Sam Tyler
Books reviewed by Sam Tyler (601)
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![The Poorly Made and Other ThingsSam Rebelein]()
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 sta...
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![Listen to Your SisterNeena Viel]()
HorrorI come from a large family and there is a special way that you can wind one another up. Years of experience and knowledge comes in handy when you are trying to annoy someone, you may not have seen each other for ages, but one shared experience can bring it all back in an instant. In a healthy family...
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![SymbioteMichael Nayak]()
Science FictionThe thought of travelling to space and living on the International Space Station has no interest to me. Stuck in a metal box, isolated, miles away from civilisation with only the same people as company sound like a one-way ticket to madness. You do not need to go into space to create such a feeling....
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![WilliamMason Coile]()
HorrorA horror book can be a complex and multilayered epic, but the genre often best as an intimate story told in a closed environment. Countless classic horror films have been set in an abandoned cabin or house, something strange living in the attic that only comes down to seek its victims. In Mason Coil...
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![At Dark I Become LoathsomeEric Larocca]()
HorrorLike every genre, there are several aspects to Horror that you can focus on. My preference is the supernatural, something big and scary, preferably not overexplained. There is another subgenre, one that is arguably far scarier. I call it the horror of the mundane. Those killers that live among us, t...
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![The Ninja DaughterTori Eldridge]()
General FictionThere 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 motiv...
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![Captain America: The Shield of Sam WilsonJesse J. Holland]()
Science FictionGraphic Novels have an advantage over prose in terms of kinetic visuals. You can show in a panel the action taking place and all the colours, in a book you need to describe this. This advantage can be too tempting for some and the book becomes all action and not enough depth. The best comics are alw...
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![The Way Up Is DeathDan Hanks]()
Science FictionWhen 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 well...
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![Wake Up and Open Your EyesClay McLeod Chapman]()
HorrorHow do you like your horror novels? Are you someone who likes a spooky story, perhaps a little romance? Or do you like it horrific? A book that is uncomfortable, throwing images into your brain that you did not want to consider but cannot stop thinking about. Baby eating rats, killer clowns in the s...
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![A Sea of Unspoken ThingsAdrienne Young]()
FantasyI have not lived in the village I grew up in over twenty years, but I still talk about going home when I am visiting. Where I live now has been my home for longer, but there is something about those formative years that make a place always feel like home. I return to see family, but for some people,...
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![Finding Katarina MElizabeth Elo]()
General FictionI have read a few novels recently that have protagonists that seemingly have little control over their destiny, instead stepping into the stream of the narrative and being carried along. On occasion this is a flood and the character flails around with no impact on the wider story, but there is anoth...
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![Antartica StationA G Riddle]()
Science FictionWhat is your plan for when the apocalypse comes? One of the best things about reading speculative fiction is that you get loads of clever ideas on exactly what to do should a meteor plummet to Earth or the undead rise from their graves. The truth is that your plan is to curl up and inevitably succum...
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![The Sorcerer and the NecromancerSusan Ann Walker]()
FantasyI 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 on m...
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![CulpritsRichard Brewer]()
General FictionYour average heist movie ends in one of two ways; a cliffhanger or the job complete. You rarely get to see what happens to the criminals as they make it off with their ill-gotten gains, or when they are thrown into the slammer. Unless you are Oceans 11 , then you just get a couple more heists a few...
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![New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of ReinventionChris Campbell]()
Science FictionWhat makes a bunch of short stories gathered together a collection? It could be the works of the same author, or it could be some sort of theme that means they are all derived from the same place. A collection's origins can significantly impact the type of stories you are about to read. Is it an est...
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![Conan: Cult of the Obsidian MoonJames Lovegrove]()
FantasyWhat makes a good Conan novel? It seems like a simple calculation, a brawny barbarian, a massive sword, wine, woman, and violence. Mix the lot into a pot and you have a Conan adventure to be proud of, except it is not that easy. Conan lives in a vibrant and complex world that can be stodgy to read i...
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![The Final OrchardC J Rivera]()
Science FictionWhen 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 perc...
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![Quarry's ReturnMax Allan Collins]()
General FictionWhat do you do with an aging character? Some authors choose to pretend that their characters are immortal and never age. This is great for churning out the content, but it does hamstring you into writing the same type of story as you can never move on in fear of making the protagonist too old. Max A...
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![Interstellar MegaChefLavanya Lakshminarayan]()
Science FictionI enjoy it when the publishing community gets together and decides to proclaim there is a new subgenre. These are a collection of books that have already been written but are now herded into a common bracket. Romantasy and Cosy Fantasy are doing great, and I have read a few of these. Low stake conse...
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![Designing Terry Pratchett's DiscworldPaul Kidby]()
As a committed reader, you start to see the signs that you are living a long life. One stark reminder is when a favourite author dies. This has happened too often already for my liking; one particularly heavy hit was Sir Terry Pratchett. In a world in which authors continue to write into their 8 th...
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![The RaveningDaniel Church]()
HorrorHorror 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 this...
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![Death Comes at ChristmasMarie O'regan]()
General FictionChristmas has many traditions from trees to strange men sneaking down the chimney in the dead of night. One tradition I like is the different genres that tackle the season. There is something spooky about the dark nights and folk traditions that make Christmas Ghost Stories so good, but it is also a...
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![The Price of Memory and Other StoriesSally Mcbride]()
Science FictionI 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 imbue the s...
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![Marc Spector Was Host to Venom?Mike Chen]()
Science FictionComics have a complex history with some storylines going back decades. Even the relatively new superheroes can have intricate lore. Moon Knight has had plenty of time to muddy the waters with almost 50 years of stories to look back on, but it is not the depth of the stories that make Moon Knight so...
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![The Glass AbyssSteven Barnes]()
Science FictionI 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 of...
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![Shoestring TheoryMariana Costa]()
HorrorThe creation of a new subgenre comes fraught with danger, there may be a good reason it did not arise before. I am seeing an increase in what can be called Cosy Fantasy, novels that have many of the tropes of the genre but concentrate on character interaction over the action. The threat is that Fant...
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![BenothingedAlvar Theo]()
HorrorYou do not have to delve onto the fiction shelves to find horror, you can just watch the news. Wars breaking out, people starving. Closer to home there are murders and violence. Most of us are cocooned from these horrors, living in bubbles of our own creation, but some horrors we cannot escape; grie...
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![The Bog WifeKay Chronister]()
HorrorHow 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 abo...
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![Coup de GraceSofia Ajram]()
Science FictionPeople read for all sorts of reasons. I read to escape and have fun, my preference is for high action and laughs, but I understand that some people like to be challenged by their reading. This could be a complex Space Opera, or a piece of literature that tackles the life of a downtrodden mother in 1...
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![TeslamancerMatthew Donald]()
Science FictionScience 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 power...
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![Bound in BloodJohnny Mains]()
HorrorIf you are reading this, you have some interest in books, enough to read a review about one. Bound in Blood is not just a book, this is a book about books. Well at least a collection of spooky short stories about books, authors, libraries, and all things bibliophile. For those of us in the know, the...
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![Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting DetectivesTim Major]()
I always forget how unpleasant some of the antiheros were in Victorian era fantasy and science fiction. In my mind I think of the era being full of ladies and gentlemen, but there were plenty of loathsome people too. Looking back on the working conditions and how society treated its poor, perhaps I...
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![The House of Last ResortChristopher Golden]()
HorrorYou 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 younger people to mov...
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![The Escher ManT R Napper]()
Science FictionCalling 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 manipulati...
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![GorseSam K Horton]()
FantasyHistory is facinating, but we often focus on the big characters, the big battles. Whilst King’s were being beheaded and bombs dropped, people kept on peopleling. The history of the normal person can be forgotten, but we exist too. What happened to the normal person on the street when organised relig...
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![What If... Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were SiblingsSeanan McGuire]()
Science FictionAs comic book fans, we really are living in the best of days, not because there is so much content to read or watch, but because the artform is established. The concept of comics, superheroes and, in this case, Marvel are well enough known that we can play with the format. Marvel has been doing it f...
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![GuillotineDelilah S. Dawson]()
HorrorThere are enough stories escaping from Private Islands that makes me think that the rich do not think there are consequences for their actions. What happens on the island stays on the island. With luck, it may just be a celebrity marriage, but on the other hand it could be some of the darkest moment...
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![The Last Gifts of the UniverseRiley August]()
Science FictionSubgenres 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 Universe opens my worl...
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![Pay the PiperGeorge A Romero]()
HorrorThere are many unique and diverse names in horror making it, for me, one of the most interesting genres out there, but to the layperson they may only know a few names. Stephen King, maybe Dean Koontz. In film they may have heard of Wes Craven, or one of the newer horror auteurs. Zombie fans should h...
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![Edge of the Known WorldSheri T Joseph]()
Science FictionThe future is uncertain but as long as there are people on the planet, there will be drama. The cities could be crumbling and the seas boiling but a few people gather in the same cave for protection, and it will be mere hours before they are arguing, falling in and out of love and not getting on wit...
