Reviews of titles beginning with G.
A companion volume to the collection Stainless Steel Visions, this volume collects several of Harrison's best stories, such as Space Rats of the CCC; At Last, the True Story of Frankenstein; and Bill, the Gallactic Hero's Happy Holiday. Includes a hilarious new adventure of Bill, the Galactic...
As a football fan it is sometimes hard to understand that some people just don’t care about it. They see it as a frivolous game of kicking a pig’s stomach around a patch of grass. In the context of life and death, it is just something to keep you busy on a Saturday...
To the uninitiated, Star Wars is just a film. To everyone else, that is just nonsense. There are multiple films, games, books, toys, teddies and now a theme park. A small part of the Star War Universe resides in Disneyland. You can visit the outpost of Black Spire and...
Galileo’s Dream is a brand new novel from Kim Stanley Robinson and follows Galileo on an amazing journey from the dawn of the modern age to a future on the brink of a scientific breakthrough. While on the brink of the modern world, Late Renaissance Italy is still surrounded by Alchemy and the...
These books are the third and fourth in the Rama series (number one being Rendezvous with Rama and number two being Rama II). I have decided to review them together - as they should be read together and right after each other. If you haven't read the first two Rama books, do not read these books...
Gateway is a classic science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl. Rereading classics or old favourites is something that I've done all to seldom the last couple of years, which is both a testimony to the high quality of the book published today and the fact that I actually have the money to...
Gather Yourselves Together is one of the very first novels written by the late Philip K Dick, one biographer considers that it may be his first novel-length story. It was originally published in 1984 after the authors death and as ever credit goes to Gollancz for making sure it stays in print....
A title that gives a hint as to what we might expect, but ruins no surprises at all, Gemini Gambit by D. Scott Johnson is an intriguing story of the near future, immerses us in a world a generation or two further on from our own.
Elite hacker ‘Angel Rage’ – whose real name is Kim...
After hearing about the passing away of Poul Anderson, I pretty much ran out and picked up this book. I figured that it would be good therapy and a good way to honour him. This worked fairly well, I hadn't read any of his new stuff before, so I was unsure as to what we missed out on. Genesis is...
Regular visitors will be aware that Gentle Reminders is being serialised right here on SFBook courtesy of the kind author Martin Perry. It therefore only seemed fair that I read and review the book that some of you good readers are indeed reading. The novel is the first in a series that is part...
Geralds Game is a novel by the master of Horror, Stephen King. This is the first Stephen King book (please notice that I wrote book and not story) I have read that really doesn't have anything supernatural in it. Not that I missed it, GG is still a terrific story. The story starts off...
Ghost Story is a tale of horror by Peter Straub. It's hard to review this book without talking about the Chowder Society as most of the story centres around this group of old men and their acquaintances. As we meet the Chowder Society, they are a bunch of old guys who meet every couple of weeks...
It's difficult to write a review of Ghost Story without giving spoilers away about the previous book, Changes. Having said that, I'd recommend reading Changes before attempting Ghost Story, while any of the Dresden Files novels can be read individually, read this one without knowing the...
I have a soft spot for cyberpunk, the gritty noir feel mixed with high end science fiction. Like many subgenres it can be dismissed as a passing phase, in this case from the 80s, but fans know that there are still exceptional stories out there written today about crying androids or buildings...
The second novel in the Warhammer 40k Gaunt's Ghosts Series and written by that insanely talented author Dan Abnett, Ghostmaker acts as a reflection on the history of the Ghost's and focuses on telling the story of the major characters within the regiment. This is done through the use of...
The nineteenth century was the golden age of the Gothic fiction in Germany. The present volume makes available in English for the first time a group of stories originally appeared in German and, with one exception, unknown so far to the English-speaking world.
The exception is represented...
Gideon's Wall is a fantasy novel by Gideon's Wall. After being promised that there would be no dwarfs, elves or wizards in this fantasy book, I decided to give it a chance. Not that I've anything against dwarfs, elves or wizards but most fantasy authors seem to be going round and round without...
This is a substantive collection of short stories from Alchemy Press, varying in setting, premise and idea but all focusing around the concept of a moment in time as mentioned in the title. These moments are all pivotal and memorable, life defining and changing in each case.
The...
I meant to read this festive novella last year however time got the better of me (as it often does). God rest ye merry Gentlepig is a festive tale featuring the angel Bobby Dollar who acts as an advocate for souls sitting in judgement after death.
And so on Christmas Eve night he is...
Unclean Spirits is the first in a new shared-universe series called Gods and Monsters. Gods (and Monsters) are real. In the past this Pantheon were content to keep the world at arms length, sucking up the belief and devotion of mortals to provide them with the power to wage war against each...
Religion is a tricky thing, a lot of people think they have picked the right one. Some believe in one God, but many people have several. The Mayans had some deities you would not want to meet in a dark alley as they prey on humans from the underworld. Meeting one of these Gods would be scary,...
The long running series is a dream for an author as it means that your characters and world are successful enough that people are buying them, and you can keep writing. John Sandford's Lucas Davenport books must be a success when you realise that Golden Prey is the 27th book...
In the wake of the 2016 US presidential election, a meme boiled up to the surface of our cultural dialogue about us having entered an age of “post-truth.” As the election showed us, we have arrived into a societal configuration, in which two major ideological groups do not just vote...
Good News from Outer Space is a science fiction novel by John Kessel. This probably the strangest book that I've read in a long time. Taking place in the last days of 1999 the book is mostly about faith run amok. Kessel paints a picture of an alternative timeline that's dark and that I do not...
History is facinating, but we often focus on the big characters, the big battles. Whilst King’s were being beheaded and bombs dropped, people kept on peopleling. The history of the normal person can be forgotten, but we exist too. What happened to the normal person on the street when...
For those who have never met them, Gotrek and Felix are unsung heroes of the Warhammer fantasy Empire, the dwarven slayer* Gotrek Gurnisson and his human rememberer Felix Jaeger are the stuff of legend and have been featured in 13 novels, numerous short stories, the Warhammer fantasy Battle game...
The third adventure that follows Chicago's only Wizard Harry Dresden get's off to a powerful and swift start that doesn't let up for the whole novel. This time Harry has some help in the form of a Knight of the Cross Michael Carpenter who is a "righteous" man, driven by his devout faith and...
Walk into my house and glance at my bookshelves and you will find an eclectic mix of books. My favourite genres are represented heavily in science fiction and fantasy, but I also have loads of crime, history, biographies and general fiction....
The average person seems to put a lot of trust in their Government. No way they are spying on me online and even if they are, what am I doing that they would care about? This attitude has shown that ignorance is not bliss, they may just sell your data to the highest bidder and before you know it...
Originally published in 1964, Greybeard is a post apocalyptic vision by Brian Aldiss, the version reviewed here is for the Gollancz SF Masterworks collection. Greybeard is all about the human ageing process, growing old (and being old) - an idea that reminds me of something a pessimistic friend...
Looking for something different I stumbled on "Grunts!" by Mary Gentle – it's subtitled "A Fantasy With Attitude". It certainly got attitude – the problem is that it doesn't have much else. The basic idea is to tell a fantasy story from the point of view of an Orc. As we all know the Orcs...
For most people, the race of the Sidhe are little more than legend, believed to be extinct for centuries after the males of the race rose up and fought alongside the humans subjugated and enslaved by the female Sidhe. Jarek Reen however know different, he's seen them alive and well, still...
There are enough stories escaping from Private Islands that makes me think that the rich do not think there are consequences for their actions. What happens on the island stays on the island. With luck, it may just be a celebrity marriage, but on the other hand it could be some of the darkest...
I've been trying to expand my range of reading for a while now, crime fiction especially. I hadn't realised that the talented Warren Ellis had written a crime novel.
For those who haven't heard of Ellis he's a renown British writer best known for his comic book writing....
Stories by Adrian Tchaikovsky are always sober, meticulous and carefully constructed. Guns of the Dawn is no exception, an unusual novel, set in a fantasy world inspired by the late 19th and early 20th century and the clash of progress therein. Our protagonist, one Emily Marshwic, struggles to...
Guy Erma and the Son of Empire is a young adult science fiction tale which, to my mind is wrapped in the packaging of a fantasy novel at first glance. Granted it’s on the fantastical side, but the deception remains. The writing also holds a few quirks, initially in its spaced layout, but...
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