Graham

When military sci-fi is mentioned, Starship Troopers inevitably comes up as one of the type examples of this genre. Robert Heinlein's classic of the genre has been debated many times - does it glorify the military too much? I think that debate has been had enough and I am not really the best person to ask around it. More to the point for me is - is this a good book?

The novel follows the story of a member of the Mobile Infantry - the Starship Trooper of the title. It follows his career across the training and various engagements that lead to a climactic battle against the ‘bugs'. In many ways this is a standard war novel - you can see similar stories of training and combat in real world scenarios. The Sci-Fi aspects in some ways are fairly incidental.

Of the Heinlein's I have read, this one had the style that has aged the most gracefully. Whilst some of the themes in say Stranger in a Strange Land have not aged well, the power of the military-industrial complex is still as relevant today as it was back in the 1950s. I quite enjoyed this and as a dive into more classic SciFi this was a pleasant trip

Sometimes you just need some pulpy fun. Live Girls is definitely pulpy. It has to be one of the sleeziest takes on the vampire tale out there. Here the vampires work in a sex club - their way of bringing in the punters. Vampires are meant to be sexy, seductive huntresses, and this is a clever way of bringing them into the modern world.

The setting is very rooted in its time period - Time Square is of course very different now than it was back in the 1980s - but this type of sleeze still can be found in parts of the world.

Ultimately the book is mainly just fun. It is silly, sleezy and never going to be called a classic piece of prose. It is still a great read!

Ah, Girton. How I want to throttle you sometimes. This book manages an impressive feat - it manages to make the main protagonist/hero extremely unlikeable at times with his sheer idiocy but at the same time strangely relatable and sympathetic.

Essentially a fantasy whodunnit, we follow Girton Clubfoots progress across the war ravaged land he lives in, his battles with controlling magic (which behaves in very dangerous ways in this world) and battles controlling his own prejudices. This time Girton is tasked with finding a spy. It is dark, gritty and brutal - the world here definitely takes no prisoners.

Despite the frustrations that Girton brings, you can't help but be drawn into his story, his very human failings and I cannot wait to see where it progresses from here.

This reads as a more literary take on crime fiction. I am not the biggest fan of literary fiction - I find it overly verbose and dry and unfortunately this suffers from its pretentions. I like my genre fiction to be told in a punchy way, and this does not have that. It almost has a gothic feel at times, but somehow it falls a bit flat on that too.

Opening with the discovery of 16 horse heads the tale follows a specialist animal crime consultant trying to unravel the mysteries of a dying coastal town. The setting is dreary and grim and a level of suspense and horror is generated as the cruelties present in the town are uncovered. There is a lot of potential in the stories being told.

Unfortunately it all struggled to get passed the overly written prose for me.

I can see where the comparisons with Harry Potter come from for this book - a magic world hidden in the human one is definitely a theme lifted directly from that. But there is a darkness and more claustrophobic feel than HP ever generated in this.

We follow the story of Anna, a witch being raised by her aunt. Her aunt is a powerful witch in her own right but has a puritanical bent. The magic system we are introduced to is fascinating, with multiple languages of magic that allow the witches to cast there spells. The aunt here is an obsessive with what is called knot magic - and tries to enforce this as the only type of magic being used.

Anna's world is opened up when Effie and Attis enter her life. Forming a coven at school she begins to discover the world of magic out there, and also some of the dark secrets of her own family.

This is a refreshing take on the school age magician. It has a nice level of darkness and is definitely one of the better YA's I have read in a while!

The penultimate book in a story arc is always a challenging one. Everything needs to be set up for a grand finale so there tends to be a fair amount of character positioning and story prep. Rhythm of War is the 4th book in a 5 book first arc of the Stormlight Archives and has a lot of ground to cover. The main POV character who had previously all be brought together are now scattered apart to fulfill some key tasks. The war which has been going on is not exactly going brilliantly for our heroes - the fused are essentially immortal so a war of attrition is a bad one to be in. These are all challenging positions to tell and keep the reader interested - especially over a 1200 page book! Sanderson is however a master of the epic fantasy genre and holds together all his threads, keeps the reader interested and delivers a mightily impressive take on this, usually the most challenging book in a series.

I don't feel I need to rehash my praise of Sanderson's world building and character work - if you have got this far into such a massive series you should well be aware of it. He is a master of his craft and this is probably the best epic fantasy currently being written. Note: Stormlight Archives need to be read in order. I see too many reviewers of fantasy books starting in the middle of a series and then complaining about being confused. DO NOT START READING THE SERIES WITH THIS BOOK. Do yourself a favour and start from the beginning (The Way of Kings). Epic fantasy needs to be read this way. Sanderson has been clever enough to split his Cosmere into several self contained story arcs, but each arc needs to be taken as a total story and you can't jump in mid arc.

The Auctioneer is having a bit of a renaissance at the moment. Much lauded at the time of its release, the untimely death of its author left it being forgotten before a string of recent rereleases have brought it back into the discussion. This is a classic take on the city versus countryside. Set in small town rural America, it plays on the sense of community that is present in those type of places and the ease there is for it to be abused.

In this story we follow a family living on the edge of a farming community. When a slick city person moves to town and asks for donations for an auction to raise money for improving the police force, they donate generously. This community spirit becomes the mechanism of self destruction in the end as the levers of power are gradually coopted by the newcomers and the community ripped apart.

This is a slow burner of a novel. It focuses very much on the horror that humans can do to one another, how easy it is for institutions to be corrupted. Clever in its own way, it unfortunately did not really hit the spot for me. I can respect what it does, but it was just a bit too slow for me.

The Revenger series is a fun slightly more YA take on SciFi from Alastair Reynolds. We follow the Ness sisters - both of whom are sensitive to using bones as a way of long distance communication across space. Shadow Captain follows on closely from the first book, with the sisters reunited and now in command of the Revenger, the feared pirate ship. This brings its own problems - this vessel is very recognizable and public enemy number one. They need to resupply and somehow clear the name of the vessel they are on...

This is fun space opera. The science is not as hard as Alastair Reynolds better known Revelation Space universe, the characters are more in the YA vein of young adults, but there are still some very adult themes dealt with so this cannot be called a true YA book either. Mostly this is just fun, taking the best parts from all styles.

There are plenty of interesting twists and turns, some fascinating universe building along with references to more typical cyberpunk style futurism. The whole concept of Baubles is fascinating too - a truly intriguing history that is hinted at. I am intrigued to find out where the next book takes us

This was the first book by Joe Lansdale that I have read and I'm not sure this was the best introduction. The stories cover quite a variety of topics, ranging from alt science to subtle takes on the vagaries of fame. There was little connecting sense of theme between the novellas included. The writing was interesting enough, the topics where sometimes sillier than others. It was an interesting dabble into a mind that obviously has plenty of weird and wild ideas. I think I need to try one of his novels to see how the ideas carry through a bit more though.

I think in these pandemic times the idea of apocalyptic plague takes on fresh horror and meaning. That being said, I haven't found what I would call a perfect rendition of this yet. Wanderers does come closer than some in having a believable plague with an interesting exploration in the corresponding collapse in society. The super AI guiding humanity to safety was however a weak point for me in that the required suspension of disbelief was too high - how could humans walk for weeks on end without any sustenance? It just does not work for me. However the story was epic enough to get passed these hurdles and the denouement was satisfying.

It is hard to avoid discussing this book without talking about the elephant in the room that is Stephen King's The Stand. I read The Stand earlier this year and found the quasi-mysticism of the ending very underwhelming. Wanderers treads similar pathways but is more satisfying for taking a slightly more sciencey approach. It is still quite a long way from a perfect plague book for me - the super AI theme felt very forced - but the overall story structure was definitely better than its better known King cousin. These books are similar in many ways but for me Wendig stuck the landing better.

Very impressive! This reads at times like some of the historical TV soaps from China - somewhat silly and overly dramatic but at the same time a huge amount of fun, poignant and playing out across one of the key periods of turmoil in Chinese history. The search for identity and destiny are the key plot drivers. The genderqueer protagonists give one element of that - they are searching to find themselves. The whole thing is played across a civil war - essentially the whole country trying to find its identity too.

This is historical fantasy at its best, taking real events and subtly twisting them with a fantastical element. The fantasy is subtle, the stakes are real and the drama is on point. I can see where the comparisons are to the Poppy War - this book does not back away from the brutality inherent in war and it is a historical fantasy set in China, but for me that is where the comparisons end - it is a very different period being dealt with, the fantasy is not as in your face and the writing styles are quite different. There is more wit to Shelley's writing - a nod perhaps to the aforementioned Chinese TV shows - and the themes are more subtly portrayed. I do love them both but they are very different beasts.

Easily one of the best historical fantasy novels I have read, from any setting. So far my top read of the year.

I love Sci Fi and I love Fantasy, but where they intersect I often struggle. Every Sky a Grave is very much in the Science Fantasy subgenre. We have a galaxy spanning empire, ruled over by a carefully balanced power intersection between the military and a quasi-mystical group who can destroy a planet with a word.

Here we follow an agent of the word, someone who can bring a collapse in planet with a phrase. She is sent on missions to excise planets which are deviating from the plan of the ruling authorities. Usually she is given a chance to refresh and recuperate between missions, but this time she is rushed out on a new mission personally sanctioned by the leader of her organization. This breach in protocol is just the start and we end up questioning the entire basis for the society that is being presented.

The space opera scope is undeniable, but I struggled a bit with the balance between our agents awesome power and her struggles on the ground. The political dimension is intriguing, but ultimately very convoluted. A lot of the motivations ended up confused. The concept and scope are brilliant - the execution ended up a little lost in its own grandeur. Ultimately this isn't a bad book. The fantasy elements of this however left me struggling with the more science fiction aspects and vice versa. I am quite picky with my science fantasy novels!

This is one of those books that the film is so well known that the book has kind of faded from the discourse a bit. This is a shame. Blatty's novel is an impressively ambiguous critique on faith vs science. I am probably a bit unusual in approaching this book without having seen the film. It is well written with a nice readable prose.

From what I have heard, the book manages to be significantly more ambiguous than the film. The film leaves you in little doubt that there is a devil possessing Reagan. The book is much more open to interpretation, and deliberately plays up that ambiguity - the conflict of science vs faith is central to the story being told here. The eeriness, tension and fear is all still here, but there is always an open question on whether this can be explained using science.

I do need to go and watch the film now - I honestly don't know how I have gone through 35 years of life without seeing it. I am intrigued to see how it compares with the novel, but the clips I have seen do seem to push the supernatural to the forefront compared to original novel

I can kind of respect the idea behind this - using a character with FASD is a brave move. I can see the potential for a heartwarming story here. Did this book work for me? Not really. Might it work for other people? Perhaps.

The basic premise follows one of those oft repeated maxims of story telling - write about what you know. In this case, the author has chosen to set it literally in a writing workshop. It uses some of the other classic maxims as its themes, such as ‘show, don't tell'. Unfortunately, whilst preaching about these things it does tend to ignore them quite a lot. In fact to me quite a lot of the setting and theming came across a little bit lazy - even the character name ‘Hope Nicely' feels kind of lazy.

Where the author has put in the effort is in the research into FASD. I can believe that Hope Nicely is suffering from this and it is clear from her notes that she has researched this topic properly. The next question for me is how that affects me as the reader - the problem with reading from the perspective of a character who is perpetually confused is that the reader then ends up very confused.

To me this is a nice idea, but it doesn't quite work. It ends up being a bit lazy and confused.

Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan continues much where he left off with the Gutter Prayer. The Shadow Saint continues our exploration of the wildly inventive steampunk fantasy that was introduced in The Gutter Prayer. This is a world where modern marvels create dangerous weapons and advanced transportation, but at the same time gods battle each other with their saints walking as avatars of their power across the world.

The Shadow Saint takes us a bit more outside of Guerdon, the main city that was the focus of the first book and introduces the empire of Old Haith (a land of necromancy) into the mix along with bringing the Godswar closer to the shores and even into the city.

The real star of the show here is just the sheer inventiveness of Gareth's mind. He is able to conjure the madness of gods into a world with steampunk sensibilities which creates this phenomenal melting pot of chaos. The addition of Haith, with its staid respect for history (which makes sense for a country where death is not the end), adds new layers to the world.

The Shadow Saint also manages to move us into a whole new set of viewpoints, yet the references to the viewpoints from the first book pervade and give the sense of continuity needed. The action starts up pretty close to the end of the previous book adding to that sense of continuity.

The Gutter Prayer remains one of the best debut novels I have read recently and this follow up is a worthy successor that adds further intrigue to the world.

A fascinatingly philosophical take on a ghost story.

The story is following the denizens of town approaching the one year anniversary of an accident that took the lives of 3 teenagers and left another permanently brain damaged. Only one survivor was largely unhurt. The accident happened during a police chase and the police officer involved has been left deeply affected as well. We follow the ghosts of the 3 who died, who are in turn following the people who were impacted by the crash. The subtext is that the ghosts who haunt you are largely made of your own mistakes, your own experiences. The trauma of the past is very much alive and the struggles to deal with the guilt is an especially strong theme.

This was a beautifully told story, deeply affecting in its subject matter. Losing children, friends or being the cause of an accident are deeply seated fears. Guilt is a powerful emotion. This is not a light read and the crushing sense of inevitability that is produced is fantastically powerful.

One of the tropiest of tropefests I have read in a while. A poor prodigy brought to a fancy school unleashes a devil from a secret book. With nods to pretty much every YA trope out there this is not the most original or creative story out there. The prose is written well enough but the storyline was predictable, the teenage angst annoying and I found it ticking most of my pet dislikes within the genre.

A curious title this - a novelization of a student film. John Carpenter of course has gone on to have much success and become a big name director, but Dark Star was his first cinema release. Alan Dean Foster is a renown author for novelizations and it says something about the base quality of the script that he has been able to produce a fairly impressive novel out of this. For reference, I have not seen the film.

Dark Star focuses on the crew of a spaceship tasked with destroying unstable planets ahead of human expansion in the galaxy. The plot focuses on the 4 (5?) crew on the ship. It is very much about the social relationships, isolationism and existential angst caused by prolonged travel with people you do not necessarily get on with. This is not action sci-fi but more a study in human loneliness.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read - a novelization of a film is always going to feel less developed than a true novel and this one is no exception, but Alan Dean Foster has done an impressive job of getting into the characters heads and fleshing them out. Not bad for a student film!

Vampires are one of those tropes that refuse to go out of fashion. Fortunately, they find ways of reinventing themselves to create that evolution of the monster itself. Kristoff's vampires are evil, violent, pitiless and much more in the classical mold than some of the recent iterations (this is most definitely not twilight). These are blood thirsty monsters who treat humans as chattel. They are very much at the top of the food chain.

There has been a trend in recent vampire stories to take a more urban fantasy approach. This necessitates a hiding in the shadows - the vampires of recent years have been somewhat pathetic creatures who cannot stand up to humanity. Transferring the story into a fantastical setting is a smart move in that sense - it allows the vampires to be omnipresent, visible and helps brings their monstrosity to the fore. The world we are in has been recently cursed into a kind of semidarkness allowing the vampires to roam 24 hours a day (although their power grows in the true night). The vampires are on the rise and apparently unstoppable. The one thing standing in their way is an order of half-breed vampires determined to stop them. Their vampire half allows them to counter the vampires with their own abilities. Their one vice - they need to smoke the blood of vampires to manage their own hunger for blood.

Empire of the Vampire is dark, cynical and bitter. The darkness is pervasive - the atmosphere, the sense of despair, the imbalance of power. This is not a happy read. Some of Kristoff's idioms do get a little abrasive at times - I am all for appropriate levels of swearing, but the use here is extremely gratuitous. I do love his dark humour though. The cynicism that pervades this is delicious

It is quite clear that Gemma Files is intimately aware of the Experimental Film output of Canada. An interestingly niche topic, she has managed to create a fascinating and creepy tale based on the potential for truth behind myth and the power of belief and knowledge whilst giving an interesting overview of this weird and wonderful bracket of filmography.

The story focuses on the search for some old films made at the dawn of cinema in Canada by a pioneering women cinematographer who had a fascination with obscure Slavic mythology and occultism. Dealing with obsession, mystery and jealousy this tale packs a decent punch, all playing out against the background of research into historic films.

This was my first read of Gemma Files work, and I was impressed by its erudite but readable prose. Her interest in the subject matter comes across well and you cannot help getting caught up in her enthusiasm. The Wendian myth that forms the basis for her horror plays out in an almost Lovecraftian way - the horror behind the veil as it were. An impressive creepy and educational tale

Naomi Novik's Scholomance is the Battle Royale version of Harry Potter. Definitely darker and more violent although the end of book 1 left things looking a bit on the up. The Last Graduate picks up pretty much where book 1 ended - El has helped cleanse the graduation halls and that means the number of evil magical creatures (‘mals') has dropped significantly. Now El and her friends are in their graduate year, working out how to survive the gauntlet.

This is definitely an antidote to the cloying sweetness of typical wizarding school type novels. Harry Potter may have popularized the trend, but this dark and snarky take is much more up my street. The threat in this second book is toned down a bit from the first - the power and alliances of El are better understood and controlled so you know the survival rate is going to be higher. But there is still a delicious darkness, a griminess that permeates everything in this world

Having heard so many people describe trips to Ikea as their idea of a nightmare, making an Ikea like store the setting for a cosmic horror novel really should have been done earlier. However, Grady Hendrix here has nailed the topic. A dark wit pervades everything here, from the tongue in cheek adverts for flat-pack furniture that gradually evolve into different items through the book, the references for how easy it is to get lost in these giant warehouses with a guided path through the store, the wonderfully inane corporate sloganeering and even the more direct references to its obvious inspiration in Ikea.

Hendrix's writing style is easy to digest, making this a nice easy read. The plot plays with tropes (the shop was built on the site of an ancient evil etc), the characters are likeable with good understandable motivations. Yes, the plot is a bit silly at times, but the tongue is firmly in cheek which all lends to the dark wit of the book. All in all an excellent read and a nice break from a lot of more meaty stuff I have been reading recently.

This is one of those classics that I really should have read way before now. F Scott Fitzgerald's most famous work and usually taken as the defining book of the jazz age. I was not one of those people who studied it at school and I have not seen any of the films but decided to pick up a copy to read now in my 30s. I have to admit I was impressed. The prose reads in a surprisingly modern way and really does capture the changing cultural mores of the time. Yes, I can get the criticism that not a huge amount happens, but that is besides the point - what does happen is written well and captures the life of the 1920s in a way that I have not seen any other book do.

This is a short novel, and worth a read to anyone who has an interest in that period in history or anyone who appreciates a well crafted story.

This book is essentially a love letter to ‘Lady Chatterley's Lover'. I have never read Lady Chatterley so maybe I am not the best target but it was nonetheless an interesting read, if a little bit meandering in places. The story jumps between several time frames, a couple within D.H. Lawrence's life and one during the trial of the book in the 1960s. Probably one of the most controversial pieces of literature out there, a lot of that controversy is based around the mores of the time it was written, so putting it in its historical context was interesting. That being said, the parts of the book dealing with the trial were definitely more interesting than the sections about the life of D.H. Lawrence. Lawrence led a somewhat sad life and there is a decided melancholy to the sections describing it. They do tend to drag for me somewhat though. The trial section tends to have more thrust as there is more at stake and ultimately provide a more satisfying read.

Ultimately this was a somewhat lopsided read. Interesting for its historical context it was overly longwinded in places, but it captured one of the most fundamental trials on freedom of expression within the literary arts in an interesting way. I will have to go and ready Lady Chatterley at some point and I am left wondering if more knowledge on that would have changed my opinion of this work

Firstly, the cover of this book has to be the single best fantasy cover I have ever seen. I really want to get a print version of it! If you judge a book by a cover this one would be one of the greatest! Does the book live up to the cover? For the most part it does a pretty good job.

This is a Norse inspired epic fantasy. We find ourselves following 3 different characters - a retired warrior, an escaped slave and warrior trying to make her name for herself. Through them we explore the world Gwynne has created, where the remains of gods lie where they fell after an epic godswar. A lot of Norse words and titles have been worked into story giving it a very strong nordic flavor. As someone who lives in Norway and speaks some Norwegian it was interesting to pick up on some of these, although some have been utilized better than others (some names do sound a little bit strange when read with a knowledge of what they actually mean!)

The prose itself is very readable, the characters engaging and the story epic. I really look forward to the next book!