SFBook - 20+ Years of Reviews
Providing book reviews of speculative fiction since 1999. Read our story
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...
There are ways of writing a historic epic. The current trend is more towards long drawn-out sagas over several books, sometimes up to twenty or more. This allows you to really get to know the characters and read about them for decades, keeping you and the author busy for years. They are great...
There is an art to the short story. They should not try to emulate their longer cousins, or even the novelette format. A short story should pop up, throws a few punches then head off again without a backwards glance, but the best of them with leave an impression, a lingering sense of something...
There is a knack to adaptation, we have all seen a film made from a book. Many have read an adaptation of a film, but can you make a prose adaptation of a comic book? We see superheroes in the cinema every month, the action and colour sparks on the big screen, but bringing forth all that imagery...
People think that I must be a very strange person. This is not correct. I have the heart of a small boy. It is in a glass jar on my desk.
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...
Writing a futuristic science fiction novel will allow you to explore strange new worlds but can also be used to explore our past and culture. Reading a wide range of stories from different people, from different parts of the world is a gift that will keep giving your entire life. There has been...
Joining a band is a rite of passage that everyone should try at least once. I got as far as forming a fake band with my mates at university, but then we had no commitment. To really make it you will need to buckle down and learn an instrument and write some songs – or just be a punk band....
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...
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...
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...
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...
Forget Marvel and their Marvelverse, the place that I want to be is in Christian Klaver’s Victorianverse. This is an alternative history of the era, but also of the fiction of the time. In the author’s 'The Classified Dossier’ series, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson have...
There are space books and then there are Space Operas. What makes a good Space Opera is a sense of scale – the big and the small. Characters making decisions that define the entire Universe, but also their place in the local power struggle. Who will rule, which family? Which sect? Which...
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...
There is no friend as loyal as a book.
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...
There is a reason that criminal gangs fall apart. As an individual you can take responsibility for your own action, plan ever detail and keep your mouth shut when the job is done, but what about the others? They may be getting cold feet or have a loudmouth. The Smoke Kings are a group that...
What made people think that the middle of the desert was the right place to build a town like Los Vegas where people from around the world flock to get their vice on? It was the fact that it was in the middle of nowhere, safe from prying eyes and it was desperate to for people to visit. There...
I am of a certain age, and I recall that the 1990s was a good decade, a time of societal development and change for the better. I used to look down on those who rated the 70s as a fun decade as it seemed grim to me, but as I get older the 90s was as grim as the 70s and I am sure that the 2010s...
Most people love a good heist if they are not the ones being robbed. Be it in the movies, a documentary, or even a novel, a heist is all about planning and then it falling apart instantly. You can tell the story of a heist in different ways; do you go deeply into the plan or find out more about...
Artificial Intelligence is currently the big hope across most industries as a way of increasing productivity on the cheap. It is being used already in the field of medicine as it is ideal at coping with enormous amounts of data and highlighting anomalies. It aids in finding cancers early, but...
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Science fiction, fantasy & horror book reviews
SFBook.com is one of the oldest book review sites on the internet, founded back in 1999 in an age before phones became smart and when the leading figure of the free world was respected and even occasionally admired. A non profit site primarily aimed at the Science fiction, fantasy and horror genres (although we do have a growing list of general fiction). We strive to feature only the very best in Science fiction, fantasy, horror and speculative novels. We like to think we write personal, unique and constructive reviews.
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We have dedicated pages for Science fiction book reviews as well as fantasy book reviews and horror book reviews but you can also browse by author, publisher, name, series or Sub Genre.
Reviews are provided by a team of regular and guest reviewers from around the world, mostly based in the USA and the UK. These include Ant - the site editor, Allen Stroud - chair of the BSFA and Sam Tyler, reviewer extraordinaire. We try our very best to prevent giving away any spoilers so that the reading experience remains as fresh as possible. Where spoilers are mentioned, we do our best to let you know in advance. We firmly believe that life is too short to struggle through a book you are not enjoying so often the reviews you see will be the books we've made it through to the end. However if you want to know about a book not listed, please feel free to get in touch.
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