Reviews with titles beginning with P.
Painkillers is a thought provoking read. I completed it in less than three days, which is something I haven’t done with a book for nearly fifteen years. During that time, I tried to work out what was keeping me absorbed as it is a very atypical Science Fiction novel, but perhaps that’s it....
As the name suggests, Pandemic explores what happens when a deadly infection takes the leap from epidemic to pandemic. A sobering passage on the cover aknowledges, it's not a question of if but when.
There are many things that endanger the human race but with the exception of the...
Pandora's Star is the first volume in the The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton. "Part one of the Commonwealth Saga" it says on page five. "Main characters" it says on page seven and then it goes on to list 44 characters. Then follows nearly nine hundred page of story which ends with the...
Passengers to Sentience is a science fiction novel and is the debut of the author Peter Salisbury. The Human race has reached the corners of the galaxy, colonising many worlds and enjoying advanced technology such as blindingly fast Data Transmission, organic metal alloys and the succesful...
Passengers to Zeta Nine is a science fiction novel by Peter Salisbury, set within the same universe as Passengers to Sentience. Travelling for one hundred and twenty years, the minds of Raife and Nancy are electronically stored along with six hundred other couples aboard the ship Explorer,...
Passengers: Revelations is the third novel in the series and brings together characters from the first two novels while expanding the story. The media are in a frenzy over imagined "man-eating" aliens while Symch and Goster are incarcerated following their previous escapades.
Spider...
Asdrubael Vect has ruled the dark city of Commorragh for millennia, ruthlessly disposing of any who would dare cross him. His reach is long and his position unassailable... or so he thinks. The ambitious Archon (highest ranking member of a Dark Eldar Kabal) Yllithian thinks otherwise and joins...
Pattern Seeker is the first volume in the Random Happenings series of novels by L Keith Wheeler. Set in the near future, Pattern Seeker follows the privileged life of Jason Armond who possesses the rare talent of being able to see patterns where others just see chaos. This talent has led him to...
There are many unique and diverse names in horror making it, for me, one of the most interesting genres out there, but to the layperson they may only know a few names. Stephen King, maybe Dean Koontz. In film they may have heard of Wes Craven, or one of the newer horror auteurs. Zombie fans...
There is always much to like about Ian Whates’ stories. He writes accessible science fiction with a thought provoking edge. In this case, the thought provoking is toned down a bit in a venture into space opera. Pelquin’s Comet is an adventure story with an appealing and varied cast. We have...
Telling a story in the first person means that you are going to want a protagonist that the reader can connect with, but what if that character struggles with relationships? In Mark Leggatt’s Penitent, Hector is a brilliant lawyer, but has far more interest in the process than the people....
The days of High Elves and spiffing adventures being the only choice in fantasy are long over. This is a vast genre that still has books of High Fantasy, but it also has Low Fantasy. This gritty version of the genre is more prevalent than ever with some of the best being made into TVs shows and...
I have been a fan of Star Trek for a long time and am happy to overlook many of the contradictions and technobabble that it has a habit of spouting but one thing I can never get my head around is why. Why are they on these ships? Why risk their lives? For...
Perdido Street Station is the second novel published by China Miéville, after the quite brilliant King Rat and again we are within the urban / weird fantasy world. However where King Rat was set within our own fair city of London, Perdido Street Station takes place within an alternate universe...
Perfection, an audio drama from those wonderful people at Black Library; this time we are welcomed with the words of Nick Kyme who writes about those colourful, chaotic characters of the Slaaneshi Space Marines. The warped warriors of chaos have beseiged the world of Vardask and things look...
I love an Arthurian Legend retelling, Perilous Times by Thomas D Lee is not even the first one that I have read this year, but it shows how flexible authors can be with Old King Arty. Lee does not retell the tales of yore but extrapolates into the present and the future. When Arthur was...
Corwin Menivie and Nika Sanitvan are decorated veterans of the Imperial Enforcement Coalition, and they solve cases the old fashioned way. However, when they are paired up with Westley Tavera and Gavin Hale, a powerful...
Permutation City is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. Having liked Egans Quarantine, I was looking forward to reading this one and I was not disappointed. Again Egan has written a fantastic story by grabbing an idea and taking it to the limit. This time we are in a...
The gargantuan star fort of the Imperial Fists, the Phalanx is to be the host for half a dozen Space Marine Chapters. Along with Inquisitors, Sisters of Battle and agents of the Adeptus Mechanicus they will witness a darkly historic event - the end of a Space Marine chapter. After the events of...
Picus is one of those people who act as a magnet for trouble, disowned by his parents (or at least his quite scary mother) for not being blood-thirsty enough, hunted by the violent vampire Raben for the theft of an item that wasn't really his and wanted by the leader of the faie Queen Mab (the...
Traditionally Mo is a thriller writer; she certainly does love a good mystery yarn. However I was sold this novel on the pretext that this novel contains enough horror overtones to be able to put this book firmly in the horror section.
They weren’t wrong. I’d go so far as to say...
Scott is going to Terranova to begin a new life. Most of the trip is supposed to be done in biostasis, so Scott is rather surprised to be awoken in the middle of nowhere, just to be told that their ship has been thrown five hundred years into the future and far away from their intended target....
Pink Noise: A Posthuman Tale is a hard science fiction novel, the debut of Leonid Korogodski. Before I begin the review it's worth noting a few things to put this literay achievement into some perspective. Pink Noise is the first novel to be written by Leonid Korogodski, a native Ukrainian who...
Cory Doctorow has a unique way of capturing the technological challenges of current times that speaks volumes, provocative and blended perfectly into an entertaining, rewarding story. Pirate Cinema is no exception and the fact that it is labelled as a "Young Adult" book should not put the older...
Planet Janitor Custodian of the Stars is a science fiction novel by Chris Stevenson. The Planet Janitor Corporation are experts in the handling of environmental clean-ups and close system jumps to pick up precious ores and space trash, led by Captain Zachary Crowe they have won a number of...
It can be hard for the casual Doctor Who viewer to see the character as alien. They may have two hearts, regenerate once in a while, but fundamentally the Doctor looks human. It does not help that they are obsessed with human culture and like to hang around on Earth a lot (cheap sets). But...
The concept of humankind travelling to other planets to colonise has been a staple of science fiction for decades and as the world in which we inhabit becomes increasingly tricky for humans to live on, the novels are set to keep on rolling. Some are action pieces, some concentrate on the...
Nature, red in claw and tooth. It is a world of the strong surviving the weak dying. Therefore, fiction that tells a story from the animal perspective can be full on. Watership Down and The Animals of Farthing Wood have managed to traumatise many a youth and even the jolly Redwall books I used...
Podkayne of Mars is a science fiction novel by the legendary author Robert A Heinlein. One of the good old stories from the golden age of SF. One that I for some strange reason hadn't read before. I've always had strange feelings about Heinlein - I love most of his stories, but almost all of...
23-year-old Dimitri Petrov makes a living writing obituaries, but on Halloween he gets a last-minute assignment to cover a séance at the haunted Aspinwall Mansion. There he meets Lisa, a punk-rock drummer who works at the local nursing home, and promptly falls for her. But right as he’s...
Point is the near future thriller and the sequel to Edge, by Thomas Blackthorne. In a Britain on the edge of collapse, the lost teens have formed Cutter Circles, a terrible cult based on mutual suicide. For ex-Special Forces soldier Josh Cumberland, this is just the start of another descent...
I stumbled across Poison early in high school, and I loved it so much I went on to read whatever other works of Chris Wooding that I could get my hands on. For years I remembered Poison to be this incredible, fascinating novel, so when I picked it up again as an adult I was a little...
Poison is an enchanting adult take on the classic fairy tale Snow White. With an appealing freshness and confident, unique voice of the author its a tale that will leave you eager for more.
Everyone knows the story of Snow White and Poison is instantly recognisable from that childhood...
There are times in history that don’t seem very funny and if you lived through them you would find it hard to laugh. The 1970/80s in Northern Ireland may just be one such era as sectarian violence means that you are always wary of your surroundings. This is exemplified for Detective...
In the aftermath of the global pandemic, there is a darkness to the world that has yet to retreat. The way in which writers approach their craft in this moment is crucial. Some are electing to ignore it in the stories that they create, whilst others embrace the context directly in their...
Poseidon's Wake is set in the same universe as Reynolds previous two Poseidon's Children novels (Blue Rembered Earth and On the Steel Breeze) but is written as an informal conclusion to the trilogy, a book that works equally well as a stand-alone story.
The story begins on Crucible, a...
Villain.net: Power Surge is the 3rd volume in the Villain.net series, one half of the merged series (with Hero.com) from the author Andy Briggs. Jake Hunter is now on the council of evil and is finally in a position to extract revenge on those most deserving. He also has a mission, to restore...
Power Trip is a novel featuring the Wondering Koala, a mute superhero who always manages to stand up for those who need help. This time we are in "Firebird City", home to 8 million people and one power company. After six months of job hunting following college René thinks he's finally hit the...
A continuation of the story from the comic books, Powers: The Secret History of Deena Pilgrim is a standalone novel, that links into the comic book story arc. Fans of the Playstation Network TV series may notice a few inconsistencies in terms of the background of its principle character, Deena...
It’s the kind of heist Karyn Ames has dreamed of—enough to set her crew up pretty well and enough to keep her safely stocked on a very rare, very expensive black market drug. Without it, Karyn hallucinates slices of the future overlapped with her present until she’s incapacitated and...
Pretty Little Dead Things is a urban horror novel by the author Gary McMahon. Thomas Usher used to be a fairly normal guy, a family man with a wife and child, all this changed when a tragic accident took his family away from him. He began to see the dead, and they him, all the lost and lonely...
Prey is a science fiction novel by the late author Micheal Crichton. Micheal Crichton, the well-known author of Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain continues his long list of precautionary tales in his most recent novel, Prey. If you are familiar with Crichton's work, you no doubt know...
Primeval: Extinction Event is an original story set within the Primeval universe and featuring the cast of the hit TV series, written by Dan Abnett and published by Titan Books. Strange anomalies are ripping holes in the very fabric of time, creating rifts that allow creatures from the distant...
Prince of Fools is the first in a new series (called the Red Queen's War) set within the same world as the authors acclaimed Prince of Thorns series. It is a slight departure in style and yet retains the wit and light-heartedness that those who have read the authors work will be familiar...
I love sleep and have a deeper appreciation of it since having a family. I find myself able to drop off in a second as I snatch any five minutes I can before being woken up again at 5 am. The number of naps that I have would not be advisable in the world of Zaxony Delatree as I may end up waking...
I set a high bar set for science fiction short story collections that is in no way the fault of any modern author. Unfortunately for them I read The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury at an influential age. I rate a collection against the creepy science fiction/horror tones that Bradbury was able...
Prophets of the Ghost Ants is about as different a story as you are ever going to read (and given the sheer breadth of works around nowadays that is saying something). It's already been optioned for a film trilogy and has been lauded by such people as Lawrence Bender - the Oscar winning film...
This is the third audio book to be reviewed within the pages of SFBook and again we are firmly within the realms of Warhammer 40k, this time during that tremulous period of the Horus Heresy. Dan Abnett is the author and Prospero Burns the novel, narrated by Gareth Armstrong on eleven CD's...
Harry Dresden is once again thrown into magical conflict in Proven Guilty. As always, our wise cracking wizard-for-hire is up to the challenge!
Proven Guilty smoothly picks up where Dead Beat leaves off. Harry Dresden, now named a Warden of the White Council, struggles to fulfill his...
Luddites are a group that used to destroy the machines that were taking their jobs. The term is now used as a derivative way to talk about someone who does not get technology but, did they have it right? All us smug computer literate people may have the best...
Proxima is more than a bit of a surprise. There is no doubt that Stephen Baxter is a talented and imaginative author and has worked with some of the finest people to put pen to paper however I find some of his novels quite dry and lacking in empathy / effective characterisation. To be fair...
I do so love a post apocalyptic tale and they often seem not very far from the reality in these times of economic turmoil. It therefore gives me great pleasure to inform you dear reader of another tale of survival after a world altering cataclysmic event. Pressia can barely remember a time...
Book of the month
