Tag: 2013

  • REVIEW: THE ROOK BY DANIEL O’MALLEY

    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 why. The Rook is the story of Myfanwy Thomas, holder of the eponymous title in […]

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  • REVIEW: THE PEACOCK CLOAK BY CHRIS BECKETT

    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 the stories grip you by the throat, “Atomic Truth”, the first in this collection, is […]

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  • REVIEW: EXISTENCE BY DAVID BRIN

    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 might say it caused something of an Existential crisis. Boiled down to its basics, Brin’s […]

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  • THE ART OF POLITICAL FUTILITY

    Last night my Twitter feed filled, briefly, with closely cropped images of protestors in V for Vendetta/Guy Fawkes masks making some noise outside the Houses of Parliament and comments criticising the BBC for not covering what was, obviously, an epoch-making event[ref]Of course the BBC did cover the demonstration – but this was considered insufficient[/ref]. I […]

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  • REVIEW OF STRANGE BODIES AT ARCFINITY

    My review of Marcel Theroux’s new novel, Strange Bodies, is online now at Arcfinity. When this arrived in the post I realised that I had actually read Theroux’s previous novel – the Clarke Award nominated Far North – but had absolutely no recollection of what it was about. I spotted it on the shelf, reread […]

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  • REVIEW OF CURVE OF THE EARTH ON ARCFINITY

    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 form and I still want to find out what Morden has in store for Samuil […]

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  • SOLARIS RISING 2 AND ME

    So busy with stuff I hadn’t noticed that the table of contents for Solaris Rising 2 had been announced. I’m chuffed to be in this book alongside a list of very fine writers. I’m only slightly worried that I’m the one whose been stuck in to make everyone else look good. Still, it’s a very […]

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