Category Archives: Science Fiction

Review: ‘A God-Blasted Land: The Bastard Cadre # 1’ by Lee Carlon

Clockwork Samurai
Originally published 2011, this edition published October 2013

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http://clockworksamurai.com/

The first of three e-books published so far (the forth is in progress) about a group of young people bound from birth by magic to a gods Chosen representative. Set on a ravaged planet where cities have fallen into ruin, technology and magic co-exist, and the decimated population is ruled by a small group of Chosen and policed by the Bondsmen.

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Review: ‘A Study in Ashes’ Book Three of The Baskerville Affair Series by Emma Jane Holloway

31st December 2013
Del Rey Press

ISBN 9780345537201
$7.99
Mass market paperback

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Eveline Cooper has finally got to University, unfortunately it’s not all she hoped. It’s a prison that occasionally explodes. Nick is dead and Imogen is in a coma; Eveline is alone with only notes from her uncle Sherlock to keep her sane. The Baskerville conspiracy is building up to openly rebel against the Steam Barons but they need Eveline free to help them on Dartmoor.

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Review: The Best British Fantasy 2013

Editor: Steve Haynes

Salt Publishing

2013

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Contributors:

Jon Wallace                           Lavie Tidhar                       Joseph D’Lacey

E. J. Swift                             Carole Johnstone              Cheryl Moore

Steph Swainston                Kim Larkin-Smith                Mark Morris

Cate Gardner                         Sam Stone                      Alison Littlewood

Simon Kurt Unsworth         Lisa Tuttle                        Simon Bestwick

Tyler Keevil                          Adam L. G. Nevil

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Review: Donny and Ursula Save the World by Sharon Weil

2013
Passing4Normal Press

Ursula has never had a orgasm, she has drank an awful lot of wheatgrass juice though. She belly dances badly and keeps bowls of mushrooms all over the house.
Donny lives alone with his comic book collection, and has never touched wheatgrass. Until he meets Ursula.

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Review: Timesplash by Graham Storrs

Originally: 2010 – Lyrical Press

Edition reviewed: 2013 – Momentum

 timesplash

In forty years a new underground craze will start – splash parties. Time travellers known as ‘bricks’ will be thrown back in time, ‘lobbed’, and their actions in the past will cause a ‘splash’ as their presence disrupts the timelines. The back wash from the ‘splash’ mixed with the new drug tempus causes a high. It’s marginally illegal; police forces concentrate on controlling the drugs and noise caused by the splash parties, after all the timeline can’t be changed because it fixes itself.

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Review: ‘Tethers Book One of the Tethers Trilogy’ by Jack Croxall

5th February 2013

Karl and Esther live in a small village in Lincolnshire in the nineteenth century. Karl is the son of a German architect, dead for many years, and is brought up by his mother and aunt. Esther’s family runs the village pub. They are best friends. By sheer accident (and Karl’s inability to listen to his mother’s warning) they get drawn into the machinations of a secret organisation trying to find an artefact which will allow them to see the future. Travelling by yacht and narrow boat they make it to Nottingham and help interrupt the conspirator’s plans, gaining, and losing, several new friends along the way.

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Review: ‘Just one damned thing after another; Volume 1: The Chronicles of St. Mary’s’ By Jodi Taylor

 

2013

 

Madeleine Maxwell, an historian, is suggested for a position at St. Mary’s Priory, Institute of Historical Research, by her former school headmistress. She goes for the interview and finds that not all is as it seems at St. Mary’s Priory.  Having taken the position she joins St Mary’s rigorous training programme at the end of which she gets the job, and a whole new life.  And it is certainly eventful.

There are dinosaurs and explosions. And the great library at Alexandria burning down. With time-travel, adventure, gun fights, and a great dollop of humour the story starts slowly and picks up the pace until the aforesaid dinosaurs, explosions and burning libraries pull the story to its end at a great speed. I really liked this e-book. There were minor editing errors – misspellings mainly – but nothing to detract greatly from the plot.

Review: ‘The woman who died a lot’ by Jasper Fforde

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It’s 2004 and Thursday Next is in semi-retirement after a terrible accident which has left her unable to visit the BookWorld and means she has had to give up her Jurisfiction job. Her old mob SO-27 are back in business, but she’s not getting the job of leading them. Instead she becomes Wessex Chief Librarian.

Unfortunately, Swindon is due to be smote by a pillar of holy fire, unless Thursday’s daughter Tuesday can fin a way to get the anti-smiting shield to work. Then of course there is the additional problem that Friday Next is going to kill Tuesday’s boyfriend Gavin.

Jasper Fforde’s seventh Thursday Next novel is as surreal and entertaining as the first, with the additional bonus that it us internally consistent, so it makes marginally more sense, because I’ve been there before. Thursday as got older and wiser, the characters are developed further and the plot is as unique as ever.