Reviews of titles beginning with N.
N-Space is a collection of short science fiction stories by Larry Niven. Thirty-something stories in nearly seven hundred pages, including a bibliography about and by Larry Niven - N-Space is one of my favourite collections. The only thing that bugs me about it is the excerpts from longer...
This isn't the first of Joe’s books that I have tried to read. I tried Horns many months ago but had to give up as it wasn't quite sitting with me. NOS4R2 however is on a completely new level. It had me hooked from the start, the idea and plot behind it all was fresh and interesting and I...
Nation is the first novel in some time (since the 1996 novel Johnny and the Bomb) Terry Pratchett has written that is not a part of the Discworld series. Sir Terry had apparently been ready to write it for four years and could wait no longer. Primarily aimed at children, Nation is everything...
What is the fantasy genre? It is not just one thing. You can have elves and orcs battling against the backdrop of high wizardry, but you can also write something simpler. Low fantasy is getting so low that it starts to feel like alternative medieval history. Like why write about real history...
This time last year, I finally got around to reading the 1973 annual world's best science fiction, which had some interesting stories, but were all written by male, American authors. Hardly world fiction at all, and even then not the best of the previous 12 months. Nebula award stories...
By the time Lumley got around to writing this book he had already written thirteen others. His early works expanded heavily the Cthulu mythos with some subtle differences. He introduces us to a guy named Titus Crow. But that was then and this is now and we have a new hero to thank. Harry Keogh....
Needful Things is a horror story by Stephen King. The cover says The Last Castle Rock Story, and I guess that King will have a hard time topping this one - if the poor citizens of Castle Rock ever decide that it's worth the trouble to rebuilding their town. Needful Things is about the...
Nekropolis is the first volume in a new series of fantasy horror, written by Tim Waggoner and is based on his novella Necropolis. Matt Richter is a former cop now a private eye with a big difference, he is a zombie (could happen to anyone really). A zombie private detective does have it's...
Nemesis ex nihilo is an apocalyptic science fiction novel and is the first in a two part series (dilogy), written by William Pascoe. Barry Edwards is a fairly average guy who is working on his PhD in astrophysics at the University of Longminster, England. In 1995, while still working on his PhD...
I have read many genre books and I see trends in what is currently popular or going through a period of high quality. The dark gothic fairy tale is having a moment in the sun as I have recently read some excellent stories that hark back to a feel of past fables but are their own modern take. T...
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...
Released in 1984, Neuromancer was one of those rare moments that broke the mold, pretty much inventing the notion of cyberspace and beginning the genre of the cyberpunk novel.
It's been many years since I first read this book and I am re-visiting it here as part of my desire to...
New Model Army is a science fiction novel by Adam Roberts. Pantegral is a giant, a democratic gestalt entity whose thoughts are populated from the thousands of minds that make up a New Model Army, it's intelligence is born from the almost limitless knowledge available on the internet. Stalking...
For many people, the leading writer of speculative fiction in the 90s and 00s was Michael Crichton who was able to marry a level of scientific reality with some outrageous ideas. A theme park full of dinosaurs, intelligent apes, nanobots that can kill? He was able...
What makes a bunch of short stories gathered together a collection? It could be the works of the same author, or it could be some sort of theme that means they are all derived from the same place. A collection's origins can significantly impact the type of stories you are about to read. Is it an...
Newton's Wake is a science fiction novel by Ken Mcleod I've been looking forward to this book for a while. The Engines of Light series kind of fizzled out for me with book two and I never got around to book three. And that got me worried a lot, since I really, really liked MacLeods Fall...
Night Shift continues the story of the rich and rewarding urban fantasy series Midnight Texas by Charlaine Harris.
Harris writes fiction that is comforting, warm and relaxing with a feeling of the familiar. Her characters are people you want to meet and (mostly) befriend. Those who...
For many people clowns are the stuff of nightmares and there they should remain. In the modern age you can pretty much live a life free of these demon entertainers; just avoid going to the circus, CBEEBIES and any films about IT. But what about if the clowns of your dreams decided to...
I am not a big fan of train travel. The route I take is usually into London on a packed train. I have been made to suffer by standing all the way and having no access to the toilets. I have considered putting this into prose form in a science fiction thriller but needing the loo and...
Nightingale’s Lament is a novel in the Nightside series by Simon R Green. The Nightside occupies the same space but in another dimension as London does. To travel there one must know the correct portals. John Taylor lived in Nightside all his life until it was discovered that his mother was...
Crazy fun! But not as good as Aliens: Earth Hive.
Nightmare Asylum picks up immediately where Earth Hive ended. Wilks, Billie, and what remains of Bueller are headed back to Earth. Their previous encounter with a separate alien life form, one that possesses the power to effortlessly...
"Life is but a dream" wrote Calderon De La Barca and "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream" confirmed Edgard Allan Poe. Dreams and nightmares constitute part of our nightly life, but they usually vanish as soon as we wake up. Sometimes, however, they stay with us and haunt also...
I read this book in three nights because I could barely put it down. The story line is exellent, as is the world Zelazny creates. He is no doubt one of my favourite authors and I plan to read all 10 of the novels in this series The story starts with the main character waking in a hospital bed...
Arthur Wallace, inspired by 80's films such as Tango and Cash, is an Oxford copper who finds himself entirely unprepared when fate chooses him to step up and play the hero; recruited as he is by the mysterious government agency MI37.
Luckily he's always lived by the mantra "What would...
Ok it’s fair to say I struggled with this book a lot more than I expected to. Promise of an English Stephen King, was lapped up by yours truly, a self-confessed King fan, add on to that the fact I’m English myself and I had a book on my hands I just had to read.
The promise was far...
No Safe Haven is the direct sequel to The Sixth Discipline and follows the fortunes of Ran-Del and Francesca who are now happily married parents. Ran-Del still doesn't know what vision his clan shaman had which forced him from his tribe however his own little known "psy" abilities have helped...
No Time Like Tomorrow is a collection of science fiction short stories by Brian Aldiss. This little book is all Aldiss shorties that end real abrubtly or have sort of nice wrapped up endings that are reflecting on the rest of the story in this light of 'well that was...ok'. There is one...
No Way is the follow up to the gripping thriller One Way. A perilous journey to the Red Planet by a group of convicts. Deciding that it was much more economically viable to train people that would have otherwise rotted in a jail rather than a group of experienced and highly trained...
I am of a certain age, and I recall that the 1990s was a good decade, a time of societal development and change for the better. I used to look down on those who rated the 70s as a fun decade as it seemed grim to me, but as I get older the 90s was as grim as the 70s and I am sure that the 2010s...
San Francisco Homicide detective Bryan Clauser thinks he may be losing his mind. What other explanation could there be for the dreams he keeps having, dreams where he witnesses some really gruesome murders that also happen to be actually carried out all over the city. As he and his partner...
Like all the best novels, Nod develops from a simple premise. Imagine that the vast majority of people around the world suddenly stopped being able to sleep. No deep sleep, no cat-naps and no snoozing at all. It's only a matter of time before society collapses. How many times have we had a bad...
Noir is a science fiction novel by K W Jeter. NOIR.....Hohoho! What a way to go! Corpses in this book aren't allowed to die, they go into debt and are kept from the grave to hang out on the dead side of what was L.A. (now the Gloss) to wait for some job so they can be buried. X shaped pupils....
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