Martin McGrath
Welcome to my website. I intend to use this space to hold forth on things like politics, books, technology, films and anything else that interests or irritates me.
You can also use this site to see examples of some of the work I've done as journalist, writer and designer. I'm available for freelance work and my rates are competitive and negotiable for good causes.
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Tag Archives: Vector
REVIEW: CITY OF BOHANE BY KEVIN BARRY
This piece was written as part of the BSFA’s Vector Reviewers’ Poll for 2011. Vector reviewers get to nominate their five favourite books of the previous year. In 2011 my five were: Silver Wind, Nina Allan (Eibonvale Press) City of … Continue reading
REVIEW OF THE HAMMER BY KJ PARKER
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
BACK TO THE VORTEX

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
Posted in Journalism, Other reviews, Review
Tagged books, reviews, sf, Vector
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WORKING FOR THE DEVIL

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
Posted in Journalism, Other reviews, Review
Tagged books, reviews, sf, Vector
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LISEY’S STORY

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
Posted in Journalism, Other reviews, Review
Tagged books, reviews, sf, Vector
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DEATH’S HEAD

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
LAND OF THE HEADLESS

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
Posted in Journalism, Other reviews, Review
Tagged books, reviews, sf, Vector
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THE TERROR

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
Posted in Journalism, Other reviews, Review
Tagged books, reviews, sf, Vector
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TAU 4

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
5 GREAT NOVELS BY PHILIP K DICK

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
Posted in Journalism, Other reviews, Review
Tagged books, reviews, sf, Vector
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