by NRB | 20 Mar 2013 | Fiction, SFF |
Kate Forsyth’s new novel takes us beneath and beyond the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. This novel offers the reader an enormous surprise. What seems a simple but richly told story of enduring love arising in childhood opens into an imaginative and wrenching...
by NRB | 22 Jan 2013 | Fiction, SFF |
Inventive and page-turning, this dystopian tale turns on a society’s clash of values. This is the kind of science fiction that is very close to realism. Hugh Howey deals with a very believable dystopia, where humanity lives in a vast silo set in an environment...
by NRB | 21 Nov 2012 | Fiction, Non-fiction, SFF |
This book of essays and stories adds new perspective to Stephenson’s interests and plot devices. Reviewing a collection of essays is a tricky task at the best of times, since they have often been written over a long period, with differing levels of experience,...
by NRB | 19 Nov 2012 | Fiction, SFF |
China Miéville continues to give a poetic and intelligent edge to the fantasy genre. This new book is an absolute joy. Miéville’s writing in Railsea is full of clever allusions, sly glances at popular culture and the work of other writers, wit, and warmth. As well,...
by Jean Bedford | 27 Sep 2012 | Fiction, SFF |
Do we need to be afraid? Liz Jensen’s vision of the near future is terrifying. The Uninvited is a near-future dystopian novel that also taps into the category of ‘weird’ fiction some critics have recently noted in the contemporary English novel. Liz Jensen is...
by NRB | 27 Aug 2012 | Fiction, SFF |
Celtic and Japanese cultures give visual and emotional charge to two recent fantasy novels. There is much richness and complexity on offer in fantasy writing, as well as extraordinarily varied and layered resources available to the writer. Two recently published books...
by NRB | 13 Aug 2012 | Fiction, SFF |
The master of Discworld enters a new dimension. People who buy a new Terry Pratchett usually do so in the hope of finding themselves in the comfortable, funny and wise purlieus of Discworld; full of well-known characters with personalities hovering on the edge of...
by Jean Bedford | 28 Jun 2012 | Fiction, SFF |
An imaginative interweaving of magic, fairytale and history. Kate Forsyth is well known for her conventional fantasy novels – particularly for the Witches of Eileanan and Rhiannon’s Ride series. She’s also a poet, an author of several children’s fantasy books and a...
by Jean Bedford | 26 Apr 2012 | Fiction, SFF |
The dragons and their attendants have found Kelsingra, but can they keep it? Robin Hobb’s The Rain Wild Chronicles series began as a one-off novel, Dragon Keeper (2009), which was cut into two, producing Dragon Haven (2010) as well. City of Dragons was meant to...
by NRB | 14 Mar 2012 | Fiction, SFF |
A vibrant and imaginative fable of magic and tragedy. Sea hearts are a type of shellfish that children gather for their mothers along the blustery shores of Rollrock Island: Some folk ate the best hearts raw, particularly mams; they drank up the liquor inside, and if...
JUNE WRIGHT Mother Paul series. Reviewed by Karen Chisholm6 December 2024June Wright has faded from view, but in 1948 her novel Murder in the Telephone [ … ]
ANDREW O’HAGAN Caledonian Road. Reviewed by Catherine Pardey5 December 2024This new novel from the author of Mayflies is set in London, but Glasgow is [ … ]
IAIN RYAN The Dream. Reviewed by Ben Ford Smith3 December 2024Iain Ryan’s latest novel continues his fascination with 1980s Queensland and [ … ]
MARINA YUSZCZUK Thirst. Reviewed by Ann Skea28 November 2024Argentinian writer Marina Yuszczuk puts her twist on the vampire novel in [ … ]