Mark Charan Newton

Not a review, this – just some impressions. First I’ll be upfront: I’m a big fan of Harrison’s work. Nearly everything that he’s written is of superior quality. His descriptive power is second-to-none, and he can distinguish any environment with remarkable power. This is especially noticeable in Climbers, his non-SFF novel. It’s the story of [...]

[Read more →]

The neoliberal culture has led to our complete disconnection from the food we eat, or the clothes we wear. We merely consume, never thinking of where our goods come from, only that they’re in our hands. With this in mind, Fred Pearce wanted to explore the paths of everyday items, the totems of every day [...]

[Read more →]

Alden Bell’s The Reapers Are The Angels, published by my overlords at Tor UK. Bell has written literary fiction under another name, but this is his genre debut. It’s a post-apocalyptic zombie novel, where the zombies aren’t central to the narrative. Think Cormac McCarthy (the prose really does channel this particular style – even down [...]

[Read more →]

Weymouth Sands, by John Cowper Powys is a big book in every sense. Set in 1934, it’s a properly interconnected, multi-POV rambling around the town of Weymouth, in Dorset, and discusses the big issues of life, love, death, sexuality, and doesn’t shy away from a spot of philosophy. I couldn’t even begin to summarise the [...]

[Read more →]

The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay is a brilliant book. It’s huge – in themes, in scope, and in sheer fun. I’m not going to review it, but I wanted to at least tell people they should read it. The book follows the lives of two cousins. One is a Czech artist called Joe [...]

[Read more →]

This isn’t a review, but the book deserves more attention that being rounded-up with another post. The King of Elfland’s Daughter, by Lord Dunsany, is a heck of a novel. There is much of the fairytale here, and I was reminded of the fantasies of William Morris. There’s something very ornate, something elegant about the aesthetic, [...]

[Read more →]

Convention goodness. The Eastercon draft programme is up, and it ranges from the very sensible to the very bizarre. I’m on this panel on the Saturday: Writers and the Web – Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc. 2pm- 3pm. Room 12. Is it essential to be on the Web to promote sales of your book? Which [...]

[Read more →]

The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco My random historical spree kicked off with perhaps the most famous of them all. Eco’s heady and intense novel of a chain of murders at Melk Abbey. Rather self-indulgent at times, but I’ve been accused of worse myself. Blistering use of semiotics, theological studies, and the general [...]

[Read more →]