Reviews with titles starting D
Dagger of the Mind is a speculative fiction book by Bob Shaw. Dagger of the Mind, is a strange book. It takes off normally (well..) enough, Redpath is an epileptic living in a small english town. To make a buck, he participates in a series of experiments involving a new drug Compound 183. The...
Damnation Alley is a post-apocalytic tale of survival by the Hugo and Nebula award winner Roger Zelazny. Set in the decades after a devastating nuclear war, the former USA is a very different place. With mass destruction, dangerous mutants, large areas of deadly radiation and a worldwide wind...
Dangerous Visions was originally published in 1967 and was the brain child of it's editor Harlan Ellison. Anthologies rarely attract the kind of attention that this one has over the years but then most don't win major awards for more than half a dozen of it's stories either. Hugo award wins...
If you could find out your exact time of death down to the last second, would you take up the option? For some it could be liberating, they will pack their lives until the last moment. For others, their death will become even more of a...
The problem with being zipped away by some alien entity and then shown how the Universe works is that no one will believe you on your return. Imagine your friend returning from their lunch break to say that they have just been told that the world is going to end in two days unless we all follow...
This review was originally published in 2012 and has been re-published following the launch of the book in the US, published by Crown Publishing. I often start a review with a bit of blurb about the book itself, setting the scene for the reader and I try to never give too much away - limiting...
I've been collecting Neal Asher novels for ages however until now I've not had chance to read much of his work. Luckily Dark Intelligence has been sent in for review and so I've finally had chance to discover the delight that is the Polity Universe.
Dark Intelligence is all about...
Dark Light is the second volume in the Engines of Light series by Ken Mcleod. This is the first time that I've had any kind of doubt as to what I should write about a MacLeod book. Normally I would just heap words of praise upon other words of praise, until it hit a fitting length for a...
They all tell you that having children is not easy, but nothing prepared us for the first six weeks of having a defenceless little tyke in the house. You may have read the books, been to a few classes or asked relatives and friends, but when it comes down to it, this is all on your...
From the opening chapter I knew this was going to be good. Dark Run launches the reader into a shady future where bickering governments are working to extend their reach across space while criminals and outlaws try to make a quick buck under their noses and out on the frontiers. Fans of Firefly...
Dark Seeker is a speculative fiction novel by K W Jeter. This is basically a horror novel with group drug use/experimentation as the theme. Like a Tim powers or Phil dick book it's got a skewed version of Los Angeles where a group of kids under a university teacher -and a off track...
The crew of the Keiko are back. Mike Brooks hammers out the sequel to his epic, sci-fi adventure, Dark Run; Dark Sky, and it truly is an incredible adventure. It continues the rapid-fire wit from the first, harkens back to the space opera/western of Firefly and blends two different perspectives...
I brought this one by mistake – I thought that it was the new collection containing a new Stephen King short story set in the Dark Tower universe. It wasn't but it's still a nice "little" collection of horror stories. Dark Visions contains seven stories; three by Stephen King, three by Dan...
There are two ways of writing a trilogy of books. One way is to produce three separate novels that can be read independently or viewed as a whole. The other way is to start each book as soon as the last one ends and power through the tale a great speed. This is how P. J. Flie’s Darkness...
Darwins Radio is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear. Just the title alone should give you a good idea as to the subject of this book. Yes, Bear has returned to genetics and luckily Darwin's Radio is a lot better than Blood Music (not that hard). Christopher Dicken finds a mass grave with...
Daughters of the Forgotten Light is set in a deep space penal colony called Oubliette. Floating in space, it's home to the most savage criminals and other members of the population Earth no longer wants.
To survive on Oubiette you need to join a gang and Lena "Horror" Horowitz...
Asimov’s ‘Three laws of Robotics’ have become synonymous with any book that contains robots. Nearly all these books will not allow their robots to hurt humans, but what happens if these rules broke? In C. Robert Cargill’s Day...
Daylight on Iron Mountain is the second book in David Wingrove's epic re-imagining of his Chung Kuo series and follows on from the events in the incredible novel Son of Heaven, I seriously recommend you read that novel first. Although we still have the characters of Jack, Mary and their family...
Dead Lines is a science fiction horror novel by Greg Bear. Peter Russell’s life turned out much different than he expected. He wanted to write books but instead made a living taking picture and making movies of naked people when the soft porn industry flat-lined. Now he is a little more than...
Death Drop is a science fiction novel by Sean Allen. The last known human was exterminated over 400,000 years ago and the known universe is ruled by the savage race known as the Durax, keeping control with their compelling mind powers. War rages against this vehement race and the free people...
I'm often saying that there just isn't enough well written comic fantasy, aside from the likes of Pratchett, Holt, Howard and Rankin the laugh-out-load novels still being written are few and far between and in large the genre is being propped up by writers such as Rob Knipe and RJ Astruc....
Another fun filled and action packed book from the man who has given us The Stainless Steal Rat and Bill the Galactic Hero. The Deathworld stories are much like these other two series, the main difference being that the Deathworld stories are a bit more bloody and a lot less humorous. Not that...
Tanyana has the innate talent to manipulate the very particles that hold matter together, as one of the most skilled pionners in a far-future society she can craft almost anything with just her concentration. An accident however brings her whole life crashing down and she is virtually cast out...
Deception Well is a science fiction novel by Linda Nagata. In this, the third book from this new master, Linda Nagata takes us to the far future and away from earth - paradoxically the characters in this book aren't quite as strange as the characters in her first two books (The Bohr Maker and...
If you had the chance to start over again from an early age and know what you do now, would you take it? A chance to live your life again; buy those shares in Apple, know some of the exam questions and football results? The answer for me is no. 80 years more life is not...
In the dark future of Defender, the majority of the worlds population have died. Killed by themselves and others who were listening to voices steering their horrific actions.
Those who survived live in a hostile environment, unable to trust strangers and fighting over limited...
Darrell Pitt delivers a new take on two well-loved genres in his series Teen Superheroes. Mixing Superhero with Alien Invasion, Pitt creates a world on the verge of an invisible war whose salvation rests in the hands of five teenagers, each as unique as their country of origin. In book one,...
Diaspora is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. About a thousand years in our future an entity is born. Not of man and woman , but as an orphan of Konishi Polis. A Polis is a virtual reality society, where a group of computerbased intelligences are living. There are...
Greg Bear's Dinosaur Summer is a follow up to the old The Lost World a novel written by Sir Author Connan Doyle, taking place in 1947. After Professor Challanger returned from the Lost World, there were a lot of follow up expeditions and dinosaurs were taken back to civilisation, where...
Disaster Park is a science fiction novel by Mark Konkel. Imagine that you could experience the greatest (or worst) disasters in human history, be on board the Titanic as it leaves Southhampton docks on the 10th April 1912 or perhaps a visitor on the 92nd floor of the North Tower on that fateful...
Being a short story lover I’m delighted that dark fiction anthologies are so popular today, but since anthologies are, by definition, mixed bags I’m also aware that in any collection there are stories which are able to enchant and others which simply do not work, even if penned by...
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...
Distress is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. Once again Egan grabs an idea and takes it to the limit, this time to the ultimate limit. In Quarantine he tackled quantum Mechanics, this time he takes on nothing less than the Theory Of Everything (TOE). The year is 2055...
Divergent is the kind of book I stay awake reading until 4am. It gripped me and didn’t let go, staying with me when I closed the book with a rush of adrenaline and a serious hankering for its sequel.
The novel takes place in Tris Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, where society is...
Divine Endurance and Flowerdust, - two novels collected together for the first time exclusively as an e-book and known as "The Last Days Of Ranaganar" - are set within a far-future south-east Asia, a future that is hardly recognizable from the present and one that seems both medieval and...
Divine Extinction is the second volume in the Evilution series, a near future series set in an alternative history, written by Hylton H Smith. Four years after the narrow escape from a cataclymic disaster humanity thought itself safe and sound, recovered and with a stronger, safer SACRED...
Divine Fanaticism is the fourth novel in the Jim Long series by Robin G Howard. Long ago on the planet Thraeot a religous order was created that was shrouded in miraculous mythology, now the political environment of the planet has become unbalanced and mass scale war appears imminent. To make...
Divine Murder is a speculative fiction novel by Ward Kelley. One of the most fascinating elements of reading a fairy tale or a science fiction is the acceptance of a magical world where angels alight serenely with outstretched wings, birds and animals converse fluently, and uncommon things...
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the classic novel that became the film Blade Runner. Written by legendary award winning author Philip K Dick. The aftermath of the World War Terminus sees a devastated Earth with severe radioactive fallout and most of nature destroyed. Many of the survivors...
When an intellectual property becomes huge it can go one of two ways, a homogeneous blob of the same stories on repeat, or a vibrant universe full of different adventures. Star Wars was already massive, but recently has branched out even wider. This included a reset of the...
There is a knack to adaptation, we have all seen a film made from a book. Many have read an adaptation of a film, but can you make a prose adaptation of a comic book? We see superheroes in the cinema every month, the action and colour sparks on the big screen, but bringing forth all that imagery...
I don't know how he does it, but Adrian Tchaikovsky manages to get inside the heads of different creatures and allow us to see through their eyes. Last time I read one of his books it was Spiders, this time it's Dogs, Bears, Bees and Lizards.
Dogs of War imagines that we've...
As a superhero fan, the last couple of decades have been fantastic. The comics have had countless film adaptations and prose novels. This abundance of content has allowed content creators to explore the idea of superpowers more. We are no longer in the age of Gods,...
Star Wars is a franchise rich with great characters, but who to choose? It is tricky writing a cannon book on the likes of likes Han Solo or Rey lest you impinge on the films themselves. Thankfully, with such an abundance of history to choose from, there is always an interesting character to...
Doomsday Planet is a classic science fiction novel by the author Harl Vincent. On the edge of known space the planet Ormin spins a massive invisible web, radiating a deadly and mysterious energy. Far out in space aboard the ethership Meteoric, Jack Donley was the first to sense the sinister,...
Making an author come up with a single science fiction concept is tricky enough, but to ask them to come up with an infinite number of multiverses is just plain mean. Tim Pratt only have themselves to blame as they choice to take Zaxony Delatree on an adventure...
I have always been a fan of Roger Zelazny. When I was a teenager, The Chronicles of Amber were a library book quest to find the whole set, which never quite happened, so it wasn’t until later in adult life that I was able to purchase the bumper edition that contained them all.
...
Down to the Bone is the first novel I have read in the Quantum Gravity series and indeed the first by Justina Robson, as such this review should be seen from that perspective; how a novice of the series will fare jumping in at the fifth and final volume. The idea behind Quantum Gravity is that...
Dreadnought is the fourth Volume in the H.I.V.E (Higher Institute of Villainous Education) Young Adult series, written by Mark Walden. Hive is a school where villains rule, students are trained to be the best at the worst in the hope they will become the next great super-villian. One of the...
A book filled with ideas and scenes that demonstrate a strong command of both language and writing, Dream Alchemy by Nicholas Boyd Crutchley is a tricky text to review, mostly because it lacks a coherent story.
Crutchley is playing with a multiple reality concept. We have occasional...
Dreaming of Eden is a science fiction novel by James Lucien. In the dystopian future of 2049, a ravaged world, divided into four Super States, is locked into a continuous war for diminishing resources. Under the oppression of a totalitarian government, an Elite DHS hacker, a robotics scientist,...
I read and listen to books in all formats, but still prefer the feel of paper in my hand. Audiobooks are great for the commute, but they are just not pacy enough for me, I read quickly, and a narrator often seems to go in slow motion even at 1.5 speed. 2000AD and Penguin Audio must know my brain...
It's hard to believe that Dune is over 50 years old. Originally released in 1965 it won the inaugural Nebula award for best novel and tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award.
It's sold well in excess of 12 million copies around the world and is one of the world's...
Throughout history many have searched for ways to live longer, from healthy eating and exercise to eliminating illness and seeking an elixir of life. I think it’s fair to say it’s a common goal to extend our lifespan.
What would you say if I told you there was a substance...
For a span of twenty years, genre fiction fans had the opportunity to live through what many call the greatest science fiction tale of all tune, Frank Herbet’s epic Dune series. The saga consists of six novels: Dune (1965), Dune Messiah (1969), Children of Dune (1976), God...
Robert Silverberg has been long acknowledged as a leader in the filed of Science Fiction, and in 1972 he published a novel that was immediately and widely hailed as a masterpiece. More than 30 years later, Dying inside has stood the test of time and is now recognized as one of the finest novels...
The self-proclaimed Emperor Vas returns to stamp his will on the unsuspecting Virtues of Son Gebshu's moon. His inflexible will and iron determination manages to breed resentment which fast leads to an all-out civil war. Meanwhile on the dying planet below the temperature continues to plummet,...
Dying Star: Prophecy is the first volume in a new Scifi series Dying Star, written by Samsun Lobe. The Star Shu is slowly dying, becoming a black dwarf as it's remaining energy depletes. This causes the orbiting planet Gebshu and it's moon to change beyond recognition. The world becomes...
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