Book reviews.
I love books. I read about a book a week – that’s not a boast, it is a sad lament on how boring my job can be. They are marvelous things that make your house look cool and make you look smart. Even if they are just Clive Cussler or Dan Brown novels. (Well maybe,…
When Perry Makepiece and Gail Perkins go on a tennis holiday to Antigua, they meet a Russian gangster type called Dima and his family. Dima wants to make a deal with the British Government and to do that he needs the holidaymakers to get in touch with the “right people”. Or spies to you and me….
I have already written about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and how exciting and page turning it is. I intended to write separate reviews for the Girl who Played with Fire and the Girl who Kicked the Hornets but decided not to. Instead I will review the second two books and assume you have…
Tricks of the Mind by Derren Brown teaches you, the Padawan, some awesome tricks. It also has quite a broad scope and touched on lots of things I am genuinely fascinated by. When it comes to mind powers I am now at least 10% more superior than most of you. It astounds me that I am still broke.
I’m probably not alone in having seen The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo everywhere I go and as I rather pathetically consider myself to be both an individual and a literary type, I wasn’t all that bothered.
The City and The City is a unique and fascinating book. Plus it is a good one. Set in the fictional Eastern European city of Besz it follows a policeman as he tries to work out who killed a young woman found on an estate. Having spent time in Eastern European cities, Mieville’s description of…
Can I get through a whole review of Pirate Latitudes without resorting to spouting pirate cliches? No shivver me timbers I can’t Jim lad. There, got that out of the way. This is Michael Chrichton’s last ever book. Which is incredibly sad because he was a great author. Not one to settle on any genre,…
A man called “Man” and a boy called “Boy” walk down a road called “The Road”. Ok those aren’t literally their names, they just don’t seem to have any. On purpose. McCarthy wants the story to be about people as opposed to characters. People struggling to survive in a world that’s fucked. Everything is dead,…
I’m a huge Terry Pratchett fan and have been since I saw The Colour of Magic for sale when I was about 11 and bought it because of the cover. I’m not a fan of football however, so I was a bit concerned about this latest offering. I need not have worried, for as it…
This book is a gem. It was written over 50 years ago but deals with topics still relevant today. The story is about a star-class copysmith Mitch Courteney who works for Schocken Associates, one of the two main advertising agencies in the world. This is a pretty elite position to be in as the world,…
Let me state this first: I am a massive Hitchhiker fan. Not to the point where it becomes sad-loner going to a convention level, but damn close – I’ll probably take my wife. I first read the initial trilogy when I ten and Life, the Universe and everything had just been published. I immediately wanted to…
I finished this a few days ago and have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It is just a shame that I don’t really think it is that great a book. This puts me in something of a quandary on how to review it. The story follows Robert Langdon, the hero of Angels…
The story follows a group of drug users in California in the far-off year of 1994. Actually, the date doesn’t really matter, the book is barely science fiction. The futuristic setting (for when it was written) is simply a device to allow for a drug that doesn’t exist and new techniques for undercover cops. Anyway,…
I love Bernard Cornwell’s books. People who know me frequently reel back in awe of my historical knowledge. At least I assume that’s what they’re reeling back from. This knowledge is largely due to authors like Cornwell, George MacDonald Fraser, Simon Scarrow, Patrick O’Brian and numerous others. I love writers that can bring a time…
Halting State is set in the not too distant future. Scotland has devolved (in a political not Darwinian sense), gained independence, and the world is even more saturated with information technology and computer nerdiness than ever before.
Ringworld is superb. I often prefer pre-1980s Sci Fi as it tends to be more idea and philosophy based. The world itself is a very cool, very huge idea and the possibilities for it are almost endless.
When Richard Mayhew rescues what seems to be a wounded homeless girl, he suddenly finds himself sucked into an alternate underground London.
Don’t be put off by the fact that this book is a ‘Russian classic’, Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons is truly worth a read.
Colin Martin worked in construction, had his own small business, and was married with kids. An almost clichéd idyll that makes the subsequent fall all the more compelling.
JG Ballard died of cancer aged 78 on the 19th of April 2009. It is sad to think he will never release another book. He was usually labelled a Sci Fi writer but he frequently strayed from this label to write unique, often dystopian, scenarios that sort of/kind of/might just happen.