‘The Beauty’, Aliyah Whiteley’s previous novella with Unsung Stories, is one of my favourite novellas of the last few years, delivering as much story in the shorter form than some novels manage in four times the length. ‘The Arrival of Missives’ is similarly rich in narrative, although is so different in style and tone as […]
‘Age of Assassins’ is a cleverly-rendered fantasy that subtly blends genres to create a unique voice and world. Ostensibly epic, it actually takes place in a single castle, and deals with matters of state, so is technically high fantasy as well, although the protagonist narrator, Girton, is a low-born assassin so enigmatic even he doesn’t […]
Originally posted on George Sandison:
Sometimes you encounter unlikely bedfellows at exactly the right time. This happened to me with Yeon Yeon’s Train to Busan (2016), Wolfgang Streeck’s collected essays, How Will Capitalism End? (2017) and Black Friday. They sit together so well it’s frightening. First, a quick precis of Streeck’s hypotheses: We’re screwed. A slightly longer one is…
Alfred Hitchcock once described opening a film by following a car being made in an automated factory; at the end of the process, the boot opens to reveal a dead body. Hitch never made the film because the idea was too impossible even for him, so Adam Roberts has taken up the challenge and transferred […]
There’s a line in this gentle, rather lovely novel about an artist being able to create a whole picture with just a few details; an image that accurately reflects the entire narrative. While not an official sequel to ‘Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind’, the author’s previous brilliantly-titled take on the many levels of human […]
Based on the cult science fiction novels, Diamond Roads is an interactive adventure story in which YOU choose the outcome. Join brilliantly resourceful Charity Freestone on an extraordinary mission through high-tech subterranean techno-paradise Diamond City in the year 2401. Click here to play
The British Science Fiction Association holds regular events in London, usually on the last Wednesday of the month, at the Artillery Arms near Old Street. These events are free, and open to members and non-members alike. Keep an eye on the BSFA website for news of future events. In September, award-winning author Lavie Tidhar was…
This collection, chosen by friends, colleagues and admirers of the late author, is a great introduction to one of our great speculative short story writers. Tanith Lee effortlessly blends myth, fairytale, science fiction and erotica in a way both subversive and compelling. The stories are also often very witty; in ‘Red as Blood’, for example, […]
This extraordinary, big-hearted novel looks at life in and around the titular space port in Tel Aviv from a range of perspectives. Past, present and future blend in the sensuously-rendered ‘real’ world and the virtual environs of a post-Internet system called the Conversation. The book references many other science fiction writers, from the phrasing and […]
Life in Sci-Fi 