The fantasy genre has the reputation of producing books big enough that you could use as a casual seat, trilogies that you could line up, throw some cushions on top and make into a settee. It does not have to be this way and T Kingfisher has certainly bucked the trend with Clockwork Boys, which comes in under 300 pages and is the first outing in a Clocktaur Wars duology. Can epic fantasy work in smaller chunks? Of course it can. 

When Slate, the forger, is tasked with searching the prisons for a useful murderer, the only one she sniffs out is Caliban; paladin, handsome, spree killer. He claims that the demon inside him is dead now, but is that someone you can trust with your life? Slate does not care that much as her life is forfeit anyway. She is to lead a suicide mission to find the origins of the Clockwork Boys, an army of mechanical killers. With only herself, a possessed knight, an assassin, and an academic, there is no chance of them surviving anyway. 

At under 300 pages and only part of a duology, it is likely that the entire Clocktaur War series will be shorter than a single volume of many other fantasy sets. How is this even achievable? Surely Kingfisher has been forced to make sacrifices to shorten the length? The answer to this question is not really. The pacing is not much faster than your average fantasy novel, a genre known for its development in characters and world building. We are certainly given plenty of time for characters to grow, the quest not even starting until later in the book. 

One area that is a strength and does allow for a shorter page count is the reduced number of characters. Slate is the main protagonist, but the reader only gets to know four characters well, who are mostly in each other’s presence. Epic fantasy often has multiple storylines that span nations; Clockwork is a tightly contained novel. 

Having fewer characters focuses one’s attention on them more, and Kingfisher revels in this. The book becomes darkly amusing as the travel partners snipe at one another. A begrudging respect builds, but also an absolute annoyance of one another.  

These relationships are key as they lighten the tone of the story. This is a low fantasy novel, set in a crumbling world. Things must be desperate to send out a gang of criminals to save the Kingdom. All the decent options are already dead. The slog is bleak as Slate contemplates her death. However, there is also hope. The journey and the friendships start to give Slate a reason to want to live, but this just makes the quest harder. Suicidal missions are so much easier if you do not care if you live or die. 

The characters and their immediate world are designed well, but we do not know much about the enemy. What are these Clockwork Boys and who invented them? The mystery plays well; it allows the story to focus on this fellowship and adds tension to what may happen next. 

Clockwork may be brief for a fantasy novel, but it is not hurried. Kingfisher still allows the characters and the world to breathe. The action punctuates the adventure, but it is the relationship between the travelers that keeps you reading. By focusing on a few key characters, Kingfisher has been able to write a classic feeling slice of epic fantasy, but with half the page count and I am all for that. 

I have read a lot of epic fantasy, and it comes in many flavours, but it does not always feel like it. Often, it feels like an alternative Medieval Europe with a few elves thrown in. This is less so today as innovative ideas and visions come to the genre, taking a typical fantasy novel and giving it a different feel. The Gryphon King by Sara Omer is one such book. It has warring royal families, plentiful mythical beasts, and unknown magics, but it is all set in a southwest-Asian inspired world. 

Bataar did not consider himself destined for remarkable things, but as a youth a desperate fight against a Gryphon in which he not only survived, but won, marked him as special in the eyes of others. Now older, he has set out on his destiny to become the King of all the lands. The first step is to take Dumakra and that means killing the King and defeating his Harpy Knights, a group of formidable warriors made up of his female relatives, including his stubborn daughter Nohra.  

Gryphon approaches the fantasy genre in a lot of interesting ways, only one being the setting. The world building combines traditional fantasy tropes but gives them a southwest-Asian sensibility. Relationships are different than in many fantasy books and this is key, because, although the book has action, it also has a lot of character-led moments. 

The second interesting approach Omer took was making the novel a two header, moving between Bataar and Nohra in each chapter. Rather than having the two characters battling one another, it is not long until they are far closer together. Nohra becoming a viper in Bataar’s court. They need one another to gain the power or revenge they seek, and they respect one another’s prowess on the battlefield, but they cannot trust one another. 

This tension is rife in the book and makes it feel like a thriller, although the action is saved for the battlefield. Nohra is always plotting and Bataar is always on notice that it is happening. The Royal Court plays a crucial role in this as the two characters use loyalties and alliances to gain the upper hand. Although there are two main characters, the book is full of family members, servants, soldiers, and more. At times, the number of characters was overwhelming, and I became a little lost on who was betraying who. 

At over 400 pages and part one of a series, Gryphon has an epic fantasy feel that fans of the genre will love. You do not get to learn everything in book one. It is a slow boil; time is spent developing characters and learning more about the royal alliances. Fans of epic fantasy will lap it up, but those looking for a punchier tale will feel there is a little too much handwringing and internal introspection. There is nothing quite like undermining a God-like King’s mystic than hearing their internal flawed monologue. Nohra’s enigmatic father feels far more regal, but getting to know Bataar’s flaws as well as his strengths is part of the strong character development in the book. 

The fantasy elements of the book are very interesting. With the murder, battles, and backstabbing, it reads like low fantasy, but the use of mythical creatures gives it a high feel too. Omer blends both ends of the fantasy spectrum in a way that fans of either will find something in this book they will enjoy. Gryphon is a character first fantasy novel, that has action and an epic feel. It reads like a classic style long form fantasy, but the world building does give it a fresher perspective.  

I picked this book up after learning about it being short-listed and eventually winning the Arthur C Clarke Award. It's proof of not judging a book by its cover because I'd have completely passed it by sitting on a table, with its shockingly bright pink swirlyness and quote by Sheena Patel that says "Barbie for girls who like Aphex Twin". I've never watched Barbie (although I understand it's a well-made film), have no idea who Aphex Twin is, and I don't identify as a girl. I'd like to think I would still have picked it up at some point, though. It was a "Times Book of the Month", and won the Arthur C Clarke against some pretty terrific competition - The Ministry of Time (Kaliane Bradley), Service Model (Adrian Tchaikovsky), Extremophile (Ian Green), Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock (Maud Woolf) and Private Rites (Julia Armfield) are all damn fine reads, a couple I'd even go as far to call exceptional. It's also proof that awards like the Arthur C Clarke have a direct impact on book sales (I picked a couple of the others after learning they'd been shortlisted).

Anyway, Annie Bot, as you might guess, is a robot, designed to be the perfect girlfriend (or more accurately, slave) for Doug. She cooks his dinner every night, wears the outfits he buys her and caters to his every sexual whim. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a story if that's all that happened, and you can probably tell what's coming next - she begins to question her servitude, to rebel against her stifled existence. She even begins to imagine the impossible - what would it feel like to live without Doug? Different functions require different types of AI. To be such a "cuddle bunny" (a euphemism for sex-bot), the robot needs to switch over to an "autodidactic" mode, which gives the AI more "free will" to learn and adapt. Then, Annie starts to learn, adapt and question the world around her.

The writing style reminds me of Philip K Dick, it's got that matter-of-fact tone that renders the ordinary quite interesting that he used for many of his works. It also feels old-fashioned, certainly in the way that Annie is brazenly depicted as a sex object, misogyny still a very real problem, pervasive in the overall tone that sets men as real men and women as objects of desire. Freeing real women from the drudgery of being a housewife has simply meant that the robot women now bear that burden. People are quite open and frank about these robots being objects, to switch on and off, or upgrade as desired. Are they right though? When AI / a robot sounds and acts like a real person, are they getting as intelligent as us, or are they simply getting better at providing responses we expect to hear? Where does the simulated response stop and real intelligence begin? That's an issue we see right now. AI has been getting better at providing a human-like response, but does that make them smart (not yet, is my answer)?

In an age of rising AI, as it begins to invade our everyday lives, it is a timely question. Currently, I'm trialling AI software, partly to see how it can help our productivity at work. Meanwhile, AI chips are being embedded into otherwise everyday devices. Computers and phones are the most obvious examples, but AI chips are also becoming embedded into hearing aids and other wearable technology. AI chatbots promise to become your digital friend. That of course is one of the big themes in the book. Are we right to treat these robots as objects, or should they be seen as another form of intelligence and given the same rights and privileges as us (let's not get started about the idea of rights being decided based on perceived similar intelligence to ourselves)? What does it mean to be human? Does it matter if we are made of flesh or robotic parts?

That brings us to another of the book's themes: loneliness. Despite being connected more than we ever have been, able to instantly converse with people around the world, join groups on social media platforms and view many people doing many things on media channels, loneliness is becoming a very real problem. We are still social creatures; we often thrive in the company of others, but that doesn't extend the same to online social activities in the same way. It still isn't a replacement for real social contact. But at the same time, forms of real connections with other humans are being stripped away. There are fewer social clubs for a start, and late-stage capitalism (at least in Western societies) means that our disposable income is squeezed ever tighter (got to think of the shareholders). You can see this quite profoundly in the UK with a rise in food banks and a remarked decline in Pubs and restaurants. Fewer clubs, along with fewer chances of socialising in other places. That extends to places where we'd otherwise expect to see at least a little social interaction, such as shops. The rise of self-scanning checkouts means that supermarkets (and other shops) can keep that share of the money they'd otherwise pay staff and make us scan our purchases instead (and yet offer no discount to do so). More money for them, less social interaction for us. That was something I was made aware of just last week. The local Tesco had only one checkout operator (who was inundated) and lots of self-checkouts. Standing, waiting to be served and a Tesco staff member was trying to get people to use the self-scanning. That led to a conversation with the person behind me, as I remarked on the loss of jobs (and greater profit) while he remarked that he missed the social interaction if he didn't queue at a real checkout. A result of all this progress is that people can go days without actually speaking to another real person. Given that clubs and pubs used to be the most likely places to meet romantic interests, I imagine it must be a lot harder to get real, genuine connections in a digital world, too, despite the many social dating apps.

You can easily imagine someone like Doug, perhaps driven by such loneliness, forming a romantic attachment with a robot, and of course, that's what happens. Relationships, healthy and unhealthy, are another big theme. Although to be honest, it's often describing an awareness of unhealthy relationships. Doug is controlling, misogynistic, at times toxic and other times abusive, making for some uncomfortable reading. You feel for Annie being trapped in such a situation. That also makes you question whether any intelligent (or more importantly, possibly emerging sentient) thing should be treated this way. Robots in relationships are not new ground, nor is emerging AI, but Greer is just using these devices as a setting to explore the themes they want to good effect.

I guess the 1100+ words written above give some indication as to why Annie Bot was chosen as the winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award. It's one of those books that seems simple and yet conveys some timely and important messages. It does so in a way that some of the finest writers of the genre have done. Thoughtfully, considered and without judgement. The irony that the quote on the cover says it's for girls, and yet the book quietly speaks volumes about sexism, is not lost on me. It is, however, an important book for our time, whether or not you like Barbie, Aphex Twin (still don't know who that is), or identify as a girl, boy or even inorganic sentient entity.

The Marvel Universe is jammed packed with famous storylines, but one of the biggest has always been the time that The Fantastic Four took on Galactus. It resonates because it has lasted since the 1960s and appears to be having a reimagining in the latest film. The Coming of Galactus by James Lovegrove is the prose adaptation of this classic comic book run. Can the author balance adapting a classic tale to a modern audience? 

The Universe has died and been reborn before. The only survivor slept in a lifegiving machine until they woke up ravenous. Their very existence uses energy and with an eternal hunger they eat worlds to survive, this being is Galactus. It is nothing personal when Galactus sends out his herald, The Silver Surfer, to find a new world to devour, and that world is Earth. There is nothing special about this wet planet, or is there? Heroes like The Fantastic Four may have something to say. 

As a long-time comic fan, even I am not old enough to remember the original Galactus comic book run. However, even some non-comic book fans may know this tale, and the majority of Marvel fans certainly will. It is a classic story, but is it one that will work for a modern audience? The latest film is set in an alternative 60s world and Lovegrove does something similar with this adaptation, but brings the feel and style of the original a little more into the present. 

Galactus is a faithful adaptation, but having more time to describe the inner workings of characters gives Lovegrove some license, but it also highlights how old-fashioned the older Fantastic Four can feel. There is a lot of angst in this book, not just from Johnny Storm and the loss of his latest teen crush. There are large sections given over to The Silver Surfer and Galactus’ backstories. This gives the book an exposition feel at times as we deep dive into the motivation of the ‘bad guys’. 

The pace and feel of a story from the 60s is just different, and Lovegrove goes with it. There are action sequences that see The Thing trying to clobber Galactus and a fun action set piece that follows The Human Torch flying through a dangerous alien craft, but these are not the norm. What has always made The Fantastic Four interesting is not all the action, but the character development. Here we have some development for the Four, but even more so for the enemy. 

Having a decent knowledge of the wider Marvel Universe helps when reading this book. People know Spider-Man, Thor and many of the other characters mentioned, but they may struggle with the likes of The Inhumans and The Watcher. Knowing who all these characters are and where they sit in the timeline helps. Mostly why they are not helping! This is a time in the comic run when many of the heroes were off somewhere else or trapped. 

With so much weight and history to the story it can be difficult as a reader to cut through the noise and enjoy the story. The tale is a little slower and the conclusion gentler than you may expect, but this reflects the 1960s approach to the story. Lovegrove has stayed true to the original, inclusive of slightly old-fashioned dialogue and attitudes. There is something naive about this Fantastic Four, but there is nothing wrong with being good and pure, perhaps we need a little more of that today. Galactus is a well written prose take on a classic run that tells the story as it is meant to be told. 

After a string of novellas that were, frankly, brilliant, the fifth book and first full-size novel in The Murderbot Diaries, Network Effect stormed the science fiction scene when it was released, winning the holy trinity of Hugo, Locus and Nebula awards for best novel. As I write this the first (in hopefully a long line) of the Murderbot TV series is playing on Apple TV (and yes they've nailed it too).

We're back with Murderbot, fresh from its Mensah rescue, ostensibly trying to get on with its life of media consumption and minimal human interaction. You know, the dream. Naturally, that lasts about five minutes before everything goes to hell. A hostile takeover of a research vessel, people get snatched, and our favourite SecUnit is, once again, dragged into another rescue mission it doesn't want to be on. It's a familiar setup, but it still works. Standard operating procedure for Murderbot, then, just with higher stakes and more annoying humans.

Having read the first 4 books, I liked that they were minimal, concise affairs that you could read quickly, and I was a bit unsure about expanding that into a full-size book and the potential for a slower, more fluff-filled read. But what truly works here is the expansion. We get more of the universe, which is always welcome. More of the corporate politics, the intricacies of the various factions, and crucially, more ART. That research transport is more than just a ship; it's a character in its own right, with its quirks and a surprisingly deep (and often hilarious) connection to Murderbot. The dynamic between them is still a highlight, a perfect blend of exasperated tolerance and genuine affection. The relationships with Mensah and the other humans also get some much-needed depth. Despite Murderbot's best efforts to remain aloof, to maintain that impenetrable wall of disinterest, the evidence of its growing attachments keeps piling up. It's funny, it's awkward, and it makes you almost believe Murderbot might like these humans. Almost. It certainly tries hard to pretend it doesn't.

The plot’s got pace, plenty of action sequences that are well-choreographed and easy to follow, and the corporate intrigue is engaging enough to drive the story forward. All the bits you’d expect from a good sci-fi thriller are present and accounted for. But the real draw remains Murderbot's internal monologue. Wells nails that voice. The dry wit, the pervasive social anxiety that manifests in constant internal screaming, the desperate desire for peace, and the constant battle between wanting to curl up with a show and having to save people. It's all there, and it's as sharp and relatable as ever. Some moments genuinely crackle with humour, forcing a proper laugh out loud, and others hit you with a surprising amount of emotional weight for a book about a security construct that claims to have no feelings. You find yourself rooting for this grumpy, self-aware machine.

If you're already on board with the Murderbot Diaries, devoured the novellas or even just seen the TV Show, then Network Effect is a solid continuation. It takes the core elements that made the earlier, shorter works great and stretches them out, mostly successfully, proving the concept can work in a longer format. It doesn't lose its way, and it doesn't dilute what makes Murderbot, well, Murderbot. If you haven't started, then you've got some catching up to do. Seriously, go read All Systems Red, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy and Artificial Condition, then come back to this. You'll probably enjoy it quite a bit

After discovering what The Price of Safety and The Price of Rebellion are in the first two outings in Michael C Bland’s dystopian trilogy, we finally get to see what The Price of Freedom is in this final outing. In a world in which everyone has been rendered blind unless they wear technology, you cannot believe what you see as illicit groups are controlling what is beamed into your upgrades. The sky looks blue, the President looks real, but in reality, the world is ending. 

We have already seen that Dray Quintero will do anything to save his family. This could be joining a rebellion to save one daughter, only to abandon them to save another. This third outing opens with most of Dray’s family captured and tortured. The latest plan by the Zion group is to map the minds of the rebels so they can preempt any future uprising. Can Dray escape once again and finally get the people of America to wake up and remove the digital scales from their eyes? With the aid of his brilliant daughters, perhaps. 

The Freedom series has always been action packed, and this third outing does not disappoint in this area. There are some epic set pieces from an early prison escape to a finale that is worthy of the epic page count over three books. Closing a series can be tricky, and you need to hit the landing to satisfy the fans. This is one area that Freedom does exceptionally well. Bland ties up many of the loose ends in the story and give just the right glimpse of what the future may hold for the characters. 

Along with the action, the other theme that dominated the series was what people would do for their family. In the case of Dray, he uniformly does what is best for his family and not for the greater cause. In book two this leads indirectly to the mass destruction of the rebellion and Dray and his family end up captured anyway. If it is not Dray going off to help his family, it is his estranged wife who is betraying them. 

This theme is strong and does give the book identity, but it does also beggars belief at times. Dray is so blinkered that he is unable to see that his actions hurt and kill other families. There is no noble sacrifice here, until...... Book three finally sees Dray realise that what is best for the rebellion may just be best for his family. Finally, the Quintero family and the rebellion are on the same page. How the rebels are willing to trust them again is beyond me. 

Some of the family drama was too heightened for me, taking on a soap opera like level of passion, but it is a passion that drives the book. As an author, Bland tackles everything with gusto; the character development, the enemies, the action. It is all heightened, making it feel like a modern take on a 70s pulp science fiction novel. For fan who likes their action fast, their character choices crazy, Freedom, and the series as a whole, is good fun. 

Vigilance is the third book in the Fractal series from Allen Stroud, following Fearless and Resilient. You know how it is with series; by the time you hit book three, you've got a pretty good idea of what you're getting into. The big question is whether the author can keep the momentum going, or if it all starts to sag a bit. It can be challenging to maintain that initial spark and keep the stakes feeling fresh, but some authors manage it.

Good news: Stroud keeps it tight. He doesn't just maintain the pace; he ratchets it up.

If you've followed the journey so far, you'll know that Stroud doesn't pull his punches. The stakes have been escalating steadily, and Vigilance is no different. In the aftermath of Phobos Station’s destruction, sinister forces fight to control humanity’s fragile first steps in colonising other worlds. This isn't a simple battle of good versus evil; there are competing agendas at work, all who live in the grey areas and have their own (self-justifiable) reasons. Some want to overthrow the Corporations and Governments entirely, others want to see everything burn, regardless of the cost. This layered conflict adds a real depth to the narrative, making the threats feel more complex and insidious than a simple enemy. Captain Ellisa Shann and her crew are fighting to survive, but also with a mission to unlock the secrets of a mysterious and ancient alien ship.

Vigilance picks up the threads from Resilient and then pushes the characters further, often into some pretty uncomfortable corners. What I appreciate about this series, and especially this book, is that it doesn't just rely on big explosions and space battles, although there are plenty of those if that's your thing, and they are well-executed. The real strength, though, is how the characters are forced to deal with the consequences of their choices, the moral ambiguities, and the ever-present, relentless threat they're up against.

Stroud's writing continues to be clean and efficient. He moves the plot along at a good clip, maintaining a relentless pace that keeps you turning pages, without getting bogged down in unnecessary exposition. You get the sense that every scene, every interaction, every piece of dialogue is there for a reason, pushing the story forward or deepening your understanding of who these people are and what they're fighting for. The tension builds nicely, a slow burn that erupts into frantic action, and some moments genuinely make you wonder how they're going to get out of the mess they're in.

That’s always a good sign.

The characters, whom we've spent a couple of books getting to know now, are once more put through the wringer. Stroud isn't afraid to test his character's limits. They continue to evolve (mostly under pressure), making some tough decisions, or occasionally, only just holding on to their sanity. The blend of intense personal struggle within a larger, high-stakes conflict is one of the things that makes Stroud’s work so compelling. He manages to keep a focus on the human element, making you care about their fate, even when big things are happening and often going completely sideways in the macrocosm.

If you're already invested in this series (and you should be), Vigilance is a necessary and satisfying continuation. It delivers on the promise of the previous books by escalating the conflict and pushing the characters further into their personal and desperate fight for survival, while bigger things happen around (and through) them.

If, for whatever reason, you haven't started yet, you've got a couple of good reads to catch up on before you get to this one. Like the first two, though, the author encapsulates the story enough that you could, if you want, just read this book (but why would you when the first two are so good).

Vigilance and the Fractal series as a whole are a rewarding enrichment to the science fiction landscape. It’s inclusive, rewarding, character-driven sci-fi that doesn't let up; it should be a part of any serious sci-fi reader's collection.

I found this book while wandering around the Dealers' room at EasterCon 76 (Belfast Reconnect). I had the honour of being the first person to buy the book, and had a chance to meet the author, who had travelled from the distant lands of Paris to make an appearance. I believe it's his debut novel, but you'd be hard pressed to tell from the quality of the writing.

The Last Man, the first in the Leybound series, follows the escapades of Sergeant Nathaniel Riot (Duke of Fallows' regiment), also infamously known as the titular Last Man, named so from things that happened twenty years prior. Now he's just trying to stay alive in a war against the Faelen who have returned to claim their place on the continent of Parthanea and crush any who stand in their path. They have so far succeeded in forcing back the dilapidated regiment of the Arcanum, who attempt to fortify the last stronghold of the land, Helgan’s Rest, against Bimil-pal and his Mazral army.

Riot finds himself having to choose between death and the damned life of a Leybound, someone infused with an astonishing amount of raw power, but treated as little more that a weapon, a slave to obey the commands of his betters. Then, bound as he is by this strange magic, what should have been a simple mission goes badly; he ends up trapped behind enemy lines with a band of thieves, murderers, and deserters. To finish the job, he’ll have to reach the citadel of Morbian and its famed Sun Tower and break the blockade. The ragtag band he's with are the dredge, the scum of the regiments, but if he can find a way to lead them, he might turn them into real, capable soldiers.

The Last Man is grimdark, managing to nail that tone well. It never gets too depressing or self-depreciating, but you get a strong sense of the danger,  deprivation and sometimes hopelessness of the situation. The moral ambiguity of both Riot, his superiors and his enemy, reinforces the dark tone. There is an effective exploration of the grey areas around fighting in a war, along with the physical and psychological toll such an experience takes on those involved.

The pace is good, helped by not going down the too-trodden road of lengthy exposition; instead, we get glimpses under the surface of the world at large, along with how this strange form of magic works when bound to a person. Information about the world around us is fed organically, without feeling contrived or forced.

Riot is an interesting protagonist. The author makes efforts not to make him the shiny, heroic figure that can do no wrong. Instead, we get a fairly broken, seasoned war vet whose principal characteristic is one of survival, an old soldier who seems full of regret, remorse and resignation for all the crap thrown his way. The power that is forced upon him and the resulting slavery make an interesting argument around the use of control and misuse of responsibility. While Riot is undeniably the grim heart of the narrative, the interactions with his unlikely companions – a colourful mix of hardened criminals and weary deserters – add fascinating dynamics and moments of unexpected camaraderie amidst the bleakness.

It's an easy read too, the story is compelling and keeps you fully engaged, while the quality of the writing is excellent, with vivid dialogue and compelling imagery that paints a stark picture of a continent on the brink. Fans of authors like Joe Abercrombie or Mark Lawrence will find themselves immediately at home in this brutal yet captivating world. This debut left me eagerly anticipating the next instalment in the Leybound series.

I have read thousands of books, and they normally follow the same structural rules, but on occasion an author likes to experiment with the format. Perhaps they will forgo the need for speech marks and instead write people speaking as part of a sentence. No thanks. What about telling the story as a series of letters? Could work if done correctly. A mad idea could be to publish a fictional data dump that was sent to you via email and bizarrely release it in physical form. This is only one of a few odd choices made by Matt Wixey made in Basilisk. 

When Alex Webster comes across a mysterious online game it is in her nature as a hacker to investigate further. When a fellow player goes missing, it appears that this is a game that reaches into the real world as well as online. Whilst being pursued by a mysteriuos group Alex attempts to solve a series of puzzles to discover what happened to her pal and to save herself. 

I would not tell an author not to experiment with the art of writing, but I would ask them to be cautious. Science fiction is a genre full of flights of fancy, this can be in the worlds created, but also sometimes in the structure of the book itself. Combining a complex story with a difficult structure style can lead to the book being impenetrable. In places Basilisk is not only impenetrable, but unenjoyable to read. 

Does the concept even work? The book purports to be from an academic publishing the almost unedited document that was sent to them online. For some weak reason they choose not to release it online, open access, but instead go via the traditional publishing route. A techno-thriller, bordering on cyberpunk, novel that chooses the old fashioned over the new. It makes no sense. 

The format also hampers the story. The narrative is hidden among the various data dumps in the book. This is mostly the retelling of the tale from Alex’s viewpoint. I will credit Wixey for committing to the style. Alex’s notes sound like her voice throughout, they remain in a relaxed style and do not lapse into being a normal narrative. But is this a good thing? There is a reason books are written in a normal way as they are easier to read. 

The other sections of the book suffer even more greatly from the format; email chains, excerpts from the game etc. There are also copious footnotes and web links. As a reader your eyes are pushed all around the page. You are struggling to follow the story as it is, only to be drawn to a footnote that adds nothing and takes you out of the tale. 

What of the story itself? I found the book so complex to follow that it was almost lost. It is a mind-bending tale, and it is purposely designed. I may be too simple and set in my ways for the book to have worked, in places I was actively not enjoying myself. However, there will be fans of this story. Those readers that like a convoluted and taxing story, designed to make you concetrate and delve deeper. I am not that reader. 

Like any genre, the horror genre has shifts in style and tone. I was always a fan of the nasty horror stories of the late 70s and early 80s. Books that saw lots of terrible things happen to good people. In Killer on the Road author Stephen Graham Jones attempts to capture that Grindhouse feel and give it a supernatural bite. 

After another blowout with her mother, Harper has left the family home and never plans to go back. With just the clothes on her back she sets off hitchhiking. Luckily, she is found early by a group of friends, and they decide to help her. There is safety in numbers, but there are also more victims. A killer is out on the roads. Simply known as Bucketmouth, Harper and her friends are soon going to find out that this is no myth and that the reality is far more terrifying. 

Of the books I have read by Jones in recent years, they are an author who likes to write a punchy and dark horror novel. Stories that build in their tension and pack a final punch. Killer is a slight deviation in that it is unrelenting in its terror. We are introduced to Bucketmouth early in proceedings and, after a brief lull, the killer plays a huge role throughout what is not a long book. 

The length and feel of the novel remind you the 70s books I love to pick up and power through, the unrelenting energy and unwillingness to pander to any softness. Although there is a cast, the story is told from Harper’s perspective. You could consider it a two header as Bucketmouth is also given plenty of time to shine. A killer in a book is not always allowed to shine, but Bucketmouth does. He is almost too chatty a killer! 

Harper acts as a powerful balance to the killer. Strong willed and loyal, she will do what it takes to keep her sister safe (the sister being one of the friends that comes along on the road trip). Jones seems to specialise in strong female leads and Harper is no different. She is the beating heart and furious rage at the centre of the story. 

Another aspect that takes on a character of its own is the culture of the road. Through Harper, Jones teaches the reader the rules of the road, of how truckers can take against vehicles and will look after their own. Harper and her friends not only have to survive a killer, but the killer’s unwitting allies on the road. 

At under 250 pages Killer is a punchy and quick novel. This is how it was designed, and this is how it works. The lack of pages does mean that some of the character development is hampered, Harper is well catered for, but the rest of the cast are adrift. It may be because I am getting older, but I was surprised how blasé some of the younger characters dealt with the situation. You would find me panicking in a ditch, not continuing a witty repartee.  

Killer is a novel any horror fan of down and dirty Grindhouse will enjoy. It harks back to the heyday of the genre but also feels modern. You can read the book in a sitting or two, and you will find yourself doing so as the pace encourages it and the relationship between Harper and Bucketmouth is so intriguing that you will want to see how it ends. 

What would you do if you had technology that no one else in the world had. Would you use it to better your life, make some money? Perhaps you would share it with others to develop society as a whole? Or maybe you would use it for revenge. A series of impossible murders is stumping Detective Ethan Krol in Adam Oyebanji’s Esperance as victims are drowned in sea water. The issue being that they are all found far in land dead in their own homes. 

The first victims already impacted Detective Krol even if their deaths had not been so bizarre. A father and young child found drowned with sea water in their own home. When another death occurs in the same way, a serial killer is on the loose, but a serial killer using a technique that seems impossible. Across the pond in Britain another investigator is on the case, but Abi Eniola is not your usual visitor from Nigeria if that is even where she is from. 

Crime and science fiction are genres that have always gone together well as the crime element gives structure to what can often be outlandish science fiction concepts. What makes Esperance so entertaining is Oyebanji’s commitment to the police procedural elements of the book. The story opens like any crime drama; a horrific case, a variation on a locked room mystery. Krol goes about solving the case like any other. What makes the story interesting is that Krol continues to do this, even as things become unfathomable. 

I loved Krol dogmatic nature, if not all elements of the Detective’s personality. He partners with another detective from across the US and they work on the case together. The thought of otherworldly technology never enters their minds and this feels truthful. In reality, most of us would stretch our reason as far as it could before admitting that something is alien. 

Whilst this story progresses, there is a parallel tale told in Britain of Abi and her friendship with a young woman called Hollie. Abi is a strange character, she speaks in odd dialect and seems to be both technologically savvy, whilst also being culturally clueless. A classic fish out of water story, but one in which the stakes are of the highest level. 

As both stories process, they are drawn to one another. The science fiction element of the book begins to take prominence, but there is always a case to solve. What are the motivations of the killer and who is Abi? These are mysteries that Oyebanji reveals in classic whodunnit pacing, leaving the reader guessing to the end. 

Esperance blends the crime genre and science fiction as well as any book I have read. There are elements of both that will appeal to fans of those genres, but this is a science fiction book at its core. There are moments of lightness, and although Abi is a brash character, her interactions with Britain and Hollie are amusing. This sits a little uncomfortably at times with the gruesome killings in the book, there are child victims. The tone is a little wobbly, but I understand the darkness as the motivation for the killings may feel misguided but is immensely powerful. 

Even with the upsetting deaths in Esperance, this is a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It has a classy balance of crime and science fiction, humour and tension. The alien aspects of the book are treated with as much respect as the crime sections, so both are catered for. Like with any good crime book the reader is given a reason behind the crimes and Oyebanji does not shy away from making it a powerful one, and one based in the science fiction origins of the story.

In the fantasy that I usually read Regicide is usually the goal for the end of the book. In fact, I have read entire trilogies in which the protagonist is trying to kill a royal. You get the sense that Evan Leikam is going to tackle things a little differently in Anji Kills a King when the first scene sees a gruesome assassination in which Anji succeeds in slitting the King’s throat. Is the story told in flashbacks after this? Certainly not, killing the king is only the start of a revolution 

As the still warm blood drips from her hands Anji makes her way out of the palace in which she had worked as stable hand and housekeeper. When the opportunity presented itself to kill the king, she took it without a second thought, but what now? On the run with little money and no sense of the wider world, Anji is a shoo-in to be caught and tortured to death, especially as she is being hunted by an elite group of mercenaries known as The Menagerie. 

I have read my fair share of Low Fantasy in recent years, a form of fantasy that takes on a darker, more realistic approach to the genre, the worst of the Middle Ages with a little magic. The opening scene of Anji shocked even I and it was not the end of the bleakness that the book has to offer. Anji’s quest is less one of reaching a noble goal and more one of day-to-day survival. 

Anji is an interesting character, the daughter to murdered parents, she allowed her anger to ferment. When she meets up with The Menagerie and in particular Hawk, it is not long until see releases that her actions were reckless and had no real purpose. By killing the king, had she avenged her parents, made life better for people like her, or as Hawk suggests, has she made matters worse by allowing an even worse power to rise? 

A tale of burgeoning revolt acts as the baseline hum of Anji, but this is not what the book is about. Fantasy is often epic and has multiple protagonists, but Leikam has stripped the tale back to be all about Anji and is told from her perspective. What we learn about the wider politics is told from snippets of conversation, usually as Anji is trying to avoid having another finger removed. 

What you get is a very personal tale. The opening Act is about Anji and Hawk, a mercenary and prisoner tale. A sense of Stockholm Syndrome sets in as Hawk must protect Anji, not for her health, but for a bigger share of the bounty. The other Menagerie members have something to say about this and as the book progresses you begin to see that there is far more to the Hawk’s tale as first imagined. 

Anji is a brutal book that will not appeal to fans of High Fantasy with its ethereal feel and Elf magics. This is a book that is told from the perspective of the downtrodden, where hope is a word seldom spoken. Anji crawls through the muck to survive, doing what is necessary. This means the reader has a begrudging respect for her, even if her actions are not always the most moral. As the final act plays out, you witness the fruits of all the heartbreak. This is book one of The Rising Tide series and is a true opening act of a larger series. The follow up promises so much, it can build on book one, but you get the sense that Leikam will give the sequel a different feel as Anji is a different person by book’s end.  

Science has taken humans to amazing places, prolonged our lives, made living better, but it has also created great harm. Have some diseases been developed in a lab then released, on purpose or by accident? Perhaps legitimate research led to tragic mistakes. In the world of Laura Elliott’s Awakened, a revolutionary piece of technology that allowed people to stay awake and be more productive and freer, leads to what could be the end of the world. 

When working alongside fellow scientists Dr Thea Chares thought she was inventing technology that would make the world a better place. A simple chip that nullifies the brain’s need for sleep, all those nights free to make more art, be more productive, live a longer life. However, it is years later, and things went very wrong. Thea is only one of a few survivors hunkered down in the Tower of London looking for a cure to a disease that turned most of the population into The Sleepless. 

Science Fiction can be a lot of different things and that is why it is my favourite genre. You can have an action-packed book, or a more cerebral one. With the concept of a Dystopian future in which unhinged Sleepless attack the living on sight, I was thinking Awakened was going to be a vampire like action thriller. It is certainly not this. Instead, it is a far smaller and cerebral novel about only a few characters. It has hints of The Thing, and I am Legend but takes a more thoughtful route. 

A lot of the pacing is down to the narrative style that Elliott chose. The book is written as a series of diary entries over months. These act as a way of creating a non-linear narrative. Thea may write about the current events of the day or instead reflect on her past. On other occasions we get a glimpse into her dreams. This allows Elliott to move back and forth to reveal the twists and turns. The diary entries may be written in lineal time, but their contents could be anything. 

The reader is introduced to various concepts piecemeal. Fans of intelligent science fiction will enjoy the challenge of balancing the various themes and questioning how they are linked. I must admit to struggling to know where I was in terms of timeline. Was this the present or a write up of a memory? There are moments of action, but they are few and mixed in with the non-linear style of the book. 

Within the pages are some thoughtful ideas. How did the Sleepless come about, can they be cured, who are the mysterious strangers that arrive at the gate? We learn about these aspects in diary entries both present and past, where we also learn more about Thea. What drove her to work on a chip to prevent sleep? We learn about the relationship she has with her mother and how her mother’s illness as a child shaped her in a way to unknowingly end the world as we know it. 

Awakened is a Science Fiction novel or Cerebral Horror that will appeal to readers who like a slower pace in their novels and a plethora of meaty ideas to dig into. I enjoyed the reveals dotted through the book and the thoughtful way that illness and disabilities are treated. It was not the weighty ideas in the book that I found a little difficult to follow, but the non-linear diary style, this mixed with the emotional aspects of Thea made me lose what was happening on occasion.  

There are so many angles and directions that you can tackle the crime genre in. Being a police officer is obvious, but you also get Private Investigators, or even the local busybody or vicar solving a crime. I enjoy all these approaches, but if you are drawn to particularly thoughtful and informed crime stories, you may want to read a more procedural book that follows an expert in their profession. In the case of Fleet Landing by Wendy Gee this expert is ATF Special Agent Cooper “Coop” Bellamy, and his knowledge is needed as half the city has been put to flame. 

An arsonist is targeting the homes and businesses of Fleet Landing, one of the poorer areas of Charleston. Is it the local gangs? Could it be white supremacists who do not like the locals? Or could it all be linked to a series of similar arson attacks decades earlier? Coop is tasked with investigating the recent fires and for company he has been lumbered with a press liaison in the form of the tenacious TV reporter Sydney Quinn. The duo finds themselves working both a modern and a historic arson case as they find themselves in the crossfire of a killer. 

It can be tricky shoehorning in an investigator into a crime story that makes sense, but an ATF agent and a reporter makes sense as they are both people used to researching and coming to conclusions. Is Coop the perfect protagonist for this tale? It may have made more sense to have the Detective lead the case, but when it comes to fire, there are few who know as much as Coop. 

This is a true procedural crime story, one that respects the rules and regulations of crime solving. At the start of the story, this is Coop’s philosophy and as a reader we follow in his footsteps. There feels like a level of detail and realism in the book that suggests Gee has experience on the subject matter. This does mean that the book can lack a little punch in places, but authors like Michael Connelly have proven that following good investigative work is reward for the reader themselves. 

Like many a good crime novel, Gee does not have one story, but two parallel. A reopened cold case may have bearing on the latest fires. Here Sydney can shine as she investigates the decades old case as Coop works on the new one. The threads begin to come together as the book concludes. The procedural part of the book ends and instead you are rewarded with an action-packed climax. Arguably, the investigation is over too quickly. The more procedural feel of the book left me thinking the case would have taken months to investigate and years to fully convict, but that won’t make for the most exciting novel! 

There are some elements of the book that felt alien to me but impact the story to make it more exciting. Racial tensions play a key role in the book; there seems to be a casual reaction by character about being former membership of Far-Right groups. I would have thought being an open former member of of the KKK may have stopped any accent into mainstream politics, but perhaps not in this Charleston. 

Fleet Landing is a very solid crime tale that will appeal to fans of the genre, to those that like their investigations well thought through and with some realism. Things do become more hectic later in the book, but in the whole, this is the type of building pot boiler that fans of the crime genre seek. 

There was a time in my life that I would sit down and read some Dystopian Fiction and not consider at all that it would happen in my lifetime, but all I need to do is some doomscrolling on my social medias to think that elements of Carl Wilhoyte’s Ultimart may not be long in our future. This is a book that takes the dark sensibilities of a Chuck Palahniuk Transgressional Fiction novel, adds in some Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and then, for good measure, plops into a couple of dollops of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy. What could possibly go wrong with that mix? What has a chance to even go right? 

Corwin Scaggs has a middling office job in a company that takes AI images and fixes them for the advertising industry. An extra finger removed here, a gurning mouth erased there. Corwin starts to question the point of why he is even bothering. He lives on the edge of bankruptcy inside a giant dome alongside 20 million other people also on the edge of destitution. In this society having no money means a probable death and having your children sold off. Corwin discovers that there may be a way to undermine the system, but at what cost? 

Dystopian is a dark genre, but Ultimart may be one of the darkest books that I have read, not just because the future is bleak, but because Wilhoyte tackles it with a dark sense of humour, and that you can feel elements of it happening already. This is a poisoned Earth where people have been forced to live in domes under the yoke of commercial powers and ultimately a dispassionate AI. For all his life Corwin has worked diligently in the system, but even so, his future and that of his family, is looking bleak. 

Matters come to a head when Corwin takes his father home to care for him. Without the money to keep his father alive, Corwin starts to find faults in the Dome’s core systems to exploit. This leads to an awakening and a new purpose in life. The book is the Fall and Rise of Corwin, but in this future, can anyone truly win? 

Ultimart truly felt like a mix of Palahniuk, Gilliam, and Judge, and that is no bad thing. These are three touchstones I have enjoyed for years. The world of Ultimart is on the point of being fully broken, like in Idiocracy, but rather than the people being stupid, they are numb and controlled in a bureaucratic nightmare. Then you then have the layer of Transgressive Fiction, Corwin as the Tyler Durden looking to undermine the system they find themselves in. 

Anyone who is a fan of any of these three properties will get a lot from Ultimart, but it is hard going. Fight Club was no walk in the park; Brazil has no happy ever after. Ultimart follows in this trend. There are poignant moments peppered throughout the book, small stories of a child’s death, or a father sold into slavery. What makes these takes even bleaker is that they are not the focus of the story, but mere asides, as if they are regular occurrences in this cold future. 

Is Ultimart a funny book? Not in a laugh out loud way, but there is a dark surrealism that will appeal to those with a pitch-black sense of humour. It is more an interesting Science Fiction novel that uses the genre as it should – the future explores the present. Are we heading to a version of Ultimart, or at least adopting some of it? I fear that we are and Wilhoyte uses this story to an impactful effect.    

I am not one to get involved with politics at school. I am one of those parents who chooses to be ambivalent to it all, probably to the annoyance of others. The problem is I can see the temptation to get involved in the drama, a small way to add a little spark to your life. I have enough spark in my life from reading fantasy and watching science fiction, I do not need any of the real stuff. I may have less choice if one of the kids was bitten by a werewolf and I had to move them to a new school created for supernatural beings. Like Vivian in Caitlin Rozakis’ The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, it would be in my interest to know as much as possible about what is going on in the strange school. 

Vivian has been wracked with guilt ever since taking her daughter, Aria, on a camping trip, only for it to turn into a werewolf hunt. Aria survived the attack but is no longer quite human. She is a kindergarten pupil prone to wolfing out and this takes a special type of education to handle such a pup. Vivian and her family move to a new town that caters for magical beings, but as a mundane with a newly enhanced child, will she ever be able to fit into a society that has had generations of the uncanny in their family trees? 

I enjoy Urban Fantasy, but it often leans into the Fantasy and not the Urban as much. Tales of magical creatures that live under the streets, or Wizard PIs trying to stop the apocalypse again. Grimoire is almost Sombre Fantasy, a book that takes the fantastical and makes it deal with real life, as it would happen. This is a world in which magic is real, but compartmentalised. For good or bad, the magical folks are ghettoised in pockets around the world. It is this closed society that Vivian must worm herself into. 

What better way to get involved than by joining the Parent Teacher Association? A fantastic way to get to know other parents, but also a terrific way to step into a big smelly pile of drama. The book has all the snobbish characters and aloof looks that you expect from a mix of parents, but the stakes are also prophesy high. The locals are always looking out for a family that may fulfil the ancient curse that the town sits under, and Vivian’s family may just fit the bill. 

Although the book has Mages and Kelpies, it does feel grounded as the parental politics can be found in a similar form at many schools. We take the journey with Vivian, and she is a guilt riven character. She feels to blame for her daughter’s change and the upheaval in the family. This guilt is always with her and influences her decisions. As a reader, it can be intense. Vivian is an emotional character. I felt more in keeping with the husband who had no time for school politics, but I think many people will be more sympathetic with Vivian. It is hard to give yourself a break sometimes. 

Between the back biting and family angst, there is some lovely world design. The new town and characters hold a lot of potential for further books. There is also an interesting crime element to the book that shows that although a place can be magical, the people are still as greedy and corrupt as anywhere else. A reader who has helped a child through school will relate to many of the bureaucratic aspects of the book, but there are also enough fun Urban Fantasy elements for fans of that genre to enjoy the book also.  

I read a lot of genre fiction that has been mixed with a crime drama as it is an excellent way of giving a story a solid throughline. A murder mystery can concentrate the narrative when exploring a high concept Science Fiction world. It is also a great way of giving grit to an Urban Fantasy story, grounding the magical in something real. What I do not read as often is crime mixed with High Fantasy. Emily Paxman has done just this in Death on the Caldera and has not chosen any old crime style to pay homage to, but one of the greatest, a classic Agatha Christie style whodunnit. 

The passengers on the Caldera are on board for a number of reasons, but most have no motive to want to crash the train and then to start murdering the survivors. Or do they? Could Rae be a suspect? She has fled on the train with her daughter, leaving behind her old life, but why? The Linde family are also suspect. They all hold a secret that no one can know. Is it a secret worth killing over? When the survivors vote that the Lindes should investigate what better way to reflect blame from themselves? 

There is a lot for Paxman to balance in Caldera as this is a High Fantasy novel that tries to integrate the murder mystery fully. This is not a token attempt to provide some loose structure to the novel, but a core component. For the book to work both the Fantasy and Crime fiction elements need to work in balance, and they do. 

On a magical level, there is some intriguing world building happening. A dominant nation has built a railway through various countries; not all are happy with this development. Various magical styles are used against one another, including those that use the power of the Earth, and the ostracised Witch community. Witches are welcomed in some countries, but hunted down, and killed in others. One other aspect about Witches that plays a pivotal role in the murder mystery is that they are two entities in one; a human and a Witch, you change from one to another when you true human or Witch name is spoken. 

The Crime element is also well catered for and rather than ignoring the fact that it is a Fantasy novel, it plays into it. Is the suspect a Witch or a user of Earth magic? One can be made to look like the other. This allows for Paxman to play the classic Red Herring game of throwing the reader off the scent. 

There are plenty of potential killers and victims on the train, but the story centres on the Linde family and Rae. All of them have plenty of secrets to reveal as the book progresses, but they also have a bond. The dynamic between these central characters is what gives the books its heart, there is a community and a family that you want to survive. 

Who crashed the train and who is killing the survivors, and are they the same person or peoples? You will have to read the book to find out. Paxman does a good job of making the story complex enough that it is not straight forward to solve, and it has some twists. The mix of complex magics, and murder can get a little confusing at times, but the core family dynamics that pepper the investigation make the book enjoyable to read. As a reader you want to see who did it, and discover how the Lindes et al can get out of the tricky situation they find themselves in.  

I enjoy a retelling of a classic tale from an unfamiliar perspective. I have read about Sherlock Holmes from the point of view of almost everyone he ever met. I have read about Beowulf written by his niece. King Authur, Robin Hood, many others, but never a character as dark as Sweeny Todd. The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was crazed enough for one story, but what about Mrs Lovett the Pie Maker who lived downstairs, so ready to make meat of men? David Demchuk and Corinne Leigh Clark tell this untold tale in The Butcher’s Daughter. 

A woman sits in a Nunnery having lived there for decades, but as her years advance, she feels the need to get things off her chest, but what are these things? In a series of letters to a young journalist, Margaret Evans sets out on telling her story from being a butcher’s daughter, a doctor’s housekeeper, and a Lady in Waiting. As the truth unfolds it starts to become obvious that Margaret’s life was not an easy one and that Margaret was not always her name. Will the truth come out before the authorities arrive? 

Butcher’s Daughter is not only an interesting retelling of a well-known story, but it is also told in an interesting manner. Rather than being contemporary to Sweeny Todd, it is as written decades later, retelling the past with a fresh perspective. This is in the series of letters, mostly between Margaret and a journalist, but there are also clippings from newspapers and letters sent to the journalist as they investigate Margaret’s story. This is a perfect way of leaving sections on a cliffhanger as one letter ends, and you must wait for the next. 

Although an interesting idea, each letter starts formally but soon drift into a normal narrative fiction style. I found it odd that someone in a nunnery would write in such a prose style. A letter is normally more conversational in style, and this only happens at the start and end of each letter. This does make the narrative easier to follow, but it felt like a token idea, rather than one followed through. 

Despite the letters reading inauthentically in places, it did not distract from the story itself, in fact the style of letter helped. Butcher’s Daughter is a wonderfully dark tale, and one that builds up nicely. We suspect the truth early, but it is not all slit throats and pies. That is left to the final third. Instead, we are given a tour of early Victorian London from the perspective of a poor woman. Margaret’s roles in the butcher’s and doctors would lead into later life. Not only in the skills picked up, but also her mentality to meat. 

In most, the book is not sinister and does not paint the likes of Margaret or Mrs Lovett in the worst light. Instead, it is a classic historic feel you would get in any good costume drama. This is just a drama that ends in horrendous crimes. With a few small turns in fortune, Margaret’s life would have been quite different. Instead, she must deal with the life that she lived and the memories and regrets this provided. 

There are a few key moments in the life of Margaret that dictates how she will live. She has strong motivations, but does she turn too quickly? Throughout the book Demchuk and Clark hint at a coldness to Margaret’s personality, so when she needs to act quickly, she does without hesitation. Is there enough in Margaret’s past to justify her actions? I was not sure and felt things went a little psychotic too quickly. 

Although there are a few issues with this book, they are insignificant compared to how entertaining it is to read. It is a pacy story that is full of menace. Margaret is a protagonist you can understand, even when her actions are off-piste at times. The book is part historic fiction novel, part thriller, part horror. Fans of the latter will very much enjoy the dark conclusion to the book, a wisp of black humour that hides throughout the pages.    

Who does not love a genre mash up? The industry certainly does as they ride that Romantasy train all the way to the bank. Although I do not mind a whimsical fantasy, I would not consider it my favourite genre. A mash up of genres needs a little more bite to interest me. How about Westerns with the Old Gods? Now you are talking, Frederic S. Durbin’s The Country Under Heaven is the first book I have read in the Cthuern genre, a mix of cowboys, and Gods that break the minds of men. 

Ever since surviving an explosion during the Civil War, Ovid Vesper has seen visions. With nowhere to settle after the war, Vesper roams the Great Plains of America following where his visions take him. Over the next decade or so, Vesper becomes involved in more than one adventure that flirts with the uncanny. Rather than running away in terror, Vesper straightens his hat and tackles the terror like only a cowboy can. 

Mixing classic feeling Western fiction with H P Lovecraft is not something that I would think of as a good fit, but Durbin proves in Country that it not only works but makes for an excellent novel. If the Old Gods were destroying minds in the cities surely they would be prevalent as well in the vast lands that span America. The book takes the form of a series of stories from Vesper’s life, reading more like a short story collection than a narrative whole. It is Vesper who is the glue that holds the book together, and despite skipping years at a time, his character development holds true throughout. 

I really enjoyed this book because it stayed true to the Western genre. Vesper is not the Man with No Name, but he is not the chattiest. This is a practical character of good morals just trying to get by, picking up work where he can. This may be helping with harvesting the crops or leading a herd across the plains. Vesper’s live is not all demons, most of it is pretty plain. We are just given an insight into the stranger tales of his life. 

You have tales that are a wonderful mix of Urban Fantasy and Western. You can start a tale about returning two green skinned children to their own land, only for it to end in a classic feeling shootout. Vesper may be asked to help a widow to carry her departed husband to his final resting place, because his ghost is haunting her, only for it to end in betrayal and tragedy. 

The only thing that remains steadfast in all the stories if Vesper’s attitude. A wonderfully practical character who deals with the problem in front of him, no matter the nature of it. This is an age when people did not feel that they knew everything about the world, there is a willingness in the West to believe that odds things may just be supernatural and to deal with them as you would the natural. 

What Durbin does best in the book is blend the natural and supernatural, even playing with the reader at times. Lulled into a sense that the book is packed with Cthulhu, some of the evil in the book proves to be far more human. There are moments of horror and fantasy, but this is a Western book at heart, with a sprinkling of spicy supernatural flavour added to the mix. The sense of place and people feels like the Old West should do and it is how you imagine they would deal with odd goings on. The book follows most of Ovid Vesper’s life, but I hope that there are some more hidden tales for him to tell in a future book. 

There are books in a person’s life that helps to define their taste in genres. I was lucky enough in my teenage years to work my way through some of the classics of science fiction instilling a lifelong love of the genre. One novel that stands out among the best was Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man, a collection of ethereal feeling science fiction stories based around the body of a tattooed man. Joelle Taylor has their take on this concept in The Night Alphabet, an anthology of stories that may be considered even more eclectic than Bradbury’s originals. 

Almost two centuries from now a woman walks into a tattoo parlour in London. She knows the artist and their assistant, but they do not know the tattooed woman. She has a simple ask of them, connect all the tattoos on her body with a simple line. As the tattoo artist moves from design to design, the woman tells a story about the origins of the tattoo. You see, these are not just images, but representations of past and future lives, lives that the woman has lived many times over. 

Taylor is a poet, and this is their first work of full fiction. Science Fiction is a great genre for a poet to start in, as it lends itself to a style that take a reader out of themselves. This book may be prose, but it certainly has the heart of a poet. The descriptions alone force the reader to turn them around in their mind, it can take 50 pages or so to get used to the style. The closest I have come across before is a lyrical poetic take on a Phillip Marlowe style noir. 

The ethereal prose is reflected in the narrative. This is a set of connected short stories, with the tattooed woman at the centre. Their story is progressed after each short story is completed. The concept is not simply a group of random lives, but a thread that connects them all, the woman’s ability to drop into the lives of others both past and present.  

Some of the narrative voices are too similar across stories. The tattooed woman is meant to fully immerse themselves in their new life, so why do so many of the character appear to think in the same way? It is only in a couple of tales that the voice is obviously different, usually because Taylor wants the character to be less sympathetic. In a set of disconnect stories this would not have been an issue, but the core concept begs for each new life to have its own dominion. 

The concept allows for stories of all types, some are science fiction, whilst others are historic. As all are narrated from a form of time traveller, they are inherently Sci Fi but take them out of context and place them in another anthology and they would just be fiction. For instance, a powerful tale about 19th century miners. This story is about the woman left behind when the husband dies, how they are treated and what they are forced to do. It is heartfelt, tragic, and thought provoking. 

These are the touch words for most of the stories in Night Alphabet, that and that they are all powerful tales about woman. The tales are unforgiving and cover subjects such as sex workers, a tale of ownership of one’s womb in the future, online trolls. The tales may be set 100 years in the future or the past, but they cover topics that are relevant today. 

The impactful subject matter and prose style means that the book is not an easy read, but it is one that will stay with you. Illustrated Man was a tricky read and Night Alphabet follows that trend, and in both cases, it is certainly worth the effort. Night Alphabet is the type of book that will speak to readers on various levels. There are those that will take the tales personally, whilst other will feel distant, but be forced to reflect on themselves and society. If you like you books to have depth and to trigger thoughts, both good and bad, then this book is for you.  

I have had my fill of Vampires. They are the Primadonna of the undead world hogging all the limelight with their films and TV shows. They are also all over books. One of my family member’s entire book collection is just vampires. What about the other supernatural beings? A vampire's erstwhile enemy is the brutal Werewolf. Now there is a monster I can get behind with all the ripping, tearing, and rendering. Nat Cassidy has one heck of a wolf in When the Wolf Comes Home but wait around a little longer and there is a far greater power hidden within the pages. 

Jess is a struggling actor holding down a series of part time jobs, barely making ends meet. Her only friend is her mother who has moved into an assisted living village miles away. When Jess discovers a lost little boy, she can have no idea of what the consequences will be of providing aid. The boy is being hunted by something, a being that rips and tears its way to its goal. A being that may just be the boy’s father. 

Horror is a more complex and layered genre than some would have you think. It is not just shock and gore. You can have subtle horror, old school monster horror, the subgenres are numerous. In Wolf, Cassidy plays with some of the tropes of the horror genre, giving you one type of monster of the week story, but then delving into something far deeper. 

The depth of the novel comes from Cassidy exploring what and where this wolf creature came from. You could write a straight werewolf book, never explaining the origins, but that is not Cassidy’s style. By revealing the nature of the beast, the book opens far wider into magical realism. The tone shifts to a dark magical horror that reminded me of the later works of horror maestro James Herbert. 

By drawing in elements of magic and fantasy, Cassidy never forgets the book’s roots in horror. There are plenty of disturbing and gruesome scenes to entertain any lover of the crimson. Enjoy seems the wrong word to use, but the scenes in which the werewolf appears amongst normal people are powerful and sick, in the right way. There are also scenes of high tension as the boy and Jess hide in the shadows as the monster creeps outside. There is also another form of body and gonzo horror that occurs later in the book as new powers are revealed. 

All the jump scares and tension are for nought, if the characters have no impact, so Cassidy spends time developing Jess and the young child’s character. There is more horror in knowing these people and their loved ones. As in any true horror story, no character is safe, so a tension runs throughout the book.  

As a fan of multiple genres and not just what would be considered traditional horror, Wolf is a book that appealed to me. It went above and beyond just being a monster novel and morphed into something far more complex and ethereal. Will this appeal to every fan? I think some people will be enjoying the awesome werewolf scenes in the early parts of the book so much that the change in direction will annoy them. However, this pivot allows for some unusual types of bizarro horror that you will not want to miss. 

I have not read the synopsis of a book I am about to read for over twenty years, ever since I read a spoiler on the back of the novel that revealed the massive twist that occurred two thirds of the way through. I will have to add Series Titles to the list of things not to read as The Vengeance by Emma Newman is part of The Vampires of Dumas series. A cracking pirate adventure, but no vampires in sight.... until. 

Morgane has only ever known the life of a pirate. Her mother is the Captain Anna-Marie of The Vengeance, one of the most feared pirate ships on the sea. Although the trading companies may fear the captain, her crew respect her. It is not until Captain Anna-Marie is fatally injured that cracks appear in her shell and she reveals to Morgane that she is not her mother and an aunt who stole her as a baby. On her deathbed Anna-Marie asks Morgane never to look for her real mother as she is evil, but Morgane has always had her own mind and sets off on an adventure to France. 

Vengeance is one of the most entertaining pirate novels that I have ever read. The opening act of the book is all about Morgane’s life on the seas and the tragic events that lead to her mother’s death. These are swashbuckling murderers, but Newman balances their bloodthirsty nature with a sense of honour. Morgane is an anti-hero who has killed several men, but you never feel like she is cruel. 

The story then sets off on a wonderful fish out of water story as the daughter of a Pirate Captain sets sail for France where she must learn to settle into the gentile lifestyle of a Lady. Rather than write a linear plot that leads Morgane to her mother, Newman leads the reader on a fun dance as Morgane’s nature to act first and think later leads her astray. There are action sequences and new characters to meet on the way, including Lisette, a Lady in Waiting who is hired to teach manners to Morgane, but picks up some bad habits of her own. The character of Morgane is excellent and I could read many adventures about her. The relationship between her and Lisette is a lovely one, played out over a series of misadventures.  

What will happen when Morgane finally meets her mother? I guessed early on. Not because the book revealed it, but because the series title did. For a Pirate Vampire novel, there is a whole lot of Pirate before there is any Vampire. Far too much. I loved the Pirate sections and would happily have just read these, but I knew the undead were coming at some point, because the cover tells me. 

Why does it matter if you know that Vampires are involved? Because it shapes how you read the entire novel. If you went into this book blind, the reveal may have been a massive surprise. Hints are given, but to the unawares they may have overlooked them, to someone who has glanced at the cover, these hints blaze in technicolour neon. It becomes a case of not if vampires are going to pop up, but when. 

Evoking the idea of Vampires in the Series Title does The Vengeance a true disservice. This is a cracking Pirate adventure with some great characters. It is a stroll through a grimy and entertaining alternative France. However, those in the know are always waiting for the other shoe to drop and that does not occur to well into the novel. Far enough in the proceedings to work better as a surprise. Do the words Undead and Vampire sell copy and that is why they are on the front? Perhaps, but I would have preferred excellent pirate adventure as a Series Title and let me discover the twists for myself. 

Over the years Star Wars has become a complicated beast, even the first film was a Space Opera that had a lot going on. Throw in various timelines and you have an epic on your hands, but some of the simpler stories are the ones that work the best. The Acolyte was series that expanded on The High Republic era of Star Wars set years before any Skywalker. Justina Ireland had the option to go full Space Opera with the tie in novel Star Wars: The Acolyte: Wayseeker, but instead created this well-structured two hander. 

Vernestra Rwoh is what is known as a Wayseeker, a Jedi who sets off to find their own path. She lets the force guide her to remote planets, helping the locals, rather than trying to be involved in intergalactic politics. It has been ten years, and the Jedi Council need Vernestra back. There is a specialist mission that they believe Vernestra will be able to deal with best. They send reclusive archivist Jedi Knight Indara to fetch her, not the best fit it would seem, but the Force works in mysterious ways. 

I enjoy an epic Star Wars tie in novel, but it is simpler tales like Wayseeker that I feel work even better. This is a simpler story told from two perspectives, the wise Vernerstra and the hesitant Indara. Although they are Master and Knight, the relationship has that Padawan feel to it. The book reads like a minor adventure in the Star Wars universe, and this is why it works. The Avengers are not sent out to solve every crime and you do not need all the Jedi Council to tackle a vicious arms dealer. 

The book is a science fiction crime thriller. Someone has kidnapped a scientist and is producing a device that can nullify lightsabres. Vernerstra and Indara follow the clues that take them to several planets. Their relationship builds as they start to discover more about one another. It was interesting to see the same event from the different perspectives; the chapters were slightly staggered so that you witnessed the last action again from the previous chapter through new eyes. 

Although the stakes do not initially appear universe shattering, the potential is there should the nullifying technology become widespread. This is an existential threat, but nebulous. To make the action hotter, Ireland has created an arms dealer that you can really grow to dislike. Entitled and evil, hopped up on Spice and power, this is a character who is unpredictable and creates many of the twists and shocks in the book. 

I enjoyed the focus and driven nature of Wayseeker. It contains characters that fans on the miniseries will recognise, but it is not packed with cameos from the wider cannon, although Yoda is present. It works well as a Star Wars book, even if you do not know the characters. The two protagonists follow the ways of the Jedi, but like with all the best Jedi, struggle. Vernerstra can balance love with being a Jedi, whilst Indara must come to terms with mistakes in her life. 

If you read more Star Wars and books, particularly on Jedi, it starts to become obvious that on the surface these Jedi may appear cool, but inside they are embroiled. Focussing on two characters allows Ireland to explore two ways of how a Jedi deals with being part of the order, whilst still allows for a fun, focussed, action thriller. Wayseeker feels like a Star Wars novel that tackles the universe on a smaller scale but works better for it.  

The sheer number of comic books out there are a blessing and a curse. There are so many stories to catch up on and different versions of the same characters. It is wonderful for the explorer, but for the casual fan it can be daunting. We all know something about Black Panther, the character, Wakanda etc, but did you know about The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda a whole other multi solar system of Wakandan people? Ta-Nehisi Coates knew about it in their comic book run that took an alternative look at The Black Panther and now Suyi Davies Okungbowa has the task of telling the tale in prose form. 

The stranger wakes up with no memories of who they are. They are on some sort of mining planet, a slave. Although they cannot remember their name, the body seems to recall. They are faster and more powerful than the guards, trust your instincts and you can escape. Who is this mysterious stranger? Could it be T’Challa, the latest reincarnation of The Black Panther, a hero the people need right now? 

Marvel is as good/bad as any comic book creators at creating alternative versions of well-known characters from stories set in the past or future, to the multiverse. This novel is based on a story that is not an alternative to the Earth Black Panther, but as a companion piece. It is set far away in a separate Wakanda society that explored the stars long ago. They hold the beliefs of Wakanda Prime, but over time these have become distorted, their T’Challa now calls himself Emperor, who controls planets, wipes the memories of dissidents and uses the stored knowledge to keep himself in power. 

This version of Wakanda is so far removed from what the reader may be used to, that I was instantly worried that I would be lost. However, you need not worry as Okungbowa focusses on the right things. There is a rich vein of lore that feels familiar, but we are also introduced to this alternative space opera. It has the feel of Star Wars as the plucky rebellion fights the Empire, but there is no Luke Skywalker. Instead, you get a kick arse Black Panther. 

Adapting graphic novels into prose is an art, and one that Okungbowa has achieved. A book lacks the visual nature of the comics, so you need to describe the action. Okungbowa does this well, but they also focus on the characters and the lore. These are areas in which prose can shine. We see the development of T’Challa into becoming the King those around him believe him to be. There is more insight than perhaps a comic could provide. 

As an adaptation, it reads like Okungbowa made some choices about what to cover. Some action is described in short order, almost off screen. This feels wise, if that was the case, as it allowed the book to focus on what it does best and that is the development of the characters, both good and bad. Even with selected editing, the book does suffer a little from being based on a comic run (or runs I would suspect). The acts feel a little disjointed and not fully connected, at one point abandoning T’Challa completely for a while. 

The book is certainly strongest in its first act. A section that sees the imprisonment, rescue, and early development of T’Challa. More happens in the concluding section, but it is too much. More characters and more action mean that it is harder to picture what is happening. Even at its more explosive and confusing Intergalactic Empire remains an enjoyable book to read and an impressive adaptation of a graphic novel. Okungbowa has intelligently leaned into the positives of the written format to delve deeper into the characters, and this is where it is strongest. The book would work well for any Marvel or Black Panther fan, but also those that like action science fiction with interesting characters and setting.        

People have used the insanity plea in defence of some heinous crimes. Was it months of planning that made you act or next door’s Labrador? When buying a property, it may be a clever idea to heed the warning of the stranger who tells you not to listen the voice when it appears. The last owner went on a killing spree, but why should that bother you? You have some cheap rent in a popular area of Manhattan. What better place to open a comedy store than this? It is not like standup comedians are known for their short fuses or characters flaws, is it? 

Jeff never dreamed of being a standup comedian, but he did dream of facilitating their art. After years of saving, he managed to purchase the location for his club ‘The Square.’ The rent came cheap for a reason as the last owner went on a killing spree, but history is not going to repeat itself, is it? For decades it never did, but now Jeff is tired, and the club is not making money anymore. The comedians are irritating him, and his girlfriend won’t stop bugging him. Finally, he hears a voice that makes it seem so simple, “kill them all.”  

Comedy is often the tears of a clown, and this is especially true of standups. If you are a fan of the artform and have read around it, you will soon stumble upon sad tales of abuse and addiction. Not all comedians are like this, but there are enough issues in Mike Bockoven’s Killing It to make a tale. It is not the funny people that you need to be weary of in the book, but Jeff the owner and then maybe not even him. Although Jeff hears the voice most prominently, there is an inner voice in all the characters’ heads. 

Killing is part crime story, part horror. I was interested in the balance between the voice and the criminality. Is there actually anything to listen to or has Jeff just had a phycological break? As the book progresses it starts to become clearer that there may be more to the walls of ‘The Square’ than just bricks and mortar, but for the initial half or so, it feels like as much as a phycological crime thriller, as a horror. 

The terror comes in the form of the violent acts, they are extreme. Despite connotations of otherworldly things, the suffering is mete out by humans. If you like body horror and extreme imagery, there are moments in the book for you, but for me the strongest part of the book was the characters. There is an ensemble of mostly comedians in the book, and they are all given their moment to shine. The chapters act like a curse that is passed around the cast. One closes and the new chapter focuses on a different character again. You get more insight into their motives but also get the feeling that something bad may happen to them. No character is safe. 

The structure of the book is also one of its strengths, it works like a typical standup night set from compere, to first, second and third act. Each section of the book is introduced with some of the comedy that the oblivious victims gave to the audience hours before all hell broke loose. 

Killing is a darkly humorous novel that is perfectly in keeping with its setting and characters. It is not a pure crime novel, but a genre bending mix of horror and crime. It leans more into the horror genre and fans of that element of the book will appreciate it more, pure crime fans may find the supposed supernatural elements hard to swallow. I found the whole book a disturbing read, but one that was page turning and structured in a fascinating way. 

How do you like your science fiction and fantasy? I will admit to being someone who loves a simple and accessible tale, but the genres can offer so much more than this. There are few genres better equipped to take a reader to truly alien places, to worlds that feel like they were designed in a fever dream. Ai Jiang blends a subtle tale of family and fantasy into a world of wonder in the novel A Palace Near the Wind.  

Liu Lufeng may be the eldest daughter of the Feng dynasty, but she is one of the last to marry. Younger sisters have gone to marry the human king, but still more Princesses are asked for and now it is Feng’s turn. Feng has it in mind to discover what happened to her mother and sisters, and if needed revenge them. For the first time in her life, Feng must leave the sanctuary of the Feng lands for those of the human, a vastly different and alien place. 

Palace is not a book that drops you softly into a fantasy world but instead plunges you instantly into something that feels like a poem. Jiang uses a lyrical style of writing that heightens the mystery of the Feng people, but it can take a reader a while to get in step with the style. After a few pages you start to get a feel for the prose and then you realise that the Feng people are not human at all, but beings who are part of nature, with bark-like skin. Why does the human King want to marry them so much and why must they negotiate constantly to save their lands? These are the mysteries that inform the book. 

Rather than instantly go into detail about Liu and the Feng people, Jiang lets the book flow naturally. It takes a while to understand what is happening, how the people are different and what the world is about. This may be confusing to some readers but repeat fans of fantasy and science fiction should be able to handle the style. It evolves in a way to reveal the world and mystery slowly; the writing style adds to the magical feel of the Feng people. 

Beneath the ethereal style is a classic feeling fantasy tale. It takes from traditional fairy tales with its story of sisters and an evil king. Like fairy tales of old, it also takes a dark twist. As the reader learns more about the human world, you start to understand why they want the Feng land so much. There is obviously a further set of tales that can be set in this land as there are further kingdoms and peoples to meet. 

At under two hundred pages Palace is more of a novelette than a novel, it introduces ideas and characters, but they are so numerous and the page count so short that they are not fully explored. This adds to the enigmatic nature of the book and the characters, but it will lead some readers frustrated. I found it an intriguing tale that offered something different than the usual fantasy fiction. 

I find most comfy crime novels an oxymoron as they usually deal with a hideous murder. The cosiness comes in the telling and the setting. I blame Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple books with that inquisitive pensioner solving crimes that were hideous, gruesome, committed for money, revenge, or passion. Not cosy when you think about it. Perhaps Cheddar Luck Next Time by Beth Cato will be different, an actual cosy crime caper, perhaps about a round of missing cheddar cheese? Once the first body with a slit throat turns up, it appears not. 

Bird Nichols has moved her life and her cheese board company to the relaxed California coast after the death of her grandmother. The inheritance included her grandmother’s cottage and top of the line kitchen facilities, perfect for her business. Bird and her grandmother were both into catering and Bird also has something else in common, getting involved with crime solving. Gran was known as the local meddler, and Bird is fast going down the same track when a body turns up on her property and she starts to investigate. 

Is Cheddar a cosy read? Despite a butchered body appearing near the start of the book, the answer is yes. The setting of the California coast leans into a bohemian and relaxed feel. Bird herself is a character that brings out the warmth. She is autistic and uses this power to develop a cheese business, but it also gives her an insight into crime solving. The book feels like the start of a series, something you can imagine being made into a 9pm ITV drama. The book introduces Bird, but also the local area and local characters. 

The case itself is a solid procedural affair as Bird follows the clues to meet new people and develop the case. This leads to more breakthroughs. The book is interspersed with moments of action as Bird gets too close to the killer. It all resolves well in a coherent fashion and one that will satisfy fans of crime fiction. 

I would not read Cheddar for the case, but for the characters. Cato weaves a small community that draws you in. The bad boy that annoyed the locals, the handsome street food truck owner, the resident busybody. There are lots of interesting people to meet, but there is also a deeper mystery, that of Bird’s grandmother. Gone, but not forgotten, Bird learns new things about the matriarch of her family and how people used to see her. There is a deeper meta mystery that will span several books as we learn more about this mysterious woman. 

The role of Bird is written with intelligence and care. The autism is not portrayed as any sort of fault, but as a fact and one that Bird lives well with. It makes her an interesting character and justifies some of the cheese indulgence in the book. As someone obsessed with the dairy product, Bird will wax lyrical on the subject, and this breaks up some of the tension with the ‘cosy’ cheese moments. 

If you enjoy your crime more relaxed, then Cheddar is a book for you. It has murder, chases, and violence, but it is all kept within reason and is not too gory. It does have a welcoming feel to it, a book that introduces you to new characters and a new location. Those who like more pace and action will not get as much from the book, but any crime fan can appreciate the core crime element.  

War, what is it good for? Not a lot, but depressingly it is a real driver of innovation. What better way to inspire the greatest minds in the country than to task them with more efficient ways to kill the enemy? Arms races happen all over the place from conventional gun and bullets to newer types of warfare like AI and social media. You even have bizzarro experiments like telepathic goats. There will be labs somewhere that are experimenting with animal/human hybrids, some for medical reasons, others for potential war benefits. Christopher Hinz explores what may happen when the first human/dinosaur hybrid is introduced to the world in Scales. 

Eddie Boka is faster, stronger and has keener instincts than the average soldier. He is a human/dinosaur hybrid whose DNA has been altered to make him a more efficient killing machine. For all these benefits all he needed to sacrifice was his looks, libido, and his ability to stop himself ripping out the throat of the enemy and gorging on the meaty goodness. Eddie is not quite fit for public consumption, but the big reveal is weeks away. The army hire controversial therapist Adelaide “Addi” LaTour to work with Eddie. Will a little targeted electro-therapy calm the wild beast? 

The concept of Scales is the type of entertaining speculative thought exercise that only science fiction can provide. Hinz has the idea of a solider who is part human and part dinosaur, which way will they run with the concept? Initially, it seems like the book may be an action novel, Rambosaurus Rex, an opening scene introduces us to Eddie and his enhanced powers, and his enhanced issues. 

Interestingly, rather than focus on the reptilian side of Eddie, the book focuses on the man. The story returns to US soil and the secret base where Eddie and his fellow test subjects are held. The book becomes a therapy exercise as Eddie and Addi work together. The book also evokes the likes of Robocop. The army are working with a private firm to produce super soldiers. The management have their own targets and Eddie’s best interests are not part of their equations. The meddling at the top has a disastrous effect on the base and the public perception of Eddie et al. 

At times it was disappointing that the reader was not able to witness Eddie and the other hybrids in all their glory, spending more time on relationships and politics, but there are enough action scenes to keep fans of grue and explosions happy. At its heart this is a book about Eddie and the toll the experiments exacted on him took. The external transformation making him less palatable to look at, but more importantly the internal. The normal thoughts of feeling like a freak, but also the compulsion to violence and a taste for human flesh. There is also the loss of his desires, but as the book progresses these may not be as gone as first thought. 

Scales is an interesting exploration of what could happen if a man were mixed with a T-Rex. It is far more intelligent than you may think, exploring physical and phycological turmoil, whilst also mentioning the military industrial complex and how messed up that can be. There are also pockets of entertaining action, the balance is more cerebral, but I think any fan of unusual science fiction concepts will get something from this book.  

There are shifts in the Fantasy genre that perhaps only the ardent fan will notice. The epics of Tolkien and the 80s are still being written, but now there are more intimate stories that follow one or two characters as they graft in their small way among the wider Fantasy world. These are often cosy, set in a coffee shop or bookstore, but what if you combine this Cosy Fantasy with the Low Fantasy of the 00s/10s? You get something like The Serpent Called Mercy by Roanne Lau, a tale about two impoverished best friends who realise their only way out of debt is to enter the arena and slaughter countless mythical beasts. 

Lythlet and Desil have been beholden to one another since childhood. Desil stood up for the silent Lythlet as she was bullied at school and in adulthood Lythlet works hard to help pay off Desil’s debts. Between them they have little other than Desil’s strength and Lythlet’s intelligence, that combination may be perfect for the arena that is looking for duos to take on twelve deadly rounds of fighting against sun-cursed beasts. That is tricky enough, but becoming involved in the fights also brings them into the world of city politics. 

Mercy is a story of friendship, love, ambition, but also carving one head off a three headed beast as your friend is being slowly digested in stomach acid. It is a closed story, set in a wider world. Lythlet and Desil’s reality is just a few streets and the arena. The encroaching world does impose itself on them, but this is an intimate story at heart. 

This focus allows great character development, especially for Lythlet, the main protagonist. Her ambitions shift in the book, and it takes on a classic three-part structure as she falls and rises. It does in places take on that cosy feel, but this is platonic love and there is always a fight coming around the corner. The format dictates that there are up to twelve deadly fights in the book. Therefore, there is an ebb and flow between action and character development. 

As Lythlet’s star rises, her relationship with Desil is tested. She starts to hear the words of the Arena master; she is pulled between her ambition and her past. Some of the sections between Lythlet and the arena master are a little long and are pages of conversation, this helps to develop Lythlet’s character, but the pace of the book drops and what is a pacy fantasy novel, drops into that stodgy over encumbered pace that plagues the genre. 

The balance between the personal and the action is well done. I preferred the action sequences, but there are many readers who enjoy character development and relationships in a novel. I was a little perturbed by what I saw as a moral blind spot that Lythlet and Desil had. They live by a certain code but are happy to slaughter what could be considered innocent beasts. It is touched upon in the book, but not explored, probably because if you think about it too much it undermines a lot of the good that is in the characters. 

Mercy is a Fantasy novel with a series of contractions; it is violent Low Fantasy, but also a relationship story that feels cosy. It is a book about heroes who care about the little person but will slaughter animals for cash. In total, it is an entertaining fantasy novel, one that I would recommend to those fans that like a relationship heavy novel with edge, rather than Low Fantasy purists.  

Never say never when it comes to being a hired hitman. You may not want to kill for money anymore, but if you are anything like Quarry in The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins you may just end up getting in a situation that relies on your old skills and if you get paid for it all the better. This may be named the final Quarry book, but any fan of the stoic killer will know that he returned a few times, so why not read this reissued version to see why there should never be a last Quarry book. 

Quarry is retired from the killing game and instead spends his time being the manager of a high-end resort on a remote lake. The off season is boring enough for Quarry to get an itchy trigger finger, so when he sees an old acquittance in a local convenience store, Quarry’s interest is piqued. Quarry soon finds himself in the same old trouble when he is hired to kill someone, someone who turns out to be a knockout. 

The Quarry books have always been about an anti-hero, but at times it is hard to even have the hero element. Quarry is not a nice person, a killer for hire who for years had no issue with murdering people. Now in his 50s, he may have settled, but the sociopathic tendencies are still clear. As soon as an opportunity to get involved in his old ways comes up, Quarry does not take long to decide to get back into the game, at least temporarily. 

The difference now is that he is a little older and slower. Quarry is such an efficient killer and, in his own way, tactician, that age is not an object to dealing out death. It has not stunted his appeal with the ladies either. I can see for a man used to using a pistol that shooting a person is just as easy in your 50s as in your 20s, but seducing a young woman? There is plenty of seduction in Last Quarry and a lot of Quarry’s old-fashioned misogyny. That is all part of the characters flaws, and appeal, but getting the girl/s seems a little more farfetched nowadays! 

Fantasy on several elements is what makes Pulp so fun to read and Collins is a master of the format, and I do love the Quarry character. It is fantastical that he can kill for so many years and get out of scrapes, and it is also a fantasy with all the woman that surround him. There is an old-fashioned appeal to the book and the character that will have the more sensitive reader running for the hills. 

The plot of Last Quarry is classic for the character and does follow a similar pattern to other books in the series, but as a fan this is what you want to read. The story is very solid, full of darkly humorous language and some killing. This is a re-release of the story and fits in the latter timeline of the characters life. You also get a couple of short stories that acted as part genesis for the longer novel. Last Quarry is unapologetically a throwback to a pulpy dime novel mindset and captures this wonderfully. Quarry is such a darkly appealing character that any fan of pulp will enjoy this book and the series.  

Have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you went in there in the first place? Could just be a good old fashioned brain burp, but perhaps it is something more sinister. In Nicholas Binge’s Dissolution there is a character who knows too much, so much that their mind is being wiped to prevent them ever passing the information on. There is only one person who can help, his wife who must travel into the memories of her husband. Kind of like in my house now. She reminds me that I am in the kitchen to get my car keys. 

When Maggie Webb wakes up in a mysterious room with an anonymous voice asking her for help it is a change to her usual routine. For the past decade, Maggie has looked after her ailing husband, Stanley, whose memory has failed him and is who is now housed in the memory unit of a specialised clinic. Stanley’s memories may have been wiped unnaturally and there is a way for Maggie to save him. She must enter his memories and witness what happened in the past, but in doing so she may alter the present. 

Time travel in fiction is always mind bending and that makes it one of the trickiest science fiction concepts to tackle, but also one of the most entertaining. Binge explores the idea in an unusual way. Rather than a machine or a blip in the space/time continuum, memories are used. Somehow, you can travel into memories and alter them, and this effects the future. The book is not about the manipulation of time as such, but the protection from doing so. Why does Stanley remember nothing and what is the strange entity that Maggie comes across in his memories? 

One of the most interesting elements is the use of Maggie as the protagonist, an elderly lady who gives short shrift to any nonsense. Seeing someone bouncing around time in their later years is not the norm in fiction and makes for a pleasant change. Hers is a life lived; Binge can populate the story with some of those time travel nuggets that make the genre for fun. We only find out the truth about something later in the book. 

The story is divided between Maggie and Stanley. His elements are separate and follow his early life, explaining why he is under threat. These read more like straight literary fiction, a coming-of-age tale. These sections proved a nice oasis of calm as they made more sense with their linear storyline. Time travel is tricky, but Binge made things even harder for themselves by throwing in memories. In places the book is complex to follow, but Binge never loses the thread. 

Among the memory diving and tale of a young man growing into themselves, there is also a thriller. The book reveals at the right pace what is truly happening, who is behind the sinister clinic that Stanley is staying in and who Maggie is helping. The conclusion has that classic time travel feel to it that fans of the genre will appreciate. Dissolution is a thrilling take on the time travel genre, but also a more cerebral one for fans who like their science fiction challenging but also entertaining.   

There is more than one tradition in science fiction. You can have your epic space battles, but here in Blighty we have the tradition of an every person getting wrapped up in something far above their pay grade. Arthur Dent had his towel, and Johnny Gomez has his mop and bucket. It can’t just be space fighters and cyborgs in the future, someone is going to need to make sure that the toilets are still working or at least make sure the robots that fix the toilets are still working. 

Kilgore Station is one of the core locations close to Terran space where aliens from across the universe gather to work, live, and party. Johnny arrived over a decade ago to find a new life away from the scrapyards of Luna. Rather than ending up with a lucrative new life, he ended up being a long-time worker for Space Brooms, a janitor contractor. After one particularly gross clean up in an alien bathroom Johnny finds a chit that will change his life. He may not want trouble, but trouble looks like it wants him. 

When I think of comedic science fiction, I automatically get visions of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf, two formative novels in my life. It is high praise that Space Brooms by A. G. Rodriguez has elements of both books but still feels like its own thing. Johnny is an Arthur Dent like character, a janitor out of water, and later in the book Johnny joins a ragtag group of space scavengers who all have their own quirks. 

What separates Brooms is that it is a little darker and harsh, especially on Johnny. He is punched from pillar to post for an item that he does not even want. He has no choice but to go on an interplanetary adventure as it is his only chance of survival. In parts Johnny takes what is happening badly, reflecting on a life poorly lived. It is here that the book finds its heart. This is an action adventure, but it is also a coming-of-age story about a man in his late 30s finally getting on with living. 

Like any good lighter sci fi, there are some wonderfully eccentric side characters in the book from a Stetson wearing spaceship pilot, to his gruff cousin. The various gangs offer some of the most amusing moments. Everyone is after the chit that Johnny found from the most sophisticated assassins to useless punk gangs. Survival relies as much on various gangs getting in each other's way as Johnny doing anything. 

Brooms is a book of light and shade, but on balance it is a lighter book. It is an adventure full of dark humour. Johnny feels like a more modern comedic protagonist, someone with internal demons, but who we can still laugh with/at. If you are looking for a science fiction romp that spans the Solar System, then this is a perfect book for whiling away a few hours.  

A good life is a life well lived full of new adventures, meeting new people, and experiencing new things. On this criteria Angel Dare has had one of the best lives, she is always meeting new people and finding herself in new places, but not for the reasons she would want. From adult film star to victim, to vigilante, Angel as been there, seen that, done them all. The Get Off by Christa Faust may just be the last chapter in her story, a full life for her, but one that has led to many others being cut short. 

What do you do when the reason for your existence is stolen from you? This is the situation that Angel finds herself in when her vigilante quest comes near to its end. What will Angel do when the man she swore to kill is dead? She should probably start dealing with all the things she compartmentalised whist she was in the killing zone. Like the fact that she has not had a period in months, and someone just asked her when the baby is due. 

I am a huge fan of Pulp Crime and Faust is an author who knows how to do it brilliantly. If you are thinking of catching your breath whist reading, there is not much time for that in Get Off. This is a road story of mayhem, with Angel leaving the corpses of the good and the bad in her wake. There is no real plan to Angel’s madness, just a need to get away. She befriends those that would help her only to put her in danger. 

Why does Angel even bother to carry on? She could take that last step and end it all, but now there is someone else she must think about, but this is not really Angel’s style. There is a refreshingly harsh streak of anti-hero in Angel. She is selfish in a way that feels real, she is not able to tackle what she called her ‘situation.’ Instead, she continues to get into more scrapes killing and creating new enemies on the way. 

As a road story, the book has locations that Angel drives up to and causes havoc. We have a shootout in a clinic, a rest at the rodeo, and a fire at the cattle farm. Chaos and action follow Angel everywhere and it is an exhilarating ride. No one is safe around her and that adds to the tension. 

The tension works because Angel knows that she is messed up, we spend the whole story with her, and she is aware that she is a bad luck penny. As the book nears its end, she must deal fully with her ‘situation’ and that humanises her. The book may be pulp, but Angel has genuine issues, although heightened the book respects the fact that Angel’s mental health has taken a real battering throughout her life. 

This is the final part of Angel’s story, and I have not read the other books in the series, but this did not detract from Get Off. The previous tales are spoken of but are not inherent for the book to work. Faust did the correct thing when writing a sequel, let it stand on its own and encourage the reader to go out and buy the earlier books, that is certainly something I plan to do. The Get Off is a riotous example of Pulp Crime fiction, full of bullets, but also pathos.  

There is no doubt that Tchaikovsky is a prolific author - I'm counting at least 38 novels and many novellas and short stories. Every few months, there seems to be a new book on the horizon. But that regularity of releases doesn't seem to impact the quality of his writing or the sharpness of his vision. Having read most of his previous works, it's clear he not only continues to develop his talents but has begun experimenting with different writing styles. Alien Clay is no exception. Written from a first-person perspective, majoritively from the viewpoint of rebel Professor Arton Daghdev. Daghdev is sent to the hostile prison planet of Kiln after his political views get him in trouble with a harsh, authoritarian government (known simply as The Mandate) that removes any dissidents and thoughts different from the official dogma. He's an academic, specializing in ecology and biology, and under different circumstances, he might consider this a trip of a lifetime, not as a convict, though.

It takes 30 years for the automated prison ship to arrive and then purposefully disintegrate as it reaches the Kiln atmosphere, reviving and dispersing its previously frozen human cargo as it breaks up. Those who survive the re-entry find themselves with a deferred death sentence in a hostile and alien environment. They are treated as little more than slaves and work to grow and protect the colony. At the same time, those with more important job titles try to unravel its many secrets.

Life on Kiln is distinct from that found elsewhere, with a blurred line dividing flora and fauna, which also appear to be symbiotic. Despite Daghdev's early attempts, it seems impossible to create any form of classification, limited as humanity is to its narrow definitions. Some of these lifeforms seem a little perilous too; luckily, Daghdev's credentials as a bonified academic with knowledge of ecology and biology initially allow him to serve as Dig support, which, in reality, is little more than lab support but still a far cry from the more dangerous roles outside the safety of the base. Given Dagdev's expertise, there is some hope that he might be able to solve the mystery of some local artifacts that have so far eluded any explanation. Covered with writing of unknown origins, they don't seem to be the creation of any lifeform they have encountered. So just who built them, and what the hell is their purpose? It isn't long before Daghdev gets dragged back into revolutionary politics, and things start to turn for the worse, he finds himself on the frontline, carrying out the most dangerous jobs, thrust out into the strange alien jungle, and witnessing those artifacts first-hand.

Tchaikovsky does a good job of crafting the main character, Daghdev. He is well fleshed-out, although not altogether likable, and hardly a hero in anyone's eyes. The author does provide some justification, so it's at least possible to empathize with him. After all, they are all living in an authoritative and oppressive regime, even more so than most countries of present times. The supporting characters are not fleshed out quite as much, but I think that's more the effect of the first-person viewpoint than anything else. One other character that shines as brightly as the protagonist is the setting itself, arguably the most well-crafted, complete, and vibrant character in the novel. It's interesting to see how the author's style translates from the third person to the first; it feels different. Not better or worse, just different. There is still the sharp and dry humour, the clever writing, and the immense vision for all things biological and otherwise scientific. One of these differences is how we, as the readers, get to learn about the world around Daghdev. We experience the awe, the splendor, and indeed the horror as the protagonist does, and that creates a solid feeling of immersion in a way you don't always get with other perspectives.

The book's themes are pretty near the surface and obvious, lacking in subtlety, although still better presented than many. The harsh, crippling, and destructive doctrine of the Mandate clashes sharply with the organic symbiotic alien planet. The ending is somewhat predictable, but the enjoyment is in the journey, and it's a wild ride. Of course, being a Tchaikovsky story, the description of a truly alien environment is, without doubt, the most impressive part of this book. The anarchic and turbulent ecosystem defies rational classification and expounds on the idea that life will exist in stranger forms elsewhere in our universe. His exploration of symbiosis, much more varied than any creature on Earth, is fascinating. It's written in a way that the non-scientist can easily absorb too though, you don't need a background in biology to take part in this discussion.

Putting all these things together makes Alien Clay the most Tchaikovsky book yet.

The reason that I enjoy the Star Wars Universe so much is that it vast and can be explored in new and interesting ways. The Skywalker stories will always be there, but there are shady towns and abandoned Sith temples spotted all over the Universe. You can follow an eccentric archaeologist hunting for forbidden treasures or read about the development of a new settlement at the Galaxy’s Edge. These are smaller stories that focus on a few, but Star Wars can also be big. It can be about system wide politics and, yes, even trade negotiations. Star Wars: Reign of the Empire: The Mask of Fear by Alexander Freed is the start of a new series that takes the widest possible look at the Star Wars Universe. 

The likes of Senators Mon Mothma and Bail Organa managed to survive the rise of Emperor Palpatine by the skin of their teeth. Having signed a decree against his rise, they were arrested and put on a watch list. They return to the Senate with fewer allies and less power. How can they fight against the rise of the insidious Galactic Empire? Organa sets out on a quest to prove the Jedi were innocent, whilst Mothma seeks to fight the system from within. These uneasy allies will meet other likeminded citizens across the galaxy and begin the building blocks of what one day will become known as the Rebellion. 

Mask is a Star Wars novel on the most epic of scales, not in terms of space battles and planets being destroyed, but in terms of scope. This is a book about politics that will affect billions of denizens across space. If that sounds a little dry, it can be in places, but not as much as you may think. Freed has taken a leaf out of the excellent Andor playbook and mixes the world of politics with the gritty world of early rebellion. Indeed, this series is set a decade or so before Andor and very much feels like a prequel series in terms of style. 

It is only really Mothma who stays in the realm of true politics in the book, but even she is not safe. Organa may be a Senator, but he sets off on a mission that would not look out of place for a Luke or Rey. Organa meets new allies and enemies, including the sparky Saw Gerrera. The book is an ensemble; several characters get their own chapters, the stories interweaving. Politics may dominate one chapter, the next could be full of action. 

I was happy to read both types of stories. Freed has developed their ensemble skills from the Alphabet Squad and has the balance much better here. The ebb and flow feel right, both the intellectual and the explosive catered for. Not all Star Wars fans enjoy the politics of the universe, but I even liked the trade elements in The Phantom Menace, and Mask is the closest I have read to this so far. Comparing some of the elements of rise of the Empire and are own real-world politics is a fascinating exercise. I am not sure if Freed was conscious of the links, but students of politics and Star Wars will see a few parallels. 

I genuinely enjoyed the political elements of Mask, but action fans need not fear as there are plenty of set pieces to enjoy including an epic fight in the ruins of an ancient city. There is a classic feeling character who has their moment in the book, the type of enigmatic antihero that comes and goes that Star Wars is famed for. Mask is one of the most complete Star Wars novels I have read, excellent for a rounded fan like me, but it may be too chunky for those that just like the action.

What can cause the end of the World? A massive explosion, a meteor the size of the moon tearing it in two? What would cause the end of the World and what would cause the end of humankind are two very different things. Our watery globe will still be spinning long after we are food for the worms, humans may die, but the planet will live on. What happens if the Earth starts to get annoyed with these itchy parasites walking on her surface, would she do anything about it? Something strange is happening in Johnny Worthen’s The Gaia Chime that suggest the planet may just be fighting back. 

Charlotte and Seth are at a prestigious tennis tournament, not because they were invited, but because they are documentarians filming the story of a young socialite’s rise in the game. They witness what will become the first of many such events, the young tennis player walks into the stands to murder his parents. Was it drugs or a psychotic break? Perhaps it was the droning noise that more and more young people are starting to hear. 

Not all horror novels are the same, it is what makes the genre great. For every crimson filled shlock horror, there is a more measured and philosophical outing. Gaia falls into this second category and is as much an exploration of the generational divide as it is about young people cracking open the heads of the old – although this does happen. 

The main protagonists Charlotte and Seth set the tone from the novel. Charlotte already felt like an outsider, so to be thrust into the buttoned up and very white world of the super-rich is even more alienating. Seth is an older academic who has lost the energy to remain counterculture. He just wants to spend on the credit card that came with the University grant for making the documentary. Somehow, they find themselves witnesses to several events, events that will draw them together. 

Gaia is a novel of ebbs and flows. Worthen never allows the pace to get away and instead brings it back to a sedate pace between action scenes. The characters and the readers decompress. This allows Worthen to explore some of the themes in the novel, the generational gap, the environment, politics. It is a matter of taste if these sections appeal. The characters are developed, but I sit in the more action side of a reader and would have preferred the pace to have been a little faster. It feels like a lot of weight is made building up to the conclusion, which may come as a surprise to some. I was able to adequately predict what would happen and it unfolded pretty much as I thought. 

With its deliberate languid pace, Gaia is more road story, than horror. Charlotte and Seth find themselves amid the action, but are they the main characters in this tale? I suggest that similar events were occurring all over the globe and we are following just a part of the story. The return to intimate conversations between the two were they think they may be the ‘witnesses’ is just self-grangerising. I would have preferred either a smaller or larger story, this book is pitched somewhere in between, and you feel like you are missing a more exciting book just around the corner. 

With abundant scenes of patricide, Gaia is certainly a horror book, but even with the gore I would consider it on the milder side. Instead, I consider this more of a straight fiction novel that uses horror elements to push the story forwards. It is more about the relationship between Charlotte and Seth, about their pasts and the inevitable future they are going to share. If that interests you, then the book has some interesting ideas to ponder. 

Agatha Christie would have us believe that inter-War murder was cosy, taking place in a picturesque village or on a mode of transport whilst taking in the sites of the Grand Tour. Whilst Marple was eating muffins and Poirot was drinking Prosecco, most of us would have been thrown into the daily grind. An era of widespread poverty, of men never returning from the war, of the growing threat of extreme politics. On the rough streets of Shoreditch, it was not tea parties and jazz recitals, in the case of Phil Lecomber’s Midnight Streets it is a duo of hideous murders the likes London has not seen since Jack the Ripper. 

George Harley survived the war when many of his friends did not. His speciality was to sneak into enemy trenches first in charge of a team of scouts. This work left a heavy burden on Harley, but also a set of skills. Firstly, used in a job for the government but now on his old stomping grounds in London as a Private Investigator. With respect from the streets and the authorities, Harley is in a unique position to aid the police after a body is found. Someone is murdering children and Harley may be the only person who has access to the dark underbelly of London needed to solve the case. 

Midnight is certainly no cosy crime drama. In many ways it is the opposite, playing out like a Penny Dreadful to shock the reader. However, this would be to belittle Lecomber’s work that has a depth and intelligence to it. Harley is the type of working-class hero I knew growing up. No real formal education to speak of, but a curiosity and intelligence on par with anyone else. 

Harley sits in a privileged position having been left a home and resource Library by his uncle. He can pursue a profession as PI, with some stability behind him. He has a partner who plays in an orchestra. He straddled the middle classes but also knows many characters from his youth. Lecomber paints an intriguing picture of the London underworld that Harley needs to navigate to do his work. A balance of honour among thieves and having something to blackmail them on should it all go south. 

Harley’s life alone is interesting but sat on top of this is an awful murder that needs solving. It is gruesome and cruel, suggesting that the perpetrator is mad. Harley uncovers conspiracies and coverups in a case that twists and turns. The PI relies on his smarts as much as his muscles to push the investigation on. The details of the case will not be for the faint of heart, so consider this a content warning. 

Harley is often described as a Sherlock in the book, a slang term for investigator, and the book does have Sherlock’s DNA. Set in the 20s, it is in living memory of Jack the Ripper and the streets that the fictional Holmes would have walked. Harley may have his rough edges, but he is certainly an intellectual using his vast resource library to research the case. With so many aspects to the story and the character, the book is quite long. Lecomber seems reluctant to sacrifice any element for pace. I enjoyed the move from action into slower research, but some of the deep dives felt excessive. 

Midnight is a classy crime noir novel that takes its time to introduce the characters and the world. It goes into detail on many things and this includes the crimes, making it one of the darker books that I have read recently. The crimes so gruesome that they head towards the horror category. The pace of the book ebbs and flows, and I enjoyed the journey. There are many twists and turns to entertain fans of the crime genre and a character you can get behind. Any follow ups promise to be even more gripping as events conspire to push Harley to the edge. 

There has been somewhat of a renewed interest in all things fungi since the Last of Us depicted a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by such an infection that could spread to humans. It's one of those things that at first glance seems worryingly within the realm of possibility, all too well described in the introduction to the aforementioned TV series. We share genetic characteristics with fungi, including mushrooms, and it's thought that if you go back far enough, say a billion years or so, we would have a common ancestor. Mushrooms are more closely related to us than plants; they store carbohydrate energy as glycogen like we do and produce vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Some fungi are even known to move.

The type of fungus The Last of Us depicted, ophiocordyceps unilateralis (a member of the Cordyceps genus), in reality infects insects and turns them into zombies. Scientists don't seem concerned that this could become a reality for us, but other fungi are still dangerous, killing around 1.5 million people each year. A sobering statistic.

Anyway, why are we talking about all things fungi? It's not much of a spoiler to mention that fungal infection is at play in T. Kingfisher’s What Moves the Dead—after all, it's right there on the cover. A re-interpretation of Edgar Allen Poe's short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, What moves the dead maintains the rich historical atmosphere of the 1890's, while adding layers of psychological dread and horror along with a dialogue on the nature of decay, both environmental and familial.

Kingfisher’s reinterpretation follows Alex Easton, a retired soldier, as they arrive at the crumbling Usher estate to visit their childhood friends, Madeline and Roderick Usher. The setting—a damp, desolate landscape filled with an unnatural quiet—immediately establishes a sense of impending doom. Much like Poe's original vision, the house itself is almost a character in its own right, with descriptions of walls infused with rot and decay, while the very foundations themselves seem infected with a similar malady to that of its inhabitants. Like the house, the wider setting, from the rolling hills to the unnaturally still waters of the tarn, seem almost lifeless, stagnant. A liminal space where time seems sluggish and the past is indistinguishable from the present. This theme of temporal dislocation echoes that of Poe’s, reinforcing the notion that the Ushers' existence lies in a space outside the natural order, with the family and estate trapped in an inevitable decline.

The author does an excellent job of tying the story to the period of the time. The 1890s were a time of transition as emerging scientific discoveries clashed with old-world superstitions. The Victorians were deeply fascinated with the macabre, spiritualism, and the unknown, a view that coexisted and often clashed with the rapid advancements in medicine and biology. Diagnosis for conditions still included the use of vague descriptions when the real reason could not be easily determined, with phrases such as "The vapours", "consumption" and "ague". While germ theory was beginning to find some acceptance, mycology was still very much in its infancy, mostly misunderstood but being studied for its effects on both nature and human health. At the same time, diseases like tuberculosis, syphilis, and other mysterious ailments spread unchecked, and this story captures both the anxieties of the era and its obsession with the natural world's more sinister side.

While not new, the theme of fungi as an agent of horror is compelling. This isn't some supernatural malevolence but a biological one. A creeping, sporing, insidious enemy with little understood and complex life cycles. It's all the more unsettling to know that these infectious fungi do, in reality, infect living creatures (albeit insects) and that infiltration and grotesque mimicry tap into a primal fear over the loss of bodily autonomy.

In addition to its horror elements, the novel delivers sharp and engaging dialogue, with interesting characters and a pragmatic yet deeply human protagonist in Alex Easton. Their interactions with others, particularly the no-nonsense English mycologist Dr. Denton, add both levity and intellectual intrigue to the narrative.

Ultimately, What Moves the Dead is a chilling, atmospheric novel that successfully pays homage to The Fall of the House of Usher while carving out its unique niche in Gothic horror. Kingfisher’s skillful blend of historical fiction, psychological terror, and body horror makes for a deeply unsettling but thoroughly engrossing read.

In some books there is more one thing that a reader can focus on. It could be the characters that draw the reader in, or the narrative, or the world building. As a long-term fantasy fan, one element that I often end up focussing on is magical systems. How magic works in a fantasy world can change everything from the way that the characters act to the way society is formed. Spells, Strings and Forgotten Things by Breanne Randall has one of the most interesting magical systems I have read in Urban Fantasy, but it is used in a bizarre way. 

The three Petridi sisters come from a long line of witches. They are tasked with protecting the Dark Oak from others. This includes the Shadowcrafters, a coven of witches that placed a curse on the Petridi family, a curse that no one quite remembers how it works. When hot headed youngest sister Calliope mistakenly binds herself to a Shadowcrafter Warlock, she finds herself torn between his tempting darkness and protecting the family. What will she sacrifice to save her family? 

Spells evokes memories of other trio witch stories, Charmed in particular. It has that down to Earth American small town feel to the story, of three sisters dealing with life and the end of the universe at the same time. You have the hot headed youngest, the middle peace maker and the older matriarch. All of them trying to break free from their roles within the family, but with no one else to protect them, forced to play their part to secure the Dark Oak. 

Like Charmed, this book balances some dark storylines with a lightness. It is a story of complex relationships, those among the sisters, but more between Calliope and the Shadowcrafter bound to her. Here we have your classic opposites attract, love/hate relationship. The book is a romance novel as the two are drawn closer together, but can you ever trust a Shadowcrafter? 

Fans of relationship heavy books and romance will get the most from Spells, but as a fantasy and science fiction fan there was another element that intrigued me – the magic system. I love reading new magic systems. For the systems to work they must have a solid base. In this case spells are cast by sacrificing memories. A childhood memory of your favourite hiding place might get you out of a bind, but it will be lost to you forever. 

This is an intriguing concept and one that in places works well. The larger curse story suggests that the witches are made to forget as they get older, and the curse becomes stronger. However, in other places the magic system is not used well, mainly by Calliope. This is part of her character, but the overuse of her powers is ridiculous. She sacrifices memories not for saving the day but changing the colour of her boots. These small memories are what make us, they act as our soul. Throwing away childhood for a new belt is stupid and would have left Calliope in a vegetative state before long. 

Randall does touch on this in the book, especially as part of the larger curse, but I think the magic is overplayed. I believe that this magical system would dictate using it sparsely to protect your sense of self. In fact, I would extrapolate to say that, like in Harry Potter, the wider witch community would have created some sort of school to teach the use of the powers. A place that children and adults can create new memories that they can safely sacrifice. Just giving away everything that Calliope does seemed ridiculous for me. 

Being short term is part of Calliopes nature and sets up the passionate affair she has, but for me the magic system is broken. Most readers will pick up Spells and enjoy the relationships, the passion, the drama. Perhaps I am a little sad, but I could not see past the wonderful magical system undermined by the characters. One for Urban Fantasy fans who like to delve deeply into what makes people tick, not how magic would work.   

The Earth has exploded killing all the inhabitants, the only survivors are those humans that happened to be off planet at the time. Does not sound like the start of a fun Science Fiction novel, does it? Douglas Adams would beg to differ and so would Gareth L. Powell. Future’s Edge is the author’s latest book and begins with the near annihilation of humans by a malevolent alien species. The book is about this, but it is also about hope, friendships and whether it is a good idea to use the in-ship fabricator to make recreation drugs or not. 

Two years ago, Earth ceased to host life. Ursula Morrow was on one of the handful of spaceships that escaped. She now runs a ramshackle bar in a refugee camp hosted on some remote alien world. Ursula makes it a habit of surviving, she already managed to live through being infected with an alien parasite, one that protects her from damage. When her Ex enters her bar, she thinks he has returned for her, but it is the parasite he wants, it may just be the key to stopping the incessant onslaught of the Cutters. 

Edge is a science fiction tale that deals in grandiose ideas but keeps the story personal. It does not get much bigger than an alien race methodically finding any intelligent lifeforms they can and then destroying them. It has all the hallmarks of an epic ten book space opera series, but Powell does not go down this route and instead decided to write something far more pacy and pithy. 

This is really the story of Ursula and the cohorts she meets on the way. Your classic bedraggled group of survivors forced together through happenstance. It would have been enjoyable enough just to follow Ursula and the people she meets. Her ex and his new wife, who happens to be the ship’s AI, an alien bartender friend, a pilot who likes to get high on their off time. All flawed and interesting characters, but they must work through these issues individually and together as they are thrust into something epic. Universe saving epic. 

I read a lot of science fiction and love the genre. I do enjoy complex and long space operas with multiple protagonists, but they can be overlong and dull. It takes a deft hand to write a good one. I prefer something like Edge, a book that does not forget to be entertaining. This is a fun book; it is enjoyable to read. The stakes may be high, but so are some of the characters. It feels like real flawed people scrambling around to get things done and I am there for that. 

The balance of sentiment and laughs is expertly done. Powell acknowledges that a lot of the dark humour and sarcasm of the characters is rooted in trauma. Ursula and the like have seen a lot in the past two years, and you learn to cope, or you walk into the swamp to be eaten by the creatures there. There is a sadness in the book, but also a shining hope. Human’s ability to adapt and survive, whilst still kicking alien butt and taking the micky is all on show. Edge is as thoughtful as it is funny, a combination that is not easy to pull off and one that Powell does with aplomb. 

It is not that the aliens in Alien are constantly evolving, it is that they are constantly adapting to the scenario they are in. We usually see them egging up humans, but if they landed in a world populated by cows it would only be a few days that a bovine Alien was ripping up the locals. Aliens are adaptable enough on their own so do not really need our help, but this never stopped the corporate boffins at Weyland-Yutani from having a go and Alien: Seventh Circle by Philippa Ballantine is what happens with their latest folly to control the Aliens. 

Mae Hendricks is one of the most sophisticated symbiotes ever created, passable as human to almost anyone. Her role is to help her adopted mother and the covert group of Colonial Marines known as The Jackals to uncover illegal locations and find evidence of the large corporations working on Alien pathogens. At Guelph Station, the Jackals may just have come across something that even they cannot handle. What happened on Guelph Station? Only Mae knows and her memories have been shattered. 

The Alien universe is ever expanding and becoming richer over the decades, but unlike with most franchises, it does keep coming back to a single premise – human versus Alien. Some books have mixed things up, but most, like Seventh, must tread this path, whilst still creating something new. In this case, it is the use of control over the Aliens. An interesting idea that bubbles away in the background of this book, but Ballantine never feels fully committed to it as chaos eventually breaks out anyway. 

With the Alien menace being standard, it is up to the world building and characters to make this novel stand out. In both cases, they are strong. Characters are particularly good. Mae is a great protagonist, an android who has free will and is indistinguishable from a human. She shares a human mother and an AI father. Her dual life plays into how she acts and interacts with others. Does she need to be better than a human, or should she lean into the moral ambiguity of her human side? 

The Guelph Station is also a good setup. A research base that sits in orbit above a planet. Where does the space lift down to the surface lead to? There are several locations of interest, and it forces the Jackals to strike in several places at once. A fatal error it would appear, but we must wait until the end of the book to find out as the structure of the story also plays a major part in how things unfold. 

Ballantine has decided to use a non-linear split-narrative structure to tell the tale. I think one or the other could have worked but using both means that at times the story is confusing. We follow Mae in the present as she is rescued and must survive with no memories, these come back in a series of flashbacks, or as we see them, chapters.  

Popping from the present to the past works well in fiction as you reveal more about the now by revelations in the past. The issue is that at points Mae’s consciousness is split between three android bodies. You are now dealing with four storylines, three somewhat in parallel in the past and one in the present. Every chapter has the reader having to readjust and remind themselves which Mae they are dealing with and what supporting characters are currently in the room with her. 

The choice of narrative structure may have been to differentiate this Alien book from others from the past few decades, as it does, but not always for the best. There is enough in the character of Mae to have made it an enjoyable outing for the series, without any complications. The story become much clearer, and better, when the strands all align. There are even some nice twists and reveals at the end. Any fans of the Alien books will enjoy Seventh and it is a solid outing for the franchise. I think it would be too confusing for the casual fan, and they would be best starting somewhere else. Bishop is an excellent continuation directly from the films.  

I have come across the argument that people do not read science fiction as they cannot connect it to their own lives. Most sci fi fans know that even a book set in deep space or thousands of years in the future is often just using images of tomorrow to discuss the issues of today. However, if a reader needs a science fiction tale that feels more real, as if it could happen today then The Perfect Stranger by Brian Pinkerton may just be the book for them. Could the new hire be AI? They work exclusively from home and no one in the office has ever met them.... 

Linda works as the Head of PR for a large energy firm in America and her turnover for assistants has got worse since the pandemic and increase in home working. Staff have less connection to their place of work and will move on faster, therefore when Alison applies for the job and starts off on the ground running Linda thinks she has found a diamond in the rough, but diamonds can cut. Alison is not all that she seems. Alison wants Linda’s job and more, her ambition and skills seem almost unhuman. 

For many modern office workers, Linda’s plight is one that you can immediately understand. Stranger is a speculative fiction novel for today as it expands on a premise that has only recently arisen – home working. Couple this with the onset of AI and you have the kernel of a story, one that Pinkerton expands upon and fires off in amazing directions. 

The book starts off as a relaxed character piece. We are introduced to Linda, recently divorced, and working from home. We are introduced to relatable problems; dealing with work, an ex-husband etc. It is not until Alison is introduced that things start to go sideways in Linda’s life. I enjoyed the early parts of the book as Linda balances Alison’s ambition with an uneasy feeling. Can a new employee know so much and be so quick at working? 

So far, so relatable and the book would sneak into straight fiction as we are unsure if Alison is AI or not, but things turn. Linda’s life is twisted and turned by a hacker. Things start to go crazy. I found this part of the book surprising in the direction it took after the initial sedate pace, but I was there for it. Things only get more insane as the book progresses. It becomes a riot act of pace and surprises. It may be all too much for some readers, but I enjoy a book that goes all out. 

Most of the intellectual balance of the early part of the book is sacrificed for action and twists. Something once relatable, feels less so, but as speculative fiction, it is within the realms of possibility. Pinkerton has chosen to write a thriller and not just a treatise on AI in the workplace. This makes for a fun, action packed, and sometimes silly book, but one that most reader will enjoy the ride of. 

Puzzle me this. Whilst other kids were outside climbing trees or knocking a football around, you would often find me indoors or under a tree reading a book or doing puzzles. That has led to two lifelong consequences; a love of puzzles and a problem with weight. Puzzler was always my favourite, and I have introduced them to my children, and we often puzzle together before bed. The tricky conundrums and thoughtful tasks help build confidence in education and improve thinking, but it also may lead to puzzle competitions. The one in Jeff Macfee’s The Contest was meant to change the life of one child forever, but what of the other three children that did not finish in first place? 

Gillian Charles knew she should have won The Contest two decades earlier, but a pang of conscience made her help another contestant, rather than keep her eye on the prize. She now grifts a living in LA, using her natural smarts to hustle cash when she can. She wants nothing to do with the ever-enlarging conglomerate Miscellany and its founder Sebastian, but she finds herself drawn back in. Her mother is deathly ill, and Miscellany may be the key to pay for treatment. All Gillian must do is return to the fold for a few days to investigate if the latest Contest is a fix. Should be easy for someone with her mental prowess, but then again those that she is up against are just as skilled and not all hampered by morality. 

It is fitting that a book about puzzles, is a little puzzling in places itself. What is The Contest? Is it a fiction novel, crime, science fiction? You cannot say that it it science fiction as it exists in a world that could happen today. An alternative world in which another massive entertainment brand on the scale of Disney has thrived. Miscellany has theme parks all over the world based on puzzle solving and this is where the bulk of the book is set.  

Designing a world with a whole new multicorporate makes me feel that this is a cross between crime and speculative fiction. Macfee has developed the worlds of Gillian and Miscellany so thoroughly that it feels like another place. Building the idea of Miscellany and the mystery of Sebastian is key to The Contest working as so much of the story is a puzzle wrapped up in an enigma. Gillian has a case to solve and suspects to investigate, but in this heightened world of intellect and sleight of hand, you never know what is coming next. This is perfect for a crime story. 

The book has plenty of puzzles within it as Gillian must confront her past as well as new puzzles that are custom made for her. Macfee does not feel the need to rush the story and the tension builds. It is not until the final act that the heaviest of blows is struck and things become far more serious.  

We spent a lot of time in Gillian’s head, and this makes the book a character piece. It explores how something twenty years earlier can affect your life today. Her failure in the one moment spiralled her life onto a completely different course than she had imagined. Returning has a deep phycological effect on Gillian, but she must balance her own fears against what her mother and family need. 

The Contest is unlike other books that I have read. The world building is so complete that it transcends just being a crime novel and becomes its own speculative world. This is fitting as the puzzle setting is enigmatic and unnerving, the book should feel that in places, but at the core it remains a strong character piece with an effective crime narrative that fans of that genre will enjoy.   

There is something to be said for designing a creative sandpit, a place that you can return to and play within. Rather than writing new characters in a new place every book, you can return to the known. A shorthand exists. However, this is a double-edged sword, you can end up recreating the same stale book. Or you can create a set of short stories that surpasses the original. Welcome back to Sam Rebelein’s Edenville in The Poorly Made and Other Things. 

No matter how cheap the houses are in Edenville and the surrounding area, do not be tempted to buy a house there. You may be drawn to Upstate New York, historic buildings, and the quality College, but there is a dark underbelly to the locale and the locals. The town is infested with cursed wood that was stolen from a crime scene 100 years ago. The walls whisper, the woods cajole, and people go missing, a lot. 

Rebelein’s first outing was the unusual Edenville that was a slightly disjointed, but intriguing book. It was about a strange place in which academics are working together to gather all the cursed wood from an old crime scene to recreate the giant that was daubed in blood. Once recreated, the hope was to open the gateway to the realm beyond and witness for themselves what has been whispering madness into the residents. Poorly Made is a patchwork collection of short stories set around the same time and expands on some of the mysteries that make up Edenville. Like with any good patchwork, the whole forms into something even better. 

Poorly Made is a collection of dark and fascinating horror tales that I would have been happy to read as a normal short story collection but is goes beyond this. There is a meta-story that links the tales; The Stain is a reoccurring narrative that takes place between stories. It is a series of increasingly unhinged emails from a sister to her brother describing the history of Edenville and her recent investigations. 

Why is her brother not replying? You find out in one of the short stories. There are small teases throughout the tales that link characters, places and Edenville. It has a nonlinear style of world building that makes it feel like a horror version of Pulp Fiction. What you are reading may not have happened yet in another of the stories. 

Taken on their own, there are some wonderfully creepy stories. Proper horror outings, some body horror, and scares, but also that daunting feeling of dread that makes great horror. There are no second chances in these tales, guilty or innocent, your fate is sealed. This may be being dragged off by the creatures that live in the trees, or having your face and limbs exchanged with those of your classmates. The tales are delightfully unhinged, the right side of being sick and uncomfortable, while still being readable. 

I do not think I have read a more entertaining and impactful collection of horror short stories since 13 Tales of Horror from Point Horror three decades ago, a collection that began my love of horror. Rebelein has successfully combined Transgressive Fiction with Horror. The looser feeling of this collection of short stories manages to portray the location of Edenville better than the original novel. The madness makes more sense when you can witness from multiple viewpoints that Edenville is a place that is slowly drowning in evil.     

I come from a large family and there is a special way that you can wind one another up. Years of experience and knowledge comes in handy when you are trying to annoy someone, you may not have seen each other for ages, but one shared experience can bring it all back in an instant. In a healthy family, this bickering can be trouble, but in a family that has had it as tough as in Listen to Your Sister it can lead to more than just cross words, it can lead to the release of nightmares onto the world. 

Ever since their father died and mother was deemed unfit, the Williams family have lived under the guardianship of older sister Calla. Dre, only two years younger promised to help, but has moved out and lives his own life. This leaves Calla to struggle with the youngest child, Jamie, a mid-teen who is constantly in trouble with school and the law. There is only so much that a person can take and when Jamie becomes involved in a riot that goes too far, something inside Calla breaks... and leaks into the real world. 

Sister is a book about family. A messed-up family, but one built on love. It is about siblings knowing how to press all each other’s buttons but never stopping to consider what the other is genuinely thinking. Calla as the matriarch has sacrificed so much for her brothers but is she overpowering and smothering? Dre just wants his own space that he can control, but has he pulled away from his family? Jamie wants to fight the world but is he just in a battle with himself? 

The story jumps from one family member to the other and back again, so you get a balanced viewpoint from each. The tension of life looking after Dre and Jamie takes its toll on Calla and it leads to the horror element of the book. The consequences of her life and how she is treated takes on a physical form and it is up to Calla and her brothers to connect in a way that can make the nightmare end. 

If this explanation sounds complex, it is because the book is complex in places. The use of terror and scary creatures makes it a horror, but it is also strongly an urban fantasy. Set in a modern Seattle, it also takes place on different plains of existence. You must believe that trauma can manifest itself for the book to work. This gives the story a magical quality, but also one that is hard to grasp in places. 

The book is at its best when exploring the relationship between the siblings. As the story progresses truths are revealed about their shared past. We learn, as they do, that they may know a lot about their loved ones, they do not know everything. It is a relationship drama at the core, a complex family dynamic that must be resolved with a horror backdrop. 

I found the character of Calla the most sympathetic and it is her hurt which acts as the catalyst for events in the book. Dre and Jamie do not really think about others until they are made to. The love between the three of them is imperative for their survival, but Calla is a better person than many, as it would be difficult to process all that has happened to her. 

Sister is a hard-hitting horror that has plenty of drama. The family dynamic is key to the story and dominates it. If you like horror with strong relationship elements, this may be the most feelings led horror book I have read. There are moments of action and tension to appease horror fans, but I would consider this most for those that like to delve into books with deep and complex character relations.   

The thought of travelling to space and living on the International Space Station has no interest to me. Stuck in a metal box, isolated, miles away from civilisation with only the same people as company sound like a one-way ticket to madness. You do not need to go into space to create such a feeling. The cold months in Antarctica mimic the same, a group of scientists and technical support staff stuck in a remote series of labs for months on end. And one more thing. A Symbiote, whose only goal is to multiply and thrive. 

When the winter season starts at an American research base it is the same as usual for the 30 odd staff. Study the ice and try not to get on each other’s nerves, but then a vehicle from a Chinese base arrives. Within are three frightened men and the remains of another. In this near future tale from Micheal Nayak, America is at war with China, so have they brought with them a murder victim or a new weapon? Whatever it is, the crew are starting to act strangely, and their inner feelings are coming violently to the fore. 

Any book set in a remote snowy landscape in which people are picked off by an enemy within is instantly going to bring comparisons to the classic John Carpenter's The Thing. There are similarities, a strange killer that hibernates unknown within victims, but it is also a very different book. Symbiote is horror, but it is also strongly a science fiction book with near future elements. 

It is the science that separates the book and gives it a unique voice. Nayak spent time in a similar research base, and this comes across on the page. The make up of scientists and support crew feels real. A nice mix of cook, mechanics, and biologists. Add these varied characters to an enclosed environment and months of darkness and poor comms and you have a powder keg. You could write a murder mystery just with these ingredients, but Nayak adds the symbiote. 

The symbiote is a character within itself. Something with a primaeval sense of intelligence. At first it is just a gross virus but like with all viruses it begins to mutate, in this case into something far more intelligent and dangerous. The book is staggered into parts, it ebbs and flows as the scientists take the battle to the virus, only for the virus to react. 

The science in the book feels heightened, but plausible. The book is also about the characters. It is an ensemble piece, the crew put aside grievances to battle a common enemy, it has moments of Aliens about it. It was interesting how much Nayak used the internal machinations of the characters to drive them; personal feelings are blown out of proportion in a remote location and the virus takes advantage of these. 

Symbiote is a mash up of tension, horror, and action. The book flows from one state to the other, giving the reader a chance to calm down, only for the action to reignite. The setting is excellent, and you get a sense of what it must be like to live remotely for months, this is testament to the author’s own experiences. The large ensemble cast means that the start of the book is harder to follow as you meet new characters, and it bounces around. However, as the symbiote takes hold the cast is reduced and we start to see who the real protagonists are and get a more settled tale. An entertaining and tense horror tale that uses intelligent science to enhance the scares.   

A horror book can be a complex and multilayered epic, but the genre often best as an intimate story told in a closed environment. Countless classic horror films have been set in an abandoned cabin or house, something strange living in the attic that only comes down to seek its victims. In Mason Coile’s novel William has a name, but you do not have to fear William, he is an AI friend and friends don’t hurt one another, do they? 

Henry is a reclusive robotics expert whose agoraphobia leaves him trapped in his home. His only company is his heavily pregnant wife, Lily, and the friends that he creates. Toys for the upcoming birth, a small robot dog for companionship and his latest creation, William, who stays in the attic. William is special, he may only be half formed, but his mind is AI built. With the ability to think and learn, is the attic enough for William when there is smart house to control and an entire world to explore? 

William is a tight and short novel that packs a punch. It has the feel of a high standard Twilight Zone episode or an adult take on Goosebumps. It is kept simple; a house, four characters, and just one William, but one William is enough. It has something of the grindhouse about the book as it does not take long for things to start to go wrong, but this is also an intelligence. The use of AI elevates the book from pure pulp into some interesting discussions of the nature of AI.  

This is a full science fiction world and being set in just one home, the world building is impressive. We learn about the world through Henry, a man himself who has not left the house in a long time. Henry spends as much time worrying about the state of his relationship with his wife as he does worrying about the strange antics of William upstairs. It is not a clever idea to take your eyes off the melted face of a haunted AI doll. 

The book is full of tense moments and then sucker punch surprises. The characters creep around a house that feels infested by William. Has the AI managed to break into the house’s mainframe? Lily and Henry must combine their experiences as a computer programmer and a roboticist to conjure a way out. 

William is a joy to read on two levels. It is a fun schlock horror story, a monster of the week, but on a second level there is far more intelligence. A discussion on AI, a breakdown of a relationship. To top off the lot there are also twists that most will not see coming that adds even further joy to the reading experience. Coile lays out the action and surprises in quick fashion not giving the reader time to stop and breath. A wonderful little powerplay of a book. 

Like every genre, there are several aspects to Horror that you can focus on. My preference is the supernatural, something big and scary, preferably not overexplained. There is another subgenre, one that is arguably far scarier. I call it the horror of the mundane. Those killers that live among us, there is no rhyme or reason to their actions, but they kill nonetheless. The dead as much a victim of wrong time, wrong place, than anything else. At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca is one such novel, a mundane life made worse by grief and a protagonist’s wrongheaded solution to cope with their own pain. 

Ashley Lutin provides a unique service to those who seek it. If you feel like you are at the end of the road and need a spiritual reset, he will aid in this. The act, to simulate your death and then revival. Ashley’s philanthropy does not come from a place of kindness, but from pain. His wife dead, his child missing, Ashley’s only solace is to see other buried and dug back up again. However, when his live begins to unravel even further, the darkness that Ashley works so hard to keep at bay begins to truly take hold. 

It takes a lot to shock me, and your average transgressional fiction will try but won’t achieve it. I was reading books I shouldn’t have since before I was a teen, so I have had my shock reflex pretty much deadened. At Dark, is only the second book that I have read as an adult that has left me uncomfortable enough to recommend against reading the book.  

Please do read the themes that trigger in this book, there are many. Ashley’s tale is dark enough, but the novel also holds a couple of short stories within that are even more disturbing. Even these did not bother me too much, despite gratuitous violence and their sexual nature. For me, it is the concluding part of the book that had me regretting this story. Graphic depictions of child abuse are beyond the pale for my tastes. 

In the right context, even these scenes can be justified. They are powerful. Powerful enough to disgust me, but I do not think that this book justifies them. This is a book about a man in grief. Grief for their wife and their missing child. It is horrible what happened to Ashley, but this type of thing happens to people the world over and they do not descend into the level of navel-gazing that Ashley does. Everything comes back to him. A mundane, little man who takes out his pain on the innocent. 

Ashley is not the only character on this path, another is introduced who is worse still. Another pathetic subject who takes out their inadequacies on others. I do not need to read about overthinkers trying to justify their evil. Ashley is certainly the more sympathetic of the two but should have given his head a wobble at some point. No matter of hurt can justify his actions and certainly not the actions of the other character in the book. 

I would classify the book as more horrible than horror. This is the type of visceral response that LaRocca was probably aiming for by writing a transgressive novel. I think the issue may have been that the book was too nihilistic. The likes of Chuck Palahniuk, one of my favourite authors, mixes their disturbing fiction with a dark humour, At Dark is just bleak. It all felt a little sad to me, characters who punish the innocent because they themselves are lacking strength. I imagine some readers will enjoy the controversy and bleakness of the novel, I for one like my horror with some of the awe and not just the shock.   

There are many reasons that an investigator in fiction gets involved in a case. Perhaps they are a Detective, and it is their job, or they are a Private Investigator getting paid. You may stumble across a body and suddenly find yourself drawn into a mystery. All these paths lead to a different motivation and style of investigation, but there is one more. The vigilante, the character who sees themselves as a hero out to protect others. Their motivations may be pure, but their actions can be grimy. Lily Wong lives to protect others in Tori Eldridge’s The Ninja Daughter. 

Lily Wong’s life took a very different direction when her sister was murdered. Rather than finish College, Lily returned home to LA to grieve. Her grief took the form of vengeance, not just against her sister's killer, but against anyone who would harm an innocent. Taking her martial arts training further, Lily trained as a Ninja and now fights from the shadows to protect the likes of a mother and child trying to escape an abusive relationship, or the hostess shamed for naming an attacker, only for the courts to disbelieve her. Lily must balance these cases against dealing with her complicated life and family. 

Ninja feels like a very LA story, you can tell that Eldridge has spent a lot of years living there and it informs the story in the mood of the piece, but also in simple elements like the way that Lily unusually uses bikes and car hires to get around. It mixes all elements of the city from the rich families that Lily comes from to the poor. The melting pot of cultures is present in the story, but also in Lily herself. Her culture includes American, Norwegian, Chinese, and a fascination with Japan. The book certainly has a cool appeal. 

Lily is a PI, but who does not get paid and who is motivated by herself. She chooses the cases and how they are investigated. This makes the book more adhoc than your normal crime novel. There is no procedure, but gut instinct and often luck. Lily is able to solve the crimes, but hapenstance plays a role. As the book progresses you start to realise that there is more to it. Capitalism and greed come into play. That classic LA story once more. Suddenly, you get a flavour of late 80s/early 90s films like Beverley Hills Cop or Lethal Weapon as the ultra-violence of gangs meets the slick suits of capitalism. 

The crime element is fun LA Noir, but it is only half the story. This is also a rich character piece. You spend a lot of time with Lily and her thoughts that can be complex. Her relationship with her parents begins to be played out, as are her feelings to for her murdered sister. Her family and her past play a huge role in who she is now, and you are told a lot about them all. For those that like deeper character studies, it makes Lily a more rounded character than most noir creations.  

Ninja is part of a series of novels featuring Lily Wong that are all being re-released and you can see how they work as a set. There is plenty of character development to continue with and LA is the type of city that never sleeps. At the centre, Ninja is honest crime fiction, but it is the character and setting that make it stand out. Crime fans will enjoy the book, especially if they like their noir sun kissed. 

Graphic Novels have an advantage over prose in terms of kinetic visuals. You can show in a panel the action taking place and all the colours, in a book you need to describe this. This advantage can be too tempting for some and the book becomes all action and not enough depth. The best comics are always those that have more than just fights and superpowers, they have character and some type of deeper meaning. Sam Wilson as Captain America brings this depth by being who he is; a black man who has become Captain America. The Shield of Sam Wilson, edited by Jesse J. Holland, is a series of short stories that explores many aspects of the character and highlights what a deep history can bring to a story. 

Who is Captain America? They are someone different to different people. Indeed, there has been more than one Cap; from the traditional Steve Rogers to the modern Sam Wilson, The Falcon turned American Captain. What differences are there between the two? Many, not only in terms of race, but how they grew up and even in what time in history. What makes Sam Wilson a good Captain America and more importantly a good man? History, a sense of place, of family and of honour. There are many aspects that link the two.   

This collection contains 11 new stories by black authors each given the opportunity to tell their own Cap story. They each have a different feel, but a few themes do shine through, mostly because Sam is such a strong character. Sam is not just a military man, but a counsellor who helps in Social Services, especially in Harlem with many of the people he knew whilst growing up. More than one story has Sam returning to help someone in his past, not because he is an American Hero, but because he is a good man. By Any Means Unnecessary, The Way Home, Chaos Rules, and Plug in, Plug Out all touch on similar themes of Sam returning to help those from the past, good people who need the man and not just the hero. 

The comic book action is also catered for in stories that lean more into the action; Lost Cause and Surreptitious provide some Rockem Sockem moments, even with robots on occasion. These stories highlight that this new Captain is also an elite fighter. Exclusive Content is something a little different but has a very comic book feel to it. 

All the above stories cannot just be classified as action or as character stories because Sam Wilson is a character who brings both elements to everything he does. This is inherent in his character and in his origins. As the first black Captain America, he must prove himself. Most of the stories touch upon this, while other lean into it; Everyone’s Hero, and especially Uniform explores these deeper aspects of the character. They explore what it is to be black and a superhero. And not just any superhero, but Captain America, the superhero that represents so many values of the country. 

I enjoyed the individual stories within Shield of Sam Wilson, but it is as a whole that it works best. Holland has pulled together a talented group of writers who explore the character from different angles. This 360 approach to the character highlights that Sam Wilson is not just one thing, but a complex and interesting character, one of the most interesting in current Marvel writing. There is so much potential in the character already being mined and more in the future. This book will appeal to fans who enjoy expanding their reading in the Marvel Universe. There is a little less action on these pages, but far more history, heart, and character.   

When I imagine the aliens coming, I always imagine that they would pick somewhere amazing to land their ship. Probably America as all the movies have trained my brain to think that way. The place I do not jump straight to is Manchester, or at least the hills around the city. I know those hills well enough and although great in their own way, I am not sure they are amazing, but in Dan Hank’s The Way Up is Death, Greater Manchester is where the mysterious tower appeared, and Greater Manchester is where the book is set. Or is it?  

The looming tower appeared in the skies of the North of England one day and became a social media sensation, but like anything else in this country, after it did nothing for a few weeks we kept calm and got on with it. Fine for the majority of us, but thirteen people suddenly find themselves taken from their lives and placed in front of this tower. Their task to ascend to the top. For what purpose? No one knows, but it seems that not all the strangers will make it back to Earth alive. 

Science Fiction and Urban Fantasy are full of high concept ideas, but Way Up must be one of the highest I have read in a long time. Not only because the tower is suspended in the sky, but because it is such an out-there idea. Hanks is building a reputation of high concept ideas, often informed by a diet of 80s media. Way Up plays on this once again with a simple idea, executed in a manner you could see being made as an Amblin Entertainment movie in the heart of the 80s. 

Like in Hank’s earlier Swashbucklers, the author does not wallow too much in nostalgia but uses it as a tool to tell a modern story. In this case, the nostalgia comes in the form of assorted styles and genres. Each floor of the tower represents a different memory for one of the chosen; be it a version of The Poseidon Adventure, a naff science fiction adventure, or a tropical island. The book does not take many stops in the action as the contestants must move on as they are chased by a malevolent force. 

The book will appeal to a reader who enjoys lots of different ideas and constant action. Moving from one area to another does lead to some disjointed settings, but Hanks manages to keep the story together by having the character development act as a constant. These 13 strangers are seemingly picked at random from across society, so are not always the best examples of humanity. Will this lead to problems or is it what the tower wants? 

There are cliques and cliches in the characters, some are more forgivable than others. A teacher suffering from a loss, a reclusive artist, a father, and daughter. Other characters less likeable; the children’s author who uses AI in their work, the cancelled comedian etc. Those that suffer their fate early are given an unfair hand as they are not given time to develop any redeemable characteristics. Those that make it to the higher levels are given far more depth and as a reader who care more, even about the more despicable characters. 

The tower itself acts as the final 14th character and is arguably the most important. Hanks does the wise thing and does not overexplain the reason for the tower or its motivations. These play out as the book progresses and are open to some interpretation, allowing some depth to the story and it gives the reader some ideas to cogitate on whilst all the action is happening. 

I have not read something quite as action packed and full of twists as Way Up in a long time. The Scarecrow novels by Matthew Reilly are the closest I can conjure up. This is a novel that has a high concept and has a fun time telling it. The book is shocking, grisly and in places it can be a little silly. As a piece of entertainment, there are few books I will read this year that will be able to compete with the amount of energy and ideas on the page. 

How do you like your horror novels? Are you someone who likes a spooky story, perhaps a little romance? Or do you like it horrific? A book that is uncomfortable, throwing images into your brain that you did not want to consider but cannot stop thinking about. Baby eating rats, killer clowns in the sewer, your own parents turned by the voices on the TV to kill. It may only be January, but Clay McLeod Chapman may have already defined the year with Wake Up and Open Your Eyes. 

Noah Fairchild does not worry about his parents and tries not to think about them too much, he left them for a new life in the big city and they can have their small town ways. The messages from his Mother are getting a little too much in the build up towards Christmas. Thanksgiving did not go well and now his phone is full of messages from his Mum where she has gone fully down the conspiracy wormhole. Noah has to get off his comfy bum and drive down to check on his parents. What he finds is far worse than even he could imagine, Fax News has finally brainwashed them. 

Wake Up is an uncomfortable read. Impressively, this is not on just one level. The book has horror, specifically body horror. There are scenes of flesh tearing and bodily fluids abound. The type of sequences that are disturbing and icky at the same time. An added layer of uncomfort comes in who is in these scenes. Many of the brainwashed are family of Noah. He must fight against his loved ones to survive and witness things he never could have imagined. 

Chapman does a fantastic job of writing a truly everyman piece. Noah is just a man, liberal in his viewpoint and not someone who has kept in touch with any survival techniques. Therefore, when the apocalypse erupts, all his pithy remarks and intelligent conversation is not much help when your mother is trying to dry hump you as she bites your ear off. 

There are moments in the book that capture one of the things I find most horrifying in this type of fiction. When does a character admit that the thing in front of them is no longer the loved one they remember and are now something else. In zombie films, a character shoots the undead in the head, left, right and centre, but what if that was your mother, father, child? What if they were fine five minutes ago but are now suddenly different. It may take you too long to switch to survival mode, you may already be dead by then. 

The way in which the characters are turned is also uncomfortable. The book is a dark satire on modern technology. Cable news gets a bashing, but so does online help gurus and social media platforms. The book could be a sneering inditement of politics on the right of America, but Chapman also turns their ire on the liberal mindset. Noah admits to himself that he is useless in most situations that are not behind a desk or the dinner table.  

Politics plays a key role in Wake Up, but I like to think it should get most people's backs up, no matter their political persuasion, no one is left unscathed. The gulf between generations, states, and families in modern America (and the rest of the world) makes for a good base for horror. Chapman does a great job of never trying to overexplain what the evil is, instead using modern techniques of disinformation to enhance the story further. 

The style in which the book is written adds to the horror. Told in three parts, all feature the Fairchild family. Act I sees Noah confront his parents and then then Act II changes the pace. Now we follow Noah’s brother and that family as they descend into madness. This section is the most horrific as the smaller child, Marcus, witnesses the slow decay of his family over the weeks. I found his story compelling and scary. Will he survive? It is a sad story and one of neglect, heartbreaking. 

Act III leads to the finale by opening the story wider. We witness what has become of America when 50% of the population Wake Up, the answer is carnage. The concluding section reiterates once more that this is a horror novel and not Urban Fantasy or one of those light spooky tales. In horror it does not always work out quite like you would want. 

Using the word enjoy about Wake Up is not quite right as it is not enjoyable as such. What it is, is an excellent horror book. The type of story that stays with you days after reading it. I had to power through sections because I was so worried about the fate of some characters. That is powerful story telling. Dark comedy and satire, Wake Up is these, but never forgets to remain at its core a horror story – a nasty, compelling, exploitative, schlock horror knockout.  

I have not lived in the village I grew up in over twenty years, but I still talk about going home when I am visiting. Where I live now has been my home for longer, but there is something about those formative years that make a place always feel like home. I return to see family, but for some people, once they leave, they never look back, even if family remains. In Adrienne Young’s A Sea of Unspoken Things, James Golden returns after two decades, not to see her family, but to discover why she feels an absence of family. What happened to her twin brother in the remote town deep in the Six River National Forest? 

James knew the moment her brother Johnny was shot and killed. She may have been hundreds of miles away, but she felt the pain in her chest and an instant sense of loss. James and Johnny may not have seen each other much in recent years, but they were twins and had a special bond. A bond that bordered on the unnatural. James must return to her childhood home to deal with Johnny’s estate and to investigate his death on her own terms. 

The setting of Hawthorne deep in a National Forest gives Sea a feel of Northern Exposure with its small-town community, but also a touch of Twin Peaks' uncanniness. There are moments in the book that flirt with the supernatural, but I would consider these light and the book is more a murder mystery and character piece. You could argue that some of the feelings that James is feeling are just empathy and nothing more. 

If you are not going to gravitate to Sea for the supernatural, what will draw you in? Plenty, as there is a deep character development element to the book. James must make amends with her past and the present, visiting old haunts and old friends after two decades. There is a lot of internalising in the book as James starts to question the choices that led her to where she is now. If you like a book that delves into the lives of an individual there is a lot to unpack in this book. 

There is also a strong murder mystery element, or is there? James feels that something is not right with the facts about Johnny’s death, but she is a lone voice. We are introduced to a tightknit community in which everyone knows everyone else, but there are a surprising number of secrets to be revealed. The story as some twists and turns, especially in the second half as the death of Johnny becomes clearer, as well as a couple of other cases that have happened in Six Rivers Forest. 

James is the main protagonist in the book, and it is her story, but it is also the story of a place and a feeling. Young is a wonderful writer of the ethereal, giving the forest its own magic and character. As a reader you are never on sure footing throughout the book as Young paints in a style that makes the unbelievable possible.    

With missing people and death at the centre of Sea, this is not something you would expect to be a gentle read, but somehow Young makes it inviting and easy to slip into. The character of James helps, flawed but likable, you are interested to see what happens to her and Young invests time in the writing to make you care about what happened to Johnny out there one day in the lonely woods.

I have read a few novels recently that have protagonists that seemingly have little control over their destiny, instead stepping into the stream of the narrative and being carried along. On occasion this is a flood and the character flails around with no impact on the wider story, but there is another way. In Elisabeth Elo’s Finding Katarina M, Dr. Natalie March does not step into one river, but a series of story streams of her own choosing, taking her on an adventure across the globe from a prestigious post at a hospital to the darkest areas of modern Russia. 

Dr. March has a good life. A highly respected professional tipped to go further, but her social life has suffered. With only an ailing mother to talk to after work, Natalie is looking for more and this may have arrived in the form of a mysterious young woman claiming to be her cousin. It appears that Natalie’s maternal Grandmother did not die in a Russian Gulag but survived to have another family. Another family that needs Dr March’s help. 

A crime thriller will often have a Private Investigator or a Police Office at the centre, but there is something about an every person getting wrapped up in international espionage that is great entertainment. Dr Natalie March is not just anyone, an intelligent professional on top of their game, but that game is not investigating murder and travelling to Russia to seek her estranged family. Natalie is out of her depth and every step seems to take her deeper. 

It is the choice-making of Natalie that makes the book so interesting. The decision to converse with her ‘cousin,’ to get involved with her lost family, to visit Russia and more. If some of the earlier decisions were out of character, at least they were cautious, by the end Natalie is making the type of decisions that an earlier version of her would have called misguided at best, stupid if being harsh. However, without some of the odd decisions made by this medial professional, the book would have been far less exciting. 

Finding is a highly entertaining thriller that moves over to modern day Russia and has many of the twists and turns you hope from a story set there. Dr March finds herself embedded over a few weeks in some interesting places. Places that will change her personality and way of thinking forever. 

Can you take Finding as a serious treatise on modern Russia? Certainly not, but you can enjoy it as a fun thriller that takes a likable protagonist and places them in heightened situations. Dr March’s skills as a medical professional aid her in her adventures, but it is her personality and drive to learn about her wider family that draws the reader in. This is a thriller for readers who like to be taken on a ride, unsure of where the story will take them. 

What is your plan for when the apocalypse comes? One of the best things about reading speculative fiction is that you get loads of clever ideas on exactly what to do should a meteor plummet to Earth or the undead rise from their graves. The truth is that your plan is to curl up and inevitably succumb. However, if you have the means you might be able to plan ahead, create a safe space, a safe society. A station in remote Antarctica sounds like a plan. 

Whilst Dr Laura Reynolds is going about her day job as an anaesthesiologist, the billionaires are plotting for the New World. Unbeknownst to her, Laura is part of their plans as they need people with her skillset. Laura finds herself framed and out of work, so when an offer comes from an obscure research company based in Antarctica comes she has little choice but to take the job. Laura finds herself at the centre of a conspiracy that will shape the very future of the world. 

I am all for a technothriller, the type of science based speculative fiction that Michael Crichton did so well. There have been many who have tried to match Crichton since, but few have succeeded. A G Riddle is one such author and they try again with Antarctica Station a book that feels like part technothriller, part stream of consciousness, like the author sat down at their writing table and just produced whatever came to them in the moment. The result is brainless fun, but also disjointed and naïve to an astounding degree. 

Take the central character of Dr Reynolds, already respected in her field, she seems an intelligent character. However, it feels like she has no impact on events in the story, but they are affecting her. She ineffectively defends her name, signs a contract with a random company and sets off to Antarctica. Once there she is torn between working with the new company of being a whistle blower for the Feds.  

There are some twists in the book, not all are well thought out, as if Riddle decided at certain points to mix things up for the sake of it. It feels like a series of parts, rather than a whole. The science is not explained well enough to be in the speculative technothriller genre or played with enough to be science fiction. Instead, it is something washy and in between.  

This sense of washiness is seen elsewhere in the book. There is a prolonged section of the book that has two characters sitting in an AI driven car. Protracted and stops any momentum that the book had. Laura is not the only naïve thing in the book, the book's philosophy is also childlike. Riddle goes as far to point out that Laura is naïve but seems to sell this as a badge of honour, like it is a good thing in the apocalypse. I know exactly where Laura’s character would be in the future world of Antarctica Station, long dead and clueless. 

The structure of the book is naïve as well, to the point of insulting. “Twists” are obvious to anyone who has read a sci fi book in the past 40 years. Obvious to everyone, except medical doctor Laura Reynolds. Characters return that are ridiculous happenstance. I understand that fiction is make believe, but there is coincidence and writing that borders on insulting the reader. 

There is a brainless fun thriller here and the book can be read quickly. It lacks any sort of nuance or intelligence when compared to even the middle of the road fiction that this genre can attract. I would recommend that you return to, or read for the first time, the wonderous technothrillers of Crichton’s pomp instead; Jurassic Park, Congo, Sphere. 

I adore the fantasy genre and as someone who reads it a lot, I have seen the ebbs and flows in the genre over the years. There have always been outliers, but there is a certain style of fantasy that dominated for each of the decades. Until recently, I have read a lot of Low Fantasy, a genre low on magic and high on violence. Increasingly, I am seeing Cosy Fantasy, lower stakes in a fantasy world, but to me this is a repackaging of one of the golden ages. An age of the likes of Hickman and Weis, Eddings and more. Tales of death and destruction but told in a way that almost any reader would find palatable. The Sorcerer and the Necromancer by Susan Ann Walker is a throwback in some ways, but a joy nonetheless. 

Daric arrives at Torrenbeck with no magical powers but does have a skillset in sword and shield. As a bodyguard he is earning a good reputation, until the headaches start. The overwhelming magic in the city seems to be affecting his wellbeing. Has it something to do with what all the Seers in the city are experiencing? They are witnessing the city on fire and a raging battle between good and evil. Is Daric the good or the evil? 

Sorcerer is the third in a series of books in the A Tale from the City of Magic series, but I have not read any of the others. This did not prove to be an issue, as this is a standalone title that focuses in the main on Daric, but also a young wannabe Mage called Thander. I have the impression that many of the characters that Daric meets in the story are the focus of earlier tales, but here they play a good role of enriching the story. You get the sense that the city of Torrenbeck is already established and that this story just slips in. 

It has many of the classic features of a fantasy title, especially of the 80s. A young man coming into his power, a coming-of-age story set in a fantasy world. In this case, this is happening to two men at the same time, but their paths are vastly different. The pace of the book is not breakneck, instead it has a gentle pace that allows the characters and city to breathe. Even if Daric’s training is sped up, there is still a decent chunk of the book that reads like an extended training montage. 

What I did enjoy about these slower paced sections is the development in character relationships. Walker is invested in people and makes sure that Daric is surrounded by allies and, in some cases, enemies. This reminded me of the classic fantasy of my youth, but also them modern Cosy style of fantasy. A style of fantasy where people are as important as action. I have always felt that building character development if nothing new but focusing on it more makes the action and consequences more meaningful. 

Although Sorcerer has some cosy elements, it is also high stakes. There is a killer in the city who is murdering rich lonely people and emptying their safes without any damage. The culprits are a combination of banned magics that could shake the very foundations of the city. 

In an age in which I often pick a fantasy novel and must gird my loins before embarking on a harrowing tale of death and destruction, it is important to offer different voices within the genre. Walker offers what I consider to be a High Fantasy voice which harks back to one of the Golden Eras of the genre (the late 70s/80s). It has plenty of tropes and is gentle in places but is very readable and most importantly enjoyable. I would consider it true fantasy and not in the Cosy subgenre, but it has much of the character development and warmth of those titles. 

Your average heist movie ends in one of two ways; a cliffhanger or the job complete. You rarely get to see what happens to the criminals as they make it off with their ill-gotten gains, or when they are thrown into the slammer. Unless you are Oceans 11, then you just get a couple more heists a few years later. Editors Richard Brewer and Gary Phillips decided to create the book Culprits which starts with a heist and then focusses on a different member of the gang in each chapter and what happened to them; some good and some very, very bad. 

O’Conner has it made. He has a loving relationship and has managed to legitmise most of the money that he stole over the years, but a life of mundane business cannot scratch that itch a big illegal score can. When he is contacted by his longtime associate The Financier to partake in one last job, O’Conner cannot say no. Although in hindsight he should have. The secret safe found on a vast ranch is not just full of cash made from cattle trading. O’Conner and his crew got in deeper than they imagined when they start to be hunted down. 

The core idea of Culprits feels different, not only is it about the aftermath of a crime, but it focusses on a different character each chapter. It has that Pulp Fiction feel to it, not only in its pulp crime style, but characters who are the main protagonist in one chapter make cameos in another. One other feature of the book is that Brewer and Phillips invited other writers to create chapters, therefore making it a cross between a non-linear tale and a short story collection. 

Phillips and Brewer take on more chapters than most and use this to establish the original heist and the concluding chapters. This is clever storytelling as they create the world in which others can play. They introduce an ensemble of criminals, but also the archenemy of the Ranch owner. By writing the first two chapters and final three, the editors/writers assure that the story is established and concluded in a satisfactory manner, but it also allows the writers in the middle section to have more abstract stories. 

O’Conner is the centre of the story and holds the book together, but there are some great short stories that focus elsewhere. The stories play with a myriad of ways in which a post heist could go right or wrong. In The Financier by David Corbett, the man with the money goes into hiding, only to allow paranoia to get the best of him. I Got You by Brett Battles focusses on a gang member who cannot escape his past. It is a great character piece but also moves the story forwards as we start to truly understand where the money really came from. 

The editors have done an impressive job of giving the guest authors free reign but also keep them on point. I imagine a ‘bible’ was written of events that the editors passed on to ensure that the overarching story was respected. I enjoyed all the chapters/stories within Culprits but feel that those written by the editors were the best. There was a little more cohesion and higher stakes to these stories, especially the final trilogy of Showdown, Hector, and All Debts Paid. In a couple of the earlier tales, it took a while for me to remember which character the story was following as so many were introduced originally. The finale focusses mostly on O’Conner and his closet allies as they seek an out. 

Culprits is a delicious mix of pulp crime novels with classic heist movies of the 90s and early 00s. It has that sense of the last days of when criminals could still be so bad that they are good. You even get to appreciate the Ranch owner, who is evil, but well rounded. As a collection this will delight any fan of pulp crime fiction, not only for the stories themselves, but the interesting way that the story is designed and delivered. 

What makes a bunch of short stories gathered together a collection? It could be the works of the same author, or it could be some sort of theme that means they are all derived from the same place. A collection's origins can significantly impact the type of stories you are about to read. Is it an established author, or a series of new writers? Has it been published through one of the big publishing houses, or an independent press? All these elements can lead to a collection of hard science fiction titles that play with the genre like New Year New You edited by Chris Campbell.

New Year has its origins in a different place than many short story collections. Campbell may be an established author and editor, but the job here was not to curate stories from across the globe, but to work with the alumni of the 2023 Viable Paradise, a writing retreat. This book was also initially funded through a Kickstarter campaign, meaning it was the audience and not a publishing house or editor that decided it should come into existence. What does this all mean? It means you get an eclectic collection of short fiction that hits many assorted styles of genre but is not afraid to go down the hard science fiction route. 

The theme of New Year, New You is a nebulous one and from what I can tell, a brief that several of the authors chose to ignore. Stories could be literally set around the New Year but could also be about creating a new you. I like a short story collection that dictates a Dogme 95 set of rules on its contributors, as these restrictions often force someone into a creative space, they may have not imagined had they been given free range. Some of the better stories within these pages hit the brief. 

The Ravishing Moon Princess by Charlotte Ahlin takes the idea of creating a new you to the science fiction extremes in a decade spanning tale about an artist's desire to remain relevant, willing to change anything about themselves. It does not take many pages to realise that this is no simple anthology of tales, but complex and experimental that fans of short fiction in fanzines will love. Moon is no ordinary take on a new you and All the Time in the World and None at All by Allison Potter is no ordinary New Year. Instead, it is a time tripping tale of a time traveler and the therapist they see every New Year’s Eve. It is just that whilst the therapist is living in linear time, the time traveler is not. 

There are other stories that do not hit the New Year or the New You in a way I understand, but these are other stories that are just good. A Thousand Gomorrahs by Daryl Gregory is a twist on a kaiju story told from the last coffee shop in town. Ugly by Julie Danvers a new take on Cinderella from the perspective of one of the ugly sisters told in parallel and as a sequel. Redo by Brigitte Winter is a tale of toxic masculinity that could only have been told through genre fiction. No Moon and Flat Calm by Elizabeth Bear is a wonderful science fiction tale about health and safety officials in space. 

All the stories in New Year are different from one another, many will challenge you. Some in an exciting way, others in your attempts to try and work out what is going on. I would say that it is a mixed bag in the best of ways. The quality is high throughout, but the stories are so disparate that not all will talk to every reader. I like the freedom of ideas in the book, it has used its origins in Kickstarter well to buck convention. I would say that the book is hard science fiction and would appeal most to a reader who likes to challenge their mind and imagination with innovative ideas hitting them every few pages. 

 

What makes a good Conan novel? It seems like a simple calculation, a brawny barbarian, a massive sword, wine, woman, and violence. Mix the lot into a pot and you have a Conan adventure to be proud of, except it is not that easy. Conan lives in a vibrant and complex world that can be stodgy to read if written badly and hard for new fans to engage with. It takes a deft hand to produce a new outing for the Cimmerian that pays homage to the Robert E. Howard’s originals whilst working for a modern audience and respecting the wider world building. Thankfully, James Lovegrove is the author in charge of Conan: Cult of the Obsidian Moon, one of the most enjoyable Conan books I have read. 

We find Conan in a typical situation – being attacked by a mythical creature who is guarding the house that the barbarian just broke into. It seems like it may be time to move on again when Conan meets Hunwulf, Gudrun and their son, Bjørn, three Northerners ousted from their clan. Conan decides to work for them and even becomes their friend. Therefore, when a giant winged reptile snatches Bjørn, Conan sets out with his new allies to save the boy and unknowingly start an adventure that could span worlds. 

You can read the book as just a great Conan story. There is everything there, a little less sex than usual as Conan is getting over a tragic loss, but the action and violence is present. This is the Conan fans will know, but he feels more modern in his sensibilities. The edges are still rough, but I detected a slight modern polish in the attitudes that Conan had. This does not detract from the story but makes it more accessible to new fans. 

There are some impressive set pieces in the book. I enjoyed the section set in the city as Conan stumbles from bar to illegal act and back again. His relationship with Hunwulf and his family builds nicely and adds to the tension later in the book during a most enjoyable action scene against the type of cult leader that Conan seems to have to mow down regularly.  

Conan has always been a series that had one foot in history, the other in Harryhausen. It has a gritty feel to it, claims to be historic, but is fantasy all the way. It only takes one winged lizard to imagine that Hyborian is not the Antient history as we understand it. Obsidian takes matters one step further by introducing hints of Cthulhu, as an even older God dwells in a realm between worlds. Lovegrove already has form in this area in the excellent The Cthulhu Casebooks series of books. 

There is a balance between staying true to Conan’s fantastical, but grounded, adventures and the concept of a being that breaks the minds of men. In the case of Obsidian, it is only a concept that is tickled around the edges, but it is a tickle that I enjoyed. Something that adds that little more depth and mystery to the story. 

Obsidian is a book that took me on an old-fashioned fantasy quest, and I loved it. The world of Conan is still ripe for storytelling and the character itself is evolving to remain relevant to a modern audience but also stay true to source. Lovegrove is an author who is able to handle IPs wonderfully and does so again here, even adding some extra Lovecraftian spice into the mix. Fans of Conan, or any action fantasy series, will love this book. 

When the apocalypse inevitably comes do you want to know about it? Would you like the chance to peer out of the window and see the world burning, perhaps you can make a run for the high ground? Another option is to live in pure ignorance underground, competing with your fellow residents for the perceived prize of ascending to the next level. Just do not tell the residents that this next level can cost you an arm and a leg, literally. Welcome to the various messed up worlds of C J Rivera’s The Final Orchard. 

Ro never planned to work for a multinational company that specialised in keeping its elderly customers alive as long as possible, but her knowledge and the death of her daughter led her to become an expert in organic enhancements. These organic parts need to be grown somewhere and deep below ground is an orchard made up of young men and woman, including Ever, an exceptional specimen who has yet to be picked to ascend, but why? 

Orchard is a dystopian novel with a capital D. It deals with a lot of heavy subjects and not much hope. The book opens on a bleak note, the tragic death of a child. This event acts as one of the catalysts for future events. Ro is now focused on technology that can recreate her child, no matter the cost to others. One part of this book is about how grief can warp someone. 

The other storyline is set deeper underground in the cult like world of Ever. These young people compete with one another to gain the favour of The Chairman in the hopes of being picked to ascend and fight in a war they know little about. This is another disturbing aspect of the book, young people being groomed and manipulated to be an army of unquestioning child soldiers. 

The dystopia continues in the horrific aspects of the book. The death of a small child is enough, but there is also the fates of the adolescents grown in The Final Orchard. The book is science fiction horror as we witness mutilations and scientific horrors that would make Doctor Moreau think twice. One final bleakness is revealed as the book progresses, the outside world is undergoing its final days. If you are into dystopia, you get as much as you could want. 

There is little humour in the book and the reader does not get much relief. There is plenty of action, especially in the latter parts of the book. I question whether Rivera earns through their writing the level of horror and terror in the book. It has a slight naive tone to the story because the farmed children are so inexperienced. It balances on the cusp of Young Adult fiction because so many of the cast are that age. Like The Hunger Games if you stop for a minute and consider how truly horrific the story is, you question why the book is aimed so young. With the death of a child at the start of the book, Rivera was trying to write core adult science fiction, but I still feel like it reads at a younger level.  

For all the books attempts at levity; the death of children, the murder of adolescents, the end of the world etc., it still feels like it is naive and too dismissive of the subject matter. If you are going to kill a kid in the first few pages, you better bring your A game and produce a book that respects the reader and the world in which it is set. Instead, Orchard is a book heavy in subject matter, but light in tone. For me, the sense of bleakness and misery in the book is not matched in the writing style. Fans of those dystopian teen novels of the 00s will enjoy this slight adultification of the genre, but Rivera needed to delve deeper to deserve writing about such soul sapping subject matter.  

What do you do with an aging character? Some authors choose to pretend that their characters are immortal and never age. This is great for churning out the content, but it does hamstring you into writing the same type of story as you can never move on in fear of making the protagonist too old. Max Allan Collins has been around long enough to know better and has been writing new novels set in his character’s twilight years. Quarry should have been dead a hundred times over but is still alive and kicking (if a little slowly) in Quarry’s Return. 

Quarry, ex-soldier, and ex-hitman is now retired and runs a set of remote lodges that he hires out to rich holidaymakers, but even past 70 his past still comes back to haunt him. Sometimes this is a good thing; a daughter he never knew existed. Other times not as good; a killer in disguise. When Quarry’s daughter goes missing while she is investigating a new True Crime novel, our antihero teams up with an old flame (and killer) to find out if his last remaining relative is dead or alive. 

Long time fans of the Quarry series will have a good sense of the books at this point. They have a tone of vintage pulp but are set through Vietnam to present day. The secret sauce is Collins, an experienced author who can write a modern story in a classic pulp fashion. Return is based in the present day but has that dark edge and sense of smoky bar rooms that comes from classic pulp.  

This is the seventeenth outing for the character and at this point Quarry is both a layered character and a remarkably simple one. He is living a new life but still has the willingness to kill. Your bones may get old, but a gun is the great equaliser. Layers come through in the history of the character. The reader is reminded of past exploits, including the welcome return of one femme fatale. 

Layers are not just in the characters, but in the structure of the book. The Quarry series is written as if the author is the hitman, and he has changed a few locations and names to protect his identity. He has written seventeen dime store novels and has never been revealed. Now his daughter, the true crime specialist, is around and she is retelling a fictionalised ‘truth’ of Quarry’s life, and this has sold a lot better. Are people starting to figure out who Quarry’s latest nom de plume is? 

Does all this history and meta writing sound too complex for your average pulp novel? Luckily, these are just the magic sprinkles that Collins adds to the story. You can read the book as pure escapist fun. It is a thrilling and fun story of a killer being chased by two people who are even worse. There are gun fights and fist fights, all are heightened, but also grounded. It is pulp so people die, but Collins never forgets that this is a 70+ year old man trying to do what he used to find easy.  

What holds the book together is the skill and experience of the author. Collins almost writes two parallel books; one for long terms fans of Quarry who love the layers and one for fans of pure pulp fiction. The book works on both levels. An action thriller with a mystery at the centre that I was unable to unpick until the reveal. This may truly be Quarry’s last outing, but I hope there is life in the old dog yet.   

I enjoy it when the publishing community gets together and decides to proclaim there is a new subgenre. These are a collection of books that have already been written but are now herded into a common bracket. Romantasy and Cosy Fantasy are doing great, and I have read a few of these. Low stake consequences set in a fantasy world. The next obvious step is Cosy Science Fiction. A book all about a Universe level cooking competition sounds ideal, but Interstellar Megachef by Lavanya Lakshminarayan is anything but cosy when it is discussing imperialism, xenophobia, and societal collapse. 

Saraswati Kaveri found themselves arriving on Primus on a refugee ship having become one of the few Earth inhabitants to have successfully left the planet on a refugee visa. Back on Earth, Saraswati was a successful chef but also had a family to die for. On Primus there is the opportunity to reinvent yourself and what better way than to take part in Interstellar Megachef, the biggest show in the known Galaxy. Will Saraswati’s primitive use of flame go down well in a society that believes it has evolved beyond its Earth roots? 

Looking at the cover of Megachef and reading the blurb may just give you the wrong impression that this is a slice of cosy sci fi that you can pick up and let your brain relax. It is anything but that. There are the trappings of the subgenre. It is a very character-centric novel. We get deep insights into the workings of Saraswati, but also equally into the tetchy character of Serenity Ko, who is given almost half the story. As is the tradition in the format, there is some sort of chemistry between these two opposites.  

The idea of a massive baking competition also sounds sweet but, like with the rest of the story, you soon start to see there is more darkness and depth to be found. Food plays a large part in the story, but so does the politics of food. Food represents society. The cold, aloof flavours of Primus versus the haphazard, but flavoursome, tastes of Earth. The snobbery over food is paralleled across all Primus society as they look down on all other cultures on most aspects of life. 

This development of snobbery and xenophobia is enough to add meaning and depth to the book. Many readers will wander along on the level of the juxtaposition between cooking and racism, but there are deeper layers. Lakshminarayan touches upon the idea of an Empire in decline, but the society does not seem to understand it yet. An Empire that spouts the teachings of its forebears but no longer lives them. A power that thinks it is superior to all and does not listen to other voices. Like with all good science fiction, there are parallels between this future tale and the world we live in today. Lakshminarayan is able to being an interesting perspective to a story that could have just been cosy. 

At over 400 pages, Lakshminarayan has taken on a little too much for the first outing in the series. Trying to combine hard science fiction ideas with cosy relationships is admiral, but they both require the work. Both elements are well catered for, thus the page count increases. I worry that elements of the book will miss the mark with opposing types of reader, they may not care for all the politics or all the handwringing. However, there must be plenty of science fiction lovers who like their world complex and their relationship dramas even more so. I would have opted for a hundred pages less or so and fleshed out more in future books, but for a piece of Cosy Sci Fi that Trojan horses in more allegories than most genre fiction, Lakshminarayan has done an interesting job.  

As a committed reader, you start to see the signs that you are living a long life. One stark reminder is when a favourite author dies. This has happened too often already for my liking; one particularly heavy hit was Sir Terry Pratchett. In a world in which authors continue to write into their 8th and 9th decade, Sir Terry left too soon. But what a legacy to leave. With no new Discworld books being published, the Pratchett Estate continues to feed the fans information on the wider Discworld. Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld by Paul Kidby may just be the perfect legacy title for a fan. 

Kidby was not the first artist linked to Sir Terry. The early Discworld novels had cover illustrations by the legendary Josh Kirby, but even before being offered the job of being Pratchett’s new illustrator of choice, Kidby was working on designs for characters in the Discworld and on numerous occasions tried to get the attention of the author with early sketches. This book is a deep dive into many of the works that Kidby did for Sir Terry and, later, the Estate. It is part coffee book, part glimpse into the development of art, but it is also an insight into the artist and his relationship with Pratchett. 

As a fan of the books, the universe and Kidby’s images, this book was like catnip to me. This version is the hardback full colour version with hundreds of images from Kidby that cover almost every aspect of Discworld. It has that look and feel to it that makes it a special type of book for a fan. Even the smell of the book is lovely with so much colour ink used. 

As a passing curio it has its place. The type of old school coffee book that you could leave on the table for guests to peruse for a moment. Open almost any page and you will come across a glorious picture that you can admire, images of Discworld or its characters. Of special interest to the non-Pratchett fan would be the clever homages that Kidby undertook over the years which placed Discworld characters into versions of famous paintings, from Michelangelo to Star Wars. 

To skim the book is valid but would be an injustice to what is an interesting insight into the world of illustration. The book feels like a gentle autobiography of Kidby as he describes how he was inspired by a certain character or image. He also references his relationship with the great man, and in this way the book also feels like a biography of Pratchett and his relationship to the art of the Discworld. Finally, the book also pays homage to the characters of Discworld. We get another biography this time of the characters that Kidby has come to know and love. 

The very formatting of the book has been designed to make it an inviting and entertaining read. The full colour images hold the centre, but the text is interesting and there are ‘handwritten’ asides all over the place that give even more insight. To top things off, there are quotes taken from the books that play into the images shown. Just being reminded of the excellent writing of Pratchett is a joy. 

As someone who would rush to the bookshop before Christmas each year to buy that year’s Terry Pratchett novel, it is as much this tradition I miss, as much as the man. There are yearly titles that come out from the Estate that can scratch that itch, but Designing Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is the best that I have read yet. It is perhaps the first time since Sir Terry’s death that I feel that same warmth as I did from reading a new Discworld novel. Kidby’s respect for the man and the universe if clear. You get a lovely sense of being closer to Pratchett, but also a kinship to Kidby. 

Horror comes in many shapes and sizes. The horror could be on this plane of existence, a creature that stalks you and your family through generations. It could be even closer to home, the horror of the mundane, the terror of ordinary people willing to do anything to achieve their goals, even if this means kidnapping and holding hostage pregnant woman. Horror can also be on other ethereal planes; abominations that visit you at night and haunt your dreams. If you are an unfortunate person, you may experience all three horrors at once like Jenna in Daniel Church’s new novel The Ravening. 

The horror in Jenna’s life started early enough in her teens. Not her love of the latest Katy Nash album, but the scream that her mother made when she was dragged off into the woods. Psychologically shattered and with no safety net at home, Jenna started to learn to fend for herself, but martial arts and a strong character can only protect you so much. They fail in the face of true, supernatural evil – or do they? 

Ravening is one of those enjoyable horror novels that hits you with multiple types of the genre all in one story. The book starts off as real-life horror, with a smattering of the unknown, like one of the more down to Earth episodes of The X Files. Something did happen to Jenna’s mother, but it may have just been a mishap or a woodland animal. Even Jenna is unsure of what she heard. 

The book fast forwards a decade or more and reintroduces us to Jenna, the damaged but independent woman. After a haphazard life and a string of lovers, she is finally finding balance with Holly. This is when the next roll of the horror dice is rolled by Church as the terror of the mundane comes into play. There is something special about Jenna that people want, and they are no longer willing to wait. She finds herself in more than one horrific situation in which she must escape. 

The horror in this section is what I find the most impactful as it could happen. It is the horror of real people being evil. The story will have the deepest impact on those people who are squeamish about body and psychological horror. Imagine being forced to use your body in ways you do not wish. Truly horrific. 

Thankfully, Jenna is such a complex and resourceful character that she gets through it and takes the reader with her on the journey. There is an inner strength and dark humour to Jenna that makes her very appealing to read. She will take no BS from anyone, or anything. Which is useful as the latter part of the book introduces strong elements of the supernatural and ethereal. It is difficult to set books across different ethereal planes, and Ravening becomes more complex when the idea is introduced, but it is also a method for Jenna to survive. 

To underpin all the distinct types of horror within the book, Church does a good job of creating a history and lore that brings them all together. One option, often taken in horror, is not to explain what is happening or why. The fact that it is unknown adds to the tension. However, it is also nice when the reason behind the madness is explained, and Church knits the various elements of the story together well with an overarching mythology. 

The Ravening is a horror novel that caters for a multitude of genre fans. It has body, human, monster, and supernatural elements, all held together with some interesting lore. What makes it though, is not the scares, but the characters. The strength of Jenna, loyalty of Holly. Even the antagonists have reasons for their madness. Church goes as far to humanise the ultimate evil in the book in a way that makes the conclusion even more satisfying. 

Christmas has many traditions from trees to strange men sneaking down the chimney in the dead of night. One tradition I like is the different genres that tackle the season. There is something spooky about the dark nights and folk traditions that make Christmas Ghost Stories so good, but it is also an ideal season for murder. Families and colleagues gather, perhaps for the only time of the year. Food is consumed, alcohol drunk, old truths revealed, rivalries and hatreds reopened. Editors Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane are all too happy to remind you in their collection of short stories that Death Comes at Christmas. 

Any fan of the crime genre will know that it is host to many subgenres. Christmas evokes the idea of a more homely form of comfortable crime caper than it does Nordic noir, but the editors have done an excellent job gathering distinctive styles of story, perhaps leaning into the cozy more than any other genre. 

As a collection, the standard is impressively high, especially when you realize most tales are new. No selecting from decades of Chrimbo crime, these are stories written for the collection. For me, the best stories in the collection are designed and written as contained short stories. Small Christmas amuse bouches to hold in your mind and enjoy. The first tale, How to Commit Murder in a Bookshop by C L Taylor, is an immediate hit straight out of the gate. A funny, slightly evil tale about a group of booksellers and publishers who may have forgotten their love of the written form. 

Other stories that are compact, lovely nuggets of short story goodness include Last Christmas, A Deadly Gift, and Marley’s Ghost. Ghost by Sarah Hilary is particularly entertaining as a well-designed short story with eccentric characters and a nice twist or two to please the reader. 

Crime and horror make a good mix and there are several stories that provoke tension and thrills, with a nice shock included. Red Angel, Naughty List and Frostbite prove that not all crimes in winter are cozy. If you are looking for a lighter more caperish story then The Wrong Party is a pleasant pallet cleanser that allows you to catch your breath, a story about a temp worker who walks into the wrong office do and is mistaken for someone quite different. 

A couple of historic tales also shone. Christmas Yet to Come by Helen Fields is an interesting sequel to A Christmas Carol which takes some of the side characters from the original and extrapolates what may have happened to them decades later. O Murder Night by J T Ellison is an excellent example of using a historic setting and a creepy setting to make a great crime thriller story. 

The majority of the stories contained within the pages of Death are a triumph, the only ones that fell a little flat are those that feel like they are side adventures from characters in a longer series. They read like half formed ideas that the authors had and did not have enough material to flesh out into a full novel. Popular and recurring characters can work well in short stories, just ask Sherlock, but in the case of this book they felt half baked when compared to other stories. 

One tale that I must highlight for the wrong reasons, not only for falling into the above trap, but for also for indulging in one of my least favourite aspects of poorly written crime fiction is the unfortunate The Midnight Murder Mass. Not only does it use characters from elsewhere that are not fleshed out here, but it also has a lazy attitude to the central horrors in the story. An event in the tale is truly horrific. The type of thing that would change the face of the UK. A crime that would terrify and be spoken of for decades after, however, the author and characters shake it off like another run of the mill murder. One of the reasons that I no longer read as much crime fiction as I once did is the cavalier attitude that some authors have to their victims or to the crime. There is given suspension of disbelief in the genre and murder is never good, but a mass execution of over 100 innocents deserves more than a short story and a deeper tale. A very disappointing story. 

In the whole, this is an excellent collection. O’Regan and Kane have contacted an assortment of diverse authors whose styles bring a lot to the world of Christmas Crime. It is a book that feels perfect to read on or around the season. If one story leaves you feeling a little down, there will be another excellent one just a few pages away.  

I do enjoy a set of short stories. There are typically two types that you can get, a collection, or a theme. The Price of Memories and Other Stories by Sally McBride is a classic style collection of an author’s works brought together over years into a curated whole. Are there themes that imbue the stories? Not as such, but there is a sense of the author in all the stories and a refreshing leaning into science fiction. No cop outs here; we have dystopian futures, vampires, sci fi fantasy and more. 

With tales that were originally published between 1988 to 2021, this collection brings together thirty years of McBride’s writing, so it is interesting to consider what stories were chosen to go in the book. The collection opens magnificently with The Doll Ladies, a punchy short story that considers what would happen if we used Great Apes as surrogate mothers should humans become infertile. It has layers of dystopia in the very concept, but it is sensitively told and is an uplifting tale. 

Putting the best story first is a bold move but other stories are still of a high standard. The second tale, Her Eyes as Bright as Unsheath’d Swords, does suffer from being comparable to the first. This is one of the oldest stories in the book and does have that complex 80s feel to it that I always found so perplexing of the decade in science fiction. Many books of the great eras of sci fi have proved too complex to me and this story comes into that category. 

McBride’s stories are best when they are both entertaining and presenting interesting science fiction or fantasy conundrums. After the First Death is a twist on the vampire story but has a grounded style reminiscent of I Am Legend. Little Feather is a retelling of a classic fairy tale, but once again it has a modern urban feel to it. Two interesting takes on what can be tired genres. 

Doing Drugs has more of a punky cyber horror feel to the story and highlights that even when exploring different subgenres, the author’s voice always shines through. The concepts may be outlandish at times, but there is a solid core of a philisophical idea to the majority of the tales. Fantastical things may be happening, but the questions being posed are very real.  

The story that follows this rule the least and is the longest tale is the titular Price. This is a novelette, having its own chapters and gives enough time for you to start to really know the characters. It centres on the spiky relationship between an exiled ‘thief’ and a Prince. Around them the mix of sci fi and fantasy city is embroiled in revolution. This is a less serious story and shows that McBride is an author willing to have fun. 

As a collection, there is a nice mix of subgenres, there should be at least one tale that any type of science fiction fan will enjoy. It is wonderful to see an author dipping their toes into diverse types of landscapes and characters. McBride cannot be accused of writing the same story for thirty years. This makes the fact that the author’s voice rings throughout even more impressive. I felt a love of science fiction in the stories and a love of the art of short storytelling. There are exceptional highs, Doll Ladies could make a best of anthology easily, and a few dips, but overall, a great collection. 

Comics have a complex history with some storylines going back decades. Even the relatively new superheroes can have intricate lore. Moon Knight has had plenty of time to muddy the waters with almost 50 years of stories to look back on, but it is not the depth of the stories that make Moon Knight so compelling, but the depths of the man, or men, or beings, that inhabit him. Mike Chen has the daunting task of writing a prose novel about Moon Knight but has also been asked to throw in Venom and The Multiverse. What if.... Marc Spector Was Host to Venom?  

Marc is having a typical day which consists of being locked up and tortured for information. The villains have captured his friends, but they did not think about Khonsu the Egyptian God that lives in Marc’s head and gives him the power to escape. On escaping with his pals, the day only gets odder as Marc meets Spector, a man who looks just like him, but has a black suit, rather than a white one. The next few days may just be the most perplexing of Marc’s life and that is saying something. 

Comics and the Marvel Universe can be complex and layered. Disney has spent the last decade or so simplifying things to engage the wider audience, but with the introduction of the Multiverses, the TV and films are starting to become mind-bending. These are nothing compared to what you find in Host to Venom, a book that delves into so many layers it feels like an infinite lasagne of a story. 

Moon Knight is already tricky in that Marc plays host to other personalities. Add on a chippy Egyptian God and you have enough internal conversations for any prose book. However, now we have an alternative reality Marc who has their own voices and rather than a God, they have Venom. Early in the book, the various Gods/voices/symbiotes swap around. Enough yet? No? How about a further shadowy creation that is influencing Venom? 

I am all for depth, but this borders on the unreal. Chen should be congratulated on making the book make as much sense as it does, but it is not something that a casual reader is going to be able to pick up. The What If.... books are already fan services, and they splice fan favourite characters together in unusual ways. You need a base knowledge of the Marvelverse to get the most out of them, but this book needs knowledge and a brain that can deal with puzzles. Arguably, it is the most fan service book yet as it is so abstruse.  

There are flickers of fun in the book. The action set pieces are entertaining and some of the interactions between the characters, real or internal, have a dark sense of humour. If you have deep passion for the character of Moon Knight, this is the most Moon Knight of tales. It may contain Venom, but this is Marc’s story. It is his particular way of living that informs this story, both in Universe Prime and in other Universes. 

I would not recommend this book to a casual reader, or even someone who has a passing knowledge of Marvel. I think this book was created for a small audience of Moon Knight fans who wish to bathe in a deep bubble bath of the lore. The issue is that these people may number only in the hundreds or thousands, and not the millions and millions of Marvel fans who read the comics, watch the films or TV shows.

I have always enjoyed the Star Wars extended universe novels, be they the Legend set, or the newer relaunched series. The books allow us to explore the Skywalker saga in more depth, but for me the most fun is exploring the deeper cuts. I have read fantastic novels that have delved into the lives of the likes of Count Dooku or Doctor Aphra. There are excellent books that explore new planets, some even based on theme park rides like Black Spire. Star Wars: Mace Windu: The Glass Abyss is a novel that looks to both explore in more depth the mysterious Windu but does so while introducing a vibrant world to the reader. 

On the death of Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu is sent one last message from his friend asking a request. Before his fateful meeting with Darth Maul, Jinn had visited an Outer Rim planet called Metagos to arrest a known assassin and mercenary. Trusting the local government, Jinn was betrayed and left for dead. Only the aid of an underground people kept Jinn alive. With his honour he promised to return to Metagos and rid the planet of its insidious criminal gangs. However, fate had other plans for the Jedi Knight and instead Windu must return in his place. 

Not being the biggest fan of the 90s Star Wars films, one of the highlights was the character of Mace Windu. This was a proper Star Wars character. Someone you met on celluloid who was charismatic, and you did not know too much about. There is a risk in delving deeper into the lore of a character, it can take away some of the magic that makes them special. I for one do not have quite as much respect for Boba Fett as I once did. Steven Barnes walks the tightrope between teaching more about Windu, without undermining how cool he is. It just about works, but a lot of what is cool in the book is not Mace, but instead, Metagos. 

For a one-off story, Barnes has created a fabulously realised world that has several layers. A planet that is struck with deadly radiation every few generations, forcing the planet side dwellers to go underground. This time, the under dwellers become dominated by criminal gangs. Here the layers become even more complex. There are rival gangs, but also beings that have lived under the dirt all their lives. Windu must find a way to balance the factions and achieve his goals working all sides off one another. 

The level of detail and intelligent world building is something I expect more from the Doctor Who novels and not Star Wars. The Lucas series tends to stick to tried and tested planets and lore. Barnes has been brave in the choice of Metagos and it really pays off, both in terms of making a twisting thriller of a story, but also giving Windu plenty to do. 

Windu is a cool character, but he is a little dry. There is little to no humour in the character, even for a Jedi Knight he is pokerfaced. With so much happening to Windu on the planet, he has no choice but to react. There is even plenty of time to explore a love interest, that may not be the most fun, but at least it adds depth to the character. 

Do I feel like I know more about Mace Windu after reading Glass Abyss? Certainly, it is told from his perspective and though we may not see many of his fears when he is awake, we are witness to his dreams that reveal the turmoil within. This is an action title with few moments of humour, but it does have some of the best world design in a Star Wars novel since the excellent Black Spire.  

The creation of a new subgenre comes fraught with danger, there may be a good reason it did not arise before. I am seeing an increase in what can be called Cosy Fantasy, novels that have many of the tropes of the genre but concentrate on character interaction over the action. The threat is that Fantasy can have some big consequences; hobbit killing wizards, flesh eating undead. It is not always a genre that fits with cosy, but somehow Mariana Costa has managed to make the story in Shoestring Theory a delight, even if it is about avoiding the end of the world. 

Cyril has spent the last years of his life hidden in a small cottage on the coast. The land around him is dying, the seas emptying of fish. His only company, a familiar in the shape of Shoestring, a finickity cat. When even Shoestring dies, Cyril has nothing left to live for, so as a final act of sacrifice he gifts his own blood to a spell that may change everything. The chance to return thirty years earlier and undo what happened. To relive and reform old memories, old friends, old lovers, old lovers turned enemies. 

Shoestring is not a book that opens on a cosy premise. It is a bleak outlook, the fantasy equivalent of a Terminator future. One dead cat later and some suicide and I was worried that this was the darkest romantasy fiction I have read yet, but then the book takes a twist. One of many excellent twists that the book contains. The first chapter is just a prologue, the real events all happen in the past. 

It does not take much longer after this for the tone to shift to something lighter and as the book progresses it lightens further, even when one or two surprise antagonists turn up. Cyril has found himself in a serious situation but is an unserious man. He came off as a handsome, younger version of Rincewind. All angles and worries. One worry is his former lover and husband, King Eufrates, who through a series of unfortunate events creates the end of days. Cyril’s task is to change the future, but his relationship with Eufrates and Tigris, the woman who would be Queen, is complex made worse by knowing what is coming. 

It is the relationships within the book that make it so compelling. The lifelong friendship of Cyril with the royal siblings, but also the new King who has arrived to take Tigris’ hand in marriage. The book takes many twists and turns, several of which I did not see coming and have a remarkable effect on the direction the book takes. It would have been simple for Costa to have written a linear story, but the author is constantly surprising and delighting the reader. The flexible nature of the book and ever-changing relationships is what make the book feel cosier. 

No matter how you choose to class Shoestring in terms of genre or subgenre, I know that it is enjoyable. It has a quirky sense of humour and great characters. I miss the heyday of the 90s amusing Fantasy and the likes of Pratchett, Rankin, Holt and Harman. Costa has gone a long way to recreate the joy of those days. Even with big stakes at the beginning, this is a book that becomes a joy as it progresses. One of the happiest fantasy books I have read in a while.  

You do not have to delve onto the fiction shelves to find horror, you can just watch the news. Wars breaking out, people starving. Closer to home there are murders and violence. Most of us are cocooned from these horrors, living in bubbles of our own creation, but some horrors we cannot escape; grief, illness. One that many of us will experience if we live to an old age, old enough to see those around us die, is loneliness. If abject loneliness was not enough Alvar Theo suggests in Benothinged that there are beings that feast on the forgotten, the sidelined, the lonely. 

Mask sleeps in their dead grandmother’s bed next to the memory of their dead dog. They had little to begin with, but now that their last known relative and beloved pet are gone, there is no one. Perhaps they can build an unlikely friendship with the pensioner next door. She seems a little absent minded, but kind enough. Who cares that she never drinks any of the tea you make her, is obsessed with names, and that the other elderly neighbours are disappearing. 

It is horror season, and I have read several this year and there seems to be a slight trend with leaning into mental wellness. Horror has always played tricks with the mind, are the characters seeing something, or is it all in their head? Modern horror delves deeper into this and has characters like Mask who have real and diagnosable mental illness, as well as potentially having to deal with demons that suck the life out of the lonely. 

Along with the trend of horror dealing better with mental health, I also found several of the books dull because the subject matter does not automatically lend itself to escapism. Understandably, the characters are not in a happy place, but it does not make for a thrilling read. There is no such issue in Benothinged, as the thing that makes it stand out from the others is that Mask is a character who is incredibly engaging. 

Mask is front and centre of the story and is as complex as you would want any character. There could have been a tendency to make the character insular, and whilst this is part of the makeup, there is also hope there and dark humour. For a book about depression and a monster that feeds on the lost, the book has some comedic moments. Even when faced with their greatest fears, Mask confronts them with a wry wit. 

The character of Mask really makes the book, but I was also impressed by Theo’s recreation of modern Britain. The book feels like Kitchen Sink Horror, reality mixed with the unreal. The creation of The Nothing is also excellent. This is no mute spirit, but at times an annoyingly chatter one. Its only goal is to persuade its latest victim to give up and allow The Nothing to ingest them. The relationship between Mask and The Nothing has elements of an Odd Couple, if the consequences were not so dire. 

Theo has impressively managed to take some dark subject matter and make an enjoyable horror novel. Depression, societal pressures, gender, suicide, old age, loneliness are all touched upon by a beast that wants to kill, but the book remains readable due to the well-developed central character of Mask. Even in their darkest moments the reader wants to know what will happen to Mask. Benothinged is a modern horror story that is one of the best for this Halloween season.

How big does a cult have to be to become a cult? Does it have to be thousands of people? Hundreds? Tens? Could one family be a cult? If you brought your children up in a remote location without access to the internet and media, it may be possible to make them believe almost anything. Like a tale about how your family are the protectors of a bog and that you can never leave the perimeter. Your role is to maintain the bog and The Bog Wife who lives within. 

To some the Haddesleys are the eccentric family that live out in the bog in their run-down folly of a house. To most, they may as well not exist. While the outside world is shopping at Walmart and going to bars, the Haddesleys are maintaining the rituals needed to support The Bog Wife. Father is dying and that means the time is coming for a new Bog Wife to be formed. Will the rituals work? Are they even real? 

Folk Horror seems to be en vogue currently and I am all for it, especially when an author like Kay Chronister does something a little different with the format. Bog Wife has the trappings of the genre; a remote location, strange rituals, but in this case, there is no stranger visiting. The closest we have to someone the reader can relate to is the eldest daughter Wenna, who fled the bog some years earlier, but has returned to bury her father. 

Folk Horror often has that slow drip of terror as strange occurrences build up to the horrific, but in this case, Chronister plays with the reader’s sense of doubt. Is there an actual Bog Wife at all? The book explores the idea of a small family cult. If children are brought up knowing nothing different, would they just do as their father says? The story is told from the perspective of the different children. They all have different views on life in the bog, all have drunk differing amounts of Kool Aid. 

The messed-up family dynamic is the key to the book working and at times it feels like one of the dark Netflix documentaries about cults that are so popular, but Bog Wife is in the fiction section for a reason. The story does slowly evolve so fans of spine-tingling tales will not be disappointed. 

This is a mild horror book, the situation that the children find themselves in is worse than any type of body horror or scares the novel may have. I would class the book as modern Urban Fantasy, with elements of slight horror. It is a book for readers who enjoy complex family dynamics or stories that make you question the very fabric of what you are reading. The Bog Wife is a clever take on the Folk Horror genre and one that kept me guessing the truth until the end.   

People read for all sorts of reasons. I read to escape and have fun, my preference is for high action and laughs, but I understand that some people like to be challenged by their reading. This could be a complex Space Opera, or a piece of literature that tackles the life of a downtrodden mother in 1920s London. Coup de Grace by Sofia Ajram is a novelette that uses the Urban Fantasy genre to explore the concept of attempted suicide. 

Vicken is on his last train journey. The destination is a river that he can throw himself into and end his life. The depression has gotten the best of him in recent times and even a dalliance with a handsome stranger is not enough for him to change his mind. On stepping off the train, Vicken does not find himself at the river, but instead at an ‘other’ place. A place of twisting corridors and bizarre locations. And more importantly, no way out. 

To suggest that Coup has a story is a little much. Instead, this is a mood piece. An internal examination of what it takes for someone to consider suicide. Rather than writing a pure work of literacy, Ajram has chosen to explore it via Urban Fantasy. Where is Vicken? Is it a Limbo between life and death? It has that ethereal feel to it, Vicken never understands where they are and when they meet other characters, they seem just as confused. 

For me, this makes for a complex book. I am a simple reader and like a nice hook and there is none to find here. There is somewhat of a story around the 100-page mark, but as the book is only 136 pages long, it is a lot of preamble and not much tale. When you get to where Vicken is doing something, it turns into a novelty, choose your own adventure story. It is as if Ajram is being deliberately provocative.  

The subject matter will chime with some readers more than others. There is a meaty trigger warning at the start of the book, and this should be noted. Themes of depression and suicide will have a significant impact on some readers, they should be warned before reading this book. Will the book help them? I am unsure of even this as I could not gather what was happening. I was unable to comprehend if the ending was hopeful or not. The choose your own element certainly did not help here. 

What is Coup de Grace? An experimental novel, an introspective tale about one person. If you are a reader who enjoys a character that internalises their thoughts, there is a lot here. There is little story, it is more character study of one person. There will be readers who enjoy exploring their inner monologues through the prism of others, but I am not that reader, and this was not the book to change that in me. I found it a short story that did not make the most sense.  

Science Fiction is fun in so many ways and one of the most entertaining games to play is to think about if. What is Nickola Tesla invented a way to harness an all-powerful energy? Would such power be safe to use, not only for an individual, but for a nation? This was an era of World Wars; more powerful weapons could mean even more death. Teslamancer is the second in Matthew Donald’s Teslanauts series that suggests that Tesla’s technology was so powerful that a secret organisation has worked through history to protect humankind from its own innovation. 

Maverick Teslanaut, Raymond Calvert, has been working for the shadowy underground team for a couple of years and has really started to find his groove. With the aid of his colleagues, Raymond is getting the most out of his suit that allows him to work at super speed. The Teslanauts have been stamping down on unwanted use of Tesla technology all over the globe, but they may have met their match with a new group determined to bring the tech to the wider world and dominate it. The head of the organisation is someone pupils of history will know all about. 

I read a lot of fiction and plenty of it is staid. Once in a while you come across a book that is kinetic and a little haphazard, as if the author wants to get three books crammed into one. Teslamancer is certainly one of these books and reminded me of the manic style of Matthew Reilly. Reilly has gone onto be a bestseller and perhaps Donald may too, but while Reilly writes for adults, Teslamancer is classed as juvenile literature. 

Aiming a book at the 12–18-year-old range is tricky. This is a group that ranges from short trousers to the pub. The characters in the book are in their early 20s, adults, but as this is a book for children, the characters are at best naive in places. Death is treated in an odd manner. This is a book set post-WW1 and has people fighting one another with deadly technology, but the Teslanauts are always capturing the enemy. This just does not ring true. Then a scene occurs that tackles death, in a big way, but it is almost told as an aside. It is as if the book is tonally slightly off. 

The book is trapped between the confidence of being an adult novel and the practicality of being a book for kids. In my opinion Donald should have binned off the child book angle and focused on creating a fun, flashy pulp novel. The story and characters do not come across as child friendly, just patronising. No death, but the characters have sex. Is the book in or out of the juvenile literature tag? The setting would also be tricky for teens, they will most likely know the main bad guy from the remix of a 1970s disco hit that was released in the past few years, not from an in-depth history of the Romanovs. 

In terms of ambition, Donald should be lorded. The concept of Tesla tech changing the face of history intrigues, but why hamstring the story with hiding it? I do not think technology of this nature could be hidden. Donald introduces a deeper, even more shadowy layer of masked characters that repair destroyed cities and wipe memories. The concept is just naive and moves the science fiction into science fantasy. Was making the book for teens an excuse for not developing ideas? 

There is an interesting seam that could be mined in the series, are the Teslanauts not becoming authoritarian themselves? Who are they to determine who gets tech and who does not? Does creating a city of masked people, including kids, sound like a Utopian regime to you?  

There are strange decisions throughout Teslamancer and it had me scratching my head, but I did also enjoy it. The action was kinetic and there is an enthusiasm in the book. I do think that it is a flawed title that will have adults and teens dismissing it alike, but for a science fiction reader that likes to unpick ideas in a book, there are enough contained within to last ten books.  

If you are reading this, you have some interest in books, enough to read a review about one. Bound in Blood is not just a book, this is a book about books. Well at least a collection of spooky short stories about books, authors, libraries, and all things bibliophile. For those of us in the know, there is magic in books from finding that novel you wanted in a secondhand store, to cracking open a new release and enjoying that new book smell. Books draw you in and take you to unfamiliar places, but what happens if you find yourself in a place you do not want to go? 

Bound has been edited by Johnny Mains and is a curated set of mostly new short stories. The remit is that the stories must be somehow linked to books (although a couple are only very thinly so). What links books? There seems to be a magic to them that draws someone in. Is this an addiction? Something that can be exploited by others? A theme that seems to run through the stories is that books are a gateway between this world and another. These tales about stories lean towards the surreal type of magic that is hard to pin down. This works well for some stories in the collection, but others seem to fall off the boil towards their end. 

I will focus on the stories I enjoyed the most. These mostly had the best structure and the firmest grip on the brief. Footnotes by A. K Benedict tells the story of a young academic who finds an unusual job in the library inscribing the futures of people onto her skin. The story is told in a way that evokes the language of reading in its footnotes and highlights the obsessive control that books can have on a real bibliophile. 

Broken Back Man by Lucie McKnight Hardy and Book Worm by Isy Suttie are just the type of story I would hope for from a horror short story anthology. They are compact little tales that paint a picture and then turn the story on its head. Book Worm is more in keeping with the core theme, but both are excellent tales. 

Several of the stories in Bound take on a mercurial feel and I found they did not quite land. Perhaps they should have pushed that little bit further? Beneath the Diaphragm, the Gut Itself by Robert Shearman does just this and introduces a world where people literally birth a book. As a teen each person gives birth to a piece of text that has already been ordained from the greatest classics to a useless pamphlet. It is a story that raises so many questions that it cannot possibly answer, but the surreal and absurdist story works so well because it is knowingly out there. 

The best short story is one of the only two older stories, The Man Who Collected Barker by Kim Newman is your classic horror gut punch of a short story. A wonderful idea that builds to its conclusion. This story is from 1990 and has aged well. In fact, it highlights some of the rawness elsewhere in the collection. Choosing from decades of short stories will, in most cases, derive a stronger compilation as only the best will survive the competition. Some of the stories contained in Bound may crop up in a future 2058 anthology, but I sense that many will not. A collection that will work for those who love horror and books, but not the strongest just for horror fans. 

I always forget how unpleasant some of the antiheros were in Victorian era fantasy and science fiction. In my mind I think of the era being full of ladies and gentlemen, but there were plenty of loathsome people too. Looking back on the working conditions and how society treated its poor, perhaps I am just naive. When you think of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, you may think that Jekyll was a misunderstood scientist twisted by Mr. Hyde, but in many ways the Doctor is worse than the monster. In Jekyll & Hyde: Consulting Detectives, Tim Major has created a sequel to the books that show Jekyll and Hyde in their true light. 

It has been a decade since Dr Jekyll vanished and both London and his ex-fiancée, Muriel, have moved on. Muriel now spends her time investigating corruption in polite society, and she has her eye on a Lord collecting money for a hospital that will never get built. During her investigation she discovers that Jekyll is back in town and is investigating a similar matter. Can the duo put aside old grievances and work together? And can the duo work together when it becomes a trio? 

I do love a Victoria-verse novel, the term I am trying to patent for books set in Victorian times using out of copyright characters from the era. There is a multitude of things that you could do with the likes of Jekyll & Hyde, go in a completely new direction, or do what Major has done and create something that feels like a continuation of the story, but still manages to create its own identity. 

Taking the trappings of the original gives the world an established base. Readers knowledgeable about the text will gain more from the book, but even those with a basic understanding of the characters will be able to follow proceedings. Muriel is the lesser known of the characters and the protagonist for most of the book. This works perfectly as she is a good person to reintroduce the reader into the world some years later. She is a strong-minded person, and it allows us to observe the curious continuation of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 

Major writes about the Victorian era in such an evocative way that just being there is a pleasure. However, the author brings their experience writing Sherlock Holmes novels to write a good mystery too. It has the feel of Sherlock, a macabre crime and shadowy network. The case may feel Sherlockian, but the investigators certainly do not. The dynamic between Muriel and Jekyll/Hyde is vastly different than that of Sherlock and his Watson. Here we see that Jekyll is as prickly and difficult a character as Hyde. In many ways we start to see Hyde as the more humane of the two. 

The story does delve into the twin personalities and how they co-exist. Major intelligently evolves the relationship into one of begrudging co-operation, rather than opposition. The science that split Jekyll is the Urban Fantasy element of the book and plays into the wider narrative. Mad science allows Major the opportunity to play with the narrative, unlike in Sherlock Holmes the creatures that go bump in the night may just be creatures. However, despite how fanciful it is, there is a basis in science. 

Consulting Detectives is necessary for any fan of Victorian based Urban Fantasy. It has a solid mystery, respects the original text, but is also happy to move things on. It is a more serious and proper attempt at continuation, and not just an exploitation of the IP. With this outing working as a clever scene setting, I can imagine several more cases for the Consulting Detectives that will delve deeper into the characters, but also the world of twisted science. 

You do not have to travel as far as Italy to get a bargain house, but I like the hills and sunshine of Sicily over a row of abandoned terrace housing in the wet UK. In the past you could pick up houses for as little as £1/€1 in both these places as the local councils encouraged younger people to move to the area. Give me vineyards over binyards, except in Christopher Golden’s The House of Last Resort, the large, abandoned house may have just been left alone by the locals for a reason. 

Tommy and Kate Publisi have chosen to swap the hustle bustle of American cities for the quiet life in Italy. They have picked up a bargain €1 house in the small town of Becchina. The locals are welcoming, and Tommy and Kate do not take long to start appreciating their new life, but no one told them about the tremors, or the catacombs. The tombs hold some of the oldest architecture in Sicily. Is this a great tourist opportunity for the town, or its biggest curse? 

House is an unapologetically old school horror, the type that builds the tension up slowly throughout the novel, only to go out in a big bang. For the book to work the central relationship of Tommy and Kate must feel genuine. How deeply the reader thinks they are in love will impact how the ending hits home. I am not one for relationships in books, but even I was able to see that they truly complement one another and are tackling this new challenge together. 

As we are being introduced to the Publisi family, we are also introduced to the town of Becchina and its residents. Golden has done what many good writers do and has based the book on a form of truth. You can buy house for cheap in Italian towns. The location and the premise feel true. From this base the author can start layering the horror. 

Initially, the book is a relationship drama with spooky supernatural elements. However, are they supernatural? There is gaslighting in the book. Are the characters seeing ghosts or just stressed? Horror is great at dealing with people not believing one another. The back and forth between Tommy and Kate adds to the drama, do they trust the other? 

As the story evolves the action and the horror increases. For the genre it is not extreme or too violent. A reader fresh to the genre will be shocked, but hardened readers of horror will take it all in their stride and enjoy the journey. The book blends a little Folk Horror with Supernatural Horror. The pace makes it a slower book, reminiscent of the horror books of the 80s and 90s. If you like to get to know your characters before, they are possibly flayed alive, then House is a book for you.  

Calling your book The Escher Man is a bold move, but a move that T. R. Napper made. The name conjures up imagery from the artist of staircases to nowhere that lead back to the start. How does that effect the man eternally made to walk these steps? Throw in some Cyberpunk future and memory manipulation and you are in for some classic science fiction mind-messing in a subgenre known for it. 

Endel ‘Endgame’ Ebbinghaus is an enforcer for a leading criminal gang in future Macau, or at least he thinks he is. After every assassination he returns to his boss and hands over a chip that contains his memory. Any reference to the recent killing is wiped, but some residual memories still linger. Memories of executions, but also memories of a wife, of a daughter, perhaps two. Endgame is a man trapped in his own mind; can he find the exit before he forgets everything about himself? 

Napper is fast becoming my favourite writer of modern Cyberpunk. The author takes the feel of the classic bleak techofuture, rain and all, but also layers in great science fiction concepts. In this case there are a few, mostly about how memory works and what role it plays in making us the people we are. Is memory the soul of a person? What would you sell your soul for? 

Escher sets a wonderful balance between the story, action, and exposition. Exposition can be an ugly word in science fiction as it evokes thoughts of pages full of technobabble or characters talking to one another like simpletons because the author is talking to the reader. Napper never falls into this trap, but still allows for moments of clarity and explanation. The exposition feels natural, Endgame is a character void of memories, so he needs telling. It works brilliantly and some of the concepts that Napper focuses on are delightful thought exercises for the type of sci fi reader who likes to noddle on the ideas within a book like I do. 

Napper states that this book was ten years in the making and you can get the sense why, not because it is confusing and bloated, but because it is the opposite. Napper is dealing with large concepts about memory manipulation, or reality not being real. A poorly written book would be confused within pages. Napper has spent time editing and enhancing the book, creating a clear narrative that keeps the reader onboard throughout. This is impressive, as a reader I have been lost many times in books like this, but in this case, Napper found a solution.  

This is a book of ideas, but it is also a book of action and characters. Endgame is a cold-hearted killer, not even an anti-hero, more a villain that we are following. Napper still manages to bring a sympathetic edge to the character as there seems to be a morality somewhere in the centre of Endgame, it is just hidden under layers of psychopath. The combination of action and ideas means that it is a book that would appeal to fans of either. Only the moments of violence would turn off the more squeamish reader. 

 

History is facinating, but we often focus on the big characters, the big battles. Whilst King’s were being beheaded and bombs dropped, people kept on peopleling. The history of the normal person can be forgotten, but we exist too. What happened to the normal person on the street when organised religion started to overcome the pagan ideals? Witchfinder generals and scarlet letters. Sam K. Horton takes a fantastical approach to an alternative history in Gorse when a local religious leader decides it would be a clever idea to annoy the local Fairie folk.  

Pel and his daughter Nancy are the protectors of Mirecombe. Their job is to keep the balance between humans and the magical creatures that live all around us. Only Pel and Nancy can see them, so when the local Church gains power people start to disbelieve that there is a Pixie keeping their hearth warm or crops clear of insects. Belief returns in the wrong way when locals begin to turn up dead with mysterious injuries, rather than turn to Pel, they turn to the Church. Are the killings the work of magic or man? 

The ebb and flow of organised religion and ‘superstition’ has been a theme that I have read a lot of, especially in historic fiction. Gorse takes this idea and places it in a fantasy alternative history setting. Although Reverend Cleaver does not believe, we know that the magic exists as we witness the story through Pel and Nancy’s point of view. They can see and talk to the creatures, and they can see that the balance is being upset. 

Using fairy magic in a book is always difficult as they are tricky creatures by nature who cannot be trusted. As a reader you are never sure what to trust and often anything can happen and does. This can undermine the structure of a book, but Horton manages to avoid this by giving the book a grounded historic context and feel. The magical creatures feel like they have been researched and have rules. Horton uses known concepts like The Hunt, meaning the magic does not feel like it is being made up on the spot. 

I consider Gorse to be Urban Fantasy set in the past, but it also has strong horror elements. Something is killing people and there is a fear spreading through the village. This is making them lash out at the unknown and Pel and Nancy become easy targets. We also see the horror in man’s heart as we learn more about the murderer. Everyone in the book has a reason behind their actions, even if they are wrong. 

Gorse leans very strongly into folk and fairy magic, therefore will appeal most to fans of this type of book. It has plenty of magical sayings and has an old world feel to it. The horror is also there, but with so many unusual types of boggarts and sprites, it really is a book for people who know their Fairy Rings better than their Lord of The. One of the purest Fairie magic based books I have read in recent years. 

As comic book fans, we really are living in the best of days, not because there is so much content to read or watch, but because the artform is established. The concept of comics, superheroes and, in this case, Marvel are well enough known that we can play with the format. Marvel has been doing it for years, using the Multiverse to explore how characters from different timelines would react. Have you ever asked yourself the question What If...Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker Were Siblings? Seanan McGuire asked this question, and one answer is that you get a wonderful thought exercise and book out of it. 

Across the Multiverse there is a world in which Peter Parker’s parents were sent out to Latveria to investigate strange power readings only to find an abandoned baby. There is evidence that another child was present, but the Parkers could only save Wanda. They bring her back to be a little sister to the infant Peter and the two become attached. As they grow, Peter is bitten by a radioactive spider and Wanda starts to feel her own powers. How will their lives be different having one another to rely on? 

It can tempting with the What If... series to make giant leaps to twist the Marvelverse, but McGuire chooses a far more personal story with Wanda and Peter. The tale is told from the perspective of Wanda, but her presence in Peter’s life has just as big an effect on his life. This book is both familiar and fresh at the same time. Most people know the story of Spider-Man and Marvel fans will know the origins of the Scarlet Witch. Combining the two throws up so many wonderful thought exercises, the type of thing that I think about when I should be acting like an adult. 

Rather than concentrating solely on the burgeoning powers of the characters, McGuire focuses on the relationships, and this makes the book work perfectly. Peter is famously an only child, Wanda a twin. How do adopted children act with one another? With love. Love plays a huge role in the book. Events still conspire to steal so many people from Peter and Wanda, their parents, Uncle Ben, Gwen and more, but they always have each other. The relationship may be strained at times, but they come back to one another. 

There are so many fun asides in the book. What would people think if Spider-Man teamed up with Scarlet Witch? Are they a couple – ewww. The book transplants Wanda to America and even explores this. Aunt May wants Wanda to know about her Latverian roots and sends her to work at a local restaurant. Here Wanda meets the likes of The Human Torch and Captain America who frequent the restaurant. It feels like McGuire started writing the book with the characters in mind and allowed the story to flow from how they would interact. It is a lovely look at an alternative reality for Peter and Wanda. 

The use of America Chavez as a Watcher works brilliantly, she is viewing this version of the multiverse from afar. It allows McGuire to move the story back and forth, skipping the mundane years and focusing on events that prove pivotal. America places the What If... books in a larger Meta story across the series and is a very clever idea. 

Wanda and Peter may have both characters, but this is a Scarlet Witch novel and explores her origins in an interesting way. If Wanda were taken from Latveria at such a youthful age would she have the same roots, the same principles? The book suggests that some elements in life are a given, no matter the universe. This particular universe was a joy to explore, especially for fans of Marvel. It takes known elements, explores them, and places them back somewhere new in the puzzle. The characters are joyous. One of the most rewardingly enjoyable Marvel books I have read.  

There are enough stories escaping from Private Islands that makes me think that the rich do not think there are consequences for their actions. What happens on the island stays on the island. With luck, it may just be a celebrity marriage, but on the other hand it could be some of the darkest moments of illegality. Delilah S. Dawson’s latest book Guillotine deals with an exclusive island owned and run by one of the richest families in America. When student Dez Lane is invited along, she may find herself on her last ever vacation. 

Dez has scrimped and saved to get her fashion degree, but even with the qualifications, getting a job in the industry is not easy. After a chance meeting with Patrick Ruskin, she does not want to date the manchild, but does want to meet his mother, the editor of a prestigious fashion magazine. Patrick invites Dez to the family island to meet the folks, but it does not take too long until Dez feels things are off. The staff are all treated like family, but a dysfunctional family that is seeking revenge. 

Guillotine is as hard hitting a horror title as you are likely to come across and you get this impression from the initial content warning, which is full of triggers, not just for the reader, but for Dawson themselves. You get the sense that Dawson enjoyed writing this book as a form of therapy, if therapy takes the form of a darkly comic body horror title. 

The setup is a classic folk horror one. A protagonist finds themselves in a remote location surrounded by odd behaviour. Is the behaviour insidious, or just local quirks? In this case it is not a rural English village, but an exclusive mansion house on an island, White Lotus style. As the story unfolds you start to learn that this extended family has many dark secrets and that Dez is caught up in the reaping of their actions. 

Rather than have clear heroes and villains, Dawson paints all characters in shades of grey. The Ruskins are irredeemable, but what of the staff? Have they witnessed too many evils and not told anyone? If the staff seek their own power by picking off a Ruskin or too, is this truly evil or just karma? 

The one character that is seeing the events from the outside is Dez and Dawson ensures that she is also given depth. Dez is no pure Final Girl, she is real. She has real passions and real ambitions; she is even willing to do some unsavoury things to achieve her goals. Layering Dez’s character gives the book that modern and edgy feel. Puritans will point at Dez and suggest her fate is her own fault, but that is nonsense. There is an interesting moral maze playing out in the background across all the characters. Who is wrong, who is right? Are any of us perfect? 

The horror comes in the form of body horror as various characters are given what is considered their just rewards. These scenes are gruesome and palpable, the type of stuff a horror fan will love. There are no supernatural elements to this book, just ordinary people pushed too far. As Dawson warns at the beginning this book is full of triggers and loathsome people. Most of the initial crimes are spoken of and happened in the past. The new horrors happen on the page and, although gruesome, will be more palatable for readers. Guillotine is a very modern and edgy feeling horror that is horrible in places, but also surprisingly fun.    

Resilient is the second book in Allen Stroud's Fractal series, picking up right after the events of Fearless. As such it's impossible not to provide some minor spoilers about Fearless while talking about Resilient. I will however try my best to give away as little as possible, and anything mentioned here can be read on the back on the Resilient book / online blurb.

It's 2118 and humanity is in a golden age of space exploration, with government and private corporation partnerships working together to populate the solar system, unravel it's mysteries and mine it's resources. Humanity has colonised the Moon, Mars, Ceres and Europa. That peaceful co-operation and economic balance is shattered however when a terrorist attack destroys one of the Earths main sources of power, a huge solar array in Atacama, Chile. Meanwhile on Phobos Station, orbiting Mars, Doctor Emerson Drake is responding to an emergency assist call to help a shuttle full of wounded miners. It's a trap though and Phobos Station is soon over-run by insurgents, with Drake trapped and fighting for his life.

Out in deep space on board the captured ship Gallowglass are the survivors of the Khidr, who must choose between following the path set out by their previous adversaries in an unfamiliar and broken down ship, or stay to find out how the strange gravity anomaly swallowed up the remains of their vessel. Back on Earth, in an undisclosed location, Natalie Holder finally has an opportunity to break free from her confinement, where she has been experimented on multiple times. Her consciousness is transmitted to Phobos Station, just as the insurgents take over the facility, led by another Rocher clone.

Resilient really does pick up right where we left the intrepid crew of the ill-fated Khidr, but with a much wider scope following the terrorist events on Earth and Phobos Station, the results of which have the potential to impact the socio-political and socio-economic activity of the whole solar system. The book doesn't coddle you like some second books in a series do, you are expected to do your homework here (and by that I mean read Fearless first) if you want to know what happened up to the beginning of this book. Is it required? no, Resilient is still a great story that delivers without you knowing anything else. Is it recommended? Absolutely, Fearless is a fantastic read anyway and you'll thank me for it, not just for filling in the blanks early on (who is that devilish Rocher clone and just what are we talking about when we mention gravity anomalies) but also just because it's a great book about space exploration.

Where Fearless presented the potential realities of life on board a thin, fragile container hurtling through the cold, hard, deadly vacuum of space, Resilient is all of that but also Die Hard on a space station. Yep, you heard that right, Die Hard on a space station. Which in my mind makes this a bit of a Christmas book too, although it can be equally enjoyed all year round. But it's a lot more than that. In Fearless, the author created a vision of how humanity might really exist on a ship flying around the solar system. It's considered writing and he really did put a huge amount of work into imagining what space travel in the 22nd Century might actually be like, and he bound the story in this realistic vision. In Resilient though he goes way beyond just space flight, and provides a potential history of the next 100 years, through breaks between chapters that explore past events, and through the unfolding story of Die Hard on a space station. Again the author must have put a huge amount of time and effort here, it all feels so feasible and likely. Even as I write this, I'm reading about how a corporate company is being tasked to bring government (NASA) astronauts back from the international space station, because they are stuck there otherwise. It was of course a different corporate company that took those astronauts up there in the first place, before the ship malfunctioned, which I guess also highlights the dangers of space flight. It's this sort of co-operation that seems inevitable and imperative if we are ever going to get off this rock and begin to explore our surroundings much further than the Moon.

The author continues to write the story in the first person, and again we get to see the POV from a number of existing and new characters. Each of these individuals are compelling, given enough room for the reader to learn and explore their character and motivations. They each react in relatable and reasonable ways to their own dynamic and fluid situations. In other words the author throws a huge amount of s#*t their way, continuously. You can't help but feel sorry for them, the boor blighters. Seriously the book does not let up from start to finish, yet at the same time manages a good deal of world-building and reflection on a number of big themes.

I loved the idea of Natalie Holder, who is killed early on in the story but then re-appears in a replaced body, much to her dismay. She is then at the whim of the corporation "who captured her soul" and is used as assassin, spy and anything else her captures deem appropriate. The result is a reasoned and careful exploration of mental abuse and modern slavery, which on it's own, makes the book compelling reading. I also liked how Drake, one of the two protagonists who are trying to survive on the station, is portrayed. He's not some gung-ho hero or veteran police detective, but a Doctor and otherwise average Jo, who is out of his depth and just trying to make the best of a bad situation. Holder is a bit of a hero though, but then again she is also in a body that isn't theirs, and trying to figure it all out while staying alive. They make a good team. Then there is the story around the anomalies, exploring the unknown, the unfathomable, while trying to make some sense of what occurred on the Khidr, and of course what happened to Duggins.

Themes include the development of AI - And by AI I don't mean what is labelled as such presently, which is just machine learning in a funny hat, but real levels of artificial intelligence. Then there is that still ephemeral thing that is human consciousness, along with the continued exploration of the challenges presented for fragile meat sacks who insist they want to live outside of Earth's cosy embrace. You've also got the trial of government and corporations being uneasy bedfellows and how economies of scale mean inevitably that as a society we can easily lose the individual, elected personal decision making, instead being replaced with something faceless and entirely bureaucratic. 

The disparate plots are woven together like a conductor orchestrating a symphony, politics, espionage, drama and survival move around the wonderful juxtaposition between the exploration of deep space and the claustrophobia of Die Hard (on a space station). The result is unforgiving, clever, captivating science fiction that does what few sequels fail to achieve, improve on and continue the story in new directions. Unmissable.

Subgenres come and go and one that I have recently been enjoying is ‘Cosy Fantasy,’ what does that mean? Basically, fantasy with some of the trepidation taken out, a chance to get to know the characters and enjoy a fantasy setting in peace. Riley August’s The Last Gifts of the Universe opens my world to ‘Cosy Science Fiction,’ a space-based equivalent. Siblings bickering in space with a cat in a space suit. Sounds cosy enough to me, but the book is also a treatise on grief, so not that cosy. 

Scout and their brother Kieran are archivists, underfunded and underpaid space explorers. Their mission, to go where no other archivists have gone before, with their pet cat Pumpkin. Out in deep space the trio explore dead worlds looking for the reason every society apart from humans seem to have just vapourised. Former colonised planets often contain a cache of information left by their peoples, Scout and Kieran’s job is to get that information back to Earth and a lack of funding is not their only problem. There is the deadly remnant creatures sometimes left behind or the selfish corporations who would put the information to save Earth behind a paywall. 

I am interested in the way that Last Gifts has been positioned in the marketplace, mainly with a cat front and centre. Set aside the fact that I do not think a cat would make a good space pet, Pumpkin is cute and does give the book a quirk. The relationship between the siblings and their cat is best described as cosy. They have their little family working just about right, but as the book progresses you start to see that there is an underlying sadness to their predicament. 

Space is vast. Space is lonely. It is a place that you can use to remember, but also to forget. Scout and Kieran have signed up for this long-term mission for a reason and the reader is given a drip feed of why this is. Parallel to this story is one of long dead scientists. Scout reads their story through a series of discovered diary entries. The tale of these two scientists chimes with Scout. It is a story of love found and love lost. 

These two stories of grief play out in a wider science fiction story. The archivists are in a race against a shadowy corporation to be the first to discover a cache that could save the Earth. There is a meta-story here about the survival of the species. Why continue as a species if our destruction is inevitable? The concept being that live while you are alive and fight as long as you can. These are big, brain teasing ideas. Last Gifts is told in a cosy manner but does not deal with cosy subjects. I understand that some readers find comfort in exploring the feeling of family and grief, there is a warmth in remembering those lost, but also a sadness. It all depends on what you consider to be cosy. 

I enjoyed Last Gifts mixture of light science fiction and larger concepts. There is a strong focus on relationships in the book, both between the siblings, but also the logs of the two scientists. Despite it dealing with the near destruction of all known life, there is a sense of hope in the book, a lesson that will chime with many. Make the most of what you have, whilst you still have it. 

There are many unique and diverse names in horror making it, for me, one of the most interesting genres out there, but to the layperson they may only know a few names. Stephen King, maybe Dean Koontz. In film they may have heard of Wes Craven, or one of the newer horror auteurs. Zombie fans should have heard of George A. Romero, but do they know that the director also made non-Zombie movies and worked on other horror aspects in print? Daniel Kraus, skilled writer in their own right, has worked with the Romero estate to bring to the shelves Pay the Piper, a book as horrific as any Dead, but with a very different type of monster. 

Alligator Point, Louisiana is already a backwater with a small community living on the edge of the swamps and bayous. With the snakes, alligators, and quicksand, people sometimes disappear, so when a small boy walks outside one night and does not come back, it is a tragedy, but understandable. However, when more young people start to go missing and tales of a strange person trying to persuade others into the murk, action needs to be taken before there is not one left. 

Piper has a distinct sense of time and place. Alligator Point has a strong Cajun influence and that is portrayed in the book. There is a thin line between making the characters rounded and interesting or making them caricatures. I am not from the Cajun culture and cannot attest truly how well this is done, but I do think that Romero and Kraus manage to create something that is entertaining to read but takes a little artistic license. This adds to the flavour of the story and is much needed. Kraus even says before the book's start that consideration was made into how to portray the way the Cajun characters speak in the book. For me there was a good balance between flavour and being able to understand what was being said. 

This book is a form of Folk Horror, but not on a remote Scottish island, instead a remote Louisiana settlement. Alligator Point has its own customs and superstitions. We are introduced to all this via Pontiac, a young girl who is in some ways typical of the locale, but also atypical. Although she speaks like those around her and has a deep love of the culture, she is also far more observant. She notices the small octopian carvings that dot the town, she notices the missing people. Her forthright attitude and age remind you of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird and I suspect that was deliberate on the behalf of Romero. 

This deliberation laces the entire story. A lesser writer would have just written a fun horror story, but you get the sense that Piper is built on a foundation of research and history. You get the sense of the culture and the history; it is this that dictates what is happening to the characters and what is happening is solid horror fun. No characters are safe, no matter how innocent. There is something out in the water and it preys on the weakest, the smallest, the youngest. This slow horror increases in speed until the final act is explosive. I do enjoy a horror book that goes full horror by book’s end. 

The DNA between this novel and the Dead films is present in that Romero was a master in storytelling and scares. The book is its own thing, dealing with Folk Horror and Cthulhu, rather than the undead. Kraus has done an excellent job of taking Romero’s draft papers and bringing the themes through and creating a bombastic finale. Piper is an enjoyable horror story for any fan of the genre, one that scratches both the slow insidious horror and the larger-than-life monster horror itch.  

The future is uncertain but as long as there are people on the planet, there will be drama. The cities could be crumbling and the seas boiling but a few people gather in the same cave for protection, and it will be mere hours before they are arguing, falling in and out of love and not getting on with the art of survival. I imagine that in the Stone Age it was simpler - eat, or be eaten. By the time of the near future of Sheri T. Joseph’s Edge of the Known World, it is more about noodling and talking. 

When Alexandra Tashan became the youngest PhD to graduate from her institution, it was not society’s plan. She is the daughter of a convict and also a refuse, an illegal person. She survives by keeping her head down, but as a natural prankster and loudmouth, she tends to get noticed. When her father disappears Alex must risk it all to save him and finally make some allies. 

It is not easy to build a new science fiction future and populate it with characters, on top of this you want a coherent story. Joseph has delivered most of the ingredients needed to make a utopian future story, but it is not one that I could make sense of. I usually read over one hundred books a year, so I think I know my way around a novel, but I still struggle once or twice annually to understand a book. Science fiction, more than any other genre I read, can be unforgiving. 

I am not sure what was happening in Edge; I felt constantly confused about it. It is to do with Joseph’s writing style, the characters, and a lack of commitment in places to nail down what is happening at any given moment. 

There is a lot of layered complexity in the world of Edge, different factions, diverse ways of ruling. Alex is a complex character, and she discovers more complexity as the story progresses. This makes reading the book tricky enough, but you can count it as Hard Science Fiction, a genre that needs you to pay attention, but even when you do pay attention, I was lost. The final layer is the character’s personalities. They are academics and think like academics in a slightly abstract way, throwing in language and references at a higher intellectual level. This would be fine in a baser book, but it is just another layer of complexity. Joseph has a lot of the world building achieved through dialogue, there is more talking than doing in this book. 

It is not often that I find a book as confusing as Edge. It should be a basic road story about a woman in her 20s coming of age and coming to understand the world around her. This is lost somewhere in the complexity of place, character, and language. A fan of more literary fiction may gain more from the book, enjoying the prose over the journey. I found this one of the hardest reads of the year so far. 

Every summer is the same, inexperienced people think it would be a clever idea to do some wild swimming unaware that under the first foot of warm reservoir water, there are metres of icy water ready to send you into shock. When three members of the Fowler family disappear when out swimming, the worst is suspected, but what is worse? Three family members drowning at once, or them disappearing into thin air? Tim Weaver brings back David Raker to investigate The Missing Family. 

Raker may be unliked by the police, but he is popular with his clients garnering a reputation for finding missing people, sometimes years after their disappearance. His latest case is the Fowler family, but he is also asked by an old friend to investigate the disappearance of a murderer who escaped from the cells of a large gambling complex. Raker brings in the help of the unreliable Colm Healy to help with the other case, but as they investigate separately, evidence starts to point to one another’s cases. 

I used to read a lot of crime fiction like Missing, the type of confident crime story that a professional writer can produce. Weaver is obviously a skilled author in the field as the narrative has a deft touch and the type of structure that comes with experience in the genre. Having read so much in the past, I recognise many of the patterns and can appreciate them, but also find them formulaic. 

As one of the most popular genres, crime fans like this type of book and you can tell why, you are getting quality, but what you do not get is anything new. This book feels like it is the thirteenth in the series, full of back story and a solid base to build upon. Having not read any of the previous books I was still able to pick up and enjoy the story, Weaver does not ruin any of the previous books but does give you hints what may have been. 

As a piece of solid crime fiction, Missing is infinitely readable, the type of thing to pick up for a holiday or to adapt into a 9pm ITV drama. There are plenty of twists and turns that fans of the genre will adore. They leaned slightly towards the less believable as thirteen books of missing people means that Weaver will have to be using some more abstract ideas to keep things fresh. 

Missing is an enjoyable book. For someone looking for a breezy crime novel, it could be excellent. As someone jaded from years of crime fiction, I appreciated the tale, but it felt typical. There are a few big-name crime writers who produce work that stands out. Weaver is not quite at that level, but this book would make a compelling read for the majority of readers looking for a crime book. 

Unto Leviathan was originally released back in 2001, under the title Ship of fools, winning the Philip K Dick award in the process. It's since been re-released by Orbit under the current title.

The generational ship Aragonos travels the galaxy, looking for signs of life and a possible place to call home. They've been travelling through space for so long that no one remembers what their original mission was, where they came from or where they were supposed to be going to. A steady and unidentified signal from a nearby planet lures them in. They find a potentially habitable planet, a settlement but no inhabitants. That is until an exploration team find horrible evidence of their fate: a cavernous chamber neatly filled with rows of skeletons, each one hanging on its own hook. Moving away from such death with haste, they eventually pick up another signal, this time in space, with the hope that they will encounter something a bit more friendly.

The story is told in the first person, by the captain’s adviser and confidante, Bartolomeo. Being a colony ship, the position of captain isn't actually the most secure, and there are power struggles to replace him - often from the clergy, yes religion once again rears it's ugly head. Bartolomeo isn't an average protagonist. He's severely disabled for one, and kudos to the author as to how he's portrayed here. But he's not actually that likeable either, lacking in personality, ambition and quite a lot of common sense. It actually surprised me that he was the captains advisor, although it seems he was appointed due to his friendship rather than any real ability. He his however one of the few characters that are actually developed that far, most of the rest not so much. The author does however manage to portray the society and social structure aboard the ship pretty well, along with a really well developed sense of how such a group of people might become different and evolve (or perhaps devolve) having been travelling through space for all this time. The idea of the ship travelling for so long that people have forgotten much, is hardly a new idea, but it's done fairly well.

The author also does a good job of building tension, although the story does take a while to really get going and when it does, it's pretty linear and telegraphs most of it's punches. In tone it's got aspects of horror, but is more a first contact with some space opera thrown in. There is a lot of scheming and plotting and general back-stabbery. The way the religious faction was portrayed didn't really appeal to me though and some of the decisions around these characters just seemed a little off. When alien things are encountered, they appear properly alien and unknowable and for me this was the highlight of the whole book, that feeling of something out there that's truly different and incomprehensible to human minds. It's also one of those stories that asks more questions than it answers, with lots of loose threads just hanging in the air at the end of the book.

Overall it's not a bad read, but it's not great either. I struggle to understand how a group of people who make such bad decisions, are constantly trying to undermine each other and appoint inept people into positions of power can survive for so long in the vastness of space, on board a ship they no longer really understand. It feels almost inevitable that something is going to come along and destroy them, especially going from one signal to another, like a small child finding shiny things in the sand. Doing so without any real security or military force to protect them just seems suicidal. The enigma of the alien encounter rescues what would have otherwise being a more laborious read, but I didn't care enough about any of the characters, Bartolomeo included, that I didn't really mind if the aliens bumped any of them off. It's a bit like a Stephen Baxter novel, but ordered from wish, you get the space and the opera and the first encounters and all, but it doesn't all quite come together. I'm surprised it won the PKD award, although admittedly it was a bit of a slow year for US published science fiction. The relief at the end of the book is more that you've got to the finale rather than achieved any real sense of closure, with many threads left dangling.

There is an art to the short story, and I can say from experience that Flame Tree Press have gotten it down. They have produced many excellent short story collections, and their new venture is the Beyond & Within series. In many ways these books are the same as their larger collections, handpicked, curated tales on a given subject. In this case Folk Horror is edited by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan. However, the format is smaller, more succinct and I would argue easier to digest. As easy as Folk Horror can be to digest. 

As a subgenre Folk Horror is a tricky one to pin down, what makes a book Folk? A place separate from the norm. Tales of ancient evils or modern cults. All these are valid versions of Folk Horror, and the book covers them all. You have your Wicker Man stories about remote cults and their weird ways, but also stories of the Fae or evils that lurk in the woods. Kane and O’Regan have created a mix of stories that are fast paced, so if you are not a fan of one, it will not be long before the next. 

There are some big names in Folk Horror, but it is not always these that are the best. Neil Gaiman opens proceedings with a form of epic poem. The White Road will appeal to some readers, but I found it hard to get into and a bold choice for the first story. Things get much simpler later with some cracking stories; Rabbitheart by Jen Williams is a great mixture of Folk Horror and Fae magic. I am not the biggest fan of fairy magic as it can be too powerful, but this is a contained story that is creepy and enjoyable. 

There are a couple of punchy modern takes on Cult Horror; Summer Bonus by Lee Murray and The Lights Under Rachel by Kathryn Healy are quite different stories but are both about how you could still find yourself in the wrong place, even in the modern world. 

My favourite stories are not even Folk Horror as such, simply great little tales. Good Boy by Alison Littlewood is about a man who adopts the wrong dog. A dog that is large for its size and smells like Brimstone. The Third Curse by Helen Grant is another good Fae story, it has an old-fashioned fairytale feel to it, but the story spans centuries in mere pages. The Great White by Benjamin Spada reminded me of the X Files and the great opening sequences that that show used to have. 

What makes this collection interesting is that the authors have approached Folk Horror in different ways. I see the genre as traditionally have the same beats – stranger arrives at a remote place, things become a little creepy, things get extremely bad, stranger finds themselves alight in a Wicker Man. The short story format forces the authors to take a different spin as they do not have the time for the slow buildup of tension. These stories reflect elements of longer Folk Horror tales. Some authors focus on the start, others the end. Arguably, some of the authors do not focus on Folk Horror at all and have just written a good story. Grasping a genre that is already allusive proved a task for Kane and O’Regan. I won’t say that all, or even most, of these stories felt like Folk Horror as I think of it, but I will say that the hit rate for quality stories is there. 

A note on the formatting of the book. Not something that I would normally focus on in a review, but this Beyond & Within hardback is one of the most pleasant reads I have had. The book itself helps with the reading. It is a snug hardback with a beautiful cover and edge painting. There are two ribbons to keep track of interesting stories, and the print is large and clear. Short story collections can be cumbersome and overburdening, this series instead gives the reader a book they can read in one or two sittings. Leave them wanting more, and more you can have as there are several books in the series. 

What is Fantasy if it is not epic battles against elves and orcs? Fans of the genre know that it can be a lot of other things than just that. Some of the best modern fantasy that I have read have been smaller stories set in fantasy worlds. How about a Die Hard-like experience set in a castle where an injured guard must work their way through a horde of warriors and a sadistic warlock? That sounds almost perfect, and Cameron Johnston tells such a tale almost flawlessly in The Last Shield. 

Briar is the Commander of The Shields, whose sacred duty is to protect the ruling family of Sunweald. Her direct role is the protection of the Lord Regent, and she has done so for years, developing a relationship that has gone beyond that of a protecter and a protected. When Briar is shot in the leg by a poisoned arrow meant for the Regent, she does not yet realise that this is only the first attack. With a weakened body Briar must protect the Palace from an incursion from within. She will require all her experience and dogged determination to succeed. 

I read for pleasure and must admit that 800-page fantasy epics are not always the most enjoyable experience. Therefore, the recent trend in stonking action fantasy is really appealing to me. Shield is an excellent fantasy novel because it is so entertaining. The genre of fantasy is so well established that you can strip down the world building and focus on a few important characters. We follow Briar for most of this book, occasionally popping over to another character to explain what is happening elsewhere, but this book is not a multi-character arc set over several cities and timeframes. It is a clean, sharp novel that takes a whetstone to the sword and gets to the point. 

The clever thing is that there is some world building and character development, particularly of Briar and the young King to be. This is all done in the opening act that becomes a prolonged prelude to the main action. We get a clear sense of who Briar is and start to understand the real relationship she has with the Lord Regent. Why is this important? Because it informs the action later in the book. We understand Briar’s sense of duty, but also her deep love. She will do anything for her Regent. 

I loved the fact there is a simple romance that threads Shield because it balances so well against what is classic Low Fantasy. Briar dispatches her enemies without impunity, often going that extra mile to inflict pain and suffering. It is a gory book but has that sense of justice that you can from a great revenge thriller. Briar has more experience and knowledge than her enemies put together and she makes sure that she uses it all to enact a bloody vengeance. 

Shield is not a book for the faint of heart. To describe it as a fantasy Die Hard would be fair, but with more violence and a Palace full of secret tunnels, rather than Nakatomi Tower. With a hero you can support and a villain you can hate, it is a classic thriller, just set in a fantasy livery. One of the most enjoyable reading experiences I have had in months. 

I picked this book up as I was looking for more urban fantasy to try. I love the Dresden files and given that new books in that series only seem to appear infrequently, I was getting an urban fantasy itch. This book stood out as it was recommended by talented and under-appreciated author Dave Hutchinson, but also because it looked like it had that gritty, grungy quality about it.

Don Drake is a London based hitman who uses magical means to carry out his assassinations, has a drink problem, an even bigger gambling problem and doesn't really seem to have many redeeming qualities. He's been trying to get away from the business for a while, but running up a gambling debt with the wrong demon, he is forced to carry out a hit. Unfortunately the gig goes bad and the other-worldly creatures that he's summoned for the job kill an innocent child in the process. This brings down the fury of the Greek mythology Furies and it's only with the intervention of an almost-fallen angel known as Trixie that he manages to escape a lifetime of torture.

But of course everything comes at a cost and it isn't long before Drake is drawn back into the world he's trying to escape, battling dark magicians, the Furies and trying to foil Lucifer's plan to make Trixie's fall from grace a bit more permanent.

It's an interesting idea to have the main character a Hieromancer hitman, essentially summoning demons and sending them after the people he needs to kill. Most of his power isn't actually his own, but derives from the burned man, which I'm not going to say any more about other than it's another great idea. We join Don as he hit's a fairly low point in his life (but oh boy is it gonna get lower), with gambling debts, a serious drink problem and alienation of his friends. He's pretty much as anti-hero as they come, he's cowardly, he lies, cheats and even steals from his friends. That's not to say he isn't trying to do better though. He is at least trying to get away from his life as a hitman, and does feel remorse for what he does, or at least for some of the things he does anyway. But as we all know, it's never that easy and in Don's case his job means he mixes with some of the worst of humanity and those much worse than humanity. When you have skills like Don does, people (and when I say people, often that's actually demons) are just not going to give up that easily making use of those skills, and these are not the type of people you say no to, or at least not more than once anyhow.

The London shown in the book is definitely on the seedier side, and in the places around where Don frequents the veil between dimensions gets really thin and some demons slip through every now and then. The whole book has this seedy, grimy aspect to it, with dark streets, dark demons and even darker magic. I enjoyed how underplayed this was, you just accept that, yeah it's a dark and grimy part of London, with demons. Having lived in London it wouldn't surprise me to know such places exist.

The quality of the writing is good, especially for a debut novel, and it's a quick read, with a fast pace, lots of action and a good level of wit. There is little wasted space and most of the time the story moves forward convincingly. The ending is a tense affair and wraps things up well. Overall a really good urban fantasy that sits up there with the best of them ,but is different enough to stand out from the crowd. I look forward to reading the next in the series, Dominion.

I've been meaning to read this book for quite some time. It's been staring accusingly across the room. But I'm still trying to find time to read right now and it's not the most sveltely of shapes, coming in at a weighty 730+ pages. I finally gave in, and I'm glad I did. This does invariably mean however that I now have to hunt down the sequel, Empire of the damned, as this is only the first part of the story, and that looks to be an equally weighty tome.

The story is set against an alternative universe, middle-ages era earth that has been ravaged by Vampires for the last 27 years, following an apocalyptic event that prevents the sun from fully rising. Vampires have since waged war against humanity, built up an unholy, eternal empire carrying out untold acts of nastiness and pointy-teeth savagery. There was once a special holy order, a brotherhood, that was dedicated towards the extermination of the Vampire threat, but with the fading of the light even the Silver Order could not stem the tide of the undead horde. Now only silversaint Gabriel de León remains, the last of his kind, Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy. Forced into telling his story, that of humanity’s last hope, it is the stuff of legend, battles, blood, love and lust and the journey to confront the leader of the Vampire empire, the Forever King.

The story is told from the perspective of Gabriel as he narrates parts of his life to a Vampire chronicler, moving from his childhood and indoctrination into the silversaints, to his growing family and the hunt for the Forever King. Flitting between the various parts of Gabriel's life breaks up the story well, and is an effective way of drip feeding the exposition. Part of the book is very much a coming-of-age story, following Gabriel grow into the legendary figure he eventually becomes.

I like the feel and tone of this book, it's grimdark without passing into horror (despite being about Vampire), but is properly adult and can descend into quite brutal descriptions at times. Its quite uneven in pace however, the first part of the book, which has the majority of the coming-of-age bits, is a lot slower in pace, and it isn't till the second half of the book that we really get to the meat of the story. Some of it's a bit heavy handed too, and gets a little tiring, spooning on the "look how poor we were" and "look how badly treated I was" just a bit too much for my liking.

The depiction of religion (after all you can't have the Unholy without the Holy) is Catholicism in all but name, complete with saints, sinners, priests, churches and even a quest for the Holy Grail. The author does a good job of describing how corrupt organised religion can be, and how it's sometimes frequented by those who wish to exert their will, or peddle their questionable morality. Occasionally those in charge are as much the monster, just in a more disguised garb. But there are mixed messages too. A lot of the time Gabriel rails against god and all that is Holy, but at the same time he's using the God-given magic to kill the bad guys. This hypocritical duality speaks volumes on the nature of organised religion.

The characterisation of Gabriel is one of the highlights, even though his journey is the standard cliché of the zero to hero (with hidden magical powers), going from a more idealistic and somewhat virtuous silversaint, to a faithless addict who lives for vengeance and little else. Excepting that cliché, it's also a powerful exploration of loss and the effects on those who have suffered. Some of the other characters connected to Gabriel are also fleshed out fairly well, but some less so. Even less time is spent building up any antagonistic characters, preferring instead to treat the bad guys with more mystery. This makes it feel a bit like a DC universe story, where the bad guys are just some almost faceless CGI with minimal acting, things to just be there when the hero's need to prove how hero they are. These Vampires do come in a few flavours though, from the almost mindless animal that slathers and gibbers after anything still living, to the lordly elder vampire with special abilities such as stone-like skin, superhuman strength and sometimes powerful mind control.

As mentioned, this is only the first part of the story, so don't expect to read it in isolation if you want to know whether Gabriel does actually manage to kill the Forever King, recover from his destructive drinking habit, kills his jailer, or even find out how he got imprisoned in the first place. I'm hoping I will find out in the next book, but not having read it at time of writing, I really don't know. I do know that the author has a fondness for writing trilogies, so I'm not getting my hopes up that everything is resolved in the next book either.

On the face of it, I feel I should like this book a lot less than I do, with the occasionally heavy-handed religious depictions, clichéd character journey, unequal characterisation and pacing issues. But it seems greater than the sum of it's parts, the story is engaging and the quality of the writing is pretty decent. The author has a real way with words and a lot of his charisma embeds itself well on the page. Is it a perfect book?, absolutely not, but it is somewhat addictive and moorish, bit of a guilty pleasure read I'd say and if you can overcome the imperfections, a book to enjoy.

There are all diverse types of people that make a successful working environment. If everyone were the same, we would all be doing the same thing and loads of stuff would not get done. Some people like to stand out in the crowd and pitch ideas, others are happy to lead. Engineer may be the second in command, but they prefer to be in the bowels of the spaceship fixing things. They never feel like they fit in, but when you are the lone engineer on a ship full of artists, that feeling only becomes more pronounced. David Churcher-Muria's Inspiration is a classic feeling science fiction thriller with a character whose view on life differs from those around them. 

The issues started with some amber lights and then some red. Things became worse when Engineer opens an internal door only to find there is a hole in the side of the ship. As the only competent engineer on board, it is up to Engineer to fix the issues, but his knowledge also makes him the most obvious suspect. Is Engineer to blame for all the faults? 

There are a couple of elements that make Inspiration a thoroughly entertaining work of science fiction. The first is that it is such a solid yarn. There is a mystery, plenty of action and sci-fi ideals. None of these are laid out too thickly, the book is incredibly readable and trips along. If you do not stop to notice it, you may not see that epic action is unfolding in front of you. Writing about unwieldy space travel is not as easy as you may think, I have read a lot of space operas that have left this science fiction reviewer confused. Churcher-Muria never forgets to bring the reader with them. 

This is due to the use of Engineer as the protagonist, and this is the second element that makes the book so fun to read. Engineer does not think or act like those around them. This is exemplified by his peers, who are mostly artists. The name alone hints to you that Engineer is not one to fit in easily. This is a ship of people thinking beyond themselves, even the captain is distracted. Engineer finds themselves alone in keeping the ship running. 

There is a lot of dry humour in Inspiration as Engineer reacts in a unique way, being unable to notice social cues that many of us take for granted. I for one can sympathise with their need to just get on with things as others faff around.  

A lot happens on the pages of the book and in places it may be a little too much. Engineer is beaten, thrown around, arrested, accused and more. The setting and the character are complex enough to carry the narrative so a couple fewer set pieces would have allowed the character of Engineer to develop even further. After this initial outing for the character, Churcher-Muria should have the confidence to just write about the character of Engineer and the various other crewmates on the Inspiration. The interactions here alone carry the story and weave a story around this. 

Inspiration is a science fiction book for lovers of the genre. It is such an easy read as the plot and characters seem to flow into the world. Engineer is a different voice and injects humour into the tale, but also an interesting perspective on events.  

For any author magic is a tricky beast as you can easily paint yourself into the corner. You can make the magic too powerful, or you can develop a whole magic system that is unbalanced. Things become even trickier when you add those tricksy Fae. Fairy magic is all about breaking rules on a contract you are unaware you signed, anything can happen in a Fairy world and that can be a problem. In a world in which anything goes, how can the reader trust what is happening? Beth Overmyer has bravely dived into this world in Brittle, book one of the Blade and Bone series, can she make sense of pixies and pucks? 

After her father left the family homestead to go to war, Verve remained behind to provide for her family. One night her father returns in secret only to be murdered. Before he dies, he imparts uncomfortable truths to Verve that a world exists parallel to our own and that the war is not with man, but with the fairy born. Being the last person her father talked to before death paints a target on Verve’s back as the Faries believe she has knowledge of an ancient weapon that can kill magical folk. Verve must travel through an untrustworthy land to discover the truth about her father’s death. 

If you think about the history of the countryside the idea of why pixies and fairies were invented makes sense. Families were large as many children died, one way to teach children to behave is say that the boogeymen live in the woods. A lack of education, understanding and superstition meant that magic felt very real. The fantasy world of Blade and Bone is not unlike our own pre-industrial history, but in this case the Faries are real. 

Verve is the centre of the story, and she is key to grounding events. She is a cynical character who finds it hard to trust. This is an important thing to have if you can no longer believe what is in front of your eyes. The first half of the book is peak fairy magic, both good and bad. You get that sense of majesty and mischief from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but also the confusion and discombobulation that is unique to fairy magic. If you cannot trust any of the characters, how can you trust the book? 

Verve guides the reader through this, and we make it out of the other side to a different feeling second act that I found improved proceedings by flipping the rules on their head. The character of Verve evolves in the story in a way that means she is no longer battered by the winds of other’s motives but can guide the tale herself. Verve’s inner confidence is given the means to exercise her own strength and I for one loved it. 

I still have, and may always have, misgivings when it comes to fairy magic in stories, but Overmyer handles it better than most. The early part of the book falls into that trap of too much power and pucks, but the story settles down. This chaos is important for the narrative as Verve must feel some of that hopelessness early on to empower herself for later; she has more motivation than most. The book works for any fan of fantasy, but its full embrace of the Faeries means that it would appeal especially to fans of boggarts and sprites. 

Who doesn’t love a good pirate story? What about a story that has flying ships that drop gunpowder bombs? Or a story that has magic and mysterious civilisations living on remote islands? These all sound great and are wrapped together in a lovely fantasy package in Michael Livingston’s Seaborn, a book about tribalism, but also about compromise for the greater good. 

Bela never meant to become a hero, but when the bombs began to drop from the sky, she kept her head whilst those around her did not. Her level head meant that some of the fleet was saved, but this would only be the start of a long war. The Seaborn must find a way to fight against the Windborn and that solution may be found in the mysterious magic hidden away on remote islands. However, these islands are not as unpopulated as first thought. 

I enjoy a well-balanced set of adversaries in a fantasy novel; a magical version of rock, paper, scissors. Livingston has created one of the most satisfying balances of magical systems I have read since the sublime Powdermage series. Not only do the different clans have different approaches to magic, but they also use different forms of transport. The Seaborn stick to traditional ships, while the Windborn refuse to use magic, but have the technology to fly. Pottering around are other factions including pirates who will do anything for booty and will take from any other clan. 

What you get is an exciting seafaring adventure with added fantasy fun. Bela is a traditional seafarer, but she soon comes across the infamous Bone Pirates. The story has plenty of swashbuckling to suit any fan of pirate books, but it also has magic. The balance of sword fighting, and spells is well done with one not overpowering the other. The fear would be that the Windborn have too much of an advantage as they rain terror from above, but the pirates soon find a way to negate that advantage. 

I would have been happy just reading about Bela, but you also get to follow one of her lost crewmates and one of the pirates. You get a balanced look at several of the factions and start to see the complex web that Livingston is weaving. The clans are at war, but whilst some are suing for peace, factions within the clans have their own ambitions, and they could end any concept of peace. 

Seaborn is a novel of high adventure, cracking set pieces and interesting world building. At times there is a lot thrown at the reader, and Livingston crams a lot of backstabbing and sword fighting into a book that is short for a fantasy tale. The book manages to remain followable, just, but give me hijinks and high action over a boring book any day. In between the action we do get to learn more about the characters. This is not something I normally say about a fantasy novel, but a hundred additional pages or more would have helped to get to know the characters better. 

Book two promises to expand the world of Seaborn and I look forward to reading it. I have a good sense of the world and politics, but we have only scratched the surface of where the character’s personal journeys may lead. I would recommend this to any fan of fantasy, especially those who like a lot of action and a fast pace. 

Cyberpunk has always been an interesting mash up of ideas, taking the science fiction forward ideas of technology and giving it a gritty edge. Mixing the equivalent of early 80s synth with the raw punk that preceded it in a giant science fiction blender sounds like chaos, but both have origins of ripping up the old establishment and creating the new. The genre tends to lean towards the sleek side of cyber and throws in some rain for the punk, but Ian Green seeks to redress the balance with this Punkcyber novel Extremophile. 

Things do not get more Cyberpunk, than a punk band. Charlie and Parker are a hard thrashing punk band, but they are also hackers specialising in biology to fund their lifestyle. They have just the right reputation and know just the wrong people to become involved in a fight that is not their own. The leading ecoterrorist group want the duo to kill someone for them and reveal all the dead person’s dirty secrets. Easier said than done when the intended victim is rich and insane. 

The dark worlds of Cyberpunk have (or in this case Biopunk) always been laced with a darkness taking the feel of a 1950s crime noir and projecting it into a broken future. Green takes this world and does not concentrate on a Private Investigator on their downers but sinks into an alternative scene. Even when the world is drowning, there will be underground scenes like those found in Extremophile. By introducing us to the twin worlds of future punk and biohacking, this was never going to be a normal book, not even a normal Cyberpunk book. 

The novel centres on Charlie but focuses on another character every other chapter. This means that we have a great understanding of Charlie, but also get a glimpse into the madness of some of the other denizens of this broken London. A biohacker who earns extra money by working for the mob, an assassin who enjoys the thrill of the kill, and a smarmy madman. All of these characters do some sick things, but they are not all guaranteed to see the book’s end. There is little honour among thieves in this world. 

Extremophile not only has punk characters but has punk as its ethos. It is dark, dirty, and anarchic, but there is also a sense of community. Charlie and Parker may mess up some of their pals, but they will defend anyone from their community from the outside with a pair of sturdy boots and the hammer they keep attached to their belt. 

This is a dark novel, humorous in some places, but also gruesome and disturbing in others. Even the heroes are not the nicest people. The world building is brilliantly done, told in the way that the characters live. There are no long pages of explanation, but a detailed enough look into the punk scene of a future London. This alone is enough to indicate what the world has become. 

By concentrating on a niche community of the future Green has created a different feeling sci fi novel. It has all the future technology, but none of the glamour. These are alternative people making the best of life from the scraps that the rich let them have, or that they can steal. If you are on the lookout for a gonzo science fiction experience, Extremophile is a riot of a book, driving into the darker and forgotten areas of the Cyberpunk genre.  

There is a long tradition of Folk Horror in the UK, but plenty of other countries bring their own flavour to the genre. American Gothic has all the trappings of classic Folk Horror, but has that distinct US flavour. The woods out there seem different, ancient landscapes unused to the people that rocked up only a few hundred years ago. Shelia and her sister Angie live in a secluded house in the woods with their mother. In many ways they have more in common with the trees than the kids in their class. This is useful when you need the woods on your side. There is a killer loose in Alisa Alering’s Smothermoss and the forest may be the sisters’ saviour. 

Life in a single parent family is tough, especially for Shelia and Angie. They already live in an odd house in the woods, but their obvious poverty makes them a target for bullies at school. To escape the bullies and each other, Shelia and Angie often walk in the nearby woods. Shelia carries an uneasy burden that only she can see, and Angie seems to be able to predict future events using her cards. Are the children witches? Will it help with a killer on the prowl? 

American Gothic is less about the setting and characters and more about capturing a feel. It is that sense of dark, earthy magic that Alering captures perfectly in Smothermoss. This is a story told in lyrical prose, the children float through the story. They are unable to find their place in the world and never feel grounded. Shelia starts to see strange things and Angie becomes obsessed with finding the killer. 

Shelia is the older sister and dominates the story. Hers is a coming-of-age story, in an age that does not want her. It is hard to read about her life, but there is a steel within. Angie is both a more grounded character and more with her head in the clouds. She can fight and survive in the woods but is also prone to fantasy and running head on into danger. The two sisters together are very different, but there is also a family bond. 

Alering writes with a deft touch, rich prose makes a standard event seem magical. The style is truly Gothic, and it will appeal to fans of that genre. In places the book was complicated to follow, the airy nature meant that I was unsure what was real. This is partly on purpose by the author, but I did struggle to grasp what was real and what was magical or imaginary. This fluid sense of truth is what fans of Gothic enjoy, but I need a smidgeon more magical realism to allow me to stay on track with the tale. 

What you end up with is an ethereal tale that floats. There is a story, but it is more a book about the characters and the feel it inspires in the reader. The prose takes you on a meandering journey somewhat off the core path at times. There are plenty of readers who will enjoy the relaxed style of the story, but as a reader who prefers pace and something solid to grasp onto, it was a struggle in places. 

Cozy crime comes in all sizes, but it still has an odd name. The characters may be eccentric, the setting twee, but when it comes down to it, there is still a dead person lying on the carpet. Marple had her village with its higher crime rate than Gotham, Poirot had various summer vacation spots, Jessica Fletcher had any unfortunate who happened to sit next to her. Kit Pelham has Vixens of the Void, an 80s BBC science fiction series where one of the supporting cast died. Fast forward 40 years and Kit and her crew hope to solve the mystery in Nev Fountain’s The Fan Who Knew Too Much. 

The nerdsphere loves detail and fans of Vixens reckon they know everything about the cast and filming of the cult classic. However, obnoxious podcaster Wolf Tyler has new information that fans would kill for. Unfortunately, someone did. Wolf’s killer appears to be linked to location shooting back in the 80s. Wolf’s friends, including Kit, use the guise of a Blu-ray extra filming to gather the original cast and crew to discover if a young extra did killer herself in the 80s and whether the killer struck again more recently to cover their tracks. 

I love science fiction and crime novels, and Fan has both, but not like the many science fiction novels that have a crime storyline. This book concentrates on another aspect of what makes sci fi so good, not the books, games, shows and films themselves, but all the hype and community that surrounds it. This is a crime novel that has the setting of fandom, no actual science fiction occurred in the making of this book. 

With that in mind you have a crime book that embraces its inner nerd – fully. The characters are all massive fans, and they speak in the way that geeks would. There are references to characters, situations and fan bases that will go over the casual's head, but a geek will notice. Not knowing who a Browncoat is will not hurt a reader, but if you do, it adds to the enjoyment (although it appears they are called Firebronies now). That said, the science fiction fans in the book are eccentric. Fountain leans into stereotypes, but that is not just the geeks. The actors are caricatures as well. This leads to the book having that ‘cozy’ feel. It is a book about murder that does not want to be taken too seriously. 

There is a solid crime story at the centre of Fan that would easily grace any 9pm ITV prime time crime spot. The book has that feel. It has a structure that you can recognise and beats that regular crime readers will notice, but Fountain also adds more in terms of the humour. The characters and the situations are eccentric, so Fountain plays with that to give the book a different feel than your average crime tale. 

Within the lightness, there is a darker core. The murder itself, but also the tragic tale of the young wannabe actor from the 80s who fell/jumped from Brighton Pier. There is also an almost unspoken brokenness within the character of Kit. To the outside world a passionate fan of genre fiction who knows their stuff, but we get to see deeper. Kit works with her behavior to survive in the world. Throwaway remarks about calorie counting and anxiety hint at deeper issues. 

Coming in at over 400 pages, Fan is a chonky novel. For crime fiction, it is a touch longer than required, but there are twists and turns that keep the pace up as well as a few ridiculous scenarios that are satirical, but also feel a little true. The book is a cozy crime story with a science fiction fandom setting. Fans of crime can read it just for the murder mystery, but genre fans will get a little more out of the references. I enjoyed the book, although I cannot see me watching re-runs of Vixens of the Void anytime soon. 

When it comes to vampires, I understand that there is a rich tapestry of versions you can now read about, but I like mine to have that old fashioned appeal. The type of vampire that does not want to talk about their feelings or act like the average tween, but instead wants to wear lace frills and suck the blood of humans. In The Hunter’s Gambit author Ciel Pierlot has their neck and bites it, in a modern feeling story told among the old fashioned undead. 

Kazan Korvic is a renowned blacksmith and a consummate liar. Her inability to tell the truth has gotten her into plenty of trouble in the past, but also into plenty of opportunities. She will have to use all her guile and lies when she is caught during a Vampire hunt. She wakes up in a mysterious castle to discover that she is now their Queen, but this is a post that only lasts three days. On the third night, she is on the menu. Can Kaz fight, manipulate or fluke her way out of this one? 

There is a lot to enjoy in Gambit and most of this stems from the excellent character of Kaz. She is not willing to compromise on much, even when she is surrounded by Vampires who are treating her as their plaything. She will fight to her last breath to get revenge. What makes her so interesting is that she is not that nice a character herself, openly admitting to lying and ignoring the pain and suffering of others to survive. She will have to do a bit of that if she is to make it out of this castle alive. 

For a book that has more than its fair share of bloodletting, it is great fun. Pierlot has clearly decided to make entertainment the main drive of this novel and I am all for that. There is Kaz, but also a cast of ripe and entertaining Vampires from different Vampire families all vying for power. Kaz uses this mistrust to her advantage by stirring the pot. 

Pierlot is not afraid to drive the action forwards and make Kaz do what is necessary to survive. She is aided/thwarted by aristocratic vampires who may be on her side or manipulating her. We just know that Kaz is not beyond manipulation people herself. I loved the Vampires in this book, they have that classic narcissistic, pleasure-seeking style I prefer. They do not care a jot about the people they are eating, they simply seek pleasure in all its forms. 

Speaking of pleasure Gambit has plenty of that and even has one that is over several pages. I am not always a fan of a fruity scene, but this one informed the story and the characters. You can tell a lot about how characters interact with one another when it involves a bit of a threesome! Told you, old school vampire antics! 

Gambit takes the ‘romanticised’ version of vampires and plays up the camper notes, but that does not mean there is no darkness. Kaz is surrounded by psychopaths who could turn to violence at any point. She is constantly looking for an escape route. This makes the book a page turning thriller. 

With its high action, violence and a touch of camp, Gambit is one of the most entertaining novels and enjoyable books I have read this year. It made me want to go back and finish the book quickly to see what happened and that is testament to Pierlot’s writing. Too many modern Vampire books are set in the present day with moody undead lamenting their deaths, Gambit is a joyous book that has all the gore and the glory that should come with a vampire tale. 

What makes a good folk horror story? It is not just the tension and gruesome moments, but the feeling. You need to get the tone right. A visitor to a new place that is familiar in some ways, but alien in others. You can experience some of this unease yourself just by travelling to somewhere abroad off the beaten path. Local customs are simply different from your own. This may be as simple as a slightly different Full English/Welsh/Scottish/Irish breakfast, to as complex as burning the local bobby in a wicker cage. Mark Morris captures the otherness of a distant island community in That Which Stands Outside with its eccentric local humans, and even more eccentric other things. 

Meeting Yrsa felt like fate. When walking home Todd saw Yrsa being mugged and he stepped into help, by stepping into a fist and then stepping into a hospital bed. This meet-hurt starts a whirlwind romance. Todd is drawn to Yrsa’s wry outlook on life having travelled from a small Nordic Island community to London. When her mother dies Todd travels with his partner back to her home to help but starts to regret it when the locals come out, and not just the local humans. 

Which is a nice blend of two styles of horror that I enjoy; folk and body. The first half is a classic folk horror story as Todd travels to a strange island with its unique customs. The tension builds as strange events start to occur. The locals do not trust Yrsa or Todd, and they do not trust the locals to tell them what is happening. Are the locals implicit in all the strangeness? 

The first act is at a slower pace and lets you get to know the characters. The point of view is predominantly Todd’s, and you see him sink further in love with Yrsa. Yrsa has a strange vibe about her from the off, is this just cultural differences, or something more disturbing? Morris has great fun playing with this idea, teasing both Todd and the reader.  

More is revealed in the second act of the book as we move into a more horrific form of horror. I was wondering who was going to get killed when there were so few characters, so when a shipload of people are introduced, the book begins to shift. Now the book takes on a classic 70/80s horror vibe. Small vignettes of horrific moments that reminded me of The Rats. There are some disturbing moments towards the end of the book. Morris is an unforgiving author and gives horror fans what they want – whether they like it or not. 

The shift from folk to body horror works because Morris writes both with confidence. Not all fans of the genre like both styles of horror, but you cannot deny they are well written here. I enjoyed both aspects of the book. The spooky beginning and the unsettling ending. The best body horror should have you recoiling and feeling sorry for the characters, I felt all these things in the concluding section the book, it felt so bleak at times, but that is the genre that I chose to love. Which provides the perfect feeling that you should get from a horror story, the bonus being that you get to enjoy some tense folk horror and then move onto the gory stuff. 

There are all types of fantasy from the high to the low, but for some fans it can be tricky to enjoy one type or the other. For someone interested in starting to read low fantasy they may be turned off by the violence and darkness that this part of the genre emits. On the other hand, high fantasy can feel twee and dated to those used the realistic and gritty feel of low fantasy. There is a balance between the two, you can write a piece of low fantasy that still has high magic and is not too gruesome. An accessible book that will entertain fans new to fantasy, but also to those that have read it for decades. Jo Riccioni’s The Branded is part one of a duology and has the balance right. 

Sisters Nara and Osha came to the Isfalk later in life having lived in the woods until their grandmother was killed in a raid. The siblings are seen as Pure as they do not have any of the brands on their skin that belies a natural weakness. They are now part of the higher Isfalk society, but they will never truly fit in as they are from the outside and not part of the four founding families. With Nara’s thirst for adventure and an external and internal threat coming to Isfalk, will the sisters survive? 

There is a lightness of touch and sweetness to Branded that reminded me of some of the lighter fantasy out there. With its young cast and coming of age tropes, it borders on a juvenile literature feel, but the context of the story prevents this. The tale of two sisters seeking to conform in a new ‘school’ has young adult all over it, but what about the plagues that ravage the lands, the outworlders kidnapping and pillaging? It does not take long to see there is a darkness and sense of steel to the book. 

Nara personifies this steel, unwilling to conform, even if it is in her own best interest. In contrast Osha seems weak. However, as the story progresses and secrets are revealed you realise that both sisters have their own strengths, Osha is willing to sacrifice to help her sister. 

The book has an interesting magical system. People are born with strange brands that dictate how susceptible they are to illness. Society has grown up around the strong, but this leads to forced breeding. Both the pure and the banished are imprisoned in different types of prison. The story opens as it progresses, and we learn about other parts of the world; some good and some bad. 

Branded is a book that straddles both high and low fantasy well. It has young characters and magic, but also darkness. What Riccioni does is keep most of this darkness in the shadows. Low fantasy can focus on the violence and death, Branded keeps these to the side. Stop to think about what is happening off stage and anyone with an imagination can still feel disturbed by it. Young women taken, killed, or sold for breeding. Horrible, but there are few scenes that focus on these dark elements. 

What makes Branded an enjoyable novel is the pugnacious Nara who acts as the focal point of the story. She is ably supported by the likes of her sister and a couple of love interests to choose from. The book never becomes too twee or juvenile, it is not a book for fans of the very hardest fantasy books, but for a reader who enjoys character and action, without feeling too uncomfortable when reading it.