Books

One of the inestimable joys of well-written speculative fiction, which encompasses a broad range of genres including fittingly for this review, futuristic, is how it turns an engaging premise into a story so believably and immersively well-executed that it feels as real as the seat you are reading the book Continue Reading

Is it ever too late to change your life? If you were to ask Veronica McCreedy at the start of Hazel Prior’s (Ellie and the Harp Maker) charmingly redemptive novel Away With the Penguins, you would likely receive a snappy, tart reply that “Of course it is! How could you Continue Reading

Tenacity is an amazing thing. It speaks of the ability to face up to the very worst of things, to know how terrible and existentially exhausting they are, to know you could run away and leave an intolerable situation far behind … and yet NOT. What propels you to hang Continue Reading

At the heart of every space epic, the really good ones anyway, there has to be a thread of vibrant, affecting humanity. Being taken to strange and exotic worlds in the midst of enticing galaxies far beyond the banality of 21st century day-to-day life is a compelling reason to read Continue Reading

There are books you read and appreciate, ones that draw you in and compel you to finish them but which for all their narrative appeal and readability, don’t really grab a hold off your heart in ways so profound you are thinking about them long after you have finished them. Continue Reading

Coming up with an approach to fantasy storytelling that is so compellingly fresh that you spend much of a story excited about where it’s all going to lead is a very rare thing indeed, especially given the explosion in popularity of the genre over recent years. Actor (Black Sails, Never Continue Reading

Humanity, you have been judged and found wanting. By a 13,000-year-old extinct mammoth fossil no less. While that revelation may be sobering, the good news is that the judgement is delivered by the extraordinarily imaginative novel, Mammoth by Chris Flynn, a book which takes the traditional anthropocentric view of the Continue Reading

One of the reasons many of us read is to be taken to places and realities far beyond our own and to get to know people who otherwise might never be a part of our lives. It is enormous privilege to be given the chance to dive into a world Continue Reading

Diving headlong into a sequel novel without first reading the book that preceded it can be fraught with all kinds of difficulties. This is especially the case, when like this reviewer, you are unaware that the novel you have next on your TBR pile follows on from a well-received predecessor Continue Reading