April 2025 – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: UESI, by Karl Drinkwater

Format: 136 pages, Paperback
Published: February 8, 2025 by Organic Apocalypse
ISBN: 9781911278436

Humans designed artificial intelligences, but the AIs no longer need us. They are gods, and can create – or even recreate – themselves.

The two most advanced AIs in the universe need to rescue a friend from the clutches of their powerful enemies. Their method is to create millions of restricted, cut-down versions of themselves, to fulfil specific tasks such as generating ideas. The offshoots can be deleted once they’ve fulfilled their role.

No one gives a second’s thought to software. It’s just a tool.

Now it’s time to see inside the process.

Lost Tales of Solace are short side-stories set in the Lost Solace universe.

Review: Cheddar Luck Next Time, by Beth Cato

April 8th, 2025 | Datura Books
ISBN: 9781915523471 | £9.99 / $18.99

A cosy cheese-scented mystery with delightful characters, a dash of murder and tons of intrigue, perfect for fans of The Thursday Murder Club and The Maid.

Cheese-obsessed Bird Nichols has just inherited her grandmother’s estate in a quiet, quirky Californian town. But when a body is found on her property, her life begins to get rather loud…

Bird Nichols is ready to make a fresh start in a familiar place. Last year, her
parents died together in a car crash and her beloved grandmother is
presumed dead from an ocean drowning. Bird is now moving onto her
grandmother’s California coastal property, and finally living out her dream.
Bird loves cheese like nothing else. It’s her autistic special interest, and she
designs her boards along her sensory needs, and other people love them,
too.

But just when everything seems to be going right, the local troublemaker ends up dead on her rural road.

Grizz, the closest thing Bird has to family, is the sheriff department’s favourite suspect, but she is determined to prove Grizz’s innocence. So now, Bird needs to unpack her possessions, assemble her pretty cheese boards, and find the true murderer before they strike again.

Review: The Hatter’s Daughter, by W.A. Simpson

FICTION / Fantasy / Epic
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-78758-911-7
Pages: 272 pp
Series: Tales from the Riven Isles
FLAME TREE PRESS

The Hatter’s Daughter is the third book set in W.A. Simpson’s Riven Isles
universe.

There is more to the Vine than mortals and immortals know. It reaches its
branches and tendrils into realms beyond the Riven Isles. On the night Faith
was born, her mother perished, but not before sending Faith to safety, in
Underneath. Discovered by The Mad Hatter, he takes Faith home to raise as
his own. When the Rot invades, Faith determines to fight. She won’t do it
alone. Her childhood friend, Prince Rowan accompanies her. Faith must
return to her birthplace to find a Legendary Heroine. But Overland is
dangerous, and the minions of the Rot are in pursuit. If she doesn’t succeed, the minions of the Rot will destroy everything they know.

Tales from the Riven Isles is a dark fantasy series set in a world outside of our own, where the characters of myth and fairy-tales exist, and their legends live on. Featuring the novels: ‘Tinderbox’, ‘Tarotmancer’, and ‘The Hatter’s Daughter’.

Review: The Way Up Is Death, by Dan Hanks

Release Date
2025-01-28
Formats
Ebook, Paperback
EBook ISBN
28th January 2025 | 9781915202956 | epub | £5.99/$9.99/$11.99
Paperback ISBN
28th January 2025 | 9781915202949 | Paperback | £9.99/$18.99/$24.99

When a mysterious tower appears in the skies over England, thirteen strangers are pulled from their lives to stand before it as a countdown begins. Above the doorway is one word: ASCEND.

As they try to understand why they’ve been chosen and what the tower is, it soon becomes clear the only way out of this for everyone is… up.

And so begins a race to the top with the group fighting to hold on to its humanity, through sinking ships, haunted houses and other waking nightmares. Can they each overcome their differences and learn to work together or does the winner take all? What does the tower want of them and what is the price to escape?

Maria and the space-dragons investigate: Chapter 14

Right, I’m back with another instalment of the adventures of Maria and her star-dragon friends. It’s a short one this month.

Review: The Cure, by Eve Smith

PUBLICATION DATE: 10th APRIL 2025
PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £ 9. 99 | ORENDA BOOKS

LIVING FOREVER CAN BE LETHAL…

Ruth is a law-abiding elder, working out her national service, but she has secrets. Her tireless research into the disease that killed her young daughter had an unexpected outcome: the discovery of a vaccine against
old age. Just one jab a year reverses your biological clock, guaranteeing
a long, healthy life.

But Ruth’s cure was hijacked by her colleague, Erik Grundleger, who hungers for immortality, and the SuperJuve – a premium upgrade – was created, driving human lifespan to a new high. The wealthy elite who take it are dubbed Supers, and the population begins to skyrocket.

Then, a perilous side-effect of the SuperJuve emerges, with catastrophic
consequences, and as the planet is threatened, the population rebels, and laws are passed to restore order: life ends at 120. Supers are tracked
down by Omnicide investigators like Mara … and executed…

Mara has her own reasons for hunting Supers, and she forms an unlikely
alliance with Ruth to find Grundleger. But Grundleger has been working on
something even more radical and is one step ahead, with a deadly
surprise in store for them both…