Books tagged with: atmospheric

Joe Hill is one of those authors who improve 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 sees people break out in beautiful gold and black marks before spontaneously self-combusting. Draco Incendia T...

I found this book during a post Christmas hunt in my local Waterstones after receiving a number of gift vouchers. I had never read anything by the author (or indeed the publisher) but have seen the third novel in the series (the Immorality Engine) appearing around the web for a while. For me one of...

Angel of Death is a contemporary fantasy / horror novel by author J Robert King. The Angel of Death for Chicago overseas a an area that stretches from lake county Indiana to Milwaukee, a vast sprawl of a metropolis. His task is to ensure that each person's death matches their lives as closely as pos...

I remember reading the short story "Red Reign" about 20 years ago, written by Newman and published in the Mammoth Book of Vampires. This short story formed the basis for the novel and it's been on my list of books to read for some time. The imminent re-release of the sequel "The Bloody Red Baron" ha...

Autumn was originally self published and given away by the author ten years ago, since then it has been read by hundreds of thousands of people and even turned into a film starring David Carradine and Dexter Fletcher. It's now published by those fantastic people over at Gollancz and I must say that...

Boy's Life is a speculative fiction novel by Robert R McCammon. Boy's Life is a masterpiece of magic and mystery, of splendors of growing up in a small town, and of the wonders beyond. Narrated by one of the most engaging young voices in modern fiction, Boy's Life takes us back to our own childhood...

There are odd things happening in a near deserted coastal village. Strangers are appearing, asking questions about the towns recluse while dogs are dissapearing and a local hunter discovers a naked human footprint in the snow. With the onset of deep winter things are about to get a lot worse. Havi...

This is the second book in The Bookman Histories, the first being The Bookman and I would suggest you start with that first. Although Camera Obscura would stand alone you may find a few references confusing. Once again Tidhar has constructed a masterpiece of a novel. His steampunk world where Lizar...

Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling is a unique offering that manages to create a Victorian gothic-esque supernatural adventure that manages to create a tangible feeling of suspense. Set within an ancient, remote manor house, the story begins with the murder of Nanny Prum - carer for James...

Charm is the second in Sarah Pinborough's series of novels which rewrite the traditional fairy tale for an intelligent, adult audience. This time it's the story of Cinderella that is re-created into an erotic, adult and charged story with a touch of brothers grimm darkness. I love how the author con...

Dead by Dawn is the 7th novel in the Jason Dark series by Guido Henkel. A woman in good health dies overnight, and to make matters worse it's Jason Dark's next door neighbour who's snuffed it, something wicked is at work in London town. As his investigation leads him down to the seedy underbelly of...

Christopher Golden is an acclaimed American Author. He has worked in Horror, Fantasy, Teen and Young Adult fiction. He's known for his tie in novels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and his collaboration work with Mike Magnolia, Nancy Holder and Amber Benson. His latest book ‘Dead Ringers’ is a standal...

Dodger, a young sewer "tosher" who works beneath the streets of Victorian London is guided along series of events that will transform his life and those around him. It all starts when a young women is beset upon by two ruffians and Dodger rescues the young lady from certain death. I was quite surpr...

Dracula Cha Cha Cha is the third novel in the Anno Dracula series, set in the alternative history of 1959 where Vampires are just another part of the population. This time we are in Rome as Vampires, intellectuals and other important people are gathering to witness the marriage of the count Dracul....

Dreams and Shadows is a contemporary urban fantasy fairytale which tells the story of two young boys Ewan and Colby who both become embroiled in the secret world of the Limestone Kingdom - a parallel world where Wizards and Genie's co-inhabit with creatures much older and largely forgotten. Ewan and...

Drood is an 800-page historical novel by Dan Simmons, published in 2009, and on the face of it that page count should be a warning. It mostly isn't. The premise comes wrapped in a conceit: the book purports to be a secret manuscript by Wilkie Collins, friend and rival to Charles Dickens, sealed away...

Tim's middle names should be has super because there just isn't really any other explanation as to how someone can write the way he does. This is nowhere more evident than in his Fault Lines Trilogy and in particular the finale of the story — Earthquake Weather. The book is set within the San Frans...

Erekos is a fantasy novel by A M Tuomala. The nations Erekos and Weigenland have fought against each other for over three hundred years, a war that has seen both sides struggle to hold the borderland between them. As the flood season begins the King of the Erekoi thinks he has discovered a powerful...

Fingers and other Fantastic Stories is an anthology by the talented Romanian author Marian Coman, current editor in chief of the newspaper "Obiectiv - Vocea Br'ilei" and a very talented writer. Fingers is his first work to be translated from his own language and includes four short stories that were...

Foxglove Summer in the fifth installment in the stunning Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. After the stunning climax of Broken Homes, (seriously if you haven't read Broken Homes read it first) Foxglove Summer feels like a fresh summer breeze. Peter Grant escapes the rat race of London to...

Full Dark House is the first novel in the long running series that follows the enigmatic detectives Bryant and May as they attempt to solves crimes that few would dare to touch. The novel begins in a very unexpected and quite brilliant manner, by one of the main characters dying in a large explosion...

Ghost Story is a tale of horror by Peter Straub. It's hard to review this book without talking about the Chowder Society as most of the story centres around this group of old men and their acquaintances. As we meet the Chowder Society, they are a bunch of old guys who meet every couple of weeks and...

Stories by Adrian Tchaikovsky are always sober, meticulous and carefully constructed. Guns of the Dawn is no exception, an unusual novel, set in a fantasy world inspired by the late 19th and early 20th century and the clash of progress therein. Our protagonist, one Emily Marshwic, struggles to maint...

Anyone who remembers those old Hammer Horror films (or indeed still watches them) will just adore this book, along with anyone else who loves a good story. In their hey-day between the 50's and 70's the Hammer films starred such great screen actors such as Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee with fil...

King Rat is the debut of the award winning British author China Miéville. The novel begins with Saul returning from a camping trip to the top floor flat he shares with his father, deciding not to wake him he goes straight to bed. In the early hours of the following morning he is rudely awakened by...

Kraken is essentially "grown up" urban fantasy - and when I say grown up I don't mean littered with expletives but with a deal of maturity and written without compromise (as all Miéville's works are). You won't find any soppy vampires or angst ridden werewolves here, Kraken is a complicated mix of m...

A collection of shorts that explores supernatural and ghostly themes, there is something about exploring historical events as a setting and bringing them down to the circumstances of individuals who experience the impossible. The use of historical contexts throughout these stories gives them a linge...

There are writers you admire, and then there are writers who rearrange something in your head, and Clark Ashton Smith belongs firmly in the second category for me. I came to Lost Worlds more or less by accident, knowing Smith only as a name that hovered at the edge of the Lovecraft circle, and I was...

Manroot opens in the spring of 1930 with Katherine Sheahan and her father, Jessie, looking for work in the tourist town of Castlewood, Missouri. Jesse gets a job as a handyman and Katherine as a hotel maid. While her father eventually embraces the drink and disappears, Katherine makes a living for h...

Medusa’s Web by Tim Powers follows the story of siblings, Scott and Madeline, required to stay for a week in their aunt’s house by her recently amended will.  Their cousins Claimayne and Ariel, who live in the house are less than pleased by this requirement. The story has a creepy atmosphere,...

Midnight, Texas is a small town located at the crossroads of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. From an outsiders perspective it looks like a run-of-the-mill, dried-up western town with lots of boarded up buildings and relatively few full-time inhabitants. There's a Pawnshop, a Diner and general store...

In Mistification Kaaron Warren creates a character called Marvo the magician; a stage magician whose magic is real. It’s a world where a small number of true magicians use the “mist” to keep the horrors of reality hidden from the world. It starts with Marvo trapped in an attic with his grandmother...

A man falls from the roof of a building, pursued by agents unknown and Lawbringer Narin is asked personally by none other than a god to investigate the matter and help find a cure to the unconscious mans poison, thus begins Moon's Artifice. What follows is a powerful, rich fantasy tale that hits al...

Anthologies from Alchemy Press specialise in bringing myth to a contemporary setting and general involve adult characters living adult lives. Music in the Bone is no exception to this. It’s quite a varied collection of Marion Pitman’s work from a number of different sources and spans a long career...

Perdido Street Station is the second novel published by China Miéville, after the quite brilliant King Rat and again we are within the urban / weird fantasy world. However where King Rat was set within our own fair city of London, Perdido Street Station takes place within an alternate universe of Ba...

I stumbled across Poison early in high school, and I loved it so much I went on to read whatever other works of Chris Wooding that I could get my hands on. For years I remembered Poison to be this incredible, fascinating novel, so when I picked it up again as an adult I was a little apprehensive. Bu...

Poison is an enchanting adult take on the classic fairy tale Snow White. With an appealing freshness and confident, unique voice of the author its a tale that will leave you eager for more. Everyone knows the story of Snow White and Poison is instantly recognisable from that childhood fable and yet...

Pretty Little Dead Things is a urban horror novel by the author Gary McMahon. Thomas Usher used to be a fairly normal guy, a family man with a wife and child, all this changed when a tragic accident took his family away from him. He began to see the dead, and they him, all the lost and lonely souls...

It's difficult to imagine that the Discworld began 40 books and 30 years ago, so far it has been a tremendous journey (long may it continue) and Raising Steam continues possibly the finest continuous fantasy series yet created. One of the things I love about the Discworld is the continuity, the ser...

I've bought a few Abercrombie novels over the past few years, partly due to the huge amount of positive feedback his work attracts but also as he is a fellow Lancastrian, hailing from the same fine city as I. Due to the sheer volume of review copies I receive I've yet to have time to actually read...

It's funny how even if you follow a genre closely you can still miss some pretty successful authors, I guess that there are just so many novels published nowadays that this will become increasingly common. I haven't read anything by Holly Black before but I have been aware of her work without realis...

Rivers of London is an urban fantasy novel by Ben Aaronovitch. Peter Grant was just a probationary constable in the Metropolitan Police Force and faced a life in the drudgery of the Case Progression Unit (doing paperwork so real coppers don't have to). Then one night, on a cold, wet night while inve...

Living amongst us are a group of creatures who prey on the vulnerable and the weak, guiding them to commit suicide and living off this energy released (known as "span") of a life snuffed out before its time. These Tormentas look just like a regular human, often taking the guise of a ravishing sed...

We are once again re-united with one of the few survivors in a world infested with the undead. Gus is a little more dishevelled than the last time we saw him, more bruised and a bit more reckless too as his daily existence of waking up, getting drunk and preparing for the inevitable zombie horde beg...

Second Sight follows on from the events of the Riddler's Gift and is the second novel in the Lifesong series by Greg Hamerton. Tabitha Serannon has not only survived the horrors brought by the shadowcasters led by the Darkmaster, but has become a miracle healer and a fledgling wizard, but already h...

Our body connects with the outer world by means of our five senses ( not to mention the sixth sense for those endowed with it…). We take our senses for granted and realize their importance only when they become defective or when we miss one of them entirely. But what happens when one of our senses g...

Servant of the Underworld is the debut novel from a rising star in the fantasy world, Aliette de Bodard. Acatl is the high priest of the Dead for the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan. It is his role to oversee the dead making sure they receive the correct rituals and rites of passage into the nex...

Sixty One Nails is an urban fantasy novel of a secret war raging beneath the streets of London, written by Mike Shevdon. Under the nations capital there is a whole other world where magic is real, the world of the Feyre. A dark magic will be unleashed by the Untained… Unless a new hero can be found...

Graham Joyce has a wonderful knack of writing about very ordinary, very real characters that lead generally ordinary lives and yet making those people not only highly engaging but also act in a realistic fashion to events around them. He then places just one small idea that is outside the realms of...

Illustration ©2019 Tim McDonagh from The Folio Society edition of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes The bright yellow cover of this Folio Society edition of Bradbury’s classic fantasy novel is inset with a cartoon-like carnival poster, clearly telegraphi...

What would happen if you combined a detailed historical fiction novel that includes the politics of, Countries, Kings and Queens with that of the manipulation by Angels and Deamons and Devils? You probably end up with something like Son of the Morning. Set in an alternative history where Angels and...

Storm Thief takes place in the fantasy world of Orokos, a city on an island run by a totalitarian government, ravaged by chaos and by the probability storms that re-order the world wherever they strike. It has been this way for so long that history has forgotten it, and its citizens don’t believe th...

World Fantasy Award winning series Strange Tales has now reached its fifth volume, offering again a bunch of tales ranging from SF to horror, from fantasy to supernatural, sharing a "strange" or "weird" character. The present book includes sixteen brand new stories, penned by authors from both side...

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 notabl...

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 disappe...

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 reluctant t...

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 Empire it...

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 – Recoletta’s top-secret h...

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 at his bedside, and Billy is haunted by strange dreams. According to the cre...

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 from alm...

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 to an unexpl...

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 and...

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 mad...

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 writer, I r...

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 have...

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 Nobod...

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 at on...

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 safety of th...

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 intertwined w...

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 knowledg...

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 Stephen Kings D...

“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.” Celia Bo...

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 assuming that...

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 while st...

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 has be...

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 floating metr...

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 find...

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. He has...

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 or even kne...

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. But there’...

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 the Doctor...

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, but he...

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 the forest a...

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 wal...

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, written...

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 why...

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 gargantua...

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 dream (...

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 drinking, gru...

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 bands perfo...

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 it. That a...

Former Vampire turned powerful Mage Peter Octavian returns to investigate the small coastal town of Hawthorne in Massachusetts when the forces of darkness target the otherwise ordinary community. Since the Vatican's sorcerers are no more the magical barriers they spent hundreds of years building to...

Walking the tree, by Kaaron Warren (the author of Slights), is a fantasy novel set on the island Botanica. This is no ordinary island however, almost the entire space is taken up by one enormous tree. Small communities live around the coastline and depend on the tree for shelter, firewood and even m...

Zoo City is an Urban fantasy novel by the South African author Lauren Beukes. Zinzi December is a woman with a gift, and perhaps a curse - over ten years ago a remarkable and disturbing event changed the lives of many, and the world in general. Those who have committed the crime of murder, or other...

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 rept...

Call of Cthulhu is the original short story by HP Lovecraft that has since spawned the whole Cthulhu mythos, with films, video games, roleplay games and many novels by authors in the shared Cthulhu universe (known as the Cthulhu Mythos or the Lovecraft Mythos), which was the intent of Lovecraft. The...

At the Mountains of Madness is a novella set within the Cthulhu Mythos and written by HP Lovecraft. The Barren, windswept interior of the Antarctic plateau is considered completely devoid of life until an expedition from the University of Miskatonic find strange fossils of unknown creatures along...

Daniel Polansky is the author of the wonderful Low Town fantasy series, which shows how great a story-teller he is. A City Dreaming stretches these talents and more. The book follows the life of M, a magically gifted drifter with a loose grip on morality and a quick, sharp tongue. He does his bes...

Angela thinks she knows her boyfriend Vince pretty well, that is until he goes missing. She quickly learns he has a hidden employment, his boss the infamous London crime lord Frederick Meloy (known as Fat Frederick, but nerver, ever as Fat Freddy). His secret job? tracking down arcane relics succ...

I've been reading Remic's stories for a number of years now. His Clockwork Vampire Series is heroic fantasy at it's very best.  What I didn't realise though was how much he has grown as an author since, that is until I discovered A Song for No Mans Land on Amazon. I've alwa...

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 tales...

My second review of the Newcon Press Novella series released in Autumn 2017. This is a set of four stories. The Wind by Jay Caselberg, Cottingley by Alison Littlewood, Body in the Woods by Sarah Lotz and Case of the Bedeviled Poet A Sherlock Holmes Enigma, by Simon Clark. Cottingley by Alison Lit...

The best thing about Amanda Foody’s debut lies in the title itself. Her ‘Burning City’ is an immersive, sensory experience that rivets from the very first page. The smoke from her traveling circus wafts off the page, the dirt and ash from the trodden ground almost tangible on the tongue. The ‘freaks...

Newcon Press’ second novella series continues with Simon Clark’s story, set in the middle of the London Blitz. The title gives away the nature of what we are to expect – a Sherlock Holmes story, occurring in the twilight years of Baker Street’s favourite detective. During the 1940s, Jack Crofton,...

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 story-...

Last year one of the most impressive debut's I read was Ed McDonald's Blackwing. It's dark, confident and bold fiction with some exceptional world-building and even finer characters, Ravencry is the sequel and does everything a sequel should, building on the best elements of the first...

Hallowdene is the second book in the Wychwood series, a crime thriller that weaves into the story supernatural elements. Elspeth Reeves is making a new life for herself in a quiet, sleepy village near Oxford, having escaped the hectic life of London. As a journalist for the local paper, she is often...

Senlin Ascends is the ground-breaking debut of Josiah Bancroft and the beginning of the Books of Babel series. Originally self published in 2013, the book was picked up by Tor / Orbit when it became clear just how special the novel really is. Since then the series has continued with Arm of the Sphin...

Sherlock Holmes and his creator may be long dead, but this has not stopped the master detective living on in the works of others. James Lovegrove has written several stories that have expanded on Arthur Conan Doyle’s legacy, but The Cthulhu Casebooks offer something very different by blending...

Arm of the Sphinx is the second in the Books of Babel series by Josiah Bancroft and follows on from the events of Senlin Ascends. Tom - who is now going by the name of Captain Mudd, continues his search for Marya. He has help, with the airship The Stone Cloud and it's motley crew. Since the events...

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 so m...

Religion is a tricky thing, a lot of people think they have picked the right one. Some believe in one God, but many people have several. The Mayans had some deities you would not want to meet in a dark alley as they prey on humans from the underworld. Meeting one of these Gods would be scary, but if...

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 storie...

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 Tippy...

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 she h...

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 on l...

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 - "...

One of the remarkable things about genre fiction is that it can blend so well. Why have a straight fantasy novel when you can mix it with science fiction or horror? How far are we as a human race from backsliding to a medieval style life? A few dirty bombs, no elec...

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 Hood...

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 bein...

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 to be...

Are you a night person or a day person? Do you like to wake up at 5am and then go to the gym before a full day at work and an early night? Perhaps you like to wake up in time for Bargain Hunt and work from home into the late hours? Either way, you are you. The night owl and the early bird, same pers...

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 autho...

Witches have a bad reputation, green skinned, covered in warts and prone to stealing children so that they can use their bones for broth. People feared the idea of witches so much that they would place innocent people on trial. Don’t they realise that if witches were as powerful as they though...

Having grown up in a village, life there had its pros and its cons. There is a real sense of community, and everyone knows each other. Great, but also not so great. Any small incident can become gossip, no matter how benign, so I can only imagine what would happen should a fire break out and a...

I have read more than my fair share of fantasy novels and I love them. As a rule, they fall into a couple of camps on how they are narrated – from a single point of view, or through the eyes of several people, normally 3-7. Leaping from one character and back again works in the genre as it giv...

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 to...

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 Curious...

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 than a...

There are two ways to treat fairy folk in a fantasy novel. You can hide them, only the protagonist knowing that there is a secret world in the forest. Or you can embrace them. Make the likes of goblins and fairies' part of everyday life. In A Market of Dreams and Destiny by Trip Galey, an accord has...

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 alongsid...

Not all authors write short fiction and those that do, do not always have enough to fill a complete collection, never mind several. Christi Nogle is a talented short story writer as their previous collections have already shown. One Eye Opened in That Other Place is one of the trickier collections t...

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 can c...

It feels like we take science for granted in the modern world; buildings that tower into the sky, above them flying machines made from metal. Stop and think for a moment at how wonderous all these advances have been, how we use the internet to communicate today, or how a simple invention like the LE...

History 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...

There is a long tradition of Folk Horror in the UK, but plenty of other countries bring their own flavour to the genre. American Gothic has all the trappings of classic Folk Horror, but has that distinct US flavour. The woods out there seem different, ancient landscapes unused to the people that roc...

For any author magic is a tricky beast as you can easily paint yourself into the corner. You can make the magic too powerful, or you can develop a whole magic system that is unbalanced. Things become even trickier when you add those tricksy Fae. Fairy magic is all about breaking rules on a contract...

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...

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 by Em...

I 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,...

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 the O...

If you could invite anyone to a winter retreat, who would it be? Family, friends, someone famous. What you should never do is invite a detective, anytime you do, someone always seems to end up dead. In the case of Jekyll & Hyde: Winter Retreat by Tim Major, you get...

Dealing with major changes in your life is not easy. You can find help in your community, but when you are a Witch who is hunted down, this is not so simple. Any other Witch that you come across is also being hunted or is too young to know what to do and needs a mentor. All Merhrab wants is to be le...

Twas in a café they first met, Romeo and Juliet. And twas the first day they fell into debt, because Rome-owed and Juli-eat. It feels to me that the entire system is rigged so that you never have quite enough money to escape, you work to live, and if you do not work, you do not eat. It is wor...