Recent ReviewsMartin Martin's on the Other Side by Mark Wernham 25 July 2008 Martin Martin's on the Other Side is the debut novel by Mark Wernham, a former music and lifestyle journalist. It has appeared from a mainstream publisher and it has received warmly if not volcanically glowing newspaper responses, including the claim that it is "a dark, brilliantly funny satire from a maverick new talent who clearly has a lot to say about these interesting times we live in." However, this undeniably makes the book sound more substantial than it is. I'll agree to "funny," but I think some of the rest may be a touch charitable. 23 July 2008 Although Lost Boys talks the talk of a "day after tomorrow" political thriller, it walks a rather different walk, one signalled by a couple of other words on the jacket: "apocalyptic fable." Two Views: The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper 21 July 2008 Nic Clarke: The Tepperverse remains gratifying as liberal wish-fulfilment, but The Margarets is also its most satisfying embodiment as a novel in ten years
18 July 2008 As Michael Moorcock has related, he developed a knack early on for the 15,000-word novella, which he was able to knock off in a day and thereby pay a month's rent. The Elric stories began as such novellas for Science Fantasy magazine and were only later assembled into books, a course of development reflected in this latest reissue. The Princes of the Golden Cage by Nathalie Mallet 16 July 2008 The phrase "Golden Cage" refers to a well-documented feature of a Sultan's palace: namely, a section of living quarters, removed from the rest of the court, where all legitimate male heirs were sequestered during their father's rule. Think of it as Solitary Confinement for the Rich and Famous. 14 July 2008 It turns out this is the way the world ends: neither with a bang nor a whimper, but a splosh. Baxter's new novel is, in several senses, a storming disaster tale—his best book for a long time, actually. It's a splendid and engrossing read and a thought-provoking whole to boot. 11 July 2008 We can only hope that Evans's triumphant return to science fiction is a harbinger of yet another revival in his writing. Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell 09 July 2008 The remarkable thing about Mary Doria Russell's beginnings is their clarity. Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women's Science Fiction by Lisa Yaszek 07 July 2008 Yaszek's intention is to recover the work of the post-war generation of female writers and reaffirm its historical significance. 04 July 2008 Crucially, as the story unfolds, we begin to hope ordinary individuals might achieve things through intelligent co-operation that a more noticeable mighty hero could not. On Spoiling the Fourth Season of Battlestar Galactica 02 July 2008 We watch Battlestar Galactica for the space battles and the sudden revelations and reversals, of course, but the question has to be asked: why do we end up caring so much? An Experimental Life: books by and about Naomi Mitchison 30 June 2008 There are so many points of fascination in the long life of Naomi Mitchison (1897-1999) that one could probably write any number of biographical volumes concentrating on different aspects of her experiences without much danger of overlap. Celebration, edited by Ian Whates 27 June 2008 In fact, that's the main charge to be made against the stories in this anthology. Very few are actively bad, and plenty of them are perfectly competent, but only some are distinctive enough to really stay in the memory. View older reviews in our Archive, thanks to the kindness of our authors who allow us to keep their material online. |