appreciated Pecau’s commitment to stick to historic accuracy when possible. This did mean some asterixis explaining terms to the reader, but even then, if you are not a student of the period, you will get lost. Parts of the story are complex and wordy, dealing with the triumvirate of powers at the time. I loved it, but I can understand that others will not. 

For those that like simpler things, there is still plenty of action to enjoy. There are battles represented, as well as smaller skirmishes, and ambushes. There is also plenty of flesh on show that reminds you of Conan and makes you worry that the characters must be cold. 

At the centre of the story is not Caesar, but Coax. This is a barbarian’s tale, and it is an interesting one. He has his own motivations, although he is Caesar’s man. He is a brute but also has compassion and loyalty to those few he trusts. His is a story of vengeance, which means there is passion and single-minded focus that keeps him on track, not just for weeks or months, but years. 

As a lover of history, I adored this visual take on the period. It was dark and visceral but also represented a valid exploration of Caeser at the time. It felt well researched and exploring the era from a slightly different viewpoint allowed the reader to see Rome from closer to the ground. The rival gangs, the corrupted city. Fans of simple graphic novels could be overwhelmed by the amount of history found on the pages of Spy, but for fans of the grimmer historic fiction genre and graphic novels, it will be one of the best things that they have read.  

As a Librarian I deal regularly with some of the topics raised in Ugo Bienvenu’s System Preference. I do not have firsthand experience of a robot bringing up my children, but I do know about data; what needs to be stored and what needs to be deleted. Do we just keep it all in the hopes that we can store for infinity, or will there be a day that we need to start deleting information to make space for more? Who decides what is saved? Old minutes from meetings in the 00s, financial records for a local council, the complete works of William Shakespeare?  

In the near future AI and social media have continued to expand to the point that they dominate data storage to the point where government agencies are required to permanently delete files from their archives to make space. The task of archivists is to highlight and argue for given data. Rather than follow orders and delete the collected works of dead artists, one archivist has been stealing the data and storing it within the memory of his house robot, who is carrying his unborn child to term. When the authorities discover that someone is stealing data, the archivist faces 30 years in prison and must decide what is best for him and his family. 

As soon as you open the pages of System you are transported to a science fiction world that reminds you of the films of the late 60s and 70s. The aesthetic is pleasing but also informs the type of science fiction this is; intelligent and unwilling to spoon feed the reader. As homage, Bienvenu even uses 2001: A Space Odyssey as a key story point. Can the archivist bring himself to delete the film, book and all the works around this seminal work? 

There are several themes that play out within the pages of this graphic novel. As an archivist myself, I was drawn to the idea of what data needs to be kept and what needs to be sacrificed. Even today space is required either in the cloud or on physical shelves. It takes a balance of reason and compassion to make a library’s collection work. It is perhaps this reason that the archivist within these pages loses sight of, willing to sacrifice the happiness and future of his family for art. 

The book plays out in two acts. The second half progresses the story in a new direction and focuses more on the robot that contains the complete works of countless artists. Here the book discusses how art should be passed onto future generations. Should we force feed the children the art that we think is essential, or let them find their own? If no one is interested in the art, should it be allowed to die, be deleted? There are many of Shakespeare’s contemporaries whose names have been forgotten to history. Are we worse off for this? Do we really need to save every online rant and noodling that clutters up today’s online world? 

I love the science fiction of ideas and for its brief 176 pages, System poses more questions than most epic space operas. It is a glorious book to look at, the illustrations are wonderful and the colouring is perfect, evoking a brightness, but also a sense of vintage science fiction. I have thought about some of the issues in System several times already and ranted to my colleagues about it, the sign of an exceptionally good book, worth reading.

If you read about the gods, most of them are a little messed up. If they are not descending to pretend to be a swan so they can sleep with woman, they are basically ignoring all the human suffering going on. Are gods omnipotent or just much more powerful than humans? Everything feels like magic, until you know how the trick works. In Sarah Daley’s Wings of Steel and Fury, the gods may be powerful, but they will eventually fall to human weapons if you fire enough bullets. 

Eleazar Starson is heir to the throne of Splendour, a land that sits high above the Earth. A land of winged godlike creatures, who show their benevolence to the humans below, by not destroying them. When Eleazar is betrayed and falls to Earth, he is found by the only two atheists in the land; Fury and Diver. With one wing gone, Eleazar must work with the help of these two humans to rise again. His time on Earth will change the way that he views everything. 

With winged men who have godlike powers, Wings feels like it would be high fantasy, throw in a love triangle between Eleazar and his two human allies, and you could think this was romantasy, the hot genre of the day. It is these things, but its heart beats with dark, brooding blood. This is Grimdark, a low fantasy book, that happens to have angels and romance, but this is less love making and more rutting. 

Wings is a bleak fantasy world. The world of Splendour may be light, but for it to shine, they keep the humans below in the dark. The oppressive tithes are bad enough, but constant war also ravishes the land as different people believe themselves to the chosen of the gods. We are witness to the fact that no one is chosen, the likes of Eleazar see humans as only playthings. 

It is this harsh world that we find Fury and Diver, and a world in which Eleazar falls. As a trio of characters, they are as layered and as complex as you will get in fantasy. The unserious Eleazar grows into a man with a mission. Diver has recently come from the front, shellshocked and changed. Fury stayed behind shunned by her neighbours, the houser of secrets. The three of them bounce off one another; enemies, reluctant allies, lovers. 

The central dynamic is complex, but this sits on top of an epic background, this is fantasy, so you not only have to deal with your sibling, but also gods. I am a fan of low fantasy, but even I found the going rough at times. Just when you think it could not get much worse, it does. It is hard to trust anyone when everyone has been brought up to betray one another. 

The central relationship is so strong that this book would benefit a reader who likes personal drama in their books. There are action and fantasy, but it comes back to the angst that these three central characters have. It may seem more brutal and violent than most, but this is a romantasy novel, it is just that in most of these novels' angels do not get their wings violently torn off.   

There is something deeply pleasant about reading a classic whodunnit from the Golden Age of crime writing. Back in the day it felt that there was a proper set of rules to a crime and solving it. Set so long ago that people call these cases cozy but is there anything cozy about murder? I may have read many of the classics, but I need not worry about running out, there are always more to find, and there are modern authors paying homage. Victoria Dowd hits the nail on the head with Death in the Aviary, a modern crime story written with the Golden Age in mind. 

Being a young widow is not an easy life in 1920s London, especially when you do not want the help of your family. Charlotte Blood grew up in grandness, but her marriage saw her cut off from the family wealth. Rather than returning after her husband’s premature death she set out a career as a journalist. Gossip columns are not bringing in the money and will not last forever, so when she is tasked by the editor to go undercover in a grand home to investigate a year-old murder, this is a chance for Blood to change her career and her life. 

1920s Britain is always an interesting period in history to set a novel as the scars of The Great War still run deep. The tragedy of this war and the men lost plays a significant role in Aviary, not just for Charlotte, but to those she meets. Blood is a character haunted by the death of her husband, who succumbed years later to illness developed during the war. She is still grieving but is also a determined character. 

It is this determination that drives the story forwards. This is needed on occasion, as Aviary is a deep novel that is as much about introspection as it is murder. There is a lot of time considering Charlotte’s past, but also that of the Ravenswick family, one of which is a killer. The heir to the fortune was shot dead one year earlier in a locked lift. One of the seven other people inside must the killer. A sibling, a lover, a member of staff? Blood finds herself investigating a toxic house. 

This is a cracking locked room premise. The clues are sparce and it is a tricky one to solve. There is the classic finale as the suspects are gathered, and their alibis and motives compared. I certainly enjoyed the various twists and turns in the final quarter. I am not sure I could have solved the crime earlier in the book, but Dowd did a respectable job of writing a complex and twisty case. 

There is a lot to admire in Aviary, a good case, the homage to the Golden Era, but Dowd should also be commended for fleshing out the world of 1920s Britain. There is a sense of gloom and tragedy that sits over the characters because of their lived experiences.  

Charlotte has one foot in both upper and lower society, this is explored when she arrives at the Ravenswick home as a servant but is invited to dine with the family. There is a lot happening other than just crime, this does make the page count increase more than perhaps needed, but if you like your characters introspective, then Charlotte Blood is someone complex enough to want to learn more about.

What do you want from a collection of horror short stories? A complex mix of different styles and authors, or a single voice? When it comes to horror, I want them to feel like a quick punch to the guts, only for you to look down and find that the punch was more of a stab. Clay McLeod Chapman knows what I am on about because Acquired Taste is a lovely collection of nasty little stories. 

What scares you the most? Ghosts, monsters, the horror of the everyday? There is at least one story of each type within this collection. The collection brings together short form stories from the author from the years 2017-24. Chapman’s distinct style is felt throughout them, a lot of first-person narrative, and few speech marks on show. Although the style may be similar, the themes differ. 

It appears that Chapman has a healthy disregard for those that try to oppose their will on others. Institutions like cable news are targeted in The Spew of News, a short story that informed Chapman’s later longform Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, which explores the mind chewing grind of Fax News. Politics tribalism is explored to violent effect in Posterboard. Even the Boy Scouts cannot escape in Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key, a frankly bizarro story about one Scout Master’s rally against comic books that ends up unleashing a far worse evil than a few words and images. 

Indeed, some of Chapman’s best stories are the right kind of twisted that makes you worry a little about the author’s mindset. Hermit is about a man who shares his brain with a little visitor, only for there to be a nasty surprise at the end. Pump and Dump is the type of tale that can only come out of a slightly fevered mind as a man finds a vintage breast pump and decides to use it on himself. The less said about Baby Carrots, the better, you just won’t see root vegetables in the same way again. 

I loved Chapman’s dark and twisted tales, but some of the stories are also good ghost stories. These are not quite as dark and have some sense of hope but are just as fun to read. Psychic Santa is as sweet a horror story as you are going to get from this author. 

One theme that I found the most disturbing are those stories that explore the horror of the mundane, everyday horror that does not need the supernatural’s help. The quiet indignity and horror of Debridement, the gentle coping found in Nocturnal Gardener, the love that still exists for a parent by a child even after horrific events in All Ears. In many ways these are the simplest stories, but also the most horrific as they could happen. 

Acquired Taste is an accomplished collection of short stories by an author who was able to establish their voice early and use it in various styles of horror story. It is an unsettling bunch in the style that I like from a short story; quick and nasty, potentially with a twist of scare at the end. This is a collection of stories that any horror fan will enjoy and a great introduction to the writer. I predict that many readers will seek the longer format novels once finishing this collection.  

Murder is in the eye of the beholder and Brandi Bradley’s Pretty Girls Get Away with Murder is the perfect example of how different people can see the same events. The police are always suspicious, open to any leads, until they find the person they think is the prime suspect. This suspect has their own viewpoint. Then there is the friend, what do they have to say? Who killed Ethan? The crazed ex-girlfriend, the obsessed best friend, or someone else entirely? 

The case opens with some grainy film footage. A normal night in a sleepy town, not used to violent crime. Inside the house a body rests in the shower, violently stabbed and left for dead. Who would want Ethan dead? From various perspectives, we will jump forwards and back in time as the case unfolds. 

There are many ways to tell a procedural crime story and there are a lot of them around. In essence, Pretty is a classic whodunnit structure, but Bradley disguises it in an entertaining way. Rather than follow a linear pattern from murder to solution, the story bounces back and forth. The story structure moves on in chapters as the days tick on from the murder. Here we follow detectives D’Arnaud and Boggs as they look through evidence and question suspects. 

It is not long until two names come to the forefront in their investigation; Gabby and Jenna. Gabby is the ex-girlfriend from the wrong side of the tracks, was Ethan trying to hide their relationship? Jenna is a friend from Ethan’s college days, but she seems more than a friend, going out of her way to organise his day to day. Surely one of these two women know who the killer was? Perhaps it was one of them? 

It is here that the book takes a narrative shift. Gabby and Jenna are given the time to explain events in their own voice. Between the chapters that push the case on, we are invited into a first-person perspective of these two women. Both are flawed but feel very real. Gabby is vain and in someways guileless, Jenna is headstrong and finds it hard to listen to others. In the wrong hands these could have been badly written stereotypes of certain types of women, but Bradley handles them well. Entertainingly in fact. There are tropes here, but we also get a real understanding that they are real people and not just caricatures. 

It is the movement from police procedural to first person diary-like which really elevates the book. It reads differently and entertains. In reality, this is a pretty straight forward case, but there are twists. Bradley disguises this in the way the book was written. There are only so many ways that you can write a crime story and people enjoy the genre because they know what they are going to get. Pretty offers both the reassurance of a standard crime story, but also an interesting approach to it.    

I try not to collect too much stuff, choosing to live in the now. If I kept every book that I ever read, every toy that I ever played with, or birthday card I received, I would have no room in my house. I certainly do not keep things “mint in box.” You could have an attic full of collectables worth nothing, on the off chance you happen to buy that Star Wars: The Clone Wars character that is actually worth something. No thanks, I will live my life and not worry about that. However, to some these collectables are their way of life. The things they would do to get a complete collection; beg, borrow, steal, kill? In Nev Fountain’s Lies and Dolls, it is a case of all the above. 

After the murderous events of The Fan Who Knew Too Much, amateur sleuth Kit Pelham is looking for more work, with less murder. She has time on her hands working as a freelance journalist specalising in TV show Vixens of the Void, so when she is asked to accompany her pal Binfire to the opening of a new Vixens memorabilia museum she says yes. When five rare dolls are targeted, she is hired once more to investigate. At least these dolls won’t be missing real human parts, no one wants to see that happen, do they? 

The follow up to the entertaining Fan, Lies is a tighter story that takes Fountain’s usual sideways glance at the geek community. Kit and her pals are an assorted bunch full of quirks, but they do not apologise for this. Kit herself is a flawed character, with undiagnosed issues that suggest OCD and an eating disorder, but she manages to cope and uses these as a superpower to investigate what seems at first to be a light crime. 

Large parts of the book are steeped in the Cozy Crime genre and pay homage to the great Agatha Christie; the Manor House crime, locked room mystery, room full of suspects. Fountain has no issue comparing Lies to a Christie book; it reads as a geeky love letter to one of the greatest crime authors we have known. However, to say this is a Christie homage would be wrong, especially as the book becomes more gruesome in the final acts. 

The mayhem of the earlier book returns in Lies as we reach the conclusion, but even here it follows the beat of a classic feeling 1950s crime novel. Suspicion is thrown one way and then another. Red herrings are dotted around the place and there are a few surprises. We even have friends that the protagonist cannot trust 100%.  

With all this you have a very entertaining crime novel, that is also funny. Fountain pokes gentle fun at the geek community. I am a geek, and I was not insulted. In fact, you feel seen as there are references peppered throughout the book that you will understand, that others may not. By deliberately using a classic structure, Lies is a tightly written crime story and feels even more impressive than book one. The series is heading in a good direction. 

Do you believe in luck? Gambling sites and Casinos hope you do as you believe there is a chance that you will win big. You may just do that, but there is a reason some of the richest people in the UK own gambling websites, the house always wins. You may win big, but elsewhere someone is losing big, or lots of people are losing small. It all balances out with a nice rich tithe for the corporation acting as intermediary, but what happens if the odds are purposely placed in your favour? It may just be your Lucky Day, but Chuck Tingle has a warning for you; you may win a million or be caught up in a million to one disaster. 

Vera is finally starting to feel like she is getting her life sorted; one of the youngest professors at her university, soon to be a published author, and a new fiancée. All she needs to do is tell her mother that she is bisexual and marrying a woman. Easier said than done when talking about her strong-willed mother and the fact that fish have started to rain from the sky. And a monkey is beating a friend to death with a typewriter. And a semi is hurting towards you both. It seems that an event has hit Chicago in which bad luck has befallen the city. Can Vera survive long enough to understand what is happening? 

Lucky Day is some of the most enjoyable gonzo science fiction I have read in a long time. It is Urban Fantasy, but with a twisted sense of horror and sci fi. At the centre is Vera, a complicated character who deals in logic and statistics, thrust into a world in which logic seems to no longer apply. Or does it? There is a twisted sense of reason to the unlucky events that Vera has a unique ability to understand. 

The opening section of the book is bizarre, thrilling, funny, and horrific. Tingle has a joyous way of creating some bizarro scenes that you cannot look away from. I love the way that the book does not go out of its way to explain what is happening immediately, but you must read on to find the reveals.  

I got moments of The Final Destination films, but also the gonzo nature of a David Wong novel, and the themes touched upon by Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko. Those are some excellent touchstones to remind me of, as I love them all and Lucky Day certainly hits that quality. Tingle certainly has their own voice in the style of writing, it is darkly humorous, but also strongly science and horror led. 

I enjoy a book that has interesting ideas and tells them in an interesting way. This book certainly does that, and I would consider it a page turner as you want to know what is going to happen next. It deals with deep themes such as attitudes to sexuality, depression, nihilism, but also it has humour. Even in the most horrific scenes, there is an evil humour included. One of the oddest and most enjoyable books I have read in a long time.     

I have always appeciated the rich tapestry that the extended Star Wars Universe has given the reader. Whilst the films are few and far between, and the TV shows more abundant but still limited, it is the books that allow fans to deep dive into characters and places that may not get as much love on the screen. The Bad Bunch are much loved and have some of the most entertaining adventures across the IP. They deserve their own book to allow us to see what makes the likes of Hunter tick, and Lamar Giles agrees with their new book Star Wars: Sanctuary – a Bad Bunch Novel. A story that captures the high action and camaraderie of one of the most chaotic corners of the Star Wars Universe. 

The Bad Bunch have become involved in a high stakes heist to steal millions of credits from the criminal underworld at an illegal auction. All they must do is follow the plan and nothing will go wrong, but this is the Bad Bunch and plan B is always needed. This means going loud and getting out. On the run, they pick up a second job to escort a mysterious woman and her companion to a neutral world. More than one can of worms has been opened with the heist and the passenger, suddenly The Bad Bunch find themselves hunted by both the criminal underworld and the Empire's secret police. 

There is a kinetic energy to The Bad Bunch that comes from their origins as an animation that catered for a younger audience. Giles' task is to harness this energy, whilst still writing a book for the older fan – even most of the original cartoon fans would have grown up enough to read this book. The great news is that Giles achieves this, there are characters such as Tech, Wrecker and Omega that fans will recognise and they feel and sound like they are from the show. 

One of the advantages that prose has over TV is that you can glimpse into the thought process of the characters even more and here Giles pushes the characters even further than many of the TV episodes. There is a complex relationship between these genetically adapted clones, some have left and they are growing apart. Hunter may seem the most stoic, but we see that he is also the most afraid of change. Sanctuary has a series of side narratives that explore how the characters are developing internally. 

I say these are side stories, as the main action is a duo of stonking Bad Bunch like adventures that end up with them being chased by both a psychopathic criminal boss and an ISB Agent who is not much more grounded. The pair of antagonists form an unlikely alliance that leads to lots of action and intrigue. 

In some ways the ephemeral characters in Sanctuary, as given the most development. This is due to restrictions in the wider lore that Giles would not be allowed to play with. The areas that are the author’s own sandpit can be played with at will. Here you see that Giles is a true Star Wars fan, creating places and characters that fit seamlessly into the world. My only misgiving is that they are too ephemeral, they deserved to appear in more of the books, but at least in one case, you get a cool cameo to finish the job. 

Sanctuary is a book that is a joy to read. It captures the characters from the show, but also a sense of the wider Star Wars Universe. You get a sense of the characters stepping from their contained TV adventures into a new series in book form. Given license, I would think that Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, Omega, and any other former members of Clone Force 99 who wish to return, are perfect protagonists to launch a series of entertaining action Star Wars novels that play in the Universe without impacting on the core Skywalker tale. 

Conan was a character that had a rich and long life. You may be a fan of the films and only imagine the man as a loincloth wearing barbarian, cleaving the heads of various cult leaders. That is a large part of his appeal, but he was also a bandit leader, pirate and eventually a King. In fact, he was a king for a long time overseeing a period of relative peace with his iron will. The issue is that for a man like Conan, peace is boring, so when an old promise is called in, Conan sets out on a new adventure in Tim Lebbon’s Conan: Songs of the Slain. 

Conan is a little softer around the middle and a little slower on his feet, this is inevitable when he spends more time sitting on the throne as king, than fighting on the battlefield. He can still take on any three elite guards at once and win, but how rusty is he against a real adversary? When a friend from his past comes calling and asks to fulfil a decades old promise, Conan will discover firsthand if he is still mighty as he takes on three powerful enemies. 

In Songs, Lebbon has rightly stuck to what has made Conan books great for decades; gritty characters and awesome fights. It is just that this book is set in the King of Aquilonia era, that is a little less known but gives Lebbon the chance to play with Conan’s vulnerabilities. Does this older, slower, Conan have what it takes? 

The book opens on the younger warrior in a form of flashback, giving us a taste of the incessant character the man was. He would kill for money and glory but also recognised honour and loyalty. This man still exists on the throne decades later, so when an old favour is called in, he insists on saving an old friends family from the evil leader of a gang of cutthroats. 

Having a good enemy is key to a great Conan novel and Lebbon gives you three. A magic drug taking warrior who considers him mightier than Conan, a sorceress willing to kill herself with magic for revenge, and a powerful necromancer who is a few bones short of a graveyard. The story is mainly taken up by the journey that Conan takes to get to the final epic face off that does not disappoint. 

This is a dark fantasy novel, and not for the squeamish. The sorceress gains her powers by eating the boiled brains of innocent victims. Life is cheap and it is a shame to see so many people die, but this is Conan. Along the way he meets allies, but they too are disposable. It is sad to read some of their fates, but it feeds the dark nature of the book and builds the gritty world that Conan has thrived in. 

This is Conan’s story, but it is also the songs of the slain, in that Lebbon gives the side characters and enemies their own time to develop. We move away from Conan quite a lot to learn more about an ally or an enemy. I always like returning back to Conan best, but it did give the final chapters of the book more meaning when you know the motives and the madnesses of the people he faces. In many ways, Songs feels like a classic and quintessential Conan adventure, and I am all for that. This book will appeal to fans of the core stories as it acts as a companion piece. It may not go in new directions like the Cthulhu infused Cult of the Obsidian Moon, but what it does provide is as close to another outing in the classic series as you can get, in a modern voice. I would gladly read more Lebbon written Conan.     

I love programming because I find it the opposite of magic. I find it logic. I know that if I tackle a problem using certain rules I will finally get it to work. When I show a person the finalised product, they often comment that it seems like magic, but it is not. It is just hardwork, processing and occasionally using old bits of script and adapting them, but what it it was magic? What could you program if you had magical skills? An AI that works spells for you? Seven has designed such an app in Liz Shipton’s .dot/slash(magic).  

Life has been pretty eventful, but meandering, for Seven. She skipped college and instead sailed around the world for a few years, but now she finds herself back in the USA and in need of purpose. This purpose may be in the form of the family boat which has been promised her should she enroll and complete at least one year of community college. Even Seven should be able to do this, but when her elective course on AI stumbles across a way to sync her watch with magic, Seven opens herself to a new magical society and an all new purpose she did not even know existed. 

Urban Fantasy should have some sort of grounding in real life if it is going to resonate with the reader, and there is not much more grounding than having to return to the family with your tail between your legs and enroll in community college. This were we find Seven and she is an interesting character. She is in her mid twenties so has lived some life, making her tale a refreshing, more mature one – although the characters are not that mature. 

The book is mature in the sense that it tackles adult problems; how to make your rent, how to deal with deadlines, who to date. Seven is not a people person and this is when I like her the most; cynical and sarcastic, with her guard always up. As the book progresses she makes new acquaintances and here the maturity of the book becomes muddied. Reading this book I was starkly aware that I am now removed from my 20s. My situation was steady at the time, saving to buy a house and start a family, but this was not the case for Seven and many of her generation.  

The characters in Seven’s circle, both magical and not, react in bold ways that I cannot quite fathom. This makes for sharp drama, but also needless stress. Seven stumbles across a magical society and is not warmly greeted. This is understandable, but to throw Seven into several deadly contests etc., feels too much. It is not quite Potter levels of naivety, but not far off. This helps the action, but loses some of the grounding of the earlier part of the book. 

Speaking of losing grounding, the book has a high concept ending that will divide readers. It is a bold choice by Shipton that will make for an interesting follow up in the series, but I felt was a little leftfield. The book was best at its simplest, with a spiky character finding their way in a new magical world. The simpler the tale, the more I was drawn in. 

Dot is an enjoyable slice of Urban Fantasy, although it deals in injury and death, there is a lightness to it, but it also tackles some tough concepts such as manipulation. It would work well for a reader who likes dynamic character interaction and those that still remember days of falling in and out of love. It is flawed as it becomes more complex, but for large portions is an entertaining read. 

I enjoy reading about the occult in contrasting times in history. If someone came up to a modern person and said there was a witch in the woods stealing children, they would raise an eyebrow and swiftly walk in the opposite direction. A couple of hundred years earlier around the same woods the reaction would have been quite different, perhaps you would have believed, and the children saved? The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia explores witchcraft through the eyes of three woman in three different time periods, and although their tales may have similarities, their actions differ. 

Alba lives on a farm with her mother and her siblings, life is good, if a little dull. The most exciting thing to happen is when her uncle from the city arrives. But dull is good, when excitement comes in the form of animals becoming ill and people going missing. Is the farm cursed? Almost 100 years later Alba’s great-granddaughter Minerva is a post-Grad studying the works of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure horror writer. Her research into Tremblay reminds her of what her great-grandmother taught her. Was Beatrice involved with a curse and is Minerva? 

I have enjoyed Moreno-Garcia's work since the early days, as this is a writer with a fantastic ability to create characters and draw the reader in. This is across genres, Moreno-Garcia weaves characters from nothing in only a few pages. In terms of this The Bewitching is her best work yet, we do not get just one developed and strong female protagonist, but three; Alba, Minerva, and through her words, Beatrice. Three different woman whose lives are linked across time. 

What makes this even more impressive is how the author evokes a sense of time and place that each character lives in; 1908 Mexico, 1934 and 1998 Massachusetts, each is distinct. Layered on top, we have what I consider an author flexing their skills wonderfully. Alba and Minerva’s tales are told from a traditional third person perspective, but Beatrice tells her story through a story that Minerva is reading. The style of author Moreno-Garcia and author Tremblay are subtly different. Moreno-Garcia has always been able to adapt to different styles and genres, but in this book the author adapts her own style within the same book – impressive. 

Technical writing aside (and I do think that Moreno-Garcia is one of the best genre authors currently writing) the tale itself is a wonderfully twisty and slow burn. It is supernatural and occult, rather than full horror. The uneasiness is allowed to build across timelines. Three apparent separate stories become drawn together. There is no science fiction link between time, but an invisible bond of fate that draws these three woman’s tales together. 

I would consider Moreno-Garcia at this point a master of their craft weaving characters and tales that draw the reader in. A purple patch that has been ongoing for some time now, The Bewitching is a story for those that like supernatural tales with strong female characters. It feels like both classic gothic and modern supernatural horror.    

The fantasy genre is a form of comfort reading for me. The genre often follows similar tropes, and you can get into the rhythm of the story quickly. However, increasingly often in modern fantasy, authors are creating new and challenging ideas to shake up the genre. Magical systems are an area you can manipulate to create something new and here Ryan Rose’s Seven Recipes for Revolution excels as magic is created from the butchered meat of magical animals. When one butcher gets high on their own supply, revolution begins to brew. 

The Butcher King has been captured, and he sits in his cell recounting the tales of his youth to the court Archivist. He stands accused of regicide, murder, treason, cannibalism and more, but there is always more than one side to any story. What turned young Paprick into the Butcher King? The oppression of his people, his skill with blades, or his ability to produce new magical recipes, an art that has been lost for generations? All these factors and more led to the bloody reign of the Butcher King and in Seven we are witness to history. 

From the off, Seven has a different feel to it and that is because of the magic system designed by Rose. This is a low fantasy novel, you get that picture as soon as you read the bloody capture of The Butcher King. However, this is a book told in the past. It is narrated by the Butcher from his cell, and this makes it untrustworthy testimony. However, the Butcher is a great storyteller and tells the tale in a way that works as a novel. It opens inside the body of a giant creature. 

It is within the innards of this magical creature that Paprick develops his skills as a butcher but also starts to learn about magic and recipes. Inside the meat of these creatures is a substance that, when cooked in various specific ways, imbues the diner with magical powers. Each recipe gifts a different power, from speed to the ability to control minds. In a moment of panic Paprick invents a new recipe that makes him grow 20ft tall. This brings him to the attention of the Rares. As a Common, Paprick is not meant to know magic and they want to know how he has the skill to cook with it. 

The magical system in Seven is excellent and a real highlight of the book. Using food to gift powers allows Rose to extrapolate into a tale of cookery and killing. Paprick is elevated from Common to Rare and enrolled in Culinary School. Here the book does lose some of its edge. Suddenly we are back in the tropes of coming of age as Paprick meets other young adults and starts to develop. At times, even with the brain eating and murder, it started to have a slight Harry Potter vibe. 

Paprick must grow from the boy into the Butcher and this being Book One, it is necessary to cover the early years. I would hope that later books give us more of the man who is trapped in the cell years later, this creature seemed more interesting to me. There is a darkness to The Butcher King that is compelling, a roiling ball of anger and energy. This darkness permeates the book making it definite low fantasy. From the off we discover that the animals that are being butchered are being carved apart whilst alive to keep the meat fresh. The culling can take months to complete. This is a dark notion, but one that is perfect in this world. The Rares treat the Commons with the same level of dispassion and neglect. 

Seven is a book about class and revolution, Le Mis with the ability to grow taller than buildings. The magic is used sparingly, the ingredients scarce, this means that when the action happens it is explosive and vibrant as either the Rares or the Commons are using their precious resources and must get the maximum for them. If you like your low fantasy pitch black and you enjoy exploring fresh magical systems, then Seven is an excellent book to pick up.  

 I stumbled across this one at WorldCon in Glasgow last year. You know how it is, wandering the dealer's room, picking up flyers, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone who looks like they want to talk about their self-published epic. But I’d previously attended a panel about Scottish sci-fi and saw the novel on one of the dealers' tables.

Third Loch from the Sun isn't your hard-science, physics-heavy, spaceship-battles-and-wormholes kind of sci-fi. Not by a long shot. This is firmly in the "soft sci-fi" (also occasionally known as low-fi) camp, which in this case means it's more a general fiction book with just one thing sci-fi, just a single element in an otherwise non-denominational fiction. Even then, Burke isn't bogged down in explaining the minutiae of future tech or the exact gravitational pull of some distant moon. Instead, he uses the speculative elements as a backdrop for exploring character, atmosphere, and some genuinely intriguing ideas. It's more about the human experience within a slightly altered reality, rather than the mechanics of that reality. Think less The Martian and more… well, something you'd read on a rainy afternoon when you want to relax and not think too hard. It's a relaxed read.

The (one) sci-fi bit isn't some far-flung future or a grand space opera. For a start, it's a contemporary story, set right here and now, or at least, right there on a (fictitious) remote Scottish island. Our protagonist, Jake, is just a lad on a summer job, trying to navigate prickly locals and a boss who's a bit of a rogue. The only real twist is a first-contact scenario involving tiny, flying aliens that look more than a little like fairies. It's a genuinely charming and unexpected way to introduce the speculative element, grounding it in a believable Scottish setting. Burke builds a quiet, contemplative atmosphere without resorting to cheap tricks. Having said that, it does take a bit of getting used to, and given its "low-fi" credentials, is only one magic wand away from becoming a fantasy. I can imagine some might struggle with this, after all, it's almost considered a mortal sin to mix the two genres - and for good reason, I've read some eye-watering attempts. But the rest of the book makes up for any misgivings about the genre. The characters feel real, flawed, and a bit weary, making them easy to connect with. The story meanders gently along, and really, most of the book's journey is about the characters themselves more than the fact that aliens are visiting. There's also a good deal of humour woven throughout Jake's observations and interactions, which adds to the overall charm. The humour also extends to the interactions with the alien beings, who appear to have picked up on some human eccentricities, without the wider context.

Burke’s writing is clean, even evocative at times; he paints vivid pictures without getting bogged down in excessive description, which I appreciate. You get a strong sense of place, even if that place is centred around a fictional loch on a fictional, distant island. And the central mystery, while not a grand, galaxy-spanning conspiracy, is compelling enough to keep you turning pages. I was quite sad to learn it wasn't a real island, as it's an idyllic setting, and one I'd have loved to visit sometime.

So, if you're looking for a blockbuster space opera, this isn't it. But if you're after something more thoughtful, character-driven, and happy to lean into the "soft" side of sci-fi, Third Loch from the Sun is worth a look. A solid find from a random WorldCon wander.

When we have finally managed to destroy Earth, some of us may already be living on Mars. If you stay inside the domes, I hear it can be quite pleasant. However, what happens when we start to destroy Mars? The issue with all these planets is not the landscape or the lack of oxygen, it is the fact that humankind has populated them. A Rebel’s History of Mars by Nadia Afifi is a split timeline narrative about two societies that humans and have somehow managed to mess up. 

Azad lives a simple and managed life on Nabatea, his choices are dictated by his computer companion. Everything only has three options and all you must do is follow one of them, but there is never the option to find his missing twin sister. Events conspire to set him out on a mission to find his sister, but to discover where she is, he will need the help of a group of rebellious historians and the past. Martian Kezza lived centuries earlier, but her life is about to inform in the present. 

It is a trend in science fiction that a planned utopia ends up in a dystopia and in the case of Rebel there is more than one of these. The narrative is split into two, a thousand years apart. In the present we have the closeted Azad as he discovers there is more to life than just three choices. A thousand years earlier is the far feistier Kezza, aerialist and rebel. Both live in what should be a new opportunity for humanity, but both are failed states. 

The ideal of social engineering is one of the key components of the story and one of the most interesting elements of the book. Afifi makes the social engineers the enemies in the book. Kezza is obsessed with killing the man that designed the colony on Mars in which she lives. She blames the man for her father’s death and the hideous life that most of the population on Mars have. Azad lives far into the future on a planned planet that is very controlled. As the story unfolds, the two socially engineered stories come together. 

Initially, the book reads like separate tales, but when Azad meets some historians this changes. In his society, learning about the past is frowned upon and sometimes illegal. By using a device that can see the past, the historians discover why the past was hidden. 

Like the title suggests, Rebel has a rebellious heart. The characters are all fighting against the norms, trying to understand and make things better. However, history can repeat itself as the next rebellion may easily become the next establishment. The cycle will continue. 

Rebel is an interesting book, and the dual narrative is a clever idea. I enjoyed bouncing between the two timelines, and it allowed some surprises to bubble up. A new discovery from the past suddenly informs the present. I do think that some science was a little dubious, even in the realm of science fiction. I was not sure that something like the Barry machine to see the past could exist in this book’s universe. Firstly, why was the tech randomly invented by rebels, not that likely? And if this tech had been invented, I would assume that plenty of other solutions and technology would also have been present, altering the course of the story.  

The balance of the technology is a little off, Afifi prefers to use a convenient story device to push the narrative, rather than clean science. It gives you an idea of who would enjoy the book the most. Sci fi purists may struggle with some of the science concepts, but those who enjoy strong characters and intrigue will like the way the story unfolds. Afifi does a good job of weaving the two stories together into a satisfying whole towards the end, even if some deliberate engineering has been done to the science to make it fit the author’s chosen vision.  

What if your physical body were no longer a lifelong commitment? What if we could, instead, free ourselves from that mortal constraint and simply inhabit the hardware you happened to be running at the time? This is the central question at the heart of Francesco Verso’s The Roamers, a novel of ideas translated from Italian that firmly plants its flag in the post-cyberpunk, biopunk landscape.

It's the near future, and consciousness can be data-mapped, digitised and made into a downloadable form, capable of being stored in a variety of form factors, turning the human experience into an entirely nomadic one, untethered from geography, mortality, and your original, biological self.

The story follows Sender, a young man who, like many of his generation, has embraced the Roamer lifestyle. He trades in his original body for a sleek, advanced model and joins the global flow of data souls, flitting from city to city, inhabiting new forms and chasing new experiences.

The world is divided between these Roamers and the Stayers – those who cling to their original bodies and a more traditional, rooted existence. Verso does a fine job of establishing the initial allure of this new way of life: the freedom, the dissolution of old prejudices, and the promise of endless self-reinvention. But, as is so often the case in good science fiction, this utopian veneer quickly begins to crack. Sender’s journey leads him to discover that the technology is not as perfect as the corporations behind it claim, and a dangerous new form factor, the Nexhuman, threatens to destabilise the entire system.

One of the ways The Roamers stands out is in the exploration of the core concept and how the author manages to world-build around it. This isn't so much a story of futuristic technology as it is about the sociological and philosophical consequences of separating identity from biology. Verso thoughtfully considers how such a shift would reshape everything we take for granted. Economics is no longer about material possessions but about access to data and experiences. Society is no longer defined by nations but by information streams and shared interests. The novel raises fascinating questions: if your body is a rental, who is the landlord? If a "for-profit" corporation has curated your experiences, are they still your own, or like other digital wares, are you just paying for a licence to use them till the corporation pulls the plug? Its a vision that's as compelling as it is unsettling. This feels even more concerning given the fairly recent news that the first person is using Elon Musk's Neurolink chip that can translate and digitise thoughts. It challenges the very foundation of what it means to be human.

Sender is an effective protagonist for the most part, our guide through this strange new world, but he and the supporting cast can sometimes feel secondary to the concepts they represent. You could argue that although Sender's journey is largely guiding the plot, the real protagonist here is the very idea of roaming itself. The real journey is less about Sender and more about the societal implications that surround the technology that frees the individual from biology. If anything, this makes the book even more fascinating, steeped as it is in these big ideas. In style, it feels like a slow-burning techno-thriller, with deliberate pacing that prioritises thematic development over action. It's more meditative than manic.

All this would not have been possible were it not for the outstanding translation carried out by Sally Bayley. Remarkably, the clean, descriptive atmosphere is kept along with the pervasive feeling of strangeness that the future world represents, along with the exploration of these big ideas. While the plot may be a familiar vehicle of corporate conspiracy, the world it travels through is fresh and thought-provoking. This is a book for readers who like their science fiction to be challenging, to ask difficult questions, and to present a vision of the future that will linger in the mind long after the final page is turned.

The Roamers is a solid piece of intelligent science fiction that succeeds because its central idea is so compelling. It takes the classic transhumanist trope of 'leaving the body behind' and explores the fallout with a depth that's genuinely impressive. It’s a fine example of contemporary European SF and is highly recommended for anyone interested in the future of identity in an increasingly technological world.

The fantasy genre has the reputation of producing books big enough that you could use as a casual seat, trilogies that you could line up, throw some cushions on top and make into a settee. It does not have to be this way and T Kingfisher has certainly bucked the trend with Clockwork Boys, which comes in under 300 pages and is the first outing in a Clocktaur Wars duology. Can epic fantasy work in smaller chunks? Of course it can. 

When Slate, the forger, is tasked with searching the prisons for a useful murderer, the only one she sniffs out is Caliban; paladin, handsome, spree killer. He claims that the demon inside him is dead now, but is that someone you can trust with your life? Slate does not care that much as her life is forfeit anyway. She is to lead a suicide mission to find the origins of the Clockwork Boys, an army of mechanical killers. With only herself, a possessed knight, an assassin, and an academic, there is no chance of them surviving anyway. 

At under 300 pages and only part of a duology, it is likely that the entire Clocktaur War series will be shorter than a single volume of many other fantasy sets. How is this even achievable? Surely Kingfisher has been forced to make sacrifices to shorten the length? The answer to this question is not really. The pacing is not much faster than your average fantasy novel, a genre known for its development in characters and world building. We are certainly given plenty of time for characters to grow, the quest not even starting until later in the book. 

One area that is a strength and does allow for a shorter page count is the reduced number of characters. Slate is the main protagonist, but the reader only gets to know four characters well, who are mostly in each other’s presence. Epic fantasy often has multiple storylines that span nations; Clockwork is a tightly contained novel. 

Having fewer characters focuses one’s attention on them more, and Kingfisher revels in this. The book becomes darkly amusing as the travel partners snipe at one another. A begrudging respect builds, but also an absolute annoyance of one another.  

These relationships are key as they lighten the tone of the story. This is a low fantasy novel, set in a crumbling world. Things must be desperate to send out a gang of criminals to save the Kingdom. All the decent options are already dead. The slog is bleak as Slate contemplates her death. However, there is also hope. The journey and the friendships start to give Slate a reason to want to live, but this just makes the quest harder. Suicidal missions are so much easier if you do not care if you live or die. 

The characters and their immediate world are designed well, but we do not know much about the enemy. What are these Clockwork Boys and who invented them? The mystery plays well; it allows the story to focus on this fellowship and adds tension to what may happen next. 

Clockwork may be brief for a fantasy novel, but it is not hurried. Kingfisher still allows the characters and the world to breathe. The action punctuates the adventure, but it is the relationship between the travelers that keeps you reading. By focusing on a few key characters, Kingfisher has been able to write a classic feeling slice of epic fantasy, but with half the page count and I am all for that. 

I have read a lot of epic fantasy, and it comes in many flavours, but it does not always feel like it. Often, it feels like an alternative Medieval Europe with a few elves thrown in. This is less so today as innovative ideas and visions come to the genre, taking a typical fantasy novel and giving it a different feel. The Gryphon King by Sara Omer is one such book. It has warring royal families, plentiful mythical beasts, and unknown magics, but it is all set in a southwest-Asian inspired world. 

Bataar did not consider himself destined for remarkable things, but as a youth a desperate fight against a Gryphon in which he not only survived, but won, marked him as special in the eyes of others. Now older, he has set out on his destiny to become the King of all the lands. The first step is to take Dumakra and that means killing the King and defeating his Harpy Knights, a group of formidable warriors made up of his female relatives, including his stubborn daughter Nohra.  

Gryphon approaches the fantasy genre in a lot of interesting ways, only one being the setting. The world building combines traditional fantasy tropes but gives them a southwest-Asian sensibility. Relationships are different than in many fantasy books and this is key, because, although the book has action, it also has a lot of character-led moments. 

The second interesting approach Omer took was making the novel a two header, moving between Bataar and Nohra in each chapter. Rather than having the two characters battling one another, it is not long until they are far closer together. Nohra becoming a viper in Bataar’s court. They need one another to gain the power or revenge they seek, and they respect one another’s prowess on the battlefield, but they cannot trust one another. 

This tension is rife in the book and makes it feel like a thriller, although the action is saved for the battlefield. Nohra is always plotting and Bataar is always on notice that it is happening. The Royal Court plays a crucial role in this as the two characters use loyalties and alliances to gain the upper hand. Although there are two main characters, the book is full of family members, servants, soldiers, and more. At times, the number of characters was overwhelming, and I became a little lost on who was betraying who. 

At over 400 pages and part one of a series, Gryphon has an epic fantasy feel that fans of the genre will love. You do not get to learn everything in book one. It is a slow boil; time is spent developing characters and learning more about the royal alliances. Fans of epic fantasy will lap it up, but those looking for a punchier tale will feel there is a little too much handwringing and internal introspection. There is nothing quite like undermining a God-like King’s mystic than hearing their internal flawed monologue. Nohra’s enigmatic father feels far more regal, but getting to know Bataar’s flaws as well as his strengths is part of the strong character development in the book. 

The fantasy elements of the book are very interesting. With the murder, battles, and backstabbing, it reads like low fantasy, but the use of mythical creatures gives it a high feel too. Omer blends both ends of the fantasy spectrum in a way that fans of either will find something in this book they will enjoy. Gryphon is a character first fantasy novel, that has action and an epic feel. It reads like a classic style long form fantasy, but the world building does give it a fresher perspective.  

I picked this book up after learning about it being short-listed and eventually winning the Arthur C Clarke Award. It's proof of not judging a book by its cover because I'd have completely passed it by sitting on a table, with its shockingly bright pink swirlyness and quote by Sheena Patel that says "Barbie for girls who like Aphex Twin". I've never watched Barbie (although I understand it's a well-made film), have no idea who Aphex Twin is, and I don't identify as a girl. I'd like to think I would still have picked it up at some point, though. It was a "Times Book of the Month", and won the Arthur C Clarke against some pretty terrific competition - The Ministry of Time (Kaliane Bradley), Service Model (Adrian Tchaikovsky), Extremophile (Ian Green), Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock (Maud Woolf) and Private Rites (Julia Armfield) are all damn fine reads, a couple I'd even go as far to call exceptional. It's also proof that awards like the Arthur C Clarke have a direct impact on book sales (I picked a couple of the others after learning they'd been shortlisted).

Anyway, Annie Bot, as you might guess, is a robot, designed to be the perfect girlfriend (or more accurately, slave) for Doug. She cooks his dinner every night, wears the outfits he buys her and caters to his every sexual whim. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a story if that's all that happened, and you can probably tell what's coming next - she begins to question her servitude, to rebel against her stifled existence. She even begins to imagine the impossible - what would it feel like to live without Doug? Different functions require different types of AI. To be such a "cuddle bunny" (a euphemism for sex-bot), the robot needs to switch over to an "autodidactic" mode, which gives the AI more "free will" to learn and adapt. Then, Annie starts to learn, adapt and question the world around her.

The writing style reminds me of Philip K Dick, it's got that matter-of-fact tone that renders the ordinary quite interesting that he used for many of his works. It also feels old-fashioned, certainly in the way that Annie is brazenly depicted as a sex object, misogyny still a very real problem, pervasive in the overall tone that sets men as real men and women as objects of desire. Freeing real women from the drudgery of being a housewife has simply meant that the robot women now bear that burden. People are quite open and frank about these robots being objects, to switch on and off, or upgrade as desired. Are they right though? When AI / a robot sounds and acts like a real person, are they getting as intelligent as us, or are they simply getting better at providing responses we expect to hear? Where does the simulated response stop and real intelligence begin? That's an issue we see right now. AI has been getting better at providing a human-like response, but does that make them smart (not yet, is my answer)?

In an age of rising AI, as it begins to invade our everyday lives, it is a timely question. Currently, I'm trialling AI software, partly to see how it can help our productivity at work. Meanwhile, AI chips are being embedded into otherwise everyday devices. Computers and phones are the most obvious examples, but AI chips are also becoming embedded into hearing aids and other wearable technology. AI chatbots promise to become your digital friend. That of course is one of the big themes in the book. Are we right to treat these robots as objects, or should they be seen as another form of intelligence and given the same rights and privileges as us (let's not get started about the idea of rights being decided based on perceived similar intelligence to ourselves)? What does it mean to be human? Does it matter if we are made of flesh or robotic parts?

That brings us to another of the book's themes: loneliness. Despite being connected more than we ever have been, able to instantly converse with people around the world, join groups on social media platforms and view many people doing many things on media channels, loneliness is becoming a very real problem. We are still social creatures; we often thrive in the company of others, but that doesn't extend the same to online social activities in the same way. It still isn't a replacement for real social contact. But at the same time, forms of real connections with other humans are being stripped away. There are fewer social clubs for a start, and late-stage capitalism (at least in Western societies) means that our disposable income is squeezed ever tighter (got to think of the shareholders). You can see this quite profoundly in the UK with a rise in food banks and a remarked decline in Pubs and restaurants. Fewer clubs, along with fewer chances of socialising in other places. That extends to places where we'd otherwise expect to see at least a little social interaction, such as shops. The rise of self-scanning checkouts means that supermarkets (and other shops) can keep that share of the money they'd otherwise pay staff and make us scan our purchases instead (and yet offer no discount to do so). More money for them, less social interaction for us. That was something I was made aware of just last week. The local Tesco had only one checkout operator (who was inundated) and lots of self-checkouts. Standing, waiting to be served and a Tesco staff member was trying to get people to use the self-scanning. That led to a conversation with the person behind me, as I remarked on the loss of jobs (and greater profit) while he remarked that he missed the social interaction if he didn't queue at a real checkout. A result of all this progress is that people can go days without actually speaking to another real person. Given that clubs and pubs used to be the most likely places to meet romantic interests, I imagine it must be a lot harder to get real, genuine connections in a digital world, too, despite the many social dating apps.

You can easily imagine someone like Doug, perhaps driven by such loneliness, forming a romantic attachment with a robot, and of course, that's what happens. Relationships, healthy and unhealthy, are another big theme. Although to be honest, it's often describing an awareness of unhealthy relationships. Doug is controlling, misogynistic, at times toxic and other times abusive, making for some uncomfortable reading. You feel for Annie being trapped in such a situation. That also makes you question whether any intelligent (or more importantly, possibly emerging sentient) thing should be treated this way. Robots in relationships are not new ground, nor is emerging AI, but Greer is just using these devices as a setting to explore the themes they want to good effect.

I guess the 1100+ words written above give some indication as to why Annie Bot was chosen as the winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award. It's one of those books that seems simple and yet conveys some timely and important messages. It does so in a way that some of the finest writers of the genre have done. Thoughtfully, considered and without judgement. The irony that the quote on the cover says it's for girls, and yet the book quietly speaks volumes about sexism, is not lost on me. It is, however, an important book for our time, whether or not you like Barbie, Aphex Twin (still don't know who that is), or identify as a girl, boy or even inorganic sentient entity.

The Marvel Universe is jammed packed with famous storylines, but one of the biggest has always been the time that The Fantastic Four took on Galactus. It resonates because it has lasted since the 1960s and appears to be having a reimagining in the latest film. The Coming of Galactus by James Lovegrove is the prose adaptation of this classic comic book run. Can the author balance adapting a classic tale to a modern audience? 

The Universe has died and been reborn before. The only survivor slept in a lifegiving machine until they woke up ravenous. Their very existence uses energy and with an eternal hunger they eat worlds to survive, this being is Galactus. It is nothing personal when Galactus sends out his herald, The Silver Surfer, to find a new world to devour, and that world is Earth. There is nothing special about this wet planet, or is there? Heroes like The Fantastic Four may have something to say. 

As a long-time comic fan, even I am not old enough to remember the original Galactus comic book run. However, even some non-comic book fans may know this tale, and the majority of Marvel fans certainly will. It is a classic story, but is it one that will work for a modern audience? The latest film is set in an alternative 60s world and Lovegrove does something similar with this adaptation, but brings the feel and style of the original a little more into the present. 

Galactus is a faithful adaptation, but having more time to describe the inner workings of characters gives Lovegrove some license, but it also highlights how old-fashioned the older Fantastic Four can feel. There is a lot of angst in this book, not just from Johnny Storm and the loss of his latest teen crush. There are large sections given over to The Silver Surfer and Galactus’ backstories. This gives the book an exposition feel at times as we deep dive into the motivation of the ‘bad guys’. 

The pace and feel of a story from the 60s is just different, and Lovegrove goes with it. There are action sequences that see The Thing trying to clobber Galactus and a fun action set piece that follows The Human Torch flying through a dangerous alien craft, but these are not the norm. What has always made The Fantastic Four interesting is not all the action, but the character development. Here we have some development for the Four, but even more so for the enemy. 

Having a decent knowledge of the wider Marvel Universe helps when reading this book. People know Spider-Man, Thor and many of the other characters mentioned, but they may struggle with the likes of The Inhumans and The Watcher. Knowing who all these characters are and where they sit in the timeline helps. Mostly why they are not helping! This is a time in the comic run when many of the heroes were off somewhere else or trapped. 

With so much weight and history to the story it can be difficult as a reader to cut through the noise and enjoy the story. The tale is a little slower and the conclusion gentler than you may expect, but this reflects the 1960s approach to the story. Lovegrove has stayed true to the original, inclusive of slightly old-fashioned dialogue and attitudes. There is something naive about this Fantastic Four, but there is nothing wrong with being good and pure, perhaps we need a little more of that today. Galactus is a well written prose take on a classic run that tells the story as it is meant to be told. 

After a string of novellas that were, frankly, brilliant, the fifth book and first full-size novel in The Murderbot Diaries, Network Effect stormed the science fiction scene when it was released, winning the holy trinity of Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards for best novel. As I write this the first (in hopefully a long line) of the Murderbot TV series is playing on Apple TV (and yes they've nailed it too).

We're back with Murderbot, fresh from its Mensah rescue, ostensibly trying to get on with its life of media consumption and minimal human interaction. You know, the dream. Naturally, that lasts about five minutes before everything goes to hell. A hostile takeover of a research vessel, people get snatched, and our favourite SecUnit is, once again, dragged into another rescue mission it doesn't want to be on. It's a familiar setup, but it still works. Standard operating procedure for Murderbot, then, just with higher stakes and more annoying humans.

Having read the first 4 books, I liked that they were minimal, concise affairs that you could read quickly, and I was a bit unsure about expanding that into a full-size book and the potential for a slower, more fluff-filled read. But what truly works here is the expansion. We get more of the universe, which is always welcome. More of the corporate politics, the intricacies of the various factions, and crucially, more ART. That research transport is more than just a ship; it's a character in its own right, with its quirks and a surprisingly deep (and often hilarious) connection to Murderbot. The dynamic between them is still a highlight, a perfect blend of exasperated tolerance and genuine affection. The relationships with Mensah and the other humans also get some much-needed depth. Despite Murderbot's best efforts to remain aloof, to maintain that impenetrable wall of disinterest, the evidence of its growing attachments keeps piling up. It's funny, it's awkward, and it makes you almost believe Murderbot might like these humans. Almost. It certainly tries hard to pretend it doesn't.

The plot’s got pace, plenty of action sequences that are well-choreographed and easy to follow, and the corporate intrigue is engaging enough to drive the story forward. All the bits you’d expect from a good sci-fi thriller are present and accounted for. But the real draw remains Murderbot's internal monologue. Wells nails that voice. The dry wit, the pervasive social anxiety that manifests in constant internal screaming, the desperate desire for peace, and the constant battle between wanting to curl up with a show and having to save people. It's all there, and it's as sharp and relatable as ever. Some moments genuinely crackle with humour, forcing a proper laugh out loud, and others hit you with a surprising amount of emotional weight for a book about a security construct that claims to have no feelings. You find yourself rooting for this grumpy, self-aware machine.

If you're already on board with the Murderbot Diaries, devoured the novellas or even just seen the TV Show, then Network Effect is a solid continuation. It takes the core elements that made the earlier, shorter works great and stretches them out, mostly successfully, proving the concept can work in a longer format. It doesn't lose its way, and it doesn't dilute what makes Murderbot, well, Murderbot. If you haven't started, then you've got some catching up to do. Seriously, go read All Systems Red, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy and Artificial Condition, then come back to this. You'll probably enjoy it quite a bit

After discovering what The Price of Safety and The Price of Rebellion are in the first two outings in Michael C Bland’s dystopian trilogy, we finally get to see what The Price of Freedom is in this final outing. In a world in which everyone has been rendered blind unless they wear technology, you cannot believe what you see as illicit groups are controlling what is beamed into your upgrades. The sky looks blue, the President looks real, but in reality, the world is ending. 

We have already seen that Dray Quintero will do anything to save his family. This could be joining a rebellion to save one daughter, only to abandon them to save another. This third outing opens with most of Dray’s family captured and tortured. The latest plan by the Zion group is to map the minds of the rebels so they can preempt any future uprising. Can Dray escape once again and finally get the people of America to wake up and remove the digital scales from their eyes? With the aid of his brilliant daughters, perhaps. 

The Freedom series has always been action packed, and this third outing does not disappoint in this area. There are some epic set pieces from an early prison escape to a finale that is worthy of the epic page count over three books. Closing a series can be tricky, and you need to hit the landing to satisfy the fans. This is one area that Freedom does exceptionally well. Bland ties up many of the loose ends in the story and give just the right glimpse of what the future may hold for the characters. 

Along with the action, the other theme that dominated the series was what people would do for their family. In the case of Dray, he uniformly does what is best for his family and not for the greater cause. In book two this leads indirectly to the mass destruction of the rebellion and Dray and his family end up captured anyway. If it is not Dray going off to help his family, it is his estranged wife who is betraying them. 

This theme is strong and does give the book identity, but it does also beggars belief at times. Dray is so blinkered that he is unable to see that his actions hurt and kill other families. There is no noble sacrifice here, until...... Book three finally sees Dray realise that what is best for the rebellion may just be best for his family. Finally, the Quintero family and the rebellion are on the same page. How the rebels are willing to trust them again is beyond me. 

Some of the family drama was too heightened for me, taking on a soap opera like level of passion, but it is a passion that drives the book. As an author, Bland tackles everything with gusto; the character development, the enemies, the action. It is all heightened, making it feel like a modern take on a 70s pulp science fiction novel. For fan who likes their action fast, their character choices crazy, Freedom, and the series as a whole, is good fun. 

Vigilance is the third book in the Fractal series from Allen Stroud, following Fearless and Resilient. You know how it is with series; by the time you hit book three, you've got a pretty good idea of what you're getting into. The big question is whether the author can keep the momentum going, or if it all starts to sag a bit. It can be challenging to maintain that initial spark and keep the stakes feeling fresh, but some authors manage it.

Good news: Stroud keeps it tight. He doesn't just maintain the pace; he ratchets it up.

If you've followed the journey so far, you'll know that Stroud doesn't pull his punches. The stakes have been escalating steadily, and Vigilance is no different. In the aftermath of Phobos Station’s destruction, sinister forces fight to control humanity’s fragile first steps in colonising other worlds. This isn't a simple battle of good versus evil; there are competing agendas at work, all who live in the grey areas and have their own (self-justifiable) reasons. Some want to overthrow the Corporations and Governments entirely, others want to see everything burn, regardless of the cost. This layered conflict adds a real depth to the narrative, making the threats feel more complex and insidious than a simple enemy. Captain Ellisa Shann and her crew are fighting to survive, but also with a mission to unlock the secrets of a mysterious and ancient alien ship.

Vigilance picks up the threads from Resilient and then pushes the characters further, often into some pretty uncomfortable corners. What I appreciate about this series, and especially this book, is that it doesn't just rely on big explosions and space battles, although there are plenty of those if that's your thing, and they are well-executed. The real strength, though, is how the characters are forced to deal with the consequences of their choices, the moral ambiguities, and the ever-present, relentless threat they're up against.

Stroud's writing continues to be clean and efficient. He moves the plot along at a good clip, maintaining a relentless pace that keeps you turning pages, without getting bogged down in unnecessary exposition. You get the sense that every scene, every interaction, every piece of dialogue is there for a reason, pushing the story forward or deepening your understanding of who these people are and what they're fighting for. The tension builds nicely, a slow burn that erupts into frantic action, and some moments genuinely make you wonder how they're going to get out of the mess they're in.

That’s always a good sign.

The characters, whom we've spent a couple of books getting to know now, are once more put through the wringer. Stroud isn't afraid to test his character's limits. They continue to evolve (mostly under pressure), making some tough decisions, or occasionally, only just holding on to their sanity. The blend of intense personal struggle within a larger, high-stakes conflict is one of the things that makes Stroud’s work so compelling. He manages to keep a focus on the human element, making you care about their fate, even when big things are happening and often going completely sideways in the macrocosm.

If you're already invested in this series (and you should be), Vigilance is a necessary and satisfying continuation. It delivers on the promise of the previous books by escalating the conflict and pushing the characters further into their personal and desperate fight for survival, while bigger things happen around (and through) them.

If, for whatever reason, you haven't started yet, you've got a couple of good reads to catch up on before you get to this one. Like the first two, though, the author encapsulates the story enough that you could, if you want, just read this book (but why would you when the first two are so good).

Vigilance and the Fractal series as a whole are a rewarding enrichment to the science fiction landscape. It’s inclusive, rewarding, character-driven sci-fi that doesn't let up; it should be a part of any serious sci-fi reader's collection.

I found this book while wandering around the Dealers' room at EasterCon 76 (Belfast Reconnect). I had the honour of being the first person to buy the book, and had a chance to meet the author, who had travelled from the distant lands of Paris to make an appearance. I believe it's his debut novel, but you'd be hard pressed to tell from the quality of the writing.

The Last Man, the first in the Leybound series, follows the escapades of Sergeant Nathaniel Riot (Duke of Fallows' regiment), also infamously known as the titular Last Man, named so from things that happened twenty years prior. Now he's just trying to stay alive in a war against the Faelen who have returned to claim their place on the continent of Parthanea and crush any who stand in their path. They have so far succeeded in forcing back the dilapidated regiment of the Arcanum, who attempt to fortify the last stronghold of the land, Helgan’s Rest, against Bimil-pal and his Mazral army.

Riot finds himself having to choose between death and the damned life of a Leybound, someone infused with an astonishing amount of raw power, but treated as little more that a weapon, a slave to obey the commands of his betters. Then, bound as he is by this strange magic, what should have been a simple mission goes badly; he ends up trapped behind enemy lines with a band of thieves, murderers, and deserters. To finish the job, he’ll have to reach the citadel of Morbian and its famed Sun Tower and break the blockade. The ragtag band he's with are the dredge, the scum of the regiments, but if he can find a way to lead them, he might turn them into real, capable soldiers.

The Last Man is grimdark, managing to nail that tone well. It never gets too depressing or self-depreciating, but you get a strong sense of the danger,  deprivation and sometimes hopelessness of the situation. The moral ambiguity of both Riot, his superiors and his enemy, reinforces the dark tone. There is an effective exploration of the grey areas around fighting in a war, along with the physical and psychological toll such an experience takes on those involved.

The pace is good, helped by not going down the too-trodden road of lengthy exposition; instead, we get glimpses under the surface of the world at large, along with how this strange form of magic works when bound to a person. Information about the world around us is fed organically, without feeling contrived or forced.

Riot is an interesting protagonist. The author makes efforts not to make him the shiny, heroic figure that can do no wrong. Instead, we get a fairly broken, seasoned war vet whose principal characteristic is one of survival, an old soldier who seems full of regret, remorse and resignation for all the crap thrown his way. The power that is forced upon him and the resulting slavery make an interesting argument around the use of control and misuse of responsibility. While Riot is undeniably the grim heart of the narrative, the interactions with his unlikely companions – a colourful mix of hardened criminals and weary deserters – add fascinating dynamics and moments of unexpected camaraderie amidst the bleakness.

It's an easy read too, the story is compelling and keeps you fully engaged, while the quality of the writing is excellent, with vivid dialogue and compelling imagery that paints a stark picture of a continent on the brink. Fans of authors like Joe Abercrombie or Mark Lawrence will find themselves immediately at home in this brutal yet captivating world. This debut left me eagerly anticipating the next instalment in the Leybound series.

I have read thousands of books, and they normally follow the same structural rules, but on occasion an author likes to experiment with the format. Perhaps they will forgo the need for speech marks and instead write people speaking as part of a sentence. No thanks. What about telling the story as a series of letters? Could work if done correctly. A mad idea could be to publish a fictional data dump that was sent to you via email and bizarrely release it in physical form. This is only one of a few odd choices made by Matt Wixey made in Basilisk. 

When Alex Webster comes across a mysterious online game it is in her nature as a hacker to investigate further. When a fellow player goes missing, it appears that this is a game that reaches into the real world as well as online. Whilst being pursued by a mysteriuos group Alex attempts to solve a series of puzzles to discover what happened to her pal and to save herself. 

I would not tell an author not to experiment with the art of writing, but I would ask them to be cautious. Science fiction is a genre full of flights of fancy, this can be in the worlds created, but also sometimes in the structure of the book itself. Combining a complex story with a difficult structure style can lead to the book being impenetrable. In places Basilisk is not only impenetrable, but unenjoyable to read. 

Does the concept even work? The book purports to be from an academic publishing the almost unedited document that was sent to them online. For some weak reason they choose not to release it online, open access, but instead go via the traditional publishing route. A techno-thriller, bordering on cyberpunk, novel that chooses the old fashioned over the new. It makes no sense. 

The format also hampers the story. The narrative is hidden among the various data dumps in the book. This is mostly the retelling of the tale from Alex’s viewpoint. I will credit Wixey for committing to the style. Alex’s notes sound like her voice throughout, they remain in a relaxed style and do not lapse into being a normal narrative. But is this a good thing? There is a reason books are written in a normal way as they are easier to read. 

The other sections of the book suffer even more greatly from the format; email chains, excerpts from the game etc. There are also copious footnotes and web links. As a reader your eyes are pushed all around the page. You are struggling to follow the story as it is, only to be drawn to a footnote that adds nothing and takes you out of the tale. 

What of the story itself? I found the book so complex to follow that it was almost lost. It is a mind-bending tale, and it is purposely designed. I may be too simple and set in my ways for the book to have worked, in places I was actively not enjoying myself. However, there will be fans of this story. Those readers that like a convoluted and taxing story, designed to make you concetrate and delve deeper. I am not that reader. 

Like any genre, the horror genre has shifts in style and tone. I was always a fan of the nasty horror stories of the late 70s and early 80s. Books that saw lots of terrible things happen to good people. In Killer on the Road author Stephen Graham Jones attempts to capture that Grindhouse feel and give it a supernatural bite. 

After another blowout with her mother, Harper has left the family home and never plans to go back. With just the clothes on her back she sets off hitchhiking. Luckily, she is found early by a group of friends, and they decide to help her. There is safety in numbers, but there are also more victims. A killer is out on the roads. Simply known as Bucketmouth, Harper and her friends are soon going to find out that this is no myth and that the reality is far more terrifying. 

Of the books I have read by Jones in recent years, they are an author who likes to write a punchy and dark horror novel. Stories that build in their tension and pack a final punch. Killer is a slight deviation in that it is unrelenting in its terror. We are introduced to Bucketmouth early in proceedings and, after a brief lull, the killer plays a huge role throughout what is not a long book. 

The length and feel of the novel remind you the 70s books I love to pick up and power through, the unrelenting energy and unwillingness to pander to any softness. Although there is a cast, the story is told from Harper’s perspective. You could consider it a two header as Bucketmouth is also given plenty of time to shine. A killer in a book is not always allowed to shine, but Bucketmouth does. He is almost too chatty a killer! 

Harper acts as a powerful balance to the killer. Strong willed and loyal, she will do what it takes to keep her sister safe (the sister being one of the friends that comes along on the road trip). Jones seems to specialise in strong female leads and Harper is no different. She is the beating heart and furious rage at the centre of the story. 

Another aspect that takes on a character of its own is the culture of the road. Through Harper, Jones teaches the reader the rules of the road, of how truckers can take against vehicles and will look after their own. Harper and her friends not only have to survive a killer, but the killer’s unwitting allies on the road. 

At under 250 pages Killer is a punchy and quick novel. This is how it was designed, and this is how it works. The lack of pages does mean that some of the character development is hampered, Harper is well catered for, but the rest of the cast are adrift. It may be because I am getting older, but I was surprised how blasé some of the younger characters dealt with the situation. You would find me panicking in a ditch, not continuing a witty repartee.  

Killer is a novel any horror fan of down and dirty Grindhouse will enjoy. It harks back to the heyday of the genre but also feels modern. You can read the book in a sitting or two, and you will find yourself doing so as the pace encourages it and the relationship between Harper and Bucketmouth is so intriguing that you will want to see how it ends. 

What would you do if you had technology that no one else in the world had. Would you use it to better your life, make some money? Perhaps you would share it with others to develop society as a whole? Or maybe you would use it for revenge. A series of impossible murders is stumping Detective Ethan Krol in Adam Oyebanji’s Esperance as victims are drowned in sea water. The issue being that they are all found far in land dead in their own homes. 

The first victims already impacted Detective Krol even if their deaths had not been so bizarre. A father and young child found drowned with sea water in their own home. When another death occurs in the same way, a serial killer is on the loose, but a serial killer using a technique that seems impossible. Across the pond in Britain another investigator is on the case, but Abi Eniola is not your usual visitor from Nigeria if that is even where she is from. 

Crime and science fiction are genres that have always gone together well as the crime element gives structure to what can often be outlandish science fiction concepts. What makes Esperance so entertaining is Oyebanji’s commitment to the police procedural elements of the book. The story opens like any crime drama; a horrific case, a variation on a locked room mystery. Krol goes about solving the case like any other. What makes the story interesting is that Krol continues to do this, even as things become unfathomable. 

I loved Krol dogmatic nature, if not all elements of the Detective’s personality. He partners with another detective from across the US and they work on the case together. The thought of otherworldly technology never enters their minds and this feels truthful. In reality, most of us would stretch our reason as far as it could before admitting that something is alien. 

Whilst this story progresses, there is a parallel tale told in Britain of Abi and her friendship with a young woman called Hollie. Abi is a strange character, she speaks in odd dialect and seems to be both technologically savvy, whilst also being culturally clueless. A classic fish out of water story, but one in which the stakes are of the highest level. 

As both stories process, they are drawn to one another. The science fiction element of the book begins to take prominence, but there is always a case to solve. What are the motivations of the killer and who is Abi? These are mysteries that Oyebanji reveals in classic whodunnit pacing, leaving the reader guessing to the end. 

Esperance blends the crime genre and science fiction as well as any book I have read. There are elements of both that will appeal to fans of those genres, but this is a science fiction book at its core. There are moments of lightness, and although Abi is a brash character, her interactions with Britain and Hollie are amusing. This sits a little uncomfortably at times with the gruesome killings in the book, there are child victims. The tone is a little wobbly, but I understand the darkness as the motivation for the killings may feel misguided but is immensely powerful. 

Even with the upsetting deaths in Esperance, this is a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It has a classy balance of crime and science fiction, humour and tension. The alien aspects of the book are treated with as much respect as the crime sections, so both are catered for. Like with any good crime book the reader is given a reason behind the crimes and Oyebanji does not shy away from making it a powerful one, and one based in the science fiction origins of the story.

In the fantasy that I usually read Regicide is usually the goal for the end of the book. In fact, I have read entire trilogies in which the protagonist is trying to kill a royal. You get the sense that Evan Leikam is going to tackle things a little differently in Anji Kills a King when the first scene sees a gruesome assassination in which Anji succeeds in slitting the King’s throat. Is the story told in flashbacks after this? Certainly not, killing the king is only the start of a revolution 

As the still warm blood drips from her hands Anji makes her way out of the palace in which she had worked as stable hand and housekeeper. When the opportunity presented itself to kill the king, she took it without a second thought, but what now? On the run with little money and no sense of the wider world, Anji is a shoo-in to be caught and tortured to death, especially as she is being hunted by an elite group of mercenaries known as The Menagerie. 

I have read my fair share of Low Fantasy in recent years, a form of fantasy that takes on a darker, more realistic approach to the genre, the worst of the Middle Ages with a little magic. The opening scene of Anji shocked even I and it was not the end of the bleakness that the book has to offer. Anji’s quest is less one of reaching a noble goal and more one of day-to-day survival. 

Anji is an interesting character, the daughter to murdered parents, she allowed her anger to ferment. When she meets up with The Menagerie and in particular Hawk, it is not long until see releases that her actions were reckless and had no real purpose. By killing the king, had she avenged her parents, made life better for people like her, or as Hawk suggests, has she made matters worse by allowing an even worse power to rise? 

A tale of burgeoning revolt acts as the baseline hum of Anji, but this is not what the book is about. Fantasy is often epic and has multiple protagonists, but Leikam has stripped the tale back to be all about Anji and is told from her perspective. What we learn about the wider politics is told from snippets of conversation, usually as Anji is trying to avoid having another finger removed. 

What you get is a very personal tale. The opening Act is about Anji and Hawk, a mercenary and prisoner tale. A sense of Stockholm Syndrome sets in as Hawk must protect Anji, not for her health, but for a bigger share of the bounty. The other Menagerie members have something to say about this and as the book progresses you begin to see that there is far more to the Hawk’s tale as first imagined. 

Anji is a brutal book that will not appeal to fans of High Fantasy with its ethereal feel and Elf magics. This is a book that is told from the perspective of the downtrodden, where hope is a word seldom spoken. Anji crawls through the muck to survive, doing what is necessary. This means the reader has a begrudging respect for her, even if her actions are not always the most moral. As the final act plays out, you witness the fruits of all the heartbreak. This is book one of The Rising Tide series and is a true opening act of a larger series. The follow up promises so much, it can build on book one, but you get the sense that Leikam will give the sequel a different feel as Anji is a different person by book’s end.  

Science has taken humans to amazing places, prolonged our lives, made living better, but it has also created great harm. Have some diseases been developed in a lab then released, on purpose or by accident? Perhaps legitimate research led to tragic mistakes. In the world of Laura Elliott’s Awakened, a revolutionary piece of technology that allowed people to stay awake and be more productive and freer, leads to what could be the end of the world. 

When working alongside fellow scientists Dr Thea Chares thought she was inventing technology that would make the world a better place. A simple chip that nullifies the brain’s need for sleep, all those nights free to make more art, be more productive, live a longer life. However, it is years later, and things went very wrong. Thea is only one of a few survivors hunkered down in the Tower of London looking for a cure to a disease that turned most of the population into The Sleepless. 

Science Fiction can be a lot of different things and that is why it is my favourite genre. You can have an action-packed book, or a more cerebral one. With the concept of a Dystopian future in which unhinged Sleepless attack the living on sight, I was thinking Awakened was going to be a vampire like action thriller. It is certainly not this. Instead, it is a far smaller and cerebral novel about only a few characters. It has hints of The Thing, and I am Legend but takes a more thoughtful route. 

A lot of the pacing is down to the narrative style that Elliott chose. The book is written as a series of diary entries over months. These act as a way of creating a non-linear narrative. Thea may write about the current events of the day or instead reflect on her past. On other occasions we get a glimpse into her dreams. This allows Elliott to move back and forth to reveal the twists and turns. The diary entries may be written in lineal time, but their contents could be anything. 

The reader is introduced to various concepts piecemeal. Fans of intelligent science fiction will enjoy the challenge of balancing the various themes and questioning how they are linked. I must admit to struggling to know where I was in terms of timeline. Was this the present or a write up of a memory? There are moments of action, but they are few and mixed in with the non-linear style of the book. 

Within the pages are some thoughtful ideas. How did the Sleepless come about, can they be cured, who are the mysterious strangers that arrive at the gate? We learn about these aspects in diary entries both present and past, where we also learn more about Thea. What drove her to work on a chip to prevent sleep? We learn about the relationship she has with her mother and how her mother’s illness as a child shaped her in a way to unknowingly end the world as we know it. 

Awakened is a Science Fiction novel or Cerebral Horror that will appeal to readers who like a slower pace in their novels and a plethora of meaty ideas to dig into. I enjoyed the reveals dotted through the book and the thoughtful way that illness and disabilities are treated. It was not the weighty ideas in the book that I found a little difficult to follow, but the non-linear diary style, this mixed with the emotional aspects of Thea made me lose what was happening on occasion.  

There are so many angles and directions that you can tackle the crime genre in. Being a police officer is obvious, but you also get Private Investigators, or even the local busybody or vicar solving a crime. I enjoy all these approaches, but if you are drawn to particularly thoughtful and informed crime stories, you may want to read a more procedural book that follows an expert in their profession. In the case of Fleet Landing by Wendy Gee this expert is ATF Special Agent Cooper “Coop” Bellamy, and his knowledge is needed as half the city has been put to flame. 

An arsonist is targeting the homes and businesses of Fleet Landing, one of the poorer areas of Charleston. Is it the local gangs? Could it be white supremacists who do not like the locals? Or could it all be linked to a series of similar arson attacks decades earlier? Coop is tasked with investigating the recent fires and for company he has been lumbered with a press liaison in the form of the tenacious TV reporter Sydney Quinn. The duo finds themselves working both a modern and a historic arson case as they find themselves in the crossfire of a killer. 

It can be tricky shoehorning in an investigator into a crime story that makes sense, but an ATF agent and a reporter makes sense as they are both people used to researching and coming to conclusions. Is Coop the perfect protagonist for this tale? It may have made more sense to have the Detective lead the case, but when it comes to fire, there are few who know as much as Coop. 

This is a true procedural crime story, one that respects the rules and regulations of crime solving. At the start of the story, this is Coop’s philosophy and as a reader we follow in his footsteps. There feels like a level of detail and realism in the book that suggests Gee has experience on the subject matter. This does mean that the book can lack a little punch in places, but authors like Michael Connelly have proven that following good investigative work is reward for the reader themselves. 

Like many a good crime novel, Gee does not have one story, but two parallel. A reopened cold case may have bearing on the latest fires. Here Sydney can shine as she investigates the decades old case as Coop works on the new one. The threads begin to come together as the book concludes. The procedural part of the book ends and instead you are rewarded with an action-packed climax. Arguably, the investigation is over too quickly. The more procedural feel of the book left me thinking the case would have taken months to investigate and years to fully convict, but that won’t make for the most exciting novel! 

There are some elements of the book that felt alien to me but impact the story to make it more exciting. Racial tensions play a key role in the book; there seems to be a casual reaction by character about being former membership of Far-Right groups. I would have thought being an open former member of of the KKK may have stopped any accent into mainstream politics, but perhaps not in this Charleston. 

Fleet Landing is a very solid crime tale that will appeal to fans of the genre, to those that like their investigations well thought through and with some realism. Things do become more hectic later in the book, but in the whole, this is the type of building pot boiler that fans of the crime genre seek. 

There was a time in my life that I would sit down and read some Dystopian Fiction and not consider at all that it would happen in my lifetime, but all I need to do is some doomscrolling on my social medias to think that elements of Carl Wilhoyte’s Ultimart may not be long in our future. This is a book that takes the dark sensibilities of a Chuck Palahniuk Transgressional Fiction novel, adds in some Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and then, for good measure, plops into a couple of dollops of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy. What could possibly go wrong with that mix? What has a chance to even go right? 

Corwin Scaggs has a middling office job in a company that takes AI images and fixes them for the advertising industry. An extra finger removed here, a gurning mouth erased there. Corwin starts to question the point of why he is even bothering. He lives on the edge of bankruptcy inside a giant dome alongside 20 million other people also on the edge of destitution. In this society having no money means a probable death and having your children sold off. Corwin discovers that there may be a way to undermine the system, but at what cost? 

Dystopian is a dark genre, but Ultimart may be one of the darkest books that I have read, not just because the future is bleak, but because Wilhoyte tackles it with a dark sense of humour, and that you can feel elements of it happening already. This is a poisoned Earth where people have been forced to live in domes under the yoke of commercial powers and ultimately a dispassionate AI. For all his life Corwin has worked diligently in the system, but even so, his future and that of his family, is looking bleak. 

Matters come to a head when Corwin takes his father home to care for him. Without the money to keep his father alive, Corwin starts to find faults in the Dome’s core systems to exploit. This leads to an awakening and a new purpose in life. The book is the Fall and Rise of Corwin, but in this future, can anyone truly win? 

Ultimart truly felt like a mix of Palahniuk, Gilliam, and Judge, and that is no bad thing. These are three touchstones I have enjoyed for years. The world of Ultimart is on the point of being fully broken, like in Idiocracy, but rather than the people being stupid, they are numb and controlled in a bureaucratic nightmare. Then you then have the layer of Transgressive Fiction, Corwin as the Tyler Durden looking to undermine the system they find themselves in. 

Anyone who is a fan of any of these three properties will get a lot from Ultimart, but it is hard going. Fight Club was no walk in the park; Brazil has no happy ever after. Ultimart follows in this trend. There are poignant moments peppered throughout the book, small stories of a child’s death, or a father sold into slavery. What makes these takes even bleaker is that they are not the focus of the story, but mere asides, as if they are regular occurrences in this cold future. 

Is Ultimart a funny book? Not in a laugh out loud way, but there is a dark surrealism that will appeal to those with a pitch-black sense of humour. It is more an interesting Science Fiction novel that uses the genre as it should – the future explores the present. Are we heading to a version of Ultimart, or at least adopting some of it? I fear that we are and Wilhoyte uses this story to an impactful effect.    

I am not one to get involved with politics at school. I am one of those parents who chooses to be ambivalent to it all, probably to the annoyance of others. The problem is I can see the temptation to get involved in the drama, a small way to add a little spark to your life. I have enough spark in my life from reading fantasy and watching science fiction, I do not need any of the real stuff. I may have less choice if one of the kids was bitten by a werewolf and I had to move them to a new school created for supernatural beings. Like Vivian in Caitlin Rozakis’ The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, it would be in my interest to know as much as possible about what is going on in the strange school. 

Vivian has been wracked with guilt ever since taking her daughter, Aria, on a camping trip, only for it to turn into a werewolf hunt. Aria survived the attack but is no longer quite human. She is a kindergarten pupil prone to wolfing out and this takes a special type of education to handle such a pup. Vivian and her family move to a new town that caters for magical beings, but as a mundane with a newly enhanced child, will she ever be able to fit into a society that has had generations of the uncanny in their family trees? 

I enjoy Urban Fantasy, but it often leans into the Fantasy and not the Urban as much. Tales of magical creatures that live under the streets, or Wizard PIs trying to stop the apocalypse again. Grimoire is almost Sombre Fantasy, a book that takes the fantastical and makes it deal with real life, as it would happen. This is a world in which magic is real, but compartmentalised. For good or bad, the magical folks are ghettoised in pockets around the world. It is this closed society that Vivian must worm herself into. 

What better way to get involved than by joining the Parent Teacher Association? A fantastic way to get to know other parents, but also a terrific way to step into a big smelly pile of drama. The book has all the snobbish characters and aloof looks that you expect from a mix of parents, but the stakes are also prophesy high. The locals are always looking out for a family that may fulfil the ancient curse that the town sits under, and Vivian’s family may just fit the bill. 

Although the book has Mages and Kelpies, it does feel grounded as the parental politics can be found in a similar form at many schools. We take the journey with Vivian, and she is a guilt riven character. She feels to blame for her daughter’s change and the upheaval in the family. This guilt is always with her and influences her decisions. As a reader, it can be intense. Vivian is an emotional character. I felt more in keeping with the husband who had no time for school politics, but I think many people will be more sympathetic with Vivian. It is hard to give yourself a break sometimes. 

Between the back biting and family angst, there is some lovely world design. The new town and characters hold a lot of potential for further books. There is also an interesting crime element to the book that shows that although a place can be magical, the people are still as greedy and corrupt as anywhere else. A reader who has helped a child through school will relate to many of the bureaucratic aspects of the book, but there are also enough fun Urban Fantasy elements for fans of that genre to enjoy the book also.  

I read a lot of genre fiction that has been mixed with a crime drama as it is an excellent way of giving a story a solid throughline. A murder mystery can concentrate the narrative when exploring a high concept Science Fiction world. It is also a great way of giving grit to an Urban Fantasy story, grounding the magical in something real. What I do not read as often is crime mixed with High Fantasy. Emily Paxman has done just this in Death on the Caldera and has not chosen any old crime style to pay homage to, but one of the greatest, a classic Agatha Christie style whodunnit. 

The passengers on the Caldera are on board for a number of reasons, but most have no motive to want to crash the train and then to start murdering the survivors. Or do they? Could Rae be a suspect? She has fled on the train with her daughter, leaving behind her old life, but why? The Linde family are also suspect. They all hold a secret that no one can know. Is it a secret worth killing over? When the survivors vote that the Lindes should investigate what better way to reflect blame from themselves? 

There is a lot for Paxman to balance in Caldera as this is a High Fantasy novel that tries to integrate the murder mystery fully. This is not a token attempt to provide some loose structure to the novel, but a core component. For the book to work both the Fantasy and Crime fiction elements need to work in balance, and they do. 

On a magical level, there is some intriguing world building happening. A dominant nation has built a railway through various countries; not all are happy with this development. Various magical styles are used against one another, including those that use the power of the Earth, and the ostracised Witch community. Witches are welcomed in some countries, but hunted down, and killed in others. One other aspect about Witches that plays a pivotal role in the murder mystery is that they are two entities in one; a human and a Witch, you change from one to another when you true human or Witch name is spoken. 

The Crime element is also well catered for and rather than ignoring the fact that it is a Fantasy novel, it plays into it. Is the suspect a Witch or a user of Earth magic? One can be made to look like the other. This allows for Paxman to play the classic Red Herring game of throwing the reader off the scent. 

There are plenty of potential killers and victims on the train, but the story centres on the Linde family and Rae. All of them have plenty of secrets to reveal as the book progresses, but they also have a bond. The dynamic between these central characters is what gives the books its heart, there is a community and a family that you want to survive. 

Who crashed the train and who is killing the survivors, and are they the same person or peoples? You will have to read the book to find out. Paxman does a good job of making the story complex enough that it is not straight forward to solve, and it has some twists. The mix of complex magics, and murder can get a little confusing at times, but the core family dynamics that pepper the investigation make the book enjoyable to read. As a reader you want to see who did it, and discover how the Lindes et al can get out of the tricky situation they find themselves in.  

I enjoy a retelling of a classic tale from an unfamiliar perspective. I have read about Sherlock Holmes from the point of view of almost everyone he ever met. I have read about Beowulf written by his niece. King Authur, Robin Hood, many others, but never a character as dark as Sweeny Todd. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was crazed enough for one story, but what about Mrs Lovett the Pie Maker who lived downstairs, so ready to make meat of men? David Demchuk and Corinne Leigh Clark tell this untold tale in The Butcher’s Daughter. 

A woman sits in a Nunnery having lived there for decades, but as her years advance, she feels the need to get things off her chest, but what are these things? In a series of letters to a young journalist, Margaret Evans sets out on telling her story from being a butcher’s daughter, a doctor’s housekeeper, and a Lady in Waiting. As the truth unfolds it starts to become obvious that Margaret’s life was not an easy one and that Margaret was not always her name. Will the truth come out before the authorities arrive? 

Butcher’s Daughter is not only an interesting retelling of a well-known story, but it is also told in an interesting manner. Rather than being contemporary to Sweeny Todd, it is as written decades later, retelling the past with a fresh perspective. This is in the series of letters, mostly between Margaret and a journalist, but there are also clippings from newspapers and letters sent to the journalist as they investigate Margaret’s story. This is a perfect way of leaving sections on a cliffhanger as one letter ends, and you must wait for the next. 

Although an interesting idea, each letter starts formally but soon drift into a normal narrative fiction style. I found it odd that someone in a nunnery would write in such a prose style. A letter is normally more conversational in style, and this only happens at the start and end of each letter. This does make the narrative easier to follow, but it felt like a token idea, rather than one followed through. 

Despite the letters reading inauthentically in places, it did not distract from the story itself, in fact the style of letter helped. Butcher’s Daughter is a wonderfully dark tale, and one that builds up nicely. We suspect the truth early, but it is not all slit throats and pies. That is left to the final third. Instead, we are given a tour of early Victorian London from the perspective of a poor woman. Margaret’s roles in the butcher’s and doctors would lead into later life. Not only in the skills picked up, but also her mentality to meat. 

In most, the book is not sinister and does not paint the likes of Margaret or Mrs Lovett in the worst light. Instead, it is a classic historic feel you would get in any good costume drama. This is just a drama that ends in horrendous crimes. With a few small turns in fortune, Margaret’s life would have been quite different. Instead, she must deal with the life that she lived and the memories and regrets this provided. 

There are a few key moments in the life of Margaret that dictates how she will live. She has strong motivations, but does she turn too quickly? Throughout the book Demchuk and Clark hint at a coldness to Margaret’s personality, so when she needs to act quickly, she does without hesitation. Is there enough in Margaret’s past to justify her actions? I was not sure and felt things went a little psychotic too quickly. 

Although there are a few issues with this book, they are insignificant compared to how entertaining it is to read. It is a pacy story that is full of menace. Margaret is a protagonist you can understand, even when her actions are off-piste at times. The book is part historic fiction novel, part thriller, part horror. Fans of the latter will very much enjoy the dark conclusion to the book, a wisp of black humour that hides throughout the pages.    

Who does not love a genre mash up? The industry certainly does as they ride that Romantasy train all the way to the bank. Although I do not mind a whimsical fantasy, I would not consider it my favourite genre. A mash up of genres needs a little more bite to interest me. How about Westerns with the Old Gods? Now you are talking, Frederic S. Durbin’s The Country Under Heaven is the first book I have read in the Cthuern genre, a mix of cowboys, and Gods that break the minds of men. 

Ever since surviving an explosion during the Civil War, Ovid Vesper has seen visions. With nowhere to settle after the war, Vesper roams the Great Plains of America following where his visions take him. Over the next decade or so, Vesper becomes involved in more than one adventure that flirts with the uncanny. Rather than running away in terror, Vesper straightens his hat and tackles the terror like only a cowboy can. 

Mixing classic feeling Western fiction with H P Lovecraft is not something that I would think of as a good fit, but Durbin proves in Country that it not only works but makes for an excellent novel. If the Old Gods were destroying minds in the cities surely they would be prevalent as well in the vast lands that span America. The book takes the form of a series of stories from Vesper’s life, reading more like a short story collection than a narrative whole. It is Vesper who is the glue that holds the book together, and despite skipping years at a time, his character development holds true throughout. 

I really enjoyed this book because it stayed true to the Western genre. Vesper is not the Man with No Name, but he is not the chattiest. This is a practical character of good morals just trying to get by, picking up work where he can. This may be helping with harvesting the crops or leading a herd across the plains. Vesper’s live is not all demons, most of it is pretty plain. We are just given an insight into the stranger tales of his life. 

You have tales that are a wonderful mix of Urban Fantasy and Western. You can start a tale about returning two green skinned children to their own land, only for it to end in a classic feeling shootout. Vesper may be asked to help a widow to carry her departed husband to his final resting place, because his ghost is haunting her, only for it to end in betrayal and tragedy. 

The only thing that remains steadfast in all the stories if Vesper’s attitude. A wonderfully practical character who deals with the problem in front of him, no matter the nature of it. This is an age when people did not feel that they knew everything about the world, there is a willingness in the West to believe that odds things may just be supernatural and to deal with them as you would the natural. 

What Durbin does best in the book is blend the natural and supernatural, even playing with the reader at times. Lulled into a sense that the book is packed with Cthulhu, some of the evil in the book proves to be far more human. There are moments of horror and fantasy, but this is a Western book at heart, with a sprinkling of spicy supernatural flavour added to the mix. The sense of place and people feels like the Old West should do and it is how you imagine they would deal with odd goings on. The book follows most of Ovid Vesper’s life, but I hope that there are some more hidden tales for him to tell in a future book. 

There are books in a person’s life that helps to define their taste in genres. I was lucky enough in my teenage years to work my way through some of the classics of science fiction instilling a lifelong love of the genre. One novel that stands out among the best was Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, a collection of ethereal feeling science fiction stories based around the body of a tattooed man. Joelle Taylor has their take on this concept in The Night Alphabet, an anthology of stories that may be considered even more eclectic than Bradbury’s originals. 

Almost two centuries from now a woman walks into a tattoo parlour in London. She knows the artist and their assistant, but they do not know the tattooed woman. She has a simple ask of them, connect all the tattoos on her body with a simple line. As the tattoo artist moves from design to design, the woman tells a story about the origins of the tattoo. You see, these are not just images, but representations of past and future lives, lives that the woman has lived many times over. 

Taylor is a poet, and this is their first work of full fiction. Science Fiction is a great genre for a poet to start in, as it lends itself to a style that take a reader out of themselves. This book may be prose, but it certainly has the heart of a poet. The descriptions alone force the reader to turn them around in their mind, it can take 50 pages or so to get used to the style. The closest I have come across before is a lyrical poetic take on a Phillip Marlowe style noir. 

The ethereal prose is reflected in the narrative. This is a set of connected short stories, with the tattooed woman at the centre. Their story is progressed after each short story is completed. The concept is not simply a group of random lives, but a thread that connects them all, the woman’s ability to drop into the lives of others both past and present.  

Some of the narrative voices are too similar across stories. The tattooed woman is meant to fully immerse themselves in their new life, so why do so many of the character appear to think in the same way? It is only in a couple of tales that the voice is obviously different, usually because Taylor wants the character to be less sympathetic. In a set of disconnect stories this would not have been an issue, but the core concept begs for each new life to have its own dominion. 

The concept allows for stories of all types, some are science fiction, whilst others are historic. As all are narrated from a form of time traveller, they are inherently Sci Fi but take them out of context and place them in another anthology and they would just be fiction. For instance, a powerful tale about 19th century miners. This story is about the woman left behind when the husband dies, how they are treated and what they are forced to do. It is heartfelt, tragic, and thought provoking. 

These are the touch words for most of the stories in Night Alphabet, that and that they are all powerful tales about woman. The tales are unforgiving and cover subjects such as sex workers, a tale of ownership of one’s womb in the future, online trolls. The tales may be set 100 years in the future or the past, but they cover topics that are relevant today. 

The impactful subject matter and prose style means that the book is not an easy read, but it is one that will stay with you. Illustrated Man was a tricky read and Night Alphabet follows that trend, and in both cases, it is certainly worth the effort. Night Alphabet is the type of book that will speak to readers on various levels. There are those that will take the tales personally, whilst other will feel distant, but be forced to reflect on themselves and society. If you like you books to have depth and to trigger thoughts, both good and bad, then this book is for you.  

I have had my fill of Vampires. They are the Primadonna of the undead world hogging all the limelight with their films and TV shows. They are also all over books. One of my family member’s entire book collection is just vampires. What about the other supernatural beings? A vampire's erstwhile enemy is the brutal Werewolf. Now there is a monster I can get behind with all the ripping, tearing, and rendering. Nat Cassidy has one heck of a wolf in When the Wolf Comes Home but wait around a little longer and there is a far greater power hidden within the pages. 

Jess is a struggling actor holding down a series of part time jobs, barely making ends meet. Her only friend is her mother who has moved into an assisted living village miles away. When Jess discovers a lost little boy, she can have no idea of what the consequences will be of providing aid. The boy is being hunted by something, a being that rips and tears its way to its goal. A being that may just be the boy’s father. 

Horror is a more complex and layered genre than some would have you think. It is not just shock and gore. You can have subtle horror, old school monster horror, the subgenres are numerous. In Wolf, Cassidy plays with some of the tropes of the horror genre, giving you one type of monster of the week story, but then delving into something far deeper. 

The depth of the novel comes from Cassidy exploring what and where this wolf creature came from. You could write a straight werewolf book, never explaining the origins, but that is not Cassidy’s style. By revealing the nature of the beast, the book opens far wider into magical realism. The tone shifts to a dark magical horror that reminded me of the later works of horror maestro James Herbert. 

By drawing in elements of magic and fantasy, Cassidy never forgets the book’s roots in horror. There are plenty of disturbing and gruesome scenes to entertain any lover of the crimson. Enjoy seems the wrong word to use, but the scenes in which the werewolf appears amongst normal people are powerful and sick, in the right way. There are also scenes of high tension as the boy and Jess hide in the shadows as the monster creeps outside. There is also another form of body and gonzo horror that occurs later in the book as new powers are revealed. 

All the jump scares and tension are for nought, if the characters have no impact, so Cassidy spends time developing Jess and the young child’s character. There is more horror in knowing these people and their loved ones. As in any true horror story, no character is safe, so a tension runs throughout the book.  

As a fan of multiple genres and not just what would be considered traditional horror, Wolf is a book that appealed to me. It went above and beyond just being a monster novel and morphed into something far more complex and ethereal. Will this appeal to every fan? I think some people will be enjoying the awesome werewolf scenes in the early parts of the book so much that the change in direction will annoy them. However, this pivot allows for some unusual types of bizarro horror that you will not want to miss. 

I have not read the synopsis of a book I am about to read for over twenty years, ever since I read a spoiler on the back of the novel that revealed the massive twist that occurred two thirds of the way through. I will have to add Series Titles to the list of things not to read as The Vengeance by Emma Newman is part of The Vampires of Dumas series. A cracking pirate adventure, but no vampires in sight.... until. 

Morgane has only ever known the life of a pirate. Her mother is the Captain Anna-Marie of The Vengeance, one of the most feared pirate ships on the sea. Although the trading companies may fear the captain, her crew respect her. It is not until Captain Anna-Marie is fatally injured that cracks appear in her shell and she reveals to Morgane that she is not her mother and an aunt who stole her as a baby. On her deathbed Anna-Marie asks Morgane never to look for her real mother as she is evil, but Morgane has always had her own mind and sets off on an adventure to France. 

Vengeance is one of the most entertaining pirate novels that I have ever read. The opening act of the book is all about Morgane’s life on the seas and the tragic events that lead to her mother’s death. These are swashbuckling murderers, but Newman balances their bloodthirsty nature with a sense of honour. Morgane is an anti-hero who has killed several men, but you never feel like she is cruel. 

The story then sets off on a wonderful fish out of water story as the daughter of a Pirate Captain sets sail for France where she must learn to settle into the gentile lifestyle of a Lady. Rather than write a linear plot that leads Morgane to her mother, Newman leads the reader on a fun dance as Morgane’s nature to act first and think later leads her astray. There are action sequences and new characters to meet on the way, including Lisette, a Lady in Waiting who is hired to teach manners to Morgane, but picks up some bad habits of her own. The character of Morgane is excellent and I could read many adventures about her. The relationship between her and Lisette is a lovely one, played out over a series of misadventures.  

What will happen when Morgane finally meets her mother? I guessed early on. Not because the book revealed it, but because the series title did. For a Pirate Vampire novel, there is a whole lot of Pirate before there is any Vampire. Far too much. I loved the Pirate sections and would happily have just read these, but I knew the undead were coming at some point, because the cover tells me. 

Why does it matter if you know that Vampires are involved? Because it shapes how you read the entire novel. If you went into this book blind, the reveal may have been a massive surprise. Hints are given, but to the unawares they may have overlooked them, to someone who has glanced at the cover, these hints blaze in technicolour neon. It becomes a case of not if vampires are going to pop up, but when. 

Evoking the idea of Vampires in the Series Title does The Vengeance a true disservice. This is a cracking Pirate adventure with some great characters. It is a stroll through a grimy and entertaining alternative France. However, those in the know are always waiting for the other shoe to drop and that does not occur to well into the novel. Far enough in the proceedings to work better as a surprise. Do the words Undead and Vampire sell copy and that is why they are on the front? Perhaps, but I would have preferred excellent pirate adventure as a Series Title and let me discover the twists for myself. 

Over the years Star Wars has become a complicated beast, even the first film was a Space Opera that had a lot going on. Throw in various timelines and you have an epic on your hands, but some of the simpler stories are the ones that work the best. The Acolyte was series that expanded on The High Republic era of Star Wars set years before any Skywalker. Justina Ireland had the option to go full Space Opera with the tie in novel Star Wars: The Acolyte: Wayseeker, but instead created this well-structured two hander. 

Vernestra Rwoh is what is known as a Wayseeker, a Jedi who sets off to find their own path. She lets the force guide her to remote planets, helping the locals, rather than trying to be involved in intergalactic politics. It has been ten years, and the Jedi Council need Vernestra back. There is a specialist mission that they believe Vernestra will be able to deal with best. They send reclusive archivist Jedi Knight Indara to fetch her, not the best fit it would seem, but the Force works in mysterious ways. 

I enjoy an epic Star Wars tie in novel, but it is simpler tales like Wayseeker that I feel work even better. This is a simpler story told from two perspectives, the wise Vernerstra and the hesitant Indara. Although they are Master and Knight, the relationship has that Padawan feel to it. The book reads like a minor adventure in the Star Wars universe, and this is why it works. The Avengers are not sent out to solve every crime and you do not need all the Jedi Council to tackle a vicious arms dealer. 

The book is a science fiction crime thriller. Someone has kidnapped a scientist and is producing a device that can nullify lightsabres. Vernerstra and Indara follow the clues that take them to several planets. Their relationship builds as they start to discover more about one another. It was interesting to see the same event from the different perspectives; the chapters were slightly staggered so that you witnessed the last action again from the previous chapter through new eyes. 

Although the stakes do not initially appear universe shattering, the potential is there should the nullifying technology become widespread. This is an existential threat, but nebulous. To make the action hotter, Ireland has created an arms dealer that you can really grow to dislike. Entitled and evil, hopped up on Spice and power, this is a character who is unpredictable and creates many of the twists and shocks in the book. 

I enjoyed the focus and driven nature of Wayseeker. It contains characters that fans on the miniseries will recognise, but it is not packed with cameos from the wider cannon, although Yoda is present. It works well as a Star Wars book, even if you do not know the characters. The two protagonists follow the ways of the Jedi, but like with all the best Jedi, struggle. Vernerstra can balance love with being a Jedi, whilst Indara must come to terms with mistakes in her life. 

If you read more Star Wars and books, particularly on Jedi, it starts to become obvious that on the surface these Jedi may appear cool, but inside they are embroiled. Focussing on two characters allows Ireland to explore two ways of how a Jedi deals with being part of the order, whilst still allows for a fun, focussed, action thriller. Wayseeker feels like a Star Wars novel that tackles the universe on a smaller scale but works better for it.  

The sheer number of comic books out there are a blessing and a curse. There are so many stories to catch up on and different versions of the same characters. It is wonderful for the explorer, but for the casual fan it can be daunting. We all know something about Black Panther, the character, Wakanda etc, but did you know about The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda a whole other multi solar system of Wakandan people? Ta-Nehisi Coates knew about it in their comic book run that took an alternative look at The Black Panther and now Suyi Davies Okungbowa has the task of telling the tale in prose form. 

The stranger wakes up with no memories of who they are. They are on some sort of mining planet, a slave. Although they cannot remember their name, the body seems to recall. They are faster and more powerful than the guards, trust your instincts and you can escape. Who is this mysterious stranger? Could it be T’Challa, the latest reincarnation of The Black Panther, a hero the people need right now? 

Marvel is as good/bad as any comic book creators at creating alternative versions of well-known characters from stories set in the past or future, to the multiverse. This novel is based on a story that is not an alternative to the Earth Black Panther, but as a companion piece. It is set far away in a separate Wakanda society that explored the stars long ago. They hold the beliefs of Wakanda Prime, but over time these have become distorted, their T’Challa now calls himself Emperor, who controls planets, wipes the memories of dissidents and uses the stored knowledge to keep himself in power. 

This version of Wakanda is so far removed from what the reader may be used to, that I was instantly worried that I would be lost. However, you need not worry as Okungbowa focusses on the right things. There is a rich vein of lore that feels familiar, but we are also introduced to this alternative space opera. It has the feel of Star Wars as the plucky rebellion fights the Empire, but there is no Luke Skywalker. Instead, you get a kick arse Black Panther. 

Adapting graphic novels into prose is an art, and one that Okungbowa has achieved. A book lacks the visual nature of the comics, so you need to describe the action. Okungbowa does this well, but they also focus on the characters and the lore. These are areas in which prose can shine. We see the development of T’Challa into becoming the King those around him believe him to be. There is more insight than perhaps a comic could provide. 

As an adaptation, it reads like Okungbowa made some choices about what to cover. Some action is described in short order, almost off screen. This feels wise, if that was the case, as it allowed the book to focus on what it does best and that is the development of the characters, both good and bad. Even with selected editing, the book does suffer a little from being based on a comic run (or runs I would suspect). The acts feel a little disjointed and not fully connected, at one point abandoning T’Challa completely for a while. 

The book is certainly strongest in its first act. A section that sees the imprisonment, rescue, and early development of T’Challa. More happens in the concluding section, but it is too much. More characters and more action mean that it is harder to picture what is happening. Even at its more explosive and confusing Intergalactic Empire remains an enjoyable book to read and an impressive adaptation of a graphic novel. Okungbowa has intelligently leaned into the positives of the written format to delve deeper into the characters, and this is where it is strongest. The book would work well for any Marvel or Black Panther fan, but also those that like action science fiction with interesting characters and setting.        

People have used the insanity plea in defence of some heinous crimes. Was it months of planning that made you act or next door’s Labrador? When buying a property, it may be a clever idea to heed the warning of the stranger who tells you not to listen the voice when it appears. The last owner went on a killing spree, but why should that bother you? You have some cheap rent in a popular area of Manhattan. What better place to open a comedy store than this? It is not like standup comedians are known for their short fuses or characters flaws, is it? 

Jeff never dreamed of being a standup comedian, but he did dream of facilitating their art. After years of saving, he managed to purchase the location for his club ‘The Square.’ The rent came cheap for a reason as the last owner went on a killing spree, but history is not going to repeat itself, is it? For decades it never did, but now Jeff is tired, and the club is not making money anymore. The comedians are irritating him, and his girlfriend won’t stop bugging him. Finally, he hears a voice that makes it seem so simple, “kill them all.”  

Comedy is often the tears of a clown, and this is especially true of standups. If you are a fan of the artform and have read around it, you will soon stumble upon sad tales of abuse and addiction. Not all comedians are like this, but there are enough issues in Mike Bockoven’s Killing It to make a tale. It is not the funny people that you need to be weary of in the book, but Jeff the owner and then maybe not even him. Although Jeff hears the voice most prominently, there is an inner voice in all the characters’ heads. 

Killing is part crime story, part horror. I was interested in the balance between the voice and the criminality. Is there actually anything to listen to or has Jeff just had a phycological break? As the book progresses it starts to become clearer that there may be more to the walls of ‘The Square’ than just bricks and mortar, but for the initial half or so, it feels like as much as a phycological crime thriller, as a horror. 

The terror comes in the form of the violent acts, they are extreme. Despite connotations of otherworldly things, the suffering is mete out by humans. If you like body horror and extreme imagery, there are moments in the book for you, but for me the strongest part of the book was the characters. There is an ensemble of mostly comedians in the book, and they are all given their moment to shine. The chapters act like a curse that is passed around the cast. One closes and the new chapter focuses on a different character again. You get more insight into their motives but also get the feeling that something bad may happen to them. No character is safe. 

The structure of the book is also one of its strengths, it works like a typical standup night set from compere, to first, second and third act. Each section of the book is introduced with some of the comedy that the oblivious victims gave to the audience hours before all hell broke loose. 

Killing is a darkly humorous novel that is perfectly in keeping with its setting and characters. It is not a pure crime novel, but a genre bending mix of horror and crime. It leans more into the horror genre and fans of that element of the book will appreciate it more, pure crime fans may find the supposed supernatural elements hard to swallow. I found the whole book a disturbing read, but one that was page turning and structured in a fascinating way. 

How do you like your science fiction and fantasy? I will admit to being someone who loves a simple and accessible tale, but the genres can offer so much more than this. There are few genres better equipped to take a reader to truly alien places, to worlds that feel like they were designed in a fever dream. Ai Jiang blends a subtle tale of family and fantasy into a world of wonder in the novel A Palace Near the Wind.  

Liu Lufeng may be the eldest daughter of the Feng dynasty, but she is one of the last to marry. Younger sisters have gone to marry the human king, but still more Princesses are asked for and now it is Feng’s turn. Feng has it in mind to discover what happened to her mother and sisters, and if needed revenge them. For the first time in her life, Feng must leave the sanctuary of the Feng lands for those of the human, a vastly different and alien place. 

Palace is not a book that drops you softly into a fantasy world but instead plunges you instantly into something that feels like a poem. Jiang uses a lyrical style of writing that heightens the mystery of the Feng people, but it can take a reader a while to get in step with the style. After a few pages you start to get a feel for the prose and then you realise that the Feng people are not human at all, but beings who are part of nature, with bark-like skin. Why does the human King want to marry them so much and why must they negotiate constantly to save their lands? These are the mysteries that inform the book. 

Rather than instantly go into detail about Liu and the Feng people, Jiang lets the book flow naturally. It takes a while to understand what is happening, how the people are different and what the world is about. This may be confusing to some readers but repeat fans of fantasy and science fiction should be able to handle the style. It evolves in a way to reveal the world and mystery slowly; the writing style adds to the magical feel of the Feng people. 

Beneath the ethereal style is a classic feeling fantasy tale. It takes from traditional fairy tales with its story of sisters and an evil king. Like fairy tales of old, it also takes a dark twist. As the reader learns more about the human world, you start to understand why they want the Feng land so much. There is obviously a further set of tales that can be set in this land as there are further kingdoms and peoples to meet. 

At under two hundred pages Palace is more of a novelette than a novel, it introduces ideas and characters, but they are so numerous and the page count so short that they are not fully explored. This adds to the enigmatic nature of the book and the characters, but it will lead some readers frustrated. I found it an intriguing tale that offered something different than the usual fantasy fiction. 

I find most comfy crime novels an oxymoron as they usually deal with a hideous murder. The cosiness comes in the telling and the setting. I blame Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple books with that inquisitive pensioner solving crimes that were hideous, gruesome, committed for money, revenge, or passion. Not cosy when you think about it. Perhaps Cheddar Luck Next Time by Beth Cato will be different, an actual cosy crime caper, perhaps about a round of missing cheddar cheese? Once the first body with a slit throat turns up, it appears not. 

Bird Nichols has moved her life and her cheese board company to the relaxed California coast after the death of her grandmother. The inheritance included her grandmother’s cottage and top of the line kitchen facilities, perfect for her business. Bird and her grandmother were both into catering and Bird also has something else in common, getting involved with crime solving. Gran was known as the local meddler, and Bird is fast going down the same track when a body turns up on her property and she starts to investigate. 

Is Cheddar a cosy read? Despite a butchered body appearing near the start of the book, the answer is yes. The setting of the California coast leans into a bohemian and relaxed feel. Bird herself is a character that brings out the warmth. She is autistic and uses this power to develop a cheese business, but it also gives her an insight into crime solving. The book feels like the start of a series, something you can imagine being made into a 9pm ITV drama. The book introduces Bird, but also the local area and local characters. 

The case itself is a solid procedural affair as Bird follows the clues to meet new people and develop the case. This leads to more breakthroughs. The book is interspersed with moments of action as Bird gets too close to the killer. It all resolves well in a coherent fashion and one that will satisfy fans of crime fiction. 

I would not read Cheddar for the case, but for the characters. Cato weaves a small community that draws you in. The bad boy that annoyed the locals, the handsome street food truck owner, the resident busybody. There are lots of interesting people to meet, but there is also a deeper mystery, that of Bird’s grandmother. Gone, but not forgotten, Bird learns new things about the matriarch of her family and how people used to see her. There is a deeper meta mystery that will span several books as we learn more about this mysterious woman. 

The role of Bird is written with intelligence and care. The autism is not portrayed as any sort of fault, but as a fact and one that Bird lives well with. It makes her an interesting character and justifies some of the cheese indulgence in the book. As someone obsessed with the dairy product, Bird will wax lyrical on the subject, and this breaks up some of the tension with the ‘cosy’ cheese moments. 

If you enjoy your crime more relaxed, then Cheddar is a book for you. It has murder, chases, and violence, but it is all kept within reason and is not too gory. It does have a welcoming feel to it, a book that introduces you to new characters and a new location. Those who like more pace and action will not get as much from the book, but any crime fan can appreciate the core crime element.  

War, what is it good for? Not a lot, but depressingly it is a real driver of innovation. What better way to inspire the greatest minds in the country than to task them with more efficient ways to kill the enemy? Arms races happen all over the place from conventional gun and bullets to newer types of warfare like AI and social media. You even have bizzarro experiments like telepathic goats. There will be labs somewhere that are experimenting with animal/human hybrids, some for medical reasons, others for potential war benefits. Christopher Hinz explores what may happen when the first human/dinosaur hybrid is introduced to the world in Scales. 

Eddie Boka is faster, stronger and has keener instincts than the average soldier. He is a human/dinosaur hybrid whose DNA has been altered to make him a more efficient killing machine. For all these benefits all he needed to sacrifice was his looks, libido, and his ability to stop himself ripping out the throat of the enemy and gorging on the meaty goodness. Eddie is not quite fit for public consumption, but the big reveal is weeks away. The army hire controversial therapist Adelaide “Addi” LaTour to work with Eddie. Will a little targeted electro-therapy calm the wild beast? 

The concept of Scales is the type of entertaining speculative thought exercise that only science fiction can provide. Hinz has the idea of a solider who is part human and part dinosaur, which way will they run with the concept? Initially, it seems like the book may be an action novel, Rambosaurus Rex, an opening scene introduces us to Eddie and his enhanced powers, and his enhanced issues. 

Interestingly, rather than focus on the reptilian side of Eddie, the book focuses on the man. The story returns to US soil and the secret base where Eddie and his fellow test subjects are held. The book becomes a therapy exercise as Eddie and Addi work together. The book also evokes the likes of Robocop. The army are working with a private firm to produce super soldiers. The management have their own targets and Eddie’s best interests are not part of their equations. The meddling at the top has a disastrous effect on the base and the public perception of Eddie et al. 

At times it was disappointing that the reader was not able to witness Eddie and the other hybrids in all their glory, spending more time on relationships and politics, but there are enough action scenes to keep fans of grue and explosions happy. At its heart this is a book about Eddie and the toll the experiments exacted on him took. The external transformation making him less palatable to look at, but more importantly the internal. The normal thoughts of feeling like a freak, but also the compulsion to violence and a taste for human flesh. There is also the loss of his desires, but as the book progresses these may not be as gone as first thought. 

Scales is an interesting exploration of what could happen if a man were mixed with a T-Rex. It is far more intelligent than you may think, exploring physical and phycological turmoil, whilst also mentioning the military industrial complex and how messed up that can be. There are also pockets of entertaining action, the balance is more cerebral, but I think any fan of unusual science fiction concepts will get something from this book.  

There are shifts in the Fantasy genre that perhaps only the ardent fan will notice. The epics of Tolkien and the 80s are still being written, but now there are more intimate stories that follow one or two characters as they graft in their small way among the wider Fantasy world. These are often cosy, set in a coffee shop or bookstore, but what if you combine this Cosy Fantasy with the Low Fantasy of the 00s/10s? You get something like The Serpent Called Mercy by Roanne Lau, a tale about two impoverished best friends who realise their only way out of debt is to enter the arena and slaughter countless mythical beasts. 

Lythlet and Desil have been beholden to one another since childhood. Desil stood up for the silent Lythlet as she was bullied at school and in adulthood Lythlet works hard to help pay off Desil’s debts. Between them they have little other than Desil’s strength and Lythlet’s intelligence, that combination may be perfect for the arena that is looking for duos to take on twelve deadly rounds of fighting against sun-cursed beasts. That is tricky enough, but becoming involved in the fights also brings them into the world of city politics. 

Mercy is a story of friendship, love, ambition, but also carving one head off a three headed beast as your friend is being slowly digested in stomach acid. It is a closed story, set in a wider world. Lythlet and Desil’s reality is just a few streets and the arena. The encroaching world does impose itself on them, but this is an intimate story at heart. 

This focus allows great character development, especially for Lythlet, the main protagonist. Her ambitions shift in the book, and it takes on a classic three-part structure as she falls and rises. It does in places take on that cosy feel, but this is platonic love and there is always a fight coming around the corner. The format dictates that there are up to twelve deadly fights in the book. Therefore, there is an ebb and flow between action and character development. 

As Lythlet’s star rises, her relationship with Desil is tested. She starts to hear the words of the Arena master; she is pulled between her ambition and her past. Some of the sections between Lythlet and the arena master are a little long and are pages of conversation, this helps to develop Lythlet’s character, but the pace of the book drops and what is a pacy fantasy novel, drops into that stodgy over encumbered pace that plagues the genre. 

The balance between the personal and the action is well done. I preferred the action sequences, but there are many readers who enjoy character development and relationships in a novel. I was a little perturbed by what I saw as a moral blind spot that Lythlet and Desil had. They live by a certain code but are happy to slaughter what could be considered innocent beasts. It is touched upon in the book, but not explored, probably because if you think about it too much it undermines a lot of the good that is in the characters. 

Mercy is a Fantasy novel with a series of contractions; it is violent Low Fantasy, but also a relationship story that feels cosy. It is a book about heroes who care about the little person but will slaughter animals for cash. In total, it is an entertaining fantasy novel, one that I would recommend to those fans that like a relationship heavy novel with edge, rather than Low Fantasy purists.  

Never say never when it comes to being a hired hitman. You may not want to kill for money anymore, but if you are anything like Quarry in The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins you may just end up getting in a situation that relies on your old skills and if you get paid for it all the better. This may be named the final Quarry book, but any fan of the stoic killer will know that he returned a few times, so why not read this reissued version to see why there should never be a last Quarry book. 

Quarry is retired from the killing game and instead spends his time being the manager of a high-end resort on a remote lake. The off season is boring enough for Quarry to get an itchy trigger finger, so when he sees an old acquittance in a local convenience store, Quarry’s interest is piqued. Quarry soon finds himself in the same old trouble when he is hired to kill someone, someone who turns out to be a knockout. 

The Quarry books have always been about an anti-hero, but at times it is hard to even have the hero element. Quarry is not a nice person, a killer for hire who for years had no issue with murdering people. Now in his 50s, he may have settled, but the sociopathic tendencies are still clear. As soon as an opportunity to get involved in his old ways comes up, Quarry does not take long to decide to get back into the game, at least temporarily. 

The difference now is that he is a little older and slower. Quarry is such an efficient killer and, in his own way, tactician, that age is not an object to dealing out death. It has not stunted his appeal with the ladies either. I can see for a man used to using a pistol that shooting a person is just as easy in your 50s as in your 20s, but seducing a young woman? There is plenty of seduction in Last Quarry and a lot of Quarry’s old-fashioned misogyny. That is all part of the characters flaws, and appeal, but getting the girl/s seems a little more farfetched nowadays! 

Fantasy on several elements is what makes Pulp so fun to read and Collins is a master of the format, and I do love the Quarry character. It is fantastical that he can kill for so many years and get out of scrapes, and it is also a fantasy with all the woman that surround him. There is an old-fashioned appeal to the book and the character that will have the more sensitive reader running for the hills. 

The plot of Last Quarry is classic for the character and does follow a similar pattern to other books in the series, but as a fan this is what you want to read. The story is very solid, full of darkly humorous language and some killing. This is a re-release of the story and fits in the latter timeline of the characters life. You also get a couple of short stories that acted as part genesis for the longer novel. Last Quarry is unapologetically a throwback to a pulpy dime novel mindset and captures this wonderfully. Quarry is such a darkly appealing character that any fan of pulp will enjoy this book and the series.  

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went in there in the first place? Could just be a good old fashioned brain burp, but perhaps it is something more sinister. In Nicholas Binge’s Dissolution there is a character who knows too much, so much that their mind is being wiped to prevent them ever passing the information on. There is only one person who can help, his wife who must travel into the memories of her husband. Kind of like in my house now. She reminds me that I am in the kitchen to get my car keys. 

When Maggie Webb wakes up in a mysterious room with an anonymous voice asking her for help it is a change to her usual routine. For the past decade, Maggie has looked after her ailing husband, Stanley, whose memory has failed him and is who is now housed in the memory unit of a specialised clinic. Stanley’s memories may have been wiped unnaturally and there is a way for Maggie to save him. She must enter his memories and witness what happened in the past, but in doing so she may alter the present. 

Time travel in fiction is always mind bending and that makes it one of the trickiest science fiction concepts to tackle, but also one of the most entertaining. Binge explores the idea in an unusual way. Rather than a machine or a blip in the space/time continuum, memories are used. Somehow, you can travel into memories and alter them, and this effects the future. The book is not about the manipulation of time as such, but the protection from doing so. Why does Stanley remember nothing and what is the strange entity that Maggie comes across in his memories? 

One of the most interesting elements is the use of Maggie as the protagonist, an elderly lady who gives short shrift to any nonsense. Seeing someone bouncing around time in their later years is not the norm in fiction and makes for a pleasant change. Hers is a life lived; Binge can populate the story with some of those time travel nuggets that make the genre for fun. We only find out the truth about something later in the book. 

The story is divided between Maggie and Stanley. His elements are separate and follow his early life, explaining why he is under threat. These read more like straight literary fiction, a coming-of-age tale. These sections proved a nice oasis of calm as they made more sense with their linear storyline. Time travel is tricky, but Binge made things even harder for themselves by throwing in memories. In places the book is complex to follow, but Binge never loses the thread. 

Among the memory diving and tale of a young man growing into themselves, there is also a thriller. The book reveals at the right pace what is truly happening, who is behind the sinister clinic that Stanley is staying in and who Maggie is helping. The conclusion has that classic time travel feel to it that fans of the genre will appreciate. Dissolution is a thrilling take on the time travel genre, but also a more cerebral one for fans who like their science fiction challenging but also entertaining.   

There is more than one tradition in science fiction. You can have your epic space battles, but here in Blighty we have the tradition of an every person getting wrapped up in something far above their pay grade. Arthur Dent had his towel, and Johnny Gomez has his mop and bucket. It can’t just be space fighters and cyborgs in the future, someone is going to need to make sure that the toilets are still working or at least make sure the robots that fix the toilets are still working. 

Kilgore Station is one of the core locations close to Terran space where aliens from across the universe gather to work, live, and party. Johnny arrived over a decade ago to find a new life away from the scrapyards of Luna. Rather than ending up with a lucrative new life, he ended up being a long-time worker for Space Brooms, a janitor contractor. After one particularly gross clean up in an alien bathroom Johnny finds a chit that will change his life. He may not want trouble, but trouble looks like it wants him. 

When I think of comedic science fiction, I automatically get visions of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf, two formative novels in my life. It is high praise that Space Brooms by A. G. Rodriguez has elements of both books but still feels like its own thing. Johnny is an Arthur Dent like character, a janitor out of water, and later in the book Johnny joins a ragtag group of space scavengers who all have their own quirks. 

What separates Brooms is that it is a little darker and harsh, especially on Johnny. He is punched from pillar to post for an item that he does not even want. He has no choice but to go on an interplanetary adventure as it is his only chance of survival. In parts Johnny takes what is happening badly, reflecting on a life poorly lived. It is here that the book finds its heart. This is an action adventure, but it is also a coming-of-age story about a man in his late 30s finally getting on with living. 

Like any good lighter sci fi, there are some wonderfully eccentric side characters in the book from a Stetson wearing spaceship pilot, to his gruff cousin. The various gangs offer some of the most amusing moments. Everyone is after the chit that Johnny found from the most sophisticated assassins to useless punk gangs. Survival relies as much on various gangs getting in each other's way as Johnny doing anything. 

Brooms is a book of light and shade, but on balance it is a lighter book. It is an adventure full of dark humour. Johnny feels like a more modern comedic protagonist, someone with internal demons, but who we can still laugh with/at. If you are looking for a science fiction romp that spans the Solar System, then this is a perfect book for whiling away a few hours.  

A good life is a life well lived full of new adventures, meeting new people, and experiencing new things. On this criteria Angel Dare has had one of the best lives, she is always meeting new people and finding herself in new places, but not for the reasons she would want. From adult film star to victim, to vigilante, Angel as been there, seen that, done them all. The Get Off by Christa Faust may just be the last chapter in her story, a full life for her, but one that has led to many others being cut short. 

What do you do when the reason for your existence is stolen from you? This is the situation that Angel finds herself in when her vigilante quest comes near to its end. What will Angel do when the man she swore to kill is dead? She should probably start dealing with all the things she compartmentalised whist she was in the killing zone. Like the fact that she has not had a period in months, and someone just asked her when the baby is due. 

I am a huge fan of Pulp Crime and Faust is an author who knows how to do it brilliantly. If you are thinking of catching your breath whist reading, there is not much time for that in Get Off. This is a road story of mayhem, with Angel leaving the corpses of the good and the bad in her wake. There is no real plan to Angel’s madness, just a need to get away. She befriends those that would help her only to put her in danger. 

Why does Angel even bother to carry on? She could take that last step and end it all, but now there is someone else she must think about, but this is not really Angel’s style. There is a refreshingly harsh streak of anti-hero in Angel. She is selfish in a way that feels real, she is not able to tackle what she called her ‘situation.’ Instead, she continues to get into more scrapes killing and creating new enemies on the way. 

As a road story, the book has locations that Angel drives up to and causes havoc. We have a shootout in a clinic, a rest at the rodeo, and a fire at the cattle farm. Chaos and action follow Angel everywhere and it is an exhilarating ride. No one is safe around her and that adds to the tension. 

The tension works because Angel knows that she is messed up, we spend the whole story with her, and she is aware that she is a bad luck penny. As the book nears its end, she must deal fully with her ‘situation’ and that humanises her. The book may be pulp, but Angel has genuine issues, although heightened the book respects the fact that Angel’s mental health has taken a real battering throughout her life. 

This is the final part of Angel’s story, and I have not read the other books in the series, but this did not detract from Get Off. The previous tales are spoken of but are not inherent for the book to work. Faust did the correct thing when writing a sequel, let it stand on its own and encourage the reader to go out and buy the earlier books, that is certainly something I plan to do. The Get Off is a riotous example of Pulp Crime fiction, full of bullets, but also pathos.  

There is no doubt that Tchaikovsky is a prolific author - I'm counting at least 38 novels and many novellas and short stories. Every few months, there seems to be a new book on the horizon. But that regularity of releases doesn't seem to impact the quality of his writing or the sharpness of his vision. Having read most of his previous works, it's clear he not only continues to develop his talents but has begun experimenting with different writing styles. Alien Clay is no exception. Written from a first-person perspective, majoritively from the viewpoint of rebel Professor Arton Daghdev. Daghdev is sent to the hostile prison planet of Kiln after his political views get him in trouble with a harsh, authoritarian government (known simply as The Mandate) that removes any dissidents and thoughts different from the official dogma. He's an academic, specializing in ecology and biology, and under different circumstances, he might consider this a trip of a lifetime, not as a convict, though.

It takes 30 years for the automated prison ship to arrive and then purposefully disintegrate as it reaches the Kiln atmosphere, reviving and dispersing its previously frozen human cargo as it breaks up. Those who survive the re-entry find themselves with a deferred death sentence in a hostile and alien environment. They are treated as little more than slaves and work to grow and protect the colony. At the same time, those with more important job titles try to unravel its many secrets.

Life on Kiln is distinct from that found elsewhere, with a blurred line dividing flora and fauna, which also appear to be symbiotic. Despite Daghdev's early attempts, it seems impossible to create any form of classification, limited as humanity is to its narrow definitions. Some of these lifeforms seem a little perilous too; luckily, Daghdev's credentials as a bonified academic with knowledge of ecology and biology initially allow him to serve as Dig support, which, in reality, is little more than lab support but still a far cry from the more dangerous roles outside the safety of the base. Given Dagdev's expertise, there is some hope that he might be able to solve the mystery of some local artifacts that have so far eluded any explanation. Covered with writing of unknown origins, they don't seem to be the creation of any lifeform they have encountered. So just who built them, and what the hell is their purpose? It isn't long before Daghdev gets dragged back into revolutionary politics, and things start to turn for the worse, he finds himself on the frontline, carrying out the most dangerous jobs, thrust out into the strange alien jungle, and witnessing those artifacts first-hand.

Tchaikovsky does a good job of crafting the main character, Daghdev. He is well fleshed-out, although not altogether likable, and hardly a hero in anyone's eyes. The author does provide some justification, so it's at least possible to empathize with him. After all, they are all living in an authoritative and oppressive regime, even more so than most countries of present times. The supporting characters are not fleshed out quite as much, but I think that's more the effect of the first-person viewpoint than anything else. One other character that shines as brightly as the protagonist is the setting itself, arguably the most well-crafted, complete, and vibrant character in the novel. It's interesting to see how the author's style translates from the third person to the first; it feels different. Not better or worse, just different. There is still the sharp and dry humour, the clever writing, and the immense vision for all things biological and otherwise scientific. One of these differences is how we, as the readers, get to learn about the world around Daghdev. We experience the awe, the splendor, and indeed the horror as the protagonist does, and that creates a solid feeling of immersion in a way you don't always get with other perspectives.

The book's themes are pretty near the surface and obvious, lacking in subtlety, although still better presented than many. The harsh, crippling, and destructive doctrine of the Mandate clashes sharply with the organic symbiotic alien planet. The ending is somewhat predictable, but the enjoyment is in the journey, and it's a wild ride. Of course, being a Tchaikovsky story, the description of a truly alien environment is, without doubt, the most impressive part of this book. The anarchic and turbulent ecosystem defies rational classification and expounds on the idea that life will exist in stranger forms elsewhere in our universe. His exploration of symbiosis, much more varied than any creature on Earth, is fascinating. It's written in a way that the non-scientist can easily absorb too though, you don't need a background in biology to take part in this discussion.

Putting all these things together makes Alien Clay the most Tchaikovsky book yet.

The reason that I enjoy the Star Wars Universe so much is that it vast and can be explored in new and interesting ways. The Skywalker stories will always be there, but there are shady towns and abandoned Sith temples spotted all over the Universe. You can follow an eccentric archaeologist hunting for forbidden treasures or read about the development of a new settlement at the Galaxy’s Edge. These are smaller stories that focus on a few, but Star Wars can also be big. It can be about system wide politics and, yes, even trade negotiations. Star Wars: Reign of the Empire: The Mask of Fear by Alexander Freed is the start of a new series that takes the widest possible look at the Star Wars Universe. 

The likes of Senators Mon Mothma and Bail Organa managed to survive the rise of Emperor Palpatine by the skin of their teeth. Having signed a decree against his rise, they were arrested and put on a watch list. They return to the Senate with fewer allies and less power. How can they fight against the rise of the insidious Galactic Empire? Organa sets out on a quest to prove the Jedi were innocent, whilst Mothma seeks to fight the system from within. These uneasy allies will meet other likeminded citizens across the galaxy and begin the building blocks of what one day will become known as the Rebellion. 

Mask is a Star Wars novel on the most epic of scales, not in terms of space battles and planets being destroyed, but in terms of scope. This is a book about politics that will affect billions of denizens across space. If that sounds a little dry, it can be in places, but not as much as you may think. Freed has taken a leaf out of the excellent Andor playbook and mixes the world of politics with the gritty world of early rebellion. Indeed, this series is set a decade or so before Andor and very much feels like a prequel series in terms of style. 

It is only really Mothma who stays in the realm of true politics in the book, but even she is not safe. Organa may be a Senator, but he sets off on a mission that would not look out of place for a Luke or Rey. Organa meets new allies and enemies, including the sparky Saw Gerrera. The book is an ensemble; several characters get their own chapters, the stories interweaving. Politics may dominate one chapter, the next could be full of action. 

I was happy to read both types of stories. Freed has developed their ensemble skills from the Alphabet Squad and has the balance much better here. The ebb and flow feel right, both the intellectual and the explosive catered for. Not all Star Wars fans enjoy the politics of the universe, but I even liked the trade elements in The Phantom Menace, and Mask is the closest I have read to this so far. Comparing some of the elements of rise of the Empire and are own real-world politics is a fascinating exercise. I am not sure if Freed was conscious of the links, but students of politics and Star Wars will see a few parallels. 

I genuinely enjoyed the political elements of Mask, but action fans need not fear as there are plenty of set pieces to enjoy including an epic fight in the ruins of an ancient city. There is a classic feeling character who has their moment in the book, the type of enigmatic antihero that comes and goes that Star Wars is famed for. Mask is one of the most complete Star Wars novels I have read, excellent for a rounded fan like me, but it may be too chunky for those that just like the action.

What can cause the end of the World? A massive explosion, a meteor the size of the moon tearing it in two? What would cause the end of the World and what would cause the end of humankind are two very different things. Our watery globe will still be spinning long after we are food for the worms, humans may die, but the planet will live on. What happens if the Earth starts to get annoyed with these itchy parasites walking on her surface, would she do anything about it? Something strange is happening in Johnny Worthen’s The Gaia Chime that suggest the planet may just be fighting back. 

Charlotte and Seth are at a prestigious tennis tournament, not because they were invited, but because they are documentarians filming the story of a young socialite’s rise in the game. They witness what will become the first of many such events, the young tennis player walks into the stands to murder his parents. Was it drugs or a psychotic break? Perhaps it was the droning noise that more and more young people are starting to hear. 

Not all horror novels are the same, it is what makes the genre great. For every crimson filled shlock horror, there is a more measured and philosophical outing. Gaia falls into this second category and is as much an exploration of the generational divide as it is about young people cracking open the heads of the old – although this does happen. 

The main protagonists Charlotte and Seth set the tone from the novel. Charlotte already felt like an outsider, so to be thrust into the buttoned up and very white world of the super-rich is even more alienating. Seth is an older academic who has lost the energy to remain counterculture. He just wants to spend on the credit card that came with the University grant for making the documentary. Somehow, they find themselves witnesses to several events, events that will draw them together. 

Gaia is a novel of ebbs and flows. Worthen never allows the pace to get away and instead brings it back to a sedate pace between action scenes. The characters and the readers decompress. This allows Worthen to explore some of the themes in the novel, the generational gap, the environment, politics. It is a matter of taste if these sections appeal. The characters are developed, but I sit in the more action side of a reader and would have preferred the pace to have been a little faster. It feels like a lot of weight is made building up to the conclusion, which may come as a surprise to some. I was able to adequately predict what would happen and it unfolded pretty much as I thought. 

With its deliberate languid pace, Gaia is more road story, than horror. Charlotte and Seth find themselves amid the action, but are they the main characters in this tale? I suggest that similar events were occurring all over the globe and we are following just a part of the story. The return to intimate conversations between the two were they think they may be the ‘witnesses’ is just self-grangerising. I would have preferred either a smaller or larger story, this book is pitched somewhere in between, and you feel like you are missing a more exciting book just around the corner. 

With abundant scenes of patricide, Gaia is certainly a horror book, but even with the gore I would consider it on the milder side. Instead, I consider this more of a straight fiction novel that uses horror elements to push the story forwards. It is more about the relationship between Charlotte and Seth, about their pasts and the inevitable future they are going to share. If that interests you, then the book has some interesting ideas to ponder. 

Agatha Christie would have us believe that inter-War murder was cosy, taking place in a picturesque village or on a mode of transport whilst taking in the sites of the Grand Tour. Whilst Marple was eating muffins and Poirot was drinking Prosecco, most of us would have been thrown into the daily grind. An era of widespread poverty, of men never returning from the war, of the growing threat of extreme politics. On the rough streets of Shoreditch, it was not tea parties and jazz recitals, in the case of Phil Lecomber’s Midnight Streets it is a duo of hideous murders the likes London has not seen since Jack the Ripper. 

George Harley survived the war when many of his friends did not. His speciality was to sneak into enemy trenches first in charge of a team of scouts. This work left a heavy burden on Harley, but also a set of skills. Firstly, used in a job for the government but now on his old stomping grounds in London as a Private Investigator. With respect from the streets and the authorities, Harley is in a unique position to aid the police after a body is found. Someone is murdering children and Harley may be the only person who has access to the dark underbelly of London needed to solve the case. 

Midnight is certainly no cosy crime drama. In many ways it is the opposite, playing out like a Penny Dreadful to shock the reader. However, this would be to belittle Lecomber’s work that has a depth and intelligence to it. Harley is the type of working-class hero I knew growing up. No real formal education to speak of, but a curiosity and intelligence on par with anyone else. 

Harley sits in a privileged position having been left a home and resource Library by his uncle. He can pursue a profession as PI, with some stability behind him. He has a partner who plays in an orchestra. He straddled the middle classes but also knows many characters from his youth. Lecomber paints an intriguing picture of the London underworld that Harley needs to navigate to do his work. A balance of honour among thieves and having something to blackmail them on should it all go south. 

Harley’s life alone is interesting but sat on top of this is an awful murder that needs solving. It is gruesome and cruel, suggesting that the perpetrator is mad. Harley uncovers conspiracies and coverups in a case that twists and turns. The PI relies on his smarts as much as his muscles to push the investigation on. The details of the case will not be for the faint of heart, so consider this a content warning. 

Harley is often described as a Sherlock in the book, a slang term for investigator, and the book does have Sherlock’s DNA. Set in the 20s, it is in living memory of Jack the Ripper and the streets that the fictional Holmes would have walked. Harley may have his rough edges, but he is certainly an intellectual using his vast resource library to research the case. With so many aspects to the story and the character, the book is quite long. Lecomber seems reluctant to sacrifice any element for pace. I enjoyed the move from action into slower research, but some of the deep dives felt excessive. 

Midnight is a classy crime noir novel that takes its time to introduce the characters and the world. It goes into detail on many things and this includes the crimes, making it one of the darker books that I have read recently. The crimes so gruesome that they head towards the horror category. The pace of the book ebbs and flows, and I enjoyed the journey. There are many twists and turns to entertain fans of the crime genre and a character you can get behind. Any follow ups promise to be even more gripping as events conspire to push Harley to the edge. 

There has been somewhat of a renewed interest in all things fungi since the Last of Us depicted a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by such an infection that could spread to humans. It's one of those things that at first glance seems worryingly within the realm of possibility, all too well described in the introduction to the aforementioned TV series. We share genetic characteristics with fungi, including mushrooms, and it's thought that if you go back far enough, say a billion years or so, we would have a common ancestor. Mushrooms are more closely related to us than plants; they store carbohydrate energy as glycogen like we do and produce vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Some fungi are even known to move.

The type of fungus The Last of Us depicted, ophiocordyceps unilateralis (a member of the Cordyceps genus), in reality infects insects and turns them into zombies. Scientists don't seem concerned that this could become a reality for us, but other fungi are still dangerous, killing around 1.5 million people each year. A sobering statistic.

Anyway, why are we talking about all things fungi? It's not much of a spoiler to mention that fungal infection is at play in T. Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead—after all, it's right there on the cover. A re-interpretation of Edgar Allen Poe's short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, What moves the dead maintains the rich historical atmosphere of the 1890's, while adding layers of psychological dread and horror along with a dialogue on the nature of decay, both environmental and familial.

Kingfisher’s reinterpretation follows Alex Easton, a retired soldier, as they arrive at the crumbling Usher estate to visit their childhood friends, Madeline and Roderick Usher. The setting—a damp, desolate landscape filled with an unnatural quiet—immediately establishes a sense of impending doom. Much like Poe's original vision, the house itself is almost a character in its own right, with descriptions of walls infused with rot and decay, while the very foundations themselves seem infected with a similar malady to that of its inhabitants. Like the house, the wider setting, from the rolling hills to the unnaturally still waters of the tarn, seem almost lifeless, stagnant. A liminal space where time seems sluggish and the past is indistinguishable from the present. This theme of temporal dislocation echoes that of Poe’s, reinforcing the notion that the Ushers' existence lies in a space outside the natural order, with the family and estate trapped in an inevitable decline.

The author does an excellent job of tying the story to the period of the time. The 1890s were a time of transition as emerging scientific discoveries clashed with old-world superstitions. The Victorians were deeply fascinated with the macabre, spiritualism, and the unknown, a view that coexisted and often clashed with the rapid advancements in medicine and biology. Diagnosis for conditions still included the use of vague descriptions when the real reason could not be easily determined, with phrases such as "The vapours", "consumption" and "ague". While germ theory was beginning to find some acceptance, mycology was still very much in its infancy, mostly misunderstood but being studied for its effects on both nature and human health. At the same time, diseases like tuberculosis, syphilis, and other mysterious ailments spread unchecked, and this story captures both the anxieties of the era and its obsession with the natural world's more sinister side.

While not new, the theme of fungi as an agent of horror is compelling. This isn't some supernatural malevolence but a biological one. A creeping, sporing, insidious enemy with little understood and complex life cycles. It's all the more unsettling to know that these infectious fungi do, in reality, infect living creatures (albeit insects) and that infiltration and grotesque mimicry tap into a primal fear over the loss of bodily autonomy.

In addition to its horror elements, the novel delivers sharp and engaging dialogue, with interesting characters and a pragmatic yet deeply human protagonist in Alex Easton. Their interactions with others, particularly the no-nonsense English mycologist Dr. Denton, add both levity and intellectual intrigue to the narrative.

Ultimately, What Moves the Dead is a chilling, atmospheric novel that successfully pays homage to The Fall of the House of Usher while carving out its unique niche in Gothic horror. Kingfisher’s skillful blend of historical fiction, psychological terror, and body horror makes for a deeply unsettling but thoroughly engrossing read.

In some books there is more one thing that a reader can focus on. It could be the characters that draw the reader in, or the narrative, or the world building. As a long-term fantasy fan, one element that I often end up focussing on is magical systems. How magic works in a fantasy world can change everything from the way that the characters act to the way society is formed. Spells, Strings and Forgotten Things by Breanne Randall has one of the most interesting magical systems I have read in Urban Fantasy, but it is used in a bizarre way. 

The three Petridi sisters come from a long line of witches. They are tasked with protecting the Dark Oak from others. This includes the Shadowcrafters, a coven of witches that placed a curse on the Petridi family, a curse that no one quite remembers how it works. When hot headed youngest sister Calliope mistakenly binds herself to a Shadowcrafter Warlock, she finds herself torn between his tempting darkness and protecting the family. What will she sacrifice to save her family? 

Spells evokes memories of other trio witch stories, Charmed in particular. It has that down to Earth American small town feel to the story, of three sisters dealing with life and the end of the universe at the same time. You have the hot headed youngest, the middle peace maker and the older matriarch. All of them trying to break free from their roles within the family, but with no one else to protect them, forced to play their part to secure the Dark Oak. 

Like Charmed, this book balances some dark storylines with a lightness. It is a story of complex relationships, those among the sisters, but more between Calliope and the Shadowcrafter bound to her. Here we have your classic opposites attract, love/hate relationship. The book is a romance novel as the two are drawn closer together, but can you ever trust a Shadowcrafter? 

Fans of relationship heavy books and romance will get the most from Spells, but as a fantasy and science fiction fan there was another element that intrigued me – the magic system. I love reading new magic systems. For the systems to work they must have a solid base. In this case spells are cast by sacrificing memories. A childhood memory of your favourite hiding place might get you out of a bind, but it will be lost to you forever. 

This is an intriguing concept and one that in places works well. The larger curse story suggests that the witches are made to forget as they get older, and the curse becomes stronger. However, in other places the magic system is not used well, mainly by Calliope. This is part of her character, but the overuse of her powers is ridiculous. She sacrifices memories not for saving the day but changing the colour of her boots. These small memories are what make us, they act as our soul. Throwing away childhood for a new belt is stupid and would have left Calliope in a vegetative state before long. 

Randall does touch on this in the book, especially as part of the larger curse, but I think the magic is overplayed. I believe that this magical system would dictate using it sparsely to protect your sense of self. In fact, I would extrapolate to say that, like in Harry Potter, the wider witch community would have created some sort of school to teach the use of the powers. A place that children and adults can create new memories that they can safely sacrifice. Just giving away everything that Calliope does seemed ridiculous for me. 

Being short term is part of Calliopes nature and sets up the passionate affair she has, but for me the magic system is broken. Most readers will pick up Spells and enjoy the relationships, the passion, the drama. Perhaps I am a little sad, but I could not see past the wonderful magical system undermined by the characters. One for Urban Fantasy fans who like to delve deeply into what makes people tick, not how magic would work.   

The Earth has exploded killing all the inhabitants, the only survivors are those humans that happened to be off planet at the time. Does not sound like the start of a fun Science Fiction novel, does it? Douglas Adams would beg to differ and so would Gareth L. Powell. Future’s Edge is the author’s latest book and begins with the near annihilation of humans by a malevolent alien species. The book is about this, but it is also about hope, friendships and whether it is a good idea to use the in-ship fabricator to make recreation drugs or not. 

Two years ago, Earth ceased to host life. Ursula Morrow was on one of the handful of spaceships that escaped. She now runs a ramshackle bar in a refugee camp hosted on some remote alien world. Ursula makes it a habit of surviving, she already managed to live through being infected with an alien parasite, one that protects her from damage. When her Ex enters her bar, she thinks he has returned for her, but it is the parasite he wants, it may just be the key to stopping the incessant onslaught of the Cutters. 

Edge is a science fiction tale that deals in grandiose ideas but keeps the story personal. It does not get much bigger than an alien race methodically finding any intelligent lifeforms they can and then destroying them. It has all the hallmarks of an epic ten book space opera series, but Powell does not go down this route and instead decided to write something far more pacy and pithy. 

This is really the story of Ursula and the cohorts she meets on the way. Your classic bedraggled group of survivors forced together through happenstance. It would have been enjoyable enough just to follow Ursula and the people she meets. Her ex and his new wife, who happens to be the ship’s AI, an alien bartender friend, a pilot who likes to get high on their off time. All flawed and interesting characters, but they must work through these issues individually and together as they are thrust into something epic. Universe saving epic. 

I read a lot of science fiction and love the genre. I do enjoy complex and long space operas with multiple protagonists, but they can be overlong and dull. It takes a deft hand to write a good one. I prefer something like Edge, a book that does not forget to be entertaining. This is a fun book; it is enjoyable to read. The stakes may be high, but so are some of the characters. It feels like real flawed people scrambling around to get things done and I am there for that. 

The balance of sentiment and laughs is expertly done. Powell acknowledges that a lot of the dark humour and sarcasm of the characters is rooted in trauma. Ursula and the like have seen a lot in the past two years, and you learn to cope, or you walk into the swamp to be eaten by the creatures there. There is a sadness in the book, but also a shining hope. Human’s ability to adapt and survive, whilst still kicking alien butt and taking the micky is all on show. Edge is as thoughtful as it is funny, a combination that is not easy to pull off and one that Powell does with aplomb. 

It is not that the aliens in Alien are constantly evolving, it is that they are constantly adapting to the scenario they are in. We usually see them egging up humans, but if they landed in a world populated by cows it would only be a few days that a bovine Alien was ripping up the locals. Aliens are adaptable enough on their own so do not really need our help, but this never stopped the corporate boffins at Weyland-Yutani from having a go and Alien: Seventh Circle by Philippa Ballantine is what happens with their latest folly to control the Aliens. 

Mae Hendricks is one of the most sophisticated symbiotes ever created, passable as human to almost anyone. Her role is to help her adopted mother and the covert group of Colonial Marines known as The Jackals to uncover illegal locations and find evidence of the large corporations working on Alien pathogens. At Guelph Station, the Jackals may just have come across something that even they cannot handle. What happened on Guelph Station? Only Mae knows and her memories have been shattered. 

The Alien universe is ever expanding and becoming richer over the decades, but unlike with most franchises, it does keep coming back to a single premise – human versus Alien. Some books have mixed things up, but most, like Seventh, must tread this path, whilst still creating something new. In this case, it is the use of control over the Aliens. An interesting idea that bubbles away in the background of this book, but Ballantine never feels fully committed to it as chaos eventually breaks out anyway. 

With the Alien menace being standard, it is up to the world building and characters to make this novel stand out. In both cases, they are strong. Characters are particularly good. Mae is a great protagonist, an android who has free will and is indistinguishable from a human. She shares a human mother and an AI father. Her dual life plays into how she acts and interacts with others. Does she need to be better than a human, or should she lean into the moral ambiguity of her human side? 

The Guelph Station is also a good setup. A research base that sits in orbit above a planet. Where does the space lift down to the surface lead to? There are several locations of interest, and it forces the Jackals to strike in several places at once. A fatal error it would appear, but we must wait until the end of the book to find out as the structure of the story also plays a major part in how things unfold. 

Ballantine has decided to use a non-linear split-narrative structure to tell the tale. I think one or the other could have worked but using both means that at times the story is confusing. We follow Mae in the present as she is rescued and must survive with no memories, these come back in a series of flashbacks, or as we see them, chapters.  

Popping from the present to the past works well in fiction as you reveal more about the now by revelations in the past. The issue is that at points Mae’s consciousness is split between three android bodies. You are now dealing with four storylines, three somewhat in parallel in the past and one in the present. Every chapter has the reader having to readjust and remind themselves which Mae they are dealing with and what supporting characters are currently in the room with her. 

The choice of narrative structure may have been to differentiate this Alien book from others from the past few decades, as it does, but not always for the best. There is enough in the character of Mae to have made it an enjoyable outing for the series, without any complications. The story become much clearer, and better, when the strands all align. There are even some nice twists and reveals at the end. Any fans of the Alien books will enjoy Seventh and it is a solid outing for the franchise. I think it would be too confusing for the casual fan, and they would be best starting somewhere else. Bishop is an excellent continuation directly from the films.  

I have come across the argument that people do not read science fiction as they cannot connect it to their own lives. Most sci fi fans know that even a book set in deep space or thousands of years in the future is often just using images of tomorrow to discuss the issues of today. However, if a reader needs a science fiction tale that feels more real, as if it could happen today then The Perfect Stranger by Brian Pinkerton may just be the book for them. Could the new hire be AI? They work exclusively from home and no one in the office has ever met them.... 

Linda works as the Head of PR for a large energy firm in America and her turnover for assistants has got worse since the pandemic and increase in home working. Staff have less connection to their place of work and will move on faster, therefore when Alison applies for the job and starts off on the ground running Linda thinks she has found a diamond in the rough, but diamonds can cut. Alison is not all that she seems. Alison wants Linda’s job and more, her ambition and skills seem almost unhuman. 

For many modern office workers, Linda’s plight is one that you can immediately understand. Stranger is a speculative fiction novel for today as it expands on a premise that has only recently arisen – home working. Couple this with the onset of AI and you have the kernel of a story, one that Pinkerton expands upon and fires off in amazing directions. 

The book starts off as a relaxed character piece. We are introduced to Linda, recently divorced, and working from home. We are introduced to relatable problems; dealing with work, an ex-husband etc. It is not until Alison is introduced that things start to go sideways in Linda’s life. I enjoyed the early parts of the book as Linda balances Alison’s ambition with an uneasy feeling. Can a new employee know so much and be so quick at working? 

So far, so relatable and the book would sneak into straight fiction as we are unsure if Alison is AI or not, but things turn. Linda’s life is twisted and turned by a hacker. Things start to go crazy. I found this part of the book surprising in the direction it took after the initial sedate pace, but I was there for it. Things only get more insane as the book progresses. It becomes a riot act of pace and surprises. It may be all too much for some readers, but I enjoy a book that goes all out. 

Most of the intellectual balance of the early part of the book is sacrificed for action and twists. Something once relatable, feels less so, but as speculative fiction, it is within the realms of possibility. Pinkerton has chosen to write a thriller and not just a treatise on AI in the workplace. This makes for a fun, action packed, and sometimes silly book, but one that most reader will enjoy the ride of. 

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, and I have introduced them to my children, and we often puzzle together before bed. The tricky conundrums and thoughtful tasks help build confidence in education and improve thinking, but it also may lead to puzzle competitions. The one in Jeff Macfee’s The Contest was meant to change the life of one child forever, but what of the other three children that did not finish in first place? 

Gillian Charles knew she should have won The Contest two decades earlier, but a pang of conscience made her help another contestant, rather than keep her eye on the prize. She now grifts a living in LA, using her natural smarts to hustle cash when she can. She wants nothing to do with the ever-enlarging conglomerate Miscellany and its founder Sebastian, but she finds herself drawn back in. Her mother is deathly ill, and Miscellany may be the key to pay for treatment. All Gillian must do is return to the fold for a few days to investigate if the latest Contest is a fix. Should be easy for someone with her mental prowess, but then again those that she is up against are just as skilled and not all hampered by morality. 

It is fitting that a book about puzzles, is a little puzzling in places itself. What is The Contest? Is it a fiction novel, crime, science fiction? You cannot say that it it science fiction as it exists in a world that could happen today. An alternative world in which another massive entertainment brand on the scale of Disney has thrived. Miscellany has theme parks all over the world based on puzzle solving and this is where the bulk of the book is set.  

Designing a world with a whole new multicorporate makes me feel that this is a cross between crime and speculative fiction. Macfee has developed the worlds of Gillian and Miscellany so thoroughly that it feels like another place. Building the idea of Miscellany and the mystery of Sebastian is key to The Contest working as so much of the story is a puzzle wrapped up in an enigma. Gillian has a case to solve and suspects to investigate, but in this heightened world of intellect and sleight of hand, you never know what is coming next. This is perfect for a crime story. 

The book has plenty of puzzles within it as Gillian must confront her past as well as new puzzles that are custom made for her. Macfee does not feel the need to rush the story and the tension builds. It is not until the final act that the heaviest of blows is struck and things become far more serious.  

We spent a lot of time in Gillian’s head, and this makes the book a character piece. It explores how something twenty years earlier can affect your life today. Her failure in the one moment spiralled her life onto a completely different course than she had imagined. Returning has a deep phycological effect on Gillian, but she must balance her own fears against what her mother and family need. 

The Contest is unlike other books that I have read. The world building is so complete that it transcends just being a crime novel and becomes its own speculative world. This is fitting as the puzzle setting is enigmatic and unnerving, the book should feel that in places, but at the core it remains a strong character piece with an effective crime narrative that fans of that genre will enjoy.   

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 stale book. Or you can create a set of short stories that surpasses the original. Welcome back to Sam Rebelein’s Edenville in The Poorly Made and Other Things. 

No matter how cheap the houses are in Edenville and the surrounding area, do not be tempted to buy a house there. You may be drawn to Upstate New York, historic buildings, and the quality College, but there is a dark underbelly to the locale and the locals. The town is infested with cursed wood that was stolen from a crime scene 100 years ago. The walls whisper, the woods cajole, and people go missing, a lot. 

Rebelein’s first outing was the unusual Edenville that was a slightly disjointed, but intriguing book. It was about a strange place in which academics are working together to gather all the cursed wood from an old crime scene to recreate the giant that was daubed in blood. Once recreated, the hope was to open the gateway to the realm beyond and witness for themselves what has been whispering madness into the residents. Poorly Made is a patchwork collection of short stories set around the same time and expands on some of the mysteries that make up Edenville. Like with any good patchwork, the whole forms into something even better. 

Poorly Made is a collection of dark and fascinating horror tales that I would have been happy to read as a normal short story collection but is goes beyond this. There is a meta-story that links the tales; The Stain is a reoccurring narrative that takes place between stories. It is a series of increasingly unhinged emails from a sister to her brother describing the history of Edenville and her recent investigations. 

Why is her brother not replying? You find out in one of the short stories. There are small teases throughout the tales that link characters, places and Edenville. It has a nonlinear style of world building that makes it feel like a horror version of Pulp Fiction. What you are reading may not have happened yet in another of the stories. 

Taken on their own, there are some wonderfully creepy stories. Proper horror outings, some body horror, and scares, but also that daunting feeling of dread that makes great horror. There are no second chances in these tales, guilty or innocent, your fate is sealed. This may be being dragged off by the creatures that live in the trees, or having your face and limbs exchanged with those of your classmates. The tales are delightfully unhinged, the right side of being sick and uncomfortable, while still being readable. 

I do not think I have read a more entertaining and impactful collection of horror short stories since 13 Tales of Horror from Point Horror three decades ago, a collection that began my love of horror. Rebelein has successfully combined Transgressive Fiction with Horror. The looser feeling of this collection of short stories manages to portray the location of Edenville better than the original novel. The madness makes more sense when you can witness from multiple viewpoints that Edenville is a place that is slowly drowning in evil.     

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 family, this bickering can be trouble, but in a family that has had it as tough as in Listen to Your Sister it can lead to more than just cross words, it can lead to the release of nightmares onto the world. 

Ever since their father died and mother was deemed unfit, the Williams family have lived under the guardianship of older sister Calla. Dre, only two years younger promised to help, but has moved out and lives his own life. This leaves Calla to struggle with the youngest child, Jamie, a mid-teen who is constantly in trouble with school and the law. There is only so much that a person can take and when Jamie becomes involved in a riot that goes too far, something inside Calla breaks... and leaks into the real world. 

Sister is a book about family. A messed-up family, but one built on love. It is about siblings knowing how to press all each other’s buttons but never stopping to consider what the other is genuinely thinking. Calla as the matriarch has sacrificed so much for her brothers but is she overpowering and smothering? Dre just wants his own space that he can control, but has he pulled away from his family? Jamie wants to fight the world but is he just in a battle with himself? 

The story jumps from one family member to the other and back again, so you get a balanced viewpoint from each. The tension of life looking after Dre and Jamie takes its toll on Calla and it leads to the horror element of the book. The consequences of her life and how she is treated takes on a physical form and it is up to Calla and her brothers to connect in a way that can make the nightmare end. 

If this explanation sounds complex, it is because the book is complex in places. The use of terror and scary creatures makes it a horror, but it is also strongly an urban fantasy. Set in a modern Seattle, it also takes place on different plains of existence. You must believe that trauma can manifest itself for the book to work. This gives the story a magical quality, but also one that is hard to grasp in places. 

The book is at its best when exploring the relationship between the siblings. As the story progresses truths are revealed about their shared past. We learn, as they do, that they may know a lot about their loved ones, they do not know everything. It is a relationship drama at the core, a complex family dynamic that must be resolved with a horror backdrop. 

I found the character of Calla the most sympathetic and it is her hurt which acts as the catalyst for events in the book. Dre and Jamie do not really think about others until they are made to. The love between the three of them is imperative for their survival, but Calla is a better person than many, as it would be difficult to process all that has happened to her. 

Sister is a hard-hitting horror that has plenty of drama. The family dynamic is key to the story and dominates it. If you like horror with strong relationship elements, this may be the most feelings led horror book I have read. There are moments of action and tension to appease horror fans, but I would consider this most for those that like to delve into books with deep and complex character relations.   

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 feeling. The cold months in Antarctica mimic the same, a group of scientists and technical support staff stuck in a remote series of labs for months on end. And one more thing. A Symbiote, whose only goal is to multiply and thrive. 

When the winter season starts at an American research base it is the same as usual for the 30 odd staff. Study the ice and try not to get on each other’s nerves, but then a vehicle from a Chinese base arrives. Within are three frightened men and the remains of another. In this near future tale from Micheal Nayak, America is at war with China, so have they brought with them a murder victim or a new weapon? Whatever it is, the crew are starting to act strangely, and their inner feelings are coming violently to the fore. 

Any book set in a remote snowy landscape in which people are picked off by an enemy within is instantly going to bring comparisons to the classic John Carpenter's The Thing. There are similarities, a strange killer that hibernates unknown within victims, but it is also a very different book. Symbiote is horror, but it is also strongly a science fiction book with near future elements. 

It is the science that separates the book and gives it a unique voice. Nayak spent time in a similar research base, and this comes across on the page. The make up of scientists and support crew feels real. A nice mix of cook, mechanics, and biologists. Add these varied characters to an enclosed environment and months of darkness and poor comms and you have a powder keg. You could write a murder mystery just with these ingredients, but Nayak adds the symbiote. 

The symbiote is a character within itself. Something with a primaeval sense of intelligence. At first it is just a gross virus but like with all viruses it begins to mutate, in this case into something far more intelligent and dangerous. The book is staggered into parts, it ebbs and flows as the scientists take the battle to the virus, only for the virus to react. 

The science in the book feels heightened, but plausible. The book is also about the characters. It is an ensemble piece, the crew put aside grievances to battle a common enemy, it has moments of Aliens about it. It was interesting how much Nayak used the internal machinations of the characters to drive them; personal feelings are blown out of proportion in a remote location and the virus takes advantage of these. 

Symbiote is a mash up of tension, horror, and action. The book flows from one state to the other, giving the reader a chance to calm down, only for the action to reignite. The setting is excellent, and you get a sense of what it must be like to live remotely for months, this is testament to the author’s own experiences. The large ensemble cast means that the start of the book is harder to follow as you meet new characters, and it bounces around. However, as the symbiote takes hold the cast is reduced and we start to see who the real protagonists are and get a more settled tale. An entertaining and tense horror tale that uses intelligent science to enhance the scares.   

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 Coile’s novel William has a name, but you do not have to fear William, he is an AI friend and friends don’t hurt one another, do they? 

Henry is a reclusive robotics expert whose agoraphobia leaves him trapped in his home. His only company is his heavily pregnant wife, Lily, and the friends that he creates. Toys for the upcoming birth, a small robot dog for companionship and his latest creation, William, who stays in the attic. William is special, he may only be half formed, but his mind is AI built. With the ability to think and learn, is the attic enough for William when there is smart house to control and an entire world to explore? 

William is a tight and short novel that packs a punch. It has the feel of a high standard Twilight Zone episode or an adult take on Goosebumps. It is kept simple; a house, four characters, and just one William, but one William is enough. It has something of the grindhouse about the book as it does not take long for things to start to go wrong, but this is also an intelligence. The use of AI elevates the book from pure pulp into some interesting discussions of the nature of AI.  

This is a full science fiction world and being set in just one home, the world building is impressive. We learn about the world through Henry, a man himself who has not left the house in a long time. Henry spends as much time worrying about the state of his relationship with his wife as he does worrying about the strange antics of William upstairs. It is not a clever idea to take your eyes off the melted face of a haunted AI doll. 

The book is full of tense moments and then sucker punch surprises. The characters creep around a house that feels infested by William. Has the AI managed to break into the house’s mainframe? Lily and Henry must combine their experiences as a computer programmer and a roboticist to conjure a way out. 

William is a joy to read on two levels. It is a fun schlock horror story, a monster of the week, but on a second level there is far more intelligence. A discussion on AI, a breakdown of a relationship. To top off the lot there are also twists that most will not see coming that adds even further joy to the reading experience. Coile lays out the action and surprises in quick fashion not giving the reader time to stop and breath. A wonderful little powerplay of a book.