Books tagged with: 1980s
-
![A Legend of the FutureAgustin de Rojas]()
Science FictionAgustin de Rojas was a Cuban author of science fiction. Within that country he is thought of as a legend and has even been described as "Patron Saint of Cuban science fiction". Agustin wrote A Legend of the future back in 1985, following his award winning novel Espiral (Spiral). El año 200 (The Year...
-
![Azanian BridgesNick Wood]()
Science FictionScience fiction set in the near future, Azanian Bridges is a rough diamond, drawing on a variety of influences to deliver a real and wrenching story. Our setting is an alternative South Africa, where Mandela was never released and Apartheid didn’t end. We follow two characters, Martin and Sibusiso a...
-
![Blood MusicGreg Bear]()
Science FictionBlood Music is a science fiction novel by Greg Bear. BM is a story about an intelligent micro-organism experiment run amok. As the organism is human hosted, I guess that you could call it a DNA based Frankenstein's fantastic voyage-story for the last quarter of the twentieth century. The story may s...
-
![Flow my tears, the policeman saidPhilip K Dick]()
Science FictionFlow my tears, the policeman said is a science fiction novel by the legendary award winning author Philip K Dick, has been nominated for the Nebula and Hugo awards and won the 1975 John W Campbell Award for the best science fiction novel of the year. Jason Taverner is a TV idol, singer and host and...
-
![The DamagedSimon Law]()
Science FictionHorror 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 familiar to those who remembe...
-
![The Man Who Never WasHylton H Smith]()
Science FictionThe 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 author has rele...
-
![The United States of JapanPeter Tieryas]()
Science FictionPhilip 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 author wh...
-
![Among OthersJo Walton]()
FantasyAmong Others is about as different from any novel I have read than the Moon is from a piece of pie. It's not even a book I thought I would enjoy either, if someone had approached me and asked me to read a novel about a 15 year old girls account of her life in a boarding school - delivered in the for...
-
![Bigfoot Loose and Fin Fancy FreeRandy Henderson]()
FantasyPhineas (Finn) Gramayare has an unusual occupation. He's a part-trained necromancer, returned to the mortal world after being exiled to the Fairy realm for 25 years for a crime he didn't commit. Along with his Necromancy ability, Finn has decided to use his connections to offer a match-making servic...
-
![The Armageddon RagGeorge RR Martin]()
FantasyWay 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 notable...
-
![The Drawing of the ThreeStephen King]()
FantasyDo 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 draws "the t...
-
![The Sword of AlbionMark Chadbourn]()
FantasyWill 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. But there’...
-
![Darkness ComesDean Koontz]()
HorrorReview by Arron Clegg. (*Darkness Comes is also known as Darkfall). In his early days Dean spent a lot of time trying different genres out and attempting different writing styles. Nowadays he is more famous for writing about events and stories which are very feasible in the modern world. Sometimes t...
-
![RevivalStephen King]()
HorrorNow this is the Stephen King that I fell in love with seventeen years ago when I read The Shining. Since then, I have read most of what King has written. Not until Revival did I get that feeling that I last had over a decade ago when I read The Talisman, which also featured Peter Straub. Revival is...
-
![The FungusHarry Adam Knight]()
HorrorWhen 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. Cheesy. Cliché r...
-
![Rhyming RingsDavid Gemmell]()
General FictionDavid Gemmell died eleven years ago, he was one of the most popular fantasy authors in the UK, a regular Sunday Times bestseller. His legacy lives on not just in the annual David Gemmel Legend Award but more importantly in the influence his writing had on the fantasy genre. I first encountered his b...
-
![Strange WeatherJoe Hill]()
HorrorStrange Weather contains four stories that are subtly linked; each different in theme and style. They are tied together, as you might expect from the title, by some pretty unusual weather. The book begins in 1988 with "Snapshot" which describes 13 year old Michael Figlione living in the Silicon Vall...
-
![The Chalk ManC J Tudor]()
HorrorI 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, 12 year old Eddie and his fri...
-
![Mecha Samurai EmpirePeter Tieryas]()
Science FictionMecha Samurai Empire follows on from the United States of Japan , an alternative history novel which continues the story of Philip K Dicks seminal novel The Man in the High Castle (now an established TV series). For those who are aren't aware, the idea is that the "Allies" lost World War two and as...
-
![Police at the Station and They Don't Look FriendlyAdrian McKinty]()
General FictionThere are times in history that don’t seem very funny and if you lived through them you would find it hard to laugh. The 1970/80s in Northern Ireland may just be one such era as sectarian violence means that you are always wary of your surroundings. This is exemplified for Detective Inspector Sean D...
-
![Cold StorageDavid Koepp]()
HorrorWe are only one mutation away from an organism that could wipe out humans. Sound all dystopian and farfetched? This is what I was reading in the paper this very morning as super bugs are becoming increasingly prevalent and our conventional medicines are having no effect. David Koepp is an author who...
-
![Masquerade for MurderMickey Spillane]()
General FictionMy partner and I went through a stage of watching only noir films. Many of them felt the same, but some stood out. The F rench films had an effortless style, Barbara Stanwyck was always amazing, and one film was just a little bit insane. That film was Kiss Me Deadly , a Mike Hammer film b...
-
![A Cosmology of MonstersShaun Hamill]()
HorrorH P Lovecraft’s shadow casts a long one over the horror genre . He developed new types of horrors that reverberate today ; psychological and body horror are just two. What has changed is the way that people perceive horror. Whilst once upon a time witnessing the horrors from a different dime...
-
![SwashbucklersDan Hanks]()
FantasyNostalgia is a dangerous tool to use in a novel as what people think happened is not always the case. They prefer to see the past through rose tinted glasses. The 1980s can be seen as an era of Nintendo playing and Bermuda shorts, but that was not my 80s. I remember the Spectrum, my milk being stole...
-
![Signal to NoiseSilvia Moreno-Garcia]()
Science FictionI am not one to look back on my life, preferring to live and enjoy what I have in the present, but when I do it is often about my years at school and University. That person I could have treated better or the time I stood up in assembly by mistake. The events felt at huge at the time, but in retrosp...
-
![A Stroke of the PenTerry Pratchett]()
FantasyThey say that you should never meet your heroes, lest they disappoint, but I have met several of my favourite authors over the years and have always had a pleasant experience. I never had the chance to meet Sir Terry Pratchett which was a shame as he was, like for many readers of genre fiction, one...
-
![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...
-
![The Righteous ArrowsBrian J. Morra]()
General FictionI 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 like...
-
![The Fan Who Knew Too MuchNev Fountain]()
General FictionCozy 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, Jes...
-
![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...
-
![Wonders Never CeaseLexy Hudson]()
FantasyI do not think of myself as a person of culture, but when I stop to think about it, I have likely been to more theatre productions, museums and Stately Homes than most people. I can thank my mother for this as being forced to go as a youth has made me appreciate them and want to go as an adult. One...
Book of the month
