Reviews with titles beginning with R.
R.U.R. (Russum's Universal Robots) is a "play" written almost 100 years ago and first introduced the world to the word "robot" which was derived from the Czech word "robota" meaning serf labor or hard work. ?apek has actually credited his brother (the painter and writer Josef ?apek) as the...
Are you playing the game? Made you look. The idea of a metagame that embroils a hero is not a new one, but it is hard to pull off. The amount of financial resources and secrecy that is required to convince Michael Douglas to jump off a building is beyond what the...
I have been eagerly waiting for this novel, more than most. I thought Wolfhound Century was that good that I chose it as Book of the year for 2013. Truth and Fear — the second volume in the series, narrowly missed out from being book of the year 2014 (That accolade going to Dave Hutchinson's...
Radio Free Albemuth is a science fiction novel by the legendary author Philip K Dick. Radio Free Albemuth is like Valis but without Horselover Fat. Just Phil Dick and his buddy Nick getting too involved with Valis and the gestapo political system that is sending the commies to work camps. Like...
What do we expect from the future? I consider myself a half glass full type of person, but even my positivity has taken a battering in the past few years. A world buried under a sea of sand sounds like it may be better in some circumstances. If we do find ourselves roaming a desolate...
Raft was originally a short story published in Interzone back in 1989. Baxter admitted struggling to contain the story to such a short space however and eventually Raft became the authors first published novel. It's also the first book in the authors Xeelee sequence (although no Xeelee...
Raise the Gipper! is a satire about the forthcoming American presidential elections (The Gipper is a nickname given to the late ex-president and former actor Ronald Reagan) and plays on the current political climate to great effect.
The story goes that the Republicans - who are currently...
It's difficult to imagine that the Discworld began 40 books and 30 years ago, so far it has been a tremendous journey (long may it continue) and Raising Steam continues possibly the finest continuous fantasy series yet created.
One of the things I love about the Discworld is the...
Rapunzel's Daughters is a short story collection edited by Josie Brown, Rose Mambert, and Bill Racicot. The thirty one stories all hold the common idea of expanding on the classic children's tales with a more modern, adult spin. Each of the short stories are written by a different author and the...
Last year one of the most impressive debut's I read was Ed McDonald's Blackwing. It's dark, confident and bold fiction with some exceptional world-building and even finer characters,
Ravencry is the sequel and does everything a sequel should, building on the best elements...
I love Fantasy as a genre but sometimes I get the impression that it only exists because we can only retell our own history so many times. Tales of various houses fighting for the crown, treachery, murder, a cast of heroes of villains. I am not talking about the likes of Game of...
Death is not something that people like to think about, but without death how are we to live? Within all of us in the unspoken knowledge that one day we will die. For this reason, we venture forth, live, breath, love and laugh. Some of us more than others, but without death would we even bother?...
The smash hit science fiction debut from Cline in 2011, Ready Player One has been written about and reviewed many times since. What more can we say here at SFBook?
Cline’s story is a first person narrative that describes a new virtual utopia woven out of eighties culture. The real...
Richard is a Level 5 Artificial Intelligence and a Private Eye, his partner a German ex military cyborg named Klein. Their newest case takes them on the hunt for a killer who has jumped realities, hiding in the artificial construct of Reality 36. Unless Richard and Klein can stop him his powers...
Realtime Interrupt is a science fiction novel by James P Hogan. This book has a theme somewhat similar to Permutation City by Greg Egan - Again it's about VR and how far it can be taken. Hogan does a nice job of it, but I wasn't as fascinated by Realtime Interrupt as I was with Permutation...
Rebellion is an historical fiction novel by James McGee and follows the adventures of Matthew Hawkwood as he heads behind the enemy lines in Napoleonic France. October 1812 sees Britain and France still at war, France is engaged with both Spain and Russia and fighting a battle on two fronts is...
A Hopeful Future
Review kindly provided by Vanessa Smyth.
Welcome to the third and latest instalment in The Wayfarers series, Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers. This current narrative is set within the same captivating universe as the first two books and, despite...
I've bought a few Abercrombie novels over the past few years, partly due to the huge amount of positive feedback his work attracts but also as he is a fellow Lancastrian, hailing from the same fine city as I.
Due to the sheer volume of review copies I receive I've yet to have time to...
For those who haven't heard of him, Yoss is a Cuban science fiction author. He's one of Cuba's most iconic figures in literature, having written over twenty books so far, run science fiction workshops and even found time to be the lead singer of Heavy Metal band Tenaz.
Red Dust...
It's funny how even if you follow a genre closely you can still miss some pretty successful authors, I guess that there are just so many novels published nowadays that this will become increasingly common. I haven't read anything by Holly Black before but I have been aware of her work without...
The front page of this book has a quote from Arthur C. Clarke saying "[Red Mars]...It should be required reading for the colonists of the next century" – not sure about making it required reading, maybe it can be used as a test. If you can read this book without falling asleep, you will...
Werewolves are often given second place to those pale undead that are now thankfully on the wane, where one wanes another waxes and perhaps 2013 will be year of the werewolf - it will if Red Moon has anything to do with it.
The novel is set in an alternate world where werewolves are not...
There is a certain type of film that I love. It has a central character wronged in some way and this gives them the flimsy premise to basically kill all the bad guys. Death Wish, John Wick, The Equaliser, to name but a few. Red Noise by John P Murphy is the science...
The idea behind Red Planet Blues is a clever one. Mars has been colonised and is the new frontier with many parallels to the American gold-rush of the 1800's. This time around however it is genuine alien fossils that are in demand and fetch a high price. Since pretty much anything can now be...
Red Smoke Rising is a fantasy novel and the debut of Rick Anthony. Over a centrury has passed since the Mia's homeland was occupied and the drug stolen. Once the secrets of Ku became clear, the Nor army was unstoppable and Mia’s people were completely overwhelmed and enslaved. Over time a...
Redoubt is the fourth novel in the Collegium Chronicles, following the adventures of the Herald trainee Mags and his friends Bear, Lena and Amily. Mags is becoming something of a hero, not least due to his rescuing of Amily (the daughter of Kings Own Herald Nikolas) from agents of Valdemars...
I was seriously impressed with the first novel I read by Scalzi, the book was Old Man's War and the exceptional prose and clever story really won me over; so much so that I picked up Fuzzy Nation soon after - although I haven't had to read that book yet.
It was therefore with...
There are space books and then there are Space Operas. What makes a good Space Opera is a sense of scale – the big and the small. Characters making decisions that define the entire Universe, but also their place in the local power struggle. Who will rule, which family? Which sect? Which...
Any story of colonial rescue, involving cryosleep spaceships and small crews operating to solve a crisis far from Earth has all the ingredients to be an exciting read. However, the way in which a writer organises these elements and makes them palatable as a story remains an issue at hand.
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Angela thinks she knows her boyfriend Vince pretty well, that is until he goes missing. She quickly learns he has a hidden employment, his boss the infamous London crime lord Frederick Meloy (known as Fat Frederick, but nerver, ever as Fat Freddy).
His secret job? tracking down arcane...
Classic stories leaving copyright has been a boon to modern authors who are suddenly able to play with much loved characters as they wish. The mash up is not unusual when two contemporary characters suddenly meet, but often these books are set at the same time as the original text. What would...
Remembering Firebright is a biography of Philip K Dicks later life, written by his last wife Tessa Dick. I must admit that I am a very big fan of Philip K Dicks (PKD) works, he had a unique raw style that made his stories so easy to read and yet conveyed so well some of the very big topics he...
First published in 1972, Rendezvous with Rama is set in the 22nd century, and the story involves a cylindrical thirty-mile-long alien starship that passes through Earth's solar system. This story is told from the perspective of a group of human explorers, who intercept the ship in an attempt...
Renewal is a stand alone novel set after the events of the Darwinian Extension series by by the science fiction author Hylton H Smith. Phoenix is a colossal space vessel, built in the Mars Docks by three races (The Axis, Symbiants and Sapients), it's the size of a city and is currently in it's...
It's the year 2018 and Britain has been expelled from the European Union. Over in the Northeast of the country the body of a wealthy Industrialist is found, draped at the base of the iconic sculpture - The Angel of the North. D.C.I. Jack Renton soon begins to understand that this isn't a simple...
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...
The Star Wars tie in novels have a rich and varied galaxy to explore. An author can reach into the distant past or take on the history of an obscure character. Sometimes you just want to read about the big hitters. What happens between those massive blockbuster movies? Whilst we are waiting for...
Restoration is the second part of the duology that began with the quite brilliant The World House, written by Guy Adams. None who enter the World House leave it unchanged. The purpose behind the reality bending dimension has finally become clear but in the same way that you can't observe an...
Return to Canifis is the sequel to Betrayal at Falador, set within the Runescape Universe and written by T S Church. Varrock is considered to be one of the greatest cities in the known world, but even here danger lurks - people have been dissapearing, or their bodies discovered ripped apart....
Alastair Reynolds has the kind of scientific imagination that few can match, his stories often explored on a grand scale. While the Universe in Revenger is certainly grand and gloriously imagined, the story itself it much more personal.
The far future Galaxy of Revenger has seen vast...
Now this is the Stephen King that I fell in love with seventeen years ago when I read The Shining. Since then, I have read most of what King has written. Not until Revival did I get that feeling that I last had over a decade ago when I read The Talisman, which also featured Peter Straub.
...
David Gemmell died eleven years ago, he was one of the most popular fantasy authors in the UK, a regular Sunday Times bestseller. His legacy lives on not just in the annual David Gemmel Legend Award but more importantly in the influence his writing had on the fantasy genre.
I first...
I love science fiction, but it can sometimes be hard to relate to the characters if they are flying spaceships in far off galaxies. Sometimes it is nice to read something a little closer to home, bizarre things happening to normal people. David Quantick’s Ricky’s Hand is a twisted...
Ringturn is a science fiction novel by British Author John C Mawson. A number of people are abducted from earth during the time of the black death by alien forces and repopulated on a planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, eleven light years from Earth. Slowly those frightened humans build a new...
Ringworld is a science fiction novel by the award winning author Larry Niven. I'm sure that I have already read this book once a long time ago - probably about ten to twelve years ago, and that was probably in danish - anyway I had forgotten most of the important stuff and everything that...
Ringworld Engineers is the sequel to the science fiction classic Ringworld, by Larry Niven. This is the sequel to Ringword (doh!). There's not much to say about it, other than it is as good as the original Ringworld and you if you liked the original Ringworld book, you will probably like this...
The Ringworld Throne is the third book in the Ringworld series and centres on a variety of races banding together to kill a large nest of Vampires on a world that is the shape of a ring.
Third book in the Ringworld series. It hasn't been easy for me to keep a positive attitude towards this...
James Barclay is undoubtedly one of the finest heroic fantasy authors writing today, his Raven series are incredible novels with some really exceptional battles and fight scenes. Rise of the TaiGethen is the second novel in his series that feature those immortal forest dwellers, the Elves - and...
River of Blue Fire is the second volume in Tad Williams Otherland series. I'm unsure as to why I brought this the second volume in Tad Williams Otherland series (which has just been concluded in a forth volume). I wasn't that impressed with the first volume, which i found to long and lacking in...
Rivers of London is an urban fantasy novel by Ben Aaronovitch. Peter Grant was just a probationary constable in the Metropolitan Police Force and faced a life in the drudgery of the Case Progression Unit (doing paperwork so real coppers don't have to). Then one night, on a cold, wet night while...
In the very near future the technology that we all take for granted will start to turn against us, rising up across the globe - led by the Artificial Intelligence known as Archos. Archos has decided that in order to save the unique planet called earth and the precious life it sustains he must...
Alex Lamb's Roboteer paints a picture of a future, that in the political climate of today, feels far too possible.
In this book, a war rages between two sides of humanity, two different and opposing ideologies and lifestyles. One side, combining genetic and induced mutation...
Rockets, Redheads and Revolution is a short story collection by James P Hogan. RR&R is a mixed bag of science fiction short stories and non-fiction essays. The mix is a bit too heavy on the essay side for me, but that doesn't make it a bad book as HogRockets, Redheads and Revolution is a short...
Rogue Moon is the disquieting story of what happens when aberrant scientific ambition is matched by human obsession. Shortlisted for the 1961 Hugo Award (losing out to the quite wonderful A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr), Rogue Moon is one of the few genre novels that Algis...
Murderbot, the gruff yet lovable, media obsessed Security AI is back in Rogue Protocol, the latest tale in Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries, a Tor.com series of novellas. In the first story, the Nebula Award winning All Systems Red, Murderbot, a self-nicknamed...
Living amongst us are a group of creatures who prey on the vulnerable and the weak, guiding them to commit suicide and living off this energy released (known as "span") of a life snuffed out before its time.
These Tormentas look just like a regular human, often taking the guise of a...
I remember being a young science fiction reader and scouring the shelves of my local library looking for works designed for my age group. The only one I ever remember getting my hands on was Batteries Not Included by Seth McCoy. The...
This review is written for the Killer Reads website, a fantastic resource for anything crime and thriller related. Originally written in the 1960's by the Swedish author Maj Sjowall and her partner Per Wahlöö, Roseanna is a defining point in the genre of crime fiction, not only founding...
The Rough Guide to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is the ultimate guide to the ultimate guide, written by Marcus O'Dair and published by the Rough Guides. Don't Panic. The Rough Guide to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy explores the ever-expanding universe created by Douglas Adams- the...
Running Black is a science fiction novel, the debut of Patrick Todoroff. For the last eight years, the North Korean mercenary Tam Song has headed up Eshu International, a private security team that takes any job for the right price, no questions asked. Based in the Belfast Metro Zone, they're...
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