Other Reviews

This page contains examples of some of the other reviews I’ve written for various outlets during my career – including book and television reviews.

5 GREAT NOVELS BY PHILIP K DICK

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

There’s something about being faced with a volume whose cover proclaims in large and luridly pink lettering that it contains 5 Great Novels by Philip K Dick – a book five centimetres thick (that’s two inches in old money), cumbersome … Continue reading →

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ALBEDO ONE 31

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

This is an unusual issue of Albedo One as the Irish magazine devotes the majority of its space to the six stories shortlisted for the inaugural Aeon Prize – a short-fiction competition organised by the people behind Albedo One and … Continue reading →

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ANALOG – NOV 2007

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

For a reader who hasn’t been down these paths in a long time the first question was whether the strange odour in the air when opening the pages of the latest issue of Analog (Vol. CXXVII, no. 11 – November … Continue reading →

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Arthur C Clarke by Gary Westfahl

Posted on November 5, 2019 by

Arthur C Clarke by Gary Westfahl (The University of Illinois Press, 2018) Gary Westfahl has been a bit unlucky. After reading his Arthur C Clarke – an instalment in the “Modern Masters of Science Fiction” series from The University of … Continue reading →

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BACK TO THE VORTEX

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

Facts are good! Facts are great! No, facts are fantastic! Aren’t they? Facts are what fans really want. With facts you can reduce everything down into neat categories that can be wrapped in laminated plastic and store for eternity. Take … Continue reading →

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BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: RAZOR

Posted on February 22, 2011 by

The real strength of the current incarnation of Battlestar Galactica (BSG) has been its ability to use its futuristic setting and the basic conflict humans and machines to place its characters in realistic, morally complex and ethically challenging situations. Its … Continue reading →

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BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: SEASON 2

Posted on February 22, 2011 by

Television drama rarely specialises in big ideas. Amongst the comfortably circumscribed crises that litter soaps, medical dramas and police procedurals there is little room for questions about religion, identity or politics.

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BEAUTIFUL MONSTERS

Posted on February 22, 2011 by

On page 41 of Beautiful Monsters, David McIntee’s book on the Alien and Predator franchises, the author claims that Ridley Scott’s Alien is not a science fiction movie because: “Science fiction is about humanity, and how it might develop under … Continue reading →

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BOOK REVIEW: OCCUPY ME BY TRICIA SULLIVAN

Posted on October 22, 2016 by

The overwhelming sensation left at the end of Tricia Sullivan’s strange, awkward, new novel is of things straining and stretching and struggling to be free. This is true of the characters, all of whom seem to be constantly pushing against … Continue reading →

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DEATH’S HEAD

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

David Gunn’s debut novel, Death’s Head, isn’t going to win prizes for originality. Its galaxy-spanning setting, cast of stock characters, and plot that has a super-powered hero planet-hopping to save damsels in distress and prop up tottering empires, rehashes every … Continue reading →

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Dennis Etchison

Posted on May 29, 2019 by

About fifteen years ago I was given a book to review by the then editor of Vector – it was Fine Cuts, by Dennis Etchison. It was the first book I’d read by him, but in a (too brief – … Continue reading →

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ESSENTIAL SCIENCE FICTION FILMS

Posted on February 22, 2011 by

In the introduction to The Pocket Essential Science Fiction Films, John Costello mentions one of my favourite books about sf films, Bill Warren’s Keep Watching The Skies. I have shelves full of film encyclopaedias that have been rendered more-or-less redundant … Continue reading →

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GRADISIL

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

Gradisil is a novel of undeniable ambition. Adam Roberts has constructed a cast of complex, difficult characters and worked them into a dense plot that curls and twists itself around a set of intricate and challenging ideas. From one angle … Continue reading →

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HOW TO LIVE SAFELY IN A SCIENCE FICTIONAL UNIVERSE

Posted on April 21, 2011 by

Don’t judge a book by its cover is sound advice. Even wiser words might be a warning that readers shouldn’t judge a book by the blurb a publisher puts on the cover. Even so, Audrey Niffenegger ‘s prominently displayed claim … Continue reading →

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LAND OF THE HEADLESS

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

Do you want to know how smart Adam Roberts is? His latest novel, Land of the Headless takes its name from a story you don’t know by a writer you’ve never heard of, whose lasting claim to a footnote in … Continue reading →

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LISEY’S STORY

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

Stephen King stopped being a “writer” decades ago. These days Stephen King is a giant, steamrollering, cash-making machine that trawls across the landscape of our ecologically over-burdened planet raking off a vast slice of humanity’s combined wealth before one day … Continue reading →

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REVIEW OF CURVE OF THE EARTH ON ARCFINITY

Posted on April 16, 2013 by

My review of Simon Morden’s The Curve of the Earth is now online at Arcfinity. I quite enjoyed the first three novels, but this was a bit disappointing – though I’m still hoping the later volumes could bring a return to … Continue reading →

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REVIEW OF THE HAMMER BY KJ PARKER

Posted on January 4, 2012 by

This review was published in Vector 268 The Hammer by KJ Parker In most fantasy novels Gignomai met’Oc – the Loki-ish third son of a great aristocratic clan – would be the novel’s shadowy villain. He steals from his family … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: DARK STAR BY OLIVER LANGMEAD

Posted on October 18, 2015 by

Untold riches and global celebrity? Whatever it was that possessed Oliver Langmead to write Dark Star, we must hope that it was neither of the above. Because who, in their right mind, writes a science fiction/noir detective story (and it … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: EXISTENCE BY DAVID BRIN

Posted on November 19, 2013 by

I did not like David Brin’s Existence. It is a book so distressingly unpleasant that it left me wondering – and this is no exaggeration – whether I had had enough of the whole of science fiction. I suppose you … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: GEMSIGNS AND BINARY BY STEPHANIE SAULTER

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

Gemsigns and Binary by Stephanie Saulter (Jo Fletcher Books, 2013 & 2014) (Originally published in Vector 278) I can cut a long story short in reviewing Stephanie Saulter’s first two novels, Gemsigns and Binary (collectively part of the slightly clumsily … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: NOIR AND LA FEMME EDITED BY IAN WHATES

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

Noir and La Femme edited by Ian Whates (Newcon Press, 2014) (originally published in Vector 277) Ian Whates, through Newcon Press and the Solaris Rising series, has established himself as a key editor in UK short fiction and I, like … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: PROXIMA BY STEPHEN BAXTER & ON A STEEL BREEZE BY AL REYNOLDS

Posted on April 30, 2015 by

So, I wrote this review a long time ago but I’ve never been happy with it and I tried to rework it and get it to say what I wanted but its never quite worked the way I saw it … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: THE BEES BY LALINE PAULL

Posted on October 23, 2015 by
The Bees Cover

Why would an author write a story in which the main characters are bees? One reason might be simply that bees are interesting little creatures – fascinatingly social, successful, widespread and apocryphally busy – and we are intimately familiar with … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: THE PEACOCK CLOAK BY CHRIS BECKETT

Posted on November 25, 2013 by

The thing that I like best about Chris Beckett’s short stories in general, and this new collection, The Peacock Cloak, in particular is the rage that is bubbling under the surface and that occasionally erupts from the page. Not all … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: THE ROOK BY DANIEL O’MALLEY

Posted on March 31, 2014 by

Daniel O’Malley’s first novel, The Rook, won the 2012 Aurealis Award for best SF Novel published by an Australian and comes laden with praise from writers like Charlaine Harris, Charles Yu and Lev Grossman. I found it hard to understand … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: VIRTUES OF WAR AND GHOSTS OF WAR BY BENNETT R COLES

Posted on September 1, 2018 by

The latest issue of The BSFA Review (no.4, Summer 2018) has been published. It contains two of my reviews.  The first one – of a pair of military sf novels by Bennet R Coles – is below. The second will … Continue reading →

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REVIEW: WITCHES OF LYCHFORD BY PAUL CORNELL (AND A RANT ABOUT CLASS)

Posted on July 23, 2017 by

Those she talked to who wanted the store to come here had hardly embraced evil. They talked about how hard things were, how they needed to shop more cheaply without spending a lot of money on petrol, how they and … Continue reading →

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TAU 4

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

The temptations of self-publishing are obvious. Every aspiring writer looks at the dross that sometimes makes it through the professional filter – in books and magazines – and thinks to themselves: if they publish his shit, why won’t they publish … Continue reading →

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THE TERROR

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

There is something huge out there in the dark. Something vast and terrible and relentless that will not let you escape. It demands your attention. It wants you to worship it. Yes Dan Simmons’ new book is so huge it’s … Continue reading →

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WORKING FOR THE DEVIL

Posted on February 23, 2011 by

It’s only fair to Lilith Saintcrow that I begin this review by admitting that I fall well outside the target demographic for Working for the Devil. This novel’s tale of spunky women battling/shagging demons is targeted precisely at a post-Buffy … Continue reading →

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