John Wyndham writes terrific sci-fi, usually based in the future, but the characters and ideals are set very much in the Britain he grew up in. This set contains two such tales. The Chrysalids is set in a post-apocalyptic (well, post-Rapture) English town where anyone who deviates from the norm is considered to be different and therefore evil – like […]
I’ve read quite a bit of Kevin Anderson’s work – some Star Wars, some Dune, some of the other sci-fi and his Terra Incognita series. While I wouldn’t say I’ve loved everything I have read, I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s a damn fine writer. With that in mind, I was not prepared for how much I enjoyed this […]
Sandis is a vessel, a host to one of the Numina, demons from the ethereal plain. She is used as a weapon by the dire Kazen, a man who treats his vessels well, as long as they adhere to his rules. When one of her fellow vessels is killed during an experiment, Sandis escapes to the city to find her […]
**Potential Spoiler Warning** I have to add this first, although I try hard not to ruin too many books for people. However, this is a sequel so it gets harder to not drop the odd S-Bomb.. I reviewed Tides of Mana a while back, and liked what Matt Larkin had done with Hawaiian mythology after his tour de force retelling […]
Lionel Page is an investigative reporter, one who has dedicated his career to outing frauds, charlatans and hucksters. He’s successful enough to have made something of a name for himself, so it’s not really a surprise when someone offers him a private gig to dig up a newly discovered first draft of an Edgar Allan Poe short story. The offer […]
Seeing as I read mostly speculative or historical fiction, this was something of a departure for me, so maybe you can factor that into the review somehow. Anyway, when I saw the title pop up on Netgalley, I decided to give it a go. After all, I have a young son, and Fredrik Backman is a well known author with […]
Odysseus is back in David Hair’s pseudo-autobiography of the hero’s early days. I loved the first book in the series, and while the second certainly has a lot going for it, there were some things I didn’t like. But let’s start with the plot. In the interest of not being too spoilerific, I’ll try not to mention too much from […]
The world has ended, not with a bang, but more of a whimper. There were no meteors, no alien invasions, no zombie apocalypse. Instead, people just stopped reproducing. No more babies = no more humans. Of course, if that were 100% true, this would be a very short book. A minute percentage continued to conceive, and lived on in the […]
**Audiobook Warning** This has been on my TBR for a bit, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that my library had it on downloadable audio, so I jumped at the opportunity. Turns out to be have been worth my while, and it’s totally worth yours too. The story tells of (and is told by) a character known only as […]
The premise hooked me for this one. A bunch of aspiring writers are invited to the world’s most lauded author’s secluded home for a writers’ retreat. There’s a prize of a wad of cash and instant fame for the winner, a return to obscurity for the rest. As one could imagine, tensions are high and the competition is fierce, but […]
