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Tales of Time and Space by  by Pat Castaldo
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Tales of Time and Space is a collection of science fiction short stories by Pat Castaldo. There are 27 short stories contained within this book, all written by Pat Castaldo. The short stories are: The Immune Man Dr Barron's Boy The Pottery method My other self the test the galactic inn for...

Article by Ant on 4th October 2010
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Talus by  by Erol Ozan
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Talus is a science fiction novel by Erol Ozan. Deep in the wild and dangerous forests of Madagascar, Rylan and his anthropologist partner Ursula Deiss find a population of cryptic man-like primates. This discovery quickly escalates and draws them into the vortex of an ancient conspiracy that...

Article by Ant on 24th December 2010
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Tangerine by  by Wodke Hawkinson
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Tangerine is a science fiction novel by PJ Hawkinson and K Wodke collectively known as Wodke Hawkinson. Set in a future time where long distance space travel is commonplace and aliens are a natural part of society, Tangerine is a story of the interstellar biologist Ava who explores the wild...

Article by Ant on 10th January 2011
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Tech Heaven by  by Linda Nagata
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Tech Heaven is a science fiction novel by Linda Nagata. This is Linda Nagata's second book and is in a lot of ways, a lot better than her first (The Bohr Maker(TBM)). It's easier to read, it has a better flow and it also has a lot more to say. At the same time I think that it has lost...

Article by TC on 1st January 1999
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Tell No Lies by  by John Grant
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This is a story collection that stays in your mind long after you’ve finished reading, John Grant’s selection of writings vary widely across subjects, but return to the theme of duplicity. In many of these stories, the fantasy or science fiction element remains minimal and acts in a...

Article by Allen Stroud on 29th April 2015
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Temptation of the Force by  by Tessa Gratton
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As Star Wars fans we take the lore for granted. We know our Wookie from our Ewok, but to the casual person they are just two different types of furry alien. Take a step back and it is a complex universe, full of planets and species. It was tricky enough with just the three films, but six films...

Article by Sam Tyler on 13th June 2024
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Ten Little Aliens by  by Stephen Cole
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On the edge of Earths Empire, far out in space, an elite group of soldiers are on a training mission.

A training mission preparing them to face their implacible enemy against which a war rages across the galaxy. Deep in the heart of the hollowed out asteroid where their training takes...

Article by Ant on 29th December 2014
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Ten Low by  by Stark Holborn
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The best Science Fiction will tell a story, but also build a world. I prefer my tales to hint about the wider world and what happened to land the protagonists in their current position. Take Ten Low for example, a medic who roams a dusty moon. Her only goal in life is to survive and...

Article by Sam Tyler on 5th July 2021
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Teranesia by  by Greg Egan
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Teranesia is a science fiction novel by the Australian author Greg Egan. As per my usual routine I never read about a book before I start on it. I never read the back of a book before I start on it and I never, ever read other peoples reviews. If I had done any one of those things I wouldn't...

Article by TC on 6th February 2002
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Terminal Earth by  by Michael Stewart
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Terminal Earth is a collection of original short stories that all feature the end of the world in some way, edited by Michael Stewart and Neil Thomas.

With 23 tales of the apocalypse, Terminal Earth offers a great deal of compelling tales from talented authors. Despite the common theme...

Article by Ant on 3rd January 2011
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This novel tells the story of the events that lead to the Terminator salvation film, set after Judgement day, skynet has reduced the worlds population to scattered survivors. Out of the ashes rises the resistance, this is their...

Article by Ant on 1st March 2010
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Terra by  by Mitch Benn
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Terra is a very different novel. It doesn't take itself too seriously and on the surface appears very light-hearted, a safe novel with prose full of soft curves rather than sharp edges. This is after all a young-adult novel and yet there is much more to this book than meets the eye.

The...

Article by Ant on 17th September 2013
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Joe R Lansdale, a prolific writer, has written in a variety of genres from westerns to graphic novels and horror stories. He's won ten Bram Stoker awards, the Edgar award, the American Horror award and the British fantasy award. Apart from his horror stories he is perhaps best known for...

Article by Ant on 2nd April 2018
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Terrorlord by  by Guido Henkel
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Terrorlord is the 9th volume in the Jason Dark series by Guido Henkel. Released by a dark and ancient ritual, the Terrorlord is freed once more onto the mortal plane, his one desire to open the seven gates of hell and unleash the undead hordes upon mankind. Jason Dark has the misfortune to have...

Article by Ant on 3rd March 2011
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Paul Kidby was Pratchett's artist of choice and once described his lively, colourful illustrations as:

The closest anyone's got to how I see the characters

He's been drawing Discworld for over fifteen years, including the superbly illustrated Last Hero, not to...

Article by Ant on 8th December 2017
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Teslamancer by  by Matthew Donald
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Science Fiction is fun in so many ways and one of the most entertaining games to play is to think about if. What is Nickola Tesla invented a way to harness an all-powerful energy? Would such power be safe to use, not only for an individual, but for a nation? This was an era of World Wars; more...

Article by Sam Tyler on 30th September 2024
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Thanos: Death Sentence by  by Stuart Moore
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To anyone who has seen the latest Avengers movies you will know that Thanos is not a nice chap. He single handily (infinitely glovely) creates an intergalactic genocide. Despite this, the films try to give him some sympathetic elements; he only wipes out so many to save the whole. The Thanos of...

Article by Sam Tyler on 17th May 2019
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What makes a good folk horror story? It is not just the tension and gruesome moments, but the feeling. You need to get the tone right. A visitor to a new place that is familiar in some ways, but alien in others. You can experience some of this unease yourself just by travelling to somewhere...

Article by Sam Tyler on 16th July 2024
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I find it amazing how easy it is to miss things that are right on your doorstep. I grabbed this book online (not by choice, this was before the shops had re-opened) because I was after some easy reading. I often find good urban fantasy easy and immersive. It was only after actually picking the...

Article by Ant on 6th May 2021
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The year 1973, UK, Ireland and Denmark join the European Union, CBS sell the New York Yankees for $10 million and Skylab, the United States first ever space station, is launched. It's not a year that's often recalled in history, but quite a bit did happen.

Inflation caused issues around...

Article by Ant on 28th December 2021
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Obsession can be a powerful emotion and lead you down a dark path. Being stalked causes the victim so much fear, not only because they are having to deal with the reality, but also what might happen. In the case of Madison May, she does not know she is being stalked until it is too...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th July 2021
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Peter Hamilton doesn't just write Space Opera, he defines it. The Abyss Beyond Dreams is the start of a new series that takes place in his wonderfully rich Commonwealth universe. It's no secret that we love the works of Peter Hamilton at SFBook and The Abyss beyond Dreams is no exception. To...

Article by Ant on 9th October 2014
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The Accident by  by Julia Stone
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Do you trust this reviewer? Am I all that I appear? I claim to work for one of the longest running review sites on the internet, but is any of it true? You cannot always trust a protagonist; we may have an ulterior motive that you are unaware of. Perhaps I am a fantasist who latches themselves...

Article by Sam Tyler on 16th March 2023
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The Actuality by  by Paul Braddon
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I sometimes like to think about a singular change to the world and how it would affect the future. It says a lot about me that in most cases my thoughts end up at dystopia. Humans are always going to end at some point, I was just hoping...

Article by Sam Tyler on 25th February 2021
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The first of Stephen Deas’ dragon series and published in 2009, The Adamantine Palace sets the stage of scheming between the noble factions and royal houses. Prince Jehal, Queen Sheriza, Queen Zafira, Speaker Hyram and others battle for power.

Like many fantasy works, Deas’ society...

Article by Allen Stroud on 9th September 2015
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The Adjacent by  by Christopher Priest
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Christopher Priest is without a doubt one of the finest writers alive today. Rather than compromise his stories for the sake of easy understanding Priest writes undiluted and it's up to the reader to pay attention; to digest and to consider what the story really means, or at the very least what...

Article by Ant on 26th June 2013
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The Affirmation by  by Christopher Priest
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The Affirmation is one seriously good book, managing to create a complex and mind bending scenario that plays on the structure of reality, levels of existence and the nature of the mind - the very notion of "self" and the idea of identity. The story is narrated in the first person by the...

Article by Ant on 11th November 2011
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Illustration ©2018 Chris Samnee from The Folio Society edition of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

It is 1939. Forced to live together in a small New York apartment, two young men, Samuel Clay and Joseph Kavalier bond over their shared interest in comic books and cartoon art....

Article by Allen Stroud on 6th December 2018
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The Androids of Tara by  by David Fisher
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The Doctor can travel anywhere in the Universe and at any time. He can witness the last days of existence or visit a planet of peace. Or he could visit Tara, a planet that seems like our own feudal era Britain, but with added androids. And some odd feeling 70s chauvinism. Target Books have...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th December 2022
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The Apollo Murders by  by Chris Hadfield
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The sense of adventure and bravery that someone needed to explore space in the 60s and 70s is beyond me. All that separates you from the vacuum of space is a few sheets of glass and metal. The technology onboard is simpler than the type of things you would get in a child’s electronic...

Article by Sam Tyler on 6th September 2022
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Way before be became a household name with his Songs of Ice and Fire series, George RR Martin wrote a number of stand-out novels and Armageddon Rag is often seen as one the most off-the-wall if not his finest early works. Nominated for the Locus and World Fantasy awards it failed to gain any...

Article by Ant on 23rd May 2012
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The Art of Space Travel by  by Nina Allen
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A multiple Award-winning British author of speculative fiction, Nina Allan returns with a new collection of novelettes much to the joy of her numerous fans.

Having read ( and reviewed) myself  some of her stories in the past I was looking forward to new material by this talented...

Article by Mario Guslandi on 2nd August 2021
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The Art of War by  by David Wingrove
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The Art of War continues David Wingrove's epic re-imagining of the Chung Kuo, the fifth novel in the 20 book series and things are starting to really heat up. It's five years after the events depicted in Ice and Fire and the story picks up in the summer of 2206. The Dispersionists who have...

Article by Ant on 19th July 2013
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The Atlantis Gene by  by AG Riddle
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When I first started to read this book I was anticipating a plot involving Atlanteans and genetics. This is exactly what you get. Tenfold.

Article by John Richardson on 10th June 2015
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The Augmented Agent by  by Jack Vance
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The Augmented Agent is a collection of science fiction short stories by Jack Vance. Jack Vance:I read the intro and.....Basically it was a campaign for Vance heroes as regular fellas running around and doing incredible things to the environment they are written into with wits and brains rarely...

Article by number 6 on 21st August 2004
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The genuine autobiography of one of the bravest, most dashing and heroic starship captains to ever bodly-go into the depths of space. You may be pleased to know that this Kirk is the real one, not the imposter who has more recently been seen in the latest films. This Kirk doesn't get command of...

Article by Ant on 24th September 2015
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The Aylesford Skull is the fourth novel in the Narbondo series, following the adventures of the brilliant but eccentric Professor Langdon St. Ives and written by one of the founding fathers of the Steampunk genre - James P Blaylock.

Not only has Blaylock won a number of awards, he's also...

Article by Ant on 30th January 2013
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The Babel Apocalypse by  by Vyvyan Evans
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Most of us have a subject at school that we struggled with more than others and for me that was languages. Maths, English, Science, I was fine, but my brain does not feel designed for languages. So, if someone offered me a chip that would allow me to instantly understand all languages on Earth,...

Article by Sam Tyler on 2nd May 2023
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Ollie Clay is a supply teacher who inherits fifty thousand pounds and spends it on a house. It turns out the house is next door to a neo Nazi called Chas Walker. Walker’s anti-social behaviour contributes to Clay’s life spiralling downhill, until he tries to take matters into his own...

Article by Allen Stroud on 8th January 2019
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The genre of Urban Fantasy is pathed with perils, which means that it should be perfect for Alex Jennings’ The Ballad of Perilous Graves. How do you make your modern fantasy stand out from the others without making it impenetrable for the reader? A unique location or voice works well. An...

Article by Sam Tyler on 28th June 2022
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The Bands of Mourning, part of the second series of Mistborn books, taking place hundreds of years after the original Mistborn trilogy, follows the adventures of Wax, Wayne, Marasi, and Steris once more. The Bands of Mourning are the mythical metalminds owned by the Lord Ruler, said to grant...

Article by Vanessa on 5th February 2016
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The Bastard Legion by  by Gavin Smith
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The Bastard Legion is the latest Military Science Fiction from Gavin Smith, very much in the style of his earlier book Veteran and its sequel War in Heaven, although not connected in terms of plot or characters. 

Smith’s hard hitting protagonist is Miska Corbin, a thief and hacker...

Article by Karen Fishwick on 29th November 2017
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The Bastard Wonderland is something of a suprise. The debut of Lee Harrison, it describes a complex alternative world where a war wages between the North and the South. It's this tiresome war that is thrust upon northern lad Warboys and his father as they are strong-armed into a foolhardy...

Article by Ant on 10th October 2016
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The Beautiful Land by  by Alan Averill
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The Beautiful Land makes excellent use of the parallel dimensions theory as it relates to time travel. Here you don't directly travel in time but to a different point in a parallel world which could be almost like our own or vastly different depending on the changes that have taken place. Here...

Article by Ant on 18th December 2013
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Fantasy does not have to be one set thing and as the years progress, I find fantasy books that have moved away from just being magical creatures going out on a quest far more interesting. The Beautiful Ones by Silvia Moreno-Garcia has the lightest of fantasy touches and...

Article by Sam Tyler on 27th April 2021
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The Bees by  by Laline Paull
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Bees are quite complicated little creatures and most of us know very little about them. Those that practice apiculture are becoming worth their weight in gold (or bees). We've been collecting their honey for over 15,000 years and we are just beginning to understand just how important to our...

Article by Ant on 28th March 2015
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Volume 12 of Ellen Datlow’s annual “Best of” anthology is a must for any horror lover, assembling a bunch of short stories selected by this distinguished Editor from the usual annual deluge of dark short fiction appeared in print or online.

In addition the volume,as...

Article by Mario Guslandi on 15th October 2020
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An exciting collection of short stories, for many different tastes. I enjoyed them all. They vary from what looks like a traditional sword and sorcery tale (but is a lot else besides), to modern myths exploring identity and the impact of childhood neglect on the adult. The characters of these...

Article by Irene Rosenfeld on 21st June 2019
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The genre of Science Fiction has always been a wide one in terms of ideas. You can set a book on our own Earth with only one or two tweaks to the norm. This Speculative Fiction is Sci Fi, but so are the Space Operas that span eons and are inhabited by alien races. Although the nature of Sci Fi...

Article by Sam Tyler on 1st April 2021
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The Bicentennial Man by  by Isaac Asimov
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This is a collection of 11 science fiction short stories and a poem by Isaac Asimov. The Bicentennial Man features as one of the stories and was later expanded into a novel called The Positronic Man which was co written with Robert Silverberg. The Positronic Man formed the basis of the film...

Article by Ant on 24th July 2008
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The Big Time by  by Fritz Leiber
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The Big Time won the coveted Hugo award for best novel in 1958 - the fourth novel to win such award; a science fiction story written by an author best known for his fantasy stories. It's unique in style and form, reading as much as a play as it does a novel. This feeling is re-enforced by the...

Article by Ant on 20th August 2013
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The Big U by  by Neal Stephenson
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The Big U is the first novel by the award winning author Neal Stephenson. Reading the reprinting of the first (and unsuccessful) novel of a now successful author can be a mixed blessing. Sometimes there’s actually a good reason why it wasn’t that successful the first time around. The Big U...

Article by TC on 30th April 2002
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A debut novel from an aspiring novelist. The book reached number 6 on the London Times fiction best seller list. A traditional tale of a haunted house. And already reading this. You feel like you are. Reading the novel. I’m sorry Christopher but I’m honestly not sure how you managed to...

Article by Arron on 15th September 2012
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In Science Fiction and Fantasy, I have visited a multitude of different worlds. In some cases, it feels like all the people on the planet have similar sensibilities, but how is this possible? Even within our own country you get people from the North who are...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th February 2021
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The war against the lands of Pawelon is now in its tenth year and King Vieri hopes that the kingdom's holy saviour, his son Caio will lead his army to a final victory. Meanwhile Caio's sister Lucia is tortured with nightly visions from the Black God Lord Danato promising another 10 years of...

Article by Ant on 23rd November 2011
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The Black Hole by  by Alan Dean Foster
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Seen as how BOB has been hanging around the website for some time now (he's the robot at the top left) I thought it was about time that I reviewed The Black Hole, the book (and film) that features BOB. The book is a direct novelisation of the 1979 Disney film of the same name, written by Alan...

Article by Ant on 13th May 2011
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The fourth of Stephen Deas’ series, published in 2012, The Black Mausoleum picks up the story of Deas’ Dragon Realms sometime after the events of book three, The Order of the Scales.  This is a wise choice as the epic conclusion to the first trilogy of books left such a scattering of...

Article by Allen Stroud on 2nd October 2015
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The Blood Red City by  by Justin Richards
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The Blood Red City, the second novel in the Never War Series, following the dramatic alternative history novel Suicide Exhibition.

The story picks up not long after the events of the first novel and it's advisable you read this book before reading The Blood Red City. Where the first...

Article by Ant on 25th May 2015
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The Blood Witch is the 8th volume in the Jason Dark: Ghost Hunter series of Novellas by Guido Henkel. An ancient curse re-surfaces and from deep within England's dark forests comes a hideous terror, stronger than ever and stalking the fog wrapped streets of Victorian London. Young girls are...

Article by Ant on 12th January 2011
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Those good fellows over at Titan books have released a brand new edition of the best-selling sequel to Anno Dracula, complete with an additional novella. Continuing the alternative history tale where the vampire hunter Van Helsing was defeated by Dracula, bringing Vampirism into the open and...

Article by Ant on 5th April 2012
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There can be no doubt that Chuck Wendig has a way with words. He writes in a style which has an edge of grim reality, merging with that of the fantastic in such a way that feels entirely natural. As I've said before his books are always adult in nature and he pulls no punches in his depictions,...

Article by Ant on 30th September 2014
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The Boat of a Million Years is a science fiction novel by Poul William Anderson. Starting in the year 310BC and taking us beyond our present day, The Boat of a Million Years takes on one of Poul Anderson's favourite topics, namely longevity. Most of the book follows Hanno as he lives through a...

Article by TC on 1st April 2001
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How big does a cult have to be to become a cult? Does it have to be thousands of people? Hundreds? Tens? Could one family be a cult? If you brought your children up in a remote location without access to the internet and media, it may be possible to make them believe almost anything. Like a tale...

Article by Sam Tyler on 3rd October 2024
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The Bohr Maker by  by Linda Nagata
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The Bohr Maker is a science fiction novel by the writer Linda Nagata. This is the first book that I have read by Linda Nagata and I'm not quite sure what I feel about it. The basis for the book is interesting enough - it takes place in a world where nanomachines, bio-engineering and...

Article by TC on 1st February 1999
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The Book of Adam by  by Robert M Hopper
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The Book of Adam: Autobiography of the first human clone is a science fiction novel and the debut of Robert M Hopper. On February 22, 1997, the world was shocked with the announcement that a lamb named Dolly had been born, the first mammal cloned from adult cells. The reaction was largely one...

Article by Ant on 13th October 2010
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The Book of Malachi by  by T C Farren
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The way that humans treat each other in real life is far darker and harrowing than any science fiction book that you can create, but this does not stop some authors from exploring the depths of the human condition. If we are only as good as how we treat the weakest in society, the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 13th October 2020
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The Book of Mars by  by Stuart Clark
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I am a student of history. In that I love to learn about history, but I did a degree in the subject. What I find the most fascinating is how history evolves – an event happened and that will never change, but how we precisive it does. The fashions and knowledge of the present day impacts...

Article by Sam Tyler on 10th November 2022
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The Book of Strange New Things, is itself quite strange. It's one of those genre books that have managed to convince the mainstream that it's more mainstream literature. I must admit that it's also not a bad example and will certainly not do the reputation of science fiction any harm.

It...

Article by Ant on 14th December 2015
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Gene Wolfe is perhaps one of the most under-rated and criminally overlooked writers in genre fiction. The New Yorker recently called him Sci-Fi's Difficult Genius. Authors Michael Swanwick and Patrick O'Leary have gone so far as to say he is:

The best writer alive today.

Ursula K LeGuin...

Article by Ant on 1st June 2015
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The Bookman by  by Lavie Tidhar
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The Bookman is a steampunk-esq novel of victorian adventure meets history, technology and erm... books, written by the talented author Lavie Tidhar. If the British Library was a living entity and, on wanting to write a book was told ‘write what you know’ then this is the book it would...

Article by Gill on 5th February 2011
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The Boy who wept blood is the sequel to Den Patrick's impressive novel, The Boy with the Porcelain Blade. Set some time after the events of the first book, the Queen Anea now rules Demense. A fairer society is being built on the ashes of the old regime however many of the old players are...

Article by Ant on 10th April 2015
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Lucien de Fontein is one of the Orfano, a group who have grown-up deformed in some way and hold a strange place in society - not quite outcast but not accepted either, tormented by their deformity. Orfano are known to have powers that others do not and Lucien is as skilled a fighter as his young...

Article by Ant on 10th March 2014
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The Branded by  by Jo Riccioni
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There are all types of fantasy from the high to the low, but for some fans it can be tricky to enjoy one type or the other. For someone interested in starting to read low fantasy they may be turned off by the violence and darkness that this part of the genre emits. On the other hand, high...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th July 2024
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I have read a lot of magical books in recent years and the genre is not rigid. There are books that are steeped in magic, the reader unsure what is real and what is fake. Other books like A. G. Slatter’s The Briar Book of the Dead have a sense of magical realism to them. Yes, the witches...

Article by Sam Tyler on 26th February 2024
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The Bridge by  by Iain M Banks
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The Bridge is a novel by the award winning British author Iain M Banks. I'm ever in awe over Banks - where The Wasp Factory was a really strong debut novel, The Bridge as his third published novel is just so much more. It's fantastic to see him develop as a writer and storyteller - Yeah, I know...

Article by TC on 1st October 2000
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The Bullet Catcher's Daughter is set in a world that is steeped in steampunk style. Not only full of arcane machines but with a clear nod to the Victorian society and strict sexist views. This style is perfectly captured by the series name "The Gas-Lit Empire".

In this tightly controlled...

Article by Ant on 28th July 2014
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The Buried Dagger by  by James Swallow
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So this is it, the 54th and final book in the Horus Heresy series. But before you despair, it isn't the end of the story and the mad Titan Horus is only just knocking on the doors of Terra. The final battle will be played out over a series of novels called the Siege of Terra, presumably...

Article by Ant on 25th March 2019
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From the books description page:

The gaslight and shadows of the underground city of Recoletta hide secrets and lies. When Inspector Liesl Malone investigates the murder of a renowned historian, she finds herself stonewalled by the all-powerful Directorate of Preservation –...

Article by D. L. Denham on 22nd October 2014
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The Burning Dark by  by Adam Christopher
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Before his early retirement Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland (Ida) has one last duty to perform, overseeing the decommissioning of a partly deserted research post which orbits a toxic star right on the edge of Fleetspace.

When Ida arrives on board the U-Star Coast City he finds the...

Article by Ant on 16th June 2014
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Epic fantasy novels are filled with fellowships from the OG to the 700-page opuses of today. What differs across all these books is how close the fellows are. Multiple character perspectives do not a fellowship make if they never meet each other, you want a close group of people all setting out...

Article by Sam Tyler on 2nd February 2024
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The Business by  by Iain M Banks
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The Business is a science fiction novel by the acclaimed British author Iain M Banks. Thinking that it maybe was about time for something not so spectacular, I grabbed this book by Iain Not-M Banks while I was at the bookstore (getting The Naked God). Good thing. Even with it's high finance...

Article by TC on 1st October 1999
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I find sometimes find myself wondering how a dystopian world became so bad. What happened in a society that they thought making children battle to the death was a good idea? Or how a world forced woman to bear children? Sometimes it is better not to know how a society got there, but...

Article by Sam Tyler on 9th January 2023
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There is a perfectly sensible reason why the concept of Fairy Woods exist. Back in the day, the land was covered in thick forests, any person that travelled too far from the village or well-trodden tracks could easily get lost and become victim to one of several predators from wolves to wild...

Article by Sam Tyler on 27th February 2024
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I enjoy a retelling of a classic tale from an unfamiliar perspective. I have read about Sherlock Holmes from the point of view of almost everyone he ever met. I have read about Beowulf written by his niece. King Authur, Robin Hood, many others, but never a character as dark as Sweeny Todd. The...

Article by Sam Tyler on 2nd June 2025
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The Cabinet by  by Un-Su Kim
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I love genre fiction that deals with people who have developed superpowers; X-Men, The 4400, The Boys. All of them have ordinary people gaining extraordinary powers. Some become superheroes, other supervillains. However, what about those mutations that are a...

Article by Sam Tyler on 12th October 2021
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To many, HP Lovecraft is seen as the father of modern horror and The Call of Cthulhu is undoubtedly his most famous work. Like many artists Lovecraft wasn't appreciated during his lifetime and his work only achieved success and literary recognition after his death. Collectively these weird...

Article by Ant on 28th July 2017
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The Carhullan Army by  by Sarah Hall
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The Carhullan Army is a dystopian science fiction novel set in an around the cumbrian fells, written by Sarah Hall. With much of Britain underwater due to a biblical level of flooding, the surviving population exist in concentrated pockets and ruled by the rather sinister sounding "Authority"....

Article by Ant on 10th July 2010
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The term Graphic Novel is a grandiose one, but well deserved in some cases. A collection of comics in one place helps to reveal the arc, but often I read Graphic Novels that were too short and did not contain enough to be seen as a novel, a short story or novelette perhaps. Inside the Mind...

Article by Sam Tyler on 24th November 2023
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The Cassini Division by  by Ken Mcleod
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The Cassini Division the third volume in the Fall Revolution series which began with the Star Fraction, written by Ken Mcleod. My second read by Ken MacLeod (how do you pronounce that?). Humanity has come a long way since the Star Fraction and the struggles of Moh Kohn. Humanity has split into...

Article by TC on 1st September 1999
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In the small, sleepy town of Appleton, Billy Brahm’s life goes from clumsy to cursed. After following a cat into the road, he’s hit by a car, his leg shattered, and his summer is ruined. A mysterious cat begins to visit him...

Article by Vanessa on 6th July 2015
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The Cathedral of Known Things is the sequel to the fantasy novel The Relic Guild by Edward Cox.

The ongoing story of the agents of The Relic Guild as they seek to oppose their enemies, the Genii. The Guild is trying to prevent them from achieving what they started in the previous war,...

Article by Karen Fishwick on 7th December 2015
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The Causal Angel by  by Hannu Rajaniemi
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The concluding part to the adventures of Jean Le Flambeur, The Causal Angel is a little confusing in its listing on various websites. Despite some titles to the contrary it is part three of the trilogy; where The Fractal Prince is part two and The Quantum Thief is part one.

Admirers of...

Article by Allen Stroud on 2nd September 2015
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The Caves of Steel by  by Isaac Asimov
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The Caves of Steel is a classic science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov and could be considered the first in the Robot series.

It has been about twenty years since I read this book first and ten years since I read it last. I've grown older and hopefully wiser since then and The Caves of...

Article by TC on 1st June 2001
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The Centauri Device by  by M John Harrison
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The Centauri Device is a classic science fiction tale told by M John Harrison. Picking up another classic from the SF Masterworks series, by an author which was a total unknown to me. It's kind of a high risk gamble, it could open my eyes to something completely new and it could be a complete...

Article by TC on 7th July 2003
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The Ceres Solution by  by Bob Shaw
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The Ceres Solution is a science fiction novel by Bob Shaw. It's important to read the copyright page closely, before you start on a book. Knowing the year a story was written (or first published) can greatly change the way you'll understand a story. I had somehow gotten the impression that The...

Article by TC on 1st September 2000
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The Chalk Man by  by C J Tudor
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I picked up The Chalk Man purely as a result of Stephen King recommending it on twitter after he said If you like my stuff, you'll like this. He isn't wrong. While it has a voice all it's own, The Chalk Man is a perfect accompliment to Kings' work.

It begins in 1986,...

Article by Ant on 6th April 2018
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In one of the most hotly anticipated sequels in memory, J.K. Rowling takes up where she left with Harry's second year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Old friends and new torments abound, including a spirit named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girl's bathroom, an outrageously...

Article by TC on 1st December 2001
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The Chapters Due by  by Graham McNeill
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The Chapters Due is the sixth novel in the Ultramarines series and the third in the Ultramarines Omnibus II, which also includes several additional short stories and even a nice graphic short. Once again we follow Captain Uriel Ventris as the Chapter goes up against their ultimate nemesis, the...

Article by Ant on 22nd June 2012
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Framed for Murder and on the run, Detective Inspector Cass Jones gets unwelcome attention wherever he goes, including being hounded by his former colleagues. As he works desperately to save his kidnapped nephew and gain answers he finds himself going up against The Bank and its sinister...

Article by Ant on 21st March 2012
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The Circus Infinite by  by Khan Wong
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There is something magical about the idea of a circus, the lights, the action, the antics, and the acts. The reality in my youth was a little different with a threadbare tent being erected in a local muddy play field. Khan Wong has thankfully decided to capture the majesty that the idea evokes...

Article by Sam Tyler on 6th March 2022
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The City by  by Stella Gemmell
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This is Stella Gemmell's first solo book, after writing with her late (great) husband for a number of years. I must admit that I am a huge fan of David Gemmell, I've read and re-read most of his works and the majority are still hugely memorable; for me he defined the Heroic Fantasy genre. I...

Article by Ant on 10th July 2013
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The City & the City is an award winning and critically acclaimed novel by China Miéville. If you are a fan of science fiction or fantasy the chances are you will already be aware of this novel, not only has it won nearly every major genre award for 2010, it also received critical acclaim...

Article by Ant on 13th February 2011
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The City and The Stars is a science fiction novel by Arthur C Clarke. This little story has a rather nice premise: After decades of exploring space and it's many wonders, The Intruders force Humanity to retreat into an enclosed city on Earth that is totally self-sufficient. Humans have lived in...

Article by TC on 24th February 2004
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Post-Katrina New Orleans is haunted by history and destruction. Similar burdens are shouldered by the Street Magician Jude Dubuisson. He's got a gift of finding things people have lost - inherited from an unknown father. His gift has become an almost overwhelming curse following the storm, with...

Article by Ant on 24th April 2019
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I really enjoy a retelling of the Arthurian Legend, which is a good thing as I have read a fair few. Each author tackles the story in a unique way looking to put their own spin on a well-known tale. Do you follow the classic beats making the likes of Morgana the villain? Perhaps it is Merlin's...

Article by Sam Tyler on 17th April 2023
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The Colorado Kid by  by Stephen King
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There are few names in modern writing more evocative than Stephen King. This horror maestro is one of the most successful authors of the past 40 years, but there has always been more to him than killer clowns and sentient cars. King has dabbled in a multitude of other genres; science fiction,...

Article by Sam Tyler on 21st August 2019
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The Marvel Universe is jammed packed with famous storylines, but one of the biggest has always been the time that The Fantastic Four took on Galactus. It resonates because it has lasted since the 1960s and appears to be having a reimagining in the latest film. The Coming of Galactus by...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th July 2025
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The 15th April 2012 marks a century after the RMS Titanic (operated by the White Star Line) sank after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. 1517 people died in those freezing waters. It's as much a lesson in human arrogance as it is in maritime...

Article by Ant on 23rd March 2012
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The Complete Alcatraz collects the whole series of Brandon Sanderson young adult novels including Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones, Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia and Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens.

These novels follow the...

Article by Ant on 7th November 2012
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The world is a terrible place to live after the zombie apocalypse, but probably for none more so than a vampire.  Without humans, the blood supply is all dried up, unless you find a random animal.  The buildings are decayed and in ruin, with gaping holes the sunlight streams through and...

Article by Colin on 13th June 2016
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The Confederation Handbook is a stand alone novel set within the same universe as the Nights Dawn Trilogy. "A Vital Guide To the Night’s Dawn Trilogy" the subtitle of The Confederation Handbook says and that pretty much says it all. Two hundred and thirty pages of facts about the culture,...

Article by TC on 14th March 2002
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The Contest by  by Jeff Macfee
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Puzzle me this. Whilst other kids were outside climbing trees or knocking a football around, you would often find me indoors or under a tree reading a book or doing puzzles. That has led to two lifelong consequences; a love of puzzles and a problem with weight. Puzzler was always my favourite,...

Article by Sam Tyler on 14th February 2025
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On the bloody battlefield littered with the dead and dying, two figures step cautiously through the viscera, the blood, guts and many feasting crows. These two appear ill-matched; one a slight and nimble figure, the other a hulking brute. You may be forgiven for thinking that perhaps they are...

Article by Ant on 31st August 2012
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The Corridors of time by  by Poul Anderson
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The Corridors of time is a science fiction novel by the author Poul Anderson. Reading almost exclusively in english, very few of the stories that I read take place in my home country of Denmark, in fact I think that this is the first one, that I've read, which takes place mostly in Denmark....

Article by TC on 2nd March 2001
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Fairies are not real. If they were we would have more evidence of them than a suspect looking photo taken by a couple of Victorian School Girls. However, Fairies are just brighter than you think. Why would they risk being seen by humans who have in recent years...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th April 2021
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Who does not love a genre mash up? The industry certainly does as they ride that Romantasy train all the way to the bank. Although I do not mind a whimsical fantasy, I would not consider it my favourite genre. A mash up of genres needs a little more bite to interest me. How about Westerns with...

Article by Sam Tyler on 21st May 2025
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The Coward by  by Stephen Aryan
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When I think about heroism I often think about the conversation between Cat and Rimmer in Red Dwarf. There‘s an old cat proverb that goes, "It's better to live one hour as a tiger than an entire lifetime as a worm.” There's an old human proverb...

Article by Sam Tyler on 4th June 2021
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The Crash by  by Robert Peston
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The crime genre is huge, and a protagonist can become involved in solving a murder in numerous ways. Being a police officer or PI makes sense, being an elderly lady or vicar less so, but authors still manage somehow – to remarkable success. Another easy option is a journalist. Their job is...

Article by Sam Tyler on 15th September 2023
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The Crook Factory by  by Dan Simmons
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The Crook Factory is a novel by the award winning author, Dan Simmons. During World War II Ernest Hemingway apparently asked for permission, from the American government, to run a spy ring from his home in Cuba and got it. In steps special agent Joe Lucas. J. Edgar Hoover (chief of the FBI at...

Article by TC on 6th February 2002
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The Crown of the Blood is the first volume in the series of the same name, written by Gav Thorpe and published by Angry Robot Books. Ullsaard is a warrior and General of the fierce and deadly Askhor troops. All have fallen beneath his mighty army, helping to create the greatest empire the land...

Article by Ant on 1st September 2010
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The Crying Machine by  by Greg Chivers
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Science documentary producer Greg Chivers’ first novel is a delightful combination of sci-fi, politics, and the three strange characters ensconced within them.

Chivers’ future Jerusalem is a city all but ignored as irrelevant by the world’s leaders, and in its anonymity...

Article by Alice Wybrew on 22nd April 2019
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The Culled by  by Simon Spurrier
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There is something gritty and slightly dirty about Simon Spurrier's writing, making it an acquired taste in science fiction at times. Certainly in The Culled, the first book of the Afterblight Chronicles published by Abaddon Books, we are introduced to our main character in a way that parades...

Article by Allen Stroud on 16th March 2015
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The Cure by  by Douglas E Richards
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Douglas Richards has a wonderful way of injecting science fiction elements into a thriller style plot without upsetting the balance and comparisons to the late Michael Crichton are inevitable. If anyone was to compare authors it would also be fair to say that Richards is a worthy successor to...

Article by Ant on 6th November 2013
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One of the many lessons that I have learned in life is that you do not mess with Mummies. Either kind. Annoying a new mother who is trying to get their child onto the bus if dangerous and only equalled by an antient Egyptian Mummy rising from the dead. The Mummies in Lisa Tuttle’s The...

Article by Sam Tyler on 9th June 2023
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The Curse of Kali is the 10th volume in the Jason Dark series by Guido Henkel. The intrepid Inspector Lestrade needs all the help he can get after a the decapitated corpse of a rich writer is found in the hands of a statue of the Hindu goddess Kali. Not even sure if he's looking for a human...

Article by Ant on 24th May 2011
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The Cybernetic Walrus by  by Jack L Chalker
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The Cybernetic Walrus is a science fiction novel by the Jack L Chalker. On my version of this book the title contains the words Book One - which is, if you ask me, a good thing. All too often you have to read the fine print on the back of a book to find out that it's number one in a series -...

Article by TC on 1st February 1999
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The Daleth Effect by  by Harry Harrison
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The Daleth Effect is a science fiction novel by Harry Harrison. Denmark has the Anti Gravity Device! Wouldn't it be nice if one of the non-bully invade the world and dominate countries got a hold of the perfect insta travel to the moon devices? Denmark gets it and does everything it can with...

Article by TC on 26th August 2002
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The Damaged by  by Simon Law
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Horror comes in different guises, it can be dark, chilling, violent, bloody and psychological;

Simon Law’s second novel The Damaged is all of these themes.

The story starts in 1987 during ‘The Great Storm’. Law does a great job of writing about the eighties that is both...

Article by Tracey Holmes on 8th August 2016
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The Dark Court by  by Vyvyan Evans
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I imagine there is a dial that an author has when they are writing their book, it spans the gamut of subtle to outrageous. Where do you decide to place your story? Should you keep it lowkey, writing about a world like our own, but with a small tweak? Or do you embrace all that science fiction...

Article by Sam Tyler on 15th May 2024
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The Dark Forest by  by Liu Cixin
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Defeatism. Fatalism. These are universal, recurrent maladies that everyone experiences at points throughout their lives. Even if one moves forward - how do we find meaning in such a vast, uncaring universe?

Only here, the universe isn’t uncaring, it’s quite pointedly predatory. These...

Article by Danny on 27th January 2016
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The Dark Side of Technology is a science fiction novel by Mark Antony Rossi. The tale of the mad scientist is even older than the Shelly novel of Frankenstein. Since the dawn of the written word man has tried to altered his appearance, environment or internal makeup in a vain attempt to gain...

Article by TC on 20th August 2000
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The Darwin Elevator by  by Jason M Hough
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It's the 23rd Century and Earth is changed forever following the arrival in Darwin, Australia of the alien "builder" technology that provides a "tether" out into space; humanity finally has a space elevator. No-one knows why, or even if these elusive aliens will return.

Some time later...

Article by Ant on 18th November 2013
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The Darwinian Extension: Completion is the third volume in the The Darwinian Extension trilogy, written by Hylton H Smith. Over twenty years have passed since the Red planet was first colonised and contact was made with an alien intelligence. Much has changed in this time, Mars now has a thin,...

Article by Ant on 25th March 2010
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The Darwinian Extension: Initiation, is the first volume in a trilogy of novels from author Hylton H Smith. The Darwinian Extension begins in 2033, with a planned mission to populate Mars. The mission is not one of simple habitation however, but one of true colonisation including terraforming,...

Article by Ant on 1st July 2009
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The Darwinian Extension: Transition is the second volume in the science fiction trilogy from author Hylton H Smith, and follows on from the events in Initiation. Transition begins in the year 2038, 2 years have passed since the return of the Copernicus, the ship carrying the first Mars...

Article by Ant on 20th January 2010
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H. G. Wells is a name to conjure with. Classic stories about time machines, invisible men, alien invasions and more. He was one of the earliest genre writers in a time when the idea of genres did not exist. He just wrote what he felt like. A modern author who has taken on this mantle is Silvia...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th July 2022
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The Dead of Winter by  by Nicola Upson
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There are two types of Christmases: merry or blue. Whether you are more Slade or Elvis will depend on the experiences you have had in the past on December 25th. Have your winters been full of family fun and presents? Do you get a sense of wellbeing and good tidings to...

Article by Sam Tyler on 12th January 2022
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The Dead of Winter was a novel that caught me somewhat off guard, combining two genres I enjoy immensely, horror and the westerns, and successfully merging them together. Set in and around the town of Leadville, Colorado the story follows the tough, hard-drinking, gambling lead of the story,...

Article by Rob on 22nd October 2013
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Certain jobs can change you, the things that you see, the things that you must do. You may become closed off, hard, brittle, or just a little bit over the edge. Julie Crews has become all these things and more as a local Psychic Operative. Living off a diet of cocaine, regret and...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th December 2023
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I have been lucky enough to be one of a select few to receive an early copy of The Death House, wrapped in brown paper and twine and promising much. I have to say it's an impressive read.

The story involves a unique childrens home (The Death House) where those who are found susceptible...

Article by Ant on 5th December 2014
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The Death I Gave Him by  by Em X. Liu
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Shakespeare plays have been around for a long time, and you do not need to do a straight adaptation. Many of the terms used in the plays have entered the common vernacular and the storylines can be traced throughout modern film and television. I don’t recall Romeo or Juliet breaking out...

Article by Sam Tyler on 14th September 2023
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The Death of Grass by  by John Christopher
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The Death of Grass is a classic post-apocalyptic tale of a world without grass. Written in 1956 - just as the post-apocalyptic genre started to gain ground, created by the British author Samuel Youd - under the pen name John Christopher.

The Death of Grass was Youd's second novel and was...

Article by Ant on 9th December 2013
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There are two ways of writing fiction set in the Victorian era; set a fictional book in the real era or write within the Victorian multiverse. This is a playground that I have read many books in, a world where Sherlock Holmes can investigate new cases, but also one in which he can work...

Article by Sam Tyler on 10th November 2023
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The Demolished Man by  by Alfred Bester
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The Demolished Man was the first ever novel to win a Hugo award for "Best Novel" in 1953. As with much of Alfred Bester's works, it remains an understated classic.

The novel is set in the 24th Century with a society who can no longer hide their crimes following the rise of police...

Article by Ant on 6th August 2014
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The Dervish House by  by Ian McDonald
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The world of The Dervish house is a reflection of it's parent city of Istanbul which is itself a reflection of the nation of Turkey; ancient, paradoxical and divided like the brain of a human being. In the year 2027 on a swealteringly hot summers day there is a small explosion in Enginsoy...

Article by Ant on 8th August 2011
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The Desert of Souls is a sweeping tale that is firmly rooted in the traditional sword and sorcery genre and yet flows with a steady, refreshing grace. Set in 8th Century Baghdad the novel is full of an eastern style that sets it apart from the majority of the genre. It's a refreshing environment...

Article by Ant on 14th June 2013
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The Detective by  by Ajay Chowdhury
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It is never nice to be the new person at work, getting to know your new workmates and the procedures, whilst trying to look like you know what you are doing. It is even harder if you are joining the police with a reputation and the support of upper management. You will have to add to petty...

Article by Sam Tyler on 15th June 2023
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The Diamond Age by  by Neal Stephenson
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The Diamond Age is a speculative fiction novel by the award winning author Neal Stephenson. Where the core technologies of matter compilers and nanotechnology of this book is quite interesting and where Stephensons portrayal of a future based on nanotechnology is one of the best, that...

Article by TC on 10th January 2001
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The Die by  by Jude Berman
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There are a lot of different ways to be smart and just because you are one, does not automatically make you the other. The classic is book versus street, you may know your way around an academic essay, but would fail to talk yourself out of a tricky situation outside the pub at closing time. If...

Article by Sam Tyler on 22nd April 2024
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For me Tad Williams sits right up there with the very best fantasy story-tellers, I read his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series many years ago and it still ranks as one of the most memorable fantasy series, even after all that time. If you haven't read the series and are a fan of the fantastic...

Article by Ant on 16th July 2012
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Given that today is Halloween, I thought it only right that we review a horror novel. It's also a damn good one - The Disciple by Stephen Lloyd Jones.

It all starts on a stormy night as Edward Schwinn navigates the country roads at the edge of Devil's Kitchen, Snowdonia. On a...

Article by Ant on 31st October 2016
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Something is going wrong on the planet of Paradise, crops will no longer grow while those imported are withering and dying in their droves. The indigenous plant life (never entirely safe) is becoming wildly unpredictable and dangerous. And so the order is given to abandon Paradise, all personnel...

Article by Ant on 5th April 2013
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The Dispossessed by  by Ursula K Le Guin
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The Dispossessed, a novel by the distinguished and award winning author Ursula K Le Guin It's been some time since I last read anything by LeGuin (I think that it was The Word for World is Forest, which I liked); I've never really been much into her for some reason. Got no idea why. She writes...

Article by TC on 1st December 1999
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As a species we are doing a good enough job of messing up our own chances of survival, but what if I told you that we could also mess up another distant planet too? In Stephan George’s The Distant Stars Are My Only Friends, Arax is a traveller who does not go into space, but instead...

Article by Sam Tyler on 16th December 2022
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The Divine Invasion by  by Philip K Dick
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The Divine Invasion is a science fiction novel by the critically acclaimed author Philip K Dick. Couple of people live in some bubbles on a crispy cold methane planet. Bachelor pad one: the guy loves some Rondstadt type woman (Linda Fox) and is a dj from his home dome. The lady in the next...

Article by TC on 21st February 2002
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The Dog Stars by  by Peter Heller
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Hig is a survivor, a lone pilot who's wife, friends and almost all neighbours are long dead. Living in the hanger of a small abandoned airport with only his dog and his gun-toting neighbour for company. He flies his 1956 Cessna around the perimeter looking out for trouble and occasionally sneaks...

Article by Ant on 27th June 2012
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The Doors of Eden by  by Adrian Tchaikovsky
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Adrian Tchaikovsky has a talent for writing deep, meaningful scifi. He won the Arthur C Clarke award in 2016 for Children of Time and the 2019 BSFA best novel award for the follow-up Children of Ruin. There are few authors that can quite match his vision for non-human intelligence, or his flair...

Article by Ant on 12th August 2020
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The Dragon and the George is a fantasy novel by the author Gordon R Dickson. Welcome to Gordon R. Dickson's alternate reality. Within that reality, we find ourselves in a medieval landscape balanced between the natural forces of Chance and History. A landscape filled with knights, castles,...

Article by TC on 20th August 2010
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The Dragon at War is a fantasy novel by the author Gordon R Dickson. Over a century ago, the dragon Gleingul fought and slew a sea serpent in single combat. A genuine David and Goliath moment as sea serpents are more than twice as large as dragons. Ever since, there has been great animosity...

Article by TC on 20th August 2001
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Blackened and half-forgotten in a Danish churchyard stands an ancient runestone - the secret gateway to a twilight world where supernatural powers battle for the fate of our world. Erik Larssen has become a part of that conflict, searching for his lost son in a world beyond time. But it...

Article by Ant on 26th September 2008
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The Dragon Knight is the sequel to the Dragon and the George, by Gordon R Dickson. Fans of the Dragon and the George will enjoy this novel that continues the adventures of Jim and friends in an alternate 14-century reality. The novel begins 5 months after the battle at Loathly Tower. Jim and...

Article by TC on 20th August 2010
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The Dragon on the Border is a fantasy novel by the author Gordon R Dickson. Jim, the product of a technologically advanced civilization 600 years ahead of the one he now calls home and now minor apprentice in magic has become the target of the Dark Powers in their latest attempt to disrupt the...

Article by TC on 20th August 2002
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The Dragon Reborn — the leader long prophesied who will save the world, but in the saving destroy it; the savior who will run mad and kill all those dearest to him — is on the run from his destiny. Able to touch the One Power, but unable to control it, and with no one to teach him...

Article by Ant on 1st January 2010
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I love Fantasy and read enough to know that there are so many layers to the genre; from high to low, from Tolkien, through the Golden Age to modern darker fantasy. The genre twists and turns through the ages. A lot of modern Fantasy is shorter and darker, and I miss a stonking big slice of High...

Article by Sam Tyler on 12th January 2024
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Do not read this review if you have not read the The Gunslinger - it contains spoilers for it.

The Drawing of the Three (or DT2) takes off where The Gunslinger ended, with Roland lying on the beach of the western sea. The book tells the tale of Roland as he journeys along this beach and...

Article by TC on 4th January 2000
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The Drowned World by  by JG Ballard
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The Drowned World is J.G. Ballards first novel. It's written more than twenty years before he writes his, probably, best known novel The Empire of The Sun. Ballard actually wrote about 10 SF novels (and countless shorts) before he writes Empire of the Sun, and if you enjoyed Empire of the Sun...

Article by TC on 26th July 2003
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The Drowning Earth by  by Jack D Mclean
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I think the pessimistic among us see a future of raised water levels and the UK losing plenty of its coastal land and anything close to our rivers. However, even the most resigned will not have imagined the world that Martin Mulligan and Jack D. McLean have created in The Drowning Earth. Not...

Article by Sam Tyler on 1st March 2022
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The Duke of Uranium by  by John Barnes
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The Duke of Uranium is the first volume in the Jak Jinnaka series by the American author John Barnes. The Duke of Uranium introduces Jak Jinnaka. Jak is Barnes try at an arse-kicking, undercover agent for the thirty-sixth century. Somebody who can compete with Miles Vorkosigan, The Stainless...

Article by TC on 19th November 2002
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I must admit that I am developing a bit of a soft spot for Zombie novels, I love the way that each I have read recently has something different to offer, from the pseudo first person account of World War Z to the subtle and gradual style of David Moody's Autumn, even though they are all...

Article by Ant on 21st November 2011
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The world has ended and the few who remain are faced with a struggle to survive, not only with a lack of food and heat (not to mention any real form of civilisation) but also against the hordes of shambling undead who look to rip, tear, kill and eat not to mention the possibility of an even more...

Article by Ant on 13th May 2013
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The Eaters of Light by  by Rona Munro
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Doctor Who is the same, but also different, in each iteration and that is what makes the characters so interesting. The Twelfth Doctor is one of the latest incarnations and one that reflected on the Doctor’s past as much as the present. The humour was still there, but also more of the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 12th July 2022
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Reading the quote on the cover ("War between science and superstition") along with the image could lead you to believe that The Edge of Reason is a sword and sorcery fantasy or religious thriller. It isn't.

Instead it's a modern day Urban fantasy that rides the popular wave of...

Article by Ant on 22nd November 2014
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Robert Rankin is without a doubt one of the select few funniest and sometimes strangest authors alive today. Often his novels are more than a little odd and with The Educated Ape he manages to merge these styles with a steampunk theme and some quite brilliant characterisation.

This is...

Article by Ant on 17th December 2012
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One of my favourite series has now reached book four and continues to astonish and astound in the quality and conviction of the writing, the continued building of the rich tapestry that is The Courts of the Feyre and the journey of the complex characters that inhabit Shevdon's urban fantasy....

Article by Ant on 1st July 2013
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The Ember Blade is a legendary sword, the sword of kings, and the spark needed to ignite the fires of revolution.

Aren has lived by the rules all his young life, without question. Then his father is executed for treason and his whole world is shattered. Thrown into a prison-mine with...

Article by Ant on 27th August 2018
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The Emperor's Edge is a speculative fiction novel by Lindsay Buroker. Amaranthe Lokdon is one of the first ever female watch officers in the city, she works harder than anyone else and yet is overlooked for promotion while others rise in the ranks around her. When ravaged bodies begin to show...

Article by Ant on 2nd April 2011
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The legendary Grey Knights are all that stand between mankind and the horrors of chaos. Secret Guardians who journey into the very realms of the warp and beyond in pursuit of the enemy; to most they and their foes are nothing more than myth and legend, those are the lucky ones.

The...

Article by Ant on 6th June 2012
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The Empire by  by Elizabeth Lang
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The Empire is a science fiction space opera by Elizabeth Lang. The Centuries old war with Andromedans is heating up and the Empire is the only force that can stand it's way. One brilliant scientist may hold the key to a weapon that could swing the tide and save the galaxy but the method's of...

Article by Ant on 16th February 2011
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The Enemy by  by Charlie Higson
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Charlie Higson is probably best known as part of a series that for many in the UK was one of the funniest things to watch on TV in the 90's - the Fast Show (known as Brilliant in the US).

The irreverent and often off-beat humour was guaranteed to make me laugh and still does. Until this...

Article by Ant on 17th October 2014
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The Escher Man by  by T R Napper
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Calling your book The Escher Man is a bold move, but a move that T. R. Napper made. The name conjures up imagery from the artist of staircases to nowhere that lead back to the start. How does that effect the man eternally made to walk these steps? Throw in some Cyberpunk future and memory...

Article by Sam Tyler on 17th September 2024
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The Everlasting Beyond of Eternal Happiness reminds me quite a bit of Harry Harrisons "Bill, The Galactic Hero" series, which itself is in part a parody of Heinlein's Starship Troopers - there is a very similar irony running throughout and the book even shares some of the same vernacular. There...

Article by Ant on 16th December 2011
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The Executioners Heart is the fourth novel in the Newbury and Hobbes series and follows on from the events of The Immorality Engine - although you don't need to have read that or any of the previous books to enjoy The Executioners Heart. The Queen's agents Sir Maurice Newbury and Miss Veronica...

Article by Ant on 30th July 2013
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The Exodus Towers by  by Jason M Hough
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The Exodus Towers is the second volume in the Dire Earth Cycle, picking up right where the cliff-hanger ending left the story. A new Elevator and those strange Black Towers only complicate matters for those survivors of the wasteland that is the Earth. Not all survivors are that friendly either...

Article by Ant on 14th January 2014
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The Explorer by  by James Smythe
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Journalist Cormac Easton is chosen to join a group of elite astronauts as they take part in the very first manned mission into the furthest reaches of the solar system. Documenting the greatest journey of human-kind should secure his place in history as one of the outstanding explorers of the...

Article by Ant on 16th November 2012
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The Eye of the Storm by  by William L.K
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Dmitri, the only son of the Czar of Stritonoly and heir to the throne has been driven insane by the forbidden poison of the diminutive slave race that provide a worker class to the Empire. Setting in motion a catastrophic chain of events, a storm of epic proportions gathers over the Citadel...

Article by Ant on 19th August 2011
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The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth return again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, when the World and Time themselves hang in the balance, a wind rises in the...

Article by Ant on 1st November 2009
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Reviewed by Arron Clegg. Stephen King’s first foray into the realms of fantasy couldn’t really have been written any better. He manages to keep his familiar style of writing, one that keeps us turning the pages, long after the sun has set in the sky, and yet has written in an olde-worlde...

Article by Arron on 1st May 2012
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Quite a small book on the whole, just coming in at over 200 hundred pages but I must admit not one of those pages was wasted, each one moving the story along in a fast paced manner. The book is more suspense than horror or thriller but I do find it sits nicely on the bookshelf amongst his other...

Article by Arron on 20th September 2013
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The Falconer by Elizabeth May is the first in what appears to be a series of books following the adventures of Lady Aileana Kameron (or Kam) as she lives the double life of daughter of the Marquess of Douglas on one hand and the life of a fairy hunter (or aforementioned Falconer) on the...

Article by Karen Fishwick on 22nd February 2016
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The Fall of Hyperion by  by Dan Simmons
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The Fall of Hyperion is the follow up novel to Hyperian (winner of the Hugo award) by Dan Simmons. I've been putting of writing this review for the last few days, hoping that time would make it easier for me to write it. Unfortunately I don't find it any easier to write now – but I'll try,...

Article by TC on 1st January 2000
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The Fallen Star by  by Claudia Gray
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The Fallen Star by Claudia Gray is released on the first anniversary of the creation of The High Republic Universe, a bold move by the Star Wars novels to create their own sandbox in which to play, free from the Skywalkers. There are comics, YA books and more....

Article by Sam Tyler on 5th January 2022
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Cozy crime comes in all sizes, but it still has an odd name. The characters may be eccentric, the setting twee, but when it comes down to it, there is still a dead person lying on the carpet. Marple had her village with its higher crime rate than Gotham, Poirot had various summer vacation spots,...

Article by Sam Tyler on 23rd July 2024
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Robert Rankin is pretty unique amongst the literary world, in many ways he's like a grown up version of Spike Milligan who perhaps has been influenced by Pratchett in a "funny mood". His books are always very easy to read and yet have hidden depths for those who wish to look for them, I've yet...

Article by Ant on 5th October 2012
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The Farseer Trilogy is one of those series that is so well crafted, unique that it defines a genre. It's been twenty five years since Robin Hobb (a pseudonym of Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden) started writing about the Realm of the Elderlings and the adventures of Fitz and the Fool. Since then...

Article by Ant on 15th September 2020
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The Fictional Man by  by Al Ewing
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Imagine a world where cloning was not only advanced enough to create real bodies but where the technology was inexpensive and simple enough to be viable on a large scale. Of course making copies of real people would be wrong and there would bound to be a law against such a thing but what if a...

Article by Ant on 23rd July 2013
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The Fight for Naturah: The Reclamation is a speculative fiction novel by Lloyd Blake. The Year is 2085 and Mark Ashton has just finished his term as the President of the United States of America. Leaving in his wake a very successful 8 years with an improved economy, increased employment and a...

Article by Ant on 9th September 2010
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Your love of a movie genre can often depend on your age. The current crop of kids is growing up in a Golden Age of Superhero films, but when I was an impressionable teenager, it was all about the horror films. Halloween, Friday the 13th, A...

Article by Sam Tyler on 15th July 2021
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The Final Orchard by  by C J Rivera
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When the apocalypse inevitably comes do you want to know about it? Would you like the chance to peer out of the window and see the world burning, perhaps you can make a run for the high ground? Another option is to live in pure ignorance underground, competing with your fellow residents for the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 27th November 2024
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There is a bittersweet air that surrounds the publication of The Final Testimony of Raphael Ignatius Phoenix. It was the authors very first work and yet it has also proved to be his last. Paul Sussman passed away at the untimely age of 45 in May 2012. The book remained unpublished until his wife...

Article by Ant on 22nd September 2014
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The Fire Song by  by K Bannerman
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Quick hit – "The Fire Song" is a great read. If that’s all you need to know, then my recommendation is to go buy, rent or borrow a copy and enjoy. If you’re looking for a little more, read on. First, a confession. I’m not your standard fantasy reader. I write crime fiction and like any...

Article by Frank Zafiro on 11th July 2011
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The Fireman by  by Joe Hill
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Joe Hill is one of those authors who improves with each book and The Fireman is nothing short of spectacular.

A highly contagious spore has begun to spread across the World, a pandemic that see's people break out in beautiful gold and black marks before spontaneously self-combusting....

Article by Ant on 16th May 2016
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The Fires of heaven is the fifth novel in the epic series the wheel of time, written by Robert Jordan. Rand, the Dragon reborn continues to try and re-unite the Aiel, leading them over the spine of the world, hunting the Shaido. Meanwhile the Forsaken are free and plotting Rands downfall....

Article by Ant on 2nd February 2010
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The Fires of Pompeii by  by James Moran
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Like many Science Fiction fans, I am also a fan of Doctor Who, but not of a particular incarnation of the Doctor on television. I am a Doctor Who book fan. The show is great, but it in the novels where I have always found the most interesting stories free from budget constraints and...

Article by Sam Tyler on 29th June 2022
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The Firestorm Conspiracy by  by Cheryl Angst
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The Firestorm Conspiracy is a science fiction novel by Cheryl Angst. Fleet Commander John Thompson is on long term leave from the USEF and is pretty much just drifting through life until an old friend tracks him down and forces him to confront some very uncomfortable truths that he has been...

Article by Ant on 3rd May 2011
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Circuses are magical places; they are also mysterious and occasionally a bit murderous. All the elements that make them perfect for romantic visions of running away and visiting new places each week, are also perfect for someone who likes to snatch victims and not be around when the police start...

Article by Sam Tyler on 22nd June 2023
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I often stay clear of books recommended by Richard and Judy, I find their "recommendations" largely restricted to wishy washy "popular" and "literary" fiction. However, like a thousand Monkeys at a thousand typewriters random chance dictates that they "should" occasionally strike gold and The...

Article by Ant on 30th January 2015
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The Folio Book of Horror Stories is a new anthology, collecting some of the finest stories of the macabre written over the last two hundred years or so. The collection is edited and introduced by the award winning, legendary author and critic Ramsey Campbell, who has thoughtfully provided an...

Article by Ant on 8th October 2018
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The Force Unleashed 2 by  by Sean Williams
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The Force Unleashed 2 is the novelisation of the Star Wars game, written by the accomplished author Sean Williams. The prequel, The Force Unleashed (also written by Sean Williams) was a New York Times number 1 best seller. As ruthless apprentice to Darth Vader, Starkiller was mercilessly...

Article by Ant on 23rd November 2010
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If you have ever been out to sea on a sailing boat, you may have felt that feeling of majesty and awe that the water evokes. This vast expanse that continues as far as the eye can see. Depending on your personality, it can instil a sense of fear or a sense of adventure. I have felt this feeling...

Article by Sam Tyler on 26th January 2021
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The Forever War by  by Joe Haldeman
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The Forever War is the Hugo and Nebula award winning military science fiction novel by Joe Haldeman. Originally written in 1974, the novel begins in the relative future of 1997 where thanks to the discovery of the collapsars - wormhole type gates that allow faster than light travel between...

Article by Ant on 11th March 2011
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The Forge of God by  by Greg Bear
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The Forge of God is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear. First Europe (as in the sixth moon of Jupiter) disappears, then a strange cinder cone/spaceship including a sick and dying alien is found in Death Valley and a giant new mountain/spaceship including robots is found in the desert of...

Article by TC on 1st May 1999
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The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is fantasy at it's finest, it exemplifies and defines the genre in a way few others have. It won the first ever World Fantasy Award for best novel back in 1975, an achievement more remarkable when considering that it was only the authors third novel. For many who...

Article by Ant on 11th May 2015
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The Fountains of Paradise was originally intended to be Arthur C Clarkes last novel and this is clearly reflected within both the backdrop - a fictional version of his home of Sri Lanka called Taprobane - and the narrative structure itself which feels very personal, much more so than any other...

Article by Ant on 31st December 2012
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The Fractal Prince by  by Hannu Rajaniemi
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The Fractal Prince is the follow-up to the hit début novel The Quantum Thief that was released to a great deal of acclaim last year. Like the Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince follows two distinct threads, which while written in a vividly descriptive and disarming style offers a vision that is...

Article by Ant on 24th October 2012
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When I was given this book I must admit I had my doubts. The front cover didn’t appeal, the title seemed rather dated and the type of book I was expecting seemed very much planted in the 80’s. Reading through the first few pages and I wasn’t disappointed. It was exactly as I feared....

Article by Arron on 12th September 2014
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The Furthest Station by  by Ben Aaronovitch
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The Furthest Station is a new novella that continues the adventures of PC Grant and the Folly in the Rivers of London series, investigating crimes that are a bit more out of the ordinary.

PC Grant joins British Transport Police officer Jaget Kumar to investigate ghost sightings on the...

Article by Ant on 9th October 2017
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What can cause the end of the World? A massive explosion, a meteor the size of the moon tearing it in two? What would cause the end of the World and what would cause the end of humankind are two very different things. Our watery globe will still be spinning long after we are food for the worms,...

Article by Sam Tyler on 17th March 2025
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The Gathering Storm (formally under the working title A Memory of Light) is the 12th novel in the outstanding fantasy epic, the Wheel of Time by the late Robert Jordan, originally started in 1990 with "The Eye of the World". As Jordan passed away before completing what was thought to be the...

Article by Ant on 1st June 2010
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People moan about the rain, but I don’t always mind it. Many of my best memories of childhood are of sleeping under canvas and listening to the patter of rain, safe in the knowledge that I am all snuggly in my sleeping bag and close to loved ones. These fond memories would have...

Article by Sam Tyler on 5th August 2021
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The Gemini Factor by  by Paul Kane
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The Gemini Factor is a supernatural thriller from the award winning author Paul Kane, whose previous novels include "The Lazarus condition", "Broken Arrow" and "Peripheral visions". The novel tells the story of a twisted and highly successful serial killer who's victims are always one of twins...

Article by Ant on 22nd April 2010
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The supernatural has always worked well with noir as they are both genres of the night. It is only an undead hop and skip between a detective finding a corpse in the alley and that corpse waking up. Conan Doyle walked the line between the supernatural and the super-real, Holmes always discovered...

Article by Sam Tyler on 21st August 2022
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The Genesis Machine by  by James P Hogan
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The Genesis Machine is a science fiction novel by James P Hogan. (take a look at the clothes the guys are wearing on the cover - wow!) Written in 1978 and taking place a few of years from now, The Geneses Machine pretty much read as an alternative history story, even if it wasn't intended as...

Article by TC on 1st October 2000
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The Genocides by  by Thomas M Disch
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The Genocides is a classic science fiction novel by Thomas M Disch. In this post apocalyptic tale of vegetable domination, the earth has been overtaken by a strain of alpha plants... massive and imposing, they suck up all the resources and wreak major havoc on the ecosystem. In just 7 years...

Article by number 6 on 29th September 2002
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The Get Off by  by Christa Faust
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A good life is a life well lived full of new adventures, meeting new people, and experiencing new things. On this criteria Angel Dare has had one of the best lives, she is always meeting new people and finding herself in new places, but not for the reasons she would want. From adult film star to...

Article by Sam Tyler on 21st March 2025
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It's been too long since I read an Arthur C Clarke book, before I even started reviewing in fact and so when the opportunity presented itself to review The Ghost from the Grand Banks I jumped at the chance. This is one of Clarkes later novels, published in 1990 and the story revolves around the...

Article by Ant on 22nd December 2011
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The Ghost Machine by  by James Lovegrove
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The idea of a virtual reality being superior to the real thing reoccurs often in science fiction. Why live in the slums of Ready Player One or the battleship grey halls of Red Dwarf, when things can be Better Than Life? The issues...

Article by Sam Tyler on 15th June 2020
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The Giant Novels by  by James P Hogan
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The Giant Novels are a series of science fiction novels by James P Hogan. I'm usually not a man that believe in miracles, but something fairly fantastic must have happened at Del Ray Books, the day they came up with the idea for this book. To put three classics, Inherit the Stars, The Gentle...

Article by TC on 1st January 1999
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The Girl in the Road by  by Monica Byrne
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In the future world of "A Girl in the Road" global power has shifted and a revolution blows with the easterly wind. It's a future where the technology so long held in the west meets the culture of the east.

Into this maelstrom of technology walks Meena, a complicated girl in a...

Article by Ant on 9th June 2014
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The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a novel by Stephen King. Probably one of the shortest novels by Stephen King that I've ever read. Two hundred and twenty five pages in the hardcover edition is a lot less that we are used to, but King manages to do, what he set out to do, in those pages...

Article by TC on 2nd November 1999
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The Glass Abyss by  by Steven Barnes
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I have always enjoyed the Star Wars extended universe novels, be they the Legend set, or the newer relaunched series. The books allow us to explore the Skywalker saga in more depth, but for me the most fun is exploring the deeper cuts. I have read fantastic novels that have delved into the lives...

Article by Sam Tyler on 23rd October 2024
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The Glass Box by  by J Michael Straczynski
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Some of the best speculative fiction starts with an idea that is not far removed from the normal, a simple nudge to reality can lead to many places. In the case of J. Michael Straczynski’s The Glass Box, this place is a psychiatric hospital. The reason for being sent there? New government...

Article by Sam Tyler on 24th June 2024
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The Glass Woman by  by Alice Mcilroy
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It can feel at times like the entire world is out to get you, but who is the person you must watch out for the most? Your family, spouse, work colleagues? Nope, the biggest saboteur is often yourself. Your own thoughts and deeds coming back to haunt you. Iris Henderson has it worse than most as...

Article by Sam Tyler on 2nd January 2024
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The first thing that you notice when you pick up this, the fourth volume in the Potter saga, is that it's more than twice as thick as any of the previous Potter books. The first thing that you notice when you start reading it, is that it doesn't start of like the other books, with Harry...

Article by TC on 21st March 2002
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The God Game by  by Danny Tobey
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What if God was one of us? Just an Artificial Intelligence like one of us. Just a stranger on the internet, trying to wreak our lives. Anyone with a passing knowledge of the Bible will know that God can be a little tricksy. If that God can flood the world or demand you sacrifice your child, what...

Article by Sam Tyler on 9th January 2020
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The Gone World by  by Tom Sweterlitsch
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This Christmas a member of the family introduced me to NCIS. For those who have yet to discover this long-running US-based TV show it's a police-procedural series that follows the Naval Criminal Investigation Service. Until this time I hadn't even known such an organisation existed, not...

Article by Ant on 6th February 2018
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The Good, The Mad and the Undead follows on from the authors previous book A Heist Too Far which we were lucky enough to review last year. Here we are re-united with the dangerous, blue-skinned assassin Mallik who has split up with his comrades Dick and Jules in order to let the heat die down...

Article by Ant on 12th December 2012
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From the first page when Loki interrupts the “official” introduction poem, you know this is going to be a special kind of book. The Gospel of Loki tells the story of Norse mythology from the point of view of the trickster god, covering everything from the birth of the Nine Worlds, all the...

Article by Aaron Miles on 21st October 2015
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Following the horrific murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a dis-used graveyard populated by ghosts and other undead creatures of the night - completely unaware of the death of his parents. Taking pity on the innocent child the ghosts agree to raise him as their own, naming him...

Article by Ant on 6th February 2013
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I love listening to the radio, but even I struggle when it gets late at night. Suddenly the airwaves are packed with novelty DJs using all their shtick to ‘entertain’ the few remaining listeners. It is even worse if you live in London, when the light fades the pirate radios stations...

Article by Sam Tyler on 26th September 2023
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For centuries traveling gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. So many tales about each of the Hunters, and so many Hunters to tell of . . . Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages....

Article by Ant on 1st December 2009
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Over Forty years in the making, China is almost ready to share with the world the greatest Zoo ever conceived. The Great Zoo of China isn't just bigger and better though, it's unique - inhabited by creatures considered the stuff of legends - Dragons.

A select group of VIPs and...

Article by Ant on 19th January 2015
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The Greatest Show Off Earth is a comic fantasy tale by Robert Rankin. Raymond has an adventure. It starts of when he gets kidnapped by an interplanetary slave merchant called Abdullah, who just happens to be giant starfish. Soon he's on sale at the Venusian meat marked, where he narrowly...

Article by TC on 1st July 2000
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The Green Mile is a novel by the master of horror Stephen King. Originally TGM was released in six parts, but I knew that I would hate waiting for each new part of the series, so I decided to wait and now all six parts are available in one book at about 530 pages. The story is about prison...

Article by TC on 5th December 2001
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The clue to what makes the Fantasy genre so great is staring you straight in the face; it is fantastical. It gives author the chance to transport their readers to a different time and place. Lands full of wonder, populated by creatures only seen in your dreams. So, it is sometimes a little sad...

Article by Sam Tyler on 28th September 2018
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The Grey city of Dorminia, surrounded by granite walls thrice the height of a man and at least three feet thick at it's weakest point. These walls provide a barrier for those without as they do those within, patrolled by the harsh Crimson watch and observed from the skies by the Mindhawks -...

Article by Ant on 27th February 2013
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I am not one to get involved with politics at school. I am one of those parents who chooses to be ambivalent to it all, probably to the annoyance of others. The problem is I can see the temptation to get involved in the drama, a small way to add a little spark to your life. I have enough spark...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th June 2025
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I've been a fan of Hugh Laurie since he first made an appearance on Blackadder (series 2 and onwards) in the early 80's along with "A bit of Fry and Laurie" and the the TV adaption of PG Wodehouse' "Jeeves and Wooster". He is a talented comedian but it took me years to finally watch his long...

Article by Ant on 4th January 2016
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The Guns of Ivrea is a seafaring fantasy adventure that immediately establishes its author, Clifford Beal as eminently knowledgeable in his chosen subject area and a strong storyteller to boot.

Our plot revolves around the fortunes of Nicolo Danamis, a pirate in the same vein as Sir...

Article by Allen Stroud on 21st April 2016
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The Guns of Mars by  by Martin T Ingham
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The Guns of Mars is a science fiction novel by Martin T Ingham. Morgan Asher finds himself a reluctant Martian, part of the colonization effort so that his wife can fulfill her lifelong dream. It isn't long after arriving on the red planet that Morgan discovers a sinister plot by a group known...

Article by Ant on 13th March 2011
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Sometimes when I've read a really bad book it's hard for me to write a review about it - I just want to leave it at "this book is bad - stay away from it" and then forget about the book as fast as possible. With Stephen King's The Gunslinger it's the other way around. A short "Go buy this book...

Article by TC on 8th November 1999
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Melek Ahmar, the Lord of Mars, the Red King, the Lord of Tuesday, Most August Rajah of Djinn, wakes up three millennia after being knocked out cold in a bar fight. Though his magic is weak at first from disuse, he struggles out of his stone sarcophagus, which is sealed with aging spells cast by...

Article by Russ Brown on 17th January 2020
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The stupidity around the release of this book has grown to new heights. If somebody 10 years ago have told me that a book series would become so popular that, people would go to great lengths as breaking and entering, just to read the next volume before everybody else, I probably wouldn't have...

Article by TC on 30th July 2005
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Haplo takes a submersible back to Draknor to retrieve his ship. He finds Samah there— wet, haggard, and lost. The leader of the Council has opened Death's Gate, allowing the dragon-snakes free access to all the four worlds. Haplo decides he is too tired to physically capture Samah and uses...

Article by Ant on 8th September 2008
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The Hanging Tree is the sixth novel in the Rivers of London series. For those who have yet to experience these wonderful books imagine an Urban Fantasy with police procedural elements, warmly written with a disarming humour and celebrating the many hidden rivers that wonder through London (with...

Article by Ant on 21st December 2016
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The Hatching by  by Ezekiel Boone
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Spiders (or arachnids if you are being posh) provoke strong reactions in some. One of my brothers, who still considers himself tough (even though he's now over 40) will move astonishingly fast in the opposite direction when encountering such a beast - usually with the result that his teenage...

Article by Ant on 21st April 2017
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The Marvel Universe has plenty of areas to explore, it is not just superheroes. You also have mutants, magic, aliens and so much more. Perhaps one of the hardest elements to get your head around are the Gods of Asgard. Suddenly, the Norse Gods of Odin and Thor are fighting alongside...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th October 2020
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The Heir of Night was reviewed by me for the 2012 David Gemmell Morningstar Award, which went on to win the award! I've been aware of the novel for some time now but as it was never sent to me it remained one I'd been meaning to buy and I'm very glad that I'm getting the chance to read it for...

Article by Ant on 29th June 2012
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This Omnibus Edition Includes the First 4 books in the "Hitchhikers guide Trilogy" 5 book set. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is also the title of the first of five books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction series by Douglas Adams. The novel is an...

Article by Ant on 1st February 2009
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Like many people who read fantasy my journey into this wonderful genre was largely propelled at a young age by JRR Tolkiens classic "The Hobbit". For me it came from a completely unlikely source too - from my Gran who didn't seem to read much (at least that I noticed), didn't have many books and...

Article by Ant on 11th November 2013
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Humans fear the dark and we fear the cold. There is good reason for this. In our modern world we can wrap up warm in a synthetic coat and take along a torch that can be seen from space, but that was not always true. The dark used to mean the unknown. Animals or something else preying on you. The...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th November 2022
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The Honour of the Knights is the first volume in the space opera series The Battle for the Solar System by Stephen Sweeney. The Honour of the Knights is quite an accomplished novel, a grand story on a fairly epic scale with some good dialog and well rounded, engaging characters. The author has...

Article by Ant on 7th February 2011
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The Hood by  by Lavie Tidhar
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The legend of Robin Hood has changed over the years. I know it is hard to believe but he was not always imagined as a mullet haired Kevin Costner trying to save Nottingham with a dodgy English accent. One element of the story that has fallen out of fashion is Robin...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th October 2021
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There seems to be a rise in a new form of entertainment these last few years, that of the live action experience. While "escape rooms" seem to the most prevelant, there is also a niche for those who would prefer to be scared rather than think about puzzles.

The House by the Cemetery is...

Article by Ant on 5th November 2018
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You do not have to travel as far as Italy to get a bargain house, but I like the hills and sunshine of Sicily over a row of abandoned terrace housing in the wet UK. In the past you could pick up houses for as little as £1/€1 in both these places as the local councils encouraged...

Article by Sam Tyler on 20th September 2024
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Grief can feel like a weight that you carry with you. The luckiest people will feel the weight get lighter as time moves on, always there, but more bearable over time. In The House of Sorrowing Stars by Beth Cartwright there is a home that captures all the real stories of sorrow in its vast...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th February 2022
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The Houses of Iszm by  by Jack Vance
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The Houses of Iszm is a science fiction novel by Jack Vance. HOUSES OF ISZM-Jack Vance. The Iszic have been growing some wicked pod homes with security, pipes, and furniture included for 200,000 years. The secret and origin of growing these homes are very guarded because this is what keeps the...

Article by number 6 on 20th August 2004
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The Human Division by  by John Scalzi
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John Scalzi is a household name as character-driven sci-fi goes. The Human Division, 5th in his Old Man’s War series detailing the fate of the Colonial Union and it’s increasingly tenuous relationship with the Earth, is...

Article by Danny on 21st March 2016
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The Human Front by  by Ken Mcleod
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The Human Front is a science fiction novel by Ken Mcleod. I read this after finishing the Engines of Light series, and to be honest didn't expect a whole lot from it, especially after finding out that it was only 90 pages long... but to my pleasent surprise, my inital views were nothing to go...

Article by TC on 27th July 2005
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The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the first volume in the The Inheritance Trilogy and the debut of N. K. Jemisin. This review has been written for the David Gemmell Morningstar award. Yeine Darr, ruler of her people is still mourning the untimely death of her mother when she is summoned to the...

Article by Ant on 24th February 2011
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The Hunger by  by Alma Katsu
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The hardback version of The Hunger was originally launched last year and it drew some critical acclaim from authors including Sarah Pinborough and Joanne Harris. Both the Observer and the Guardian loved it. Stephen King said of it:

Deeply, deeply disturbing, hard to put down, not...

Article by Ant on 27th February 2019
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When it comes to vampires, I understand that there is a rich tapestry of versions you can now read about, but I like mine to have that old fashioned appeal. The type of vampire that does not want to talk about their feelings or act like the average tween, but instead wants to wear lace frills...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th July 2024
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Over a 100 years have passed since the annihilative events of 2045 and the world is a very different place. With the earths climate raging out of control and ice spread across much of the globe humanity is forced to survive in nomadic pockets around the narrow band of the "Temperate Zone" near...

Article by Ant on 7th December 2011
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The Illearth War follows straight on from the events in Lord Foul's Bane and just as Thomas Covenant is getting used to the idea that his recent experiences were just a dream he is again summoned to the Land.

On his return however he discovers that 40 years have passed in his absence...

Article by Ant on 27th July 2012
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Where do dreams go when we forget them? Do they dissipate into the ether, or do they settle somewhere? This is the intriguing premise of Tyler Hayes’ The Imaginary Corpse, an alternative detective noir novel. How alternative? It stars a stuffed toy triceratops private investigator called...

Article by Sam Tyler on 10th September 2019
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As someone who likes their fantasy fictions quite traditional, i.e. heroes riding on horses, rather than riding subways, I was a little apprehensive of The Immortals (Olympus Bound) by Jordanna Max Brodsky. However I was pleasantly surprised.

The story is set in modern day Manhattan,...

Article by Lisa Lancaster on 2nd March 2016
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The Incorruptibles is a tightly paced novel that feels fresh, leaving behind characters to be pondered long after the story ends.

Synopsis: On the edge of the Empire, a motley group of mercenaries protect a gluttonous governor and his family from the twisted evil that exists beyond the...

Article by D. L. Denham on 17th September 2014
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Another novel being published by those good people at Scifi Cafe, The Inosculation Syndrome is something of a surprise. The book tells the story of the astronaut Kal who becomes stranded on an alien planet due to a series of errors after losing touch with his star ship while charting regions...

Article by Ant on 10th February 2012
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The sheer number of comic books out there are a blessing and a curse. There are so many stories to catch up on and different versions of the same characters. It is wonderful for the explorer, but for the casual fan it can be daunting. We all know something about Black Panther, the character,...

Article by Sam Tyler on 30th April 2025
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Sound can be powerful, get the tone right or the volume loud enough and you can cause real damage. There are skyscrapers that have been built that hum when the wind perfectly hits the building to make it vibrate. The worse thing that happens here is an annoying sound when the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 5th September 2020
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The Ion Raider by  by Ian Whates
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The Ion Raiders is book two of Ian Whate’s Dark Angels series, however despite featuring some if the same characters as book one, Pelquin’s Comet, it is not a direct continuation of the same story so can be read without knowledge of the first.  Not to give to many spoilers, but...

Article by Karen Fishwick on 18th June 2017
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The Iron Trial focuses on the students of the Magisterium, an academy for those with magic. In this first book, a new student, Callum Hunt comes to the Magisterium against his will—but is it because he is destined to be a powerful magician, or is the truth more twisted than that?

...
Article by Vanessa on 3rd September 2014
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The Jack of Souls starts off slow—almost painfully slow. But as the novel unfolds, I was thrilled to discover that the slowness allowed for really great character development. The novel begins with our hero (of sorts) Harric, a bastard and a trickster, who must break his mother’s curse or...

Article by Vanessa on 6th May 2015
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Every now and then I am sent something that stretches the boundaries of my reading interest. The Janus Cycle is one such book.

Whilst this book is billed as a novel, it is really a collection of linked short stories. The linked theme follows a disparate group of individuals seemingly...

Article by Allen Stroud on 28th December 2015
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How do you like your fantasy? It comes in so many flavours now that you can pick and choose what type you like. Dragons, magic, and high fantasy – tasty. Violence, political intrigue, low fantasy – a guilty treat. Stephen Aryan has chosen a different route, a book that has its heart...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th July 2023
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The Jupiter Paradox by  by Hylton H Smith
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The year is 2175 and the Earth is a very different place with radiation from the long depleted ozone layer now reaching dangerous levels. A co-operation exists between the previously warring factions of humanity and their creation - the Cyborgs. An unexpected find on one of Jupiter's moons leads...

Article by Ant on 21st January 2014
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What are you going to do if Godzilla arrives. You must have a plan in mind. At least one for home and one for the office. I used to have a great plan that would see me have an almost 100% chance of surviving, but then I went and started a family. Now I have no chance as their little legs are...

Article by Sam Tyler on 28th March 2022
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There is something about Low Fantasy that makes it such a good genre. It is not the violence, swearing or muckraking, it is the people. Reading a fantasy book where the heroes are not in white and the villains in black. In J. L Worrad’s The Keep Within the nominal hero is one Sir Harrance...

Article by Sam Tyler on 26th April 2023
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The Killing Ground by  by Graham McNeill
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The Killing Ground is the first novel in the newly released second Ultramarines Omnibus, which also includes several additional short stories and even a nice graphic short. The story see's the Two Ultramarines Pasanius Lysane and Uriel Ventris escaping from the Eye of Terror after the events of...

Article by Ant on 22nd June 2012
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I like to think that the world is built upon small acts of kindness. Whilst nation states and some individuals may be doing their best to destroy the world, the rest of us are just trying to get by. This can be helped with a please or a thank you. If you see someone drop their credit card, you...

Article by Sam Tyler on 18th August 2023
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The King of the Crags is the follow up to The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas. Prince Jehal is now reaping the fruits of his new found power after murdering, poisoning and backstabbing his way to the top, enjoying the confidence (and Bed) of the new speaker. Those loyal to the old regime are...

Article by Ant on 29th March 2011
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The Kings Justice is one of two new stories released this month from one of the veterans of the Fantasy scene - Stephen Donaldson.

It's a tale of an enigmatic figure known only as Black who goes in search of evil deeds. He has powers that help him route out evil, not least the...

Article by Ant on 29th June 2016
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The Kinshield Legacy is a fantasy novel by KC May. For two hundred years a mysterious stone tablet embedded with five magical gems has sat abandoned in a cave, while the kindom around it falls to ruins. But then, the gems in the tablet, one by one, disappear and the next King of the realm may...

Article by Ant on 8th December 2010
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I am not a gambler. All I do is look at how rich the casino and betting companies are to see that the odds are stacked in their favour. If you play the odds, eventually you will lose. However, there are games that require skill. Poker is one. It has elements of luck, but a skilled player is far...

Article by Sam Tyler on 10th June 2022
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The Knife and the Serpent by  by Tim Pratt
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As a child you read books and imagine that you may be that child who is whisked away on an adventure. Perhaps you will be the chosen one to be taken through a magical wardrobe or told you are a wizard. By the time you are studying for a PhD such flippancy is no longer part of your character, so...

Article by Sam Tyler on 5th July 2024
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That one time you saved the world with stick with you for a lifetime. You may bask in the glory one day and wake up with cold sweats the next, either way, the event will be forged in your memories forever. What about two times? Three or four? Do you think that James Bond...

Article by Sam Tyler on 27th January 2022
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Destiny is a tricky thing as it is something that you should not be aware of. I want to be surprised if it turns out that I save the world, or perhaps destroy it. Some characters have their destiny thrust upon them from a young age and are told what it will be. Anton is a Blade Priest for...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th July 2022
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The battle over Stritonoly is now underway as Strito and the Princess Becki lay siege to the citadel. Barok emerges, transformed yet again and returns to try and make amends to his people and his wife however the whole race of the Acidel may be at risk when Gunther unveils his terrible plan to...

Article by Ant on 16th September 2011
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Subgenres come and go and one that I have recently been enjoying is ‘Cosy Fantasy,’ what does that mean? Basically, fantasy with some of the trepidation taken out, a chance to get to know the characters and enjoy a fantasy setting in peace. Riley August’s The Last Gifts of the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 5th September 2024
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The Last Guardian is the second novel in the Jon Shannow series, written by David Gemmell. 300 years after the Apocalypse that has torn the earth apart, humanity is reduced to pockets of suvivors living amongst a waste torn land, stalked by mutants and much much worse. While the Earth quaked, a...

Article by Ant on 20th January 2010
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The Last Human by  by Zack Jordan
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Humans always think we are special when it comes to science fiction. Somehow, we are better than the multitude of other alien races out there. How many times has Kirk used “this human emotion called love,” to win the day, or how often has an invading alien army been conquered by...

Article by Sam Tyler on 24th March 2020
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I found this book while wandering around the Dealers' room at EasterCon 76 (Belfast Reconnect). I had the honour of being the first person to buy the book, and had a chance to meet the author, who had travelled from the distant lands of Paris to make an appearance. I believe it's his debut...

Article by Ant on 2nd July 2025
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The Last Man Anthology by  by Hunter Liguore
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The Last Man Anthology is a collection of works that pays tribute to the mother of science fiction, Mary Shelley by featuring 19 tales of Catastrophe, Disaster and Woe. Edited by Hunter Liguore the anthology spans two centuries and includes works by Ray Bradbury, CJ Cherryh, DH Lawrence, Edgar...

Article by Ant on 12th October 2010
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The Last Mermaid is a historical fantasy drama by Shana Abe. In 531 on the island Kelmere of the Kingdom of Isles, Picts ambush the royal party as they near their keep. Prince Aedan, heir to the High King throne, is stabbed trying to save his younger sister. When Aedan next awakens he finds...

Article by TC on 13th April 2004
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I love fantasy, from the low to the high, but I love it even more when it is tackled in an interesting way. The Last Phi Hunter by Salinee Goldenberg has all the elements of High Fantasy, packed with more magic than a Paul Daniels Appreciation Society AGM, but this is not a book of wizards and...

Article by Sam Tyler on 3rd May 2024
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The Last Quarry by  by Max Allan Collins
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Never say never when it comes to being a hired hitman. You may not want to kill for money anymore, but if you are anything like Quarry in The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins you may just end up getting in a situation that relies on your old skills and if you get paid for it all the better. This...

Article by Sam Tyler on 3rd April 2025
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What is Fantasy if it is not epic battles against elves and orcs? Fans of the genre know that it can be a lot of other things than just that. Some of the best modern fantasy that I have read have been smaller stories set in fantasy worlds. How about a Die Hard-like experience set in a castle...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th August 2024
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The Last Stand by  by Brad Ferguson
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Wars can go on for years. Not just the moments of action in which thousands of people die, but the cold wars between. Different factions may have an uneasy peace, but is this peace just an excuse to build for the next conflict? You may not imagine that Star Trek: The Next Generation is the best...

Article by Sam Tyler on 13th January 2020
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The Last Underclass by  by Dean Warren
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The Last Underclass is a science fiction novel by Dean Warren. A hundred and fifty years in the future, the world has polarized in to winners and losers, has and has-nots, in this book they are called Welfies and Achievers. Ghetto born and raised Quiet is a Welfie to the core. Trying to raise...

Article by TC on 29th May 2002
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The Last Wish is the first of two short story collections that precede the main Witcher Saga, written by the polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The majority of the stories that make up this novel were originally published in the Polish science fiction magazine Fantastyka which have been...

Article by Ant on 16th April 2012
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The Left Hand of Darkness was first published almost 50 years ago, receiving critical acclaim and firmly establishing Le Guin as a serious, talented author. It's known as one of the first examples of feminist science fiction and retrospectively won the Hugo and Nebula awards. I don't...

Article by Ant on 3rd October 2018
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The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun is a previously unknown work written by the late JRR Tolkien over 80 years ago. Edited by his son Christopher, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun tells the story of the Norse legend Sigurd the dragon slayer,the revenge of his wife, Gudrun, and the Fall of the...

Article by Ant on 15th October 2009
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Legends of Light is a high fantasy saga told as a series of poems, each building upon the last to weave a tale of magic, romance and creatures of the dark. I must admit that I am not really one to read poems, they have never interested me in the slightest and so when I was asked to review this...

Article by Ant on 14th December 2011
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I have many fond memories of the fighting fantasy books created by the legends Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston. I devoured them during childhood and still have a number of them of my shelves, including the very first, the Warlock of Firetop Mountain. At the same time I also discovered the joy...

Article by Ant on 17th August 2012
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The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. Though it begins a little bit slow, as more and more threads are strung together for the reader, everything picks up. I love the storyline, I love the characters, and I love the settings.

In modern San...

Article by Vanessa on 2nd November 2015
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There are many flavours of horror, but one that I prefer is American Gothic. There is something about the Deep South of America that mixes well with horror. It already feels like a foreign and mysterious place to many of us so when you add the notion...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th October 2021
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The Liberators by  by Nathan Elliot
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Hood and his army of freedom fighters are ready to start their counter attack against the K'Thraa invaders of Earth. By sabotaging a huge mirror which the aliens have placed in space to raise the temperature on the planet, hood is able to plunge Earth into a mini ice age overnight. Seriously...

Article by Ant on 31st August 2002
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Review by Ed Prior. Homeless young orphan Locke Lamora is deemed not "circumspect" enough to make it as a thief. Narrowly escaping a swift death he is packed off to be a disciple at the temple of the Crooked Warden, the god of Fate and Fortune - patron of thieves and rogues. Locke soon learns...

Article by Ed on 27th March 2012
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The Light Years by  by R. W. W. Greene
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Time is relative. We use this term in our everyday lives to explain why boring tasks seem to last an age, but the day flies by when we are having fun. Sounds good, but it is not what Einstein had in mind. His thought process was far more interested in physics and what happens as we approach the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 12th February 2020
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As long as someone remembers a loved one, they are never truly gone. This could be done by visiting their final resting place or a special location that you used to go to together. It could even be a keepsake that reminds you of them. Looking at the object you can almost see their smile or hear...

Article by Sam Tyler on 1st September 2023
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The Long Cosmos by  by Terry Pratchett
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And so we come at last to the final volume in the remarkable journey that is The Long Earth. It also happens to be the swansong of that singular author Sir Terry Pratchett.

And what a finale it is. The Long Cosmos lives up to the promise the authors have been building with this series, it...

Article by Ant on 4th July 2016
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The Long Earth by  by Terry Pratchett
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The Long Earth follows the premise that there are an infinite number of alternative dimensions, all existing within one great "Multiverse", each universe containing a slightly different version of the Earth. A few years in the future and a device powered by the humble potato (it will make sense,...

Article by Ant on 11th July 2012
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The Long Mars by  by Terry Pratchett
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The Long Mars is the third novel in the Long Earth series and is set in the years following the events of the cataclysmic finale of The Long War. The world has now been changed not just by the continued expansion of humanity into the Long Earths but also by recent events. Populations begin to...

Article by Ant on 15th September 2014
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I remember seeing Ed’s books in shops when I was younger, mysterious front covers that looked interesting but back covers that sounded just a bit, well, naff. You then look closer and read things like "Master of Dark Suspense", Koontz stating that, "Gorman’s writing is strong, fast and sleek...

Article by Arron on 7th October 2013
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The Long Utopia by  by Terry Pratchett
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Anyone who has been following the Long Earth series will be eagerly awaiting this fourth and penultimate novel in Stephen Baxter's and Terry Pratchett's series. The Long Mars was the strongest novel in the series so far and so The Long Utopia has a lot to live up to.

The Long...

Article by Ant on 21st July 2015
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Review by Arron Clegg. Wow, what a novel. Not my first time for reading it, but I just seemed to enjoy it even more this time around. Now, most of you out there are already aware that Richard Bachman was a pen name for Stephen King. He chose to do this purely because in his early days, even as...

Article by Arron on 31st May 2012
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The Long War by  by Terry Pratchett
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The Long Earth is an outstanding novel; entertaining with some great touches and a unique story that has Pratchett's touch of genius about it - combined with Baxter's hard-scifi edge and world building skill. All the ideas and the vast scope of the story carried the book forward really well but...

Article by Ant on 27th August 2013
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The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet was originally funded as a small kickstarter project and self-published as a result. It was such a hit that it found a big publisher, got nominated for a ton of awards and has been raved about by many, many people. What struck me in particular wasn't just...

Article by Ant on 11th July 2016
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Fantasy
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The Lord of Chaos is the sixth novel in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, following on from the events in the Fires of heaven. On the slopes of Shayol Ghul, the Myrddraal swords are forged, while in the mountain itself, the Dark one waits patiently in his ever weakening prison. Now...

Article by Ant on 16th January 2010
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The Lost Cause by  by Cory Doctorow
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As a long-term science fiction fan, it sometimes feels like we are living the books that I grew up reading. Not the flying cars and cure for cancer stories, but the ones that warned about humankind’s tendency to destroy itself. It feels like only a matter of years until Gort rocks up to...

Article by Sam Tyler on 28th November 2023
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The first in the Eidyn series, The Lost War begins its story part way through, in the aftermath of a ruinous war for the kingdom of Eidyn. The location of the opening scenes, in a tavern no less, and the easy interplay of two of the main characters Aranok the draoidh and Allandria, his bodyguard...

Article by Allen Stroud on 17th October 2019
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The Ultimate Trip started with a story called The Sentinel, by Arthur C Clarke. It took flight when Stanley Kubrick asked Clarke to write a novel of space exploration. The Result was on of the most extraordinary films of all time. In this book you can find the original story of how this all...

Article by Ant on 1st November 2008
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The Mage Storms by Mercedes Lackey is the bringing together of three previously released books (Storm Warning, Storm Rising and Storm Breaking) into one volume. This makes a lot of sense as while the books form part of the Valdemar series they are a complete story in themselves. No previous...

Article by Karen Fishwick on 20th November 2015
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The Magnificent Nine by  by James Lovegrove
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Any show on the US TV network Fox has to realise that its days could be numbered. Fox have the reputation of axing cult shows before their time from Arrested Development to Family Guy. Despite their cancelation these shows are still being made. Firefly was not so lucky. This was a science...

Article by Sam Tyler on 9th April 2019
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As you grow older you start to realise that people are not black and white, but shades of grey. The nicest people can do terrible things and even bad people can sometimes be good. This argument is hard to use with the likes of Demonologists, Necromancers,...

Article by Sam Tyler on 6th August 2021
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The Malice by  by Peter Newman
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The Malice is the follow-up to one of my favourite fantasy reads last year, Peter Newmans The Vagrant. It's a story set in a post-apocalyptic future where forgotten technology intermingles with demonspawn and twisted lands full of twisted mutants.

It had the dark, haunted flavour of...

Article by Ant on 18th May 2016
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The Man from Primrose Lane - an elderly recluse who wore mittens all year round; a man who seemed to have no friends or family, is murdered one summers day. The murder goes unsolved with little or no evidence until a day four years later when Best-selling author David Neff learns of this strange...

Article by Ant on 16th January 2013
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The Man in the high castle is the hugo award winning alternative history novel by Philip K Dick. After the Axis won the Second World War the African continent is virtually wiped out, the Mediterranean drained to make farmland and the United States divided between the Japanese and the Nazis....

Article by Ant on 20th January 2011
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The Man Who Never Was by  by Hylton H Smith
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The Man Who Never Was begins in 1986 with the discovery of human bones during the demolition of the old Coke works in Derwenthaugh. The find also includes a strange artefact, one that suggests that the death of the bones owner goes back to 1945 and a set of strange circumstances.

The...

Article by Ant on 24th March 2014
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General Fiction
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When you think of a Sherlock Holmes do you imagine a novel or a short story? The reality is that many tales that we know from Arthur Conan Doyle are from his short stories and it is more the modern reimagining of the character that have taken the longer form. James Lovegrove is a leading modern...

Article by Sam Tyler on 23rd January 2020
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The March Hare Network by  by Jack L Chalker
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The March Hare Network is a science fiction novel by Jack L Chalker and follows on from the events of The Cybernetic Walrus. I'm not happy with this book, it takes off where book one ends and goes on and on in the same track, with nothing really new happening. The strange thing is that Chalker...

Article by TC on 1st June 1999
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The Martian by  by Andy Weir
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The Martian is one of those books that if many authors had attempted it, wouldn't have worked. The majority of the novel follows one man surviving on Mars with little more than a shelter, 2 rovers, a few space suits, air, water and potatoes. There are no monsters, no antagonists (unless you...

Article by Ant on 2nd March 2015
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The Mask of Fear by  by Alexander Freed
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The reason that I enjoy the Star Wars Universe so much is that it vast and can be explored in new and interesting ways. The Skywalker stories will always be there, but there are shady towns and abandoned Sith temples spotted all over the Universe. You can follow an eccentric archaeologist...

Article by Sam Tyler on 18th March 2025
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Science Fiction
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A collaboration between Science Fiction greats,  Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds, The Medusa Chronicles picks up the story of Arthur C. Clarke's A Meeting with Medusa a Nebula Award winning novella published in Playboy in 1971. It takes the story of Howard Falcon, from his shattered...

Article by Allen Stroud on 15th June 2016
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The Memory Chamber by  by Holly Cave
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With the premise of Holly Cave's new novel, you could be forgiven for thinking it's a literary version of The Good Place. But Heaven Architect Isobel is no omnipotent Ted Danson, and The Memory Chamber no comedy.

Cave's idea here is an interesting one. After you die, your...

Article by Alice Wybrew on 11th March 2018
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The Middle Kingdom by  by David Wingrove
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The Middle Kingdom, the third volume in David Wingrove's re-imagined epic Chung Kuo series see's the Earth covered in continent spanning, mile high city of Ice; ruled by the seven T’ang, the Kings of China.

A century of peace is shattered when the Minister of the Edict is assassinated...

Article by Ant on 26th September 2012
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Fantasy
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What is your Limbo? Do you even believe such a place exists between life and death? I have always imagined that if it did exist it would be like a waiting area in which you have to make up for all those sins you did in life. For me, this will consist mainly of apologising to ants...

Article by Sam Tyler on 20th August 2020
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The Miracle Inspector by  by Helen Smith
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The Miracle Inspector is a science fiction novel by Helen Smith. England is now a partitioned country with the capital an oppressive place where poetry has been banned, schools are shut and women no longer allowed to work outside of the home. Lucas and Angela decide to try and escape the...

Article by Ant on 13th January 2011
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All over the World, Miracles are taking place, on a wintery highway in Quebec a man crashes his car and survives, in New York a homeless person is run over by a bus and lives. In Tokyo, a teenager jumps off a high rise building and fails in taking her own life. While many see these marvels as a...

Article by Ant on 4th July 2011
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The Missing Family by  by Tim Weaver
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Every summer is the same, inexperienced people think it would be a clever idea to do some wild swimming unaware that under the first foot of warm reservoir water, there are metres of icy water ready to send you into shock. When three members of the Fowler family disappear when out swimming, the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 29th August 2024
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Science Fiction
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The Moat around Murcheson's eye is the sequel to the scifi classic The Mote in God's eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. (Released as "The Gripping Hand" in the US) The Gripping Hand is the sequel to The Mote In God's Eye and as that I think that it's utterly uninteresting for people...

Article by TC on 1st May 1999
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A Question. If something hurts, does that make it true? With this intriguing opener of a question begins Seth Dickinson’s The Monster Baru Cormorant, the first of three planned sequels to 2015’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Dickinson burst onto the fantasy scene with...

Article by Michael Feeney on 3rd December 2018
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Science Fiction
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Written in 1966 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress has been critically acclaimed and is often considered as one of Heinlein's finest works, winning the prestigious Hugo award and also becoming a part of the original SF Masterworks collection. It's only the third Heinlein novel I have read...

Article by Ant on 31st October 2012
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Life in a Fantasy novel is often epic. A grand journey to destroy a ring or a fight to the death against an invading force. Our heroes rush from one end of the land on a mission, but if you look behind them you may see some of the normal people pass in a blur. The shopkeepers, the local police,...

Article by Sam Tyler on 9th February 2021
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The Mote In God's Eye by  by Larry Niven
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The Mote In God's Eye is a classic science fiction novel by Larry Niven with Jerry Pournelle. I not sure how I have managed to put off reading this classic for so long - but better late than never. The Mote takes place in 3017 when the human empire makes its first contact with an alien...

Article by TC on 1st March 1999
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The Mountain in the Sea by  by Ray Nayler
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Science Fiction
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One of the biggest problems to overcome when writing science fiction is how do humans communicate with an alien race? They may speak a different language or may not even have mouths in which to make noises. The Universal Translator is a popular cheat, or fundamental maths that should be...

Article by Sam Tyler on 22nd January 2024
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Horror
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The very nature of horror means that it should not always be a pleasant read. You should be unsettled, scared and perhaps even disgusted at times, but a balance must be struck. If an author is failing to get genuine scares into their book they may resort to cheap tricks such as writing things so...

Article by Sam Tyler on 31st October 2018
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Comparing a detective series to Sherlock Holmes is not always helpful as that is such an iconic character who has gone off to be in a thousand different spin offs, but on occasion it is apropos. If a series is about a super intelligent detective with a penchant for opium who works with a...

Article by Sam Tyler on 9th May 2024
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The Naked eye by  by Paul Kane
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The prolific, versatile, award-winning  British author Paul Kane returns with a collection of eight novelettes, four of which reprints and four previously unpublished.Kane is a veteran in the area of dark fiction and it shows,because all of the included stories are graced by a firm,...

Article by Mario Guslandi on 23rd June 2021
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The Naked God by  by Peter F Hamilton
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The Naked God is the third novel in the Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. Sitting with the final and conclusive volume of The Nights Dawn and looking at it's massive 1150 pages (at 1.5Kg it's just about the heaviest book I've ever read), I felt kind of intimidated. My faith in Hamilton...

Article by TC on 1st March 2000
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The Naked Sun by  by Isaac Asimov
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The Naked Sun is the second volume in the Robot series by Isaac Asimov.

This is the second book in the Elijah Baley series. The simple fact that it's the number two in a series, gives it a couple of advantages and a couple of disadvantages. On the plus side is that we know the main...

Article by TC on 2nd June 2001
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The Name of the Wind is the first volume in the Kingkiller Chronicles and tells the story of the notorious wizard Kvothe. After gaining his reputation at a very young age with included being expelled from university younger than most who are allowed in, talking to gods and writing songs, he...

Article by Ant on 12th March 2010
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The Nameless City is a short story by HP lovecraft and is generally considered to be the first Cthulhu Mythos story, published in 1921. In the middle of the Arabian Peninsula is an ancient ruin, it's been there longer than humanity and was built by a race mostly forgotten. These crawling...

Article by Ant on 9th March 2011
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The Nano Flower by  by Peter F Hamilton
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The Nano Flower is the third volume in the Greg Mandel Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. Greg Mandel is back, Julia is back and, well actually a hole bunch for people from Mindstar Rising is back in this book. Ready for more post-warming big corporate dealings and mercenary action. This book is the...

Article by TC on 1st December 1999
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The Neutronium Alchemist is the second volume in the Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. In The Reality Dysfunction, the presence of an energy-based alien lifeform during the death of a human on the colony world of Lalonde somehow "jammed open" the interface between this universe and "the...

Article by TC on 1st February 2000
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First time author T. Ellery Hodges enters the scifi genre with both barrels blazing! His debut novel The Never Hero is an unexpected thrill-ride through both time and space as our protagonist Jonathan fights an alien force hell-bent on destroying humankind.

From the back cover:

...

Article by D. L. Denham on 8th December 2014
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The New Kingdom by  by Wilbur Smith
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Historic fiction is often written about exciting characters who have full and adventurous lives. There is no point following someone who's past role in Egyptian culture was to turn the compost heaps four times a day. You want to follow the likes of Hui who goes from...

Article by Sam Tyler on 16th October 2021
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The New York Trilogy by  by Paul Auster
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The New York Trilogy is a collection of 3 stories by Paul Auster. This is the first book that I've read by Poul Auster. I saw him on TV a few months ago, he read from this book and I was deeply fascinated – the way the words flowed and the richness of his voice, gripped me deeply. And then...

Article by TC on 5th January 2001
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The Nexus Odyssey by  by Hylton H Smith
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The Nexus Odyssey is an omnibus featuring the Darwinian Extension series along with the follow-on novel "Renewal", a series that presents a bold vision for the human race.

It begins in 2033 with a planned mission to populate the red planet, Mars. But rather than a simple plan to create a...

Article by Ant on 21st May 2013
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The Night Alphabet by  by Joelle Taylor
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There are books in a person’s life that helps to define their taste in genres. I was lucky enough in my teenage years to work my way through some of the classics of science fiction instilling a lifelong love of the genre. One novel that stands out among the best was Ray Bradbury’s...

Article by Sam Tyler on 20th May 2025
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“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.”...

Article by Vanessa on 12th February 2014
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The relationship that humans have with the land has always been critical for our survival from the hunter gatherers to the farmers, to the post-industrial world we live in today. Living as one with the planet will help it sustain itself and us, but in recent decades it does not take much more...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th August 2023
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The Ninja Daughter by  by Tori Eldridge
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There are many reasons that an investigator in fiction gets involved in a case. Perhaps they are a Detective, and it is their job, or they are a Private Investigator getting paid. You may stumble across a body and suddenly find yourself drawn into a mystery. All these paths lead to a different...

Article by Sam Tyler on 21st January 2025
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The Nobody People by  by Bob Proehl
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Modern life has highlighted the plight of The Other. People are marginalised for all sorts of reasons and from what I can tell it is more noticeable than ever. If you are different but can blend in with everybody else, would you keep it a secret or not? The Nobody People are hidden from view for...

Article by Sam Tyler on 25th September 2020
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The Nomad of Time by  by Michael Moorcock
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The Nomad of Time trilogy (The Warlord of the Air, The Land Leviathan and The Steel Tsar), compiled into one volume in this paperback edition from Gollancz is a nostalgic treat for fans of steampunk and alternative history. These three stories are the memoirs of Oswald Bastable, Captain of the...

Article by Allen Stroud on 2nd October 2014
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From the back cover:

The oil is gone. That way of life, ended. An invention frees the mind. A cyber-world becomes salvation. A boy, a weapon. A soldier, a titan. While nations thrash into antiquity, And a CEO becomes Queen, A man, brilliant and cunning, Plots to rule it all.

...

Article by D. L. Denham on 23rd December 2014
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The Nursery by  by Roark Arnett
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Science Fiction writers love a dystopia, there are so many ways that it could all go wrong. Overpopulation is one. It not a pleasant thing to think about, but we already use too many of the world’s finite resources and as the population grows, this is going to get even worse. In The...

Article by Sam Tyler on 6th October 2022
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In The Obsidian Mirror, an ancient evil has hijacked Silicon Valley technology. The result could be disastrous, and stopping it falls to out-of-work PR executive Sierra Carter.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Obsidian Mirror. It was deliciously chock-full of Native American (and some...

Article by Vanessa on 9th January 2015
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I picked up The Ocean at the End of the Lane having already read a few (spoiler free) reviews on-line, so I was pretty thrilled to have finally bought it for myself (hard-cover and all). I'm a long time fan of Neil Gaiman—I discovered him in high school and remained a loyal reader. I'm...

Article by Vanessa on 13th September 2013
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Thomas Locke is known as the man who can find anything, rumor has it he even found the butterfly that started the last hurricane. It therefore makes perfect sense that a very desperate Veronica Drysdale would engage his services to find her missing husband - except the world of Thomas Locke...

Article by Ant on 14th September 2011
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The Offset by  by Calder Szewczak
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There is one solution that would benefit our climate massively, but it is a bitter pill to swallow. Less humans. We are the cause of pretty much all the issues that the Earth is currently having and when we are gone, it will happily float around the solar system without us. A...

Article by Sam Tyler on 14th September 2021
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The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance, written by Sean Williams. A novel in The Star Wars series, the story is set 3650 years before A New Hope. It is a novelisation based on the new Bioware and LucasArts massively multiplayer online role-playing game. I must confess that I am a big fan of Star...

Article by Ant on 3rd September 2010
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We last saw Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery getting ready to set sail with the Giants and embark upon the quest to find the fabled One Tree; the force that can remake the staff of law and free the land and people from the evil influence it has become infected by.

One Tree rejoins these...

Article by Ant on 11th June 2013
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The latest book in the Harry Potter series is twice as long as the previous one (which was twice as long as the one before it), it darker and somebody actually dies in it. Somebody not evil. That doesn't make it worth reading though. The fact that it's well written and highly entertaining, does...

Article by TC on 16th July 2003
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The third of Stephen Deas’ series, published in 2011, The Order of the Scales continues the story of the Dragon Realms. Each book picks up immediately from where the last left off, solving the requisite cliff hanger with yet more twists and turns of scheming between the kings, queens, princes,...

Article by Allen Stroud on 18th September 2015
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The Origami Man by  by Ben Mumford-Zisk
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The Origami Man begins with the death of the protagonist, Greg Samson. This however doesn't prevent Greg from returning home and then off to work.

It does however mean he now has to carry around an incredibly deadly alien warship which has burrowed into his neck and is now in a symbiotic...

Article by Ant on 4th December 2014
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The Other End Of Time by  by Frederik Pohl
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The Other End Of Time is a classic science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl. I bought The Other End Of Time because it was a scifi and more importantly because Pohl is referred to as asking unpleasant questions. ...Some of them are outright disturbing. I would dissagree with this comment. While...

Article by TC on 21st January 2003
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The Other Log of Phileas Fogg is very much a "literary mashup" novel which fills in the blanks from Jules Verne's classic novel "Around the World in 80 Days". It's being given a new lease of life thanks to Titan Books, originally published almost 40 years ago.

As the title suggests the...

Article by Ant on 15th June 2012
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Societies’ relationship with death has changed through the ages. With developments in healthcare and longer lifespans the modern world seems to want to forget that death exists, you are dropped into a lonely pit of grief while others continue to live around you. Good health was not always...

Article by Sam Tyler on 30th August 2023
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The Outside by  by Ada Hoffman
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This debut novel from Ada Hoffman comes on the back of a strong catalogue of short story success in Uncanny, Asimov’s and other well-known SF magazines.

Onboard the space station, Pride of Jai, autistic scientist Yasira Shien leads a huge science and engineering project in power...

Article by Allen Stroud on 24th July 2019
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I read a lot of spooky and downright horrific books in the run up to Halloween this year, but the horror books that work well stick in the mind all year round. The Pale House Devil by Richard Kadrey is not your typical horror novel, nor is it your typical comedy book, or buddy story. This is a...

Article by Sam Tyler on 3rd November 2023
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I've been aware of The Passage for years but never had chance to pick it up - even though I have family connections to the Cronin surname (although doubtfully any connection to the author!). Recently the final novel in the series was released which prompted me to begin reading.

The...

Article by Ant on 2nd January 2017
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The Passengers by  by John Marrs
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Call me old fashioned, I am a little scared of the future. This is a sentiment that will hit many of us eventually. What is wrong with the way technology works right now? Do I really need to talk to my speakers or plug myself into the Matrix just to order a pizza? The idea of getting behind the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 29th March 2019
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The Path of Daggers is the eighth volume in Robert Jordans fantasy epic, the Wheel of Time series. Following the events in A Crown of Swords, Elayne, Nyneave, Aviendha and a coalition of women who can channel the one power finally manage to use the "Bowl of the Winds" to reverse the un-natural...

Article by Ant on 1st March 2010
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The Perfect Stranger by  by Brian Pinkerton
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I have come across the argument that people do not read science fiction as they cannot connect it to their own lives. Most sci fi fans know that even a book set in deep space or thousands of years in the future is often just using images of tomorrow to discuss the issues of today. However, if a...

Article by Sam Tyler on 21st February 2025
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(Seems to be titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the US). Not a word about Hollywood and the movie (which I will be seeing in a couple of days). Not a word about the merchandise and kids dressed as Potter. Not a word about how this book made the kids read again. Just the book....

Article by TC on 1st November 2001
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I find that a lot of my favourite science fiction starts off as a simple What If scenario. A talented author can take a seemingly simple idea and extrapolate from there. A simple difference to our current way of life can have huge implications. Before long an entire new world has...

Article by Sam Tyler on 10th September 2020
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The Pillars of the earth by  by Ken Follett
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Fair warning, this isn't going to be a normal review, it's the first one I've written post-covid and is much more personal than usual.

Some years ago, my father started reading again. Previous to that he hadn't read much for the last few decades outside of Haynes manuals and instruction...

Article by Ant on 10th August 2020
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The Plague Forge by  by Jason M Hough
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The Plague Forge is the dramatic conclusion to the Dire Earth Cycle. With the Builders plans still hidden and time running out, can Skyler and his team recover the four remaining relics before the final Builder event takes place?

No-one really knows what will happen when the five...

Article by Ant on 31st March 2014
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The Player of Games by  by Iain M Banks
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The Player of games is a Culture series novel by the noted author Iain M Banks.

I've been looking for Player of Games (PoG) for quite some time now (it has been out of print for some years) but finally I got lucky and found it in Gatwick Airport - So the big question for me was...

Article by TC on 1st May 1999
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The Players by  by Joseph Fullam
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The Players is a science fiction novel by Joseph Fullam. I accepted getting a review copy of this book after having having read the byline which says "All the universe is a stage, And all the men and women merely players...". I must have thought that that sounded intriguing or something, but...

Article by TC on 21st January 2001
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There is something to be said for designing a creative sandpit, a place that you can return to and play within. Rather than writing new characters in a new place every book, you can return to the known. A shorthand exists. However, this is a double-edged sword, you can end up recreating the same...

Article by Sam Tyler on 10th February 2025
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Fantasy
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Thomas Covenant is once again summoned to the strange alternative world where magic exists and an ancient enemy threatens the land. Although for Thomas mere days have passed, for the inhabitants of "The Land" it's been over seven years since the unbeliever was abroad.

The land is much...

Article by Ant on 15th August 2012
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A one hundred and forty year old Vampire who is sworn to protect the President of the United States, now THAT is an interesting concept. It's the idea of the author Christopher Farnsworth who presents us with an rich urban fantasy that manages to honour some well known and much loved series...

Article by Ant on 12th October 2012
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The Price of Freedom by  by Michael C. Bland
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Science Fiction
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After discovering what The Price of Safety and The Price of Rebellion are in the first two outings in Michael C Bland’s dystopian trilogy, we finally get to see what The Price of Freedom is in this final outing. In a world in which everyone has been rendered blind unless they wear...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th July 2025
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I do enjoy a set of short stories. There are typically two types that you can get, a collection, or a theme. The Price of Memories and Other Stories by Sally McBride is a classic style collection of an author’s works brought together over years into a curated whole. Are there themes that...

Article by Sam Tyler on 4th November 2024
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Some things are bigger than just us. We need to think about more than the individual or even the family unit, think of the bigger picture. The Price of Rebellion by Micheal C. Bland is the second part of a trilogy all about an inventor who would do anything to protect his family, but in doing...

Article by Sam Tyler on 27th June 2023
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The Price of Safety by  by Michael C. Bland
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What would you do to protect those that you love? What is The Price of Safety? This is a question that Michael C. Bland poses in the first of a trilogy set in a troubling future. It is a story about a genius, but also a family man whose inventions gets them all into danger. At what point do you...

Article by Sam Tyler on 7th June 2023
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The Primarchs by  by Christian Dunn
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It is a time of legends, the entire galaxy is one mighty battleground which see the indomitable space marines locked in a bitter civil war, divided by the heresy of Horus.

Some chapters remain loyal to humanities greatest leader; the Emperor, while others have chosen the chaos tainted...

Article by Ant on 11th June 2012
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You see it more often in fantasy than science fiction, but there are stories about young people living a life of drudgery only to be plucked into being exceptional as if fate is playing with them. It is a comfortable coming of age trope that has worked so well, so many times, but what if...

Article by Sam Tyler on 29th January 2024
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I’m really impressed. Rowling has managed what to write a series of books, where at least the first three are wonderful. That isn’t something that you see everyday. …The prisoner of Azkaban, starts of exactly like the first two Potter books, with Harry enduring the Dursleys and looking...

Article by TC on 7th March 2002
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The Proteus Operation by  by James P Hogan
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The Proteus Operation is a science fiction novel by James P Hogan. Once upon a time in the late 21st century, everything was just a-okay and everybody where happy. Utopia had been reached. Well, except for a couple of malcontents who where rather bored with all this be-good-to-thy-neighbour and...

Article by TC on 1st March 2001
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The Quanderhorn Xperimentations is a book thats been adapted backwards via the future from the Radio 4 series before it was made. It's pure, british comedy gold from the genius minds of Rob Grant and Andrew Marshall.

The story is set in England, 1952. A time of (relative) peace...

Article by Ant on 18th July 2018
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Kelsea Glynn is the only heir to the throne of Tearling but rather than growing up surrounded by servants and sophistication she has been raised in a woods by foster parents, in secret. Mostly this is due to her real mothers failings - Queen Elyssa was murdered for ruining the kingdom and for 18...

Article by Ant on 18th July 2014
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Towards the end of the 21st Century Earth appears as a very different place, a post-singularity existence and a fractured future of a billion earthbound souls, preserved at the bottom of a gravity well.

Huw is a technophobe and somewhat of a misanthropist - a natural selection for the...

Article by Ant on 19th April 2013
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The Rats by  by James Herbert
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This was James Herbert’s first novel and while it isn’t a masterpiece by anyone’s standard you could quite clearly see he was a writer with some promise. His style was easy on the eye and although fairly basic in places you could see that he knew how to use pace and atmosphere to his...

Article by Arron on 21st June 2012
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Horror
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Horror comes in many shapes and sizes. The horror could be on this plane of existence, a creature that stalks you and your family through generations. It could be even closer to home, the horror of the mundane, the terror of ordinary people willing to do anything to achieve their goals, even if...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th November 2024
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With an illustrious writing career spanning several decades, Ursula Le Guin’s name is synonymous with the very best and thought provoking science fiction and fantasy writing. The Real and Unreal: Volume 1: Where on Earth? is a collection of her short stories with a common theme of being set in...

Article by Allen Stroud on 29th August 2014
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The Real-Town Murders by  by Adam Roberts
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One of the (many) things I like about Adam Robert's stories is that they are always full of big ideas and The Real-Town Murders is no exception. This time the author has written a future-noir crime story which revolves around the "locked room mystery".

A popular subgenre in...

Article by Ant on 24th July 2017
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The Reality Dysfunction is the first volume in the Nights Dawn Trilogy by Peter Hamilton. In the far future, humanity has divided along a single major line. The Edenists are genetically engineered space-dwellers with telepathic affinity to their biotechnological homes and ships. Adamists are...

Article by TC on 1st January 2000
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The Rebel Worlds by  by Poul Anderson
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The Rebel Worlds is a science fiction novel by author Poul Anderson. When I’m a bit stressed at my daytime job, I take a lot more care when I select a new book to read. It has to be fairly short if I want to finish it anytime soon, the story line has to be fairly simple and it has to keep me...

Article by TC on 24th June 2002
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The Recollection by  by Gareth L Powell
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Strange arches are appearing all over the world and the brother of failed artist Ed disappears through one that suddenly jumps into being at the bottom of a London Escalator. With no visible way back Ed must put aside his differences with his brother's wife and go find him. Four hundred years...

Article by Ant on 7th November 2011
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The Red Notebook by  by Paul Auster
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The Red Notebook is a novel by the American author Paul Auster. Paul Auster is one of those annoying people that not only have interesting things happening to them seemingly all the time, but also have a talent that enables them to describe these events, in such a way that other people actually...

Article by TC on 2nd August 2001
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Science Fiction
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Love is love and that is truer in science fiction than any other genre as you can fall in love with anyone or anything. Someone of the same species, an alien or even a spaceship. With AI advancing who is to say that one day their personality will not appeal, couple that to an avatar they...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th November 2023
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I love to read books; they transport me to unfamiliar places. I will go there even if these unfamiliar places are dangerous like the Hollyhock Asylum found in Chris Panatier’s The Redemption of Morgan Bright. A story can transport you, as can characters, but sometimes the structure of a...

Article by Sam Tyler on 10th May 2024
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The Regulators is a novel by the master of horror, Stephen King. Released in the name of Richard Bachman. I'm not sure why he has decided to release it under the name Bachman, but I've theory that it is because it is a piece of crap. Small boy gets possessed by evil pyschic "thing". Boy...

Article by TC on 17th September 1999
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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.

In a measure, The Relic Guild is this kind of book. From the first page, the description crackles and draws you into the...

Article by Allen Stroud on 18th September 2014
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The Reluctant Mage is the second volume in the Fisherman's Children series by Karen Miller. Rafel has been gone for months, last seen heading over Barl's Mountains into the unknown in a desperate quest to find help in the legendary magical Library but such time has passed and all hope appears...

Article by Ant on 21st September 2010
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The Return Man by  by V. M. Zito
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The Return man is a post-apocalyptic Zombie novel that manages to offer a few surprises and original ideas in this rapidly expanded sub-genre.

The story goes that a mass "outbreak" divides America in two, on the east the untouched survivors remain safe while the west has become truly...

Article by Ant on 13th April 2012
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Failed science writer Alex Dolan is just floating along, struggling to find work when multi-billionaire Stanislaw Clayton provides a surprising, well-paid offer out of the blue. He wants Alex to write a book about the world's first privately funded high-energy physics facility - the...

Article by Ant on 2nd October 2019
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General Fiction
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There are many genres out there and you can find yourself as a reader sticking to the same ones. I always noticed the large collection of Westerns and books on historic America in my public library growing up. Most of them in large print, which suggested that the audience was older than my...

Article by Sam Tyler on 2nd August 2022
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The Riddler's Gift is the first volume in the Lifesong series by Greg Hamerton. There is a song that drifts on the breeze through all the world. Its rhythms are echoed in our breath, the music is caught in our laughter, hidden in our language, woven through our life... Most of the old world...

Article by Ant on 6th September 2010
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The Righteous Arrows by  by Brian J. Morra
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I am a massive fan of historic fiction; it is a fantastic way of bringing the past to life. It depends on the author how heavily they lean on the historic part or the fiction part. Some books are thinly disguised pseudo fantasy held together by a whisper of historic accuracy, while others read...

Article by Sam Tyler on 17th May 2024
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The Rise of Skywalker by  by Rae Carson
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Science Fiction
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The movie tie in novel is much maligned but I have always had a soft spot for them. I have spent many a pleasurable hour with the works of tie in master Alan Dean Foster who was able to improve several mediocre films with his prose. Films are great at bombastic action, but they often fail to...

Article by Sam Tyler on 30th March 2020
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The best villains have depth; a reason why they became villainous. There are few maniacs that comes out of the womb thus, they must be moulded into the cackling psychopaths that you love to hate. In the Minecraft Dungeons game, you go up against the Arch-Illager; a diminutive enemy who has the...

Article by Sam Tyler on 4th August 2020
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The Rising Storm by  by Cavan Scott
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The Force is a concept that underpins the Star Wars Universe, but it is good or bad? The entire point is that it is both. There is a Light Side and a Dark Side, and these two opposing elements must be in balance. During the Star Wars films, the Dark Side is on its uppers and...

Article by Sam Tyler on 29th June 2021
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The Road to Bedlam is the second volume in the The Courts of the Feyre series, which started with the incredible debut novel Sixty One Nails by Angry Robot Author Mike Shevdon. The novel begins shortly after the events in Sixty One Nails with Blackbird expecting the birth of their child any...

Article by Ant on 4th August 2010
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The Road to Hell by  by Peter Cawdron
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Not to be confused with the A589 (which is the road to Morecambe) or that very depressing Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road to Hell* (now known as Out of Time) is indeed paved with good vibrations intentions, in this case that road involves a future that uses a limited form of time travel. During...

Article by Ant on 4th November 2011
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The tie in novel can have a bad press, a book churned out to steal some of the glory from a popular TV show or film, but I have a soft spot for them. When done well they can expand the universe; tie in novels for the likes of Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars (twice) and many others have given...

Article by Sam Tyler on 5th September 2023
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Peace in the kingdom of Elundium is shattered when the corrupt Chancellors gather their forces, prepared to attack the rule of King Holbian, and the messenger Thane must cross enemy territory to save his...

Article by Ant on 26th September 2008
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The Robots of Dawn by  by Isaac Asimov
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The Robots of Dawn is the third volume in the Robot series by Isaac Asimov

Written nearly thirty years after The Naked Sun this, the third volume in the Elijah Baley series, is one of Asimovs greatest accomplishments. His writing has matured a lot in those thirty years and he has, in...

Article by TC on 3rd June 2001
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The Rook by  by Daniel O'Malley
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The Rook is a surprisingly impressive piece of fiction, managing to turn a literary device often used to provide back story into an integral part of the story. Myfanwy Thomas wakes one morning in a London park surrounded by bodies wearing latex gloves, somewhat battered and bruised and with no...

Article by Ant on 18th January 2013
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The Ruin of Kings is the debut of Jenn Lyons, it's an impressive way to make an entrance. The beginning of epic fantasy series A Chorus of Dragons, the book has just been optioned to be turned into a TV series.

Growing up in the slums of the city Suur, Kihrin learns to entertain with...

Article by Ant on 18th February 2019
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The Sacred Protocol by  by Hylton H Smith
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The Sacred Protocol is a near future novel of an alternative history, written by Hylton H Smith. After the Spanish Armada defeat the English fleet in 1588 the great British Empire is overthrown and Spain control most of Europe. Moving forward to 2016 and the Internet collapses causing mass...

Article by Ant on 2nd February 2011
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The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart is a dark fantasy novel, the debut of Jesse Bullington. The year is 1364 and in the plague infested, devil-haunted darkness of Medieval Europe most of the population struggle to survive, living in abject poverty while the opulent few enjoy a life of...

Article by Ant on 27th March 2011
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The Salmon of Doubt by  by Douglas Adams
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The Salmon of Doubt, Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time is a posthumous collection of previously unpublished material by Douglas Adams, published in 2001. English editions of the book were published in the USA and UK in May 2002, exactly one year after the author's death. It consists largely...

Article by Ant on 20th July 2008
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The Santaroga Barrier by  by Frank Herbert
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This is a sorta Bradbury esque horror attack of the pod people subtle down home lets conform and all is well book. Like his other great(er) book THE GREEN BRAIN it takes on evolution of a society without a wage of sin or shame in front of it. Is it cool for you to abandon your humanity for a...

Article by TC on 2nd February 2000
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The Scar by  by China Mieville
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The Scar returns us to the wonderful world of Bas Lag, first encountered in the award winning novel Perdido Street Station. This time however we are far removed from the dirty, winding streets of New Crobuzon and thrust into the wider world, adrift on strange tides and weird seas.

The...

Article by Ant on 14th January 2013
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It has to be said that even though I don't entertain much horror, Clive Barker is somewhat of a legend. Growing up in the 80's his name was often spoken in quiet awe by impressionable teenagers, not least due to his infamous Books of Blood collections.

For me though it was the character...

Article by Ant on 18th May 2015
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The Science of Avatar by  by Stephen Baxter
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Avatar is without a doubt a great film and I'm clearly not alone in that opinion, since it's release in 2009 it has become the highest grossing film of all time and the first to pass $2 billion in sales. It was nominated for a total of 9 Academy Awards and won "Best Cinematography", "Best Visual...

Article by Ant on 23rd July 2012
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The Scientific Method by  by Jeff Thomason
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The Scientific Method is a young adult novel by Jeff Thomason. The Holy Grail of Physics, the Unified Field Theory promises to revolutionize the way mankind lives, and would bring with it advancements never before dreamed of. It has however defeated the most brilliant minds of the last 100...

Article by Ant on 27th January 2011
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If the past twelve months has taught us anything is that rules will only work so well. One person may stick fast the letter of the law, another may bend them a little, another may ignore them completely. All three believe they are doing the right thing and all three may be at...

Article by Sam Tyler on 9th March 2021
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The Seed Garden by  by DB Reynolds-Moreton
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A while ago now I reviewed a surprisingly entertaining novel called "The Insoculation Syndrome" which detailed a tale of an astronaut stranded on a alien planet.

The Seed Garden starts in a very similar fashion, Jed's ship malfunctions and his only hope for survival is to jump in an...

Article by Ant on 5th September 2012
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There are shifts in the Fantasy genre that perhaps only the ardent fan will notice. The epics of Tolkien and the 80s are still being written, but now there are more intimate stories that follow one or two characters as they graft in their small way among the wider Fantasy world. These are...

Article by Sam Tyler on 4th April 2025
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The Seven by  by Peter Newman
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The Seven is Peter Newman's stunning conclusion to the post-apocalyptic Vagrant Trilogy, following on from the events of The Vagrant and The Malice.

A number of years have passed since the Vagrant journeyed to the Shining City with a baby Vesper and Gamma's sword. Following in...

Article by Ant on 25th April 2017
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I am not an argumentative fellow and the only two full on blowouts I can remember are well within the geek sphere. Who was the actor alongside Harrison Ford at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark and how does time travel work? I may have been wrong about Alfred Molina but I...

Article by Sam Tyler on 28th July 2020
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A new fantasy series from Stephen Donaldson, the author of the Thomas Covenant chronicles and the two Mordant’s Need novels. The first book, The Seventh Decimate tells the story of the war between the nations of Amika and Belleger that has raged for generations. Its roots lie in the distant...

Article by Allen Stroud on 15th March 2018
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In the Labyrinth, Marit and Hugh venture out to try and find Alfred. He turns out to be the prisoner of a Labyrinth dragon, which are almost the equal of the dragon-snakes in cruelty and savagery. With the help of the Cursed Blade, they drive it off and rescue Alfred. On Abarrach, Haplo is...

Article by Ant on 15th September 2008
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As an author, reading a novel written by a seventeen year old is occasionally an experience of envious scrutiny. The merest mention of age by the publisher in the foreword and back cover blurb is an invocation to comparison. "Seventeen eh?" "Really? Well let’s just see if she’s any good…...

Article by Allen Stroud on 29th September 2014
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If you are of a certain age, you will know that the 80s was by far the best decade for pop culture, the films, music, comics, books, all unbeatable. All the films and TV shows basking in that 80s nostalgia prove it so. But wait, what is that? A load of 90s-based films and TV shows are starting...

Article by Sam Tyler on 25th March 2022
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The Shadow of Heaven by  by Bob Shaw
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The Shadow of Heaven is a science fiction novel by Bob Shaw. First copyrighted 1969, this "terrifying novel of the future" is surprisingly unjaded by time. In The Shadow of Heaven, World War III isn't the nuclear inferno as must feared at the time, but something a lot closer to what we fear...

Article by TC on 1st November 2000
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The Shadow rising is the fourth book in the Wheel of Time series, by Robert Jordan. Prophecy has been fullfilled, the Stone of Tear has been breached and Callindor - the sword that is not a sword has been wielded, the Dragon is reborn. Selene finally reveals to Rand that she is Lanfear, one of...

Article by Ant on 15th January 2010
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I've been reading Pratchett books for such a large part of my life. Knowing there will be no more Discworld, no more cheerful yet insightful adventures from the colourful inhabitents of that world on the back of four giant elephants — propelled through space by the Great A'Tuin, is a sad and...

Article by Ant on 26th October 2015
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The Ship by  by Antonia Honeywell
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In a future where fossil fuels have dried up, global warming has decimated ecosystems, and governments are culling populations, Antonia Honeywell’s debut sees teenager Lalla escape the ruins of London to live on her father's utopian Ship with 500 others keen to enjoy a 'happy death'. Their...

Article by Alice Wybrew on 3rd March 2016
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The Shiva Syndrome by  by Alan Joshua
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A secret Russian mind research laboratory in Podol'sk is destroyed in a freak accident involving one of its patients. The resulting devastation leaves thousands dead and a mile wide crater where the ground has quite literally been pulverized. Plucked from discredited obscurity, parapsychologist...

Article by Allen Stroud on 7th June 2015
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The Shores of Tomorrow is the third volume in the Chronicles of Solace series by Roger MacBride Allen.

In the far distant future, mankind has learned, thanks to Oskar DeSilvo, how to terraform planets. Once that operation was complete, humanity would colonize that world but what few...

Article by TC on 30th October 2003
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Science Fiction can be upbeat and utopian or downbeat and dystopian. The current trend is to focus on the negatives, but even these books have a glint of hope in them. When it comes to dystopian visions of the future, they do not come much more intense than Premee Mohamed’s The Siege of...

Article by Sam Tyler on 14th March 2024
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The Siege of Scarn is the first volume in the fantasy series Trance Warriors, written by Robert C Auty. It is a time of Chaos in the middle isle, Connor - an outlaw whose family was killed by the Kings own troops finds himself drawn into a fight between good and evil, a clash of Gods that...

Article by Ant on 4th July 2010
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Warlock Holmes is back. No, not Sherlock, Warlock. If you think about it, what makes more sense; a man who can somehow divine everything from a few clues, or a Warlock who just uses magic to do the same? The Sign of Nine continues the premise that Sir Conan Doyle’s original stories were...

Article by Sam Tyler on 13th April 2019
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The Silence by  by Tim Lebbon
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What a great idea for a novel. A new little twist on the already satiated apocalypse genre. An underground cavern is unearthed opening the way for thousands of fast breeding “vesps” which hunt by sound and kill everything living they hear on their journey across Europe to our very own...

Article by Arron on 18th December 2015
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The Silenced by  by Stephen Lloyd Jones
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Mallory Grace had been successfully hiding out in London for some time until she met Obadiah in a seemingly random encounter. Now she's just had to kill someone and if she wants to survive the next few hours she'll probably have to kill again. To survive the night she'll need a...

Article by Ant on 23rd April 2018
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The Silent Land concerns the story of Jake and Zoe who find themselves cut off from civilisation after being trapped in an Avalanche while on a skiing holiday. Managing to claw and wriggle her way out of her snowbound tomb Zoe finds Jake has miraculously survived. On return to their hotel they...

Article by Ant on 2nd December 2011
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The Silver Cage is an alternate reality fantasy novel by Mik Wilkens. I must admit that it took me quite a while to get into this book, the writing is of a very good standard but the pace a little pedestrian for my taste, there is nothing wrong with having a gentle pace to a novel and the prose...

Article by Ant on 8th February 2011
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You should be careful what you wish for, but also careful what you promise. Are you going to be able to live up to the hype? Arcadia Books are pretty pumped with James Logan’s The Silverblood Promise stating that it is the best fantasy debut of the year. Let me be the judge of that and...

Article by Sam Tyler on 25th April 2024
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The Sirens of Titan by  by Kurt Vonnegut
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Reviewed by Philip Graham. Kurt Vonnegut was, until recently, my personal Leo Tolstoy. By that I mean that I knew his name, I knew he was a famed author, and I knew that I really should have read more, or even some, of his work. So finally I went out and got "The Sirens of Titan". I chose this...

Article by Philip on 28th March 2012
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Trained in the mental and physical disciplines of his people, Ran-Del Jahanpur is a warrior of the Sansoussy Forest. Overconfident in his abilities he is all too easily caught when he sets off a high tech trap. He finds himself transported to a strange alien city where machines speak, metal...

Article by Ant on 15th July 2011
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The Skin Map is the first volume in a new fantasy series called Bright Empires, written by Stephen R Lawhead. Kit Livingstone is one of people that have never seemed to get used to living in society, passing through various dead-end jobs with no real plans or ambitions and far too apathetic...

Article by Ant on 2nd March 2011
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The Sky Is Falling by  by Lester del Rey
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The Sky Is Falling is a speculative fiction novel by Lester del Rey. Waking up in a world of magic isn't an easy experience for, just dead, computer engineer Dave Hanson. It doesn't get any easier for him when he learns that the sky is falling and he has been destined to do something about it!...

Article by TC on 1st December 2000
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The Sky Road by  by Ken Mcleod
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The Sky Road is the fourth volume in the Fall Revolution Series by Ken Mcleod. Expectations are a funny thing. It has been nearly ten months since I read the first three books by MacLeod and loved them, and now I that I've read his fourth book I'm unsure as to the reason as to why I'm...

Article by TC on 1st May 2000
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The Slant by  by Robert Gibson
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It's funny how you can read books as far afield as China and Australia and not realise there are talented authors on your own doorstep. I  discovered the author Robert Gibson in Morecambe bay, only a few miles from my home. Robert has been writing science fiction stories for a number of...

Article by Ant on 4th September 2017
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There are not many authors who are willing to write "You may not like this book" right at the beginning. That's one of the things that makes Patrick Rothfuss so special though - he cares that much about his fans, his readers that he is even willing to sacrifice sales to avoid annoying them....

Article by Ant on 14th November 2014
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The Snow Leopard by  by Peter Matthiessen
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Every so often I like to lift my head above the science fiction and fantasy world and read something unconnected. The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen was the choice this time, a classic novel of discovery.

Matthiessen was a literary giant, the only writer to win the National Book...

Article by Ant on 28th March 2016
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The Somebody People by  by Bob Proehl
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Who are the goodies and who are the baddies? In most media, the baddies are normally some form of massive entity that is squashing the smaller rebels. These rebels become the de facto good guys as they fight against repression. However, what happens when the power shifts? If the rebels take...

Article by Sam Tyler on 13th July 2021
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The Song of the Swan is a science fiction novel by Arthur D'Alembert. Normally I don't comment on the finish of a book or the price of the book that I'm reviewing. Normally there's no reason to. The Song of the Swan is different. First of all it mainly published in electronic form as an Acrobat...

Article by TC on 1st March 1999
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The Song of the Swan II is the sequel to The Song of the Swan by Arthur D'Alembert. This Part II is a direct continuation of the first Song of the Swan even if it takes place fifty years later. As that it's kind of uninteresting if you haven't read the first part, but then again it's...

Article by TC on 1st May 2000
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Establishing a new fantasy story of weight and significance is difficult these days. The genre is crowded with epic quests, adventures, villains and heroes.

The Sons of Thestian by M.E. Vaughan is fantasy tale by a talented writer that attempts to draw our attention. The opening action...

Article by Allen Stroud on 15th September 2015
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I adore the fantasy genre and as someone who reads it a lot, I have seen the ebbs and flows in the genre over the years. There have always been outliers, but there is a certain style of fantasy that dominated for each of the decades. Until recently, I have read a lot of Low Fantasy, a genre low...

Article by Sam Tyler on 13th December 2024
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The Spear by  by James Herbert
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Review by Arron Clegg. James Herbert has long been regarded by many people as Britain’s finest horror writer of the 20th century and with his 5th novel The Spear it is hard to argue against such claims. It is a horror novel that has it all, ghosts, the occult and Nazis.

The writing in...

Article by Arron on 10th May 2012
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Urban Fantasy has become a staple of the Fantasy genre in recent years, and you are as likely to find a book about a necromancer librarian or zombie private detective walking around a modern city as you are elves and dwarves in a version of the past. I thought I had seen it all; teddy bear...

Article by Sam Tyler on 21st June 2022
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Book six of the Memory of Flames series picks up right from the moment book five – Dragon Queen ends. This time we’re in the ruined aftermath of Zafir’s ride to destroy the city of Dhar Thosis and Baros Tsen T’Varr is contemplating the ruination of his plans.

This is not a book...

Article by Allen Stroud on 31st March 2016
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It is amazing what can inspire a writer. A little thought worm can drill itself into their head and the only peace to be found is to write the thing out. Ron Capshaw’s inspiration for The Stage Mother’s Club seems to be the author’s fascination with all the failed stage Mums...

Article by Sam Tyler on 17th June 2022
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The Stainless Steel Rat and Angelina enjoy a belated honeymoon on a planet run by a dictator who rigs elections to get into office, so they set the Rat up as a candidate instead. Very much a satire on banana republic politics and a parody of adventures set in Latin America I regretted buying...

Article by TC on 1st October 2000
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Slippery Jim diGriz, the future's master criminal tumed super-spy, is recruiting for an all-out interstellar war! Loathsome, mind sucking creatures from an unknown star are closing in on Earth. Once again it's up to the Stainless Steel Rat to save humanity. In a daring caper packed with action...

Article by TC on 1st February 1999
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The Stainless Steel Rat gets married, but rapidly gets involved in something that so far has proven impossible in the galaxy - the planet Cliaand has successfully been invading other worlds. Jim is sent to investigate, and discovers the mysterious Grey Men behind Cliaand's success, encounters a...

Article by TC on 1st July 1999
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The galactic civilisation of the Torrian Alliance is on the brink of Civil War - crusading to destroy the "Star-children" to suppress an intergalactic evil. King Gregorio Derry send's his only son on a mission to restore the honor of his family, to hunt down one of these children. Life is never...

Article by Ant on 15th August 2011
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The Star Fraction by  by Ken Mcleod
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The Star Fraction is a science fiction novel by Ken Mcleod. This is the first book by MacLeod that I've read but certainly not the last, not just because I've already bought The Stone Canal and The Cassini Diversion, but because MacLeod is a damn good writer. I mostly picked up these books on...

Article by TC on 30th August 1999
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The State of The Art by  by Iain M Banks
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The State of The Art is an anthology collection by Iain M Banks.

The State of The Art is a collection of eight stories with the story The State of The Art making up one hundred of the two hundred pages. As can be expected with Banks all of the stories are well written and interesting,...

Article by TC on 25th January 2001
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The Status Civilization - Mindswap is a collection of two science fiction stories by Robert Sheckley. This book contains two stories of about a hundred and fifty pages each. The stories are very different, so I'll review them as separate stories. The Status Civilization. Most of this story...

Article by TC on 1st November 1999
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The Stone Canal by  by Ken Mcleod
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The Stone Canal is the second volume in the Fall Revolution Series, following on from the events of the Star Fraction, written by Ken Mcleod. The third book from this soon to be grand master (if I have anything to say about the matter). Stone Canal takes place in two threads, the first one...

Article by TC on 2nd September 1999
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The Stone man by  by Luke Smitherd
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One of those books I missed the first time around, The stone man is the first in a series of science fiction thrillers. It looks like it's already become a bit of a self-published success story and the second in the series, The empty men is out now.

The story begins on one July afternoon...

Article by Ant on 23rd December 2021
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The Stones of Blood by  by David Fisher
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The Target imprint of Doctor Who novels is like nectar to any fan as they offer a punchy adaptation of almost every episode of the series up to the mid-90s, but there were a few missing. Fear not, as BBC Books are not only releasing adaptations of newer episodes but are also looking to fill in...

Article by Sam Tyler on 4th July 2022
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The greatest city in the Thirteen Lands, Rigus stands as a radiant hub of grandiose manors and sparkling citadels. It's a place where nobility rules and disagreements are settled with honourable duels. In the shadow of this glory sits Low Town, a vast warren of dark, narrow streets, dirty alleys...

Article by Ant on 5th June 2012
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The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack won it's author the Philip K Dick award for best novel last year, what makes this acheivement even more remarkable is that it was also the authors début. The novel is a steampunk tale set in an alternative England where Queen Victoria was actually...

Article by Ant on 7th March 2012
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Reading The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August got me hooked into Claire North's (also known as Kate Griffin and Catherine Webb) wonderfully rich, clever and entertaining stories. As such I've been eagerly awaiting The Sudden Appearance of Hope for some time.

One of the things...

Article by Ant on 27th June 2016
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I must admit I have a fondness for alternative history novels, especially those that depict the second World War. Throw in secret Nazi plots that involve alien technology and that infamous Axis quest to create the Übermensch and you have a formula for a very interesting book indeed. Suicide...

Article by Ant on 15th May 2015
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When I first picked this book up I thought, this seems a bit amateurish. Further reading and I understood why. It is a novel aimed for young adults. With this in mind I began to look at the novel in a new light. I cast off my misgivings and settled down to enjoy the story for what it was....

Article by Arron on 12th July 2013
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For a long time, the Fantasy genre felt very Western European. So many of the fantasy worlds seemed to be based on a version of Medieval Europe, but that has not been the case for some time now. It does not take much searching to find a book that very much still feels like fantasy but has a...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th September 2023
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The Sundering by  by Gav Thorpe
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The most tragic tale from the Time of Legends tells of the fall of the greatest houses of the elves and the fates of three kings: Pheonix, Witch and Shadow.

There was once a time when all was order, now so distant that no mortal creature can remember it. Since time immemorial the elves...

Article by Ant on 26th October 2012
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Quirky, accomplished and a great deal of fun, The Supernatural Enchancements is a solid, unusual novel.

The premise of the story is the protagonist (known only as A) inherits the American estate "Axton House" following the death of his second cousin "Uncle" Ambrose, whom A had never met...

Article by Ant on 10th August 2015
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Will Swyfte, Mark Chadbourn’s protagonist in The Sword of Albion, has been widely compared to James Bond. An emphatic, smooth talking bachelor with fierce fighting skills and a place in the Queen’s palace, it’s easy to liken this spy to the most famous fictional agent of the 20th century....

Article by Alice Wybrew on 5th September 2011
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The System of the World is the third and final volume in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. In 1714 Daniel Waterhouse arbitrates the irrational dispute between the aging mathematical giants Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, both angrily insisting they invented the calculus. However...

Article by TC on 3rd December 2004
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If you go down to the woods today, you are in for a big surprise. Something far worse will be waiting for you than a few bears holding sandwiches. These are the ancient woods that our ancestors grew up near, pockets of civilisation surrounded by darkness and danger. When myths and folklore were...

Article by Sam Tyler on 21st April 2022
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The Telling by  by Ursula K Le Guin
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What is religion?

Most of us aren’t used to contemplating that question too hard. The answer seems self-evident. In the world around us now, we have Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as the big three monotheistic religions. India and East Asia provide numerous examples of the...

Article by Matt Buscemi on 3rd March 2019
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The Terminal Experiment is a science fiction novel by Robert J Sawyer. After the bad experience with Frameshift, I didn't really want to starting on a new story by Sawyer. But, everybody deserves a second chance and when a friend ruthlessly dumped The Terminal Experiment (TTE) on me, I decided...

Article by TC on 1st October 1999
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I picked this book up some time ago as I like tales of immortality and time and what not, and it seemed intriguing that the same author who wrote The boy in the striped pajamas  would write an historical fantasy. Of course it's one of those books that people who don't like fantasy will tell...

Article by Ant on 15th December 2021
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The Thing Itself by  by Adam Roberts
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I've said a number of times now that Adam Roberts is a gifted author and this is increasingly evident with each new book he writes. His work overflows with ideas and at the same time he seems to delight in using different structures, to experiment in forming his narrative. This time he's turned...

Article by Ant on 8th January 2016
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The Third Side by  by Stephen Sweeney
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The Pandoran war machine is on the move and Simon Dodds finds himself shot down over the luxury planet of Mythos. Separated from his team mates he soon learns that the once-popular holiday destination has become a hellish war zone, swarming with armies of seemingly unstoppable black-suited...

Article by Ant on 21st September 2011
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The This by  by Adam Roberts
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Social Media has changed the world we live in today by accelerating the polarisation of opinion. No longer is a debate a two-way conversation between people discussing their own point of view, but a slanging match in which neither side can see the others’ point of view. Until the last...

Article by Sam Tyler on 15th November 2022
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The Three by  by Sarah Lotz
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On a single day that will come to be known as "Black Thursday" four passenger planes crash at almost the same time at four different points around the world.

Each crash has one single survivor, three children who emerge from the wreckage seemingly unhurt and Pamela May Donald who lives...

Article by Ant on 28th April 2014
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The Three-body Problem by  by Liu Cixin
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The Three-body Problem was originally written in Chinese by Liu Cixin. Launched to great acclaim within China, it became one of the most popular science fiction novels within the country and won the 2006 Chinese Science Fiction Galaxy Award. Thankfully it has now been translated by the talented...

Article by Ant on 23rd August 2015
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One the greatest advantages of this ever shrinking world is being able to read stories that break out of the "western" mindset. Initially The Throne of the Crescent Moon may seem like a traditional sword & sorcery that was a stable of fantasy in the 80's however look a little deeper and you will...

Article by Ant on 12th November 2012
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The Tide by  by Anthony J Melchiorri
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Anthony J. Melchiorri’s The Tide (Tide Series Book One) is set in the present. It ties Japan's secret attempt to prepare its people in case of a major American assault following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mysteriously, a protein complex...

Article by D. L. Denham on 19th October 2015
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Illustration ©Grahame Baker-Smith from The Folio Society edition of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

The work of H. G. Wells is both seminal and formative to our current interest in Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy. The collection of these two novellas in one volume is a common...

Article by Allen Stroud on 3rd February 2019
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Back in November 2011 Jeff and Ann VanderMeer published "The Weird", the ultimate collection of weird tales of the last 100 years. This November they turn their attentions to Time Travel in another landmark Tome.

This is without a doubt the most definitive collection of stories featuring...

Article by Ant on 29th November 2013
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The Tourist by  by Robert Dickinson
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The Tourist (not to be confused with the book and film of the same name by Olen Steinhauer) is a story of time travel, imagining a future where people can take holidays to the past and experience the genuine 21st century in all it's glory.

There are three main tour operators...

Article by Ant on 10th December 2018
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A lot of crime fiction is told from the prospective of an investigator. We follow them as they stumble across clues and finally get their suspect. This method provides structure and cohesion as even amateur sleuths follow some sort of logical pattern. Authors such as John Sandford and his Prey...

Article by Sam Tyler on 25th July 2019
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The Troll Hunter is a heroic fantasy novel by Keith Blackmore. Fresh from the battle infirmaries, a band of rogues, cuts throats and killers return to duty and are ordered north through the war torn country. They know nothing of their mission except that they must protect a mysterious Koch...

Article by Ant on 18th December 2010
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The Truth by  by Terry Pratchett
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The 25th. Discworld Novel the cover proudly states. And that makes it a fitting moment to take a closer look at Pratchetts Discworld and ask if there's something to be proud of. In my opinion (and I seem to be the only one writing this piece): Yes! I've read most of the Discworld novels, and...

Article by TC on 4th September 2002
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The Turing Option by  by Harry Harrison
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The Turing Option is a science fiction novel by Harry Harrison. I have always enjoyed Harry Harrison's stories - he knows how to write a fast paced and interesting story, but what I know him best for is his space opera stories (The Stainless Steel Rat, Bill The Galactic Hero and the Deathworld...

Article by TC on 1st March 1999
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The Twilight of Briareus is a science fiction novel by Richard Cowper. Getting bad weather as after-effects of a nearby supernova, seems quite reasonable, but the people of earth are in for a lot more that they had expected. Humanity wakes up on the brink of a new ice age and is forced to...

Article by TC on 3rd March 1999
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The Two Faces of Tomorrow is a science fiction novel by James P Hogan. Hogan starts of well enough in this book, where he tries to tackle the quite interesting question of whether an artificial intelligence could be a threat to mankind or not. The premis is that anything worthy of the label...

Article by TC on 1st November 1999
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The Twyning is the story of young ratling Efren, born into a time of change for the Kingdom of rats that live beneath the city streets. After the King is assassinated by a human scientist Dr Henry Ross-Gibbon the whole rat society is in turmoil.

This death is just the start though, with...

Article by Ant on 13th February 2013
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The Unbroken by  by C L Clark
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The life of a fantasy hero is never easy. They are often thrust into an adventure not of their choosing, losing those that they love on the way towards an objective that seems impossible to meet. In C L Clark’s Unbroken, one of the protagonists is Touraine, a...

Article by Sam Tyler on 29th March 2021
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Advances in forensic science can feel like magic from the discovery that we all had unique fingerprints to the use of DNA to catch criminals, but what would you do in a world were magic exists? Can science be used to solve crimes committed by magic? The Undetectables believe so, they use their...

Article by Sam Tyler on 28th September 2023
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Philip K Dick's novel The Man in the High Castle is one of my favourite all time reads. An alternative history novel that sees the Axis winning the second World War and splitting the USA between Germany on the East coast,Japan on the West and a small neutral zone in the middle. There is an...

Article by Ant on 17th February 2016
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I love time travel stories, but the entire concept is a paradox. It just cannot happen. What happens to the version of you that was in the past/present once you have travelled? It can be hard to even think about it, but what happens if you live this paradox? The Farrow woman have all been cursed...

Article by Sam Tyler on 1st November 2023
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This second volume in a collected anthology of Ursula Le Guin’s work showcases more of her Science Fiction and fantasy stories and has a more prominent escapist theme than the first. Her introduction to this volume is deeply insightful, commenting on the writer’s perspective of genre being...

Article by Allen Stroud on 26th March 2015
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The Vagrant by  by Peter Newman
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The Vagrant was an unexpected delight, showing up totally out of the blue with a mature, confident writing style and a deliciously dark and twisted world. The flawed protagonist known only as "The Vagrant" is a masterstroke — here we have a figure who doesn't give much away. He doesn't speak,...

Article by Ant on 1st May 2015
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Valancourt Books is an American, independent small imprint especially devoted, among other things, to unearth and reprint forgotten and rare gems of gothic fiction from the past, as well as samples of classy, long gone out of print horror fiction.

Thus, after the successful Valancourt...

Article by Mario Guslandi on 14th September 2017
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The Vanishing Throne by Elizabeth May is the second in a series of books following the adventures of Lady Aileana Kameron (or Kam) and the action follow on directly from the first book. If you haven’t read The Falconer I suggest you do, as this review definitely contains spoilers for the...

Article by Karen Fishwick on 26th February 2016
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The Veil by  by Jerry Ibbotson
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Something isn't quite right in the little Yorkshire village of Henchcombe, a thick mist sweeps down off the moor with an unnatural regularity and when it does strange things walk the streets.

In the dead of night the villagers are confronted by their bitter regrets, lost loves and...

Article by Ant on 21st December 2012
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The Vengeance by  by Emma Newman
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I have not read the synopsis of a book I am about to read for over twenty years, ever since I read a spoiler on the back of the novel that revealed the massive twist that occurred two thirds of the way through. I will have to add Series Titles to the list of things not to read as The Vengeance...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th May 2025
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The Venom of Vipers by  by KC May
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The Venom of Vipers is a science fiction novel by KC May. A supervirus is threatening to wipe out the human race and the only hope may be a human hybrid created by scientists, treated as sub human, locked away and hated. When a brilliant young scientist learns of this secret she must not only...

Article by Ant on 9th February 2011
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The Violent Century by  by Lavie Tidhar
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The Violent Century has been one of my Holiday reads, a book I bought when it first appeared but had not had time to enjoy until now. It has to be said that Lavie Tidhar is a master linguist. His voice is confident, it's boldy unique and daring.

With The Violent Century the author turns...

Article by Ant on 23rd February 2015
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The Voices by  by FR Tallis
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On first glance at the cover I was a bit suspicious of the quality this book was going to have but at the same time I had a bit of nervous excitement about discovering and reading a book by an author previously unknown to me. The title, like a lot of other books in this genre wasn’t...

Article by Arron on 2nd June 2014
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The Vor Game by  by Lois McMaster Bujold
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The Vor Game is a science fiction novel by the author Lois McMaster Bujold. The Vor Game takes place in the same universe as Mirror Dance and it has the same main character - only it takes place before Mirror Dance, so I would recommend that you read The Vor Game first. The Vor Games starts...

Article by TC on 1st July 1999
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The War of the Worlds by  by HG Wells
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The War of the Worlds was originally written in 1897 and it's never been out of print. It's one of the earliest stories to depict conflict with an alien race and has been influential in film, radio, TV, music and even science. The Guardian has gone as far as to say:

A true...

Article by Ant on 7th August 2017
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The War Widow by  by Tara Moss
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According to esteemed author Robert Rankin there are only ever three locations in a Private Investigator novel. A bar, the alley behind the bar and a rooftop to have the final showdown on. Billie Walker is no normal PI, she is not an investigator, but an Inquirer. She goes as far as to say that...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th March 2024
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The Warrior by  by Stephen Aryan
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No matter how many books are in a series and how long the journey, fantasy stories do end. But we all know that they never do. There is always an itch to discover what happened next, or what happened before, a rich lore and world to explore further. In Stephen Aryan’s The Coward we already...

Article by Sam Tyler on 16th August 2022
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The Warrior Sage is a young adult high fantasy novel by Paul Mills. Chael dreams of a greater life than that of a simple farmer and when he and his sister take the long journey to Darvenlure it soon becomes clear that he may just get what he wished for. Along the road they meet a disarming and...

Article by Ant on 25th May 2011
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The Wasp Factory by  by Iain M Banks
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The Wasp Factory is the stunning debut of the British author Iain M Banks. Having read everything by Iain M. Banks and finding this book while browsing my brother's bookshelves, made for some hasty rearrangements of my to-read stack. Mostly the words "first novel" on the cover intrigued me -...

Article by TC on 1st September 2000
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Do not read this review if you haven't read The Gunslinger and The Drawing of The Three. Turn off your computer and start reading. If you don't have these books run to your nearest bookstore and get them!

Continuing where The Drawing of the Three ended, The Waste Lands takes us through...

Article by TC on 15th October 2000
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The Waters of Mars by  by Phil Ford
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I am a massive fan of the Target imprint of Doctor Who books. Recently they have been filling in the gaps from the older series and producing new adaptations based on the past few Doctors. Taking stories out of any given season is a risky business. It could be a standalone monster of the week...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th July 2023
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The Way Inn by  by Will Wiles
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If you've ever stayed in a Premier Inn or a Travel Lodge then you will be able to relate to "The Way Inn". It's actually one of the things I most like about staying at a Premier Inn, wherever you go you will always get the same standard. Even if it is the same layout and the same pictures on the...

Article by Ant on 9th February 2015
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Released in hardback last year, The Way of Kings was such a weighty tomb that it was decided it would need to be split into two volumes for the paperback version, lest people developed a bad back carrying it home. Reviewed here is the first part of the first novel in the Stormlight Archive,...

Article by Ant on 17th June 2011
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This is the second part of the Way of Kings, the first novel in the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson and the start of an epic series. As this is the second part of a book, it makes sense that you read the The Way of Kings Part 1 first. Starting to read this second part it becomes clearer...

Article by Ant on 27th July 2011
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The Way Up Is Death by  by Dan Hanks
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When I imagine the aliens coming, I always imagine that they would pick somewhere amazing to land their ship. Probably America as all the movies have trained my brain to think that way. The place I do not jump straight to is Manchester, or at least the hills around the city. I know those hills...

Article by Sam Tyler on 14th January 2025
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The Wayfarer King by  by KC May
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The new king of Thendylath Gavin Kinshield has vowed to protect the realm and it's people from the evil of the Beyonders - creatures of chaos who appear without warning and invade the world of men to wreak havoc. For this though he will need an army and of course a huge amount of funds to...

Article by Ant on 14th October 2011
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The Weird by  by Ann Vandermeer
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The Weird is a landmark tome of leviathan proportions, gathering together the best weird fiction from the last 100 years or so (beginning in 1908) from some of the most talented people that ever put pen to paper. It's difficult to convey just how much information is contained in this truly...

Article by Ant on 30th November 2011
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The Wheel of Doll by  by Jonathan Ames
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The humble Private Investigator is a put-upon character, often lonely, whenever they find love, that love seems to end up dead. No wonder so many of them have a problem with drink, gambling, or drugs – perhaps a mix of all three. Few PIs can hold a candle to Happy Doll, he is not even a PI...

Article by Sam Tyler on 7th December 2022
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Live roleplaying, ritual sacrifice and 14th century magic. There’s a lot of buttons being pushed right upfront in Sara Townsend’s very English hobby horror.

We begin amidst a woodland adventure with our main characters introduced in a blur between real (fictional) life and their...

Article by Allen Stroud on 24th March 2016
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Simon Morden, Philip K. Dick award-winning author, satisfies fans of his debut novel Down Station with his long-anticipated sequel The White City. Resurrecting some of his most-loved characters, Morden’s latest offering marks a continuation of Dalip and Mary’s journey through...

Article by Abbie on 22nd May 2017
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The Wind by  by Jay Caselberg
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Newcon Press’ second novella series is a beautiful collection of four books. The Wind by Jay Caselberg launches straight into the kind of folk horror/ weird fiction premise that seems to emerge from a particular sense of British society. There are shades of Mythago Wood and The Wickerman in...

Article by Allen Stroud on 10th November 2017
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The Windup Girl by  by Paolo Bacigalupi
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The Windup Girl is the award winning dystopian vision by Paolo Bacigalupi. Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's calorie representative in Thailand. Under cover as a factory worker he combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs long thought to be extinct. There he meets...

Article by Ant on 8th January 2011
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Steve Lockley and Paul Lewis form a British writing duo ( although they also publish individually) whose work has been appearing in various  genre anthologies during the years.

Fifteen of their tales of horror and terror are now assembled in an enjoyable collection from Parallel...

Article by Mario Guslandi on 20th December 2016
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The Wise Man's Fear follows on from the authors incredible debut "The Name of the Wind" which is currently one of the most memorable, most enjoyable fantasy novels I have ever read - I seriously recommend you read that first. Picking up where the last novel finished we once again follow...

Article by Ant on 6th July 2011
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The Wizard of Crescent Moon Mountain is firmly rooted within the high fantasy genre, telling the tale of the wizard Greybeard and little elf Beezle who set off on an adventure after a magical weapon proves to have a distinct life of it's own.

The novel draws heavily from Lord of the...

Article by Ant on 1st August 2012
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The Wolf by  by Leo Carew
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The Wolf is the debut of Leo Carew, a graduate of Cambridge University with a degree in Biological Anthropology, specialising in the Palaeolithic.

The authors knowledge and perspective colours the story, providing a rich and detailed backdrop of an alternative world that somewhat...

Article by Ant on 22nd March 2018
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On the surface, this post-apocalyptic tale of infection, nuclear fallout and scattered, savage humanity is no different from the many others that have gone before it. But what saves it from being just another drop in the great maelstrom of dystopian novels is the author’s taught and affecting...

Article by Alice Wybrew on 21st January 2018
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I've been collecting Jasper Fforde novels for a while now however until I got this one through the door I hadn't actually read any of them; after reviewing this book I kinda wish I had paid more attention to the author earlier. The Woman Who Died A Lot is the seventh novel in the Thursday Next...

Article by Ant on 30th July 2012
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Now it has been many a year since I have picked up a book by this author, and although he was considered a great horror writer by many fans, I can't remember why. Now I don’t want to give the author a complete disservice, after all this book was one of his earliest and there are elements to...

Article by Arron on 21st August 2012
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Far in the future the humans of Earth have spread to the stars, but at great cost to Earths fragile ecosystem. For a world that is largely concrete and plastic, wood has more value than gold and the Terrans waste no time in establishing a logging colony and military base named "New Tahiti" on an...

Article by Ant on 23rd December 2011
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The Word is Murder by  by Anthony Horowitz
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I have read a lot of crime fiction and even as a fan you can be critical of how similar they can be. The formats and storylines can bog down into only a few basic formulas. In a less accomplished author this can lead to a bland book that fades quickly in the memory, but this...

Article by Sam Tyler on 14th May 2020
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The World House by  by Guy Adams
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The World House is the first novel of a two part modern fantasy, written by Guy Adams. An unassuming wooden box, small enough to hold in one hand and carved with Japanese writing, except it doesn't open as you would expect a box to, it opens the door to the most unusual house you could ever...

Article by Ant on 8th February 2010
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The World Inside by  by Robert Silverberg
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The World Inside is a science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg. Silverberg's "THE WORLD INSIDE" is about the giant apartment communistic/yet caste ridden complex (the floors are divided up according to job 'importance), and thought this is the straight bullet shot to the future. Population...

Article by TC on 23rd April 2004
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The World Jones Made by  by Philip K Dick
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I must admit that one of the reasons I picked up this novel is that it has my surname on it, the other being that it is of course Philip K Dick who still rates as one of my favourite authors.

Written back in 1956 The World Jones Made is one of the authors very early novels and tells the...

Article by Ant on 21st January 2013
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The World of Ptavvs by  by Larry Niven
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The World of Ptavvs is a classic science fiction novel by Larry Niven. A good old idea book from the good old days when a book didn't have to be 500+ pages – not that I don't like thick books, but once in a while it's nice to read something that you can actually see an end to. Ptavvs (how do...

Article by TC on 1st January 2000
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For ten years Thomas Covenant has done his best to move on with his life and get back on top of his illness. While a decade may have passed in Covenant's world, in the Land it's been over three thousand years since he freed the people and defeated the evil Lord Foul.

In this time Foul...

Article by Ant on 2nd January 2013
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The Year of the Flood by  by Margaret Atwood
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The Year of the Flood is the second novel in Margaret Atwood's post-apocalyptic series and follows the viewpoints of Toby and Ren, members of a religious cult. The book tells the story of some of the events leading up to the cataclysm mentioned in the previous novel Oryx and Crake and there is a...

Article by Ant on 11th April 2016
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If you've read any books by Graham Joyce you will feel very much at home with The Year of the Ladybird. Not only does it read very much like his previous stories - complete with the everyday path of the protagonist and minimal use of any genre tropes - but The Year of the Ladybird feels like a...

Article by Ant on 2nd October 2013
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The Years of the City by  by Frederik Pohl
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The Years of the City is a science fiction novel by Frederik Pohl. Subtitled A Chronicle of New York in the next Century, this book is about actually not as much about the big city as about the people in it and how they interact or rather doesn't. The book is split in to five different stories...

Article by TC on 1st February 2000
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I have a sort of self imposed resolution to read all of the books that have won a Hugo award and to be honest this is the only reason I first picked up this book. I haven't read anything else by the author although I am of course aware of him, however as a more "literary" author he's not...

Article by Ant on 7th December 2012
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The Zombie survival guide tells you everything you need to know in order to protect yourself from the restless dead. Written by Max Brooks, the guide follows a no nonsense and logical path that draws you in and makes you believe that a future zombie threat might just be possible. With a...

Article by Ant on 27th October 2009
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The Zxap Jacket by  by Ken Mazur
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2047 in New York and the future imagined in Zxap Jacket is a grim one; acid snow falls with abandon on the dirty streets and those without a Zxap Jacket suffer stinging eyes and burned skin. As is commonly prevailent within the early 21st Century, it isn't long before private enterprise looks at...

Article by Ant on 15th November 2013
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The Zygon Invasion by  by Peter Harness
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Doctor Who has saved the solar system on countless occasions and planet Earth even more than this, but some of these saves felt a little.... minor. Alien races trying their arm at taking over Earth with nary a plan worth writing on the back of a psychic beermat. Sometimes though the stakes are...

Article by Sam Tyler on 31st August 2023
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Theme Planet by  by Andy Remic
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Andy Remic has managed to carve out his own particular niche within the science fiction genre, deliberately pushing the boundaries and not holding back in the slightest. Finding a new Remic book is very much like finding a new Tarrantino film - you just know it's going to be an irresistible...

Article by Ant on 6th January 2012
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The present book, featuring twenty-four stories ( twenty-three of which are brand new) addresses the subject of the fragile, thin link between life and death and of how the dead are closer to us than we care to believe.

As in every theme anthology, some issues tend to recur - although in...

Article by Mario Guslandi on 7th October 2021
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You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Peter Pan is cheeky, certainly a hero, but he was also annoying and domineering. Did the Lost Boys want to stay on the island, or did Peter force them? On reflection, Peter Pan had some issues, but Disney put an...

Article by Sam Tyler on 9th July 2024
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Summertime is Pratchett and Discworld time. Reading while frying in the sun asks for a special kind of book, something that can hold your attention, even while your brain is reaching dangerous temperatures and even while members of the opposite sex, moves around you in small articles of...

Article by TC on 29th July 2002
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Thin Ice by  by Phill Jones
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Thin Ice is a science fiction detective novel by Phill Jones. Thadeus Rede is a detective who is trying to hunt a vicious serial killer on the streets of Seattle in the year 2037. The killer appears to be targeting the powerful political New Natural Law Party (NNLP) who are strong opponents of...

Article by Ant on 18th September 2010
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Ramsey Campbell has won countless awards over the years and many of his stories are considered classics in the field of horror. S. T. Joshi has stated that "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or...

Article by Ant on 5th November 2018
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Wouldn’t it be great to be in more than one place at once? Rather than having to do all those boring jobs you could make a version of yourself to do it for you, leaving time for you to do what you really want, like playing too many computer games or reading too many books. Before you know...

Article by Sam Tyler on 3rd January 2024
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This Alien Shore by  by C S Friedman
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This Alien Shore is sort of a corporate mystery novel set in the far future, written by C S Friedman. The reader knows about as much of what is going on as the main character. She learns something new, you learn something new. Despite not having any big fire-works ending, this book is good. Very...

Article by TC on 16th February 2003
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The crime genre is very well established and has many shortcuts and tropes that you can use. This allows genre authors to drape their own unique ideas over familiar territory. Want to write a book about a Dinosaur PI – go ahead. Sherlock Holmes actually a Warlock – sorted. You can...

Article by Sam Tyler on 19th March 2019
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Spiders seem to tap into a primeval fear inside humans. Perhaps in the days of cavemen there were 20 foot spiders that ate those that travelled at night? What I do know is that the average domestic spider in the UK is unlikely to spring off the wall and eat through your skull. This set of events...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th October 2018
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Here’s an unusual collection inspired by the heroes of the drive-in, featuring eight novellas suspended between science fiction and horror. The enthusiasm of the author for that type of movie is quite apparent and has produced a bunch of fine fiction finally collected in one volume.

...
Article by Mario Guslandi on 20th June 2023
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Thrawn - Treason by  by Timothy Zahn
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When the Star Wars sequels were announced a world of fandom got very excited. What happened to Han Solo, Luke and Leia et al? Many Star Wars fans already had an inkling having read the many Star Wars tie in book that released from the early 90s onwards. However, like many a Star Wars film, there...

Article by Sam Tyler on 13th August 2019
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Three by  by Jay Posey
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It's true that I have a soft spot for a good post-apocalyptic story, there is just something about the setting that appeals to me. I'm clearly not alone in this regard either, post-apocalyptic scenarios are dominating the film world this year while in the world of books we have excellent...

Article by Ant on 26th July 2013
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Three Eight One by  by Aliya Whiteley
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As a someone who studied history, I am fascinated by the past, but also the evolution of studying the past. History as we know it adapts and changes with the current way of thinking. Sometimes you must sit back and remember that things were different back then, that opinions and attitudes were...

Article by Sam Tyler on 16th January 2024
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Ticktock by  by Dean Koontz
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By the time Dean Koontz wrote this novel he was already a household name. He had infiltrated the mystery / thriller / horror genres like no other. With a novel a year hitting the bookshelves he was as prolific a writer as Stephen King. However on closer inspection one can find that a lot of the...

Article by Arron on 10th May 2013
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Time and Time Again by  by Ben Elton
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Ben Elton is a talented fellow. I've loved most of the TV programs he's been involved in from the Young Ones and Blackadder to Blessed and the Thin Blue Line. His humour is often satirical, off-the-wall and almost always makes me laugh.

The only novel I've read of his prior to Time and...

Article by Ant on 11th January 2016
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Time out of Joint by  by Philip K Dick
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On first impression Ragle Gumm is pretty much an ordinary man leading a fairly ordinary life - the only exception being that he makes his living by entering a newspaper contest every day - and winning every day, for the last 3 years. After a few strange occurances that break the otherwise...

Article by Ant on 24th August 2011
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Time's Last Gift by  by Philip Jose Farmer
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A journey into the past that can never be repeated, travelling from 2070 AD all the way back to 12000 BC; a chance for the four passengers of the "time ship" to study the primitive man as no-one could ever do before or will be able to since.

None were prepared for what they would...

Article by Ant on 4th July 2012
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Timelike Infinity by  by Stephen Baxter
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Timelike Infinity is a science fiction novel by Stephen Baxter. Having read Baxter's The Timeships I had quite high expectations for this book, maybe too high, because I found Timelike Infinity to be rather disappointing. In the first two thirds of the book nothing really happens and when I...

Article by TC on 1st May 1999
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Timeshift by  by Phillip Ellis Jackson
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Timeshift is a science fiction novel by Philip Ellis Jackson. Sometime in our near future the united states will separate into two different countries, a bit after that we have a small nuclear war and after that some moron releases a new life-form that eats everything in its path and leaves the...

Article by TC on 16th March 2002
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Tin Men by  by Christopher Golden
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In the near future, the world is falling apart. Wars, unrest, economic collapse and ecological disasters plague the globe - as it tries to hold the pieces together, the USA deploys a new weapon, the Tin Men. They are remote controlled drones piloted by American soldiers who have their minds...

Article by Aaron Miles on 4th September 2015
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Titan Death by  by Guy Haley
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The 53rd and penultimate book in the epic Horus Heresy series and the brave soldiers of the Emperor attempt to hold back the armies of chaos from reaching Terra.

The line is drawn on Beta-Garmon and god-machines of the Adeptus Titanicus are at the front. Horus has defeated all that...

Article by Ant on 18th March 2019
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Titan Hoppers by  by Rob J Hayes
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Humanity is a parasite sucking the recourses from the Earth until there are no more. Like a remora attached to the undercarriage of a shark, humans will one day need find a new host. The alternative is to change our ways, but that does not seem likely. Titan Hoppers by Rob J Hayes follows a...

Article by Sam Tyler on 8th August 2022
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Titanborn by  by Rhett Bruno
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Titanborn follows the life of "collector" (part bounty hunter part detective) Malcom Graves. Graves is a seasoned veteran who has seen the worst of humanity and is often tasked with cleaning up such flotsam. He lives in a future where mankind has spread to other planets and have adapted, with...

Article by Ant on 5th September 2016
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Tithe by  by Holly Black
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I first read Tithe when I was young, probably the same age as the main character, Kaye—16. I was entranced. It was so dark, so beautifully written, and so enticing. I wanted more of the silver knight, more of the deliciously dark faery world. It isn’t by any means glorious—there’s teen...

Article by Vanessa on 18th March 2013
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To Kill a King by  by David Gilman
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When I finally get around to building that time machine, I made a note not to visit 14th century Europe. The continent was a hodgepodge of wars and battles. Even during times of peace you could still stumble across the wrong village, and they would kill you for your shoes. Not a century for...

Article by Sam Tyler on 11th June 2024
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To Live Again by  by Robert Silverberg
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To Live Again is a science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg. Recently i finished a silverberg book where about 10% of the population can be "reincarnated" sort of. their personas are imprinted onto another person's brain (IF they've got the cash), so in a way they get "To Live Again"...as the...

Article by TC on 3rd May 2002
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To Open The Sky by  by Robert Silverberg
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To Open The Sky is a science fiction novel by Robert Silverberg. This book could have been titled "To Eternity and The Stars through Religion" – it may not be catchy, but it's a lot more accurate then the original title, which is a bit nondescript. It's the 22nd century and the Vorsters are...

Article by TC on 1st August 2001
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Melbourne, Australia - a metropolis that at one time was the biggest and wealthiest city in the world, ranked as one of the top three world's most liveable cities and a mecca for the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, sport and tourism. It also happens to be the only city in the world...

Article by Ant on 18th July 2011
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I love fantasy novels, especially when an author takes the genre in a different direction. Together We Burn by Isabel Ibanez is a fantasy book unlike the others. The difference is that this fantasy world is based on Latin culture and the dragons are hunted and caught. Once captured this...

Article by Sam Tyler on 6th July 2022
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Tome of the Undergates is the first volume in the Aeons' Gate fantasy series by Sam Sykes. Lenk is in theory the leader of a band of "adventurers", in practice he struggle's to keep control over the unruly misfits - with Gariath the dargon man seeing humans as little more than prey, only happy...

Article by Ant on 8th May 2011
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Tomorrow the Killing returns to that hive of villainy that is Low Town and to our guide through these mean streets, the Warden. Following on from The Straight Razor Cure and the Warden is back to his usual tricks, that is until he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a missing persons case that...

Article by Ant on 15th October 2012
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Total Recall by  by Philip K Dick
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Total Recall the film has recently been re-made and updated from the 1990 version that featured Arnold "The Governator" Schwarzenegger. This time Colin Farrell stars as Douglas Quiad, the man who dreams of walking on Mars. I was a big fan of the original but have yet to see this modern adaption...

Article by Ant on 17th September 2012
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Touch of Iron is not, as the Amazon blurb suggests, a tale of an epic quest of a Prince for a magic sword, although there is a Prince and he is on a quest for a magic sword.  Neither is it is a story about Fae, as evoked by the title in the trend of supernatural fantasy.  It is instead, the...

Article by Karen Fishwick on 16th September 2016
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Touchstone by  by Melanie Rawn
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Touchstone is the beginning of a fantasy journey quite different to the traditional tale. While it is set in the medieval style world full of magic and monsters it takes a unique path in the way the various races and magic are presented.

In this world theaters are a place of magic where...

Article by Ant on 1st February 2013
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Towers of Midnight is the penultimate novel in the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan and completed by Brandon Sanderson. The Last Battle has begun and the seals on the Dark One's prison continue to crumble to dust. The very pattern itself is unravelling and the armies of the Shadow are...

Article by Ant on 22nd May 2011
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Trader to the Stars by  by Poul Anderson
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Trader to the Stars is a collection of science fiction short stories, written by Poul William Anderson. Three stories copyrighted from 1956 to 1962 from one of the old masters. All three stories have the space merchant Nicolas Van Rijn as the main character and what a character! He's the kind...

Article by TC on 1st March 2001
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Traitor’s Blade is a rare treat for the fantasy reader, it follows Falcio Val Mond, First Cantor of the Greatcoats as he and his loyal comrades Kest and Brasti struggle to survive in a world that has turned against them, valiantly trying to follow the last orders of their fallen king. Facing...

Article by Aaron Miles on 9th June 2015
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Transformers Exodus by  by Alex Irvine
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Transformers Exodus is the official history of the war for Cybertron, written by Alex Irvine. Before Autobots and decepticons, before Optimus Prime and Megatron, Cybertron was a planet with a strict caste system, each bot assigned a role according to their own caste. Orion Pax is a data clerk,...

Article by Ant on 19th August 2010
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Transitor by  by David Sharrock
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Transitor is a hard science fiction novel and the debut of David Sharrock. The Human race have spread out across the Galaxy by the means of the iNet transportation network - a vast sprawling system that allows Galactic travel by means of a subethernet. Controlling this mindbendingly...

Article by Ant on 3rd September 2010
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Tribes by  by Carmen Webster Buxton
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Hob is a slave, abandoned as a baby to be brought up with no hope of freedom or any chance of a normal life. On the world of Tribes any male babies born without a father figure to welcome him into his tribe becomes enslaved. Eventually Hob manages to escape and is rescued by a woman from a...

Article by Ant on 29th February 2012
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Triggers by  by Robert J Sawyer
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An Assassin's bullet strikes President Seth Jerrison on the eve of a top secret military operation, he is taken to the nearest hospital where doctors fight to save his life. At the very same hospital Dr Ranjip Singh is carrying out experiments with a device that can ease traumatic memories....

Article by Ant on 9th July 2012
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When we left Gair at the end of the spectacular novel Songs of the Earth there had been a pretty big shock. Rather than start where the story left off, Trinity Rising instead follows Teia, a young woman who seems destined to witness great and terrible things. a young woman who has hidden powers...

Article by Ant on 10th September 2012
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Tritcheon Hash by  by Sue Lange
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Tritcheon Hash is a science fiction novel by Sue Lange. The first thought that popped into my head after having read a couple of pages of T. Hash was; “What? Lesbian Science Fiction?”. After at few chapters it's clear that it isn't and after having finished it, I'm not even sure that it...

Article by TC on 21st March 2004
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True Hero by  by Jack Hessey
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Stella Stargirl has it all; fame, fortune, countless adoring fans and a position in the world's best superhero team - The Empire, led by the super hero Lancaster. The truth though is that Stella is little more than average and it's by standing on her team mates shoulders that's gained her all...

Article by Ant on 10th October 2011
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Truth and Fear by  by Peter Higgins
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Truth and Fear is the second novel in the Wolfhound Century series by the talented author Peter Higgins. The first book in the series Wolfhound Century was a seriously impressive novel. So much so that it won Book of the year on SFBook for 2013.

The story continues right where we (quite...

Article by Ant on 7th July 2014
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Turbulence by  by Samit Basu
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There seems to be a bit of a resurgence in the superhero story and this new wave of fiction manages to offer a different slant on the traditional tales, combining the modern interpretation of a superhero set within with the contemporary urban fantasy framework.

Turbulance manages to go...

Article by Ant on 12th September 2012
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Turn Coat by  by Jim Butcher
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Turn Coat is the eleventh book in Jim Butcher's Dresden Files and as ever, events have a habit of turning against Harry Dresden. This time his help is being sought from the most unlikely of people - Morgan, the warden who has persecuted Harry mercilessly in the past.

Morgan is on...

Article by Ant on 8th May 2017
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Turner by  by Karl Drinkwater
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Ok, where shall I start? It was an ok book. A little above average. Hints of promise, but then his next piece of work would have to be something special or he will find himself reduced to the bargain bookshops and supermarket shelves. It started off with great promise too to be fair. The...

Article by Arron on 10th September 2013
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Ceda fights in the pits of Sharakhai, scraping a living like so many in the city known as "the amber jewel of the desert". She, like most, pray for an end to the tyrannical and cruel rule of the city by it's immortal Kings. She has, until now never been in a position to do anything about...

Article by Ant on 3rd September 2015
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Twenty Five to Life by  by R. W. W. Greene
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Dystopian fiction has been becoming increasingly popular in recent years, probably because many of us can see the tell-tale signs of it coming along the tracks in real life. This is a depressing thought, but one worth exploring. How will humans continue to survive on a planet they are...

Article by Sam Tyler on 3rd September 2021
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As the name would suggest, Twenty Trillion Leagues Under the Sea takes on the classic Jules Verne 19th century novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as inspiration to create a remarkably clever and entertaining novel that is in parts as thought provoking as the original must have been when...

Article by Ant on 3rd March 2014
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Twilight by  by Markus Heitz
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Over the next three days, three reviews will stand before you. Read them in any order, some elements will be the same, others quite different. If you would like to go straight to the segment unique to this review, please start with paragraph 4.

Drafting a book must be like standing in...

Article by Sam Tyler on 6th March 2021
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Science Fiction
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Twilight Candleflies by  by Scott Niven
latest
Science Fiction
review

Twiglight Candleflies is a collection of three post apocalyptic short fiction stories, written by Scott Niven. The three stories presented here are told in different styles and set in different worlds but all have a post apocalyptic edge to them. While each is a fairly short and sweet story...

Article by Ant on 5th May 2011
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