Books

  First Contact in science fiction storytelling is normally an eminently serious undertaking, with the meeting of alien and human usually presaging some great generation-defining moment that may be good or bad but is never less than gravely portentous. In Kylie Chan’s Scales of Empire, a sci-fi novel and the Continue Reading

  Who hasn’t, at one time or another, wished for a little more magic in their lives? In Robert Dinsdale’s The Toymakers, there is fantastically magical realism in abundance but you end up questioning much of the time, even in a book as beautiful as this often but not always Continue Reading

  There is a tendency to see comedians are endlessly, blissfully happy people, full to the brim with bonhomie and good cheer, their minds, and souls, a captivating whirl of good thoughts, humourous observations and pithy, funny oneliners. But as Robin Williams proved all too devastatingly, that is often far Continue Reading

  Ah humanity, you are a contrary and wondrously messed-up beast. Ream upon ream is written is written by adventure-hungry mortals seeking a life far bigger and more exciting than the one already possessed, film upon film lifts supposed nothings out of the banal trappings of the everyday only to Continue Reading

  We live in an often cruel and unforgiving world. Thankfully in the midst of all the Darwinian madness and the transgressions of fallible humanity, both our own and those of our fellow human beings, there are kind and generous people who understand that what might be needed is less Continue Reading

  Life isn’t very good with second chances. We wish it was, and many is the time we reflect back on an incident, big or small, innocuous or catastrophic and wish we could have said something different, done something unexpected, or frankly, not gone through the whole thing. But life Continue Reading

  Ah, the endlessly expansive possibilities of youth! There are a lot of things in our younger years that might make us cringe – the lack of knowledge about life, stunted self-awareness, naive belief in the goodness of others – but there’s one thing that we likely still have a Continue Reading

  The Feed, Nick Clark Windo’s brilliantly-chilling debut novel, is predicated on a simply though wholly terrifying idea – what if all knowledge, every last skerrick of understanding and know-how, every warm-and-fuzzy memory and emotional connection suddenly ceased to exist? What then? What would we do? How would we survive? And Continue Reading

  In this self-actualised age in which we live, we are sold the idea over and over that we can have anything we want if we just want it hard enough. Kind of like wearing down the universe until it caves in and grants us undying happiness, peace, contentment, and Continue Reading

  Alternate histories are an interesting fiction genre. Emboldened by the endless openendedness of “What if?”, they surge forward along an entirely new part of the time/space continuum, merrily playing Sliding Doors with history, asking us to imagine how different the world would be if one crucial aspect at one Continue Reading