Dan
Indie snobbery as comics. This is a decent introduction to the world of Phonomancers (magicians who use music as their fuel), but stick around, the second volume is miles better.
My mum's favourite now mine. I don't know how to describe it because it is so amazingly good. Some of the English used is out of date now and some words people might not know as they are not used now.
Anne forever.
Another entertaining historical / medical crime thriller from this duo. This one has a lot to do with stage magicians, which works as a nifty metaphor for crime fiction itself - yes, you can see one of the twists coming a mile off, but that's because the authors are making you look at this one thing in front of you while they're doing something else over there. A fun read.
Be warned, this one is a slow burn. At 20% or so I was considering DNFing, but I perservered and I'm very glad I did so. It comes together and builds beautifully, and the last quarter or so is superb. Some wonderful lyrical nature writing, and boundless compassion and empathy for a wide range of lives.
it's the same indie snobbery as before, full of the same asexual losers loudly proclaiming how they really understand pop music, but what sets this apart from the usual Everett True wannabes is the structure. It describes one night in a Bristol club and each chapter /issue has a different viewpoint character experiencing the same events from their own perspective. Very clever and very well done. Hell, it even made me dig out a Long Blondes album for the first time this century.
An Asian-American take on American Psycho. It's a fast and fun read, but ultimately disposable. One to get from the library when you need to pass a few hour suit not a keeper
it's good, but it's no
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/70487.Attack_of_the_Deranged_Mutant_Killer_Monster_Snow_Goons?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=dTc1aM1CAr&rank=1
Literary writers who dip their toes in science fictional waters can often become unstuck. Ishiguro is too good a writer to make a complete hash of this one, but it's still the least satisfying of his novels I've read. The central conceit is interesting, although not nearly as mysterious from the outset as the author would like us to think, but the real problems are in the plot and narrative, which are both very slight. There's barely any actual story here, and the narration is just too limpid and accepting of a fate that I'd expect to provoke rage and rebellion. It's all a bit vague and wafty, as evinced by the way you can see the central idea as an allegory for pretty much anything if you squint at it hard enough. Is it about racism? Or is it an indictment of capitalism and our unthinking consumption of resources? It could be a pro-vegetarian argument against industrial farming or perhaps an attempt to illustrate the class divide in modern Britain. There isn't enough in the book to firmly nail its colours to any of these masts, and the reader is left to apply her own prejudices to the set up in order to read it as anything other than a straight narrative.
I'm moaning more than I mean to here. I didn't hate reading this at all, and the pages kept turning quickly. Ishiguro is still an excellent prose stylist, and the evocation of place here, from an old fashioned boarding school to modern but run down facilities to house these people we don't want clogging up our regular lives (oooh, add maybe it's a metaphor for asylum seekers to the list above) is excellent. In the end, this is nowhere near his best work, but below par Ishiguro is still way ahead of the pack.
Look, this is the third book in the series. You're not reading this review if you're curious to know what it's about, you want to know if Tchaikovsky can stick the landing. And, boy, have I got good news for you.
Lords Of Uncreation triumphantly crowns one of the best space opera series of recent years. There are exciting action sequences, both cosmic and hand to hand (the set piece almost exactly halfway through the book is spectacular). The implacable, unknowable, hostile aliens from another dimension aren't a disappointing damp squib (hello, The Expanse!). The characters we've come to know through the last two books all get their fair share of screen time, and their storylines mostly tie up satisfactorily. It's a great conclusion to a great series, and some of the most fun I've had with SF in a good while.
This isn't funny like Paul Murrays's previous books, but it's not supposed to be, as far as I can tell anyway. It's a big state of the nation book, reflecting contemporary Ireland, city and small town, through the lens of one family. Murray has a fantastic knack of getting in people's heads, and the different narrative voices here are all superbly done. It's a terrific book, right up until the last page, where events have been building and coming together in an excellently orchestrated set piece...and then it just stops, literally seconds before a resolution. I can see that there's a literary point to be made by doing so, but from a storytelling perspective it is unbelievably annoying. If I'd been reading a physical copy it'd have been yeeted across the room.
Jen Williams writes some of the best fantasy going at the moment, and a new series from her is something to be celebrated. This is up to her usual standards, with some intriguing world building, likeable characters, snappy dialogue and disparate plot strands that promise to weave together in interesting and unforeseen ways. I have one tiny complaint though. It's a bugbear of mine when authors fictionalise real places and only change the spelling very slightly, and this book is guilty of it - Kornwullis for Cornwall, Londus for London etc. I HATE IT. Just think of a new name! Nobody complains that Guy Gavriel Kay's books aren't set in Spane or Itallya! That misstep aside, this is a lot of fun, and I'll be looking out for the next one.
Descendant Machine happens in the same universe as the author's previous novel Stars And Bones, but is significantly more upbeat and optimistic than that book (even if it does concern an existential threat to the entire universe). There's also no need to worry abut continuity, as it's a standalone story. Over his most recent novels, Powell has carved out a distinct area to operate in, a kind of rip-roaring space opera that captures the sense of wonder feel of old school SF, but also maintains a modern sensibility that isn't afraid of a bit of political satire (the digs at nationalists and separatists here will resonate with anyone who has paid the tiniest bit of attention to recent British political history). Essentially it's an update on the classic 2000AD formula, which is high praise. This one centres on one of my favourite SF ideas, the Big Dumb Object (the name of which I'm pretty sure is an in-joke on the foreign title of one of his previous novels). There's intrigue, action, and cosmic awe aplenty, and it's a fast easy read that has enough propulsion to keep you turning the pages without stopping to think “hang on a minute, what about...”. I suspect Powell had a lot of fun writing it (apart from the horror story described in an afterword), and I certainly had a lot of fun reading it.
I think this may be it for me and the New Management. I didn't enjoy the previous book at all, and while this one starts much more promisingly with atmospheric scene setting and character introductions, once the plot kicks in it devolves into incoherent nonsense. Perhaps it's all a clever metatextual game, where Stross is showing us what it would be like to live under a sorcerous reign of terror run by beings far beyond our comprehension via a novel full of non sequiturs, important stuff that seems to happen between sentences, random poorly illustrated motivations and a great big whimper of a climax. Or maybe it's just not a very good book.
An enthralling read. Occupied Rome is vividly rendered and the characters are well drawn and distinct. The dual timeline structure feeds cleverly into the narrative, giving us access to information that the 1943 characters don't yet know, and this helps O'Connor to conjure a great deal of tension, culminating in a pulse pounding night time journey through the city. The final revelation that it is based on a true story is the cherry on the cake.
DNF after 250 pages. Would-be philosophical sub-Matrix guff and an unhealthy obsession with sexual violence.
Aaaand we're back for another adventure with the eccentric employees of The Stranger Times. McDonnell writes with a lot of warmth, and his worldview, which celebrates ordinary humanity while excoriating its worse excesses, is not a million miles from Terry Pratchett's (who gets a namecheck here). Once again, this is is an entertaining and lively read, with a cast of characters you will be rooting for. A lot of fun, and I hope there are many more to come.
Tough one, this. As always with Cronin, it's very readable, with fleshed out characters and an intrigue pulls you through the pages as if they were nothing. But the whole thing hinges on a revelation about three quarters of the way through....and that twist just didn't work for me. It's technically clever, and it illuminates some of the choices made around writing style earlier in the book and answers the niggles I had in those scenes, but emotionally and intellectually it just made me shrug. It would be the most heinous act of spoilerdom to say any more of course, but I was deflated and reminded of other books with similar premises afterwards. If it clicks for you then great, you're going to love this one, but it feels like a missed opportunity to me. A 2.5 I think, rounded up to 3 for the good times.
This one cranked up that sense of wonder circuit in my head, the one that used to light up all the time when I was a thirteen year old SF nut but fires less and less frequently these days. It felt like the stuff that blew my mind when I was young, although that's not to say it's dated or childish, It's just a lot of fun. Looking forward to the next volume!
I was attracted to this one because I really enjoyed the author's previous novel
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23346800-creative-truths-in-provincial-policing
which was a light hearted and surreal farce set in the exotic climes of Vietnam. This one isn't any of those things, but is instead the story of a woman having a terrible time during the WWII occupation of Poland. An afterword explains that it's very close to home for the author, being inspired by the experiences of her grandmother. While it's uncomfortably vivd in the depiction of misery, there is also hope and endurance here, alongside a cast of engaging and believable characters. The contrast with her earlier book demonstrates that Lichtarowicz has a considerable range and taking the two together she should really be better known than she is.
This one has all my favourite elements, legends of rural folk horror passed down the ages, the threat of Lovecraftian Old Gods, and unstoppable marauding inhuman monsters. Couple that with some well-drawn, believable and sympathetic characters, a sharp sense of location and a knack fro conveying atmosphere and you've got a really strong horror novel, the best I've read since Will McLean's Apparition Phase.
A good read on experimental music and over exuberant partying. Loses a star because it could have been a bit more in depth in parts, and things that I'd like to have known more about end up being skipped over. Loses another for finishing about ten years ago and not taking us up to date (although the event used as the capstone is a fitting end, and Stuarts's writing about it is some of the best in the book). But then it gets a star back for reminding me about Club Quattro in Shibuya, and another for the memories of Reading 1991 - from his description of the bands he saw, it appears that Stuart was following me about all weekend (I'm not the racist, I must add). And, why not, let's give it another star just because Mogwai Fear Satan is so huge.
I loved Children Of Time, and was a bit cooler towards Children Of Ruin, so this one had the potential to swing the series either way for me. It turns out this isn't really the right way to look at it. It's a different beast from those two books, set in the same universe with some returning characters, but the uplift elements are almost incidental. For the first third or so, I thought I was going to be looking at a two-star review. The book initially appeared to be a mess, over obscure and unsympathetic. But soon the realisation came that the author has been putting pieces in place to spring his trap, and as what exactly is going on began to come into focus my enjoyment levels shot up. If you can persevere through the opening then there are worthwhile rewards here.
It's not a lovable book, suffused as it is with pessimism and a cynical (you might say realistic) view of human nature. But it is a clever one, with an excellent SFnal mystery at its heart. I get the feeling this is one I will enjoy having read more than I did actually reading it.
This one just didn't grab me at all, which is a shame as fantasy / horror based on rural folklore is one of my favourite things. It's tonally inconsistent, and the story wasn't involving. Lovely cover though.