Tag: sf

  • AYCKBOURN’S ARTIFICIAL PEOPLE

    McGrath, Martin (2017) “Ayckbourn’s Artificial People.” Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction, 46 (128) . pp. 60-72. ISSN 0306-4964 This article explores how Alan Ayckbourn’s science fiction, in particular the use of androids/gynoids in the plays Henceforward… (1987), Comic Potential (1998) and Surprises (2012), casts light on the themes that run throughout his work. […]

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  • BOOK REVIEW: ESCAPOLOGY BY REN WAROM

    BOOK REVIEW: ESCAPOLOGY BY REN WAROM

    Escapology by Ren Warom (Titan Books, 2016) If I reveal that the characters in Escapology, Ren Warom’s first novel, have names such as Amiga, Shock, Twist and Deuce then some of you will immediately deduce a great deal more about the book. You’ll intuit that this is an everyday story of hacker folk. You may […]

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

    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 follow shortly. Bennett R Coles is a former Canadian naval officer. His first two novels […]

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  • REVIEW: AURORA RISING/THE PREFECT BY ALASTAIR REYNOLDS

    The latest issue (no. 3) of the BSFA Review is out, and it contains my review of Alastair Reynolds’ Aurora Rising (previously released as The Prefect). This is a slightly extended version. I jumped into the ebook of Alastair Reynolds’ Aurora Rising without glancing at the cover or paying any attention to any publicity or […]

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  • GENRE HIGHLIGHT OF 2017 – OCCUPY AVENGERS #8

    The BSFA’s Vector Review of 2017 was delivered today, which includes a piece I wrote on the bit of genre reading that stuck in my mind most clearly in the past year. I chose a few panels from a crossover comic book. The piece got a bit mangled in the production process (some repeated text […]

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  • REVIEW: THE HIGH GROUND BY MELINDA SNODGRASS

    The High Ground by Melinda Snodgrass (Titan Books, 2016) When I was a child I loved the breakfast cereal Ready Brek – instant porridge whose television advertisements used to feature a young boy protected from the winter elements by a warm glow of healthy goodness. I would eat Ready Brek for breakfast, supper and, basically, […]

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

    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 their relatives needed the jobs Sovo would provide. There was something of a class divide […]

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  • BOOK REVIEW: OCCUPY ME BY TRICIA SULLIVAN

    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 something literal and/or metaphorical, but also true of the book itself – it feels as […]

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  • DAVID RAIN: A SMALL REMEMBRANCE

    Back at the end of 2010 I interviewed David Rain for the British Science Fiction Association’s Focus (no.54, 2011) – a magazine for writers. David was programme leader for the MA in Creative Writing at Middlesex University, which was at that time unique in having a science fiction thread to its teaching, and I was a […]

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  • REVIEW: DARK STAR BY OLIVER LANGMEAD

    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 is very noir, almost pitch black) in the form of an epic poem? And who, […]

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