(courtesy Allen & Unwin Australia) The weight of life upon us can often be considerable; but for many people, it is not until a sudden event or change of heart hits them that they become aware of just great a load they are carrying. For some people, of course, it Continue Reading
Books
“We act – or we lose.” The stakes couldn’t be higher as Foundation season 3 debuts its arresting first trailer
(courtesy First Showing (c) AppleTV+) SNAPSHOTBased on the award-winning sci-fi novels by Isaac Asimov, Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilisation amid the fall of the Galactic Empire. The premise of the stories is that, in the waning days of a Continue Reading
Book review: Letters to our Robot Son by Cadance Bell
(courtesy Ultimo Press) I know, I know, I KNOW that you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover (unless you’re part of a publishing company’s marketing team in which case that’s all you want to do). BUT, and in the case of Letters to our Robot Son by Continue Reading
Book review: Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) by Martha Wells
(courtesy Tor Publishing Group) There have been more than a few stories of artificial lifeforms who have ended up being considerably more human than their creators. But is there anyone more human than the eponymous protagonist of this marvellous series by Martha Wells, a robot created to enforce, with extreme Continue Reading
Book review: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) Watching a writer’s journey is often a gloriously fascinating thing. Going from an impressive debut to successive novels that build upon actual realisation and beguiling promise, many writers go from strength-to-strength, honing their talent and their gift for evocative wordsmithing into something that leaves you breathless Continue Reading
Book review: Exodus: The Archimedes Engine #1: Become the Traveler by Peter F. Hamilton
(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) There is an enormous luxury and sense of expansive indulgence that comes with settling into a sci-fi epic that stretches for almost 900 pages. That sense of narrative pleasure only grows greater still when the author who has penned this magnificent space operatic masterpiece is Peter Continue Reading
Book review: Down in the Sea of Angels by Khan Wong
(courtesy Penguins Books Australia) A preview of this novel was provided by Angry Robot Books in return for a free and fair review. Plunging into any fictional book is an act of active and engaged imagination. It can’t not be; here you have a story that recounts events that have Continue Reading
Book review: Cheddar Luck Next Time by Beth Cato
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) A digital preview copy of Cheddar Luck Next Time provided by Angry Robot Books Books in return for an honest and objective review; the novel released 8 April 2025. Cosy mysteries are becoming quite the thing. It makes sense – we live in a world rapidly Continue Reading
Easter book review: Friends of Dorothy by Sandi Toksvig
(courtesy Hachette Australia) While this book is not set at Easter, it carries themes of redemption and renewal, and of love and connection which surely are at the heart of this most redemptive of seasons … If you ask most people, they would tell you that they are very nicely Continue Reading
Book review: The Montegiallo School of Swearing by Andrew HC McDonald
(courtesy The Fremantle Press) Reinventing your life is no easy thing. Oh everyone dreams of Eat. Pray.Love.-ing the hell of their tired, meaningless or traumatically disrupted lives, but dreaming of it happening is far easier than taking the concrete steps necessary to manifest it in the real world. But sometimes Continue Reading