Though this is the first issue of Lightspeed I’ve read, there’s no question in my mind that it’s easily the equal, in terms of content, of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction although, to be fair, not all of the stories here are originals. I’ve listened to the podcast, too, but it’s a treat to read […]
Review + Giveaway: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 8, ed. Jonathan Strahan
May 21, 2014 by 2 Comments
When it comes to anthologies, it’s almost unheard of that I enjoy every story. So it was an enormous pleasure and surprise to find that this was the case with The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 8. And if my review seems like a rave, number 1 with a bullet, chart […]
Book Review: ALIEN: OUT OF THE SHADOWS by Tim Lebbon
March 31, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The deep-ore mining vessel, Marion, is in orbit above the inhospitable planet LV178 from which the Kelland Mining Company is extracting precious trimonite. During a shift change, the Marion’s crew of 10 are concerned by the lack of contact with the remaining 40 crewmembers on the surface. They soon discover what’s happened to them when […]
Review: Assassin’s Creed (Graphic Novels)
March 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment
As a player — and fan — of the Assassin’s Creed on the Xbox 360, I was delighted to have the opportunity to review graphic novels based on the game. The first collection, The Ankh of Isis Trilogy (Titan Books) comprises three sequential tales called, repectively, Desmond, Aquilus and Accipter, named after characters in the narrative. Desmond […]
Book Review: THE DOCTOR AND THE DINOSAURS by Mike Resnick
March 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment
It’s April, 1885, and famed shootist, John “Doc” Holliday, is dying of consumption. He is visited at his sick bed by shape-shifting medicine man and great Comanche chief, Geronimo, and offered a deal: another year of life in exchange for completing a mission to prevent the desecration of sacred Indian ground by paleontologists Edward Cope […]
Book Review: THE TROOP by Nick Cutter
February 25, 2014 by Leave a Comment
In his endnotes to this excellent horror novel, Nick Cutter acknowledges a debt to the structure of Stephen King’s Carrie, although The Troop (Gallery Books) bears no resemblance to that book. What it does have in common with Carrie is the use of counterpoint narrative in the form of courtroom interviews, scientific accounts and magazine […]
Book Review & Three Book Giveaway: Dangerous Women edited by George R.R.Martin and Gardner Dozois
January 30, 2014 by 10 Comments
The dangerous women who inhabit the pages of this huge cross-genre anthology range in temperament from slightly irritable to out and out bloodthirsty. With a few stops en route through feisty and frightening. As one might expect from the masterly editorial pairing of Dozois and Martin, this cross-genre anthology, Dangerous Women (Tor) is, with few […]
Interview: Kim Newman
December 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
I recently had occasion to highly praise British author, Kim Newman‘s fun, postmodern take on the dracula mythos, Anno Dracula: Johnny Alucard (review). Kim kindly agreed to the interview which follows. John: You said in the acknowledgements at the end of your most recent novel, Johnny Alucard, that episodes had previously been released “disguised as […]
The Art of Big ‘O’
December 2, 2013 by 3 Comments
If there is anything that’s guaranteed to flush out my inner geek, its science fiction and fantasy art on album covers. Long before the word “geek” came into more common usage, I was a schoolboy who saved all his pocket money to buy record albums and books. Many of them I purchased for the cover […]
Book Review: THIS RIVER AWAKENS by Steven Erikson
November 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It’s 1971. Owen Brand and his family move to the riverside town of Middlecross in an attempt to escape poverty. For the twelve-year-old, it’s the chance for a new life and an end to his family’s isolation. Owen falls in with a gang of three local boys and forms a strong bond with Jennifer, the […]
