News for 2015

To celebrate the release of the quite excellent Twelve Kings, (click the link to see our review) we've been lucky enough to be provided with an extract of the novel and an introduction by the author.

Throughout the book, I have several other characters interspersed with those of Çeda, the story’s main character. One of those...

Gollancz paperback of the Month for September is Richard Morgan's The Dark Defiles, conclusion to the incredible series A land fit for Heroes.

Following on from The Steel Remains and The Cold Commands, The Dark Defiles is epic fantasy in every sense of the word. A fitting conclusion to one of the great "dark" fantasy series of the 21st Century, absolutely not to be missed. Perfect for anyone looking for fantasy with a hard-edge.

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As many readers will know, this year there has been a concerted effort by a small but vocal minority to "game" the Hugo awards and try and put science fiction back by a few decades. They don't want to see ethnic and gender diversity in "their" science fiction and many of the Hugo award shortlists for this year were full of this small groups short-sighted, predominantly white male fiction.

Thankfully the larger science fiction...

Gollancz Paperback of the Month August 2015 is John Scalzi's novel Lock In which we reviewed back in January. It's not, as you might expect a novel about late night pub drinking, instead it's a science fiction police procedural which describes a pandemic virus which causes 99% of the population to suffer "flu like" symptoms. The other 1%  become "locked in" to their own bodies, fully awake, but unable to move or respond to stimulus (a...

Gollancz Paperback of the Month for July 2015 is the impressive novel The Relic Guild by Edward Cox, reviewed by our good man Allen Stroud back in September last year. Allen seemed impressed:

Sometimes a book comes along that reminds you of the pleasure of being a reader and/or a writer, a book that you start at the right time and cannot fail to admire... ...an exciting debut from a writer who plainly loves what he has made and I’m...

To celebrate the release of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s SF epic Children of Time, the author has kindly agreed to put some words together in an altogether pleasing arrangement.

Children of Time and Speculative Evolution By Adrian Tchaikovsky

It began with a man named Dougal Dixon.

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Gollancz Paperback of the month for May 2015 is Adam Roberts exceptional story of artificial Intelligence, Bête — which we reviewed last October. Roberts is a writer who seems to improve with each book he writes and Bête is quite simply stunning. It's set sometime in the near future and explores our relationship with the natural world and how that is changing with the steady march of technological progress. Witty and clever, it was one of...

This years Arthur C Clarke award had an impressive shortlist — Dave Hutchinson's incredible vision of a fractured future Europe In Autumn, Claire North's time travel escapade The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August, M.R. Carey's haunting thriller The Girl with all the gifts. Michel Faber's science fiction Christianity voyage Book of strange new...

For those of you that don't know, I've been pretty involved in the community around Elite: Dangerous the computer game since its successful Kickstarter at the end of 2012 . I wrote one of the official novels, reviewed here by Ant on SFBook and I help run the podcast Lave Radio, that's been following the...

This month Gollancz paperback releases include a number of unmissable novels.

Paperback of the month is Peter Higgins Truth and Fear, the superb follow-up to the singular novel Wolfhound Century - SFBook of the year for 2013 and a 21st century classic in the making. Set in an alternative Russia with a vast forest and ancient god-like powers, Truth and Fear continues the story of Wolfhound Century and is everything a follow-up book...

The Hugo awards, often considered to be the most coveted and prestigious award within the SFF genre, has always had a political side — this isn't news and to be fair it would be almost impossible to find an award that isn't influenced in some way by those who organise and of course those who vote. I've always tried to stay away...

M. Jess Peacock has clearly led an interesting life, drawing all manner of examples out of an imaginative childhood for re-examination under the academic’s microscope. This exploration of the vampire archetype and its application in a multitude of fiction highlights several themes, allowing us to view this icon of horror fiction through the...

We are delighted to welcome Gavin G. Smith for a special guest post. Gavin’s new book A Quantum Mythology is out now in bookshops and we are thrilled to share with you a deleted scene from it. Gavin G. Smith’s new epic space opera is a wide-ranging exploration of the past, present and future of mankind.

A note from Gavin...

Gollancz has a number of treats this month with their releases in paperback.

Paperback of the month is volume one and two of the Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. The Words of Radiance is the latest novel in Sanderson's epic series The Stormlight Archive and follows on from The Way of Kings. Set on a planet constantly ravaged by fierce storms and with a unique magic system, if The Way of Kings is anything to go by, Words of...

I am sure that I speak for all here at SFBook when I say how sad we are to hear of to hear of the passing of Sir Terry Pratchett, knight of the realm. As I've mentioned before his talent was unique, each of his novels a priceless gem with so much humour, intelligence and wit. There was, and likely never will be...

Although some people consider science fiction novels to be a literary realm where only nerds dare to tread, savvy readers realize that there is more to this genre than spaceships and robots. Set amid the trappings of futuristic technology and otherworldly locales, science fiction has the power to raise thematic questions about very human issues, such as race, foreign policy, ethics, and human rights, through the fantastic filter of the...

To help celebrate the forthcoming release of Guns of the Dawn - an action-packed pseudo-historical fiction novel (Out 12th February in ebook and hardback), Adrian Tchaikovsky has kindly agreed to write a few words.

So Guns of the Dawn is the story of a woman who joins the army, in a fantasy world that has a fair amount to do with the...

At the start of every year, we - like many websites - look back at the year that has passed swiftly by and consider what books we enjoyed.

Usually SFBook just chooses one "Book of the Year" however this time our reviewers have also thought about the book that they most enjoyed reading in 2014.

Cleggy Chose:

DL Denham Chose:

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