The Cygnus Virus TJ Zakreski Dancing Star, 366 pages Review by Steve Ironside The search for life on another world is not without its risks. Some worry that we’ll end up advertising our presence to a dangerous civilisation who’ll come to enslave us; some worry the knowledge that we’ve contacted someone else will throw our
Hold Back the Stars By Katie Khan Penguin Books/Doubleday Books Review: Thom Day Carys and Max are stuck in space. They’ve somehow managed to make it through the ring of meteors that surrounds Earth, but their spacecraft has been critically damaged in the process. Now with 90 minutes of oxygen left, they must fight to
The Girl With Two Souls Stephen Palmer CSIPP, 378 pages Review by Katie Gray In Bedlam asylum, some time in the early twentieth century, Kora Blackmore wakes up. She eats her breakfast, chats with her nurse about her plans for the day, re-reads her only book – and receives a rare visitor, a mysterious stranger
Into the Guns William C. Dietz Titan, 336 pages Review by Duncan Lunan Online Exclusive I opted to review Into the Guns because in it, on May 1st next year, 60 meteors enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Having written a book about how to protect the Earth from impacts, including detailed study of what the consequences
Heart of Granite James Barclay Gollancz, 416 pages Reviewed: Ian Hunter Apart from being the President of the British Fantasy Society, following Ramsey Campbell who held that position for decades, James Barclay is better known as the author of several fantasy series starting way back in 1999 with the Chronicles of the Raven trilogy, followed
The Hatching Ezekiel Boone Gollancz, 303 pages Review: Henry Northmore There’s a rich tradition of ‘when animals attack’ stories in horror and sci-fi. We’ve been besieged by insects, rats, dogs, sharks, crabs, you name it. From classy classics such as Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds to the splatter fiction of Shaun Hutson’s Slugs, if it
Savant Nik Abnett Rebellion / Solaris, 356 pages Review: Steve Ironside Savant is set in a College – a place where the Masters (helped by their Companions and Assistants) teach their Students, while the ever-watching Service manages the schedules of them all, minute-by-minute and day-by-day. This regimen isn’t just about teaching however; there’s a deeper
The Augur’s Gambit / The King’s Justice Stephen Donaldson Gollancz, 192 / 128 pages Review: Chris Heyman To describe a creative project as a palette cleanser would seem to disparage it but there is no more fitting term for The Augur’s Gambit and The King’s Justice, shipped as one volume in America but released in
Thirty Years of Rain Neil Williamson, Elaine Gallagher, Cameron Johnston (editors) Lulu Press, 248 pages Review: Chris Kelso There’s an old saying that suggests us Scots have more words for rain than an Eskimo does for snow. Despite our majority’s staunchly socialist attitudes and trademark pragmatism, for some reason, Scotland has proved fertile ground for
The Grace of Kings Ken Liu Head of Zeus, 640 pages Review: Eris Young I picked up The Grace of Kings originally because I was enticed by the idea of an epic high-fantasy story not set in a thinly-veiled version of western Europe. The setting of The Grace of Kings is a refreshing blend of ancient China