Joe Abercrombie’s “Best Served Cold” is a standalone novel set in the same world established in his “First Law” trilogy. Therefore if you’ve read that, some of the references and characters may be familiar. If not, you’re in for a treat anyway. The whole story is based on a plot of vengeance, which is established [...]
Embassytown, China Miéville 2011, Pan, 405pp, £7.99 There can be little doubt that China Miéville’s is currently the poster boy for British genre writing. His novels routinely appear on award shortlists – he has won the Arthur C Clarke Award three times, a feat so far unmatched. He’s one of the few genre writers to [...]
Leviathan Wakes, James SA Corey Orbit, 561pp, £12.99 Leviathan Wakes, the first book of the Expanse series, landed with a substantial thud during the summer of 2011. According to George RR Martin, it is a “kickass space opera”, a quote prominently displayed on the front cover. There is another approving quote by Charles Stross on [...]
Solaris Rising, edited by Ian Whates Solaris, 325pp, £7.99 Subtitled “The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction”, Solaris Rising is precisely that – a reboot of the George Mann edited The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction under a new editor, and an anthology of nineteen stories by well-known contemporary science fiction writers. And like [...]
Infidel, Kameron Hurley Night Shade Books, 376pp, $14.99 Nyxnissa, the ex-bel dame, was introduced in God’s War, also published by Night Shade Books in 2011. Infidel is not a direct sequel to that book, though it does follow on from its story. In God’s War, Nyx was booted out of the bel dames – state [...]
Heaven’s Shadow, David S Goyer & Michael Cassutt Tor, 356pp, £12.99 Each year, a handful of science fiction novels arrive with a resounding thud. If these books have one thing in common, it’s that, though they appear to be aimed at sf readers, the marketing focuses on non-genre aspects. Heaven’s Shadow, the first of a [...]
Solitaire, Kelley Eskridge Big Mouth House, 352pp, £10.99 Some time in the near-future, planet Earth finally gets its act together and institutes a single global government. The children born in the first second of the EarthGov era are designated “Hopes”, trained from birth to be a credit, ambassador and example to the new age. Ren [...]
About ten years ago, the words “X-Men movie” would have your average Marvel comics fan grinning from ear to ear. Director Brian Singer had taken the long running and popular Marvel icon and given it a believable, gripping film treatment that made just enough changes to keep mainstream audiences onboard (“What did you expect, yellow [...]
As it stands right now in Hollywood, if you want to make a superhero flick, you can go one of two ways. You can either use the source material as a springboard for a complex, powerful, character driven story that breaks new ground, as per the wonderful Dark Knight, or you can slam a few [...]
Cinco de Mayo, Michael J Martineck EDGE, 256pp, $14.95 Confession time: I’ve known the author of Cinco de Mayo for many years. We’ve swapped stories and novel excerpts, and commented on each other’s fiction, for over a decade. And I saw a few early chapters of this book about five years ago – in fact, [...]
George R R Martin’s epic Game of Thrones finally airs here in the UK on Monday, broadcast on Sky Atlantic. And chronicles was given the chance to take a sneak peek at the the first two episodes before they air. Verdict? It looks good, it looks as though it keeps very much to the spirit [...]
The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi Gollancz, 448pp, £12.99 The science fiction debut of 2010 was apparently Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief. Almost a year before it appeared, it was being said Gollancz had bought it based solely on a synopsis and a single chapter. Rajaniemi’s few prior fiction sales had garnered much praise – three [...]
Music for Another World, edited by Mark Harding Mutation Press, 270pp, £8.99 Prominent on the cover of this first anthology from Mark Harding’s Mutation Press is the description “Strange Fiction”. I am not, I must admit, especially fond of that label. It seems too nebulous. Science fiction and fantasy, as labels, have their grey areas [...]
In his four excellent novels as Nick Gifford, Keith Brooke explored worlds of the young adult where things go wrong – often seriously wrong. Filled with images of macabre seasides, factory farming, terrible schools, haunted houses and much, much more, the books were marvellous entertainment, often moving and sometimes hard hitting. In this new book, [...]
The rush to remake the 1980′s should be sign to lock yourself away from the world until it blows over. And the expectation is that the Karate Kid remake should be top of the list of cheesy cash-ins. Surprisingly, it defies all cynicism, presenting a fresh, invigorating, and highly enjoyable film. The plot is more [...]
Terminal World, Alastair Reynolds Gollancz, 496pp, £18.99 There’s a pun in the title of million-Pound author Alastair Reynold’s latest novel. It’s not an especially good pun but, sadly, it’s somewhat characteristic of the book. Which is not say that Terminal World is a bad novel. If it disappoints, it does so in comparison to Reynold’s [...]
The Restoration Game, Ken MacLeod Orbit, 303pp, £18.99 Where does the end of a story belong? At the start of a book or, well… does it belong at the end? If the narrative is the journey to that end, should the story open with the destination? Isn’t the thrill of exploring new places one of [...]
Veteran, Gavin G Smith Gollancz, 391pp, £12.99 pbk I like Richard Morgan’s novels, and the cover of Gavin G Smith’s debut novel Veteran claims it is a debut on a par with Morgan’s. We all take such marketing with a pinch of salt but, conversely, without such comparisons readers might never find new books they [...]
The City and the City, China Miéville Pan, 373pp, £7.99 pbk Ever since the publication of Perdido Street Station ten years ago, China Miéville has been a darling of the UK genre literati. This is not entirely surprising – he’s intellectual yet commercial, a vocal Trotskyist but his books are not especially political, and a [...]
All Zombies Must Die hits the Xbox
At the weekend, All Zombies Must Die was unleashed on Xbox Live. As you can probably guess from the title, this is a rather tongue in cheek game developed by Doublesix with a focus on multiplayer zombie slaying. Set in the town of Deadhill, All Zombies Must Die offers a huge variety of weapons (such [...]
Raam’s Shadow DLC out for Gears of War 3
Gears of War fans should be sprinting to their Xbox, MS points in hand, because a new batch of DLC has been released for the game. Raam’s Shadow is, in fact, the biggest add-on ever to be released in the history of the Gears of War franchise. The new mini-campaign is around three hours in [...]
Two lost Doctor Who episodes returned to BBC
If you’re a Doctor Who fan – and one of the true variety who has all the old black and white episodes on DVD, still watching them regularly – then some exciting news has emerged. Two episodes from the sixties which were thought to be lost have been discovered and returned to the BBC, meaning [...]
Focus claims Game of Thrones RPG
Focus Home Interactive has announced that it has bagged another game which is being developed that’s based on the Game of Thrones books and hit TV series. The franchise, which has suddenly got hotter than an orc torturer’s poking stick since it was aired on Sky earlier this year, has had several computer games developed [...]
Alice Eve cast for Star Trek 2
Several fresh snippets of news have popped up regarding the much anticipated JJ Abrams Star Trek sequel, which is destined to hit the silver screen in 2013. Abrams has apparently cast Alice Eve, of Entourage and Sex in the City 2 fame, for Star Trek 2 as it’s currently being referred to. The British actress [...]
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