Category Archives: Reviews

QUICK REVIEW: Hochmuller’s Hound (short story) – Josh Reynolds

The title story in the second Casefiles of the Royal Occultist anthology from 18th Wall Productions, Josh Reynolds’ Royal Occultist short story Hochmuller’s Hound sees Thomas Carnacki and his apprentice Charles St. Cyprian up to their knees in mud and blood in the trenches of the Great War. Something has been tearing apart soldiers on the edge of No Man’s Land, and it wasn’t the Germans. When Carnacki and St. Cyprian’s investigations are interrupted by a ferocious German assault on the lines, however, the two men come face to face with more than just a dangerous beast out for blood.

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Death’s Kiss – Josh Reynolds

After 2020’s fantastic Legend of the Five Rings novel Poison River, Josh Reynolds returns with the second ‘Daidoji Shin Mystery’ – Death’s Kiss, from Aconyte Books. Set a few months after the events of the first book, it finds Shin busy overseeing the renovation of the Foxfire Theatre, having purchased it for himself apparently out of boredom. When a friend in the Unicorn clan asks him to look into a murder in the mountain city of Hisatu-Kesu, Shin puts aside the work of managing the theatre’s finances and, accompanied as always by the long-suffering Kisami, sets out to investigate. The closer Shin looks into what seems on the surface to be a straightforward case, the more he comes to understand the political tensions in Hisatu-Kesu, and what the consequences could be if proceedings aren’t handled with care.

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Richards & Klein – Guy Haley

Originally published in 2011 and 2012, Guy Haley’s SF detective adventure novels Reality 36 and Omega Point are back in print in a hefty new omnibus edition entitled Richards & Klein, both books revised, updated and combined into a single volume. Set in 2129 it sees freelance security consultants Richards (a Class Five AI) and Otto Klein (German ex-military cyborg) investigating the murder of Professor Zhang Qifang, a prominent activist for AI rights, whose death heralds a rising threat that’s felt across both the physical and digital worlds. People connected to Qifang are dying or disappearing, some of Richards’ fellow Class Fives are acting weird, and someone really doesn’t want Richards and Klein to find out what’s going on. As they dig beneath the surface, their investigation takes them across the Real, the digital space of the Grid, and even the virtual worlds of the Realities.

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QUICK REVIEW: Fandom For Robots – Vina Jie-Min Prasad

First published in Uncanny Magazine and nominated for Best Short Story awards at both the Nebulas (2017) and Hugos (2018), Vina Jie-Min Prasad’s Fandom For Robots offers a warm, affectionate take on online fan communities and the value of fan fiction. As “the only known sentient robot”, Computron resides in the Simak Robotics Museum and takes the stage each day to answer audience questions and demonstrate his sentience. When an audience member suggests he might enjoy a Japanese anime series called Hyperdimension Warp Record (超次元 ワープ レコード) he finds himself drawn in by the show’s story, despite his inability to experience it emotionally. While waiting for new episodes, he discovers a fan-made wiki for the series, which sets him off on an unexpected path.

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A Few Thoughts On: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I adored Susanna Clarke’s debut novel Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell when I read it back in…I don’t know, 2004 or 2005, and I had been hearing great things about her second novel, Piranesi, since it was announced in 2020. It took me some time to get round to reading it, but I eventually settled on the audiobook edition, narrated by the wonderful Chiwetel Ejiofor, and listened to it over the space of a week’s worth of walks around Southeast London, at first pleasantly puzzled and then gradually, increasingly beguiled by its quiet, dreamlike depths. I had no intention of reviewing Piranesi, so I made no notes or took down any quotations, but after finishing it and spending some time mulling it over, I can’t help but want to talk about it. I’m not going to try and talk objectively like I would usually, because this is a book I loved so much I just want to sing its praises!

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QUICK REVIEW: Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory – Martha Wells

Taking place after the events of Exit Strategy (novella #4 in the phenomenal Murderbot Diaries series), Martha Well’s short story Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory is a quiet little study of one of the series’ most interesting characters. After the unpleasant events on TranRollinHyfa, Dr Ayda Mensah is back on Preservation Station with SecUnit and all of the survey team, trying to get on with her life. The trouble is, it’s not that easy to get over being kidnapped by corporate murderers, and Mensah is spending more time on finding ways to help SecUnit than she is dealing with her own pain.

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A Game of Broken Minds – Tom Jolly

Released in ebook by Distant Shore Publishing, Tom Jolly’s novella A Game of Broken Minds is a high concept modern-day science fiction tale of desperation and expanding horizons. Living on the streets of Santa Maria after a disastrous series of events, Cory is reduced to taking part in unlicensed pharmaceutical tests for money, taking drugs designed to induce tap into the unused parts of the human brain. To his considerable surprise, after he takes the latest pill he finds a strange voice manifesting in his head, claiming to be some kind of networked superbrain. While this seems like a good thing to begin with, Cory realises that the new, expanded world he’s become a part of is dangerous indeed.

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The Beautiful Ones – Silvia Moreno-Garcia

First published in 2017, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s The Beautiful Ones is back in print in a lovely new 2021 edition from Jo Fletcher Books (or via Tor in the US), and deservedly so. With the carefully observed characters and social customs of a novel of manners, set in a fictional world influenced by late-19th Century Europe and with a dash of telekinesis added in for a little bit of a fantasy edge, it’s a rich and characterful social drama, a slow-burn romantic love triangle, and a tale of conformity and conflict. The story begins in the city of Loisail during the Grand Season, with its glittering balls attended by the Beautiful Ones – the cream of society – and revolves around a trio of characters caught in a tangle of history, passion and deception.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Angel of Khan el-Khalili – P. Djèlí Clark

One of several fantastic stories set in an alternate early-twentieth century Cairo, P. Djèlí Clark’s The Angel of Khan el-Khalili is a standalone tale (featuring none of the other stories’ characters) exploring secrets, grief and worker rights. Late at night, when most of Cairo is long asleep, young Aliaa visits the market in search of an angel, hoping to bargain for a miracle. There she finds the Angel of Khan el-Khalili, and asks for its aid in healing her sister who has been grievously injured in a fire at the factory where they both work. The angel’s price seems small at first, and Aliaa pays it willingly, but it’s not long before she realises the cost to her own soul.

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QUICK REVIEW: Galene of Ulgu – Timandra Whitecastle

Timandra Whitecastle makes her debut for Black Library with Galene of Ulgu, a tale of the Daughters of Khaine in the Mortal Realms. Far from her home in the shadowed mists of Ulgu, witch aelf Galene and her sisters march to the aid of Greywater Fastness in the realm of Ghyran, defending against the sinister forces of Nagash. After suffering a terrible defeat which sees her sisters turned against her in death, Galene finds herself in the company of another survivor, a human captain of the Freeguild. Injured and terribly outnumbered, the two of them nevertheless set out to strike back against the necromancer leading the undead invaders.

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