Category Archives: Book Review

 

  • The Tapestry of Time: Kate Heartfield takes us back to occupied France in WWII for a tale of Nazi bashing and occult obsession

  • The Nightward: RSA Garcia's new series is a fascinating mash-up of many things

  • Welsh Giants, Ghosts and Goblins: Waterstones' Welsh Book of the Year is a collection of folk tales

  • The Moonlight Market: A charming tale of the war between the butterflies and the moths, fought out on the streets of London

  • The Knife and the Serpent: Tim Pratt is back with a new series. In this one a hapless student from Berkeley finds himself in the middle of a war for the multiverse, with the main protagonists being his girlfriend and his ex.

  • The Sheep Look Up: A reprint of Cheryl's review of the classic John Brunner novel of eco-catastrophe, first published in Emerald City #96

  • The Wood at Midwinter: Brilliance from Clarke as always, but possibly the shortest hardcover book Cheryl has ever read

  • Space Oddity: Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes are back in a new crazy caper. Rock 'n' Roll never read so good.

  • The Sunforge: Book two of Sascha Stronach's Endsong trilogy has arrived, and some of the mysteries from book one are explained.

  • Eyes of the Void: Adrian Tchaikovsky writes books faster than Cheryl can read them, but a dent has been made in the TBR pile.

  • Speculative Insight: Can you make a paying venue for SF&F non-fiction work? Alex Pierce is the latest to try.

  • Echo of Worlds: Mike Carey wraps up his war for the multiverse, in only two volumes.

  • Beyond the Light Horizon: Ken MacLeod's Lightspeed Trilogy reaches it's conclusion

  • Rose/House: Arkady Martine was a finalist for the Best Novella Hugo this year

  • Ghost Stories for Darwin: Can evolutionary biology be feminist? Banu Subramaniam thinks so.

  • What Feasts at Night: The new Alex Easton novella sees our hero once again in the wilds of Gallacia, though this time without the homicidal mushrooms

  • Queering Faith in Fantasy Literature: The Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic at the University of Glasgow is producing some very interesting books, including this one

  • Waypoint Seven: A new space opera novella from a Finland-based author and a South African small press

  • Unexploded Remnants: Elaine Gallagher's debut novella is space opera with a strong Indiana Jones influence

  • The Book Blinders: John Clute is justifibly angry about the vandalism perpetrated by the British Library upon its collection of books

  • Ninth Life: The latest novel in Stark Holborn's Factus Sequence focuses on the lives of Gabi Ortiz: child general, rebel commander, and wanted murderer

  • The Brides of High Hill: Cleric Chih is back on the road again. But where is Almost Brilliant? And what about all those dead women...

  • Thornhedge: There is a princess trapped in a tower. Goddess help us all if she ever gets out.

  • The Word: Is there science fiction written and published in Wales? Of course there is. But because it is written and pubished in Wales, you probably haven't heard of it--until now

  • Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Could witch trials in the early modern period be evidence of a survival of shamanistic practices among the country folk of Britain? Emma Wilby thinks so.

  • The Book of Love: Kelly Link has finally produced a novel. Inevitably it is the talk of the SF&F community.

  • Song of the Huntress: Lucy Holland returns with another fine book rooted in British myth and history

  • The Butcher of the Forest: Premee Mohamed is lost in the woods from which no one ever returns

  • Bird, Blood, Snow: A leading author of Welsh mainstream fiction takes on the take of Peredur from The Mabinogion

  • The Library of Broken Worlds: In Cheryl's opinion, this was the best SF novel of 2023

  • HIM: The perfect read for this year's Easter Sunday? Geoff Ryman re-imagines Jesus as a trans man.

  • The Dawnhounds: In which Cheryl is once again a sucker for mushroom-based technology. Yes, New Weird is still alive, and living in New Zealand.

  • The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles: Everyone's favourite lesbian detectives on Jupiter are back in another delightful mystery novella.

  • The Four Deaths and One Resurrection of Fyodor Mikhailovich: Zoran Živković is back, with a mosaic novel featuring a very famous protagonist: Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky.

  • The Last to Drown: Is there such a thing as trauma-punk? If there was, Lorraine Wilson would be its queen.

  • The Meat Tree: A science fiction retelling of the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion? Written by a leading Welsh poet? You'd better believe it.

  • A Midwinter’s Tail: Cats, Christmas and Cornish folklore. Who needs Hallmark anyway?

  • Bookshops and Bonedust: Travis Baldree is back with more cosy fantasy, baked goods, and the occasional necromancer

  • Normal Women: 900 years of history in 600 pages? That's quite a challenge. But then women didn't exist 900 years ago, did they?

  • The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport: Just in time for Panto season, Samit Basu produces a science fiction version of Aladdin (oh no he doesn't - discuss)