If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Chris Beckett’s Dark Eden has been garnering many accolades. Having been the 2012 Sunday Times SF novel of the year, it was then shortlisted for the 2012 BSFA award, and now has won the Clarke Award. It tells the [...]
The Daylight War is the third in Peter V Brett’s Demon Cycle, detailing humanity’s struggle against demons that rise in the night to prey on them. Two powerful protagonists have been named as the Deliverer – the one who will unite the whole world in war against the demons – and Arlen Bales, the Painted [...]
At first it seems extremely odd to have a reboot of the Spider Man franchise. After all, it’s barely five years since the third in Sam Raimi’s series, featuring Tobey Maguire. And now, a completely new retelling of the Spider Man story with a new actor? None of it makes sense – until you watch [...]
(Note, this is a review of the “Authors Preferred Text” edition) I enjoyed reading the Sandman comics in the 1990′s. So when I picked up American Gods, and found it started like an extension of the Sandman universe through its use of mythical themes, I was happy. The first few pages were delivered with panache, [...]
Intrusion, Ken MacLeod 2012, Orbit, 387pp, £18.99 Hope Morrison has refused – for reasons she can’t herself articulate – to take the Fix, a magic bullet taken by pregnant women to improve disease resistance, repair any genetic conditions, and generally make more healthy babies before they are born. She is not the only one to [...]
The War of the Roses is cited as a main inspiration for George R R Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, and as Sharon Penman’s novel is a highly regarded historical fiction of this period, I decided to tackle it. The novel covers the life of Richard III, from boyhood to death, and [...]
In a marvellously envisioned alternate Elizabethan England, Queen Elizabeth mourns the death of her husband Robert Dudley, having retreated into seclusion in her old age. Elsewhere in the world, the explorers of America and Canada (as we know them – Vinland to the Norse) have been followed home by skraylings, the non-human beings of Norse [...]
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 [...]
Man of Steel teaser trailer released
If you’re sick of comic-book adaptations and film remakes, the last thing you might expect to get excited about is a new Superman film. That’s right: there’s a new Superman film scheduled for release in 2013. However, before you run off groaning at the idea of yet another mediocre cash-in, this one comes with caveats. [...]
Penguin owner buys ASI self-publishing company
According to the BBC, Pearson, which owns Penguin books among other things, has bought Author Solutions Inc in a £74 million deal. The deal means that Pearson now has control of a self-publishing interest. The news has raised concerns among some writers that intellectual property (IP) rights for new writers may be at risk, especially [...]
The Winner of our April 300 Word Writing Challenge is writer John J Brady, (known on these forums as alchemist). He wins a £10 voucher to spend at Amazon or The Book Depository, our quarterly prize. As usual, the challenge our members faced was to write a story of no more than 300 words, inspired [...]
Forum member Teresa Edgerton is the winner of our January 300 Word Writing Challenge. She wins a £10 voucher to spend at The Book Depository, our quarterly prize. As usual, the challenge our members faced was to write a story of no more than 300 words, inspired by an image selected by our moderators. For [...]
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 [...]
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