Tag Archives: Book Reviews

Tomorrow And Tomorrow book review . Not so long ago, cyberpunk felt as dated as camo trousers and wallet chains. But with the rise of devices like Google Glass and the Oculus Rift, the genre is suddenly finding a fresh relevance. Enter Thomas Sweterlitsch’s debut. Ten years ago, Pittsburgh was …

Joss Whedon: Geek King Of The Universe review . “Joss Whedon’s career is a testament to defeat,” says this biography. Gasp! How dare they? But the point, of course, is that the fact Whedon weathered those defeats and kept on fighting made him the success he is today – like …

Bird Box by Josh Malerman book review . It’s a little surprising that Josh Malerman’s debut is set to become a movie. Its characters spend so much time stumbling about in total darkness, it feels like radio would be a more natural fit. An unknown force has led to an …

Cat Out Of Hell by Lynne Truss book review . Dogs may be man’s best friend, but everyone knows that cats are evil, right? The eyes, the yowling, the obvious belief that humans are their servants? Well, maybe. Alec Charlesworth, a grieving widower, is sent a collection of files which …

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer book review . Trust no one – not even yourself. That’s reasonable advice to follow when exploring Area X – the setting of the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. The region has been cut off from the rest of the world for decades …

The Black Guard book review . Like a blindfolded mugger that’s been spun around several times and pointed in the wrong direction, The Black Guard , the first in AJ Smith’s meticulously planned Long War series, takes a while to grab you. After Ro Canarn is brutally sacked by colourful …

Strange Bodies by Marcel Theroux review . “Am I just a body?” asks the four-year-old daughter of Nicholas Slopen, unfortunate protagonist of Marcel Theroux’s metaphysical thriller Strange Bodies . The answer Slopen gives us, the reader, “not even that”, is less than comforting. The quest to discover what it is …

Written by James P Blaylock Published by Titan Books • £7.99 Langdon St Ives, gentleman, scientist and adventurer, is having a bad day. A favour for the Royal Society has ended not only in a death but the loss of the priceless notebooks he was asked to procure and whilst …

The Explorer by James Smythe book review: Journeying into inner space. With an atmosphere siphoned straight from SF cinema’s cerebral classics, The Explorer is a glaring homage to the likes of Moon , Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey . The long distance vessel Ishiguro is on a highly-publicised assignment …

The Man From Primrose Lane book review : Meta murder mystery mayhem. Some books are a pain to review. The Man From Primrose Lane is such a book. 99% of the pleasure of reading it is discovering the swerve-balls and twists it has to throw your way. They start about …